averting my eyes

i don't know when i started doing this, but i've noticed that i avert my eyes near mirrors, windows, puddles - any surface that reflects. i refuse to see what i've done to myself. i just can't look.

i suppose that was the intention, when i started gaining weight 12 years ago. to become invisible.

after being raped at age 18 by a friend of a roommate i'd known for 7 days, i adopted some of the standard coping mechanisms: drugs, sex, dangerous behavior, building walls. i had a sweet boyfriend who stuck by me, a few close friends, a campus full of acquaintances and party buddies, but i usually felt alone, sad, hateful, hopeless, and apathetic. sometimes i would drink and blackout, walk alone down a dark street, whore around, let go of all control. i did this to prove to myself that what happened that night wasn't my fault, and i could act the same way i had that night over and over and over again, without the end result of being assaulted. i needed to recreate the scene again and again, to prove that his actions caused my suffering, not my own. and sometimes i would completely disconnect from everything and everyone, scared and unable to leave my room.

i stopped caring about myself, my body, my life. i just didn't care. i did. not. care. but time passed, and life went on, and i got through it. talking about it helped - i never shut up about that rape. i made t-shirts for the clothesline project, i spoke at every take back the night, i trained to be a rape crisis counselor, i wrote short stories and poems and letters to the editor about it. talking about it made me feel better, and less alone. eventually i started to get on with my life.

when i was 22, like some sort of cruel joke, i was raped again. this time, by a coworker. most people don't know this. i talked a lot about the first time, because i needed to talk about it to get through it. the second time, i just couldn't. what would people think? rape me once, shame on you. rape me twice...

i pushed that agony down deep, and instead of talking about it and thinking about it and dealing with it, i just drank. and this time, with no sweet boyfriend to save me, i fucked around, a lot. there were times when i almost even forgot it happened, but it was always there under my skin, even after the purple handprint and fist shaped bruises disappeared.

i hit a point where i just couldn't stomach the physical contact anymore. i knew why i was doing it, and just felt disgusting. so i stopped, for a long time. during that time, i abused a lot of drugs and drank constantly. there was this night in november of 2003 when i was so high, i had visions of my childhood best friend - at the time, dead 9 years already - coming to tell me if i didn't stop snorting amphetimenes and not sleeping for a week at a time, i would be dead like him. he warned me that i was about to die.

i met a psychic woman a few days later (i didn't 'go to a psychic' but rather, met her under some strange circumstances). she said hi and told me she knew my friend had recently visited me, and that he was worried about me. she knew so much about him, and she knew that he'd come to me earlier that week, and she pulled me aside from my group and asked if i would please get help.

that day, i quit doing drugs. i slept for like, 3 months straight, and woke up starving. that's specifically when i remember starting to pack it on. i don't remember ever saying to myself, "if i gain weight, maybe men will stop raping me," but that's really what it boiled down to. i started eating because i was no longer doing a ton of drugs, and because without the drugs, i felt really exposed to the world and needed to find a way to hide. i needed to put a few layers of something between my body and the rest of the world. i needed to become invisible.



all these years later, i'm fucking invisible. when this all started, i was 18. that was 12 years ago. if you average it out, i've gained 10 pounds a year and literally doubled in size since it began.

so here's the thing. i'm absolutely terrified of exposing myself again. the drug days are far behind me. the blackout drinking days are over. the empty sex, the stupid risky behavior, it's all over and has been for years. but i never stopped adding layer after layer of protective fat to keep me safe from the rest of the world.

until yesterday.

so there's some of the back story. i've told you how it started, and this blog will be to tell you how it ends. how i decided that enough is fucking enough - i don't need the protection anymore. i'm ready for the world to see me again. i am ready to stop averting my eyes, and really start looking at myself again.

i'm about to turn 30 and my life is going to change.