Galloping Head
By: Clayre Benzadón
My time at Galloping Head, the treatment center program I reluctantly entered into, hadn't been a rollercoaster ride so much as those whirlwind spinners that you see at the Fair. I choose to avoid the usual metaphor, because sure, the ups and downs are there, but I at least sort of like rollercoasters, the anxiety of them and all that built-up tension, whereas I hate spinning rides—just the look of them makes me sick. Plus it reminds me of the movie "Uptown Girls", and older Brittany Murphy versus young Dakota Fanning together are iconic. The journey never ends; it keeps on moving the way the planet moves: slow and yet so fast.
At the start of Galloping Head, I was a walking skeleton. I hadn't much to say, my bones were practically sticking out of body, and all I knew was that I wanted to die and needed to leave this place. Desperately. My time at G.H. felt endless, like I would never leave. I counted the days in meals. In how many groups we had left. In books. Then it was eventually in making jewelry.
The first day I got home from the program, I remember crying, hugging my mother, at 28, telling her I was scared. Did I mention I didn't want to be here?
At some point, the depression left me and a new form of alive took over. But it was a mask of another illness. I wasn't sleeping. I had so much energy, I needed to release it by going to the gym every day. I thought I was "happy" because all I'd felt before that, for months, was a hollowed out, muted version of myself. I sacrificed everything to try to cope with whatever the fuck this new energy was: literally spent all my savings, all my energy. To become what? New? Myself? Who was myself? I'd always been interested in writing a memoir, but now I had the real MEAT. So there you go Galloping Head, I'll give you that.
I was a yelling fiend. Combative. I hated everyone. You know the song by Halsey, in her album Manic? Fitting, I know. Well, that's the theme song, the backdrop of my life during those moments. I was angry at my therapist; I was mad at everyone at this center. I wanted OUT. I wanted to be able to have control of myself, without anyone else involved except the people I was hanging out with and eventually sleeping with late at night. I was angry at all but myself. And that was my biggest mistake. Because I didn't see the amount of damage I had been causing, to those around me, and mainly, to myself. I was walking on a bridge on fire and every step I took left a mark, left people falling and crumbling underneath my feet.
So then when I came down from the shit that was my life at that time, what was left was relief from those around me, but left out of me was an overwhelming feeling of guilt. Of shame. The person I was then was not me. I'd never been angry before like that. I'd not fucked around so much. And lastly, the part that hurt(s) the most: I'd never spent so much money in my entire life. Nor did I ever have that kind of money; all that money that I'd saved up, been frugal about: gone, in the blink of an eye. That's why I use that metaphor in the beginning: the spinning looks slow on the ride, but the gravity is so fast, you don't recognize it until you're off and feeling the aftereffects: the nausea, the terrible pain of whatever it is that took hold of you, that you couldn't control.
I'm still recovering from the repercussions. But Galloping Head taught me that life throws a lot of shit your way, and you have to be ready to get back up from it, because life keeps moving no matter what. I don't have trouble eating anymore, and sometimes the stupid thoughts creep up, but I don't let them win these times. I'm at a healthy weight and I beat the eating disorder. Lastly, I have a job that I'm starting to become better at, or even good at, I think. I have more control of my persona, my presentation. And my students: my students are good. And now I'm in the headspace to handle this, them, even sometimes my own world.
Bio: Clayre Benzadón (she / they) is a queer (bi /pan) Sephardic (Mizrahi)-Askhenazic poet, educator (adjunct professor) and activist recovering from depression and an eating disorder. She has been awarded the 2019 Alfred Boas Poetry Prize for her poem "Linguistic Rewilding." Her chapbook, "Liminal Zenith", was published by SurVision Books in 2019. She has been published in places including SWWIM, Olney Magazine, and Blue Stem Magazine. Find more about her here: https://www.clayrebenzadon.com.IG | X