Who is the Wolf?

My son has this book by Eric Carle, Hear Bear Roar.  It's a typical Carle book with his stylized illustrations and press-to-hear-buttons attached to a tablet beside the pages.  Anyway- there's a button to press to hear a wolf.  This morning we had deep discussions (and belly giggles) about the accuracy of the various animal sounds.  When E pressed the wolf, and I happened to glance at the corresponding photo, well... 

Talk about a trigger. 

During my last- and to date most physically devastating- relapse I finally, angrily, acquiesced to seeing a therapist.  I struggled with relinquishing the punishing self-loathing that kept me from healing but did realize that at some point I would have to heal.  Or I would not make it.  

You see- my disease is as strong as me, stronger during those times when grief or fear or loss of control allows her prison walls to weaken.  In my late twenties (well documented earlier in this blog) those walls crumbled and she came out swinging and I was defenseless against the assault.  

Many moons and so many fewer pounds later at a tall 89 pounds- I was dying and she would not let go.  

So week after week I dragged my sickened, weakened carcass to an unobtrusive brick building, climbed one flight of stairs to an unobtrusive second-floor doorway, and knocked.  

In the middle of one of our sessions my therapist had me sit with my self.  She had me sit there, in her quietly cream-colored office, and close my eyes.  She had me think, or not think.  She let me let my mind wander for a while.  

And then she asked me to describe what I had seen, felt, smelt, visualized, experienced- whatever.  

So I did *shrugs*. 

I had witnessed a wolf.  A she wolf.  A rangy, wild, angry thing- hungry for something I could not feed her.  Lonely, cruel, hurt... I had sat with my self and instantly conjured this beast into being.  I saw her so clearly caged in a dense forest, pacing a clearing.  I heard her as she growled and whined.  I stepped back as she charged some imaginary threat, relaxed back into voyeurism as she paced some more, alone with herself.  And me.  Still it was that anger that drew me in.  Hypnotic in its intensity, her anger was like her- trapped and desperate to escape.  All that anger was pain and her pain was palpable.  

I could feel it and she could feel me and- 

"Who is the wolf?" my therapist asked.  

"What?" I blinked.

"Who is the wolf?" 

She didn't lead me, would never have said "you or the anorexia?"  But I didn't know how to answer her.  I didn't know who the wolf was- me? my disease? the part of me that was dying? the part of me struggling to just get over it all?  To be perfectly honest, to this day I still don't know the answer to that question.  I don't know who the wolf is- but I do know that she is still with me.  

What I have come to understand and accept is that the wolf has become mine and I am hers.  What we are to each other beyond that is something mysterious and often frustrating.  In my bones, in the essential parts of myself, I don't believe she is bad.  

But I do believe that we are sharing space meant for one.  Which sometimes feels like it is occupied by three.