[Mod note: This was very difficult for me to read, so proceed with caution with regards to triggering content. And to the author: You are a strong and brilliant person. Thank you for sharing. <3]

submitted by spooky-mr-charles:

I never really had a chance to enjoy my body until I was 17 years old. From the ages of 11 to 16, I was molested by a my step-grandfather.

When puberty reared its ugly head, so when I was about 13, my molester began to control what I ate, along with how I wore my makeup, hair, and clothing.

Second helpings of dinner had to be small. I had to eat at a moderate pace otherwise he’d call me “his little fatty piggy girl” for weeks. On holidays, I was thankful for eating at others’ houses because he couldn’t control my portions in public.

By controlling my weight and what I ate, he was able to shame my grandmother. I was young and thin- desirable. She was old and fat- not desirable.

I wasn’t allowed to dye my hair or wear extensive makeup because he liked “natural” girls. If my grandmother or another family member took me clothes shopping, when I returned he had to investigate what I bought to make sure it was sexy enough for him but would keep boys away from me. Everything from my hair accessories to my socks to my bras and panties were inspected.

When my grandfather was arrested six months after my 16th birthday, I went from 150 pounds to 115 because of stress over what would happen to my family. I basically vomited for six weeks.

2010 and the first half of 2011 were wrought with stress and bad boyfriends but by the summer of 2011 I had come into my body.

I hacked 16 inches off my hair, dyed it obnoxiously pink, and got my first tattoo in that year. My weight went from 115 to 135 and I was happy.

It took me until I was 17 to accept and play with my body. It’s my goddamn body and I will poke it, pinch it, love it, hate it, feed it, work it out, and whatever the fuck else I want because it is my body.

And nobody can take it away from me.