I have a secret

It might just come back to bite me on the ass too. Before I get to the secret let me preface this by sharing that several years ago I looked at myself in a photograph and didn't even recognize who it was. I was fat. There is no kind way to say it... you can call it pudge, or "baby weight" even though my youngest child was two. But the honest truth was I had stopped caring. I stopped trying. I gave up on myself.


I was horrified. The very next day I went to the local weight loss center and joined. I went to the local Target and bought a Leslie Sansone walk away the pounds video. I threw out all the cookies and Snickers bars while crying big fat girl tears. Over the next five months I lost just under 60 lbs.

I felt sexy. I felt powerful and healthy and in control of my life for the first time in ages. I was proud of my body and my effort. I got next to no support or acknowledgement from the X. He refused to participate. He refused to work out with me. He refused to help me eat healthy... in fact he cooked whatever he wanted and ate it in front of me while I noshed on a low calorie lean cuisine for dinner each night.


Now here is where the secret comes in. In an effort to embrace my new body I took nude, semi nude, and down right dirty photos of myself. I masturbated to those photos, reveling in my long legs and flat stomach. They were for me. I loaded them into my photo editing software and created the perfect lighting. I airbrushed out the stray imperfections. They were beautiful to me.


Then during our divorce my X found the photos. He got onto my private computer and downloaded them onto a portable zip drive. He gave them to friends. He showed them to my children and tried to show them to my friends and in-laws.


He took what was private and empowering and he made it dirty and hurtful. I deleted each and every photo. But he has copies. His friends have copies.


I'm sure they're going to surface some time in the future to further humiliate me and be used against me to try and show that I'm a bad mother or immoral somehow.


It's one more thing he ruined for me.