Frankly, I have never wanted to reflect
on that time. I rarely look at old
pictures from that time. I only
periodically stay in touch with two old friends from that time. I don’t go back
to the city I lived in to visit. Long ago, I packed up the 90’s in a little
time capsule in my brain and sealed it with superglue. I distanced myself as much as I could from
that part of my history. I didn’t like who I was back then. I was embarrassed and outraged by my experiences. I was not proud of many decisions I made back
then. I didn’t know how to deal with it,
so I didn’t.
But now I need to stare the beast
straight in the eye and acknowledge where my battle with obesity truly began
and why. I’m not saying my struggle with weight started here…it didn’t. But the 90’s pushed it from “struggle” to “out
of control, free for all”.
I always got good grades in school but
I was a terrible student. I didn’t try
very hard and I didn’t have to. I got
bored easily and would stop paying attention in class. I have always interpreted words very
literally, so I often got myself in trouble with teachers by correcting them, questioning
them or doing what they said, not what they meant, even though I knew the
difference. I thought I was smart. In
reality, I was a smart ass. So, really,
no different than I am today.
What I did love about
school was the social part of it, although it didn’t always love me. I always felt different than everyone else
and, especially in grade school, I was not exactly popular but I was desperate
to fit in. Starting in grade two, I had ridiculously
thick glasses. I was always one
of the tallest kids and developed at an embarrassingly early age. I had a lisp and had to leave “regular” classes
to attend speech therapy so I could lose my lisp.
I was terrible in gym class.
I couldn’t run fast, I couldn’t jump high. I couldn’t pull myself up a rope. But it’s not like I was completely inactive. I took Tap and Ballet lessons for 8
years. I took horseback riding for
5. I could roller skate all night, and
my friends and I walked, rode our bikes and skateboarded everywhere. I just wasn’t good at anything expected of me
in gym class. I did not see myself as fat. Other people – kids and adults – did, and
they made sure I knew it.
I went to Catholic school and I started asking questions. I just couldn’t buy into the
whole “God” idea. It just did not make sense or feel right to me. My mom asked one of
the priests to talk to me and that just made the situation worse. By the time I was in Grade 8, I decided I
didn’t want to be Catholic so my speech for English class that year was about
reincarnation….it was not well received.
Our Religion class that year was all about preparing to be Confirmed, a
big deal in the Catholic faith. I didn’t
want to be Confirmed. The school sent a
note home to my parents. I would not
graduate to high school if I did not agree to be Confirmed. I got into an argument with the Principal and
the Bishop…a battle of wills really. I
lost. I told them they were a bunch of
fascists and got suspended until I apologized.So, I was this weird kid with multiple targets on her back and of course I was bullied. By the same people who acted like I was their friend.
High school was better. I got contact lenses and I looked 19 when I was
14. I could get into clubs very easily
and music became a huge thing for me. I wasn’t into drinking but I was VERY into
dancing. I still had that feeling of
being different than everyone else, but suddenly that was a good thing, not a
weird thing. I had lots of friends but
I never dated and I always felt like my friends who did date were wasting their
time. I just didn’t get why they’d
rather be alone with their girlfriend or boyfriend than go dancing or see a
band with the rest of us. The idea of
sex always fascinated me but also completely freaked me out and, in my opinion, we were all WAY too young for it. I had a lot of
male friends and I liked it that way….I loved hanging out with them but I had
no interest in dating any of them. We
could talk about anything…..get into all kinds of crazy adventures, without any
romantic crap to complicate everything.
By the time I hit grade 12, I knew I
wanted out of my hometown. I had dreams
of moving to New York City. My mom’s
cousin and her family lived in Brooklyn for years and we had visited many times. I fell in love with the City and desperately
wanted to live there. I wanted to live in an old warehouse building
converted into a loft, start a band, have David Bowie and Robert Plant over for dinner and a jam and make
my own cool clothes, have a farm outside the City and rescue horses. In my spare time I would work for the CIA and
as a cover I’d be a journalist so I could travel the world. Lots of crazy dreams.
But I was afraid to follow any of my
dreams or even try and come up with a more realistic plan that would make me
happy. Instead, I enrolled in an English Literature
program at a school 2 hours way from my parents and friends. I didn’t really
think about whether or not I wanted to go to university…I knew I didn’t want
to. But I applied anyway because I was
supposed to…because that’s what people who get good grades do…..because that’s
what everyone else in my class was doing.
And because I was ready to move
out of my parents’ house and that was an easy way to do it. But in my heart, I didn’t want to do more
school and I didn’t realize how destructive it is when a person makes a life choice
they really don’t believe in just because it’s easy.
I got into all three schools I applied
to. One was in my home area so I could
live at home, the other two were both in Waterloo. So there I was, in Waterloo, Ontario, away
from home from the first time, getting to know my new town and discovering the
joy of roommates ( I refused to live in a dorm or partake in “frosh” activities.) At
first I really, really tried to be a good student. I expected to have to work harder for decent
grades, I expected my fellow students to be smarter than me and the profs to be
inspiring, fantastic teachers. The
reality was really disappointing. Incompetent, uninterested profs who had been
there a million years and would be there until they die thanks to tenure. Profs under pressure to publish once a year
leaving no time to teach. Outdated curriculums. Students who never should have been admitted
to university because they couldn’t read or write properly. Frat boys and sorority girls making the campus a menace
for everyone else. Political crap that
dictated which books got on the reading list and which didn’t.
My grades did not drop, they actually
went up because I tried harder at first.
It sounds silly to say, but I was outraged when I took a 4th
year class in first year and got an A on a paper with no comments or corrections. Where was my opportunity to
grow and learn? It wasn’t very long before I realized I could
go to the first class, get the booklist and the class requirements and only
show up for the exam and still get an A.
So that’s what I did and I hated myself for doing it and the whole
academia for letting me.
I dropped in and out of university
several times in the 90’s and ultimately I did not go back. I lied about it to
my parents because I didn’t want to face their disappointment. I went to clubs five nights a week and danced
my ass off. I got a nose ring and 5
holes in my ears. I drank a lot. I experimented with drugs. I pissed off my roommates
by waking them up at 8am for breakfast when we had only just gone to bed at
3am. I racked up student loans with nothing to show for it.
Then crazy stuff started happening.I felt a lump on the side of my throat. I took a trip home to see my family doctor and he thought I was a hypochondriac…he didn’t see or feel anything, but I insisted there was something there. He sent me to a specialist and the specialist also didn’t think there was anything but he did a needle biopsy. Then another…three in total. They all came back with different results. He said if I was his kid, he would insist on exploratory surgery but there was no concrete reason for that, so it was up to me.
My aunt, who lives in Toronto, got
involved and insisted her physician neighbour refer me to the best endocrinologist
in town. I went to Toronto and had
surgery. During surgery, it was
discovered I had a nodule on my thyroid beside the lump, but it was self-contained,
primary cancer. Easily treatable. Half of my thyroid was removed and I started
medication I need for the rest of my life.
I had a huge, red, thick, very noticeable scar across my throat and it took
years of cortisone injections to flatten it out. Every
time I looked in the mirror I could imagine my throat being slit by the
scalpel. It freaked me out.
A year or so later, a close male friend
of mine and I had a big argument. I avoided
his screaming phone calls and angry visits to my house at all hours of the night for a week and when I did finally see him at a club, he walked up to me,
punched me in the face, pushed me down to the ground in front of everyone, then
walked away. The police spoke with him but did not press charges at
my request. I knew this guy since we were little kids and I believed in him and trusted him, but it turned out I didn’t really know him. I later found out he had a violent history and that was not the
first time he has assaulted a woman. The whole situation made me incredibly angry……the
betrayal, the assault, his hidden past, my lack of action in pressing charges.
He called me afterwards – not to
apologize but to say he did not want to speak to me ever again. I didn’t say
much…I was enraged that he felt entitled to make that decision and announce it to
me, as if it was his decision to make. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bigger
problem for me. We both lived in Waterloo and had many of the same friends. He
decided to fix this problem by telling them all what horrible person I was and
how I had wronged him. Suddenly I had fewer friends and was very, very lonely. And I never have spoken with him again but continued to see him around town at concerts, movies, parties...surrounded by my friends. It was awkward and it hurt.
Very soon after, I was raped at a
friend’s apartment. The guy had just flown into Canada that night. He was here visiting his girlfriend (who was
a friend of my friend) and my friend asked me to go to the airport with her and
pick him up. Then the three of us were supposed to hang out at her place until
his girlfriend finished her night shift at work. They taught me how to play dominos; we drank
until we all passed out. My friend is
wheelchair bound and needs help to do stuff so he helped her to bed. I pulled out her couch and passed out on
it.
When I woke up, My Cousin Vinny was
blasting in my ear, I was naked and he was on top of me, with a knife in his hand at my throat. My friend knew what was happening but was in bed
at the time and couldn’t help. I heard
her say that his girlfriend would be finished work soon. When
he was done, he got off me. I stumbled around for my clothes and tried to
get dressed but I was kind of in shock and still drunk. He sat at the end of the bed with his head in
his hands and tried to convince me how sorry he was.
I ignored him and walked out with a
handful of clothes. It was 5am, end of November, and I finished getting dressed while
I wandered the streets of what was then the outskirts of Kitchener (I lived in
downtown Waterloo…about a 30 minute drive with no traffic) hoping for a bus, a
taxi, a friendly face. I got to a bus stop and realized the buses didn’t start
running until 6am. I had left my jacket with all my money and ID in it behind. I
started walking and in a few minutes, a female cab driver stopped and asked me
if I was ok, if I wanted a ride. She took
me to the hospital. The hospital called
the police and the sexual assault centre. The police took my statement. A nurse took care of the first round of tests
and injections. The peer counsellor from
the sexual assault centre gave me a name of a therapist to call.
When I got home, I stayed in my
apartment for days and didn’t tell my 4 male roommates what had happened. They
were like a band of brothers to me….I liked each and every one of them and I
felt protected around them but I just didn’t want to tell them. I was still
just trying to figure out what happened and why. I didn’t treat that guy any differently, act
any differently than I had around my many male friends. I really didn’t think it was any big deal to
fall asleep on the same bed with a guy and expect nothing to happen. But was this my fault? Could I have said or done something to make this happen? All my women's studies classes and feminist ideals told me no, but I couldn't erase that doubt.
The aftermath was brutal. The police spoke with the guy and he didn’t
deny there was sex, but he said it was consensual. There was no hard evidence to prove otherwise
(there rarely is in rape cases), except my friend’s account of what she
heard. She told the police she wasn’t
sure what she heard. If he had denied
anything had happened, then there would be proof but because he admitted the
act, the issue became consent, which really can’t be proven. So the police told me the Crown Attorney declined
to bring the case to court. They then lectured
me on drinking so much and “being more aware of my surroundings” and they "assured" me that
they scared the guy and he won’t do anything like that again.
My friend in the wheelchair was
initially supportive. I know that she
knew what really happened. I tried to be
ok with her lack of support with the police….I knew she was probably getting
pressure from his girlfriend to not talk about it since he would get deported
and probably banned from Canada if the truth came out. But within a short time, I was a predator slut
who seduced someone else’s man. It didn’t
matter that I was a 23 year old virgin who had never had a date and had only ever
kissed one person in her life. This was
the story being passed along.
I became very angry and withdrawn. I just wanted to lash out. I could barely stand myself or
anyone else. I hated everyone and
everything. Every time I needed to go
for yet another STD test or get yet another vaccination (because of the country
he was from), I felt like I would explode.
One of my friends told my parents what happened and it caused a lot of
friction between all of us. My parents
wanted me to move home, protect me, wanted to know why I didn’t tell them. I did not want to be taken care of, and I
didn’t want anyone else to know. I didn’t want to be a rape victim…that label
completely clashed with how I saw myself and who I wanted to be and the more
people knew, the less I could be myself.
I just wanted to pretend it never happened. My brother demanded to know where he and his friends could find this guy
so they could all make the 2 hour drive and beat the guy with a baseball bat. I refused to tell him and made him promise
not to tell anyone. The truth is, I had no idea where to find him, otherwise I might have told him.
I sat in my therapist’s office several
times and glared at her without saying a word. I did not see why I was sitting
there. Clearly others should be sitting in that chair but not me. After a few silent
sessions, she suggested doing something proactive, such as volunteering at the
sexual assault centre. It sounded like a
plan to me so I showed up for orientation.
I was late and grabbed the last seat at the table. There were about 20 women. People were going around the table and introducing
themselves. Then I heard a vaguely familiar
voice and tried to place who this person was.
I realized it was my rapist’s girlfriend. I stared her down across the table until the
facilitator finally took a break when she left and did not come back.
I dropped out of school again, went on
welfare and started volunteering 40+ hours a week. I did this for three
years. I became obsessed with it. I worked on the crisis line at all hours of
the night, went to court with victims, worked in their office answering phones during the day, showed
up at the hospital for initial contact with a victim....whatever needed to be done, I did it. It was my life and it did help somewhat. It gave me a purpose. I knew what I was doing with my day, with my emotional
resources. I didn’t have to think about
myself, I could focus on others. But it
didn’t address the problem.
Eventually I got burned out and quit volunteering. I moved back in with my parents and, faced with that unresolved anger, I turned it
inwards. I had stopped drinking
completely right after the rape, had lost most of my friends, hated myself and
had no hope for my future. So I started
to eat. Compulsively. I became an absolute food addict, complete
with all the addict behaviours like lying, stealing, hoarding. I had a bunch of dead end jobs and felt like
my life was over. Within two years I
gained 150 pounds and was completely unhappy until 2004 when I got my lap band.
These things are true about me:
These things are true about me:
·
I don’t believe in the inherent
goodness of people
·
I think love makes us weak and
distracts us from truly fulfilling who we are
·
I don’t believe in monogamy or marriage
BUT…..
·
I fall in love with everyone all the
time
·
I get jealous and possessive
·
I love poetry and candles
·
I trust everyone I fall in love with and
open myself when I shouldn’t
·
I think this will all protect me from
assholes but I am not surprised when it doesn’t
·
I want to be an intellectual
philosopher but really I’m just a tender hearted mushball
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