Hunger
I've hungered for the day
when I'd be able to look in the mirror
and say I loved myself.
But that day never came,
and the grumblings never subsided
I only hungered
more and more
as I watched
the perfect ones
the models
my size 2 friends
be the beautiful ones
the popular ones
the loved ones
and I starved to be them.
I starved for the attention they received
I starved
but they fed me
fed me lies
fed me tight jeans
Fed me make up
Fed me things I was not ready for
That my body could not handle
Fed me things that would change myself
Then I could be loved
Then I could be fed
No longer would I starve
So I ate
And I ate
And I ate
And I still hungered
hungered to be accepted
hungered to be them
I was never full off me
How could I ever be full off me
Who was I
But a hungry child
Who ate
But was never satisfied
Who was I
But leftover scrapings of the beautiful plate
Who was I
To be loved by anyone
Not even by myself


Ciera 

My mother glows now as she tells me during each visit of her Atkins weight loss. At 35, I still cringe and change the subject. Her talk of diets and weight forms the soundtrack of my childhood and young adulthood. Her preoccupation is just one of the many influences that have caused me to struggle with weight and body image in my life so far. Truly, my entire life. I cannot recall a time, at any age, of feeling content with my body. I loved ballet class as a little girl, and jazz dance as a teenager, but both groups emphasized slender, lithe bodies. My body type can take forms ranging from taut to squishy but, at 5’3", lithe is not in the cards. So, no matter how lovely the dance, the body was never quite right.

In junior high and high school, I learned that obsessive compulsive overachiever girls can excel at unhealthy extreme dieting. I competed with the other cheerleaders in the "I only ate a cracker all day today" competitive dieting, and celebrated each time my weight dipped dangerously below 100 lbs. The less healthy and more thin I became, the more praise and admiration people showered on me from all directions. Friends, relatives and strangers all voiced their admiration and asked "how did you do it?" No one reacted negatively to the response "not eating." Many said they wished they had the will-power. When my weight fluctuated up to 109, my mom took me with her to Weight Watchers meetings. At 16, I was the youngest person there by about 20 years, which I’m certain would not be the case today.

Weight angst has nagged at all my accomplishments. At my graduation from high school as the valedictorian, and from an Ivy League college, and from an Ivy League law school, I wondered as I collected my diplomas, "do I look fat? Will everyone laugh that I’m so fat?" At each of those events, my weight was average and healthy for my height. As a trial attorney, I occasionally wondered as I argued about the salacious details of an alleged crime, "do the jurors think this skirt makes my ass look big?"

Today, my weight has crept up. I must grudgingly admit that I am 15 pounds overweight, even by American standards. And despite being an avid exerciser (I ran a marathon in 2004!), and a yoga practitioner and teacher, I cannot begin to approach the issues around food. The topic is so polluted and corrupt and inflammatory in my mind that, as a person who plans everything, I can’t begin to formulate a rational food plan. I can either push the issue from my mind and eat with no bounds, or revert to obsessive anorexic extreme restriction. There is no moderation. Try as I might to focus on health, I still find myself sometimes fasting, or sitting in front of the tv with a tube of Pringles.

I look at my mother and I must confess that, to me, she looks remarkably similar with or without the extra 30 pounds that she has gained and lost throughout my life. It is the recurrent weight of self-loathing discontent on her face that is more revealing than any scale. I recognize it easily in myself. I cannot remember feeling any other way.

J.P., age 35

From the looks of it everything appeared to be fine. I mean I had a roof over my head, a mother who loved me and food in my stomach. In the inside it was another story. My father was an alcoholic. I've been living with this burden for my entire life. He would always tell me that things are going to be o.k. "I'm back to normal now". When I thought about it, there was no "normal" dad. This was the only one I ever knew. So how do you deal with and absent father? Anyway but this.

Potsmoking was the beginning. It got to the point to where would steal $10 to $20 out of my mom's purse just to get a dime. Ninth grade was a complete blur. I lost best friends and replaced them with my dealers. So, that continued for awhile until I found out about all the prescription drugs. Talk about a fix. They were always at my fingertips, but obviously those got old. Finally ninth grade was over! Maybe I can get out while I'm ahead? Nah, starting a new year with my all time best friend of 5 years is here to share the "high school" experience with me.

We were inseparable. We did everything together including drugs. Started smoking again, acid, ecstasy, you name it we did it. Sophomore and Junior year went by so fast. I met my boyfriend my junior year. We started going out and have been together ever since. Then cocaine came into the picture. There went all my checks from work. Everything was gone. It wasn't until he got locked up I realized that this game isn't fun anymore. Who would have thought I would be visiting my boyfriend in jail for the next month?

After he got out things changed. We got clean and I realized how pure this relationship actually was.

I felt many different things while I was on my little "trip". No one time was the same. There was nothing to expect. All the drugs did something different. Not only did I lose around 15 pounds, no matter how much concealer I used; I couldn't hide the bags under my eyes. The pants that used to fit "skin tight"; I could barely keep on. My appetite dwindled and so did my mind. I honestly think for over a month I didn't crack a smile. Nothing could really make me happy. It didn't hit me until my best friend told me how skinny I looked. She even said that if I didn't stop, we would end.

Now that the whole thing is done, I feel a lot healthier and my confidence has risen. Honestly, I do think about those days and wonder what would have happened if I would of remained that active. But I snapped out of it and realize how lucky I am to have gotten out when I did.

Katy, age 17

I am now amused when my mother relates the story of when, as a very young child, I simply stopped eating. Thinking that I was quite sick, my parents took me to the pediatrician, who also happened to be a professor of my dad's in medical school. He took one look at me, happy, rosy-cheeked, and diagnosed that I had been overfed and had had enough! Imagine my father's embarrassment at being found out by one of his mentors that he fed his daughter too much!

Years later, whether connected to that early experience or not, the obsession with food -- and even more loudly -- the message that there was no way to be TOO thin if one wanted to be perfect -- got planted deeply in my mind and soul. As a teenager, I actually regularly slammed my hips into large pieces of furniture, thinking that if I did it enough, my hips would shrink. Black and blue, no thinner, but still obsessed, I put myself on every imaginable legitimate diet and exercise regime and, when the results were still not satisfactory, I stopped eating altogether. Whatever it took to look perfect, be accepted, be pretty....One of the questions I used to identify myself in my senior Yearbook profile was "if I only drink iced tea all week, then will I be thin?"

Being thin has been a life-long obsession and I've happily availed myself of amphetamines and other stimulants, and dulled the nervous, can't quiet sit still feeling with alcohol or other drugs just to hide from the fact that no matter how many accomplishments I accumulated, no matter how much money I earned or successes I racked up, perfection would always be, not only elusive, but impossible.

I've stopped punishing myself for not being perfect and have found a way to accept who I am, the good, bad and the ugly. I'm deeply grateful for the many gifts I've been given, most of all that I can recognize them. I try to use them well. I try very hard to be humble and not judgmental, although those nasty thoughts when looking at an overweight person about "how can you possibly be so out of control?" do come into my head now and again. But I know what to do with them and to just focus on my side of the street and to just try to do the next right thing, and not to hurt any body, including me.

Gabriele Gossner, age 52

Had i been a participant in this i could take credit for it all
i could say that i am all powerful in my tragedy.
That i martyred myself, he didn't martyr me.
i gave him my body; he didn't take anything from me.

That's where the blood came from. Three spots.
One at each place he caught me as I crawled away.
Each a cry.
To the familiar Father
Son and Holy Ghost beauty marks on his face which i couldn't see.
My eyes wouldn't let me watch his face as he bleed me.
Kneeling to pray-
Begging each of the holy trinity to grant me mercy-the biggest stain on me.
When he held me still told me it would be a longer ordeal if he never got to cum.
Pounding
Pounding
Pounding
My heart wouldn't stop pounding..
Blood to my brain from my heart pulsing down my legs.
Innocence leaking out of me
The pounding is the thing I can still feel.
The excuses come.
He cums.
He must have thought I was enjoying it all.
That I sacrifice myself for his satisfaction regularly, so he took the libertyAnd nailed me to my own cross.
That's where the blood came from.
Three spots
When he martyred me.

Had I been a participant in this I could take credit for it all

D. Ervin, age 18

A part of me I only I see ….

When asked to write about self-destruction, I never thought I would be able to do it. Having to admit to people that I was hurting myself was hard to do; it was even harder when I had to admit it to myself. My whole life has been nothing but pain and destruction so naturally I began to blame myself for what all went wrong in my life and I punished myself. Growing up I lived in a home with a mother who was on drugs and her husband molested me for 3 years. My mom was always sleeping or in her own world and never gave us a moment of her time, she never cleaned the house, did laundry, fed us or treated us in a motherly manner. She yelled at us, kicked us downstairs, smacked us in the face and told us how much she hated us and how much of a bother we were to her. She let her husband molest me and when we went to court she told the court I was lying and took his side over mine. She even told me to lie about it so he would not go to jail, she always only thought about herself. While going through the court battle my Mom was no longer allowed to have custody of me. And I was allowed to live with my Dad, something I wanted to do for a long time. My dad was my hero at that time and I was very close to him. He always stood by me and never let me down, he helped me put the man who molested me behind bars for 15 years and never me the way my mother did, I thought we would always be close and we were until I started high school.

Growing up I tried to put the past behind me and start over. Only I began doing it the wrong way. While in my junior year of high school I began to start drinking and living the so-called party life. Lying to my parents about where I was going and drinking until I was sick. I also began to smoke and became sexually active. I thought it was the cool thing to do and for once thought I would no longer feel any more pain. I thought it would take away all the bad things I had hidden away for so long. When the alcohol and cigarettes were no longer doing the trick, I began to cut myself and lashed out at people because I had so much hurt and anger built up. I was in a world I could not escape from. Although I no longer cut myself and my anger has gotten better I still drink and have sex. I love the way that I feel when I am drunk and its some thing I am trying to get under control. I have become the girl that never makes her father proud, the girl her mother can't stand to look at and the girl who looks at herself everyday and thinks why me? I want so much for my life but I am so wrapped up in all the routine of the party life that I can't break loose of my habits. I am close to my friends and even though they may not be the best influence they love for me. I don't want to let go. I am hoping that with getting out of high school and by getting away from my home and stressful life I will be able to find out who the real Ashley is and love her for who she is. Something I have wanted to do for a long time. I no longer want to live a life behind beer, sex and cigarettes. I am ready to break my routine.

Ashley M., age 18

Who wants all that flesh for bouncing around
Inch for inch and pound for pound?
Maybe big boobs are somebody’s bag,
But for me, less the boob, less the sag.

Jamie R., age 46. Remembering a poem she wrote in high school in celebration of her "A" cup bra size.

The year was 1969 when I turned 13. We ate dinner to the sounds and bloody sights of the Vietnam War on NBC. I was buying my first training bra (no wheels!), while thousands of women all over the country were burning theirs. I grew up with "Father Knows Best" and the "Donna Reed Show," when Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem came along and informed us about the "Feminine Mystique."

Abortion was illegal. I didn't even know what it was. We dressed like little girls with big eyes and lace, yet wore "hot pants" and see-through blouses with faux fur vests. I wore "sanitary belts" with pads, and bellbottom hiphugers. At 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights my family would settle down to watch "Laugh-In," the ground-breaking show of that era - complete with painted women in bikinis shaking their booty for the camera. The civil rights riots were at an all-time high, and Detroit, 30 miles from my home, became the murder capital of the world. The freedom of my childhood changed when I became a young woman, and my boundaries were encapsulated. Life was confusing and violent.

Now the year is 2005, and my daughter is turning 13. I won't turn the TV on during dinner, because we would eat dinner to the sounds and sights of the War with Iraq. Carolyn is wearing her first bra while billboards, magazines, and TV shows discuss breast implants, lifts, and push-up bras. There are more "women power" genre books than I ever could have imagined in my youth, and abortion, at the time of this writing, is legal and safe. We discuss the politics and ethics of abortion in my household. My daughter uses "maxi pads" and wears flare pants. Some of her girlfriends wear belly-button popping midriff tops and low-slung pants - so provocative in such young girls. I don't let the kids watch much TV because most of the programming available during family hour isn't family-friendly. What they do watch is confined to the "Family" cable station, where teen-based programming regularly includes scenes involving sex, drugs, and clueless parents. VERY different from "Happy Days." My daughter has little freedom as it seems the bogeyman is everywhere.

I'm going to have a hard time articulating what I perceive the differences to be. You can understand by reading the above what the similarities are. I see young girls today as meaner, more aggressive, and more "worldly" in a sexual way than I was at this age. The old adage that they're "growing up too fast," is true. I had a longer childhood. My young womanhood was ripe with innocence. Sexuality today is in our face every time we turn around, from toothpaste commercials to the ads on the back of buses. I have a lot of explaining to do - something my mother never did with me. It seems young women have a rage that is misplaced. In the 60's and 70's women's rage was channeled into changing the status quo. Today it seems that they turn this rage inward by "eating their own." In the 70's we were encouraged as women to "act more like men" - read, sleep around. But I think a lot of us paid this price for going against our own grain. I wonder if today's women are, or if this sexual acting out is rage at the still male-dominated, oppressive country we live in. I don't know.

Kay, age 49

I cannot ever remember NOT being fat. Chubby little girl grew to a fat teen and an obese adult. My peers were cruel, but my family more so. My twin brother (normal size in every way) tortured me. The words "big , fat , ugly pig "still echo in my mind on bad days. I was an embarrassment to my overly intellectual mother, who kept hoping I would "slim down" . She watched me, made special (terrible in the eyes of a 10 year old girl) foods for me, sent me to camps, left weight loss articles on my pillow . I fought back. I was a master at getting into the kitchen quietly, secretly to eat the forbidden foods. My body got bigger, it betrayed me as a teen. No proms for me. I hid behind my intellect and learned to use my crafty skills with a needle and thread. To this day, both serve me well professionally. Lemons/lemonade, I suppose. What IF, I was normal, popular, pretty, had cute clothes? I don't really know. It is now and I am here, still living in my body. The one I have, right now.

For over 20 years I have made myself an experiment-this diet, that diet. Some balanced, some insane. I lost weight, gained weight, changed sizes, up , down. My hair fell out, it grew back. My body got smaller, bigger, and all sizes in between. What was I doing to myself, would I ever stop?

Ironically , I make part of my living making people look beautiful in their wedding gowns. I use to wonder what will they think of me when they first meet me, but I am pretty much over that now. I am really good at making them look beautiful in their wedding dresses, and now I feel that’s pretty much with the clients think. I teach about clothing-how to design it, how to pattern it, how to put it together. Again, the old thoughts are -what do they think of me? The new thoughts are , I am much loved in my department and I know my stuff. Maybe I AM the superficial one with my negative thoughts.

I also make part of my living as a massage therapist. Wounded healer theory. - I was so touch deprived growing up that I wanted to learn how to touch people. Rewarding work. I found out I have great hands and a compassionate demeanor for this work. The education in massage school helped me learn about the body, even my body. People come in all shapes and sizes; you don't always know that over the phone.

In 2000, I had a flare up of a recurring health issue. For the childhood years of a very old school physician, who linked all my problems to "being too fat", this was and is truly not the case. I was hospitalized for 5 days, I vowed to take better care of myself. Insights can come slowly, but not in a negative way.

By 2003 my weight was sky high. I felt terrible. One thing led to another. I started at Curves - they welcomed me and my big body. They showed me safe ways to exercise. We adapted things I could not manage. I took an interest (versus obsession) in better nutrition. I began swimming laps again (which I love). Was I a fat woman in a bathing suit? Yes, but at the lap pool no one cares ! Through my friend and guru Thomas, I met Stacy Sims. I told him repeatedly that I was way way way too big to try Pilates. He insisted I was not. I met Stacy at a seminar. We did some simple stretching and breathing exercises. I thought to myself, if THIS is Pilates, sign me up.

When I went for my first lesson, I saw the Reformer machines. I said to myself, "there is NO WAY I can do this." I got on the machine anyway. They showed me, patiently and carefully what to do. We made adaptations for me. I kept showing up for my lessons. I loved the way I felt with the stretching and the breathing. Pilates works your core muscles-the abdominal region. I have a very big middle. It was as if I were finally addressing the part of my body I disliked the most, after a half century of living in my head. One day, after months of lessons, I actually FELT the muscles in my core area (after 50 years of being numb). Amazing stuff - the body /mind /spirit connection. People started to notice-better energy and coloring, improved posture, spring in my step, and diminishing waistline. I decided to consult a nutritionist. She helped me manage my blood sugar levels. I am no longer sneaking into anyone’s kitchen to eat "forbidden foods".

What is my "true body"? My true body is big, and powerful and strong. It serves me well. It gets me where I need to go. It teaches me how to take care of myself.

I encourage everyone to like themselves more!

Ann, age 50

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