The girl inside I

I can't remember the time when I was slim, although there had been a time when I had a totally normal weight. But these times appear just like a dream of time long ago. What is inside my mind is the feeling of being worthless due to being fat and the words, which have cut my soul in pieces. Guess this isn't something people want to read, but I figure it necessary to speak up for maybe it will help heal my inside- at last. At the age of 7 I had been a totally normal weighted girl, but then- I don't know for sure what changed me, it could be that my mother started working again or something else, something I have forgotten, but what is still in me and I need to figure it out. What I can remember of my childhood is that lots of it had been happy, but also the strong urge to prove myself, the wish of being noticed. I wasn't an easy child, I'm fully aware of it, and I were crying and screaming a lot. But I also had been lonely, so lonely that I turned mean towards other beings:

One day, I don`t know the reason anymore I were crying, feeling helpless, biting myself and then hitting my guinea pig- something that still hunts me, as that maybe years later turned into guinea pig paralysis, the reason why she died. I took my flute and hit my beloved Bommel, while screaming in agony, and I remember her hint legs being paralysed for some seconds, it turned better soon and she lived for several years afterwards, but I hurt her as I hurt some else. I accidentally choked a bunny to his death and one day I took a birds nest, looking at the baby birds inside, watching them die, crying- but nobody noticed. These are the things which will hunt me my whole life, especially as without animals I wouldn`t life anymore. One day I chased our dog through the house, I don`t know the reason either, there is only a feeling of a deep, deep pain and that nobody is seeing it, I had been crying many, many times. My parents love me, but I never told them all these things, as I wanted to spare them the pain. Especially my mother. First I had been a Daddy's girl, but later I had fears of being alone with males, not that my father or brother ever did anything. I don`t know what happened, all I could remember are some things, but these couldn't turn into this kind of fear:

When I still had been in elementary school my only male teacher had been my sport's teacher, when someone forgot their sports clothes he let us do sport in our underwear. Some boys took this as an invitation to drag the girls panties down. While visiting one girl in the protectory, one boy offered me sexually explicit things- at the age of 8 or 9. - But that's all I remember. I used to walk with our dog during that time, Senta, an Irish Terrier, she had been quite small but very tough- nobody from  the family knows why, but from one day to the other she turned very, very aggressive towards men and boys of a certain age, the only males she tolerated where my father and brother. Every other male had been attacked by her fiercely. 

When changing towards middle school my life began to turn hell. I hadn't been particularly fat, a bit chubby, but nothing really big, I weighted about 70-75kg at a size of 160cm. But even though there were two other kids in my class, who were heavier than me, much heavier, they bullied me. It had been a nightmare, but I just walked by and cried at home. Again I didn't tell anyone. I tried to calm myself with sweets and hiding at home. Things got worst when I got my period shortly before my 12th birthday. I hadn't been ready for it. My head and soul had been the one of a child. I still played with Barbie and My little Pony, with no moods for boys or anything womanly. My body no less turned quickly into a woman's body, but I refused to accept it, I didn't want to wear a bra and hid all female sanitary stuff way in the back of my cupboard. It had been a nightmare, I refused to wash and wanted to stay home, but I went to school, my daily nightmare. I will never forget the words my classmates whispered in my ear or screamed once they saw me. But I just smiled and turned away, for years. I felt in despair and thought about death a lot, especially when my relatives tried to encourage me to lose weight- now I know that was their intention, but the words weren't much nicer than the one's of my classmates. Food became a substitute for attention, as I turned away from my family. I remember it like yesterday, that several times I tried to run from home, not because they talked with me about my weight, but because I felt like they don't love me, and that they are better off without me, or because I couldn't stand the anger. It wasn't big, my mother had been tired from work and had problems with my sister or brother. Many times I thought about walking to her, speaking 'Mom, school is a nightmare' or 'Dad, you are hurting me when you are calling me names'- but I couldn't, I curled up in my bed, reading, smuggling sweets or playing with my toys. At a certain time I started stealing from my parents and my grandmother to buy toys and sweets. After a while I got caught- they didn't even said much, I just had to promise never to do it again- that was all. 

My life started to change when I started riding. My first experience with riding had been through a school project called 'Horse & Rider' in 7th grade. The horses gave me all that I was missing, I could love and were loved. As I soon turned to be a fairly good rider, I was a natural, nobody ever teased me there- that was home and I stayed there every free minute. My life began to change, especially as many of my mean classmates had to repeat a year. After 9th grade I went to a clinic for six weeks, these six weeks changed me to the core. For the first time I felt the same with other girls and started to get more teenage interests and to accept me of having a womanly body. I started to wear bras, I even experimented with make up and had fun with my girlfriends. I lost a lot of weight there and the time afterwards, so when back at school, in 10th grade, the final year of middle school, I had been accepted by almost everyone in my class. The nightmare had been over, but the scars were still deeply curved in my inner self. On the outside everything looked fine, but the inside still were a deep, open wound. 

The year I turned to high school, to the Gymnasium, had been the best idea ever. These 4 years at that school had been the best school time in my life. Nobody bullied me, I finally could learn as much as I wanted, not being stopped by being only in middle school. I changed riding to western style and there I met the love of my life, the one I loved most so far. She had been just as lonely as I am, I loved her with all my soul and heart and she was giving everything back. No words can describe how much I loved that horse, that blackish-brown mare with the kindest eyes I ever saw- my Dolamia. She had been a Danish Warmblood, and we loved each other to the core. I once read that once every million a human and a horse share a bond so close that they are one in every detail. I had that love, that bond with her. She saved me in any way a horse can save a human. She gave me more than love, more than devotion, she was everything I ever wanted in my life. All the sad thoughts of not being loved, not being what society wants of me, disappeared, I stopped hurting myself with scissors and biting just because of her. She was my everything and even though this had been a long time ago, it still hurts of talking or writing of her. I lost her due to the fact, that she wasn't mine and we didn't have the money of keeping a horse. The day I lost her, had been most grievous of all. I cried for hours and then I turned silent and never spoke of her, unless asked, and when asked all I could do was and is crying. My sister talked about her over a year after she had been brought away, while we were visiting our aunt and eating in a restaurant, all I could do were crying and my sister looked at me, touched and feeling guilty, I remember her words like it had been yesterday 'After all this time it still make you cry?'

Yes the lost of her threw me into a black pit, my marks went down at school, especially after our beloved bird died out of the sudden, my Jerry, and I gained a lot of weight- and never went to a stable again, and will not until I have enough money to buy the horse, I love. The loss of Dolamia had been parallel to the marriage of my aunt, my mother's sister, she had been a lot older than my Mum, living alone after the death of my grandmother, when I had been 9. She was more the person I could talk to than my mother, more grandmother than aunt. I spent a lot of time at her place during holidays and weekends. I could be myself when being with 'Tuta'- that's what we called her. (Her name had been Gertrud- the adults called her Trudchen and we children Tuta). I had so much fun and freedom when being at her place. But one day she decided to get married and moved 500km away- my mother recently said to me- 'You lost your attachment figure when she moved away and I wasn't able to replace her:'
I visited her, but as her husband had been horrible, we didn't get along as he called me satanist (because I read Harry Potter) and he didn't like girls, who speak up towards men- in his eyes I had been worthless, just the second girl- as to many other relatives of my family. But until then Tuta were always on my side, but she didn't speak up to him, just when we were alone.(she was born 1928- so maybe that explains it) I didn't realize it at that time, but now I know that I felt betrayed by her due to that and the fact that she never again spent the holidays, especially Christmas at our place again, like she had promised every time. We never spoke to each other that close like during the time before. She died in 2009, just when I returned home from my first Japan trip, cancer, and I'm very happy that soon after I returned in February we talked on the phone once more. I didn't want to, as I wasn`t in the mood, but I gave in and now I`m so glad I did, as that had been the last time I ever talked to her. She died 2months later.  What really had touched me were the fact that after she died, she visited me one night to say goodbye- as did my Dolamia, they both died the same year- or at least so I think afters these spiritual meetings, they both were saying farewell.- But well I`m running to much forward. In my next entry I will talk about the times in between. Maybe you won't read it or hate my after reading, but I figured that I need to write all these things down, it's not enough just to talk about it with my therapist- and well maybe it helps some people to understand why most of the overweight people are that size.