madness, a bipolar life

"I am nineteen years old. I am lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a tangle of IVs. My heart monitor barely moves. I weigh fifty-two pounds. I am almost perfect. I lift my arms and admire them, bones covered in gray, dry skin. My fingers run their course over my body: the tin ridge of my collarbone, neck and chest sunken far beneath; the hollow of my cheeks, the way I can run my fingertips along the teeth underneath; the cavern in the center of my body, the way the cage of my ribs curves around the hollow and my hipbones jut up, the way I can feel my internal organs through the skin. I wrap a fist around each thighbone. My thighs are no longer round. They are just right. They don’t exist. I’ve done it. I’ve erased myself. I’ve won.



I pass out."

-Marya Hornbacher, “Madness: A Bipolar Life”