It was almost as if I blanked out.  One minute I was aware of my surroundings, and the next I was on the floor, sobbing in pain.  Once again, I ate way too much, and I really wasn't sure why.  It made no sense to me!  Clearly, it wasn't helping fill the void I felt, so why did I do it again?  Not only that, but it made me really sick last time!  I didn't want to go through that again!  But somehow, over and over and over, I found myself in this exact scenario.  Something upsetting would occur and I immediately would try to solve it with food.  Sad thing was, it never even worked half the time.  Instead, it just made me feel sick.  More often than not, I would eat to the point I would end up being sick, and then keep eating.  I'm not sure where this coping mechanism came from, but it quickly became a really bad habit that I was deeply ashamed of.  

Believe me, I wanted to stop.  But at the same time, it seemed nearly impossible.  With the ongoing tension between my parents and me not only being in the middle of it but being the cause of it, I just needed something to cope.  I tried to do other things, I really did.  From art to knitting to sport.  But nothing could ever distract me enough to prevent the inevitable binge.  It was to the point that I was binging at least 3 or 4 times a week.  And I felt horrible about it.  My parents often wondered where the food went, or why I never seemed to have any spare change.  Why?  Because I couldn't stop myself from stuffing my face with the hopes of solving my sadness.

The other downside to this was the weight gain.  Unfortunately, eating more equals weight gain, which was a rule I wasn't exempt from.  As someone who was stick thin all their life, it was quite noticeable too.  Especially with how fast it was happening.  Within a couple of months, none of my men's clothing fit anymore.  Those work pants that were always too loose on me no longer fit me in the slightest.  Mum had to spend Dad's hard-earned money to get me new ones. Thankfully, with how the dresses were made, everything depended on how tight you tied it, so it was going to take a much bigger difference to outgrow those.  

Everything was happening so rapidly that I could barely even recognize myself anymore.  Associating myself with my body just didn't work anymore and there was a huge disconnect.  An even bigger one than before when all that disconnected me was gender.  I just didn't look like me anymore when my face was filled out and my body was noticeably wider.  Thankfully, I wasn't like my Dad and collected my weight all in the upper body.  It was pretty evenly distributed, allowing me to still be able to feel like I had a chance at passing as a woman.  Though, out of all the bad things that were happening, one good thing came out of it.  It sounds incredibly dumb, but with the weight gain, I looked like I had breasts.  Albeit small, but still breasts.  Out of everything, that was the only thing I actually liked, which did make it even harder to let go of my dangerous coping mechanism.  Obviously, if I did lose the weight, then all signs of a chest would be gone.  I wasn't sure I could let that go.  At the same time, I knew what I was doing was horrendous for my health, and eating myself to death wasn't exactly how I wanted to go.

As mentioned earlier, it was noticeable.  That means the family definitely noticed.  At first, Dad was all for me looking more like a man.  He never liked how skinny I was in the first place.  Over time, that feeling faded and he started seeing me as useless and fat.  On the other side of things, Mum was very concerned.  Packing on as much weight as I did in such a small time period was worrying, so I understood where she was coming from.  Truth be told, I was worried too.  Countless times, Mum tried to get me to talk, but I was too ashamed to admit to anything.  If anything, it just made me feel guiltier that I was worrying her, making me more prone to do what made me feel guilty in the first place.  It was just one big incomprehensible cycle.