Safety

What makes you feel safe? Is it knowing that you have a home to call your own, friends who keep your secrets, a spouse who loves you no matter what, or a combination of these things?

For me, safety has been being overweight, to be full to the point where no one can see inside me. It meant to be surrounded by and covered with weight so no one could get to my core, the place where the real me survives.

Slowly, ever so slowly, that is changing.

Weight has been a form of protection, a barrier from and for others for a lifetime. To change that takes great courage and introspection. Looking inside and at myself is something I rarely do. What I see frightens me and causes me to want to run away from that.

What do I see when I look deep inside? I see someone who is small and scared, someone needy and wanting, someone desperate for intimacy but so scarred that I run from it when it's offered. I see someone who wants to be less shy and more open, less restrained, happier, and more content with my life. But I haven't known how to do that until recently.

Shining the light on the messy stuff is hard. Working through the weight issues means not just losing pounds but getting my head on straight. My mother suggests weight loss surgery but that would only solve the problem of the pounds not the actual demons I battle. When you live feeling like you are unloveable, that you are not worthy, that you are not enough, it does not matter whether you weigh 110 pounds or 210 pounds. The feelings are still there and the pounds will come back if that is how you deal with things.

Food is slowly but surely losing its hold over me. I have cut down to one small frappe a week. I no longer go to Dunkin Donuts for bagels or cookies. I can order a pizza and it can last for more than one meal. It sounds silly but these are small victories for me. I am doing battle against diabetes, against obesity, against these feelings of being less than I am.

I am slowly winning but this isn't a race, it's just a journey that I need to take.