I Never Said I Didn't Have Issues

Dear YOU, this... this... THING,


Oh, hello. Yeah, uh, didn't see me there? Well, I'm here, and I have something to say to you.


You haunted me today during my lunch hour as I walked by store windows, trying to soak up the sweet winter sunshine. Catching my reflection and wondering what I did to deserve this body, and then, what my body did to deserve an owner that hates it so. You haunted me as you have done, so ruthlessly and without fail, for almost thirty years. I have spent those years crying over you, cursing you, hating you, yet having no idea how to get rid of you.



But I no longer have the energy to devote to you. I have leaned on you too long. Relied too readily on your easy solutions and quick-fixes to problems that, as it turns out, do not go away with one, or five, or twenty bites. I'm sick of you, and you have drained me. I cannot let you rob me of another precious second.


You spun your web of lies around me, hugging me like a warm blanket and having me believe food was my friend while truthfully making it my enemy. You made my twenties difficult and my childhood hell. How lovely it was in fifth grade, being the only girl with big boobs - heck, with any boobs - so that I could constantly hear the laughs and whispers behind my back. Or how about sixth grade, working in the lunchroom, stuffing my face with the lunch lady's homemade peanut butter cups while the skinny girls outside crowded around Laura S. to see how long she could do the flexed arm hang. I never could. Up, then right down. No strength to be had in my chubby little arms. 146lbs. That number would haunt me all year. In high school, Guess? jeans, proms, and boyfriends were denied me, but you - you were always an eager date. You leeched onto so much of my childhood joy, coaxing me onto scales and slapping away food from my fingers, all the while luring me into the dark corners where secret stashes of candy and Zingers waited to be found. The loneliness and shame of being a sneak-eater was covered by the innumerable rivers of melting chocolate sliding hotly down my throat. Defense mechanism? Who knows? All I know is you followed me into adulthood, never allowing me to outgrow you but instead tagging along for the slow, plodding ride.


Quickly! Quickly, before Mom-Dad-Sister-Husband-Friend-Boss walks in!! Who cares if you have to stash it in your desk drawer or get up in the middle of the night to do it! Just open wide, chew fast, and DON'T LET ANYBODY SEE YOU!! Guilt is an appetizer; self-destruction and hatred always the main course.


Making me constantly compare myself to friends and family members, wishing to God I could just have their bodies for one day. One day of happiness and thinness to make up for a lifetime of blubbery, smooshy self-consciousness and hatred for myself.

Even when I was on the tennis team in high school and college, you were always there, making sure I was a few more steps behind on the runs and a few breaths more exhausted on the drills. Thankfully I also had real talent which allowed me to claw and scratch my way around you so that I could almost feel normal, and feel like, despite you, I could be good at something. And worth something. What a fool I was. You got me. Your barbs dug into my flesh, and I couldn't seem to get the hook out.

Do I even have to mention the Army? Nah. You know.

I'm sick of you making me feel ashamed when I walk down the street, furiously trying to get from Point A to Point B, wondering if countless strangers are noticing just how much I am not sucking in my gut. You kept me trapped in a relationship with a terrible, awful man for three years because I didn't know I deserved better and didn't know I was worth so much more. I certainly wasn't worth being honest to when he said he didn't want to ever get married and have kids, only to find out that he was married sixth months later to a woman (with a child, no less) he had been seeing behind my back the last year we were together. All of the signs were there - everybody said to get away from him - but I was so convinced no one would ever love me that I couldn't break away. Now someone does love me, and he loves me for who I am, no matter what I look like. The self-esteem I have found because of this man is astounding, but not as astounding as realizing how bad it was before, and because I know how much farther I still have to go. You have taken away many things from me, but you won't get what my husband has given me. You don't get to have that.

You still get under my skin, though. Every day. You even convinced me that the best way to deal with the back injury that still haunts my husband and me is to eat. "You're broke? Eat. You're tired? Eat a little more. You're feeling sorry for yourself? Eat! Even though the food has no taste and will never truly satiate you. Even though the hole inside will still be empty, no matter how many cheeseburgers and french fries you throw down it."

What's really been amazing is that you've taught me how to hide all of this. My personality - of course, I have to have a great personality, right? - has covered for almost all of my flaws and insecurities about myself. No one has ever truly known what I have suffered inside all of these years, how truly crippling it is to hate myself and the body I've been given, and to not be able to stop the cycle of abuse I've put myself through over the years. To actually listen to and believe the stuff that some people felt free to say to me is the worst disservice I could do for myself, and I've done it, with a smile on my face and, "Oh, that's okay, I know what you meant. Don't worry; you didn't hurt my feelings."



You're trying to get in again, to consume me with sadness over the death of my father and the whereabouts of the person I've tried to be but have never quite been able to understand how to get there. Trying to figure it out and fix it before I pass these horrible feelings of inadequacy down to my future daughter, should I have one. There is no way I will let her do to herself what I have done. She will be far better than that. She will be herself, and I will love her for it and never make her feel like she isn't good enough. NEVER.



Hey, I'm not mad. Oh, no. I don't have time for that. That's another wasted emotion on you that I choose not to give you the satisfaction of stealing from me. Thirty years is as far as you get to go. This is where you get off.



No, actually, I'm happy. Happy that you drove me to this point. Happy that tears of shock and horror sprang to my eyes at the sight of the pictures of myself that my uncle sent me - taken during the worst time of my life (after Dad died), and certainly, as the photos can attest, looking the worst I've ever looked. DO I REALLY LOOK LIKE THAT?!?


Yo. "Weight Problem." Yeah, you. I've named you, I've called you out, and now, I swear to God, I'm gonna fight you. I've threatened you before, made resolutions and false promises, but you never really believed I was coming after you.

Oh, believe it now. I'm done with you, and I want you gone.