This entry is in response to Caged's newest feature: a writing prompt which can be found here.

*

I have a problem that most people never notice. It's my eyesight. I only use one eye at a time. Therefore I have no depth perception. Therefore I bang knees and toes against things, and I can't catch small, fast-moving objects easily. Therefore some people think I'm clutzy, but no one sees the actual problem.

My left eye is the dominant one. But after years of therapy as a kid, I got to where I could choose which eye to use. If you stand very close, if we're eye-to-eye, I can show you. You'll see one eye center in and focus, and the other will simultaneously shift up and to the side just a tad. Not a lot. Just enough so you'd see it if I pointed it out.

So I face the world with these two points of view, and it can be confusing. I'm rarely sure of things positions in space, neither actually (How far away is that step? Three inches? Three feet?) nor relatively (Is my foot above or below the edge of the step? I can't tell). And even as much as I switch back and forth, trying to take in both positions (My pencil is to the left of my arm. No, wait, my pencil is directly beneath my arm) the truth often eludes me.

It's like that with my body and my eating and my self. Some days I see myself just three inches from sick; my foot is hovering just three inches above the next step to sickness, and I worry that I'm maybe even closer. And I am afraid to put my foot down, afraid I'll stumble and I'll hurt, and so I just stand there, awkward, one foot raised and my eyes blinking at something that may not even be a step. Some days sickness is three feet away. Or more, it's three months away when I promised to never make myself throw up again. Or three years away when I first told someone about it. Or some days it's just never, because I've never been diagnosed by a doctor, and never even had a doctor question me about it. And on those days I won't let anyone (meaning my counselor or one of the few people in my life who knows this secret shame I have) say the words: bulimia, purge, eating disorder. THAT'S NOT ME!!! Take those words away! And yet, on those days, I probably am the illness more than on any others. If it is possible to be the illness, those are the days that I am It.

Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror, and I see a girl who I don't mind seeing. She is tall, and her brown hair flips out at chin-level. She is muscular and determined, but her grey eyes are soft, full of mercy and just barely touched by wisdom. But then something inside switches. I change eyes. It's not that I suddenly have hips; I had hips before. It's not that they blossom, like something from a bildungsroman - frightening, but beautiful. No. They erupt. I'm suddenly spreading. My chest, my shoulders, my tummy, my hips, my thighs fill and fill and fall and grow.

I used to be so clueless about what caused that switch. But therapy and thinking have helped me see. It might be a thought, or a desire for food, a hunger, a need, a wish, a memory. A nightmare. And then I've switched, I've flipped, I'm no longer centered and focused, I'm floating up and to the side just a tad. And I hate what I see when I'm looking at me. The question I can't answer: which girl is the illness, and which is me? Is there a difference? Am I sometimes one and then the other, or am I always both?

I have a problem that most people never notice. It's my eyesight. I only use one eye at a time. Therefore I have no depth perception. Therefore I eat and then hate myself, because I can't judge the real size and placement of things. Therefore some people think I have strange eating and exercize habits, but no one sees the actual problem.

-perdiendome

previous // next