mirror ~ March 5, 2004

Look at me, bitch. You look at me when I’m talking to you. I know you hear me. You can’t escape me, you weak piece of shit. Oh, are you going to cry? Poor baby. Pathetic. Are you happy now? Is this enough yet? God, how do you live like this? Look at you. You are so worthless! Do you feel it? Is it burning yet? I know you feel it. I know what will make it all go away. I know what will make you feel better. Come on. You want it so bad.

Meet the other. Look into her cold eyes. Listen to her thick, persuasive voice and her vicious laughter. See my insanity glaring back at me from behind the glass.

I don’t know exactly when I met this other, when the mirror stopped reflecting me. Maybe as I descended into that black insanity, she slowly slipped into my reflection’s skin and was waiting for me when I was ready to break.

Her cold eyes met mine when I began to hurt myself. She smiled as she watched me heat up the curling iron or handle the blade. Her words screamed all of my self-loathing in my head. She reminded me of what I was and showed me how to forget it.

Just one more. Just one more, and you’ll feel better. Come on; it’s just one more. Those were her words. Those were always her words. One more sounded so simple, so insignificant. What was one more compared to the gravity of my sins? She knew this. She knew everything; she knew all of me because somehow she was me. So persuasive. Just one more. How could I refuse her?

She stared back at me in every mirror at every party, her sober eyes glaring from the reflection’s drunk body. She met me every morning getting ready, every night before bed. She laughed as I ran for tissue in a crying fit and nodded approvingly when I brought the knife. Her words were always in my veins, dancing with the alcohol, her breath in the smoke I sucked down. Her touch was on my skin when it tingled and burned, when it begged to be slashed. Her voice was always in my mind, pushing for one more cut, encouraging another drink to wash it away, talking me into bed with some guy and laughing when he left.

She sometimes quoted my father or his family, who disowned me, or my mother’s caring disapproval. She delighted in reminding me of how I failed them, of how I disappointed them, of how I was not ever good enough. She smiled reciting their painful words and rekindling my pain in them.

In the discovery and diagnosis of my disease, I have realized that she stood against me in my opposite cycle. When I was depressed, she laughed and taunted me from mania. Oh, look at you. Pathetic and weak, crying again. What the fuck are you upset about now? You have nothing to be upset about. I am so sick of you! Get over yourself. Suck it up, bitch. You’re chasing them all away. They’re all going to leave you again. When I was happily manic, she slouched behind the glass, reminded me of what was to come. Yeah, laugh and smile, you fucking idiot. You know you’re coming right back down here. Enjoy your five precious minutes. You cannot deny what you are. Nothing is ever going to get better. Don’t try to deceive yourself. She always opposed me, always contradicted me in every form. She made nothing easy for me and manipulated my every mood and though.

I still see her from time to time. I fear the mirror when I am drinking. There is a weakness in alcohol that she is all too inclined to take advantage of. She may also infect my reflection in the extremes of my cycles. In the ridiculous highs and disgusting lows, I am teetering on the edge of control and also easy prey. But for the most part, she has dissolved into a haunting memory always echoing in the back of my mind.