PrettyThin

"I want to learn karate, dad!"  Those were the words that changed my life forever.  That was all it took.  As an extremely thin farm boy growing up in Amarillo, Texas I can remember wanting to learn how to fight.  It seemed like biggest adventure a boy could ever go on - learning a martial art.  With the constant begging that children are so good at, I convinced my father to find me a teacher.  Someone to teach me all there was about the world of throwing punches.

     It didn't take him long to find someone.  When he walked in to a local  Muay Thai studio he found out our neighbor across the street was a martial arts instructor.  It was the perfect fit.  The best part was that he even had kids my age.  A few lessons and back yard BBQ's later and my dad had found a new friend.  I was even learning how to throw a decent punch.  Every now and then I would even get invited over to play Nintendo by my teachers kids.  They were all so shy and quiet and polite.  It was always fun going to their house because it seemed so calm.  Then one day I met Ian.

     Ian was my martial arts teachers oldest son.  He would sometimes come in and play Nintendo with us or take us outside and show us how to pay basketball.  He quickly became like an older brother to me.  I was four years old the first time Ian invited me over to play Nintendo with just him.  Everyone else in the house was gone so we could play with the tv up as loud as we wanted.  That was the proposal.  Except Ian never planned on playing Nintendo.  I can still remember how cold the porcelian tiles of his bathroom floor were on the bottom of my feet.  How cold the air felt against my naked skin.  I remember crying and trying to run.  The feeling of a hand over my mouth.  Pain.  An inescapable pain that stays with me still today....  I was four years old the first time Ian raped me.  It wasn't the last time though.  Ian continued to inflict this torture on me for 3 years, until my family finally moved away.

Flash forward.

    A broken man with a brilliant mind.  I was working at Fox News.  They found out how quickly I could pick up seemingly difficult tasks and put me on the promotion trail.  Making commercials, running cameras, directing shows, writing the news, assigning stories to be covered, lining up guests, buying satellite time, editing video.  Fill in here.  Fill in there.  Can you work a double?  Hey we have breaking news.  You can't leave yet.  How do you feel about working weekends?  Would you like more hours?  Can you handle more responsibilities?  We really need you to step up here.

     Monday through Thursday, I would get in to work at 2:00AM and leave by 2:00PM if I was lucky.  Fridays were different.  Fridays were always around a 20 hour shift.  I usually got Saturday off but sometimes they needed help on Sundays...This went on for months.

     But I had a little secret none of them knew.  I hated myself.  I might have seemed really smart.  I might be able to do more than anyone they had ever seen, but I truly hated myself.  I liked the feeling of being used.  As long as it was making other people happy, why not?  Since I was 7 I had carried this little secret with me:  I hated my pathetic body.  Every time they would give me more stress than I could handle - I would take it out on my fat worthless skin.  Opening my flesh.  I could never let them know - they need me to fill in again on Sunday and, oh why not one more cut.  A little deeper this time to take the edge off.  After years of carrying my past with me, I truly hated myself inside and out.

     Because of how many hours I was being asked to work, coped with PTSD - I rarely slept.  So I began to hallucinate at work.  Seeing shadows that aren't really there.  Being startled as they pass before my eyes.  I'm also making more and more mistakes.  The more I mess up though the more I hate myself.  Finally I realized it would never end.  This doesn't really get better does it?  I'm always going to have a fat body and I'm just going to keep messing up at work...they don't even care about me anymore.  No one does.  No one really even talks to me.  Maybe tomorrow I'll try telling them I want to kill myself.  I can't really do that can I?

     A few days later I walked in to work like it was any other day.  They had no idea I had fully planned my suicide.  Some parts of me really just wanted to be told that I could come out of this, that everything would be okay somehow.  The rest of me was simply ready to go.  I decided to let the few people at the station that had been kind to me know how I felt.  I remember telling my friend that was producing that day I was going to kill myself.  He gave me a blank stare and asked "If you do that won't someone else have to fill in?"  I started to answer but before I could he said, "I think you should just go back to work."  That decided me.  No one really cared....  I attempted suicide.

A brief time later.

     "It's an eating disorder."  I remember talking about my self loathing, my sense of worthlessness and this growing anxiety towards food in the Psych Ward with another patient.  How I just kept feeling more and more like I could fix all this by being thinner.  That everything was a body image issue now. "Yeah that's what it does," she said. I can't describe how preposterous this sounded to me at the time.  It wasn't something I really believed.  I wanted the laugh off the thought of a guy having an ED.  But she was right.

     Shortly after came the desire to start working out all the time.  The feeling that I had to burn off the calories of whatever I let myself eat.  While I was at it - why not go to the gym when I'm not busy?  I have several spare hours during the day now that I quit my job.  I can fit in 2-3 visits a day easily if I only stay an hour and a half for each visit.  If I can't make it to burn off those calories though I should probably just take some laxatives and skip eating tomorrow, that way I can go straight to the gym when I wake up.

     Maybe I should look some things up about ED's...  Maybe I'm not alone....  I'm sure I'm not the only guy in the world with one....This looks like an interesting site... I wonder if anyone will be very understanding here...Maybe I can be accepted for who I am...

Thank you PrettyThin.