Recovery

“How do I look?”, “Do I look okay?”, “I look like shit.”, “I’ll have to apply makeup and get ready yaar.”, “I don’t even feel like stepping out of my room”, “I’m so ugly.”, “I don’t even recognise myself.”, “This isn’t me.” 

This has been my journey. Over the years, I heard so many comments about the way I looked as I’m sure you must’ve heard too, that I almost felt like I was somebody else’s property. Like I was supposed to look the way that they chose for me to. 

My whole life became like an out of body experience because I separated myself from my physical self, the physical self that I refused to even recognise because it didn’t live upto everybody’s expectation, it wasn’t pretty enough. My body dysmorphia only made it easier for me to inflict pain onto myself, to cut myself quite literally to fit the mould like everyone else. It made it easier to not care about it, easier to hate myself to a point that the thought of not existing also wasn’t scary. 

When had I existed anyway? This body wasn’t mine, it wasn’t me. Over the last year, being in and out of the hospital made me realise that at some point, I’m gonna have to stop or I will lose it all. When my insides were literally bleeding, I had to make a choice. When my face started doing the same, bleeding out of nowhere, I was forced to start caring about my physical self. It hasn’t come easy to love myself because first I had to acknowledge that I had a “self”. I had to be okay with that “self” and I had to accept however mangled and bloodied that “self” was, it was mine, it was me. 

It’s been an adventure discovering every nook and corner of my being and running my hands over it until we got accustomed to each other. I still don’t think I’ve reached a place where we both love the other, we’re a work in progress. Until then I’ll continue to ease its pain, to help heal the wounds that I inflicted on it, and to allow a compliment to sink in every now and then when I need it. 

I don’t have shit to preach, I only have experiences to share and I’ll keep doing that for as long as I have them. Because if there’s anything I’ve learnt, it’s that all our experiences are shared by at least one other person. And it’s one of the most important things ever to know that you’re not alone, that somebody else somewhere at sometime felt exactly the same way you did. This spoken word is for that person. 

Watch the video below