Anatomy of Resistance

I have always understood my body and my brain to be two separate entities

My brain was I: my psyche, my temperament

My body was a timid organism, its survival tethered to the workings of my mind

The same way a dog anchors its well-being to its master, thereby rendering it subordinate

With the weight of what has passed

I can now acknowledge that this ideology

Which was left unreconstructed

Has been a large contributing factor to my own debilitating battle with bodily alienation

My father told me from the moment that I could walk, he could tell I would be a runner

Like him

And he was right

It came to me with ease, innate to my lean, elongated structure

I performed in cross country

Running miles across all terrain and in all conditions: shine, hail or rain

Gliding through the poetry of endurance

And I ran track, of course

Around and around and around

Absorbing the polyurethane granules into my spikes

Until I was too exhausted to move

There was a cruel pleasure in the Melbourne heat scorching me, even as exhaustion clenched my throat

My father used to tell me

The body is evil and must be punished

And it instilled in me this notion that any level of advancement I desired was wholly achievable by the complete and utter domination of my body

Mind over matter

Brain over body

I have often wondered if the feeling of being severed from my physical self could have been softened by a gentler mother

If it could have fostered a rectification of the perception of my vessel

Or quietened the head noise amplified by my Father’s words

Ultimately halting the ideology that the body was something to be honed in the name of the mind’s success

Perhaps then I might have understood that it is really a chassis, meant to move in harmony with the brain

Equally as important

Equally as powerful

Instead

I have never been able to shake this feeling that I am senior to my body

And that made me a great candidate to become a tyrannical ruler

And the real war with my body would begin

It started as a young adult

With unqualified autonomy

To cope with my thoughts

I would run and run and run

And legs would be fine

But it was the souls of my feet that would beg for the ache to ease

Or my lower back which would spasm in agony

The body is evil and must be punished

I quickly learnt that pain was merely a receptor in the brain

And considering that the brain was I

I could dismiss those bodily signals

Not even the splintering of my shins could soften my authoritarian rule

Running ceased to be a gift and turned into a penance

I blamed my body for everything

Every missed opportunity

Every disappointment

Every failure

And with that, I pushed even harder

I craved total minimisation

Drained from endless runs and constant deprivation, my body recoiled from itself.

So terrified of its own fragility, it could no longer imagine stepping into womanhood.

It shrank away like a child pressed into a corner,

unable, unwilling to carry life.

That deep, instinctive longing — raw and animal— had vanished

At no point did it occur to me that my brain was sabotaging my body’s very existence?

It started quietly

Not an act of will — but a revolt

The body rising from its knees

A rebellion of the silenced

An attempt at equilibrium

I hated every moment of this insurrection

It felt like a catastrophic descent to a maelstrom

And my efforts at a counterrevolution only delayed the inevitable: partial recovery

Fortunately, my body possessed a quiet ferocity, refusing to endure the relentless strain I imposed

My mind held no dominion

And in time, my body would make that clear

Perhaps one night, while I slept, my body hit the panic button, every limb and organ ringing its own tiny, melodramatic bells

For a total and complete override of the brain

And in doing so, brought out every tactic and survival instinct it knew

To bring me back

Either way

I have never properly thanked my vessel

Starving, then swollen, yet still surviving

And saving us from an early demise

By clambering its way through the hellfire of my mind’s unwavering willpower

Go body! Go!

So maybe the brain is evil and must be punished (I kid)

I know now that the brain and the body are not separate entities

And to be oneself is to be both body and mind

Equally

But it took me all of my life to realise this

Because even immediately after the revolution, I still felt I had lost to my body

Like it had taken something from me

Control, my dream figure, discipline, probably

After years of back and forth,

My body was gaining weight and power on the Inner Front

I was worn out

My body was no longer dying, per se

But it had no capacity for further damage

Bulimic, battered and broken

I flocked to Marrakech on a whim

To find some form of solace, healing and peace

The keyword being some

I was not planning on soul-searching in the way that I have been

I just knew I needed to treat my body with a little bit more respect

And getting out of Paris and into a new environment felt conducive to that goal

I thought maybe I could tame my addictions

Gain some control over the maladaptive habits my body had created to survive

And reset the hierarchy of the brain over the body

I am ashamed to admit it

But yes

A part of me wanted to get away to focus on entertaining a relapse

And then my body did it again

Fought for us

Demonstrated that no matter the circumstance, it would not let me attempt to reenter the door of disease

That left us so vulnerable

So excluded from womanhood

Before I had the chance to return to ruin

I got Morocco belly from a small bowl of seemingly harmless harissa soup

And with it, the most intense intestinal discomfort I have ever experienced

And that is saying something, given someone with my health background

I looked in the mirror

Toppled over with pain and an all-consuming desire to die

I promised myself in that moment

That I would never again take for granted my health

Because when you are well, able to walk, move, consume and enjoy

You do not understand what a blessing that is until that ability is revoked

Until you are reduced to dry biscuits and small sips of lukewarm water in between diarrhoea and vomiting

My care for anything else ran dry

I just wanted my poor, sweet stomach to feel relief

I was undone from the inside out

I was fighting for its life

I was crying

I was winning?

I was purging not only the contents of my stomach but the conviction that my body had ever been unworthy

I came full circle

And wholly realised that I am my body and my body is me

There’s something darkly comedic in the fact that years of specialists and therapy could not teach me what a small bowl of soup in Morocco had

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I am now finding equilibrium

And it fills me with rapture

Because I can see how harmonious life can be at the unification of body and brain

And so I offer this unruly current of raw anecdotes to my younger self

The girl circling the track, unaware that her body was, in truth, her most loyal friend

I thank this body for its stubborn will to live

And for enduring every blow with quiet defiance

And lastly, I thank that stupid bowl of harissa soup that smacked me deadpan across the face last week

And reminded me that I am not a slave to neurological junk from the lower brain

I am making peace by surrendering to unity

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