When Your Body Changes

I was in sixth grade when I started eating two meals for dinner.  For the next three years I would gain fifty pounds.  My Dad told me if I kept growing like this I was going to be as big as he was.  I knew it wasn't a compliment.

I was introduced to twelve step groups in the spring of my freshman year.  I was being taught that what was happening in my home was not my fault.  I didn't cause it, I couldn't control it, I couldn't cure it.  I needed to focus on my own recovery - to get through each day and rebuild myself from the inside out.

My parents divorced the summer of my freshman year.  I don't remember anything about changing my eating habits.  By senior year I slimmed down quite a bit.  I think I know why.

I was working my own twelve step program.  It was hard and it was lonely.  High School presented it's own challenges. I wasn't part of the popular crowd, the drug toting crowd, the drama/music crowd or the sports crowd. I was part of the normal crowd.  Even then I didn't feel like I fit.

I had a lot of acquaintances and maybe a handful of friends.  Maybe three best friends.  I kept to myself but I wasn't a loner - you know, not creepy.  I was funny, sincere and stuff like that.  And then God brought a teacher into my life.  But that's for another time.

I believe the weight was going down because I was working my program and my self-esteem was going up.  It had no where else to go but up.  I had a sponsor (Gail R), was writing my first fourth step and dealing with some of the yuck.

I was beginning to feel safe.

And in that freedom, my body began to change.

For it, too, began to feel free to change for it was no longer needing to shelter the abuse.