Sunspot - My Other Body Excerpt

"She lives one life in secret. . ."

She lives one life in secret, in the body that hides and eats food privately, gorges and binges. In secret, she creates her
other body, her public body, a body that behaves itself and never betrays her eating seizures.

Near co-workers and friends, her public body keeps the social faith of good mood, prompt arrival, attentive listening. It
pointedly ignores snacks, buffets, boxes of doughnuts contributed to office cameraderie.

But the public body exhausts itself containing the secret body, the one out of control, the furious one. The only way to keep
that body and its rampages secret is to let it rage in private. So, when she's alone, her public body disappears along with
its good mood and pleasant smile, and she lives inside her secret, with its violence.

"She's trying to make the want go away. . ."

She's trying to feel better. She's trying to make the want go away. The food tastes good. It obliterates the want in her
mouth like whitewash obliterating filth on a wall. As long as she keeps pouring the pleasure of food into her mouth, she
doesn't feel the flaying sensation of want.

But when the food is swallowed, the want returns, howling. She doesn't know why her body feels this way, and she only
knows one way to make it stop.

Afterward, she feels sick. Her full stomach, her full intestine feel like fists kneading her body from the inside. She wishes
she really were ill, so she could throw up. She's not a purger. Feeling sick is stronger than feeling want. She'd rather feel
sick than feel want. But she also feels shame. She feels ugly in her fullness. She knows that what she's done is ugly, that
she would turn even her friends away in disgust and pity.

She feels crazy. She knows she's hurting herself. Why can't she stop? Why won't she stop? She's making herself fat.
She desperately wants to hide her crazy behavior. But what she wants most to hide, she announces to the world with her
own body. Her tears roll down her face, and her hand shakes as she lifts the full spoon to her lips.



	*"Thinness itself won't change her life. . ."* She has new habits. She wants to exercise, to eat so that her body feels clean, light. She doesn’t want her gut to be constantly full of digested overfeeding. She has more energy, more self-respect. She knows there are some differences in how thin people are perceived and treated and she knows she will benefit from them. But thinness itself won’t change her life. The self-respect will change her life. Sometimes, when she sees lean women in the gym, a reflexive jealousy shoots through her but just as quickly dissipates. She knows that when she reaches her goals, no one will know she used to be obese. She too might then look like she couldn’t possibly understand the challenge and pain of being fat. And that won’t be true. So why should she assume these women couldn’t understand? They’re humans, hence will suffer or have suffered. Maybe they don’t know fatness -- but would she want them to? Would she really want others to feel that horrible, just so they could understand it? There’s plenty of pain without that, she thinks. And maybe - God, she hopes - there could be plenty of understanding, too.