I'm So Sorry That You Have to Have A Body....

 I was walking through a crowed casino hall on New Years Eve with my then boyfriend and friend, we were making our way to the area where there was supposed to be a balloon drop at midnight and I was really excited to be spending my first New Years Eve with my boyfriend – some parts because I managed to get him out of the house with me, but mostly because I have always loved New Years Eve.  It always represented a change for me where one door closes an another one opens. New Year, new me and all that jazz. Thought I have never been one for New Years Resolutions, I have always liked the magic of something new. 

As we made our way through the crowed a women made a rude comment about my weight which I ignored because I was used to it, but also because I was on a mission to kiss a very attractive man under a shower of balloons.  The comment, however, was very triggering to my friend and she rushed off and out of the casino.

Not wanting her to be alone and to figure out why she had rushed off because I had not known, I followed her out of the building as the clock ticked to midnight.  She was distraught and explained how triggering those comments were to her having her own struggles with weight and weight loss. It some how came up that my boyfriend, who was a walking red flag to begin with, made a comment about this being exactly why he didn’t like being in public with me. He said it was because he was afraid that he would have to fight someone – though the only fighting that guy liked to do was from behind a computer screen. This confession caused a huge fight between the boyfriend and I and we all ended back at the place we were staying, with me hiding from both him and my friend in my room.  And I did not get to kiss the hot guy as balloons fell around me. (I still haven’t, but its on the list man.)

My head was pounding from the amount of tears I cried and being so upset because I was used to the rhetoric that I was not good enough to be loved in public by other guys who wanted our relationship to be a secret. I thought that dating a guy who preferred fat women would be different. The reality of the situation was that he was struggling with his own body issues and preferred to be invisible, while I was someone who tended to stand out.

After a bit, my friend came into my room to talk to me and I confessed to her that for my whole life I felt like I had spent years trying to hate myself into the person everyone wanted, a thin version of me. And while I struggled with my body image, a lot of my struggles came from the friends and family closest to me constantly reminding me of my larger body. Reminding me of the shame I should feel. Did I really want to eat that? And how could I love myself when I looked the way I did? How could I stand naked in front of a mirror and be okay with it?

I was in sobbing tears as I said this to her feeling like we both had a common ground of both being fat and having family make it a priority to remind us how inferior we were because of it.  The weight of the words she returned to me has stuck with me and is a constant reminder of how toxic diet culture is as well as the internalized anti-fat bias that is rooted in us.

“You’re lying to yourself if you think that.” It hit me with blunt force.

She was always telling me she loved my confidence and ability to shine in a room. I’m sorry, I am lying to myself if I think that I must hate myself into thinness? As if being okay in a larger body was something to hate more than the idea of spending every moment of my life concerned about what calories were in what product?

And then there was idea of exercise as punishment, where exercise had already been a source of discontent – Because I was a child who loved riding my bike, going swimming (I would swim anytime I could – and still feel this way – though my access to a pool has been limited) Activity was never the issue – poverty was because I would spend hours walking around the desert with my friends with the occasional hike up the mountain we lived at the base of.

The teasing and abuse I received in school during gym is what made me hate the “exercise” as a form of punishment for – eating, existing, and breathing in a fat body. Could I do a mile in under 15 minutes? No. Could I spend hours treading water in a pool? Yes. I’ve learned now that the point of exercise should not be a punishment but a celebration of what our body can do – Sadly, I wished I had known that earlier when I began to reject sports and other variations of exercise, because they were not safe spaces for me to exist without harassment – they still aren’t but I have a little bit thicker skin.

The reality of the situation was that her comments said more about her own value in herself in a larger body than it did about me and I recognize that now, though at the time, they cut me deep and I would spend years going over her words and not trusting my own thoughts, something that already was a problem for me due to my untreated depression and anxiety. And further exacerbated by the notion that even with my “fat friendly” friends, there was no safe space for me to be me without being part of a toxic culture of diet and exercise.

I say this as I watch friends post meme’s about getting their bodies summer ready, before and after photos, sharing their diet plans, making comments about being fat and recruiting others to find happiness in a smaller body. 

Losing weight won’t cure your problems, but you know what may help? A therapist – so you can unpack all that fat phobia you carry with you – and you know, maybe think about that while you tell your fat friends that you love them and think they are beautiful then at the same time talk about how “fat” you’re going to be this weekend because you’re going to order a pizza and/or eat some cake.

Because I don’t know, maybe ‘you’re lying to yourself’ and them.