I am Overwhelmed with Shame and Guilt Each Time I Eat

I have always enjoyed food and cooking, and while I sometimes indulged, it was always done sensibly.

I used to work out, maintaining my body weight. I was an esthetician, so of course, I had to take good care of my appearance.

That was before everything turned upside down. Now, I feel like I'm nothing of my former self, inside and out.

The most obvious change is my weight, which rose to a high of 58kg while I was heavily medicated with lithium. Though I've since brought it down to 51–53kg, the change from my previous 48kg isn't even a drastic one- it's not even a stone.

I tried to embrace body-positive messages, and my mind tells me that people's bodies naturally change. But my rational mind and my emotional self are completely disconnected.

Still, I am trying everything to break free from this cycle. I keep reminding myself that it isn't about forcing my way back into old clothes; they are gone, and I have new ones, something that fit comfortably.

It's about concentrating on my overall well-being, rather than becoming miserable by obsessing over a scale and neglecting my entire self.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I thought it wouldn't hurt me anymore, but they never left. Nobody ever sees them, but they are always there, doing their dirty work hidden in the shadows.

I've been doing what I needed to do to live, to survive. I was trying to work in the ways that I can, in my current condition.

It all came crashing in on me during this year's festive season because I came face to face with them. The visit was a trigger that brought all the old pain back.

It wasn't just a simple visit; it was the reintroduction of the demons that I thought had no more power over me. It brought everything back to the surface: the painful memories, the feeling of shame, and self-doubt.

These people have been making it incredibly difficult for me to live with my current appearance. For years, my look and weight were a topic of their conversation behind my back, but that never really bothered me much.

A few years ago, the situation changed when this one person began making comments out loud.

She would repeatedly say to someone else, never directly to me,

Look at you. You are so fat. You need to lose weight.

She'd also constantly made negative remarks about the food we were eating.

I tried to ignore her, pretending she wasn't talking about me and that it was just her own extreme diet speaking.

I knew those remarks were meant for me, but I chose not to outwardly acknowledge them, while deep inside, I became even more desperate to lose weight and have some semblance of my old self. But the scale just never goes down.

What's worse, they'd even called my partner to complain about how bad I looked.

While it's true I'd gained a little weight and looked different, that doesn't justify this kind of behavior - having to constantly judge me.

That I was fat and ugly.

It's not like I signed up for a pageant for them to pick me apart like that. How is one supposed to feel nothing at all from these personal attacks?

In my desperation, I resorted to self-induced vomiting, making myself sick to throw up everything I had eaten.

This time, I truly looked terrible. My face was covered in the tell-tale red dots of broken capillaries, and even the whites of my eyeballs were bloodshot. The backs of my hands were marked by teeth marks, the skin rough and worn away by stomach acid.

At one point, I injured something inside and vomited blood. It splashed everywhere, and I didn't clean it properly. My partner saw it and asked, but I was too ashamed to tell him the truth.

I had tried my best to ignore all her previous jabs, so she told me off right to my face that I needed to lose weight.

It was the final nail in the coffin. The passive-aggressive comments had finally moved to a direct attack, and I felt like a complete failure for losing control of my body.

Photo by Malicki M Beser on Unsplash

It became difficult to continue living when I felt I was being attacked for simply existing. The depression was too heavy to carry.

In my despair, I bought a rope. I rehearsed different methods in my mind - hanging, burning charcoal - but in the end, I chose to jump. As I stood there, staring at the ground far below, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Then one day, out of nowhere, my partner made comments about my food intake - a subject he had never touched on before.

Though he never mentioned my weight, his words were like echo of the collective hurt of every cruel barb those people had thrown at me.

Have you seen how you look?
Do you realize how fat and ugly you looked?
And you still want to shove those food in?
Have you no shame?

It was at that moment that I realized the poison had finally seeped into his mind.

Our conversation escalated into a major quarrel. It was in the heat of the argument that he confessed: he had asked her not to bring up the issue of my weight because he knew I was sensitive, but she had insisted on doing it anyway.

Photo by Metin Ozer on Unsplash

For years, every meal was shadowed by an undeserved guilt, a feeling forced upon me that I could only escape on rare occasions.

On the surface, I'm the same person, still eager to explore every new dish. But underneath, a part of me is trying hard not to let those cruelty poison my relationship with food.

Now, every meal we share is shadowed by unease. With every bite, I am haunted by the horrible image of myself that I imagine was planted in his head.

The terrible question of what was said about my body when they were alone consumes me. I never want to know the truth, yet the possibility still gnaws at me.

Even though I haven't overeaten or done anything wrong, I sometimes find myself hiding what I've eaten, even stashing food away.

I tried to push it away, believing I had finally gained control, but I now realize I had simply internalized the abuse. The abuser's voice has become my own, a cruel internal speaker that keeps attacking me on a daily basis, each time I eat.

This experience has affected my sense of self, leaving me to feel ashamed of myself for doing the basic thing for survival.

But the other day, knowing they would come over, I searched my limited wardrobe for all black hoping they would hide my fat ugly self.

I wanted to shut the door and not let them see me, but it was the festive season. I should have at least shown my face.

I was trembling because I was terrified of them. I hugged my cat, trying to soothe him, telling him it's okay, but in fact, I was trying to soothe myself.

That short encounter was a trigger, and since then, my mind has spiraled into a deeper pit of shame and hopelessness. The dreaded thoughts have returned. I'm trying so hard to fight them, but this isn't a struggle that simply goes away.

The trauma has become a part of my daily life, infecting my thoughts and invading my dreams. Each day, I try to push the demons down, but every night they reappear. The abuse continues in my nightmares.

This is also why I've been isolating myself and haven't seen anyone since the incident that made me feel as if gaining weight were a mortal sin.

I am terrified of seeing people, of feeling their surprise, or witnessing their reaction to the changes in me. This is me trying to keep myself safe by avoiding any situation where I might feel that searing shame again.

I run errands with my head down, hoping I won't bump into anyone I know. I used to go to church without a second thought because those people never saw who I was before, but now, even that feels impossible.

I know this is a wrong way of thinking, and people in my personal circle would probably never do such a thing to me. We had just started hanging out again before the incident, and it was fine where no one seems to look revulsed by me.

I miss having people in my life, but the thought of enduring that kind of body shaming again is unbearable. It has been years, and I really wish I could say I have moved on.

©Britt H.

Note: This is a long rant, and its timeline is all over the place. I've gone through so many revisions that I'm worried I'll never get it published.

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More about the person behind the writing in My Introductory Post