a couple months back, i had a realization i’m honestly still coming to terms with.
for so long, my unconscious belief was that you can’t be fat and pretty at the same time. and, i’ve always seen myself as pretty, so by extension i’ve never seen myself as fat.
obviously, that is not true and you can be both, because i am. but that belief has been the root of my body image issues and self care habits for as long as i can remember. i couldn’t hold those conflicting views about my body at the same time because it’s been hammered into me since i was very young that fat people are seen as disgusting, that fat is one of the worst things you can be.
my first memory of being discriminated against because of the size of my body was in high school. i was the fat friend, and high school is a horrible time to be the fat friend.
i got asked out as a joke by several of the “popular” boys. guys with football jerseys and strong jaw lines would make their way up to me in the concourse in the mornings before class started, and ask me to go out with them that weekend. i’d always say no thanks, because i had a long-term boyfriend (now my wife) the entire time.
that wasn’t the answer they were expecting of me. they wanted me to be flattered, to blush, to graciously accept their attention and fawn. they wanted that so they could take it away and hurt me… “oh nah, i’m just playing with you.” and when they didn’t get that, they’d lash out to hurt me in a different way, and it was much worse.
it was stuff like “seriously? no way. there is no way YOU already have a BOYFRIEND.” and they’d verbally attack my body, pointing out all my flaws, telling me how they can’t believe anyone could ever love ME, and then they’d walk back to their laughing group of friends, gathered some distance away to collectively witness my humiliation. i would be left to deal with that for the rest of the school day. for awhile, this happened weekly.
there was absolutely no recourse for this from administration. there is no sympathy for the little fat girl trying to get her legally mandated education. nothing besides “have you tried losing weight? then they won’t have a reason to make fun of you.”
junior year is when i started having a truancy problem. i could not bear to stay in that building all day every day. i cut classes, walked off campus with my best friend, and waited for someone to come pick us up at the ball field some distance away. i think i cut fourth block for an entire semester, showing up only for tests, forging my mothers signature on my forms and corresponding with my teacher via email under my mothers name.
that got found out, of course, when my teacher went to see my mother at her job, and tried to continue a conversation that my mom had absolutely no idea she was a part of.
i had to go to a meeting with the schools administration and explain all the days i was actually sick and all the days i had skipped. they asked me why, and i didn’t really have a satisfactory answer. i just was honest and told them that yeah, i’d voluntarily missed those classes because i just didn’t want to be there. but either way, i was still making good grades, and i ended up passing that year.
i didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, yeah, my body image had a lot to do with it. and lessons learned in that way, over such a long period of time, tend to stick pretty close to the heart.
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not to toot my own horn too loudly, but i consider myself to be pretty fucking intelligent. i know a lot of things about a lot of things. anything that i am genuinely interested in and that i put my mind to, i’m going to excel at.
in groups with people who know me, this is understood to be true. it is demonstrably true. so why am i always initially assumed to be stupid?
when i brought this up with a friend group, i found out that i’m not alone in this, and that my weight probably has a lot to do with these pre-judgments. it seems to be a prevailing belief that fat people just aren’t smart enough to take care of themselves. if we were, we wouldn’t be fat in the first place.
who the fuck decided to inversely correlate intelligence and body size? who does that benefit?
the reality for me and so many others is that as long as i inhabit my larger body, i will be seen as fat before i am seen as a human.
it is infinitely easier to find people who fetishize me than it is to find people that i genuinely believe when they tell me that i am beautiful. like, to this day. it does not ever feel natural to accept compliments on how i look as a whole.
and like, that’s with LOADS of self work. that’s with me accepting my body and being able to see myself in the mirror and genuinely appreciate my own form. like, i’d date me!! but after a lifetime of this social conditioning, it is so hard to actually believe that anyone else would want to be seen with me on their arm.
these beliefs make it SO HARD to allow myself to be visible and findable online as i grow my business
even knowing the power of the tools i have, how much healing i can facilitate, there is a big part of me, internally, that is so ashamed to show up because i’m afraid to be turned away before they ever hear what i have to say. because it’s happened so often to me before.
it is easier to accept that i’m not being booked because nobody can find me, than it is to accept that people are finding me and actively passing me by. i keep that angels in the outfield quote in my brain most of the time, “if you build it they will come,” but what if they don’t? and what if it’s because of who i am as a person?
i am afraid to fully love myself in my entirety because i feel that if everyone else is rejecting me then i should reject me too. i’m outnumbered, yknow?
last week during my doctors appointment, i was bloated. my pre-period week. my doctor, a thinner man, looked at me and said “i don’t want to see any more weight gain at your next appointment.”
i must have gotten a funny look on my face, because he did quickly backtrack and say that it could cause me problems down the road if i continue to gain. but i’ve been telling this man for my last three appointments that i’ve increased my physical activity, i’ve changed my diet, and i still can’t seem to shed the pounds. i’m asking for help. he offers me a referral to a bariatric surgeon, and also phentermine but says he’ll have to take me off my stimulant adhd meds in order to do that. he has offered this same “solution” at the end of these same three appointments.
i ask, what about a nutrition expert? a dietitian? can you help me get a gym membership covered by insurance? can we do something about my pcos? why aren’t you listening to me when i tell you about my fibromyalgia, my myalgic encephalomyelitis? why do you seem to assume that i’m sitting my fat, lazy ass on my couch shoveling chips into my face all day?
it is true that i find comfort in food, that i try to use food to solve problems that it was never meant to solve. it is true that my eating habits have not always been ideal. it is also true that i’ve put in so much work to change these things, and that i can see that work paying off in ways that can’t be measured on a scale. but even armed with research, studies i’ve printed out, bringing my whole medical history to every appointment, my doctor treats me as if i do not do anything to take care of myself.
i leave these appointments feeling that it might be preferable to have me cut open and have pieces of my guts removed… pieces that absorb nutrition and vitamins and minerals… than it is to dig deeper into the issues keeping me from being an optimal size or whatever.
my body is mine to be ashamed of, and everyone else’s to judge.
it is time that i reject that, in its entirety, with all parts of myself. to do that, i must find the parts of me that accept that, and find out why they do. what need is that meeting? what needs are being met by being fat me?
the first i can think of is that my children love to fall asleep on me. they love my squishy body. every night, when my four year old grows tired, he climbs me like a mountain and snuggles into me, like a giant pillow. when he does this, he is at most five minutes from falling asleep. as i write this, laying in my bed, he’s lounging back onto my outstretched legs as he plays minecraft.
when my daughter was very small, she delighted in putting her hands on my belly and wobbling it around like jelly, or smacking her little hands down on me like a drum. i can clearly remember the joy on her face as she’d giggle and squeal, and it was witnessing her joy that would prompt the ice that was my internalized body shame to start melting.
i have always been so careful to never moralize the size of my body around my children. this is for a few reasons. one, because they have my genes, and it could predispose them to also being fat as they grow older and i never want them to have the same feelings about their body as i did. two, because i didn’t ever want them to treat their friends differently based on looks.
it is incredible to see a world, through their eyes, where fat people are just people. they have no idea that the size of my body is supposed to be bad.
what other needs could my large body be meeting for me?
perhaps there are some inner pieces of me, glasslike, that need to be wrapped in softness until it is time to put them on display.
perhaps i need to show other fat people that self love is waiting for them, too, despite what society yells at them.
perhaps i feel the need to be unattractive and unpalatable to people who would make these pre-judgments in the first place. (this one is really hitting a chord, in all honesty.)
perhaps i want people to reject me based off my superficial characteristics before they ever get the chance to reject me for who i am on the inside. the size of my body is literally the least interesting thing about me.
maybe it is the same urge i have to hoard art supplies, old clothes, canned goods, a full junk drawer— i’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
maybe i want tangible proof that i live my life the way i want to regardless of whatever everyone else thinks i should be doing.
maybe it’s a little of all of it.
regardless of all the reasons why, it is still up to me to show up exactly as i am, so that the right people can find me. radical, public self acceptance and kindness. i am a fat, disabled, queer, neurodivergent, anarchist weirdo. here i am. where are my people?
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