Well, now that we're mostly over the childhood trauma and the disappointment of feeling unloved and unworthy. Let's focus on another experience that shaped the person I would later become. If you stuck with me through the last chapters, I’ll be amazed if you're still reading. Sebastian had very recently crushed my heart betwixt his hands and I'd come to the conclusion that something needed to change. While I'd slowly been developing a burning rage for people, instead of looking at the more obvious reasons why Sebastian and no one else felt the need to love me; I turned it all into self-hatred.

Something had to change and that something was obviously me. I was the common denominator to everything. My parents clearly didn't care about me, my sister wanted nothing to do with me, Sebastian only wanted to use me, and it wasn't like I was the most popular kid in school. The thing that was wrong, was without a doubt me. So, I began reinventing myself and my fortress into a brownstone mansion forteress that no one would be able to penetrate. As you'll see though, my thought processes weren't the only thing I'd change.

Let's take a look at what I'd learned already at the ripe age of 14 or 15 years old. (1) You should never trust anyone, (2) all men are disgusting and only care about sex, what you can do for them or how attractive you are (e.g. Rowen and Sebastian), and (3) I was the most repulsive, fat and unlovable girl that had ever lived; otherwise things would be different, right? I would come home to a loving family that asked me how my day was, or be able to have someone love me unconditionally, and be proud to have me in their life, right? It was me that wasn't good enough to be valued by the people around me, nothing was wrong with them at all!

So it was time to change me, so that people would value me. It took me years to realize that my value had nothing to do with any of these people or experiences. These were just things that happened, but what else was I supposed to think? In fact, I'd spend most of my life overacheiving at school, work or exercising to compensate for how little I had made other people let me feel. I let these people and these experiences shape me, and I thought I was forging on and becoming stronger. When in reality, all I was doing was perpetuating my own cycle of unworthiness. The terrible part is that I felt so alone in that process, but so many of us are doing this to ourselves every day. I garuantee at least half of the people reading this book, feel this way right now. And the most screwed up thing is that we don't talk about it! We just keep on keeping on, wearing our survivalists badge of honor when what we're really surviving isn't our shitty life experiences, we're really just trying to survive living with ourselves.

Anyways, back to teenage Roslyn. Unfortunately for me, there were only two things that I could immediately control in this situation. First, I could give my trust to others more reluctantly in the future. That's right I could build my fortress of solitude with stronger, taller, and thicker, to keep the outside world out. Secondly, while I couldn’t fix my face and make myself pretttier; I could certainly get thinner. And so began my quest to be as thin as possible.

Look at Ophelia, she wasn’t exactly the prettiest girl in the world but the thinner she got the more attention she received. Everyone wanted a piece of Ophelia in some capacity, didn't matter what sex or age group, she was desirable. From the mind of a deeply scarred and emotional teenager, my plan made perfect sense. I mean, let's think about this ladies. What has every Disney movie taught you? Look at Ursula, Cruella DeVille, Maleficient, and any other classic Disney villain, what do they all have in common? They're all either fat or hideous, it's as if we're taught that if your outward appearance isn't flawless you're worthless to society. This had to be the reason that people didn’t want to love me and this was something I could address on my own time. That's it, I'll be thinner and people will notice me for who I am! Plan set in motion.

I remember the day that I decided enough was enough. I used to take baths instead of showers. I’m sure that my parents thought it was because I was masturbating, but it was more pathetic than that. I've never told anyone this, but I liked to slip beneath the surface of the water and see if I had the balls to drown myself. Surprise, I didn't. Instead, I would lay there thinking about how my family wouldn’t really miss me if I were gone. Hell, they hardly noticed me now so what would it matter if I just slipped silently into oblivion? I would try my best to hold my face under the water until I had no air bubbles left to yield. However, my house was always bustling with interruptions, so if it wasn’t Genevieve's voice that would interrupt my grand plans it was my older sisters.

“Are you done in there? I’m going out with my friends and I need to do my makeup!!!!” Ophelias’ shrill voice would come slamming through the bathroom door.

“Mom! I need to do my makeup!” she’d snivel.

“Hun, are you okay in there?” our mother would ask.

The locked door, the shower curtain that I always pulled to create the illusion of extra solitude, and the water above me always muffled their voices. If only I could muffle out their voices in real life.

This time was different though. I'd been trying to stop myself from crying about the weight of how insignificant I was in the lives of those around me. I surfaced with a gasp only to scream back at Ophelia,

“Don’t get your fucking panties in a wad, I’ll be out in a few minutes!”

“Ros-lyn!!! Don’t use that language in my house!” our mom chided, “You're all right aren’t you?”, she'd clearly heard a sob catch in my throat after my outburst.

“Yes. I’ll be out in a minute.” I said deadpan.

I wasn’t all right though. Nothing was all right. Everything was the exact opposite of all right. I lay there for a minute staring at my pruned hands and then at my fat belly in the water. If I let all of my muscles go and pushed my stomach out I looked pregnant. Could I be pregnant? I thought for a minute. No. While I hadn’t had sexual education yet and my parents had never given me the talk, I knew that you had to have sex with someone to get pregnant. Also, having not gotten my period yet mad this an improbability. No, I was suffering from being fat, lazy, and overall disgustingly huge. I decided right then that I would never be this fat ever again. I drained the tub, stepped out, grabbed a towel, attempted to dry my hair, and then wrapped a towel around myself. I threw open the door only to find Ophelias’ frustrated face.

“There you are, princess.” I responded with disdain for her very existence.

“Thanks, Queenie!” she replied quickly slamming the door and turning on the fan to smoke no doubt while she applied her face. You know, the face we all prepare when we can't actually bear for the world to see us.

What put me in such a depressed mood, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Earlier that day we had been to the mall with her friends. Something that she objected to every step of the way because I was that classic tag-along little sister that everyone hated. We were at the food court and I wanted to do something else. Whatever I wanted wasn't important, but I threatened to catch the bus home or call Genevieve because I was so pissed at her. All I wanted was her time, attention, and acceptance. None of which she was willing to relinquish any time soon. I stormed off trying to make my point and she didn’t even notice I was gone. I was on the second floor and halfway to the other side of the mall when I heard her voice screaming after me. I came to a stop. There were a few 19 to 20 year old men sitting against the railing by the elevator that led down to the fountain where younger children threw pennies, making wishes that would never come true. As Ophelia caught up to me one of the young men started to talk at me,

“Damn girl, you fine! You’re so thick! I’d love to hit that.” he catcalled.

Before Ophelia could get a word out to scold me for leaving her and her gaggle of vapid friends behind she turned on this man with a ferocity I'd never seen in her. She was my mother bear and she was going to make this asshole pay for what he said to me. She turned on a dime and yelled in her deepest voice,

“What the fuck did you just say to my little sister?! I’ll throw your skinny ass off the back of that balcony! She’s 14 fucking years old you pedophile!”.

She began to approach him and his friends. That’s when he changed his tune,

“I didn’t know that she was so young. She is really thick though. I like bigger women.” , he backpedaled attempting to justify his previous statements.

“Don’t ever talk to Roslyn that way again or I’ll fucking kill you! You understand me!” , she was in his face now.

She slowly backed away from the group of young men, grabbed my hand and began dragging me back to where her friends were. On the way back to her friends I felt disgusting, dirty, and mostly confused. What the hell did being thick even mean? Whatever it meant, it obviously wasn't good. Look at the way Ophelia reacted! When I asked her about it, she responded with vagaries,

“It’s just not a good thing, okay?”, she snapped at me.

This wasn't an acceptable response and so I continued to push the issue. I asked in the car on the way home and one of Ophelias’ most unattractive friends spoke up,

“It means your fat dumbass! He likes to fuck fat girls! Get it? Haven’t you ever heard of more cushion for the pushing?”

I was mortified. I obviously should've dropped the issue like Ophelia had told me to. This was clearly how people saw me. I was a fat girl and by definition I was to be looked at either as completely devoid of sexual desires or just as a fetish that some people have. That was my existence, reduced two options, when I and other fat women were clearly much more than that. Society had deemed that I wasn't to be treated with kindness or respect because only thin bitches were destined for that type of behavior from men, I guess?

As I lay in the bathtub that night thinking over all of the reasons that I wasn't good enough for the people in my life, I decided that I wanted what other women had. I wanted that respect and devotion that I saw in the movies or on t.v.; I would be thin if it killed me. I would be healthy and strong. And quite frankly men could just go fuck themselves. Who were they to tell me whether or not I was pretty or dateable? They were nobodies! Sebastian was wrong about me; I was worth every bit of his time. So he and all the other men that I knew who wanted to fuck me but not date me would never get the chance to do either. It wasn’t like these men were God’s gift to the opposite sex! If anything, all I knew of men was that they wanted one thing from me and they weren’t going to get it. I'd be thin, smart, funny, and unobtainable for them. They didn’t deserve me or any other woman that they couldn’t be bothered to treat like a human being.

But how would I get there? That's when I sparked an idea. It was summertime and Ophelia was a runner. She and I would go to the gym at the front of the apartment complex. I always felt too fat to exercise, so I usually sat in the corner and read a book or listened to music while I watched her sweat for three miles. Then she would take off her shirt and dive into the pool outside wearing only her running shorts and a sports bra. She was thin, attractive, smart, and even funny on her good days. I thought that she had everything! These traits were everything that I wanted to be.

Sometimes when she’d go to school I'd catch her packing an extra pair of clothes, always revealing and more adult then they should be. I’m sure that she looked gorgeous in them. Everyone in the room would want her in some capacity because she just exuded this magnetic energy. I never told Genevieve about the clothes Ophelia packed to change into, mostly for fear that I'd suffer both Ophelia and our mother’s wrath. One time I found a backless red top with gold sparkles in it and I like to imagine what I'd look like wearing it if I were a size 3 like Ophelia was. Even at the ripe age of 14 I knew that this outfit was designed to make men ogle at her; not boys. I could never be that beautiful or that confident unless I was thin. So the next time that Ophelia went to the gym, this time to do crunches and lift a few weights I came with her on a mission of my own. I mounted the treadmill and pushed the speed up to five and a half. Ophelia was listening to her headphones so loud that I could hear them from accross the room,

“What are you doing?” she asked in between crunches.

“I'm jogging. What does it look like I’m doing?” I gasped between breaths.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea. It’s not like you're in they type of shape to be running.” she exhaled.

“Don’t worry about me. Just finish your workout. I’ll be done in 30 minutes.” I retorted. This is how it began.

The weight started to melt away and instead of being 172 pounds I was now 130 in a matter of months. The excessive exercising had become an obsession. I'd excel at this the way that I excelled at everything; by overachieving. Soon I'd hit a plateau and that's when the calorie cutting began. I'd eat only two coffee cup sized helpings of Cheerios cereal in the morning and sometimes I'd run five miles multiple times in a day. I'd become obsessed with how I looked. I barely had boobs anymore but I'd made it to 110 pounds. It wasn’t enough though because it would never be enough. I looked great, don’t get me wrong. But no matter how thin I got, I still saw the fat little girl that I always was and always would be.

I remembered how guilty I'd feel when my mother would brag to others that I was losing all this weight naturally. To some extent, I did lose a lot of weight in the beginning naturally. But then I became obsessed with eating as little as possible and maximizing the amount of time I could spend in the gym. I was also shocked that she couldn’t see me wasting away in a matter of months right in front of her. It wasn’t until I went back to school that my weight loss started to seem out of the ordinary to others.

Sebastian and the gang hadn’t seen me for 3 months. The first day of school I wore the shortest skirt I could find to show off my rock solid legs and my new hourglass figure. I went to P.E. and we started off by running the mile, which we needed to do in less than 10 minutes. My first mile of the year was clocked at 8 minutes and 40 seconds, still the fastest mile I've ever run. I could also bench press 220 pounds and I eventually got to help teach our aerobics class with Mrs. B, the girls P.E. teacher. I remember the first day of class Mrs. B told me that I looked phenomenal and asked how I'd lost all of that weight. I replied with “exercising every day”. I left out how often and how little I had to eat to get there. Another teacher asked me the same thing out of concern and my reply was incorrect,

“I ate less and exercised daily.”

“How much less?” asked Ms. Johnson.

“Just less than usual is all.” I responded as if it wasn’t like I counted my calories or anything. But that's exactly what I did. I counted my calories every single day. I'd even pushed myself down to as few as 1,000 calories a day to lose all of this weight. Burning at least 500 of those each day jogging, and exercising at school. I see now, this wasn't a sustainable future.

I kept this pattern of behavior up for close to 2 years until one day at an outdoor concert for a local band, I felt strange. It was 115 degrees outside and there was a heat warning in effect. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, but I did go jogging that morning. We were standing outside in the heat of the parking lot. The sun was beating hard on the black top and on us as there were no trees around to offer shade. I was with my best friend Anastasia, when I started to feel dizzy. I told her about how I was feeling and then I told her that I had to sit down. Before I knew it my vision was gone and I had to ask her to help me sit down. It took what felt like hours for my vision to come back but was realistically only 10 minutes. When I finally did regain my eye sight I was shaking, from low blood sugar no doubt. I felt weak and short of breath, which I can imagine was more terrifying for Anastasia than for me. We walked to the air-condtioned mall and shared a Dairy Queen sundae, which immediately made me feel better. However, I had caused us to miss the show entirely.

After the incident I was talking to Jordan, a member of the gang, about how I just needed to be 100 pounds. I was telling him all about how I felt trapped in my own skin when I was fat and he said the sweetest thing that anyone has ever said to me.

“You know it’s so weird to me because I never saw you as fat. I just saw you as Roslyn. Honestly, I think that you're too thin now.”

Jordan was right. Why did it matter if I was thin or fat? Who was deciding these things? Didn’t it matter that I was so unhealthy that I was blacking out and sometimes passing out at random intervals? What was the cost of being thinner? More to the point this person I cared about definitely loved me for who I was, something I'd clearly missed. So why didn’t I love me for who I was? It was at this point that I accepted I'd never be below 110 pounds and that it was time for me to start eating more often. Not only that I'd somehow tipped the scales from being too fat to being too thin, so it seemed like I just couldn’t win.

To this day I have issues with my weight. I go from periods of excessive exercising to periods of depression where I can’t bring myself to exercise at all. However, I don’t see this as unusual. In a world full of photo shopped images and super models, it's easy to compare yourself to the more beautiful women of the world. The thing is that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to them because we're not those women; we're unique and so are they. Just because there is a body mass index chart telling you what the ideal person should weigh, it doesn't mean that works for everyone, and that’s okay.

I hope this can be a lesson to you that no one should be in charge of your self-image but you. This is true for men and women. Don’t let that stupid add on television tell you what an attractive man or woman looks like because beauty isn’t just skin deep. And above all please don’t let anyone tell you that you're too fat or too thin, because you're beautiful or handsome just the way that you are. You have intrinsic value and worth just by being. No one ever told me that, I had to learn it the hard way. Say it to yourself over and over, especially on the bad days. You have intrinsic value and worth just by being.