The Dark Passenger

I was watching Dexter on Monday evening (we're probably a season or two behind the US), and was absolutely struck by some of the things said about addiction. I feel just the same! Being a recovered anorexic, I still know the addiction to starvation, food abuse and purging, although I no longer live it out. The anorexic in me is quieter, but nevertheless always there. In that sense, I define myself more as a "sober anorexic" than recovered, as I'm not sure whether I will ever be completely free from that part of me, that part of my life. I don't live it anymore, but it's not gone.

Lila: Like a thousand hiding voices whispering: "This is who you are". And you fight the pressure, the growing need rising like a wave, prickling and teasing and prodding to be fed. But the whispering gets louder, until it's screaming: "now !". And it's the only voice you hear... the only voice you want to hear. And you belong to it... to this... shadow self. To this...
Dexter: Dark Passenger.
Lila: Yes. The Dark Passenger.

My dark passenger works just the same way, although I no longer have to fight her as hard as I once had to. But the whispering gets louder every now and then, and there are times when I want nothing more than to follow her lead, give myself away to the shadow self that is still, always, intrinsically a part of me. My mirror self, the girl on the other side of the mirror, my dark sister, my dark twin.
I can't deny that there are times when I choose to be her, to follow her instead of doing what I know would be "right". How can something so wrong feel so right, so natural? The main difference from Then is that I have a choice, I choose when to listen to her, when to follow her; I don't have to, I don't get anxious and panicky when I don't.

I've been under a lot of (financial) stress lately, and very frustrated, and that always makes me low, depressed, I lose my appetite, eat less real food and more fast food, sweets and junk, and unlike many others I seem to lose weight when I eat "bad foods". I've lost a bit, enough for my therapist to be happy with it, but not enough for anyone to be really concerned. At least not me. I still feel that I have some distance to when the Dark Passenger starts screaming, although I am aware that I'm pushing it a bit. I did put on some of the weight again, but have absolutely no desire to put on more. I've never wanted to put on weight, ever, but I did anyway because I had to for health reasons, and to get out of the ED. I'm far from back there, but like I've said before, I'm aware that I'm playing a possibly dangerous game.
Some days, when I'm particularly low or stress-induced anxious, I want to block out all other voices, the voices of reason, and just hear her for a bit. It wouldn't solve anything, so I don't, apart from for a while, and I wonder if I would ever let her get into the driver's seat again. What would it take for me to step back into the mirror?

Dexter: I just know there's something dark in me. I hide it. I certainly don't talk about it. But it's there. Always. This dark passenger. And when he's driving, I feel.... alive. Half sick with the thrill, complete wrongness. I don't fight him. I don't want to. He's all I've got. Nothing else could love me, not even, especially, not me. Or is that just the lie the dark passenger tells me? Because lately there are these moments when I feel....connected to something else, someone. And it's like the mask is slipping....and things....people....who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me.

My mask has slipped and I am most definitely connected to something so much bigger than anorexia, and that is my safeguard; I have too much to lose to ever let my shadow self take over again. This fact, that I can't go back without giving a lot of things up that I don't want to lose, no longer scares me as it used to do. It has become a fact of life; if I choose that dark path in the mirror, I will lose something. A lot of things matter a lot more than being skinny, and the illusion of control is just that: an illusion.

But the dark passenger is still there, still teasing, taunting, wanting to be fed and heard. She is part of me, just like my shadow is always a part of me, but she is the dark passenger, not the driver. And she is me.