I’ve just read two pieces about being fat; Why Am I So Fat? by Sara Benincasa and In Defense of Fat Sadness by Your Fat Friend. Then I read two more pieces, also by Your Fat Friend entitled, “Sweetie, No!” The Heartbreak of “You’re Not Fat” and A Call To Action: Your Fat Friend Is Going It Alone.
(These links may not even work anymore… because this post took me three or four years to actually finish. Back burner, basically.)
I have a lot of experience with fat. A lot. So, what was that like? Here, I’ll tell ya!
My experiences as a child were a bit similar to Olive Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine. She’s a thin girl with a little girl belly. Not all young girls have large bellies, but a lot of them do, from my observations. So, her father sees that she is fat and this is something she should become aware of, in hopes that she won’t someday turn into a “grody” fat person. There’s a scene where they stop to eat and she orders ice cream, and is when her father is trying to explain that it’s probably not a good idea for her to have ice cream, especially considering her weight. And Olive is confused and doesn’t understand what she has done wrong.
This is the exact type of behavior, if given free rein, and is constantly reinforced, which will create self-doubt and poor body image. Olive Hoover is a perfectly normal (whatever age… 8? 10?) girl. She has a big belly that is on par for most young girls… and who doesn’t love ice cream as a kid? She is also unaware that anything is wrong with her, because honestly, there isn’t actually anything amiss.
This, however, is the only instance we see in the fictional Olive’s life about food policing and body shaming. For most young girls, however, it is rarely a once off type of deal. It is something that is remarked upon again and again. Which, whether the girl actually is overweight or not, or whether she will become overweight or not is of little matter. Because of these types of actions, most girls (at least in the US) will have some sort of poor body image directly from this type of policing. She could be the quintessential “perfect” looking girl, all thin and beautiful, and she will more than likely still have body image issues.
Now, I did not have the body of Olive Hoover. In my opinion, looking back upon photo’s, I was not an overweight girl. Can I see why people thought that I was? Absolutely? I was not a slight girl with a little girl belly, I was meaty all over. Did it mean that what my family did was right? No. Even today, they can not see that I was average, for me. I can not stress the for me part enough. Comparisons of people are very damning things, especially to young children; “Why aren’t you like this person? See this girl, that’s what you’re supposed to look like. Do better.”
The girls encompassing me on the stage seem to fit the mold of average white girl body structure for their age group. Of course everyone has fat on their bodies, and you’ll notice that it appears that I have a whole lot of extra fat compared to these girls. Even in the photo on the left my legs are quite large. This, however, was never simply fat. That’s a whole lot of muscle right there. I just wasn’t born to be your average willowy or thin white girl. I was apparently born to be a rather short powerhouse.
But to look around in a sea of white girls and I’m the odd one out on looks, the only assumption, apparently, that could be made was that I was fat. You don’t happen to see them, and I don’t have other photo’s of the other girls in my dance troupe, but a few girls were very, very thin. They were just supposed to be very, very thin, as opposed to the two girls that flank me. But apparently there’s a range in people’s minds from the very, very thin to the girls that you see… however, anything above that is just fat.
In the initial photo, are members of my immediate family and my dad’s siblings and parents. I was not born yet. My older sister is the one being held up by my mom. Notice how long and thin she is. Now, we’ll look at a photo when I’m about the same age as her. These are members of dad’s extended family on his maternal side. There’s still the nuclear family of the original three; my parents and The Sister, though separated in the second photo, with my sister in the center wearing the lavender shirt.
And then we have me. I am the very short girl in the blue fringe shirt looking like she’s about to discuss some serious business. I am much squatter and thicker than my sister (of about the same age) in the previous photo. I will also look nothing like her when I get to be the age she was in the 1985 photo (about 11). But honestly, to me, it just looks like I’ve got a lot of muscle and shortness going on, not this really obese thing that people kept policing me about when I was young. Note the teenage girl to the left of me, who’s holding my teddy bear. She will later have a child who is the spitting image of me in body shape and colouring. But thirteen years will have passed since this photo and she will be viewed by our extended family as perfectly normal.
The only conclusion that I can make is because they do not see this child as a white girl. See her mother was adopted and is primarily not Caucasian. So, the fact that her daughter isn’t viewed as a white girl, the family thus views her as perfectly normal. Where both of my parents are white, so I was viewed as a very wrong white girl; a girl whom something was wrong about. I’m not saying that my family are the smartest people in the world, but they also aren’t that stupid. People generally know that traits and features skip generations and also that sometimes in families there are the members that don’t quite fit with the entire scheme of things.
They even know that two of the siblings in my grandmothers family didn’t look like the rest. My grandmothers family was a large one. Her parents had a million like four kids and then later ended up having five or six more. So, when my grandmother was having her kids, she had baby siblings, making her youngest siblings only a few years older than my dad. One excellent example is the man with his hands on my sisters shoulders. This is one of my grandmothers younger brothers, who is only two years older than my dad. His wife (to the left in the white shirt), my mom (in the pink shirt), my dad (far left) and my sister all look one way, with the rest of us looking about the same.
However, the one’s of us who are dark like the uncle simply tan by just looking at the sun because we have a lot of melanin in our bodies, where the other people don’t have as much. The two women hardly tan at all, where as my dad and my sister will tan light golden, just like the other members of my grandmothers family. The uncles skin base was always darker and he tans a little more from working outside a lot. And there is an aunt born near this uncle who is the same way. In facial looks and colouring they didn’t fit the family.
Sadly, the consensus is that if they didn’t know my great grandmother better, they’d have sworn she’d messed around at the “Jap Camp up the road”. (horrible, I know, but it’s their exact words…) This is how unlike in looks those two are in relation to the rest of the family. However an educated person could tell you that they are not Japanese. They don’t look Japanese, it’s just that was really the only other ethnicity in the general vicinity at the time, so is what the family latched on to. It’s because of those horrid internment camps during WWII, where our government decided to lock up all the Japanese in concentration internment camps, just to be on the safe side. George Takei talks a lot about these, because a lot of people don’t know and he himself spent time in one… the one up the road from my grandmothers family, actually. 😦
But, this latching on to the only ethnicity you are aware of, also happened on my mothers side. Her and her sister were adopted, but this is about the sister. Where my mother and my aunt grew up, the people there only knew two races; white people and black people, so the towns people just said that my aunt was black because they didn’t know what else she could possibly be. She’s Armenian, by the way. But apparently in southern Mississippi in the 1950s, Armenian equals black, just as in rural Arkansas in the 1930s, Eastern European/Greek/North African? equals Japanese.
It was always thought that there was Native American ancestry in my fathers family. However, after he took a DNA test, that isn’t true. So, a faerie story basically. I suppose just because Arkansas prior to WWII, it’s either white or Indian. Anyways, knowing genetics gives one the most logical reason. These are inherited traits that produced stronger in these two children than in the other bajillion eight or so, to give them a darker skin colouring than peachy white that turns light gold. This family knows that kids can look markedly different in families, having the experience themselves, yet I was seen to be exactly like them… but morbidly obese?
I won’t get into everything that inherited from both sides of the family as that will be a very long post. But basically I got all the “wrong” parts that are present in both sides of my dad’s family and in my mothers family to create this kid who “looks white and oh no, she’s looked at the sun and now she’s really, really dark and she’s just so short and look at how big she is… well she’s white, so she must just be really fat… it will never once occur to us that she might just be inheriting lots of qualities and if she were not born to white people we’d totally say that she’s normal“. Which was basically my childhood in a nutshell.
So, while I believe that I was not a fat child, just stocky and muscular, this is not what anyone else believed about me. The Olive Hoover lecture is something I received all the time. My mother even told people at school, relatives, and family friends that I had an eating problem and they were trying to get me to lose weight, so in essence I was policed about portioning and which foods I could and could not have just about anywhere that I went. I was even forced to attend fat camp.
The kicker is that a lot of my features come from my mother. Who herself, when looking back on her childhood photo’s, was not a fat child either, yet her mother felt that she was extremely fat because she didn’t look like her adopted sister who was in the realm of acceptable weight, nor did she look like our grandmother. So, my grandmother policed her about food and made her diet from a very young age. Something my mom will tell you was stupid because she wasn’t fat, yet she turned around and did the same thing to her own child?
So, while I might not have been an overweight child to begin with, the majority of people treated me like I was, and in turn I had poor body image from an early age and did being to gain weight. So, we’ll move on to that time.
Since I was a teenager I have had the oddest reactions from people concerning my weight. They would either be shocked to find that I only weight 190 pounds because they assumed my weight would be so much more; or else they were shocked that I weighed so much, because they never would have guessed that I weighed 190 pounds. It was rather disconcerting to know that most of the student body had been giving some serious thought to my weight. My weight! Was this the topic of conversation spilling from their mouths, amongst debates about how hot Leonardo DiCaprio was or if they were going to see Bush in concert?
It certainly got my back up about the entire affair because it wasn’t any of their business to be discussing my weight and whether it was agreeable or not. I really had no words for it at the time except that I greatly disliked the lot of them; not so much as a by your leave and willy nilly discussions taking place, I imagined, in dark corners of the school, like they were plotting when best to execute my demise.
High School Camo Day 1995 (forefront, right)
Then there were all of the people, whom I suppose were well meaning, would tell me I was pretty, though I hadn’t pandered for a response on the topic, like it was their most desperate attempt to let me know that I wasn’t… what exactly? As ugly as the general populace discussed that I was? And while not pandering for sympathy either, I might mention that I might go on a diet or some other girly flight of fancy talk, and would be met with with simpering remarks on how I wasn’t fat… or how I wasn’t that big.
Like everything would be right as rain with these statements. At the time they infuriated me to no end. First, I never asked a question, so was not looking for an answer. Whether it was that I wasn’t that ugly nor that fat. To me, it was the equivalent of “You look good, because you were looking pretty rough before.” It’s unwarranted and unnecessary and no one likes it. “Gee… thanks, y’all.”
But, as I’ve gotten older, and wider I might add, I have found that perception does play a part in this; both for good and evil. First, there is the perception that fat equals disgusting, so if your friends don’t find you disgusting, then you’re not that fat, so have heart that you are still acceptable amongst the people. I have seen some very large ladies who are total knock-outs… and I’ve seen some who are pretty gross. It’s not the fat, it’s the person. It’s whatever issues that might have been dealt in life and how they choose to project themselves to the world. The same is true for thin girls. Some are gorgeous and some you fear getting close to as if you’ll catch something. They’re just a sloppy person, it shows no matter what their weight, because the style of physique isn’t what’s gross, it’s what’s inside, projecting outward.
And that is also a sad matter. The insides, I mean. Some people rise up against their institutionalized issues… and some don’t. It really does have more to do with letting all of that go and believing in yourself, than perfecting the physical aesthetics. And… that’s easier said than done.
Confidence, man. It’s where it’s at. It sounds far fetched, but I believe there is some truth in it. No matter your looks or stature if you slouch and shuffle along with your head down and wear frumpy clothes, you’re not hidden as you might think. People are seeing you and you’re giving off this feeling of “I’m unworthy, I’m gross, just leave me alone.” I have seen girls who are overweight and look just fine, but they don’t believe it and act just as I’ve described above. I can feel that off of them and I don’t want any part of it. They’re continuing to create their own hell, which sucks.
The same type of girl, same weight and about the same beauty of face can look like a million bucks because she’s walking and standing upright, smiling, not arrogant but knowing who she is and likes who she is. Her emotional vibrations are not reverberating shame, humiliation, nor unworthiness; they’re radiating positivity, fun, charm, or other positive qualities she naturally has. While for some, this confidence is second nature, or easily re-obtained, it’s not the case for a lot of women.
When Lane Bryant was in the mall I’d go in there to shop. I always wished I’d get the black ladies sales clerks & not the white ladies. Why? For one, I liked their style better. They’d get clothing in with no direction on how to style them on the mannequins & just choose their own ways. One was this a-line dress that should be worn over tights. But they fitted it on the mannequin like it was a skin hugging top paired with jeans. It’s something I bought, because if fit me like that. I was slightly horrified, but also amused, when I looked it up online to find that it was an a-line dress! That was never gonna fit me like that! hahah
Second, kind of goes together. They had body positivity through the roof & they knew how to dress my body. I’d get out of a dressing room & look in the big mirror & if it didn’t look good, they had no problems saying so & saying to try this or that instead. Or else they’d tell me it looked great. And they weren’t lying. They also could see how my body was shaped & since it was like most of their bodies, they’d say, “I gotya girl. Hold on. I know the exact style pants you need.” & they were never wrong.
The white girls assisting me would look downcast & wishing they couldn’t be seen. They’d stammer out that everything looked fine… “I guess…” & were looking at me the way they looked at themselves, like I was mega gross. I didn’t feel gross… until I had to deal with them, then I wanted nothing than to escape outside to the fresh air & away from all of that.
Making origami for a show – 2017
There was one white girl, before they moved to their own store in front of Target. I walked in, but noticed her folding clothes, the tiniest, skinniest lady you could see & just immediately thought, ‘Oh fuck… I’ve wandered into the wrong store…”.
It would have gone fine, except that she assumed my confusion for hating “that skinny bitch” & got her back up about it. “What?! You think I can’t work here or find clothes for you?”. Incidentally, I wasn’t thinking that at all, until she brought it up & then I was dubious that she could actually dress me. She couldn’t. She tried, but my body structure baffled her & you could tell she actually became frustrated about it. Sometimes, it’s just true that people have to fit roles. Like, I wouldn’t think I could just go into GNC & sell body builders their supplements… since I have no knowledge of that or even exercise! She was out of her depth. I hate it for her, but she just was. She’d actually have done better at Hot Topic or something. She was a little… bite-y. Anyways.
I read a lady recently, a rape survivor, who was writing that the women of rape need to rise up out of the mire. They’re not victims, that they are survivors. It is true, but only in the same way that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. It is true that these women are still beautiful beings, who did nothing wrong, should not feel ashamed, and should rise up out of the fear and depression of the situation. But everyone’s path and baggage are different. If they’re not in the place yet to hear that, they simply won’t be able to hear it for anything other than fuel for their self doubt. They aren’t ready to accept that they, too, have the ability to be strong; to shed shame and self doubt. If they’re not ready to hear it and it seems accusatory, as in “Why aren’t you doing this yet?!?” it will do more harm than good in their journey forward. To hear the words are fine on a basic, non accusatory, level. The person will argue, if not with you, then with themselves, but more than likely it won’t make them retreat further inwards.
The same is true for fat. There are different types for fat, and we’re talking women because I really haven’t a lot of insight for the male populations struggles. The first group are the Newly Fat. The women who were always thin, and only became overweight after their teens either because of over eating or because of pregnancy. For the most part, they are bitter over the loss of their “perfect” bodies and detest other fat girls as if it’s partly their fault they are now this way. I’m not saying all of the new-fat are this way, but you can spot them a mile away. They’re new to this game and they are pissed. Just a few I’ve encountered are my own mother, two family friends, two aunts, and the bra fitter at Lane Bryant. Yeah, not a good store to place a Newly-Fat woman (well, the angry kind) into.
At the roller rink – 1988?
The second group, the Always Fat, have two camps. As the moniker implies, they’ve been fat since forever childhood. One camp is comprised of the women and young girls who lack self confidence and are ashamed of their bodies. The other camp are the women and sometimes young girls who have gained, regained, or never lost their self confidence and are not ashamed of the way they look. This double group is the one I encounter most in the world; whether online or in real life. The advocates going about ending fat shaming in various ways and the ones who hear the words, but can’t see it for themselves.
I have been both of these women in the Always-Fat category. And fat is a touchy subject for us, even if it’s for different reasons. In the first camp you don’t want to admit that you are fat. You don’t want people noticing or commenting on the fact that you are fat. You do realize that you are fat, however, and hate yourself for it. Your fatness controls you and your identity is wrapped up in how fat you are. If you bring it up, it’s OK. If someone else brings it up it’s a blow to the system. And even though you know you’re fat, but also don’t like thinking about it or really admitting it, for someone to tell you that you are not fat hurts as well. It’s tantamount to your opinion not mattering, and is only another thing added to your baggage of fat issues.
For the second camp, you have accepted that you are fat. But you also know that you’re fabulous. You acknowledge that you are fat, and to some extent it defines you as a person. However it is not the defining pinnacle of who you are and does not control you. You’re only human and you have days or moments of insecurity, but are not riddled with it. You do not avoid thinking about fat, trying to internally deny that you are, it’s just not that important of a thing to worry about. You do not mind proclaiming that you are fat, anymore than you’re stating that the sky is above you or it’s raining today, but you are incensed when others try to placate you by saying that you are not that fat. It is not seen has helpful or nice, but undermining. It’s the same as saying, “No you didn’t dream that last night.” or any other expression of ‘I know more about you that you do of yourself’.
Showing off one’s body, whether thin or fat, is always argued as either a call for attention, a natural brazen disposition, or something that is very, very brave; and all depending upon the body in question. I’m not a fan of half naked people, simply because I’m not a fan or half naked people. It doesn’t matter if it’s selling you something, showing pouty lips, or ones progression through weight loss. Personally, I simply don’t have this disposition. I’m not an exhibitionist, no matter what the motive and that won’t change. Even if I were the acceptable “perfect” body I wouldn’t pose nude or half nude and I wouldn’t wear a tiny bikini around or a midriff shirt of very short shorts.
OK. I do need to interject here. I have lost weight. I am still not an acceptable “perfect” body. I’m 5’2″ & 1/2 & I weigh about 220 pounds. I’m totally fine with this. But, I’m not suddenly some super model (except in my own head). I do wear the things I’ve just stated that I wouldn’t, however… I am wearing a bikini that is like a two-piece. It’s not string, it doesn’t have a triangle top, no string up the ass crack. I would wear this to a public pool or beach… where children are present. It might show a bit of my butt, but it’s just because I have an ample backside. It’s not that bad though.
The midriff shirt? I wear them with high waisted pants or jeans so you only see about an inch of skin. Not six. The short shorts? If you see anything, it’s the bottom of my butt cheeks &… it’s not my fault. They are longer, but my ample thighs make the material ride up & just stop where my thighs meet my body. Which I’m remembering was always an issue with shorts, even in my childhood. I even fixed my hot pink terry cloth shorts, because I’d gained a bit of weight back (which I’m glad about that!), but I just altered them & they fit like they did when I purchased them. Because ugh… they were half up my ass, showing most of my cheeks! Eh…
Did pick up bikini pieces at the thrift store last summer because they were so cheep. But it was just me & Lil’ Small (my older sister). It was fun & funny, but I wouldn’t have worn them in public & they had me re-adjusting every five seconds. And we were either just laying out on a chair or in a kiddie pool, not even for real swimming, man.
I’d be forever fiddling with the minuscule amounts of fabric to keep myself covered. Is it wrong for others to mount up displays of their bodies? No, but that’s also not the point. Here’s what I was workin’ with a few years ago. Though this was not a public pool, people did visit it. It wasn’t just me & Lil’ Small. Would I have worn this at a public pool or beach? Yes. Was I ashamed? Fuck no. I still think I look fucking great in that bikini. I loved that print.
I just really dig swimming. I was never going to wear a T-shirt to hide anything, because who the hell can swim like that? You get what you get with me because it’s too hot here to care otherwise.
The point is that everyone is already who they were born to be; their disposition or attitude, feelings and thoughts. It’s all in there and always has been. Sure, external forces will get in and shake things about, but you still know who you are. I have been told that if I lost a lot of weight I’d wear string bikini’s and sexy, super revealing clothing because that’s what everyone wants. Only thing is… while I was led to believe this for awhile, it never really fit because it’s not who I am. My natural disposition is to be sexy, but not revealing. That’s what I feel comfortable with. And though external factors can cause people to go against their natural tendencies, say girls who really are using skin to gain attention, which stems from I don’t feel attractive or loved and people stand up and take notice when I show pictures like this, it’s still a reason to slut shame basically. I don’t pity them, but it’s sad they can’t see their worth it to be who they are and not what they think they should be. That is not to say every exhibitionist is going against their nature, because a lot are going with their true nature.
But it’s sad to me when people become who they think others want them to be because of societal conditioning. I don’t care whether it’s about weight, amounts of clothing, or telly shows. When you’ve made it to here, to the other side, you only begin to realize how much work and stress being someone else was, and how much more liberating and free it is to simply be yourself. So you advocate, you reach out, you try and share your knowledge with others. But some people, I find, go about it the wrong way. It seems too accusatory, as if the person is somehow stupid or lacking and should just wake up already.
No one is stupid. OK, well people are stupid and people can be stupid, but that’s an entirely different discussion to the one at hand. I think probably an excellent example would be childhood. Within childhood you never expect a two year old to know the same things as an eight year old. If they do, that’s fantastic, but you, as an adult, never tell the two year old they are stupid because they aren’t at a better level by now. Children grow and learn at a basic rate. Generally all two year olds are on the same page and by the time that group is eight they’ve grown together, more or less, to still be on the same level. Adults aren’t any different. Generally we’re all on the same basic level at least by decade or half decade brackets.
But only up to a certain age, it seems, do we give allowances. Fall too far behind or speed up to fast and you’re the odd girl out, so to speak. Among your age group and amongst adults. There’s a myriad of reasons why people are on the same level, farther behind, or further ahead. None of the groups are better, and none worse. They just are because humans experience things differently for them based on their born natures. Some will fall farther behind because of these external factors that seem to be pushing them down, while someone could face the same external factors and get a boost from it; it just strikes a fire in them to do better instead of accepting defeat. Also while one issue is effecting this eight year old girl, it’s not also effecting the one standing next to her.
Practicing dance moves – 1989?
So, we all know what it’s like to be children. How we fit or don’t fit in. We know and remember. And then one day you wake up and you don’t anymore. At least generally speaking. Most adults have skewed perceptions of childhood. They can no longer fathom the two year old’s plight or the eight year old’s jubilation. They have forgotten what it all felt like. Some adults can find amazement in their own children, like their own five year old’s happiness in a flowering weed or the first time their child walks or wins an award for being the sweetest.
But these things are considered stupid to the general adult population. If it’s not their own child, it’s just a trivial matter and what’s the big deal. Because they can’t remember what it was like the first time they won an award for something. Or perhaps they can only remember the time that Suzie Sue won the award for best braided hair, instead of them, which drowns out their own memory of the time they first won an award; which happened to be for blowing bubbles.
Or perhaps they have done and seen so much that it lessens the impact of early firsts. Amazement over how birds fly or fascination on how colours mix is far beyond them at this point. If you are an adult who is excited to see the Kune Kune pig at the zoo, eyes will roll in their sockets. “It’s just a pig. What’s the big deal?” But it is that own persons journey through life and it’s not really there for you to scoff at or approve of.
That Kune Kune Pig at the zoo just happens to be depression, or low self esteem, or your over rampant tears at a new break up. It means something to you! And to have it negated by another hurts. One can not magically stop wondering, if it is in their nature, anymore than they can simply wake up and not be depressed (though sense of wonder isn’t the same as depression or the like, but you get my drift… hopefully?). It takes time. It takes acceptance. It takes listening inside of yourself. Weeding out the true you from the you which was created by the outside; societal views, harsh words, old scorns, etc. To scream at someone to suddenly have self esteem, in this way just makes it seem like there’s something wrong with them, that it’s wrong for them to be on a different level from you.
It’s the two year old versus the eight year old. A two year old can’t imagine having a crush on a boy. They’re not there yet. They’re not on that level yet. They’re not stupid, they just don’t have all the tools they need to comprehend that. And from their perception, the boys have cooties anyway. No matter what you say to them, or how you say it, will change their mind because they aren’t in the same place as you, where they know things and perceptions are different, can be different, from what they see now. Simply put, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Forcing their head down into the trough will only hurt them. They have to decide on their own whether to drink or not. Giving information is fine. Forcing it is another matter entirely. There’s a lot a person has to unweave before getting to the root of whatever it is that is binding them.
Make-up bachelorette Party with Lil’ Small – 2015?
I have also been told that I am brave, now that I’ve reached the second camp. Brave for simply wearing sleeveless shirts or swimming in only a bathing suit and no cover up (yep, that picture up that was “brave”); for not wearing Spanx, for writing about myself as a fat woman. It feels weird to be told this. To hear and read these words. It doesn’t feel brave and part of me feels that it’s a harmful notion that’s been drilled into these women. That how dare they even think of not trying their damnedest to fake skinny (or be skinny) or to even dream about wearing a tank top in the heat. These words make me imagine a world where I’m a heretic just asking to be burned at the stake. I’m pushing boundaries so far that I’ll be imprisoned in the tower before long. And these women are in awe that I could break these societal laws, whispering in reverence behind hands held to their mouths, hoping I’m not caught.
My reasoning is that it’s not bravery, it’s just the logical thing to do. I want so desperately for them to realize that these are lies and not laws, there will be no imprisonment in the tower and no burning at the stake. But, then I have to stop and remember that I believed the lies too. I lived in a world where the “laws” were that fat was punishable by death. Cover as much of yourself as possible. Hide the fat. Try to be skinny, even if it kills you. Try to blend in, go unnoticed. Don’t get caught.
I couldn’t see it when I resided in the first camp. I couldn’t see how ridiculous that all was. Other people would tell me, but I felt like it was trap. They want me to be ridiculed and harassed. I know that if I wear a tank top boys scream “Hey, fatty fatty!” at me. They make me cry. I can’t wear that. It’s a trick. “Hey, fatty fatty!” will surely be followed by a lynch mob! I couldn’t see any of it until I was ready to see it.
It’s sort of like having proof. You can hear people talk about something all day but until you see it or experience it, you simply can’t wrap your mind around it. My journey between the camps, however, was not so much proof that people won’t attack me for being fat, but more around the fact that I no longer cared. Change happens different in people, even if they reach a point of no longer caring (not apathetic).
My journey was fighting against this I am fat and it’s something to be ashamed of, to swallowing that “truth” whole. Living a life of poor self esteem, self hate, self loathing, unworthiness and fear. Through those years I had one really great self esteem day in about 200. Then I thought I could fake it till I made it. Clutching that that pearl of wisdom from my theatre teacher. I’d fake myself wonderful and beautiful and skinny and force people to believe it. I had better days in a long string of bad ones, but I’d come crashing down out of the fantasy world into a mire of self pity and self loathing. And not learning from that, I’d start again faking it until I made it.
First day of school – 1986
I also started looking inside myself. I can’t honestly say what put me onto that coarse. Actually I think it was more of an external flow. Everything I’d kept hidden inside myself would come out. I’d try to shove it back in, but it would come out again and each time would be harder to stem and control. So, I didn’t start out to actively look inside myself and find the problems to fix, my subconscious slapped me in the face with it.
I started to (beyond my own, conscious, want) rewatch places in my life. The entire picture from beginning to end. Actually acknowledging what happened in various scenes that I was forcing myself to watch. I cried. A lot. I spent periods of time sad and despondent, have reevaluated scenes a hundred times until all the clues were found. And then I felt better. Whether the time was a few days, a week, or a few months. It was over. I’d looked at it, delved into it and cried it all out. It seems like a lot, and really it was, but I’d only tackled two issues by this point. I had a lot of work to do, but I felt better, little by little.
The major turning point, was again my own subconscious, but through my dreams. I think back on it and wonder that if work hadn’t been done previous to this, that I might have simply ignored this dream. But as it was, I think I was in the right place in my life for that dream to kick me in the ass, so to speak.
I dreamt about my childhood self. Something I had dreamt about a lot over the years. She was the childhood of me where I’d started gaining weight. She was a little chubby, she was stocky, her clothes all mismatchy, her dark brown hair stringing with sweat from running around. She was very loud, commanding, and fun. All the things I was admonished for in my childhood. All the things I was taught over and over again to not be.
I was actually happy to see my real childhood self running around my grandmothers house. And then adults snapped at her. Told her she was too loud, too wrong, too everything. She slunk away from the adults and was in miserable tears. I felt all of her pain, this latest torment just a string of them, building a wall inside of her, slowly breaking her down. For the first time in my life I felt great empathy for her. My heart broke for her. My sleeping self, the adult version of me, ran to her and embraced her. I told her I would never abandon her again. Ever. That I loved her; us, who we’d always been. I would never hate her again and I would never let anyone hurt her again including myself.
And that was really that. From that moment on I left the first camp and wandered towards the next one, eventually finding my place in it. Reloving my childhood self was a huge deal for me, apparently, though I couldn’t have even told you that it was an issue at the time before that dream. But, I did. People loathed my childhood self, constantly belittling and berating me for everything that I was; everything that made up who I am since I was born. And I turned on her too. I hated her. I hated everything about her. I hadn’t even realized that I’d turned against myself. But I tried distancing myself from her as much as I could. I hated old photographs or video’s of this wretched girl. I hated her hair, her face, her eyes, her body. I hated her wonderment or the world around her and ecstatic glee. The way she dressed; it didn’t matter I hated it all.
And that was my light bulb moment. After that, other things fell into place. Logical things that I couldn’t see before. Patterns of dress dominated by my need to hide, changed. I live in a hot climate and was suffering under all the fabric. So, I started wearing tank tops. It just not longer mattered if people were going to make fun of me or not. The only thing that mattered was that it seemed ridiculous to wear a heavy T-Shirt in this weather. Things I felt that I couldn’t wear, I just wore because my initial thoughts were no longer, “But… people…” and instead were “I want…”. But again, baby steps. The shirt may have been the first to change, but only this year am I wearing shorts. Which is about six years after this dream, I might add.
I’m still changing and evolving and slowly coming back to exactly who I am on all sorts of levels that extend farther than merely my weight, though to be honest it’s all connected. A sort of chain reaction in an of itself. Basically, you just have to figure out who you really are… & be that person, again, fully.
Even that means you like to pretend to be Tor Johnson from Plan 9 when out in public.
Alien Tea Shoppe 