In the words of Rumi, “The wound is where the light enters you”. And so begins the tale of how I acquired, what I loosely term a ‘psychological scar’.

It wasn’t so much an event , but maybe more of a series of incremental events repeated over weekend visits with my brother at my dad’s place when I was growing up. Make no mistake, I live for my dad; the kindest, most principled and self-sacrificial human ever. But growing up, I guess dad never realised how buying us junk food routinely when we visited, would end up making his little girl associate food with love. We were set free to run wild in the snacks isle and instructed to ‘‘take whatever you want’’; no constraints on the amount of snacks, colourants and wildly addictive sugars. The temporary, but very potent, sugar high that I would later use as a salve for the many depressive episodes in adolescence and beyond, had been found.

Sure, most people know what we mean by the notion of occasional “comfort food”, but maybe because of a genetic or other predisposition, there was a psychological and spiritual groove in my head and heart that culminated in what I consider to be a possible eating disorder.

Denial is something they probably talk about in Twelve-Step Alcoholics Anonymous, but I think an overwhelming sense of denialism permeated my existence at varsity, quite a lot.

The scar was delivered when I sat one night opposite my male best friend at varsity, outside a lecture hall at night, as we jokingly went over the day’s happenings. He casually looked over to my side and said, “Neli, you’re a glutton, aren’t you?”. How had he seen that when other people feel full, I would rather keep going? Surely, how had he picked up that I would spend most of my allowance on food or be unnaturally fixated on it; let alone curse myself for never having mastered the art of puking everything out afterwards. The people who have known me my entire life, have seen me at various never-ending shifting weights. Right from being called ‘fat ‘ on the street then later labelled fit on the track . It’s been an embarrassingly noticeable process of weight gain and loss multiple times over my adolescent and now adult life.

The realisation that my best friend at varsity had an insight into my secret of disordered eating wounded me instantly. It wasn’t because he was male (who knows? maybe it was).

Could the wound have been delivered deeper because I was wearing my running tights and my usual sporty hoodie? Evidence of my unhealthy relationship with sport and body-image issues? I can never tell, but the scar nonetheless persists. Whether it’s bulimia, binge-eating disorder, anorexia or anything on the multiple spectrums of affliction that challenge people with food and dangerously unhealthy body image issues; I want my fellow compatriots to know that we need not suffer in silence. This confession I divulge publicly for the first time today, may be the thing that convinces another similarly challenged human being to live on knowing that they are not alone; perhaps that will be the cost l gladly bear for exposing this spiritual, psychological and very emotional scar. This shit oozes daily, and haunts me unendingly some days but I hope it’s a scar that may maybe see redemption through tortured spirit first.