Shadowed Self

Fateful

  Starting small. It was always there, hiding in the shadows. It wasn't noticeable, no, not at all. Small gestures, just to say:
"Hey, I'm still here."

A quick tap, a breath, a sock. It was much of the same.

It seemed to grow, but only once.

The parts of him that he had wanted to swallow, to choke down without bringing it back up.

But to ignore this, well it would just bring it to become much bigger. It became worse, and all the feelings that were choked down, well they were brought up. The shadows were no longer a hiding place. They were just a point, as more emotion bottled itself in him.

It could grow, and it found itself there, fully there.

To see it, well, he wasn't ready. It scared him, but it wasn't sure why.

Explained to him, well, it was him. It was the part of him that he would avoid, and it built. It built

It built.

This, well it was his shadow self. The self that he seemed to be avoiding for much of time.

The self, it grew. It could be in the human world, and it found itself almost a parasite. Latching onto his mind. It seemed to leech off of what was never spoken, but what boiled inside.

It had not made itself visible, not until the energy had grown so pent up. It found itself to be pulled from its' world, and it seemed to almost terrify him. Its' body seemingly foreign to those in the human world.

He had spent most of his Junior and Senior year in and out of hospitals and therapy. It started while he was in middle school, and it ate at him. He wasn't completely sure when it had started, but it started with intensity.

Had it started that one night in sixth grade? Or was it in the seventh grade, after finding his own reflection repulsive? The cause had never seemed to be uncovered. Something had flipped in his head, at least that's what it was described as by his therapist.

The cause could have been so much, and he just assumed it was all just built up from childhood. It could have been the fact that he spent too much of his life in ballet, yet his teachers were all wonderful. He had never even thought of his body at that point. It couldn't be the circus. It was the one thing he used to feel better. Had he not found acrobatics and rope, well, he would probably be much worse.

It happened before he started training anyway.

He remembered the encounter. It was fateful. A fateful encounter that seemed to change him.

It was a frigid night, and he had landed himself in the hospital at the age of 17. The cause;

Bulimia Nervosa.

After spending three years completely consumed by food; he had finally broke. He didn't go in for being too thin, no, he was still 118, at five foot nine, he was only slightly underweight. His doctors seemed to be concerned about it, but he was not concerned.

What was he in for? He wasn't sure. He had broken an ankle in a double twisting layout while training, and before he knew it; he was admitted for an eating disorder. He was frustrated, as this was ruining everything he had. He had no other way to cope. This was his only way of almost feeling alive.

He seemed to be unable to sleep with the feelings. The dark hospital room seemed so large. He was overly annoyed by the constant beeping in his right ear, and the wind, well it chilled the room. The hospital was almost too cold, and he seemed to live in sweaters that swallowed him, yet they were supposed to fit; they once did.