The Insatiable Hunger

I hide. And I eat. I sate my appetite with ersatz, not quite ready for the real thing, or maybe too afraid to want the real thing for fear that it will get taken away again. That’s happened before. Each time it does, the recoil becomes harder and harder to bear.

So I eat. I’m not physically hungry, but I eat anyway. Pistachio panettone, red wine, white that just happens to be in the fridge. Chicken salad (under-seasoned, not to my taste), celery, bolognese with no pasta and far too much melted cheese. Almond milk coffee because I’m trying to be healthy. Vitamins and a probiotic because apparently mental health starts in the gut. Opening the doors to see if the contents of the fridge have changed in the last 10 minutes. Sneaking chocolate from a drawer.

Watching the same things over and over and over again. If I close my eyes I could probably recite the next line in the movie. Trying to self-soothe? Trying to burrow out, but burrowing in, all at the same time.

150mg of Sertraline x 28 days.

I’m hiding. I don’t want to feel my feelings, I want to feel them. I feel them a little, I feel them far too much. Teetotaling. Laughing out loud too much, telling people off because I can so easily see myself doing the same thing. Hiding in my room. Blanketing everything with every single material comfort within and maybe slightly beyond my reach. Hiding and trying to exist and trying to numb and trying to live, all at once, and maybe for naught.

I know all the right things I’m supposed to do. I scan yet another article online. It’s all pointless. It’s all full of well-meaning shit. And I reach for the fork and eat another piece of cake.