I wrote this in response to my therapist asking me to do a creative piece on the feelings of being trapped that I was dealing with in my sessions at the time. It helped to put things into perspective and see that actually I could get out of the cycle if I wanted to.

Whirling, screaming round in endless circles, too fast, want to get off yet? Colours whooshing past in a blur, nothing is real, try to reach out and what do you hit? Those smooth curves you cannot escape, encircling you, entrapment. Longing for freedom, sick, exhausted, how to keep up with the endless motion? Ride the wave, they say, but what if it never stops, what if you can’t ever get off?

Too many sounds, too many pictures, too much movement, a rushing in my ears. Shut up, I cry, shut up shut UP. Too many voices, telling me things I don’t need to hear, whispering at first, then shouting, screaming, abusing my ear drums. My head pounds, I cannot escape, I climb the walls, desperate, how can I leave this hell chamber? Who can save me from myself?

Preoccupation, too many thoughts, so much time, never ending. Infinite black tunnels of time, reeling around and around in my head, building and building, sucking me in, calling me back. I fight, I scream, I put a hand outside the bubble, I’m not going to let it engulf me. Just one fragile hand out, hanging onto my sanity with grazed knuckles. Blood trickling down my aching arm, how to hold on? The whooshing, circluar motion spins on and on, relentless. My arm goes numb, my fingers slip, again and again I grasp the one piece of sanity I have, trying to maintain contact, to break the grip would be fatal.

Finally I pull myself up and gasp for air. My head, above the abyss, breathes calm air, the circling technicolour hole swims sickeningly fast below me. Sanity is where I am, above the danger, my head no longer reeling. But for how long can I keep this up? Stumbling along, tripping over potholes leading back down to my death, those awful voices, that swirling mess I call my mind. Soon I know I will fall again, back onto the treadmill that forces me on and on in a cycle I cannot end. I sigh. It’s not all over, I’m drowning once more. My foot slips, colour engulfs me. Here we go again, on this spinning wheel I call my life.


Link to my book about life with Anorexia-Nervosa:
http://www.lulu.com/content/73250

Dear Silke

If only we could stay in a beautiful dream that we once had.

Take good care delicate flower

Hey Hey

Silke,

it sure feels like being on a treadmill...never getting anywhere, moving only because you have to, nothing ever changes on the treadmill.

This is a great piece, thjanks so much for sharing it!

Love,
Dara