Dear Mam,
Im sorry for getting on your nerves last night, for answering back when you criticised me, and then going off to cry afterwards. I’m sorry that I can’t take criticism better, that I didn’t manage to do what Matt did last weekend. I’m sorry for letting you down again. I promise I’ll try better the next time.
Im also sorry for getting so stressed about the job situation and for not having a job by now in the first place. I’m sorry Im no longer going in April. Im sorry you’re going to have to put up with me for this bit longer. I’m –
Stop, Em, a scornful voice raps out, and my hands ceases to write upon the little slip of card wedged into the soil of the plant pot.You can’t just write….all that. A siimple I’m sorry will suffice, then. Oh but Em, you’ve bought her flowers countless times before. Don’t you think she’s going to get sick of it? That it’ll be a source of irritation in itself??
But. But I’m upset because she’s angry with me and I don’t want that.
I want to make amends. Amends for what?? For just – everything. Everything I’ve ever done and keep on doing. I want – to be – the “perfect” daughter. I don’t want her to be angry with me. I can’t bear it! Why do I always have to be the inadequate one??…
Without warning, an image passes across my minds eye, a vision of mam and dad discussing my brother’s progress in college, and what a “sound lad” he was. I felt like crying. I want them to talk about me like that, I thought, in agony. But no. I bet all they talk about when they discuss me is the fact I leave alot to be desired. No job, no career aspirations, and still moody and weird about her food and goes around with her head stuck firmly in the clouds.
Yes. That was what I wanted all along, I realise now. All along I, in the words of Moana, wished that I could be the perfect daughter. But like Moana was drawn back to the water’s edge, time and time again I always drifted back to Ed, or depression, or something that wasn’t compatible with my beautiful, perfect ideal.
I wanted everything to be perfect,
as immaculate as a cornflower-blue sky…
They say anorexia is often caused by something embedded within one’s darker experiences of childhood. But the point is I had no dark experiences. All I knew, as that flaxen haired little girl, was kindness and affection; of constant expressions of love. Yet despite all that I created a crevice for myself. Come my early teens, I had latched onto this idea that I had to be perfect to be loved. That I had to be immaculate in every way in order to deserve respect, to earn affection, even friendship. So as well as harnessing ED as a way of bringing about what I back then saw as being the perfect body, I rooted out all the possible ways which I believed would enable me to achieve this golden goal of perfection. I was going to study non stop and get the best grades. I was going to go to Trinity College. I was going to be so demure, so polite, so flawless in every aspect of my character. I’d never lose my patience or make a mistake in any area of my life, whether that be personal, academic or social, as to do so would result in the dreaded and most loathsome thing of all: criticism.
But no. Now I realise I have to, that I must let go of that. I’m not perfect. And I never, ever will be. I see myself as infintely flawed, and at the same time , I realise that there’s nothing I can do about that. But then why does my parents disapproval affect me so much? Do I need to develop a thicker skin and not let it get to me to such a great extent when we have these stupid, petty, insignificant little rows?
But yet I say this to myself all the time. Stop trying to please them. You’re never going to be able to live up to their expectations. You’ve tried in the past to make them proud and it never worked, really. So stop. Just stop! Can’t you see how pointless this is?
But there’s this innate and very much childish desire deep inside me to please others, particularly when it comes to my parents. And I know all too well nothing quite feels as good as that feeling of knowing that I have succeeded in pleasing someone. It’s like a sweet rush of warmth and serenity, a security. I feel secure and fulfilled having brought a smile to one’s face or an approving, satisfied word. But on the opposite extreme, knowing that another person is displeased with me is equatable to having a mountain collapse on my head. Heavy rocks, tumbling down; bearing me down with them to lie broken and bleeding upon the floor. And last night was just one of those instances. Afterward I went upstairs alone and sat crying upon the floor of my room, trying to gather up the scraps of what was left of a perfect, beautiful day which had now been torn ruthlessly apart like a pretty dress ripped apart by jagged thorns. It felt like it was the end of everything.
Now then morning is here; the night has fled. Im sitting in the exact same place as I was yesterday, though the room now looks subtly different. Golden shafts of sunlight pour through the window, illuminating the tiny dust motes floating in the air; these circulate, like miniscule planets in orbit, in lazy circles before my eyes, performing a slow and and graceful dance to which there is no beginning, and no end. The sunlight advances further, touching and irradiating, outlining the frames of the dusty ornaments dispersed across the bookshelf, amplifying the bright colours of the little duvet strewn across my little bed. The room is different, but I still feel the same. I feel bitter and sad. I look at my bed and wish that I just could climb right back into it, pull the snug covers over my head, escape reality by leaping into the infinite oblivion of dreams.
But I realise now that I am essentially trying to live an impossible dream. It’s no good trying to be the perfect daughter. I tried that in the past and it never got me anywhere. In fact, it only served to cause me more pain, and others too. I need to let go. Let go of the impossible dream. But to do so is as hard as fighting off sleep when you’re already drained and exhausted. It’s as tough as going against an instinctive drive or impulse, or urge; because that is what this feels like to me. And like ED I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.To let go of the impossible dream seems, in itself, impossible. And Im afraid to do so, primarily more than anything, because I believe deep down that if I stop trying to please other people as much as I currently do, than they will lose all affection for me, will turn away with hardened faces. And there is nothing I fear more, that that. Of losing the people that I love. That is the nightmare from which I cower before and plead to not touch me. I could not bear to lose them. But am I not losing them, anyway? How do I walk the fine line between making others happy, but not in a way which causes me pain and unhappiness?
