Skinny

[tomb_raider]

All my life I was told I must be skinny. I was already an underweight child at birth and that stuck with me no matter how much I tried to eat to look healthy.

When I got older, around the time of my parent’s divorce, my father forced my mother to starve herself almost to death so she would be pretty and skinny for him. She ended up in the hospital and in a mental facility for 6 months.

My father impressed on me the need to be perfect and skinny and beautiful. The less weight I had, the more bones that were showing, the prettier I was. So I began starving myself too.

I starved myself for years with no one noticing, eating only the littlest amount I could to continue living. I began to hate even the necessary fat on my body that protected my organs from damage.

I would step on the scale and if I went up in weight even the slightest bit I wouldn’t let myself eat for two days.

I moved out at 16, but I still wanted to be skinny. I wanted to see my ribs showing and I wanted no fat on my thighs or my stomach. I didn’t even want breasts because I considered them useless pockets of fat.

My lowest weight was 94 pounds. I couldn’t seem to get myself any lower than that. I went from barely eating to not eating and only drinking fluids.

This made it easier for my ex to tie me down and rape and sodomize me whenever he pleased.

After three years of repeated sexual abuse and beatings he got bored of me. Said I wasn’t pretty anymore and he’d found someone else.

This devastated me. I spent all my life trying to cut the fat out of my body to be pretty, to be acceptable, to be perfect. I couldn’t look at the scale anymore, I couldn’t put all the work into starving myself anymore. I was 19.

I couldn’t deal with my heart pounding out of control when I tried to do something. I couldn’t deal with seeing my ribs, seeing my wasted body, seeing my breasts flat and saggy from not having enough to make them what they were supposed to be. I couldn’t walk long distances, I couldn’t carry even a full water bottle for very long. I couldn’t help myself or anyone else. I was disgusting and broken and unhealthy.

Now I am 21, thousands of miles away from my abusers. I am 106 pounds, so close to my first goal weight of 110 pounds. I’m so fcking proud of myself for how far I’ve come, how much healthier I look now.

Please. Please please please never starve yourself. Never put your body through all that work. If you’re a woman, you won’t be able to have kids. Never do this to yourself. It isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth the fake compliments. It isn’t worth looking pretty in others’ eyes. You’re beautiful just the way you are. You’re a gorgeous human being, exactly the way you are.