Interesting session. Over the weeks since TM I have thought quite a bit about my displeasure with myself, specifically my body. An uptick on the scale since the seroquel increase has me restless and anxious. I was happy watching the scale hover around 115. It was acceptable to me, though I really wanted it ten pounds lower. I was liking the return of the hard angles, and less curves. I traced the little shelf forming above my hipbone. It was getting closer to where I wanted it, but it all changed. Instead of angles, the lines are softening. I grumble to myself each morning as I take stock of my body that day. I know every inch, and each flaw. I know just by that morning inventory exactly what the scale will say. I try to avoid it, and even go so far as to avoid looking at it. This may go on a few days, but eventually I climb back on, needing desperately to prove myself right, or wrong with my body weight guessing game. It has risen each week. I am frustrated and angry. I know it will continue, unless I figure out a way to stop eating everything in sight. The seroquel driving this enormous internal emptiness that can only be filled by eating. It is a ravenous feeling, as if days have passed without a meal, despite having just eaten. In this frenzy of food I sample just about everything within the four walls of our kitchen. I am compelled to eat, and eat. It disgusts me. I feel like a cow, lumbering from one patch of grass to another. This will go on until finally I tear myself away. I have tried everything to avoid this, but each night I find myself once again on the prowl for another bite. It doesn’t even taste like anything. There is no sense of anything actually appeasing my appetite. I hate this, but I know it is better than the free fall I was teetering on. All I can think of is I’ll end up like all the other fat people. Too stupid and lazy to do anything but stuff their mouths. No meal large enough to fill that need. Super sized does not even come close. Meals become 3000 calorie debacles. It is what I see all around me, it is what I see when I close my eyes. It haunts me every time I put those two white pills in my mouth every night. They unteather me from my ability to say no, and to control what is going on, it is an awful powerless feeling to yearn for food like that. It is just disgusting. I fight to work enough of the ridiculous calories off each day. Knowing that it is a never-ending race to stay ahead of the all to frequent consumption that marks every evening.

I don’t want to keep running, but my brain insists. It flashes images of the morbidly obese in hopes I keep on going. I can’t out run this one. It is there every day with each ounce added. I don’t know how to accept myself, and where I am. I don’t know why it is so terrifying to me when I reach a certain weight. I don’t understand how my distortions are so great. When I looked at the TM pictures I realized I was pretty much the same size as my friend, yet for all the years I have known her I longed to be that small. I would stand in proximity to her thinking to myself, why can’t you be like that? All I could think of what how enormous I was in comparison. I would berate myself later, and look in disgust at my body. The day I looked at those pictures should have enlightened me. It should have broken thru, but it hasn’t. I still pull and pinch at any small increase. Thinking the ugliest of thoughts to myself. Where did it all go so awry?

We discussed androgyny, and my prepubescent self. It is true I was a lanky angular kid. Always running and playing and riding. I was boyish, and never much noticed. Often mistaken for a boy, if my hair was cropped short (that continues today). The abuse took place when I was very much still a kid. I had no breasts, nor a period. I had not reached a point in my life when biology would interject and shift my body into an altogether foreign object. I don’t much remember that alteration, though it did correspond to a change in parental guardians and a new school.  I found a different way to blend in. I made like I was like all the others, even though I wasn’t. I would dutifully put on makeup and fuss with my long curly hair. My mother tried to feed my misery. Each and every evening she would hear about how awful the kids were as she heaped food on my plate. I ate, and ate. My weight increased, and my body changed. It was a difficult time. I hid in large clothes, and avoided looking too carefully at myself. I was miserable. But I never said no, I kept right on eating. The date rape only reinforced my fear of men. There was nothing safe about being a woman. We were just receptacles for the vile, violent impulses that drove men. I left for school, endlessly seeing images of broken and damaged women etched in my brain. I later drew that image, and to this day have a few small pieces I drew in school. I was quiet, and withdrawn. I kept my distance and found comfort in the intelligent women around me. I came out of my withdrawn safety zone, just a tiny step at a time. I was free of the fake contrived environment of high school and had landed on a completely different planet. There was no outward hate toward gay students. They proudly carried themselves, seemingly fearless. I knew what I was. I just had to step out into that identity. Most people say it is difficult and scary. For me it was the opposite, it was like finally reaching the surface and drawing that first pure breath. It was as natural as that. Not that it wasn’t awkward and new, it was. During this time of figuring myself out, I had a young guy pursuing me. He was soft spoken and kind. Thoughtful and completely smitten. He would shyly come by the dorm bearing flowers. Often his cheeks pink as the carnations he nervously held. I spent much of my time ignoring him. I wanted nothing to do with him. Over the course of months we wore me down. I started to fall for his silly antiquated antics. I told myself it was the only way I would know for sure. I had to be with a man, outside the realm of duress and terror. I’ll never forget that night when I finally let him into me. As terrified as I was, I allowed him. He was kind, and gentle. As much the gentleman as he had displayed over all those months of silly courtship. Despite his care, it was an altogether mundane experience. It did however show me they aren’t all monsters. I realized there was nothing about him that remotely excited me. I had my eyes on an altogether different prize. She was a vet student, older than myself. Confident, bordering on cocky. Self possessed and driven. There were no question marks. Why I ever though I had a chance is beyond me. I would watch her play polo, longing to touch that lean athletic body. Each time our paths crossed I found a way to act bold. Not in a loud aggressive way, just a strategic careful placement. Amazingly enough she caught on. those encounters grew a little longer. Our conversations became a little deeper. But what was so striking was the electricity that was palpable. As much as I wanted her, it appeared she shared that. As hard as I think, I can’t remember the first time I took her to my bed, though I do remember other times. The incredible exploration of each inch of her, as if charting a new map. I was navigating the new world of my sexuality. Without anxiety, or fear. Our desire for each other seemed bottomless. I found ways to push the edges and develope my skills. As if learning a new instrument, I was driven to get it right. The harder she came the greater the reinforcement. I lost myself in this world of passion and sex. But I never held pace with her. I could easily blame it on the psych meds, but it seemed to go deeper than that. It was not enough. I could not equal her, and often found myself pretending to make her feel better. Instead I made it about her, and her pleasure. She loved sex, so it worked out well. We explored rougher, darker things. I hoped it would somehow elicit some response from my leaden body. Laying still and expectant under dripping wax, praying the pain might work. It didn’t. It left nothing more than angry red burns. We moved on to restraint of various kinds. I felt some tiny part of me coming alive. It wasn’t enough. I gave her a belt. Her eyes grew wide and hesitant. “it’s okay” I murmured. The moment the leather bit into my neck I knew we were getting closer. But she was worried and I was impulsive and reckless. We retreated back into our usual. I did everything for her, and worshipped her body. Its beautiful lines, and intricate details. I would spend evenings tracing her curves with the tips of my fingers. In the end, it did not work. I could never fulfill her needs without losing myself. It was far too great, though I still dream of her. It was better for me in the long run. It still remains etched in my mind as I time of wonderment. I wouldn’t listen, but my mind was telling me there was something very amiss when it came to my needs. I will never go so far as to label them bad. I don’t. It is clear they were formed from the multiple traumas. Just as great glaciers move to create deep valleys, my abuse altered the landscape of my sexuality. I can never forget that, nor can I judge it. It just is. Over time I have learned what I need, and what elicits a response. I understand how fear and pain lace together into arousal. In my mind they all blur together. It isn’t a beautiful brunette that gets me (though that is my type, bordering on serial killer weird), it is a brunette being injured, harmed, tortured. Had she reversed the role all those years ago, and slid from accepting to scared, it would have been different. Had I burned her with that wax and she cried out, it would have been instant. But I didn’t know much about myself back then. I just figured I needed to be in the position of submissive. In those years I spent much of it boyish, though not terribly thin. I kept myself fit, and chose to cut my hair. I even went so far as to shave it entirely. I liked the safety and the ability to go undetected. It was preferable. I spent time with other women, and each one taught me a bit more about myself. It was a strange time of upheaval as I transitioned away from the woman of my dreams (literally) into a routine of going to bars and looking. I never really played, though I watched carefully. Out of the blue that stranger happened upon my yard. Yet again, violence came into my small world. I wanted nothing to do with my body. It was useless. I found each inch of it disgusting. It has followed that trend ever since. My course was set so many years ago. It left me bitter and angry. Really by mistake I found a body I liked. By some weird twist of fate, that brought together a perfect storm of severe depression and a medication side effect, I saw the scale drop. Week after week it dwindled. I would wake up and feel the contours of my body changing. It was a foreign land. By the time if dropped to 105, I would stand for countless minutes looking at each angle. It was perfect. The stubborn fat that hung on my belly was gone. The padding above my hips completely absent. My breasts grew small, and my period stopped. I was severely depressed, but found solace in my new body. In the early morning light I would lay back and traced the new lines and dips of my torso. It was as if in a trance. I could not get enough of my new self.

It didn’t last. The hospital inforced a very strict diet, and countless calories were added in the form of liquid supplements. Slowly my appetite returned, as did the weight. It has never been that low again. I often stand in front of the mirror longing for that body. Noting each place that has never been the same. A few months back it dropped down into the 115 range and I saw glimpses of what I wanted  desperately. It was within reach. I forced myself to stay there, not withhold food in the pursuit of that angular lanky body. At the end of the day, I do like food. I find great comfort in certain things. I have never been disciplined enough to alter that. It is indeed about control. I can only control so much. I am blessed with a decent metabolism and genes of a family tree of athletes. I will always yearn to be that small and tiny frame that I see in my mind’s eye. Nevermind that I am already there. I just can’t see it. I cannot accept it as good enough. My mind endlessly rants and snarls at each ounce gained. Never letting up in having me think I will be fat, stupid and lazy in the blink of an eye. I am just too big in my distorted mind.