My relationship with food was broken. Then I killed my own dinner

For years, eating was something to control, fear or regret. After I hunted my first deer, I started to see fat, hunger and my own body in a different light I muffled my sobs with a pillow so my family couldn’t hear me from the adjacent room.

I was 19 years old and we were in Paris, staying on the top floor of an old six-story walkup where every step echoed through the thin walls. I was trying, and failing, to hide the emotional war I had decided to wage on my body. Who does that on a family vacation? In Europe, no less? Pulling tear-soaked strands of hair off my cheeks, I stood in front of a full-length mirror and grabbed the fat of my thighs. If only…