23 August 2023
Dear —,
I realized in my writings that I stopped referring to my body as mine. I would rather distance myself from it— the body— as if that would mitigate the intimacy I feel of being ensconced in my own skin.
When I take my walks, I try to focus on what the body can do for me, not for others. When I take my walks I forget about performance. I forget about fawning. I am just a simple human being exercising her agency to occupy the streets.
It’s not much of an occupation but rather a tiptoe, I would say. I still try to avert my eyes while walking. I’d stare at something far or linger too much on my steps.
It’s tiresome to walk the streets as a woman. One could easily mistake politeness for malice. The body doesn’t stop itself from associating with me. It cannot exist as a body on a vacuum. For others, it is irrevocably mine.
Everything is stifling, as if being subjected to a corset for eternity with your movements restricted. One can only move accordingly to what the corset allows. That’s how it feels like sometimes to be trapped in this body. I cannot exercise my agency— its fears just take over me.
“You fear is a defense mechanism for your past traumas,” said my psychiatrist. But it is tiring to always be on high alert— to have your body in full arousal— even when the threats have long been gone. It’s an untrustworthy organism that signals and blares the emergency alarm even amidst a peaceful evening. It’s tiring. I have no more words for it but this.
***
26 August 2023
Dear —,
I’m confronted with a lot of options for change. Even though I haven’t left, I terribly sought for return. Things get so much easier when you see the landmark of where things start to get familiar again. I am walking at a leisurely pace. I don’t intend to hurry. I am trying to savor this moment but my body lives elsewhere.
Sometimes familiarity carries no reprieve, it’s just sickening. Nonetheless I walk the same old path in search of answers to questions lingering in my mind. Am I an apparition? Without this body, who am I? Without this body I cannot take these walks nor roam. There will be no room for movement then, just haunting. But what could be said of a ghost that is in itself haunted?
A ghost haunts, that’s how the usual story goes. But disembodied, we are reprised as none.
I’ve been reading this one psychiatric book and I realized that my conditions mirror that of an animal who has experienced inescapable shock. The curse goes this way: upon inescapable shock, your body assumes a mind of its own. So what we have here now is not a body but a semblance of a body. I have no control over things. I am a passive observer trapped in a flesh suit. My emergency alarms strike at random. I may be at ease but my heart palpitates 150 beats per minute.
I am reminded of Anne Boyer’s own model of the inescapable shock. According to her, I probably would have been more grateful if I haven’t been dragged off a non-shocking place. I probably would’ve formed an attachment to the one who dragged me, the dragging, and the electrified grid. Because if I remained where I was, I will forever be in my element: I will forever feel alive.
***
27 August 2023
Dear —,
What I noticed about my walks is that it makes me aware of how I inhabit my body. The proximity, the disembodiment, the disconnect. I am trying to mend a wound I cannot reach. Through these walks, I am integrating this disconnect through my psyche. I am able to flesh out the crux of the wound itself.
Much has been left unsaid. There’s no need for me to tell you the traumas I’ve been through. I don’t need to tell you all my secrets. What matters is everything else. What matters are these lapses and the attempts to compensate for these lapses.
Bon pour brûler 