Last night I attended my first group therapy session. I’m on a waiting list to be matched with an affordable professional for my individual journey. Hopefully one versed in dealing with anxiety and eating disorders.

But in the meantime, it was suggested that I try out the motivation drop in group that meets online weekly. I was told it might help simply to feel supported, or to listen to what others are saying about challenges they are facing.

It was only recently that I began speaking out publicly about these issues that affect my daily life. In the past, I felt I had to put on a brave face, smile at the world, and never let on that inside was a constant battle. That a relentless conversation went on in my head about whether it was okay to eat, did I earn the right to eat, was I going to be worthy of eating, was it really necessary to eat.

And like the proverbial snake that swallows its own tail, my anxiety - an entity completely separate and stemming from traumatic experiences in my past - fed the eating disorder. While the eating disorder - an issue with roots in my childhood - increased my anxiety.

“How do you do it? How do you just accept that HE is with HER this weekend?”

The accusatory tone of the speaker was jarring. I was explaining that I’m in a poly relationship. That the man I love already had a married lover when he met me. That I didn’t even know he had “liked me liked me” at first. But when I found out, my world shifted and I suddenly found myself in the most wonderful loving healthy relationship of my life.

The skepticism was obvious on this person’s face when I mentioned my sweetheart was away visiting his lover and that no, I was not jealous of their relationship. Their connection had been going on a year + before I ever met any of them.

“I would NEVER be with a partner who slept around. If he’s mine, he’s mine only.” She said this with a harumph. 

Ahhhh there it was. The ever prevalent society accepted idea that we “own” our partners in any way shape or form. 

​I’m about to let you in on a little secret I’ve been keeping:

Every time a woman does a post of themselves cooking and puts a caption “wife me up” with a cute heart eyes emoji and a simpering smile, I want to vomit in my mouth a little.

The struggle not to, is real. 

Because I wonder to myself, is this truly ALL women aspire to in 2024? 

We can be scientists, athletes, politicians, creators, artists, photographers, agricultural goddesses, writers, entrepreneurs, inventors, poets, professors, researchers, lawyers, surgeons, conservationists, sustainability leaders, jewelers, architects, philosophers, painters, engineers, deep sea divers, pilots…seriously our possibilities are limitless. 

​The first lap dance I ever gave was to a man with no lap, while the bouncer coached me through it. And yes I got paid for this ludicrous arrangement, and even was tipped rather generously.

You heard me correctly. 

John* had volunteered to “take one for the team” as he said with a guffaw. He was ancient, having a good fifty years on my not even twenty-one year old baby stripper self. 

A gnome of a man, he was barely my height without my heels on (I’m a quarter inch shy of 5’4”) and waddled when he walked. His eyes were squinty looking under the layers of bloated fat resting on his face. And his belly protruded so greatly, that when he sat down, there was no place I could sit.

I looked at Walter*, the tall pony-tailed bouncer in horror. As I struggled not so gracefully into my lap dance shorts (there were rules about coverage at this club), I declared in the loudest stage whisper  “there’s nowhere for me to sit!”