sometimes i miss being sick

confessions from therapy (pt. 4)

Content warning: Eating Disorders

Over this past weekend, I decided to stop bringing my phone into my bedroom. Not to force myself into some technological withdrawal or to punish myself for grossly out-of-hand screen-time metrics. But I have been struggling mentally, and as I work in small increments every day to get in touch with how certain thoughts, behaviors, and experiences show up in my body – overthinking them all as aside as I can manage – I am starting to notice where certain habits are not helping.

While I’ve long since ceased being a bedtime doomscroller, my phone is still the last thing I touch at night and the first thing I touch in the morning.

I let metrics from my Oura ring tell me what kind of day I’m going to have.

I let the New York Times tell me how doomed I am.

I let the pile of notifications waiting for attention steal away any potential for peace the morning could offer.

I open Substack, and I scroll, and I scroll, and I think about how all I’d like to do is lie under the covers and exist only in this safe space.

Then I am defeated before the day even begins, knowing just how not an option this kind of safety is for me today.

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So, in a fit of inspiration over the weekend, most likely fueled by the lovely and omnipresent Sunday Scaries pressing in on my consciousness, I moved one of our home’s Google Hubs onto my nightstand and moved my phone charger to the hallway.

And on Sunday night, my first phone-free night in my bedroom, I turned all of the lights red and sprawled out on the floor (there is truly nothing like lying on the floor when you are overwhelmed, don’t ask me why, just try it).

As I lay there, limbs splayed, soul bare, anxiety crept in with the onslaught of thoughts that love nothing more than to fill a silent space. I rallied all that I know about breathing and connecting with my body – a never-ending struggle – and I allowed this back-and-forth war between body and mind to be. Discomfort and all, just let it be.

Then, quite suddenly, I was overcome by the need for a pen.

Now I am not a journaler… though I suppose I consider my presence on this app a medium akin to journalling. I certainly am here, rawly expressing my inner woes.

But never once in my life have I felt the need to log my feelings in a notebook.

Here I am, though, learning to listen to my body. I don’t judge the impulse, but quietly get up, find a pen and a long-neglected notebook on my bookshelf that was likely given to me 10 years ago as a gift.

I crawl into bed and touch pen to paper. Here is what came out of me: