.This letter is triggering all around, this is a warning.
If you laugh because I’m fat now, know this: I wasn’t always this way. I was once a normal weight, with dreams as bright as anyone’s, but I know that I come from pure dysfunction, even at a young age, I always understood. Repeated sexual abuse, coercion, sexual assault, abuse, and neglect from my childhood and adolescence has caused me to cope in ways I will forever be reminded of, etched in my skin. Growing up surrounded by criminals, I was forced into a life of compliance, always protecting them, because in our world, you never go against the family, and if you do, they will utterly destroy any credibility you have, and impose tyranny in ways where you have lost your own agency. A character assassination so extreme, it would leave you unrecognizable to everyone, even strangers, and even yourself.
If you compare your body to mine, because you know you look better than I do, please know that I am all to aware of that. The rage of potential of what my body could be has angered me since I was a child, unable to know what its like to have a normal intimate encounter, unable to know what my body could look like, what I could do with it. What you don’t see is the story behind this body, the battles I’ve fought, and the pain I’ve endured to still be standing here, and how I almost lost my life, and in many ways, I already have before I knew how to tell time or tie my shoes.
If you feel better because the pretty woman is fat now, because my size no longer threatens your fragile self esteem, I hope the comfort is worth the cruelty. You don’t see the person I was or the struggles that brought me here. All you see is a reflection of your own fears, masked by laughter at my expense.
Every morsel of food I shove into my mouth feels heavier than it should, not just with calories, but with the weight of your laughter. Every bite carries your sneers, your whispered jokes, the way your eyes linger just a little too long, judging. I know what you think when you see me, hear me, even when I try to shrink into the background. You laugh as if my body is your personal punching bag to take your aggression out on, as if my pain is something to amuse you. But you don’t see the war raging within me, the reasons behind every bite. To you, I’m a spectacle, to me, I’m surviving.
But one night changed everything. It shattered who I am and silenced a part of me forever. That was the night I lost more than my innocence, I lost my voice. I would never sing again, I would never dance again. I would live a life in complete isolation, as this narcissist severed all of my connections through a malicious character assassination, to protect his own image.
I remember my absolute terror as I was running down a side street with no pants and no shoes on, it was raining, and I was slipping all over the wet bricks and leaves, trying to make it home. The last words out of his mouth was a maniacal laugh "Haha, Yeah! That's what you get you stupid bitch!"
Looking behind me, the thoughts racing in my mind that if he got me again, he might kill me, and I kept repeating to myself over and over, at least I am alive, at least I am alive, at least I am alive. I am still alive. He did not kill me, if I can just get home, I will be safe. I am still breathing, I can make it home.
Home to no one, I had no adults to turn to. I was utterly alone and terrified, and would keep my mouth shut, until now.
This night would forever change my life, and I would go to school the next day as if nothing happened, unable to sit at my desk after being sodomized. I was sodomized because I was on my period, and this enraged him even more. My body stores this trauma, and I would go on to suffer seizures every monthly cycle until now, for 15 years. How many times I have fallen on the floor. This has affected my life in ways I cannot describe easily.
I was held by the back of my neck like a dog and brought to his closet. I was walking home after being with my friend as we went on our evening walks like we always did, talking to each other about everything like we always did. We walked past this man downtown, and he would then spot me, and rush to the street I was on to get ahead of me knowing I would be there. He was pacing back and forth, freaking out, he would accuse me of being a whore for walking outside. This man abused me horrendously for months prior, textbook narcissistic abuse. I had no one to defend me, no one to protect me, I was on my own. We were not together at this point, as he had already done the narcissist discard phase where I no longer served him so he threw me out. I had not seen him for months, he simply spotted me walking, and absolutely lost it on me with accusations that were entirely made up about me being all around sexually deviant.
This is one instance in my life. Yet, I have a myriad of abuse that I have suffered. I grew up protecting abusers with my silence. Throughout my teens I would end up in extremely abusive relationships. I grew up with those who to protect the predator, would spin tales about how I was mentally ill, and did not recall memories properly. My seizures began before I was 5. I remember passing out in kindergarten often, and it is the same as now, it is only after I was raped, that it became cyclical rather than erratic.
For the record, I have no mental illnesses, I do however, check every single box of autism, not that it matters anymore I suppose. I have been extensively working on myself since high school to ensure I dig myself out of the trenches of the hell I was born into. Yes, since high school, I have been parentified. I was forced to grow up too fast, to carry burdens I wasn’t ready for, and to shelter those who were supposed to shelter me. The weight of responsibility became my constant companion. And in the process, I lost myself, struggling to hold everyone else together while barely holding on myself. I harbor an immense sense of responsibility, so much so that it became impossible to give myself even the smallest bit of grace. My needs were always secondary to others, and it left me with a body and soul both heavy with the weight of what I was never allowed to put down. Not a single day was I late for school as I walked myself there. Not a single excuse have I ever given myself. There is a peculiar pain and suffering that comes with not being able to have the grace, compassion, and support in being a normal human being, of having what I call the luxury and privilege of experiencing failure without a catastrophic outcome. These individuals give it to each other every day, except to me.
I have put so much work into myself, fought so hard to rebuild what was broken.
The decision I made to be on my own was a decision I had to make too young, to be sleeping on a park bench, rather than ever be around any of them again, their insidious abuse, their accusations, the way they protect each other in their criminal activity, the strings they pull and the connections they have. The audacity of their self righteousness is nauseating to me. This is why I lost my life. This is why I lost my innocence. I paid the price in ways you will never understand.
So, if you laugh because I’m fat now, please know that I am well aware of how my body is forever ruined. Every piece of food I put in my mouth to get here was one less word I could speak to confront those who abused me. Every bite was a shield, a way to swallow my pain when I couldn’t speak it aloud.
My silence protected them, not me. And now, my body carries the weight of that silence, and your ridicule. You’re laughing at my survival, at the way I endured.
You don’t know the weight of the words I’ve swallowed, the wounds left by the ones who should have loved me most. You don’t know how many times I’ve begged for it to stop, only to be met with laughter and disdain. You will never know the depth of the pain that’s been etched into my skin, into every part of me you now mock. You will never know the trauma my body has kept the score of.
What you don’t realize is that every cruel word, every mocking glance, is another stone thrown at someone who has already been buried.
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