If I were to think about all the binge eating I've done over the years, the food probably equates to eating everything served on the average American's Thanksgiving Day table x 200. I can't even calculate the calorie count but still, I did it because it brought me things I felt I couldn't get anywhere else. I remember as a kid, getting up in the middle of the night and sneaking breaded veal patties out of the freezer and cooking them in the microwave at 2 o'clock in the morning. I would smoother them in cheese and mayo and slap them between two pieces of bread. It was hot and delicious and tasted amazing, even now the memory is making me smile. And why? because it was something I was forbidden to do. It was my screw off to the world.

See, I love my mother very much but we are extremely different people. Growing up, my mother had a vain streak in her a mile wide, though even to this day, I doubt she'd ever admit it. She was always dressed to the nine's, every hair in place, makeup done perfectly, and on Sunday for church, out came the high heels and the fur coat. She was the epitome of style and virtue. Even when I was young, I thought it was pretentious, we were a blue collar family. 

She would monitor what we ate, my brother and I. If she made cookies for dessert...three was the limit. No more, we could never have any more than three so as I got older, I made sure I always found the biggest three in the batch. I think it pissed her off, which brought me silent joy. I remember as a kid, my grandfather (her father) telling me I should loose weight, I was fucking SEVEN. My mom never defended me, she told him she was "working on it". I remember thinking I must be a worthless piece of crap. That feeling stayed with me for quite a long time.


I didn't figure out till I was in sixth grade, that I had been molested. We spent some time every summer with the best friends of my parents. I loved them very much, I called them Aunt and Uncle. They had six children, two girls and four boys. The second oldest boy was 9 years my senior, meaning when I was five, he was 14. He was my first case of "puppy love" and everyone thought it was so cute. It ended up being a relationship that would warp my perception of myself and men for decades to follow. I remember him on top of me in the barn, in his room, in the camper. I remember wanting to stop and then him telling me it was ok, he did this with Kim. I idolized Kim who was a neighbor of theirs', I wanted to grow up and be just like her so this can't be wrong because Kim did it.
Every summer for 5 years, this was my life. And then, one day, his brother caught him having sex with me in the cubbyhole under my brother's desk. I was 10, he was 19. I just remember the two of them having words, a lot of whispered anger. I remember his brother telling me not to worry, he'd make sure that never happened again, and it never did.
The damage however was already done.

Late fall of that same year they called all the girls into the gym at my school to have the "talk" about periods, how they worked, why they happened, why they didn't happen. I had not had my period up until this point, I remember walking home convinced I was pregnant. I was terrified about not only what it would mean to me, but about what it would mean for him. I got home and spent the next 2 hours in the neighbors back yard slamming my stomach against a fence railing where we had removed the chain link so we could pretend to be gymnasts on the bottom of the uneven bars. I didn't want to be pregnant so I knew if I got my period I wasn't so I just kept beating my body against the metal again and again and again.


My mother spent years thinking he was a great Christian boy, attractive, athletic, fun.
I think eating was a way of silently giving her the middle finger, as if to say, "oh I'm sorry and I letting you down by not being thin and beautiful" She couldn't pretend I was something she wanted me to be because you can't hide fat. By being fat, she had to acknowledge there was a problem. Eating was the only thing I had control over to upset the apple cart. and scream out for help.
When I look back at pictures now, I see that after the first summer being with him, my weight jumped over the next school year quite a bit. Each summer with him added more weight, maybe I was hoping he find me as disappointing as mom did with each pound I gained and find me unattractive and stop.

The summer between my seventh and eighth grade year, we didn't go to Indiana and they didn't come to Illinois. That was the first time I felt free, I spent the hot months of the season working out and got in the best shape of my life. I felt amazing. I've been looking to regain that sense of wellness I had that summer for the past 30 years.