I have had a distorted body image my whole life. My mother and both my grandmothers were on me about my weight even though I wasn't overweight when they first started this. I just wasn't the skinny toddler and young child they were used to. After a while I would sneak food, eat when nobody was watching and I did become overweight. I did manage to lose the weight during my freshman year of college by drinking nothing but diet shakes. I was ashamed of this and kept it a secret from my friends. I didn't want them to judge me because it seemed that they could eat whatever they wanted and still maintain their slim figures. Later I discovered I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which did not help with my weight loss goals. I would drink my diet shakes in stealth, when nobody was around, sometimes even going into the bathroom where they couldn't see me. Whenever I went out to restaurants with my friends for those late night get togethers that people in their teens and twenties tend to do, I would only order a drink, something like iced tea. It made me feel isolated that I couldn't order food like everyone else.

In my 20s through my 40s, I moved to low carb. Deprived myself of anything with grain, cut out all gluten. I was convinced that this was the enemy. Supposedly this was the magic bullet for PCOS. This also had me feeling isolated from everyone else. Even worse, I got bullied over it. My sister-in-law would sigh in exasperation, "You're ALWAYS on a diet" and make fun of my food choices. For example, the family wanted Chinese and I agreed only if I could order it and she yells loudly, "I want mine with LOTS OF FAT AND LOTS OF GLUTEN!" My mother was fond of saying, "I don't know why you're not thin. You really don't eat anything."

In the past few months, I think I am finally on the road to recovery. I started doing a step counting health program through work and began tracking my food through an app. These days, I eat pretty much what I want to, not restricting anything from any food groups, just watch my portion size. I am down over 20 pounds since January and weigh less than I have in a long time. I try not to let my mother gloat about her weight and her bugging me about my numbers on the scale bother me. For the first time since I went on that diet at 12 years old, I feel healthy.

My secret is that I struggle with self deprecation. I tend to convince myself that I deserve all the bad crud in my life and more. It's the reason I'm still with a friend who doesn't care about me, and the reason I started skipping meals, the reason I didn't say anything about my depression for the longest time. I'm working on it though, I've been to therapy and I'm eating normally again. All thanks to my best friend who I only just got close to this last year, she's probably saved my life. I'm still working on becoming a better person but I know that as long as I am aware of my flaws I can keep improving my strengths.

You know, I’m pretty open about my issues on the whole. OCD, SAD, GAD. Anxiety up the ass. What I don’t like to talk about much is the intrusive thoughts. Often, for no reason, these little voices pop into my head telling me things. Sometimes ordinary obsessions: “You’re not good enough, you’re ugly, you’re fat, everyone hates you and they’re right to, why are you even here anyway.” I can deal with these. Then there are the less-pleasant ideas, thoughts of murdering people or killing myself, carving pictures into flesh and hearing the sick gurgle of a slit throat. Once, sitting in the passenger seat on my way back from the city at night, a first-person video flashed behind my eyelids of reaching over and wrapping my hands around my mom’s throat - the fear and betrayal in her eyes, her spasming hands jerking the steering wheel over to the left, a kaleidoscope of neon signs and taillights blurring in my vision as we crash into the concrete at the side of the highway. She’s dead on impact, but I last until we spin and collide with another car. Funny, isn’t it? My therapist doesn’t think so. Not that killing my mom is funny, but it cracks me up that I can’t stop this from happening, since it stems from a neurological disorder. I guess that’s my secret. I’ve never told anybody and I probably never will again.

every second my teeth grazes your skin,

i just wanna bore it deep-

deep inside your skin that your soul would bleed of ink

i want my tongue to decipher every second,

every inch of you-

to familiarize the staleness of your skin.

i want your plump almonds on my mouth -

as i suck out of breath

and your back arches in heat.

i want your meat so bad

that everytime i think of it,

my feet curls in reminiscence

of the young night i had.