Through

This post is the seventeenth in a series.

I did quite a bit of journaling through the time when I was coming to recognize my reality. I would like to share some of these entries with you as a window into what it means to come out. Please come back to read through the rest of the journey. If you haven’t read the first, you can click here to be redirected to that post, called Truth. From there, at the bottom of each post you can navigate to the next.

 

June 13/20
1144hrs

I am not happy with my body. [I carry extra weight in my belly mostly and I have been asked on more than one occasion if I am pregnant. I am hyper aware of it at all times.] I have bargained with God that I am sticking with doing the right things regarding food – I don’t think all the time about what I’m going to eat next, I don’t mindlessly snack, I don’t eat anything and everything despite how I feel, I am down to very few foods that I do eat. [Don’t worry, I’m not starving, but I don’t want to go down that rabbit trail here.] So, in a way, I deserve to see some results. More than ever, I want a thin, non-curvy body. I have a hard time with that kind of language about myself, but I’m desperate. Until I read something from a friend that got me thinking in a new way, I had not thought about asking God to be present with me through the pain, through the dysphoria, through the frustration, through the anger. I only want to get out of the circumstances. Like an animal caught in a trap, I’m worrying away at the source of pain, writhing and gnawing and howling, “Just make it go away!” Will it hurt less if I just sit still? Maybe I’m like the animal who’s biting and kicking its rescuer – I don’t recognize the work being done to free me.

Divine Family, please be present with me in my pain. I know in my head you are here. Help me to reach out with my heart to know you’re here with me. Help me to stop thrashing around and, instead, settle into your love and care for me. Apparently, I still think so much of my value comes from the size and shape of my body. Now that I have remembered and traced the effects of Jane [a source of significant pain] on my view of my own physical self, help me to let it go. Help me to loosen my grip on that trauma and begin to see my body without shame. Could I ever say “Thank you” to my belly? I don’t know yet. It’s like it is some separate entity that I despise but can’t get away from. Spirit, be here with us and teach me how to accept this part of me.

 

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash