“Fat little pig,” is what my own personal monster screams in a voice that’s all too familiar, as I sit on my bed in the privacy of my room with the door closed while I eat the chocolates stashed in my bed stand drawer. I try to ignore it’s mother-like scolding as I unwrap yet another and put it in my mouth, my hunger betrayed only by how quickly I devour it and reach for another.
“Oink oink little pig, here let me get your feeding trough,” it continues still mimicking the voice of my mother.
 Try as I might I can’t completely shut it out and my eyes start to well up with tears. This is only goads her on and like any good bully she uses my tears, my weakness, against me, “Aww us the little piggy sad? Eat more little piggy. That’s all you are is a FAT LITTLE PIG!!” she screams, the noise filling my ears and my heart sinks even lower at the truth in it’s words. I close my eyes, but I can still see her standing there in front of me hands on her hips looking pissed, her fire filled eyes focusing on the chocolate clutched in my trembling hand.
“Please go away” my voice cracking as I beg the malicious monster to let me eat in peace. “Why should I?” it asks as it shifts from looking and sounding like my mother to being my boyfriend.
“I was good today. I only ate a small turkey sandwich the size of my palm; I listened to you. Please leave me be just this once,” I mumble in reply, barely keeping my tears in check.
“Yes, and now look at you! Shoveling chocolate in your face! You make me sick!” the creatures voice shifts smoothly from the high pitched women’s to the low tenor of a man’s and then goes even deeper to the baritone of my father.
I slowly put down my sixth chocolate, not bothering to rewrap it. Remorsefully, I look down in front of me where ten more chocolates lay, begging me to continue fighting the cold ever changing voice of reason. I give them one last look of wanting before I scope them all off the bedspread and hastily deposit them back into the drawer before closing it with a final and definite SNAP!
“Now that’s a good girl,” the voice purrs a father looking proudly at his daughter for the first time, “Yes, such a good girl. Did you remember to weigh yourself?” I grimace at the reminder said in such a loving, yet chastising tone, “I thought not. Come on get up lets see how much closer you are to being beautiful.”
I begrudgingly get up off the bed and walk to the bathroom as if heading for the gallows.
“Come on lets hurry it up, the sooner you get this done the sooner you can get to bed,” the voice says, its tone still stern yet mothering as it again shifts back to her form.
My bare feet touch the harsh cold of the scale and shivers run up my body. I take a deep breath refusing to look done until I say my prayer, “Dear Heavenly Father, please let me be thinner today.”
Then ever so slowly, I look
                                             down
                                                         at
                                                                 my
                                                                          feet….
“WHAT!!!!” the voices of all my loved ones echoes in my head, bounces off the walls, and shakes the mirror almost to the point of it falling off the wall, “How could you gain two pounds? Well? What are we going to do about this?”
I do not bother answering as I continue staring at the number: 146. One hundred forty-six, one hundred forty-six, the number revolves around my head, a screen saver forever rotating in my brain.
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do; you are not to eat tomorrow. Only water and if you slip up so help me…” I finally succeed in turning the volume of the voice down to a slight buzz in the background of my own “How can I keep doing this to myself? What am I doing? I don’t want to have this voice with me for the rest of my life.”
I get off the scale and look in the mirror. I learned long ago that mirrors lie, so it did not surprise me that it did now by showing me as looking the same as when I weighed 130 pounds, before the shape-shifting monster came to reside in my head.
With a deep sigh, I turn away, turn off the light, and crawl under the covers of my bed. “Tomorrow will be better,” I whisper before I close my eyes and start to settle in to sleep. I listen as the voice also settles down next to me.
“Don’t worry, little one,” it whispers, a gentle caress on my cheek, again mingling the voices of those I care for most,  “I’ll never leave you.”