Field Notes From A Liminal Space

beginning to open up online about my disordered eating, wanting to write a chapbook because a great title is following me around & the joy of putting things from my old life into trash bags

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A collage by Bri Gawkoski, whose work I deeply adore. Her collage above captures how trying to untangle and heal from my traumas and PTSD feels to me. I love the little podcasts she records and shares on her Patreon.

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No. 1: Yesterday, my therapist told me, “These disordered eating issues will take a long time for us to tease apart.”

I don’t think I’ve ever shared publicly about this one online before, but I’ve dealt with it on and off since I was 15 or so.

When I get afraid of life in a particular kind of way or when I feel scared, small, and powerless over something big, seeing the numbers on the scale drop helps me to cope. Not healthily, but cope nonetheless.

It gives me something to obsess over other than the anxiety-causing thing that’s causing the food issues to come back up to the surface in the first place. It gives me some sense of accomplishment when I feel like I don’t have another way of validating myself to myself. It has been rearing its head a bit lately, but for the past three days I’ve been feeding myself again.

No. 2: I am currently wallpapering my bedroom walls with poetry.

No. 3: My paints have been gathering dust on my art table.

I can bring myself to write but can’t seem to do any visual work except take photos with my phone.

One way I can sometimes trick myself into painting is to just turn on and start watching an online painting course. I may try this soon.

I’ve been meaning to start reading more poetry again.

I love to read poetry, but much of my motivation right now comes from the desire to feed myself with & be inspired by it so I can get the mojo up to start writing my own poems again. My favorite format as a poet has slowly but surely shifted towards shorter prose poems & away from the line breaks over the past few years.

I thought of a title for a chapbook, and now I want to write it. I know what the thread running through it will be.