Hard Facts

So, I know I just started writing about this, but I've known for a few weeks and I've had time to think and review where I am emotionally and mentally. I wasn't always fat. In fact I used to be a very tiny child, skin and bones, perfectly proportioned. I used to be very outgoing, from what I am told.. I remember a lot of my early years, as far back as my second birthday. Through to kindergarden, then my life was a bit hazy for awhile. And then I started gaining weight. I have an older sister who then started giving me a hard time. I was the fat and ugly one, nobody would want me. And I was ok with that. She was so pretty, EVERYBODY loved her.. (not really.) She was pretty, thin, and lets face it, easy, mean, and without much personality. Throughout the rest of my school years, I was compared to her, it was ok to me that I was the fat and ugly one, because I was also the nice one, the one people wanted to be around, the one that was smart and funny. I also was the clueless one. I refused to be aware of myself, my sexuality, I had no desire to explore that side of myself. I had a few crushes, but I didn't have those mad teenage "I LOVE HIM SO MUCH" fits and I certainly wasn't vying to give my virginity away until I was at the very least engaged. I was and still remain rather clueless when someone is trying to flirt with me and I generally don't get aware of it until someone else points it out.. Then I'm luck, "huh.... I guess so." It doesn't occur to me to think of myself as pretty. It doesn't occur to me to think of myself as visually attractive at all. Now I do rock my personality. Which is why, when I did start getting a little interested in men, I hid behind my computer screen and dated online. I wanted someone to like me for my mind, my heart, perhaps even my soul. The idea of having a man look at me and want me for my body scared the hell out of me. So.. I met someone, we did the long distance thing for awhile, I gave him my virginity, we got engaged, I moved out of state to be with him, and then he became abusive. Thankfully all before we actually tied the knot. I have no regrets about this. Because for all the bad he did, he made me remember those hazey memories. Even if they were a nightmare, I have learned so much about myself, I have faced my inner demons, I have changed what I could, accepted what I couldn't, and relatively speaking, while I am NOT ok with what happened to me as a child, I am ok with the person I've become. So while exploring bondage with my ex, even though I always knew I could not do anything anal, that the thought made me feel like a sick little girl who was afraid and ashamed, and I always told him that, he forced the issue. He forced himself into me and the next thing I knew, I was out of the handcuffs, away from the bed, in fetal position in the corner, sobbing because the sensation woke up memories. I blocked how I got out of the handcuffs, however they were the key to unlocking the real reason behind so many things in my life. Yes, I was molested, and while not everything is unlocked, I think I remember enough for me to cope with it, enough for me to understand myself better. I used to have dreams of this man, nightmares, I felt so betrayed that my parents would talk with him in my dreams, I was terrified of him seeing me. The dreams were always the same two dreams. I would hide behind the corner, my brother at my side, and all of a sudden he'd see me peeking behind the corner. I was stricken with fear, my brother and I ran, but for whatever reason I always trip, I always fall, and my brother always leaves me behind right before I wake up screaming. The other is when I don't wake up, and he's holding, what I conceive in my dream, to be a needle, and he's stroking the tip of the needle with a look of dark hunger in his eyes. He's staring at me, telling me to touch the needle, or he will touch me with it, and I know if I touch that needle, it will hurt. Once I have that thought, I am suddenly a balloon, and he's going to stab me with the needle, and I know I am going to explode and be no more. I had these nightmares all the time, from the time I was 5 and up to the age of 15. There were nights where I would wake from it, only to fall back into it. There were also nights where I would sit up in the hallway, where the light was on, and I would play cards, play with dolls, whatever it took to keep awake, because I was so terrified of falling back to sleep. Looking back on it all, having had 12 years to come to terms with these unlocked memories, the dreams made perfect sense. I was afraid of him, he wanted me to touch him, and I knew it was going to hurt too much. The part about my brother? He did leave me that day, I couldn't keep up, and the man caught me. It's taken me a few years since realizing all of that, to cope with it, the fact that he was my big brother and he was supposed to protect me, but he left me far behind. I have also come to the conclusion that I ate so that I would be undesirable. I never wanted anybody to look at me like he did when he hurt me, like he did when he would haunt my dreams. As an adult, I would get infuriated when a man would look at me that way, unless he already knew me, then I could tell myself he wasn't lusting after my body, he was lusting after my mind and heart, which is something that "he" never got to do. I realize that I fall to food for comfort. That I hid behind my weight. That even though I have pushed myself to explore my body in the ways that I was molested, and it has taken me years to not freak out, scream, and run, when that sort of thing is approached, I now can honestly say that I am no longer a victim, I have tried it, I have conquered it, I have explored with a patient and loving man, and we are over it. I never have to try it again, simply because I choose not to, because I don't care for it, and not because some fucking bastard threw a little girl into the gravel, spit against her cheek and breathed heavily in her ear as he pushed his fingers and then later tried to stick his penis into her. I no longer flip out when I feel heat against my face, because I have come to terms with how it felt when he held his huge man hand over my face so I wouldn't scream. And while I didn't enjoy sex with the "ex" that unlocked those memories, I later found a man who was patient, loving, and down right amazing in bed, enough so that I learned to love sex. In fact my husband always says how he'd like to thank him. =^) So I'm healed for the most part, I am A ok with feeling lust and desire. I enjoy sex and know who I am sexually and what I like. But I still hide behind my fat. Now I've only been married for 2.5 years. But with this surgery looming over me, I have wondered how I would feel as a thinner person. My first thought was "What will I hide behind and will I flip out if a man looks at me with lust in his eyes?" I'm confident in my answer. I am going to hide behind my husband. Which brings me to my next hard fact to face. For the past 12 years, I have felt that I didn't really want to lose weight, even with failed attempts and lack of options, while I would try, deep down, I didn't want to lose too much weight, because I wanted someone to love me for me and not the way I look. I have good genes, I don't think of myself as pretty, but I know, as I've been told so many times in my life "I'd be pretty if I just lost weight." And that idea scares the hell out of me, (and we understand why, if we read the above novel I just typed for any possible readers.) I always thought I'd lose weight after I got married, because if a man didn't want me while I was fat and ugly, he sure as hell wouldn't deserve me if I was thin and pretty. So... I'm married now, to a man who no only loves my body (He's afraid I'm going to lose my spankable ass) but he loves me the way I am, he puts up with me, he accepts me for all I am. He even puts up with the non stop menstrual cycle, I mean COME ON.. He's a good guy. We have our small issues, as all married couples do, but I know he loves me. For me. When he looks at me with a deep need in his eyes, I know it's for me, my heart, my mind, and my soul. So those two big issues being faced, I think I am ready...