Body (Thoughts After Therapy)

“You resent your body,” my therapist said, like she’d just uncovered something. Who doesn’t, I wondered while I waited for her to finish.

“You do, you’re resentful of your injury, resentful at the healing you have to do, you’re resentful that your body needs rest and care and fuel, you act like those things are getting in your way,” she had a furrowed brow and quiet tone, like she was stringing it together and figuring out how to frame it for me.

“When you have to stop working to eat something you’re annoyed,” she explains gently, “for most people it’s a welcome break, you’re irritated your body can’t just manage. The same with this injury, you’re not angry at what happened, you’re angry with yourself for being weak.”

I get that burning feeling in my chest, that scramble to make excuses while feeling sad for Little Heart who started thinking this way a long time ago. My therapist and I both know where this comes from, and she’s careful in making the connections for me.

I was raised in a chaotic environment, my parents were babies still, young and in love and partying day and night, overwhelmed with all kinds of their own trauma. And I was there. At the parties. The only child in a sea of 20-year-olds who couldn’t stop talking for some reason and never go to bed. You see me in all of the pictures, so much cigarette smoke and 80’s hair, stubby beer bottles all around, cocaine sweats and big joints and little me sitting on someone’s lap, or sniffing some stoned ladys’ flower-crown with a grin on my chubby face.

Why did everyone wear so much brown and orange in the 80’s? The carpets and couches and macrame wall decor all have that same texture, and everyone wore so much denim. The smoky haze in the room gives all of the pictures a haunting nostalgia, but I can hear the noise of the guitars and the laughing and the harmonica and the singing and the celebrations that never seemed to end. I loved that sound, fell asleep to that sound, was soothed by that sound. I loved my parents and their weird creative loud friends. It didn’t occur to me as a child that this wasn’t normal.

But all of that fun and frivolity meant that Little Heart didn’t have the consistency or regulation little ones need. I remember feeling like a burden every time I was hurt or hungry or needed attention. I remember not wanting to ask for things. I remember taking care of myself. I had plenty of stimulation, plenty of adoration, plenty of adults around, but there was something missing. And I filled that gap on my own. I was self-sufficient and needed nothing, and everybody loved that! “She’s more together than I am!” They would laugh. “Like a little adult.” I could take care of everything! I could even help out!

I helped my mom with the 4 siblings who came after me, I was good at giving them what they needed. I helped with the pets, and the adults who maybe needed help, and as my parents friends had babies they would bring to parties I would help with them too. I could make sure they had someone who was sober and paying attention, someone who they could ask for things and know they would receive.

My therapist doesn’t have to dig too far to find where this resentment for my body’s needs comes from. If you needed things you were slowing things down, you were a nuisance, you couldn’t help. There was no joy in that.

“What are the things that you do with your body that bring you joy,” my therapist asks me, before smirking, “aside from sex.” I laugh. Sex is the exception, maybe because it’s a desire that didn’t exist in my little-me days, it’s safe from the shame that colours my other biological needs. I don’t resent my body for wanting and needing sexual pleasure, I rejoice in it, find solace and strength in it. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel, giving your body what it needs,” she says.

I’m stumped for a good while but answers come. When I’m dancing I feel joyful. I need to move and I don’t resent or hold back on a dance floor. It feels so good, primal and true. And birthing and nursing my babies felt joyful in that way too, I never resented these miracles, even if they were hard. I was in awe of them, in reverence to the incredible things my body could do.

So my therapist says I should consider finding some joy in having a body that is resilient enough to heal, find joy in giving it the time and space to perform that miracle. I roll my eyes, already sick of waiting for the rest of me to catch up with where my mind is already at. I remind myself that taking photos of my body is the same kind of therapy. It helps me see it in a different light, it helps me see things I like. Perhaps, she suggests, I could find some joy in taking breaks to fuel and nurture my body too. I sigh. It’s hard you know, all of this work.