NOTE: This post deals with fat, food, eating, and body image. This is about me and it’s personal. This is not a political page. Be advised that any political proselytising will be immediately deleted.

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I’m struggling with body image, food, weight… All of it. I’m worried about every bite. I feel like i’m eating too much. My body looks fat to me. I don’t feel comfortable in my skin. I’m back outside walking regularly, but the weather has turned chilly and i’m already in a chronic pain flareup. So, yeah… Suckville. I’m doing all the things that have worked before, but i’m not seeing any weight loss. In fact, i think i’ve gained.

My clothes say i haven’t. My doctor says i’m on track. My loved ones say i look as if i’m continuing to lose.

That means i have fat eyes again.

Fat eyes is the name i give the tricks my mind plays on me when i’m in a tough spot mentally/emotionally. The stuff i’m dealing with in therapy has me as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Seriously. Everything is triggering memories. This guy looks like… This song was playing when… This smell brings me back to… I’m constantly on edge and it’s exhausting. Every little noise startles me. I wake up shaking. Random, banal things scare me.

And maybe because i’m dealing with the sexual abuse more directly than i have before, my body feels disgusting. I look at myself and think i’m dirty and gross. I’m even less inclined to have sex than i was before — and that’s saying something. The closest i can get to sex is wanting to want it. Between my dead marriage and working on accessing the split off parts of me that were raped as a child, i’m having trouble envisioning a future where i’m having sex.

Where does food end and sex begin? In my story, it’s hard to unravel. Food probably came first because my mom starved me off and on as long as i can remember. Maybe she fed me well when i was a baby/toddler, but i doubt it. Rewards and punishments were mostly food-centric. And let’s not even get into what school, bullies, peers, tv/movies, and fashion did to my self-image.

Warped, indeed.

Suffice to say i’m drowning in self-loathing at the moment. I can suss it all out intellectually, but it isn’t helping me as far as what i see when i look in the mirror.

Fat eyes.

I know what to do:

– maintain soft calorie deficit eating;
– keep walking to no more than 15,000 steps or 10km;
– listen to body pain and adjust eating/exercise when necessary;
– THERAPY

There’s nothin’ to it but to do it.

Y’all hang in there, and remember, sometimes, the brain lies.
If my brain wore pants they’d be on fire right now.



IMAGE: Pexels, uncredited