A lot of lip service is paid to the importance of eating healthy, exercising, and getting enough sleep. I dismissed those ideas like they had no importance whatsoever. I rarely paid attention to those ideas in the past because on some level I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be healthy and I resented my body. In fact, I tortured it.

I could wax philosophical about my reasoning all day, but regardless of why, the fact is that I just didn’t give a damn about it. However, I need to understand the cause(s). I have to understand why I purposely abused my body before I can permanently change it.

I hated my body for so long. I didn’t hate it because I’m not some tall, blonde, super-thin Barbie doll figure. I hated my body because it was vulnerable and it made me vulnerable. I hated it for attracting my step-father, five step-cousins, my step-uncle, two of ’s uncles, two of my cousins, and a three neighbors. Fourteen people I had trusted sexually abused me. With that much , I just ‘knew’ it was my fault and the was overwhelming.

I hated my vagina, I thought it was what made me ‘bad’. After the first (when I was six) I started scrubbing it with S.O.S scouring pads, steel wool, or a scrub brush whenever I bathed. When I was seven I climbed the tallest tree in my step-grandma’s yard and jumped out of it onto one of her huge flowerpots. It almost broke my tail bone and pelvis. I wanted to break it so it wouldn’t draw them to me anymore. It was black and blue for almost three weeks. Once it healed, I was riding a friend’s 10 speed bicycle and i jumped down on the bar as hard as I could. I was bruised again for a week or two. I gave up on breaking it, but I still hurt it – I started stabbing it with nails, screws, straight pins or anything else sharp and pointed I could find.

It was all in vain. It didn’t deter my abusers, it just made it more painful when they messed with me. I wanted to eradicate any trace of beauty because I thought if I was ugly I’d ultimately be safe from continued sexual abuse. Around the time my little sister was born I started developing breasts, which attracted even more abuse.

I went to church four times a week and church camp a couple summers. I prayed to Jesus everyday to make them stop, but he didn’t. I told myself God hated me and was punishing me for being a female. When my prayers went unanswered I started begging for God to let me die. He didn’t let that happen either. When I was thirteen, I turned my back on Him just as I felt he had done to me. I renounced God. I hated Him.

I started gaining a lot of and I continued to try to make myself ugly. It became so habitual that I didn’t even notice it anymore. Getting fat didn’t make the abuse stop either. The only thing that worked was drawing up within myself – isolating myself physically and emotionally. I became an empty shell. By the time I was fourteen the abuse from others became a lot less frequent, but I replaced it by physically, verbally, and emotionally abusing myself even more.

I’m not certain why, but I have my theories. Perhaps I had become so accustomed to abuse that I had to pick up where they left off; keep myself a victim. Or maybe I still blamed myself and my body and thought if I punished or hated myself enough I would eventually pay off the debt for my sins and be allowed to find acceptance, happiness, and .

The part of all this that astounds me is that I didn’t consciously know my motives way back when. I had no idea I was methodically destroying myself and any chance of a happy life. All I knew was that I was ‘bad’ and had to be punished.

When an opportunity for happiness presented itself I rebelled and pushed it away; convincing myself I was doing it so I wouldn’t get hurt. In all actuality, I was hurting myself more than anyone else ever could. I denied my basic human right to happiness.

It’s almost unfathomable to me. I’m astonished that I did this to myself for almost twenty-two years. Twenty-two years!. I made myself suffer in a I created. What the hell? It started as a coping mechanism – a survival technique, but it almost led to complete self-destruction and my own demise.

I could beat myself up indefinitely for ruining so much of my life, but that would just be perpetuating my suffering and I’m done with that. I have paid more than enough. I can’t change the past, but I can create my future. Now is my time to heal, not suffer or die. It is my time to start living and taking care of myself and my body.

I have a new life and I’m not going to waste it any longer.

I got rid of my needles and razor blades. I have no desire to hurt my body anymore.

On this day..