I’ve
been a “big girl” my whole life. We won’t explore the reasons
why, but there was a point in my youth where I discovered that food
worked well enough to fill the emptiness and loneliness inside, and
being fat made a great guy repellent. At one time, I thought that was
a good thing. By the time I reached high school, the damage had been
done. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to
get “thin.” I spent several months binging and purging, and then
several more months eating as little as I could and exercising as
much as I could. Obviously, these were both grossly unhealthy, but so
many of the girls I knew at the time did one or the other, and they
all dropped weight like I used to drop donuts. I was angry that
nothing I tried worked the way I wanted it to. I was angry that for
some people, being thin is like breathing. I wanted to be thin. I
deserved it. I worked for it. I didn’t achieve it.
Let
me take just one moment here to describe what growing up fat meant to
me, because it plays an important role in what’s happening now: I
remember being “teased” by my family members for being “chubby”
for as long as I can remember. I have a distinct memory of one of my
aunts admonishing me at a family holiday for having seconds. “You
don’t need that,” she told me, “You’re already fat enough.”
I was completely crushed. I had looked up to this woman my whole
life. It was one of the singular most hurtful experiences of my life
at that point. For me, that is saying a lot. I was also beaten and
bullied badly by classmates and their siblings. When I moved and
changed schools, things got better. Teasing for my weight went away,
for the most part, but the damage had been done by then. I have been
horribly self-conscious about my weight and general appearance since
childhood. Growing up fat destroyed my self-confidence and
self-worth.
Then,
my junior year of high school, after another school change, I found
some acceptance and some friends. I started feeling better about
myself. Not great, but better. People didn’t seem to judge me so
much on my weight, and more on who I was. I thought that I was coming
to terms with my weight. By then, I knew that being a big girl was
just the way I was. I convinced myself I was OK with that. I
convinced myself that I was happy being fat. What I really did was
become complacent.
I
didn’t date in high school. I didn’t have an actual boyfriend
until I was nearly 20. I made bad choices in men. And I stayed fat. I
had kids. I got married. I got fatter. By 2011, I weighed upwards of
420 pounds. Then, the unthinkable happened, and I lost everything.
Including, ironically, the weight. As I write this, I have lost over
200 pounds. You would think that this would have improved my
self-image, at least, right? Wrong.
Yes,
I have lost a ton of weight. Yes, I’m healthier. Yes, I’m more
socially attractive. I’m still awkward. I’m still horribly
self-conscious. What’s worse is the way I see myself. I can’t
look into a mirror without wincing. You see, being that big, for that
long, left it’s toll on my skin. My stretched out, crepe-y, stretch
marked skin, that now hangs off my body in sheets. If I even see that
much. Most times I look in the mirror, I still see the fatter me. It
wasn’t until a few days ago when my roommates, who are both males,
told me how thin I was looking lately and I started looking back at
old pictures did I realize how much I’ve lost. I still live like
the fat girl I was, and not like the much thinner girl I’ve become.
I still walk slowly and carefully, so I don’t fall. I still act
like walking a block could kill me. At my heaviest, it probably could
have. I still look at clothes that are several sizes too big. Yes, I
eat better. I make better decisions about the things I put into my
body. I continue to lose weight. But the mental toll it’s taking is
hard to deal with sometimes. I’m literally a different person from
the one who couldn’t go a single flight of stairs without having to
use an inhaler, from the person I was less than three years ago. In
the course of the journey, I have lost a lot more than weight and I
sometimes wonder if it’s some kind of cosmic joke. That to lose the
weight that I had tried so hard to accept, I had to lose everything
else, too. I know that it’s not the case, but I would trade every
ounce lost and then some if it meant I could get that back. In the
meantime, I guess I just have to get used to the idea that I’m a
thinner me. A healthier me. Hopefully, I’m becoming a better me.
Hopefully one day, I can look in a mirror, I can see my body, I can
see me,
and not feel the disgust and horror I do now. Hopefully, one day I
can be whole.
