The pain came suddenly. It started in her stomach and within seconds engulfed her entire body. The pain was so extreme that she fell to the floor curled up hugging herself. And just when the intensity of the pain increased to a point where the moans were to turn into screams, it disappeared. The pain vanished as quickly and suddenly as it came. As she rose gingerly to her feet, the relief she felt, almost immediately turned into disappointment.

She realized with the familiar tightening in her chest, that now that the writhing pain had subsided, she had to deal with the other kind of pain that she had had to bear for the last two years. The pain of loss and lonliness.

Thus began the bouts of self-infliction