Third Person Singular

It’s been drawn to my attention that I regularly refer to my body in the third person.

“I don’t think my body is going to be up to that”

“My stupid body isn’t working today”

“I wish my body wasn’t so creaky”

I’m not sure when I developed this tendency. It’s like I’ve put it in a third person box because I don’t want to own up that this stuff is me. I can’t say “I’m not going to be able to” I can only manage a “My body won’t be able to”. I wonder if I have separated it so I don’t have to own up to how it behaves.

I also don’t really recognise it in the mirror, which I don’t think helps. I was already at this disconnected place where I didn’t recognise it in the mirror having shed 75lbs and 8 dress sizes. I still don’t see that smaller person (see, 3rd person view again) and then it stopped behaving. I feel let down by my body and I wonder how much I can’t see that I am thinner now because I don’t want to own this new hurty body. I almost have more problems now getting dressed than I used to – which is quite possibly ridiculous. It is rediculous, in fact. *sigh*

I wish I loved my body. I wish I could put it back into the first person. But I can’t. And I don’t understand why. I wish I wanted to inhabit it. My house. My shell. My skin. My body. Me. Other people can see it, love it – want it even…

But I don’t. I don’t want it I almost want the bigger, healthier me back. At least then my attitudes to it would make sense.

I don’t know how to reclaim my body. I’ve this nasty habit of splitting bits of me up to make things easier to handle, and it’s a dangerous trait. If I’m not careful I’ll end up with an odd split personality again. It already shows in my wardrobe, a different, older, more ingrained split, admittedly, but still. I need to not split any more. I’m not sure I can be three people at once, and stay sane. Only, I wouldn’t be, would I, because I would be me, her and my body. Two plus a vessel to be swapped where possible.

Sometimes it feels like my body is trapping me. Pushing me in directions that I don’t want to go. Perhaps this why I can’t own it; it is in charge and I don’t want to own up that it is me that can’t manage 5 days a week in the office without breaking, that I am the one who can’t shop all day, that I am the one who can’t do all the things I want to. I can’t bring myself to own the failures and I don’t want to.

So I suspect that for the short term, I will remain firmly in the third person. It’s not ideal but until I can make this work for me, that’s the way it is staying.