eros, logos: the hunger artist

Friday, September 07, 2007

the hunger artist

After X and I broke up last year and then "reconciled" we stopped saying the word 'love'.
Gradually I realised that our situation was, for me, one of emotional anorexia. There was this slow and relentless reduction in sustenance. It felt like an endurance test; it felt like slow voluntary starvation. Like the anorectic, I placed myself challenges and then strove to overcome them, running a race where no one else knew or cared what the stakes were, and the only one who judged me was me.

I thought it was somehow evidence of how much I loved, or how strong I was--how "good" I was--that I could be so 'selfless' as to not need him to say the word anymore. I prided myself on my ability to go without. I prided myself on my ability to 'understand' and to 'forgive'.
I punished myself too. How could I dare ask for anything or expect anything? He was married, and I knew this--so how dare I make any demand? I couldn't. I didn't deserve it, and even wanting it was a sign that I wasn't a good person.
I tolerated behaviour from him that I would never accept from someone else, and I made excuses for him and I blamed only myself.

And like the anorectic, there is this kind of exhilaration found in self-denial and an urge to go further. If you only ate two apples yesterday, why not try for only one and three-quarters today? If you subdivide them into exactly the same number of pieces and eat more slowly, it will feel like eating two. If you slip and eat two, well then punish yourself by eating only one the next day. Or you'll eat nothing at all for a day and only eat half an apple the next, and feel cleansed and somehow superior because of it: will has conquered mere appetite.

(So many of the female saints practiced something like anorexia. That's not a new observation and there are many obvious and facile things to say about the connection, but I don't think anyone who's written on that (so far) has really understood it or explained it.)

There is intense vanity and pride involved in my kind of denial. I was entirely certain that we were special, that I had some sort of magic insight into his person. I had such unshakeable confidence in what had been before that I simply 'knew' that he cared about me.
This deliberate starvation never meant that sex stopped or that he stopped speaking about himself, his feelings, his life, his problems. His 'self-denial' merely meant that he no longer said he loved me, he no longer asked (much) about me, and I stopped telling him anything significant about me.
It was a much happier arrangement for him. When I'd confided worries to him or pain, his immediate response would be to tell me about how much it hurt him to worry about me...and, a little later, he'd tell me how much he was hurting his family by thinking of me when he shouldn't. (Today I yelled at [child A], it was because I was caught up in worrying about you.)
I couldn't take the guilt of this. I couldn't stand the idea that my problems hurt him, and most of all I couldn't take the not-very-veiled inevitable acccusation that always came later: I hurt my family and it's your fault.
I just stopped talking about myself and about anything to do with me. I didn't tell him about any problems, I didn't tell him when I was sick, I didn't tell him any of my own work crises or anything at all about my actual self.

He did not appear to notice.

Cutting has never been an attractive way to hurt myself, either literally or metaphorically. In this case I was very slow to apply Occam's Razor, the principle that says that simpler explanations are more likely to be true.* I wasn't willing to see what I'd have seen immediately if a friend told me even the outlines of this story:

The simplest explanation for why someone stops saying "I love you" is that they've stopped loving you. Just as the simplest explanation for why someone never says "I love you" is that they do not love you.

How did I get to this place? How exactly did I wind up in a position where I'd basically be this loving and compliant Real Doll? (But never too loving or too emotional --not if it was a matter of my own emotions-- of course.) How did I wind up not writing?

Along with starvation came the inability to speak. I didn't speak of it to my friends, and I didn't write it. This was a further deprivation for me, and not entirely a willing one.
I couldn't write about our sex, because in one way it's very easy to write about sex. It's just a litany of acts which might be well or badly told. There's ultimately no point for me unless you also write about the meanings of these acts.
How could I write about meaning, when we'd stopped talking about meaning? How could I write about the meaning of these acts when we no longer spoke of it, to each other or to ourselves?

Worst of all . . . X never stopped reading me, although I'd asked him to stop.

I've never had that happen before. Various people close to me have found this blog or have read it, and all respected my wishes if I asked them not to read. Once I got a shamefaced letter apologising, saying they'd read again.
X never did that. He once mentioned to me very casually that he'd read something. I know you don't want me to read but I sometimes do.
I didn't say anything.
It was appalling to me that he'd so casually violate my wish.
He hadn't ignored my request. The reality is worse. He'd simply never taken the request seriously in the first place.
I wasn't real to him.
Instead I said nothing to him. There was no point. He hadn't listened or taken me seriously when I first asked, and asking again could only be equally meaningless to him. It'd just be more meaningless noises from a creature he did not see as real.

It was the only thing I'd asked of him, and the only thing I felt I had the right to ask. Such a small thing for him to give me: a room of my own. Pace Woolf, I'm not dependent on him for my room or for 500 (or even 5) quid a year. All I asked for was the right to close my room's door; he couldn't give me even that courtesy.

And so after this I found that I could no longer write.

I stayed and starved, and it made me sick. I could hardly bear to look anymore at my blog and the number of empty days without a post by me. The blankness was the record of my failure--of nerve, of will, of spirit...the small slate unchanged.

(*For my fellow pedants, Occam's Razor actually says something like "do not multiply entities beyond necessity". A very productive and useful principle in the construction of scientific theories, and it is also useful when one contemplates fucking someone who is married.)

The small table with the number of days the fasting had lasted, which early on had been carefully renewed every day, remained unchanged for a long time.
Franz Kafka , The Hunger Artist

posted by O @ 01:51


22 Comments:
At 07 September, 2007, Mermaid Girl said… I am glad you are back Ollie-girl...write if it helps, don't write if it is too difficult... Do this for you... Have missed you :) At 07 September, 2007, BoldnBrazen said… Wow. Once again, it's too close to home for me to say much more than wow. Bn'B At 07 September, 2007, Anonymous said… You write so beautifully about this hunger. I'm awed by the clarity of your voice in writing about such a painful and intimate experience. There are so many kinds of hunger, so many that feel pleasurable, so many you've written before that have given me pleasure. Your writing here helps me distinguish those pleasures from the anorectic pleasure of withholding. This all feels so difficult. You are so brave to write it here, to give it such a clear voice. It nourishes me. At 07 September, 2007, Blog Archive said… Just found your blog ... This is absolutely brilliant and stunningly written. I am a recovering anorexic, and the story my blog narrates is also of a noncommital relationship, in which I forced myself to suffer in silence while pretending someone who treated me very disrespectfully loved me back. I would never have thought to make the analogy, but you're right: they're both about self-denial, and some twisted belief that we can get what we want by being what others want us to be. I hope you're better now. At 09 September, 2007, Mu Ling said… I wish that I knew what to say. I hurt for you. So I'll fall back on pedantry. I thought Caroline Walker Bynumn's Holy Feast, Holy Fast was pretty good. At 09 September, 2007, Anonymous said… You know I relate to this story on multiple levels. But as a friend, I merely wish you a feast of good things. Simple, abundant, healthy and nourishing, that's what I want for you. kissykiss, chelsea g At 10 September, 2007, Anonymous said… The panther knows not the pain or joy of choice, he just eats. At 10 September, 2007, Constance said… Oh honey, Oh O, that sound sso familar. I so understand that starvation, that pain, that denial, that submitting to being treated in a way you would never do to another human being, nor accept from anyone else. It slowly erodes your self-esteem, your confidence, your boundaries become non-existent and he owns your soul and gives literally nothing in return.... It is starvation indeed, and the reward is literally to emotionally kill you. My heart goes out to you for your choice, and for the pain. Your heart was huge, his frozen and crippled and cruel. And then he couldn't even have the respect to not read you when you asked. I'd rage against him, but the reality is that who I cyber care about is you. Not him. You deserve the love, the kindness, the emotional food and warm sustenance of having someone equally giving in you life. I wish this for you when you are ready again. Wish it hugely. And send you much healing energy, psychologiucal balm to soothe your Soul from the deep hurts. May you be healed, in gradual degrees, as your heart can take it in. And so it is.... Loving Annie At 10 September, 2007, Anonymous said… I can't send you any Starbucks latte mocha ground round whipped with a cherry on top. Not that I drink any of that stuff. Mine's a simple black with moo added. Sorry. And I can say if I didn't know better, didn't we just break up? ;) Plus, I can't be very serious a lot of the time anyway. But, I can send you this: A man walks to the corner of Oxford Street and Regent Street in London during a downpour and somehow manages to get a taxi straight away. He gets into the taxi and the cabbie says "Perfect timing. You're just like Stevie." "Who?" says the man. "Stevie Jones. He was a guy who did everything right. Like my taxi being vacant during a rainstorm. It would have happened like that for Stevie." "Well no one's perfect. There's always a few clouds over everybody," the man replies. "Not Stevie," says the cabbie. "He was a terrific athlete. He could have turned professional at golf or tennis and he danced like a West End star. He was handsome and sophisticated, more than George Clooney. He had a better body than Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. He was something! Somehow Stevie just knew exactly how to make women happy," the cabbie continues, "He had a memory like a computer. Could remember everybody's birthday. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse and the whole street blacks out." "No wonder you remember him!" says the man. "I never actually met Stevie," admits the cabbie. "Then how do you know so much about him?" asks the man. "After he died, I married his wife." -L'etranger- Ps: I can also recommend watching House MD. It usually gets me in a better mood after a bad week. At 11 September, 2007, Constance said… Thank you for leaving me that sweet comment when you were in the midst of your own pain, O. You have an incredibly generous soul -- Just came by on Tuesday the 11th to say hello and let you know I was thinking of you... If only healing could be as fast as wishing... Sometimes I used to wonder how life could go on when it felt like my heart had stopped... My friends got me through. Real and cyber. Sometimes only for one minute at a time... But at least it got me here... I wish the same for you, O -- Blessings, Loving Annie At 14 September, 2007, Gracie said… i miss you O. XO At 15 September, 2007, M. Monkey said… Your blog is so moving to me and so eloquently written. I, too, wish you peace, and hope that somehow, writing will be an instrument that helps bring it to you. At 16 September, 2007, Constance said… Good Sunday afternoon the 16th to you O ! How are you doing ? Thank you for commenting on my Mhmmm Yes erotica blog, b.t.w., in the last few weeks ! I’m still writing there. Sigh. My hormones wouldn’t let me quit :) You are a dear. I left you an honorable mention in today’s ‘thank-you’s. cyber hugs and smiles Loving Annie At 20 September, 2007, Anonymous said… Love is essential. Sex, mere accident. Can be equal Or different. A man's not an animal: Is a flesh intelligent, Although sometomes ill. (F Pessoa) At 23 September, 2007, Anonymous said… You break my heart, woman. I've also tried to starve myself in this way. It's a terrible way to die. Hug. At 30 October, 2007, Clea Summers said… Reading your post makes me think, I know, I know, I know. I've been there so many times before; your post forces me to ask, am I there now, still in the stage of starving myself while believing I am full? Or am I truly able - even requiring - a slimmed down diet of love, to create space for something new to bloom, whether that's something new between him and I or something new altogether? I do not know. I only know that in your analogy, you compare your relationship to being half-full all the time while actually starving yourself. I know that when I find myself here I justify it by telling myself that my little tiny undernourishing love is better than no love at all. In order to move past that, I must open myself to the love coming in from everywhere else, and realize that by starving myself in that relationship I am also keeping myself from having the love that might be mine from the rest of the cosmos. At 19 November, 2007, Anonymous said… thank you so much for writing this post... i really can't begin to describe how it has hit me right in the middle of the heart... it is nice to hear a name for it... i extend my gratitude to your gracious writings... At 27 November, 2007, Zoely said… This is beyond brilliant and so so so real for me, too, right now, tho i know you wrote this months ago. At 27 November, 2007, nope said… Okay... so my first time reading you. I found you through a link by a bloggy friend who is feeling this same thing right now. I have been here before. I have this poem that a friend gave me... it really gets me through when I am feeling something like this.... Not necessarily in the relationship sense at this point in life but just in general... I am going to post it on my blog today for her...and you... if you want to stop by and read it it will be there...or I can email it to you. Let me know. You captured these feelings beautifully... Take care of yourself. At 16 December, 2007, Anonymous said… Thank you, you put into words the feelings that I cannot convey...nor confess. May everything will turn out well for you... At 14 April, 2008, selkie said… How odd to come across your blog - through another - and read this entry - the starving, the cutting, the strangled voice - I know them all - and just recently - you mention in your blog, how saints were anorexic ...http://www.thestar.com/article/413989 - serendipity, non? I hope that your life is improving and a door opens ... selkie At 11 June, 2008, moonheart said… I find your blog thru 'Blood,sex,crimson.' This writing about the hunger artist moves me very much. I was in a simular situation a year ago. Your writing is so beautiful and made things clear for me, thank you. I hope you're in a better situation right now. Whising you all the best, sweet greetz from Holland, mo
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