Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Running Where?

So, in this passage "hunger" is used as a metaphor for many things.  In the actual story it has no relation to eating disorders, but it did strike a chord with me as being a perfect description of how I have often felt about recovery, when "normal" was a lifetime ago and I have no fathomable concept of what it's like to live without the ED as a scaffold for my life:

I'm so empty it hurts, and so frightened.  My mind keeps saying: "If I ever get out of this, I'll never, never be hungry again" and then the dream goes off into a gray mist and I'm running, running in the mist, running so hard my heart's about to burst and something is chasing me, and I can't breathe but I keep thinking that if I can just get there, I'll be safe.  But I don't know where I'm trying to get to.

~Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stealing that. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

right on. this strikes a cord with me especially since my identity was tied up in running up until a couple of months ago...i ran, and ran, and ran and it was the only time i could quiet my emotions enough to feel marginally happy. but i never got anywhere. now, i can't run. i have to sit a lot. i have to remain IN my feelings. it sucks. but i think, somehow (feels like i'm being pushed in a wheelchair by Someone), i'm getting somewhere.

sarah said...

I love Gone with the Wind. Scarlett is such an interesting heroine.