i'm sorry.

right now i am of a mind to pound out a bit of an angry post in which i question why it is that life outside of an addiction is so worth it if we're constantly going to end up being hurt by one person or another. sometimes it makes more sense to just live inside the consistency we can create for ourselves in our disorders. i'm growing increasingly tempted to go off on the aforementioned concept as it continues to spill out onto the screen, but after a heart wrenching discovery i made yesterday morning, i realize i have no right to do so.

in the fall of 2009 [not this past fall, the one before], a friend from high school and i rekindled what had been an acquaintance and embarked upon a budding friendship. we had quite a bit in common. we understood one another, i think, on some on unspoken level. i spent a good two years of college feeling misunderstood and unappreciated, but i always felt i could be myself with this individual, and that he didn't mind.

he was hours away. we talked every so often, sometimes voice-to-voice, sometimes electronically depending upon our schedules. i remember being out of quarters for the laundry machine while we were talking one day. i held the phone between my shoulder and my ear while i washed some thrift store purchases in my bath tub. he laughed and laughed on the other end.

some time in early november, he called to let me know he'd been accepted to teach for america in new york city. it was around the same time that the euphoria of my swift downturn into my disorder had subsided and i was left feeling bewildered, weak and exhausted. i remember feeling constantly buried, as if i was under several feet of quick sand. responding to my phone or participating in a conversation required pulling myself up to the surface and then holding myself there. it required a strength and an effort i just didn't possess.

when i did use my phone or a computer, the keys felt miles away and my head felt floaty. i remember typing my friend a message to let him know what was going on [he'd watched the rise and fall of my disorder in high school] and that i was getting some help and that i wasn't sure when i'd be able to talk.

he sent me a lengthy reply of which i remember reading the first line. i honestly do not know or remember if i was able to attain the concentration to read the rest. i do know that i never responded. i simply could not muster enough of myself to do so.

yesterday morning, i came across his reply. i read his heartfelt words and my chest grew heavy, like it was holding a train. another person has never extended me a more loving, genuine, comforting hand. amidst the anger, sadness and disappoint i felt towards myself, there was a single realization that left me wide-eyed and brokenhearted:

i had hurt him, i had confused him and i had never before considered that my disappearance would or could have caused either.

yesterday, i grew to hate my disorder on a deeper level than before. although i regret the things it stole from me, i regret so much more the innocent bystanders it wounded along the way.

what terrifies me truly, is that all the time my disorder was causing me to hurt people, it had me convinced that no one really noticed me or cared.

fellow strugglers- know that by clinging to the things of which you refuse to let go, you are damaging others outside of yourself. right now, there are people hurting because of your disorder that you may never have imagined even cared.

love,

EA