They hiss “narcissist”, the word flattening to slip between their teeth, yet that is not the right word. That is not the correct disorder.
My reflection has always been a stranger. In my dark youth, she mocked me, tormented me. Yet, once she lost her teeth, she remained an other. Even now, after these decades together, I study her, mesmerized by any capture or reflection.
I have no solid sense of my physical form. My consciousness feels too expansive, too malleable to align with the flesh. I know my mind, could recite the wrinkles between memory, emotion, trauma, and motivation. The paths are deeply carved and familiar. Yet my own appearance eludes me, shifts and changes in the photos and mirrors that transfix me.
I do not take the pictures to worship my form, rather to trap it in an image so I might get acquainted with it. So I might know myself. Then inevitably to scrutinize it, to evaluate each curve and angle and compare it to my twisted expectations.
Would I feel like her if this changed or that?
Is this what I look like to other people?
When I glimpse a me I like, a me that seems to resonate as true, I post it. Not to be showered by likes and comments but to be seen, to pin it into existence, to hope that it is me and someone else agrees.
***
It has been a while since I have posted an update, particularly a personal one. I have been happily distracted with posting Scream fan fiction.
The mini post above has a touch of truth to it, a vein of accuracy. Maybe it always has but especially now when I find myself at odds with my body. I suppose I have always struggled with my body due to my profound ungratefulness. Now, it has rewarded me by undermining the care it used to take of me.
I won’t delineate the details because they ultimately don’t matter and I have a medical chart to hold them. For a couple years, my comfort in my flesh steadily declined. In tandem, my mind stumbled downward, lost in the dark sea in my chest (ahem, Mid-Life Terminus).
Recently, my doctor has finally found some treatments to reduce the more dire symptoms. Suicidal depression, constant discomfort, bloodless digits have been quelled for the most part. Yet that calm allows the smaller, more superficial ailments to shift into focus.
And so, even without the pain, my body does not feel like mine. Even more than usual, I do not recognize what I see. I don’t feel right in my skin, like I belong in a different form. I want back what I never appreciated.
This all has me confronting my vanity, what I consider to be defining and important about myself. My mind tells me one thing, but my emotions refuse to heed it. The expectations I have do not align with reality, and I cannot seem to accept the gulf in between.
So what is the point to all this whining? Nothing. It is all just a little context to the small piece that spilled out of my head. Sometimes, we like to hear where things came from.
Christina Bergling
https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling
Like my writing? Check out my books!
- Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
- The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
- Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
- The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
- Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
- Horror Anthologies
Fiery Pen 