Strange Addiction

Though perfectionism could easily be the death of me, today it was only the injury.  Weird obsession very late last night and this afternoon with doing back bends, dropping and bending your body from a standing up position backwards and headfirst into an arch.  Had a similar obsession a couple of years ago with cartwheels, trying to intellectualize exactly how my body knows how to pinwheel itself through the air on two tiny hands.  Did about 30 cartwheels that day, trying to figure it out, and still couldn’t.  Crawled halfway onto my bed after, as I could do no more, and fell asleep for the entire day.  On one of my back bends last night, I dumbly landed my hands on a spot my big cat Geffen had just a few minutes before been laying that was covered in huge clumps of her fur, which proved a lot more slippery than I’d expected.  My hands slipped out from under my back, causing me to crash on the floor on my back and head.  I still felt this insane obsession to keep doing them after that, as I felt like a failure and couldn’t accept that, but the fall had freaked me out so much that I was bracing myself too much for most of them.  Which, even though I successfully executed them, meant soreness city.  Woke up this afternoon not feeling the pain yet from the night before, the anesthetic of being barely awake, and the compulsion had not gone away, so I did some more of them.  Was bracing myself too much again on the first six or seven, which made me frustrated with myself.  Laid down a while longer in the bed to try to relax, and the pain from the way I had been torturing my body caught up with my ability to feel it.  In agony, but having rested, I felt like I still had to do more of them, until it felt perfect like usual.  While running past the doorframe in my bedroom, I accidentally banged my left elbow excruciatingly hard on a metal piece sticking out of the side.  Winced for a minute and then got right to it, and finally did a couple that felt light, airy, and weightless, my body absolutely sure of itself.  Feeling emotionally relieved, but in a world of pain, physically, I got in the shower and tried to think of things to do outside of my apartment for the evening, so I wouldn’t keep doing the back bends that were breaking me, which, believe it or not, I still felt this sick masochistic desire to do.

Decided to go to the mall to use a coupon I had from Victoria’s Secret, and visit the Clinique counter at Macy’s to get the fun looking makeup kit that came with a $29 purchase.  As I got ready, my body would not stop quietly screaming about how much it hurt.  The muscles between my ribs winced every time I bent slightly to either side, the lower halves of each thigh shrieked every time they were bent, even momentarily, like to move from standing to sitting, the left side of my hips felt like it had been punched a bunch of times, one of my feet hurt every time any weight was placed on it, causing me to limp, my entire back from my shoulder blades down would not stop complaining even for a few seconds, I could not move my left arm past about a 45 degree angle without the internal moan forcing its way past my vocal chords, and both wrists could barely turn without feeling like they were about to break free from my arms.  Add a very intense tightness of stomach muscles, and that’s still exactly the way I feel now.  
 
Carefully pulled on a light pink heathered v-neck with a couple of wide horizontal colorblocks, one royal blue and one teal blue, and some very dark indigo subtly grainy textured jeans, pink gingham keds with lime trim, quickly affected a light easy dewy look on my face, with a very light shimmery pink on my lips, a shade from Dior called Pink Chérie, and headed off.  Tried to limp gracefully through the topmost floor of the nearly empty mall, and at Victoria’s Secret, tried on an adorable white country-looking bra with vibrant little lemons printed all over it that I found in a sale bin.  But I think they’ve changed their cup sizes to about a half size or so smaller over the past few months, because since May, every new bra I’ve tried on there in my usual size, 34D, has been just a little bit too tight in the cups.  This juicy little adorable thing was no different.  Found a white gauzy push-up bra with lots of little multi-colored florettes over most of it that had my breasts popping out of the top like two perky balloons, in 34DD, and a matching gauzy white floretted thong, and a black satin t-shirt bra, probably the most comfortable and flattering bra pattern I’ve ever found there, for which I keep going back to get more in different colors, when I get coupons in the mail, also in 34DD.  For the most part, I guess that’s my new size.  So weird.  My breasts either grew again, like they did a few years ago, though a half-size is much less drastic than 3, or Victoria’s Secret has made their cups ever so slightly smaller.  Or I was wearing the wrong cup size for the past couple of years, because I hadn’t dared to consider trying the DD.  Don’t know.  
 
At Clinique, got a soft pink and medium cocoa eyeshadow duo called Strawberry Fudge and a medium shimmery pink eyeshadow with a hint of violet in it called Bubble Bath, and my purple printed bag that came with the purchase contained all sorts of fun moisturizers and tiny cosmetics, a tiny perfume, a palette of orange and peach eyeshadows, and a Chubby Stick in the shade Mega Melon, which is basically a thick pencil shaped lip balm.  All of this certainly did get my mind off obsessively torturing myself with back bends, and a little bit off of the pain I was in.  When faced with extensive alone-time late in the evening, however, I felt the urge once again to try to prove to myself that I could indeed perform one perfectly, but reminded myself of exactly how much pain I’m still in, that I’m basically injured, that there’s absolutely no way this elbow could hold myself up in any position right now, and willed myself not to succumb to the obsessiveness.  And though some insecurity about myself remains from not doing it, I feel much better tonight just dealing with it inside myself than acting it out most painfully all night long.  I think maybe I should retire myself from doing back bends for a very very long time, maybe forever.  At least from a standing up position.  Going into them lying down does not place this potentially harmful impact on my body and has always felt more fun to me anyway.  The most fun, though, is walking around in that position like a spider, seeing how far I can travel and how many corners I can carefully maneuver myself around.  I’d also like to try a little naughty fun in that position sometime, and would probably have more stamina if I went into it from lying down, instead of just having hurt my wrists from going into it standing up, which always happens.  
 
One of the few things, the biggest one I think, that I’ve never in all my studies been able to figure out about myself, is why I never feel good enough.  No matter what I do or accomplish.  Never.  Never will, I fear.  Feels so sourceless.  And so inescapable.