It feels like cancer is slowly spreading, capturing, suffocating, burning each cell in my body in its path of destruction.

Everything hurts to touch yet all I want is to be held. Somehow that will make everything better. I want my body to speak, but I’m in so much physical and emotional pain that I also want to be numb.

The protectors say food fuels the painful, cancer-like destructive path. Stop eating and this will all go away.

Where I want to be right now is in the arms of ultimate safety: blanket, closet, therapist. An emotional hurricane stirring inside is trying to escape and all the gatekeepers are in full-force protection mode but I want them to leave, so I can stop feeling so sick. I need help keeping all parts of me together. I need embrace. I need soft reassurance and co-regulated breaths and to witness unwavering faith.

I used to have an incredibly high pain tolerance and now it’s extremely low. Because, I’m not willing to tolerate abuse—past, present, or future—and noticing all of it is awfully painful.

Hold me, please.