I seem to reward myself for bad behavior, and while others don’t understand it to be bad, it gnaws at me. Grows like a tumor, because even if an accident, or happenstance, I still seem to shrink, but not before my body rebels and solidifies into making me gorge on fiber until I lose the nerve and rush to other means. I’m not supposed to do it on purpose, not like Lori, and I hold myself back, convinced that my weight-loss is not an extension of my personality, but I cant help but admit I’m obsessed with the scale. Obsessed with an anti-me. My therapist doesn’t see the pattern, and maybe she is right, but I am too busy worrying about becoming obsessed that I have become obsessed with being obsessed. A hundred and seven pounds, and I have had to seriously fight to control myself not to create harm, and when my stomach doesn’t seem to want to let go of food after days, I can’t help but go to my medicine cabinet, find the laxative, and let my body suffer in such an embarassing way.
I watched Lori do it, and I swore I wouldn’t. But I am, even if for the sake of relief, of release. And I swear it’s not a habit, but that means nothing come every Monday when I have to be the beacon at the group weigh-ins, to mark some kind of false sense of hope for others. They call me an inspiration, and even if not intentional, I feel like I have been cheating.
My grandfather asks me every time I tell him about my weight-loss, “Are you sure you aren’t hurting yourself?” and I am reminded of the decades of humiliation he wrought upon me due to my obesity. What right does he have to ask of harm when he helped drive me to four hundred and more pounds? Maybe this is punishment for all the times his words cut deep enough to make me keep eating in anguish. Maybe I’ll just keep losing long after I hit my goal until there is nothing left– not even dust to be carried along with the wind.
Thoughts like that make me worry that it has evolved from lifestyle change to pure, unadulterated obsession. The kind I have seen time and time again.
My family has always been riddled with addicts.
