As an adult I have tried not to hide my fatness behind sugary words to make them more pleasing to the people around me or the strangers that see me. Fluffy. “Curvy”. Fun Size. Party Size.
Nah. I am fat.
The words out there designed to make my body more accepted and marketable to potential lovers, bosses, friends, or whoever has the misfortune of getting caught in my personal magnetic field are not my words. They are not the words I choose to define me. I do not care about someone’s discomfort with the word fat or the preoccupation society has with it. I move and giggle and take up space in a world that thinks being fat is the worst thing you can be. I live every day trying to balance the self-loathing coded in what seems to be every cell, every fiber, every particle in me with the urge to love myself and my stretched out skin and my flesh. Most days the balance tips in the direction of self-loathing, all of my progress sliding to the floor and shattering only to make the next day harder; each time asking myself do you need to radically change yourself to love yourself.
The Husband had bariatric surgery about a year and a half ago. He has done phenomenally, sticking to his medical program and shedding weight. He moves better. He feels better. Medical issues he had have cleared up. I went with him to the information session for surgery. I went to the consultation and follow ups for my own potential surgery - a gastric bypass to help with the weight, pain, and medical issues that can sometimes accompany being fat. Everyone, the medical practitioners as well as myself, agreed I needed to work on my mental health and bring down my A1C before we could really moved forward. I never went back. Not because my process was delayed but because I can’t decide if it is right for me.
I don’t know if I have ever taken a diet seriously when I have tried to lose weight so a step like this seems drastic. I don’t exercise really. I gained back every pound I lost while working with doctors and then some. I am not happy with myself most of the time. But is something like this going to change that for me? Or will I just continue this balancing act at another size?
And then the internal argument bombards me with mixed messages that weigh me down further and make my heart ache. How can you feed into diet culture? How can you go outside when you look like this? Why let society dictate your appearance? How can you be a feminist if you think like this? Why did someone marry you, you cow? Why can’t you just practice what you preach and be stronger when it comes to body image? No one really loves you. No one really likes you, they just tolerate your existence because they feel bad for you. WHEN THE HUSBAND LEAVES YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE SO DISGUSTING, NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO BE WITH YOU. YOU WILL DIE ALONE.
Let me tell you, this shit is exhausting. But I get it. I get why I fight this fight in my head. I preach the gospel of accepting yourself and your body to everyone yet at the end of the day I have nothing nice to say about myself or my body - other than I think my eyes are nice because they are so dark you can see through them to the depths of hell and that I am doing a-ok in the breast department. I try to reconcile this drift between who I am to myself and who I am to others. How can I continue writing as my authentic self if my self is in what seems like a lifelong civil war?
So I simmer, letting these thoughts marry until over and over the same thought bubbles to the surface gasping for oxygen: is thinness the key to happiness?
I can’t believe it is. That is one thought I can reject even if it fights its way to the top continually. Rearranging my organs can’t cause happiness. Starving myself can’t cause happiness. Fighting myself can’t cause happiness. Could this be the moment where I let go of the years of bullshit? The diet culture and shame that seem to be bred into me? Is this where I lean in to the wind and let my weight, for once, work in my favor - letting it tip me over so I can fall in love with myself?
I will prepare a parachute, just in case.
-MPA
As someone who knows you - I love you as a person and a friend, and nothing will change that. I pick my friends very carefully. You're stuck with me.
ReplyDeleteAs a reader - I understand the mental health and body image battle all too well. It's a lot to pick apart and view rationally because A) we are conditioned to view skinny as The Ideal; and b) brains with anxiety/depression don't comprehend the very definition of the word "rational". It just doesn't exist, just like dopamine or seratonin. I unfortunately can't give any insight about what is the best course of action or what is the answer that will quiet these thoughts. I'm racing towards 30 and have no clue what's going on. But I can say that you're on the right track by writing it out. Keeping thoughts trapped in your head only makes things worse. Writing and posting will allow you to examine things, and maybe you'll see that you know what you need better than anyone else all along.
Vague as hell? Yes. Unhelpful? Absolutely. Remember: I'm barely 30 and know nothing. Plus dictating another person's decisions/pathways has never been a pleasant thought.
I look forward to reading more from you! :)