pulling the pin

I think I am fat enough now, time to pull the pin.

I have eaten my feelings the past 8 months, almost the human gestation period, not quite 40 weeks.

There will be no baby. There will be no joyous arrival that is celebrated.

There is however a little bundle, perhaps not so little, there are also layers.

Overwhelming shame, sadness and betrayal. I had abdicated my responsibility to myself and I felt great shame and sadness about this.

In the same way that someone I loved had abdicated theirs.

I am almost certain they felt shame and sadness.

I had self medicated with food in the same way they had self medicated with drugs, with sex, with any distraction available.

Perhaps I was more conscious of my actions. It was as if I decided. To eat and grow a layer a protection. This layer would grow and take away my waist and smudge out the height of my cheek bones, it would grow a thick protective belt around my middle. Eventually I would add more layers of clothing to protect myself. To hide my growing body.

I had manifested my shame in physical form. My wardrobe shrunk to 5 outfits.

My shame compounded, I was now ashamed of my body.

But at least now I was completely invisible to the opposite sex.

I was now safe.

Even if I wanted to engage, I could now pass under the radar, without fear I would not be seen as a woman. I was just a blob, my overgrown shadow.

An asexual being that moved from her room to her work and home again.

I saw myself in the mirror and realised that this was enough.

That I was now hurting myself.

It was as if after I had been hurt that I then had to show myself how the other person felt inside who hurt me.

So I could understand them more viscerally.

I was also punishing myself for not being perfect, for betraying myself.

I valued trust so much and yet I showed myself I could not be trusted.