This part is especially poignant: "I am, in a ritual of vomiting, severing myself from my family line. I am not healing all of them inside my body. No. I am rejecting them from my body entirely, expelling them, giving them up." Hallelujah.
Disgust has definitely been tricky for me; I've not known where to place it much of my life, applying it to myself / my body / my thoughts / etc., rather than the external things it actually applies to (as a result of being taught to normalize said things). This motivated so many failed pursuits of "purity" (whatever that even means). It's been a challenging journey to reclaim disgust, rage, and "impurity" (so to speak), but a liberating one all the same. Grateful for your reflections on such fronts, here and elsewhere.
Amazing piece, I’ve never thought of it that way before. I’ve had many a day like you describe when I was drinking, plus though I have never been properly bulimic I did develop gastroparesis and the physical issue has become entangled with the psychological to the point I often can’t tell how far it’s me doing it. There’s some kind of compulsive catharsis to it that I was struggling to describe or understand, as it’s not really about body image etc. I didn’t connect any of this to CSA before.
Your work has been so important to me, in recognising the varied and insidious forms this can take, that we (and others!) dismiss.
i've been bulimic, or at least close enough, at some points. one major one was when i first left the first layer of abuse, my family. i was in foster care and had been terrorized and threatened with the state hospital if i kept cutting. so i was puking. i think i was also in some way riding my body (or trying to) of the terror and disgust of my father.
Hi Clementine, thank you for this beautiful and powerful text, and the initiation of the book club. I subscribed on time last month but I could not make it the same day November 30th, I would like to know if a recorded version of it exists somewhere in the cloud... hope to hear from you and thank you again and always for your work. Phiny
Hey! The book clubs aren’t being recorded. I want a space where people don’t feel self conscious about what they’re saying. But come to the next one if you can. It’s this Sunday, the 28th.
Beautiful post, thank you.
This part is especially poignant: "I am, in a ritual of vomiting, severing myself from my family line. I am not healing all of them inside my body. No. I am rejecting them from my body entirely, expelling them, giving them up." Hallelujah.
Disgust has definitely been tricky for me; I've not known where to place it much of my life, applying it to myself / my body / my thoughts / etc., rather than the external things it actually applies to (as a result of being taught to normalize said things). This motivated so many failed pursuits of "purity" (whatever that even means). It's been a challenging journey to reclaim disgust, rage, and "impurity" (so to speak), but a liberating one all the same. Grateful for your reflections on such fronts, here and elsewhere.
That line stuck out to me too!!
As a lifelong emetophobe, thank you for another good essay, this time wrapped in an exposure exercise for me 🫶
Amazing piece, I’ve never thought of it that way before. I’ve had many a day like you describe when I was drinking, plus though I have never been properly bulimic I did develop gastroparesis and the physical issue has become entangled with the psychological to the point I often can’t tell how far it’s me doing it. There’s some kind of compulsive catharsis to it that I was struggling to describe or understand, as it’s not really about body image etc. I didn’t connect any of this to CSA before.
Your work has been so important to me, in recognising the varied and insidious forms this can take, that we (and others!) dismiss.
Thank you for everything you do
thank you.
i've been bulimic, or at least close enough, at some points. one major one was when i first left the first layer of abuse, my family. i was in foster care and had been terrorized and threatened with the state hospital if i kept cutting. so i was puking. i think i was also in some way riding my body (or trying to) of the terror and disgust of my father.
Hi Clementine, thank you for this beautiful and powerful text, and the initiation of the book club. I subscribed on time last month but I could not make it the same day November 30th, I would like to know if a recorded version of it exists somewhere in the cloud... hope to hear from you and thank you again and always for your work. Phiny
Hey! The book clubs aren’t being recorded. I want a space where people don’t feel self conscious about what they’re saying. But come to the next one if you can. It’s this Sunday, the 28th.
Ok, I will ask the people there if they want to share notes of the last one if that's ok!