I knew who I was when I woke up this morning but I've changed a few times since then

I was really good at being a fat girl.

Or I thought I was. Until I grew uncomfortable with it.

Funny little fact: I had no idea how the world saw me. I had no idea how I truly looked.

I never thought I was all that big.

I first joined Weight Watchers due to one conversation I had. I was working in telephone sales, one of the darkest periods of my life. Our HR person was sending out emails, telling all of us that she had arranged to start a Weight Watchers at Work group, but she needed 15 of us to agree to join to make it happen.

I had no intention of joining. I did not want to spend the money. I wasn't that heavy. I had a gym membership. I was chiseling the fat away, slowly but surely.

Melissa, one of the more popular ladies at work, was wandering about the cube farm, asking who was going to join. Sheila, one of our co-workers who was morbidly obese, had already agreed to join, Melissa was happy to hear. I sat near Sheila. Melissa stopped by my desk and pointed at me, exclaiming "Darcey, you're definitely in, right?"

Surprised, I said no.

Melissa proceeded to tell me that I was one of the ones at work who really needed to join, the reason that HR was fighting to bring the program in, so I had to join.

I told her that I didn't need to spend that much money on a diet.

She laughed at me and told me that I would be saving money on junk food if I joined, so I might as well do it.

Properly shamed, I joined, taking money out from my savings to cover the cost.

I was so good at being a fat girl that friends and family members were convinced that Weight Watchers would not work for me. In the days I had before beginning WW, I went clothes shopping with my sister and a friend. I found a shirt I liked, but wanted to get it in a smaller size, so I could wear it after losing weight. They gently told me to buy it in the size I actually wore.

So, I began WW, my first adult attempt at following a diet.

I was sure it would not work. No one thought that I would stop being a fat girl.

Much to my shock, it worked. Once I lost over 5 pounds in my first week and kept losing, I become obsessed with those numbers going down.

So, for a while, it worked. I lost weight. I became skinny.

And then I regained the weight. Thus, my yo-yo dieting as an adult began in earnest. I'd lose weight, then gain it all back.

Again, I was really good at being a fat girl.

Now I realize I was really good at numbing myself with food. With alcohol. Occasionally, light drug use.

And as I devour literature on weight, body image, body shaming, etc., I realize I wasn't that good at being a fat girl, because once I was told I was fat, I never accepted my body as beautiful. I never accepted myself as beautiful.

I saw myself as a hideous creature, a Golem I created myself, using food instead of clay.

Not many people in my life at that time did much to persuade me that thinking of myself as hideous was wrong.

It could be argued that it was not their place to do so, however, I've always thought that if you call yourself a monster and no one disagrees with you, that you are a monster, that it is fact, the cold hard reality.

I did not have fattitude. I got myself weight loss surgery instead of embracing my curves.

So, I failed at being a fat girl, as I have permanently taken away the likelihood that I will ever weigh over 250 pounds again.

Belonging is something that my brain gremlins and I have been having many conversations about lately. They tell me that I'm not good enough for the places I want to belong. The people I want to be in a community with.

I am still shocked that my knitting tribe has not jettisoned me yet. My brain gremlins tell me that it's a matter of time.

I volunteer with an amazing ministry now. It's nerve wracking for me to go to our events to work though, as I am sure that one night, I will be told to go away, as I am not wanted there anymore.

Since I am in the process of shedding my fat girl persona, I feel, or my brain gremlins tell me I'm adopting a new persona, that of a Christ follower. My brain gremlins tell me that I will fail at this too.

I once labeled myself an agnostic atheist. I was trying to be a cool kid. At that point in my life, it didn't seem very cool to be a Christian.

Through recovery, through a lot of therapy and meditation, I realize that I failed at being an agnostic atheist. That I always was following Christ. And following him made me a cool kid.

Yet, I still feel uncomfortable at church on occasion.

I feel like I'm just waiting to be told I don't belong there.

I have struggled so long in my life to find a place where I belong, that whenever it feels that I may have found one, I just wait to be told that I was wrong.

Those brain gremlins need to take some time off.

Some days, I do miss the fat girl.

She wasn't that bad of a person.

I wish that I could go back in time and tell her that. I wish I could tell her that she didn't have to hide behind her girth. That she was beautiful. That she was a good person. That she was worthy of love. That she should have just not let the words of others affect her so. That she should have embraced her individuality. That she shouldn't have been so afraid to be vulnerable. That when she felt utterly alone, God was with her.

It bothers me that people may think it is my weight loss that has caused such a change in me.

Losing weight has not made such a tremendous difference in my life.

For I still look in the mirror and see myself as a Golem some days. I still doubt that I am worthy of His love. I fear I will succumb to temptation and numb myself with food again.

Some days, it's so hard to resist the siren call of food.

I have not transformed because I've lost so much weight.

I have transformed because I am working on silencing the brain gremlins. Because I am silencing the shame that tells me I am not worthy. Because I don't let shame and the accompanying Greek chorus of the brain gremlins cast a spell on me.

I have transformed because I am battling my addiction.

I have transformed because I have let the voice of Christ be the loudest in my life. I have transformed because I hear Him now.

I have transformed because I have not let the pain I have experienced in my life stop me from growing. I have not let it stop me from revealing my true self to people.

I have transformed because I have felt the love of the Lord wash over me.

I have spent a lot of time wishing that all of this change could have happened without the surgery. That it could have happened earlier in my life.

Through prayer, through talking to Him, I realize now that a lot of it did happen without the surgery.

The night I was asked to get on stage and tell my story through icuTalks, those ten minutes, in which I bared my soul and spoke freely, without fear of being judged, those ten minutes were the catalyst for my transformation.

I was accepted by a room of people I did not know. I was surrounded by love and faith. I felt this sense of calm the entire time I spoke, even though I was speaking of pain that I had not revealed outside the walls of my therapist's office.

The courage to be vulnerable. The courage to free my pain. The courage to begin my healing. It was all sparked that evening.

If that is not divine intervention, I don't know what is.

And maybe, just maybe, I did not undergo as big of a transformation as I feel I have. Maybe what God has done for me is to show me the way that people have seen me all along and allowed me to forgive myself for the abuse I inflicted on me.