I’m not sure when I first noticed it. I believe it all started when I began a new diet. It was the start of a new year, and, as always, my goal was to lose a few pounds. I was newly divorced, ready to get back on the dating scene, and that started with gaining confidence and losing weight. I kept strict guidelines of what to eat, based on a website I found via r/LoseIt. It didn’t have too many upvotes, just a link to a website OP claimed “changed their life” and “helped them lose weight and keep it off, once and for all.” I can’t remember the website’s name now, as when I went back to the subreddit to find the post, it had been deleted.
The website outlined a fairly inexpensive and straightforward diet plan, consisting of certain specific foods I had to scour grocery stores throughout my county to find. I deemed it all worth it in the end, to finally be thin like I’d always wanted to be. As soon as I started, I noticed my hunger cues were diminished significantly. A lot of the time, I didn’t even care to eat the meals laid out on the diet plan the website produced for me, but I still choked it down, so as to not fall into disordered eating.
In the first week, I lost 10 pounds! I was ecstatic. I immediately texted my best friends, raving about the miracle diet I was on, and received kudos for the weight I had shed so easily. I didn’t weigh in for another week, and when I saw the scale, my eyes just about popped out of my head. I had lost 30 pounds in a week! I was at a weight I hadn’t been since high school. And still, when I glanced in the mirror, I looked just the same as I was 40 pounds heavier. At first, I assumed it to be body dysmorphia, seeing as I had lost a significant amount of weight in a short period of time.
It was around this time that I began dating Mark. He was just my type, tall, dark, and handsome. And I continued the diet against my better judgment, aiming to look my best for my new beau. In another two weeks, I had lost nearly another 20 pounds, making me the lowest weight in my adult life. However, even Mark exclaimed that he didn’t notice much of a difference, and that I was perfect the way I was. I visited my doctor for a routine physical, and he immediately took note of the weight loss. When he took a look at the height the nurse had written down, though, he frowned. “Are you aware you’ve also lost around four inches of height? Last time you were here, you were 5’5, but today, you measured at just 5’1,” He said, a concerned look in his eye. Of course, I hadn’t noticed. He ran what seemed like billions of tests, and they all came back clear. He simply attributed it to rapid weight loss and left it at that.
As I continued the diet, desperate to see the results of my weight loss, I began to notice more than just a decrease in height. My arms and legs were shrinking, too. Only, they were getting shorter, rather than thinner. I kept measuring myself throughout the five months I was on the diet, considering things like brain tumors and hormonal changes that could have potentially led to my vertical shrinking. Yet, my medical screenings came back clear every time. Healthy as a horse, standing at 3’8 by the end of June. Mark was convinced it was my posture, always saying he wished I would stand up straighter, that it would help with “my height problem.”
And then, on August 23rd, it happened. I woke up about the size of an ant, in my bed next to Mark. I tried calling out to him, but my voice was so tiny, he couldn’t hear me. He looked around for me when he woke up, and then his face broke into a wide grin. I watched as he quickly made a phone call to the woman he’d been cheating on me with for five months of our relationship, stating that I had left for work and she could come over. I watched as they had sex in our marital bed.
And now, I’m sitting on our windowsill next to a dead fly that’s been here who knows how long. It’s taken me nearly all day to type this on my phone, hopping from one letter to the next. The next steps for me? Who knows. I’m waiting until 48 hours go by, when my boyfriend will likely report me missing, much to his delight. After that, my plan is to climb into his mouth while he’s sleeping, and follow the path to his stomach with all these sewing needles I have in my drawer.
At least I hit my goal weight.