I’m experiencing this weird phenomenon now; I’m not sure many other people can relate. It all started after I recently ‘got sick’ with a cold for the first time in years. I had recently discharged from a lengthy residential stay for the treatment of anorexia nervosa, a relentless daemon I have been fighting for the majority of my time on this earth. Prior to my intake, I had been in the throes of a harrowing two-year long relapse.
Flash-forward to now. I’m anxious, irritable, and weight-restored and here comes this: The Common Cold. The fevers, the aches, the seemingly never-ending stream of mucous that was flowing from my face all made me feel more alive than I have felt in a long, long while. This very normal, very animistic experience brought me to a sobering realization: for the first time in over two years, I was no longer inhabiting a dying body.
Instead of living in a constant state of physical stagnation, my hair is now growing, my skin is supple, and my immune system is responding to foreign invaders in an appropriate manner.
This is bringing feelings of confusion. Of bizarre grief over the loss of the dying body, and of sadness thinking that I existed in the state, unaware of the severity of my illness, for so long. A new self-consciousness has emerged. That others around me doubtless witnessed this overt deadness, while I flitted about, in complete disbelief of it. At the time, I was in no mental state to comprehend this. (Had I been, I probably would have sought out medical attention sooner, but that is another story altogether)
I am coming back to life in a way I have never experienced before.
The feeling is surreal and deeply disturbing.
Featured image via Pixabay
