At age 12, my parents fought the custody battle to end all custody battles. It was long and laborious and unabashedly vicious. It went on through the school year, then into summer, and ended with an abrupt car ride to the airport. Just before school was about to start, without warning, a car pulled up to my grandmother’s house, my aunt got out, and broke the news that my mom had lost.

I was immediately sent to Texas, and 24 hours later I started seventh grade – no goodbyes.

While others were answering the test questions, I looked through the website and clicked on the type three description. “Gross,” I thought. “Who are these workaholic attention-whores with ‘most politicians’ as their historic example? I can’t stand people like that.”

Guess what I typed as…

It seemed like every couple of years from the time I was seven-years-old, he would fall into this ditch of despair where he would just drink cheap red wine and beer... pretty much all day long.

I know that beauty is fleeting and that our looks will fade away. I also know that it is the character & heart of GOD that radiates through me, displaying true beauty & lasting value. It is God’s definition that counts most.

I quickly learned I couldn’t make someone love me, but I could make them want me. I discovered later getting people to want me wasn’t limited to sexual intrigue. I could also garner interest with intelligence or hard physical labor. The main point was having something to trade for attention.

"People have said things to me that would normally be considered a 'compliment,' but with a tone of shock and disgust. As if my natural body type was disturbing or unnatural to them."

Like a curator, the person who manages art at a museum, I chose the pieces that people liked the most about my personality, and I hung them on display, with perfect lighting and pretty descriptions.

THERE IT IS:

The biggest secret I have kept from some of my closest friends and family members...

I felt for years that I was failing. I’d always wanted to become a person of influence so that I could help the people that had become victims of trafficking, poverty, or abuse. I would cry all the time, frustrated, because I felt like I had failed them - I didn't have the resources and I couldn't really help anybody. Simple visits to Skid Row, or short mission trips felt like insignificant attempts at changing anything, let alone the world.

When I looked at him with utter shock, that’s when he explained himself: 

“Basically after this conversation, you need to either eat a cheeseburger or go to the gym. But you need to pick one and stick with it because your body type is in-between and there is no place for you in this industry” 

I felt so evil, so guilty, so wrong. But I didn’t want to stop. I wanted more and more of that high that I got when I watched pornography. Eventually, though, I realized that I couldn’t live like that anymore.