There was a time I used to...weigh more than I do now. I wasn't obese, I wasn't stuffing myself, and when people exclaimed "Oh wow you've gained weight!" upon meeting me after a long time, I would wonder why they would tell me that. Why they were so inconsiderate.

Then my mother started telling me I was fat. I was eating too much. Sleeping too much. I was a cow! M kids would be ugly, I was told. The day I bought my first dress - a beautiful sleeveless brown gown - she laughed at me. I couldn't take seconds at the dinner table without a snide comment or a glare. I started hiding my food, and it was then that I developed a habit that I still have - I started gobbling up my food. I ate as fast as possible simply because I dreaded the remarks that would come my way.

For the longest time, I only hated the comments, sometimes even the people behind them. I was confident about my body, I knew I looked okay - maybe even pretty! I'd look in the mirror and admire my hair, my hazel eyes, my clear skin.

But then, like they always do, things changed. People died, people changed, and the guilt and depression, together with my existing flakes snowballed into a Problem. I directed my revenge the only way I could: towards myself. I would pretend I was happy and satiated after eating as much as she wanted ne to; then at night I would wake up and stuff myself full of things I didn't even like. I'd order the worst food on menus and eat complete servings. I got caught a few times at first, but before long I got so good at hiding the evidence it didn't even take effort. I started battling every day; my upper arms (the part I would never bare, of course) still bear the scars. The scars don't go away. They never tell you that.

And then, one day, when I woke up and looked in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw. Who was this sad, sad girl with the disgusting double chin, the expanding love handles, the three tummies and the thunder thighs? I hated them all - everyone who had led me to this. I hated my mother for everything she had ever said. But most of all, I hated myself for falling for it. I hated becoming the very kind of girl I'd never thought I would be.

After a while, I started thinking of a solution. I had to break the binging cycle, as well as other issues I'd picked up along the way: the over sensitivity. The insecurity. The self destruction. The low self esteem. I needed to get my self esteem back. I needed to be self dependent and as far away from my destructive, toxic mother as I possibly could. But no matter how hard I tried to will myself into believing in myself and ignoring her, it didn't work. And that's when I realized that it all came back to my weight. You see, as long as my weight was what it was, I could never break free from her. There would always be this tiny chance that I was only breaking away from her because I was the fat girl with no self control and didn't like to be reminded of it. I had to convince myself that her treatment all these years was the reason. And once I became thin, it would be for me, not her. And to prove that, Id finally leave her. Id be free.

So you see, this here what you call an eating disorder, I call the only way of reclaiming a semblance of who I used to be. Of loving myself again. You look at me and say, "Are you eating at all? You look weak." I may look weak, I may need to steady myself when I get out of bed in the morning, but not eating when you both want and need it takes willpower. Say what you will. I think I've never been stronger.