Extremely vulnerable writing in today’s submission! Yay to you for allowing yourself to face your personal demons so powerfully and sensitively. If we all faced the chaos in our souls, the world, I imagine, would be a more peaceful & resolved place.
Thank you dear momma. And if I remember correctly, you were there with me, helping me face them. You checked in on me every day for those two years to give me a lifeline of support and unconditional love.
I have been circling around in wait for words to come. To you the writer, I wish to say, “Bravo!” You pulled me in whole-bodied to the anguish and confusion that watered out of your red eyes after purging. I felt the desperation of wanting to be carefree inside a body that refused. At every turn of phrase, I was there inside the complexity of feelings. To you the person, I wish to stand up and applaud you your courage--then and now, and to thank you. I’m immensely struck by the connection you draw between purging and being empty--as if to wretch to the bottom is the only way to get inside the feeling of such emptiness, the absence that cannot be touched or known any other way. I will never forget this insight. I bow to you. There is so much more I could write, but this seems enough for now.
I feel seen, heard and embraced by your thoughtful, kindhearted response. Confusing emptiness with peace makes perfect sense to my young, developing ego but now, thankfully, I understand the limiting imprisonment of this thinking. True peace doesn’t have conditions. True peace is the quiet, still refuge of blue sky that is always present, holding whatever storms arise within it.
Oct 1, 2023·edited Oct 1, 2023Liked by Kimberly Warner
The distinction between bulimia and purging was so important. I think our minds immediately go to bulimia when we hear of people making themselves vomit (mine did) but if there is no binging and no desire to change the shape of the body...it isn't bulimia. Thank you for teaching me something new.
Thank you for seeing me. Because of these assumptions, it was harder for me to understand initially as well. I think it's easier for us to put some of these complex behaviors into a box instead of digging into the nuanced sources of pain.
Kimberly, I am impressed each time I come to your writing. Thank you for dialoguing with the undone version of yourself and for sharing what you uncovered. Thank you for bringing to light the motion of the monster at a threshold. In other words, thank you for this beautiful, vulnerable, powerful share.
Holly, thank you. Thank you for holding space for my "dialogue with the undone version of myself." It's an unusual exercise (and almost more a meditation) to step into the visceral memories of my past without trying to wrap it up with a tidy bow. The perfectionist in me so wants to say "Hey, all is good! Look what I've learned!" But this journey of writing my past is becoming so much more an opportunity to hold that young self and help her feel seen in all her complexity and confusion. I really appreciate you understanding this and being there to "hold" as well.
Sadly I eat when my body is unsteady which is a curse, just like mum, just like my grandmother and great grandmother all did...generational trauma blows my mind, here's to us all finally finding peace and calming our brains down slowly but surely, beautifully written as always Kimberly
Janine, yes, generational trauma is heavy, hard and so very complex. Thank you for sharing how your genes have learned to cope with the blows of life. I like how author Gabor Mate talks about any type of behavior we might label as addiction or compulsion —they are simply ways our nervous systems learned to survive and offer temporary relief. If we only label it as "destructive behavior" we don't get to the deeper understanding of the emotional repression below the behavior. For myself, once I could feel deeply into my fear of vulnerability, I found so much more compassion for my body/mind, doing the best it knew how at the time to cope with grief and trauma. I so appreciate your reflections. Thank you for being here with me. xo
Thank you for this vulnerable share, Kimberly. 🙏♥️ I resonate so much with the part about the hyper vigilance of the body and being so sensitive to every sensation. I still remember asking myself every couple of minutes, "How do I feel?" It was obsessive, but I was terrified of being caught off guard by my body. I went the opposite way from purging. Actually, in my teens I developed emetophobia but it only worsened with the chronic illness in my thirties. Thank you again for sharing yourself this way. It helps so much knowing we're not alone.
Thank you so much for sharing a bit of your struggles. I'm realizing that this post is probably harder to understand unless one lives with chronic illness and has been confronted with body hyper-vigilance. I forget sometimes that not everyone walks through the world with a fear of what it might do to our health. You share being "terrified of been caught off guard by my body" and boy, are you not alone in this feeling! I'm going to circle this post back to my chronic illness community on instagram to see if others relate. I know they will. I think the scary part, for me, of sharing this chapter was that loaded words like "purging" would mask over the deeper struggle presented in the essay. And so thank you for seeing me and understanding the complexity of it all. I saw your post this morning about the sacred crossing of paths between Substack authors and do hope ours cross someday in person as well!
Thank you Veronika. You are an astute and wise reader and human! Many get stuck on the common associations with purging and stop there (even a few therapists couldn't find the deeper longing.) What a gift to feel so seen by you—you understand the compulsion in its entirety. I haven't heard of the Chðd practice but I'm going to go check it out now!
What an incredible amount of suffering you endured. This is such powerful, vulnerable storytelling. What you’re sharing here has the power to make so many people feel less alone.
No more slayed than the trials of your characters! I might have to try my hand at fiction when this memoir is complete so I can see my entrails through other bodies and narratives. :)
Such a powerful and insightful chapter Kimberly. That distinction you make is so interesting and I really do appreciate that you don't tie it all up in a tidy bow. I've had gut problems from a young age, probab from being treated with penicillin for childhood illnesses, and while I have never purged, I completely understand that desire for unfettered emptiness and clarity, purity even. When I was a lot younger I did fasting which served a similar purpose I suppose. The search for Shangri-la within the body...
Well said Jan, "the search for Shangri-la within the body" - - that might sum up my first 40 years of life, only to discover that "Shangri-la" was there all along, but only when I dropped my idea of what it should feel like.
We talked much more. She got involved in team sports and in community activities (tutoring at the elementary school she’d attended), but I think perhaps more impactful was the hospitalization of one of her friends because of anorexia. We stumble around in the dark as parents, no matter the best intentions, because we carry our younger selves into the conversations with our kids.
At this age, all in retrospect and with an eye watching my granddaughters and young nieces. As I did their mothers. Harrowing memories.
Bulimia is about exerting some control at a chaotic age.
As slim as I wanted to be already when it struck me as a brilliant idea, (a freshman in college listening to a fellow student talk about it as if it were inspirational). Another friend (a dancer) years later doing it as a matter of course. Dissolving her teeth as effectively as a junkie.
So many roads indeed... and so many faces to the pain and fear. I appreciate you being so open with your version. Harrowing, especially as you watch your granddaughters and nieces navigate this world. I imagine your presence and depth of understanding is a safe shelter for their becoming.
And yet I caught myself working such long hours when my daughter was in her early teens that I hadn’t realized she was weighing herself after every meal, every snack - until I did.
Hoping when you did, you could hear your daughter’s fears without prejudice or your own assumptions defining her experience. Like I shared in the essay, I didn’t have bulimia but I think even within that disorder, I’m guessing the reasons are as many and nuanced as the individuals living with it. ❤️
Extremely vulnerable writing in today’s submission! Yay to you for allowing yourself to face your personal demons so powerfully and sensitively. If we all faced the chaos in our souls, the world, I imagine, would be a more peaceful & resolved place.
Thank you dear momma. And if I remember correctly, you were there with me, helping me face them. You checked in on me every day for those two years to give me a lifeline of support and unconditional love.
Kimberly,
I have been circling around in wait for words to come. To you the writer, I wish to say, “Bravo!” You pulled me in whole-bodied to the anguish and confusion that watered out of your red eyes after purging. I felt the desperation of wanting to be carefree inside a body that refused. At every turn of phrase, I was there inside the complexity of feelings. To you the person, I wish to stand up and applaud you your courage--then and now, and to thank you. I’m immensely struck by the connection you draw between purging and being empty--as if to wretch to the bottom is the only way to get inside the feeling of such emptiness, the absence that cannot be touched or known any other way. I will never forget this insight. I bow to you. There is so much more I could write, but this seems enough for now.
I feel seen, heard and embraced by your thoughtful, kindhearted response. Confusing emptiness with peace makes perfect sense to my young, developing ego but now, thankfully, I understand the limiting imprisonment of this thinking. True peace doesn’t have conditions. True peace is the quiet, still refuge of blue sky that is always present, holding whatever storms arise within it.
The distinction between bulimia and purging was so important. I think our minds immediately go to bulimia when we hear of people making themselves vomit (mine did) but if there is no binging and no desire to change the shape of the body...it isn't bulimia. Thank you for teaching me something new.
Thank you for seeing me. Because of these assumptions, it was harder for me to understand initially as well. I think it's easier for us to put some of these complex behaviors into a box instead of digging into the nuanced sources of pain.
Kimberly, I am impressed each time I come to your writing. Thank you for dialoguing with the undone version of yourself and for sharing what you uncovered. Thank you for bringing to light the motion of the monster at a threshold. In other words, thank you for this beautiful, vulnerable, powerful share.
Holly, thank you. Thank you for holding space for my "dialogue with the undone version of myself." It's an unusual exercise (and almost more a meditation) to step into the visceral memories of my past without trying to wrap it up with a tidy bow. The perfectionist in me so wants to say "Hey, all is good! Look what I've learned!" But this journey of writing my past is becoming so much more an opportunity to hold that young self and help her feel seen in all her complexity and confusion. I really appreciate you understanding this and being there to "hold" as well.
Sadly I eat when my body is unsteady which is a curse, just like mum, just like my grandmother and great grandmother all did...generational trauma blows my mind, here's to us all finally finding peace and calming our brains down slowly but surely, beautifully written as always Kimberly
Janine, yes, generational trauma is heavy, hard and so very complex. Thank you for sharing how your genes have learned to cope with the blows of life. I like how author Gabor Mate talks about any type of behavior we might label as addiction or compulsion —they are simply ways our nervous systems learned to survive and offer temporary relief. If we only label it as "destructive behavior" we don't get to the deeper understanding of the emotional repression below the behavior. For myself, once I could feel deeply into my fear of vulnerability, I found so much more compassion for my body/mind, doing the best it knew how at the time to cope with grief and trauma. I so appreciate your reflections. Thank you for being here with me. xo
That's amazing thank you I will screenshot this and put it up on my wall. Such powerful words xo
Thank you for this vulnerable share, Kimberly. 🙏♥️ I resonate so much with the part about the hyper vigilance of the body and being so sensitive to every sensation. I still remember asking myself every couple of minutes, "How do I feel?" It was obsessive, but I was terrified of being caught off guard by my body. I went the opposite way from purging. Actually, in my teens I developed emetophobia but it only worsened with the chronic illness in my thirties. Thank you again for sharing yourself this way. It helps so much knowing we're not alone.
Thank you so much for sharing a bit of your struggles. I'm realizing that this post is probably harder to understand unless one lives with chronic illness and has been confronted with body hyper-vigilance. I forget sometimes that not everyone walks through the world with a fear of what it might do to our health. You share being "terrified of been caught off guard by my body" and boy, are you not alone in this feeling! I'm going to circle this post back to my chronic illness community on instagram to see if others relate. I know they will. I think the scary part, for me, of sharing this chapter was that loaded words like "purging" would mask over the deeper struggle presented in the essay. And so thank you for seeing me and understanding the complexity of it all. I saw your post this morning about the sacred crossing of paths between Substack authors and do hope ours cross someday in person as well!
Thank you for sharing this chapter. ❤️
The idea that “every time we meet a monster we cross a threshold” is going to stay with me.
Wow! What a scary and overwhelming experience. It takes a lot of courage and faith in such episodes, not to view your body as an enemy.
In this chapter I see
Purging to get to the bottom of grief and loss in search of the soul connection with self and identity.
Purging to be at peace, to find out who is there under all the layers of beliefs, expectations and influences fed into the system from the outside.
Purging, perhaps, to reach into the primordial void and be reborn with sufficient self-knowledge to find your life's path?
With monsters and demons mentioned here, I am wondering, have you come across the Chöd practice 'Feeding Your Demons' introduced by Tsultrim Allione?
https://www.taramandala.org/programs-overview/long-term-study-pathways/feeding-your-demons/fyd-resources/5-steps-of-fyd/
Thank you Veronika. You are an astute and wise reader and human! Many get stuck on the common associations with purging and stop there (even a few therapists couldn't find the deeper longing.) What a gift to feel so seen by you—you understand the compulsion in its entirety. I haven't heard of the Chðd practice but I'm going to go check it out now!
What an incredible amount of suffering you endured. This is such powerful, vulnerable storytelling. What you’re sharing here has the power to make so many people feel less alone.
No more slayed than the trials of your characters! I might have to try my hand at fiction when this memoir is complete so I can see my entrails through other bodies and narratives. :)
Yes, but no one was harmed in the making of my stories. 😜 I think you’d be great at fiction if you ever made a go of it.
Such a powerful and insightful chapter Kimberly. That distinction you make is so interesting and I really do appreciate that you don't tie it all up in a tidy bow. I've had gut problems from a young age, probab from being treated with penicillin for childhood illnesses, and while I have never purged, I completely understand that desire for unfettered emptiness and clarity, purity even. When I was a lot younger I did fasting which served a similar purpose I suppose. The search for Shangri-la within the body...
Well said Jan, "the search for Shangri-la within the body" - - that might sum up my first 40 years of life, only to discover that "Shangri-la" was there all along, but only when I dropped my idea of what it should feel like.
We talked much more. She got involved in team sports and in community activities (tutoring at the elementary school she’d attended), but I think perhaps more impactful was the hospitalization of one of her friends because of anorexia. We stumble around in the dark as parents, no matter the best intentions, because we carry our younger selves into the conversations with our kids.
At this age, all in retrospect and with an eye watching my granddaughters and young nieces. As I did their mothers. Harrowing memories.
Bulimia is about exerting some control at a chaotic age.
As slim as I wanted to be already when it struck me as a brilliant idea, (a freshman in college listening to a fellow student talk about it as if it were inspirational). Another friend (a dancer) years later doing it as a matter of course. Dissolving her teeth as effectively as a junkie.
So many roads young women can take..
So many roads indeed... and so many faces to the pain and fear. I appreciate you being so open with your version. Harrowing, especially as you watch your granddaughters and nieces navigate this world. I imagine your presence and depth of understanding is a safe shelter for their becoming.
And yet I caught myself working such long hours when my daughter was in her early teens that I hadn’t realized she was weighing herself after every meal, every snack - until I did.
Hoping when you did, you could hear your daughter’s fears without prejudice or your own assumptions defining her experience. Like I shared in the essay, I didn’t have bulimia but I think even within that disorder, I’m guessing the reasons are as many and nuanced as the individuals living with it. ❤️