My name is Kimberly Jackson and I?m a 30-year-old black female. I?m educated (I have a degree in Biology), I have one daughter, I?ve never been married and I am a Christian. I come from a single parent home where my mother is also an educated intelligent woman (Masters in Psychology). I?m an only child and I grew up with all that I needed and almost everything I wanted. At 14 years old, I was date raped in my home by a fellow classmate. During the assault, he and his friend that was also there, told me how pretty I was and how nice I looked that day at school. They told me they liked my body. Before I was raped, they told me they weren?t leaving until they got what they came for. After the rape was completed, he and his friend left my home and I cleaned up my room, which was littered with condom wrappers and a disarrayed bed, I acted like nothing had ever happened. The next day I explained to a friend what happened and she told me I?d been raped. My mind couldn?t really comprehend ? being raped?. It was too much to deal with at the time. About one month later, my mother found out about the rape. She hit the roof. In her anger she was verbally and physically abusive to me, which made the situation even harder to deal with. I withdrew further into myself and openly began to hate her. As a result of the rape I?d been sexually and emotionally damaged by the rapist, physically and verbally abused by my mother, legally questioned and not believed by the authorities, and medically I?d contracted chlamydia. That was a lot to deal with as a 14 year old completing the eighth grade with no counseling to help me sort things through.
That summer I went to live with my aunt and uncle and their three girls. I would not go out and play with the kids from the neighborhood. I stayed inside and read and exercised. I decided that I needed to change my body and get rid of my curves. Having curves was what attracted the rapist and his friend to my body. Having curves is why I got raped so I needed to not have curves to ensure that I would not get raped again. So, I spent the summer exercising. I?d exercise at home then I?d go to a continuing education exercise class that was offered at the local university. When school started I?d go to school, come straight home and do my homework and chores, then I?d exercise. I?d eat dinner and I would not allow myself to have seconds. I was slowly starting to lose those curves and I loved it. But, I still had more curves to lose and I knew that because boys at school and men at the mall still noticed my round butt and breast. I?d have nightmares about the rape and I walked around in fear that if I didn?t get rid of those curves, some boy or man would want to rape me again. I started taking over the counter diet pill and eating less and exercising more. My curves finally disappeared but so did my drive to keep the curves off. I was obsessed with losing weight and not getting raped again, but my body was so tired of the abuse. By this point anorexia had completely taken over me.
Just at the point that I felt I couldn?t go on with the anorexic lifestyle a close friend introduced me to purging. She taught me how to stick my finger down my throat. She taught me little tricks like drinking a full glass of water before I got ready to throw up would make it come up easier. She told me how long I could wait before I could throw up or how long I could wait before it would be too late to bother throwing up. She introduced me to ipecac syrup-something designed to be taken only in an emergency like in the case of ingesting poison (Which I guess was appropriate for me because I considered food poison). To me, the idea of purging was a Godsend. I could eat and get my family off my back about not eating and at the same time I could keep the curves off. I began to throw up everyday-breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would sneak and buy ipecac syrup with my allowance. And when I couldn?t throw up, I would drink an Epsom salt concoction I?d learned about.
By this time, I was living with mom and grandmother. My grandmother was a nurse so she quickly picked up on my behavior-going to the bathroom right after dinner, exercising for two hours a night and continued weight loss. She and my mother approached me and told me I better stop it. So, I just got craftier and more deceitful and secretive with my disorder because there was no way I was giving it up. I?d wait until I got to school to throw up breakfast. I?d skip lunch or if I ate it, I?d take ipecac syrup so that I?d get to leave class after lunch and throw it up. I?d eat dinner but not throw it up and exercise for two hours a night. Or I would eat dinner and sneak a plastic bag in the bathroom with me and throw up in it in the shower since my mom and grandmother wouldn?t be able to hear my gag with the water running. I stopped losing weight, but I didn?t gain any either. This was my life for four years.
When I went to college I decided to turn over a new leaf. I wanted to stop purging and face the rape. I gained twenty-five pounds that summer once I stopped purging. I was scared senseless because my curves were back. I was also terrified because I was returning to the town where the rape occurred and I that I would see my rapist. Unlike high school where I had both white and black friends, in college I hung out with all black people. My girlfriends couldn?t understand why I wanted to lose weight. I had a nice body (in the African American culture having a nice size butt and breasts is good). The guys would sing that song ?Brick House? when I?d walk by. To me, it was humiliating. I also lived in constant fear of seeing my rapist because Clarksville was his hometown and I knew he was still around somewhere. Finally one night at a party my sorority hosted, I saw him. He came up behind me and touched me on my shoulder and said, ?Hey, where have you been??. I freaked out. That day, I went back to my eating disorder. I ate and ate and began purging again until my roommate found my ipecac syrup. She told me, ? Black people did not do this stuff?. She also threatened to tell my mother the next time she called if I didn?t promise to stop. So, I was back in the closet with my purging. Back to purging in a bag in the shower so no one would hear me gagging and constantly flushing the toilet. Back to laxatives and days of fasting. I was on a roller coaster. My weight shot up and finally guys stopped singing ?Brick House? when I walked by.
I still hadn?t gotten therapy for the rape. My mother and I still never talked about her devastating response to finding out I was raped, and I still used food to medicate and cope with myself. For several years, my weight fluctuated. I graduated from college, started and quit graduate school, and I gave birth to my daughter. I was in a dead-end job and I wanted and needed a change. I felt discouraged about my life. As I said earlier, I am a Christian. I?ve been brought up in the church all of my life and I love God. I began to pray and ask God for some direction for my life. He instructed me to move to Rochester, NY, where I have an aunt and a cousin. I moved to Rochester in January of 2000. Once here, I joined a great church where I have a wonderful pastor and friends. By this time my weight was at an all time high of 250 pounds. I had made a New Year?s resolution to lose forty pounds by any means necessary. I started a Christ-centered weight loss class in my home twice a week in June of 2000. The weight loss plan called ?Weigh Down? had a primary lesson-eat when you?re hungry-stop when you are full. The last week of June I called a called friend of mine and told her that I hadn?t eaten any real food of substance in a week and I didn?t care if I never ate again. Warning flags went off in my mind because I knew what it was like to starve myself and I knew that?s what I was starting to do.
Read Part 2
