Just Like a Pill

Last week I posted my ED recovery playlist (thanks to everyone who has left comments with additional song suggestions!) and going over the songs reminded me of an essay I wrote about four years ago, when I was a junior in high school. Our assignment was simply to take a quote from any song and write about what it meant to us. I chose Pink's "Just Like a Pill," because that song has always hit home with me, it definitely expresses how I view the ED and its role in my life (click on song title for full lyrics). I decided that the essay might be worth sharing on this blog, just keep in mind that it was written over four years ago, when I was 17. At the time, I was in the process of beginning a climb out of a severe relapse with anorexia (neither my first nor last bout with the disorder), and I was trying to put my lifestyle and priorities in a new, healthier perspective. I won't pretend that I haven't swallowed plenty of "pills" since then, but I think that year was a big turning point for me in terms of moving past denial and acknowledging the issues at hand.

Just Like a Pill

I will run, just as fast as I can, to the middle of nowhere,
To the middle of my frustrated fears, and I swear
You’re just like a pill—
Instead of making me better, you keep making me ill.
-“Pill,” by Alicia Moore, aka ‘Pink’

Our society puts a tremendous amount of pressure on people to achieve perfection—or at least whatever the concept of perfection happens to be at any given moment. Some people handle the stress with remarkable grace. They do their best to fit into all of the obligatory molds without extreme emotional trauma over their shortcomings. Some people completely rebel against society’s expectations, preferring an intentional negative image created by nonconformity as opposed to the possible rejection of their attempts to “fit in.” Everyone has seen caricatures of these groups: they are the cheerleaders and the vamp chicks, the jocks and the skater punks.

But what about everyone else? What about everyone who wants desperately to be accepted but feels completely incapable of meeting any standard? While common sense tells us that absolute perfection is relatively impossible, we still push ourselves to achieve it. And when we inevitably fail in some way or another, we feel obligated to find a way to make up for it.

If Alison can be just a little bit more fashionable, people will show more respect for her, so she turns up her nose at Wal-Mart and won’t wear anything without prominently displayed designer labels. If Jim can raise his batting average by just a little bit, then he’ll be admired, so he spends countless hours doing drills instead of studying or spending time with friends. If Beth could lose that omnipresent “just five more pounds,” she’d be the most popular girl in school, so she replaces meals with diet coke and sugar-free gum—her appetite disappears, anyway, every time she sees the “disgusting” image in the mirror. If Charlie can act risky and daring, then he’ll impress “in crowd,” so he steals cigarettes from gas stations and teases the special-ed kids while they wait at the bus stop.

All of those people are running—running as fast as they can. They run until their lungs flame, until their legs turn to rubber, until every step jars them to the core. But they’re running towards the middle of nowhere. It’s ironic—despite the huge numbers of people that end up in the “middle of nowhere,” the landscape is always overwhelmingly desolate and lonely. The only companions available for someone in “the middle of nowhere” are the frustrated fears that drove them there in the first place.

Similarly, our society loves pills. There are pills to help you get pregnant and pills to stop you from getting pregnant, pills to make your hair grow and pills to make your stomach shrink, pills to keep you awake and pills that can make you unconscious for hours. It is hard to believe that there is anything which can’t be fixed by gulping down “two tablets every four to six hours (as needed).”

Our problem is that we use many other things as “pills.” Addictions come in all shapes and forms, and the search for the substance or person, for the feeling or place that will make us “better”—that will fill up the holes and make us whole instead—is an all too common theme. Though many people spend far too much of lives “running” laps and gulping “pills,” peace can be achieved once they slow down, catch their breath, and clear their minds.

It has been my experience in life that sometimes you have to go to the “middle of nowhere” in order to gain an appreciation for being “somewhere.” It has been my experience that you have to choke on a few “pills” before you can learn to make healthier substitutes. It has been my experience that every person possesses the strength to turn around and “run” in the other direction, to toss the “pills” in the trash, and to conquer their frustrated fears. It has been my experience that being “ill” and sulking around in “the middle of nowhere” is never worth it—there are far too many other things—much more worthwhile things—that are out there waiting for you to experience.