post ii - Self War

Waging war on myself is something that I am familiar with, having been raised Catholic. At the same time, this has led my thought processes to function formulaically: sacrifice produces result; will creates possibility; following rules ensures safety and love.



I feel somehow that a background in Catholicism combined with postmodern appearance-oriented pressures, as well as a profoundly American confusion about sex, as well as a non-dormant animalistic instinct to cross swords with something have led me to suffer from anorexia nervosa on and off for the good part of six years. (Note, not since 2010).

Friedrich Nietzsche perhaps would have said that I, and scads of other women and girls (and anyone partaking in self-destructive behavior), were waging war on the self because we are a part of a species who until very recently evolutionarily, has been able to fight at will, as animals do. The fighting urge is still very much a part of our ontology, but this urge would get in the way of the mandatory structure of work and rules of society.



Fighting the self then, does not immediately put a block in this system, and it grows to be an acceptable fact that we can and do form varying cavalries aimed at our very own bodies and souls. Anorexia, alcoholism, even depression...this is a war on the self.
We feel an urge so strong to find refuge in the functionality of the system in place, that we'd sooner slit our thighs with razorblades than try to dismantle it.
Am I saying that these things are a choice? NO. I am saying that there is a boiling hot urge still within us that finds exposure, often without our permission, and that it sends its ranks to the front lines of our being.

Now I'm moving into Georges Bataille's territory...



So violence is repressed so that it does not interrupt the functionality of a system, and that repressed violence builds the steam that ultimately blows the lid off of the pot so to speak. This is when war is possible. When the steam is so forcefully building that organized war feels necessary, cathartic, dare I say....sexual?? A release?? See Erotism,



Fighting and sex. Hmm. Well fuck. This correlation is everywhere, but that's a whoooole nother can of gummy worms. Urges. Taboos. I don't think it's entirely an accident in our modern culture that the word "fuck" evokes thoughts of both sex and enmity. Personally, I litter that word into my diction like salt.



I'm going to say one more thing about the anorexia bit.... (don't hate me, I just really have to say it, now that I'm looking at it from an academic perspective). What a fabulous post modern disease! A real kick in the size 0 pants! Worshipping and wholly sacrificing the body, experiencing transcendence through starvation, and your culture doesn't even get mad at you until you're nearing death!.



And yet in the abuse of this particular disease is a worshipping of the body, all the more useful when one has ceased to worship the divine of one's upbringing. A formula, a sacrifice, a will, a promise of safety.

War. Restriction. Sex. Wow, I didn't even really talk about anorexia in relation to sex, nor the manifestation of other common modern disorders in relation to sex. Banging. Coitus. I have a different take on anorexia than just "the media." I think the media is an assistant crone to help in the diseases perpetuation, but at the core, I think it is something much more abysmal.