I learned from a young age that being a woman meant being hungry. Always, always, hungry. I learned that being a woman meant being small, being good, being quiet, and being straight. It wasn't lost on me that these rules didn't fit with who I was. I wasn't small. I wasn't good, I wasn't quiet, and I wasn't straight.

So, instead, I learned how to disappear.

I disappeared inside binge drinking. I disappeared inside diets that quickly became starvation - then I'd run until my legs gave out.

After dozens of hours spent in clinician's offices and too many nights wishing I was dead, I realized the truth: I needed help. I needed to confront the toxic lessons I'd learned from my evangelical upbringing, my mother's obsession with thinness, and my father damning me to hell because of my queerness. But even then, the thought of fully breaking free felt impossible. I still craved their love, their acceptance, even if it meant continuing to make myself disappear.

I've begun to wonder about the body-messages I was given for so many years. I've started questioning the rigidity that has brought me a life of such loneliness. What would it look like if who I was on the inside, could match who I was on the outside?

What would it look like to choose myself over who my parents want me to be?