Let's Talk Fat

"Your momma's so fat her belt size is equator!" The children surrounded me_angry kindergartners saying fat joke after fat joke about my mother.

I didn't cry. I didn't whine. I wondered. I wondered why it mattered to them that my mother was fat.

Then the older I got and further along in school—I noticed the ridicule and jokes turned on me.

By age 10 I was already what is now labeled a cutter.

After a long day of having my weight "joked" about all day I couldn't take it anymore.

I learned swiftly how to disassemble disposable razors and use just the very edge of the blade to cut a thin line on my thigh to release the pain and not to leave any evidence.

At age 8 I started this habit:

To make sure I was alive.

To make sure I was even human.

Because I wasn't going to put my hands on people like they had done to me—I'd rather hurt myself then someone else.

I got bullied and beaten up all through elementary school and middle school because of being fat.

Being isolated because of my weight made me antisocial, caused anxiety, panic attacks, mistrust and so much more. I started suffering from severe flashbacks from being beaten by crowds of kids and even raped like a "pig" all because I was fat. I was diagnosed with PTSD at age 25 from this. At 33 I still have this horrible history haunting me.

People don't realize that kind of damage can be done just because they think it's funny or "right" to terrorize someone because of their body size.

For some reason in 2018 they think "tough love" is the way to beat obesity.

It isn't. It causes more isolation and self-harm.

I have always been over 200 pounds until 2016.

When I started smoking meth, I got down to 150 pounds.

No one asked why or how.

All they saw was I lost weight and "looked good." They didn't care that I was killing myself smoking and losing the weight fairly quickly.

All they cared about was that I "looked good." I was approved to be in public around the beautiful people now.

My mental health and physical health were on the decline and it didn't matter because I "looked good."

Yet, to many, I was still fat and disgusting and they would repeatedly tell me—in person and on social media.

I was especially disgusting to myself. I literally had it beaten into me that I was fat. Fat is bad. It didn't matter why I was fat. I was basically shown women are still only put on this planet as an ornament for society.

Even when diagnosed with body dysphoria at age 16, I never saw anything else but the fat.

What I never realized is fat is just a description—just like thin or skinny.

Fat isn't an insult.

Society has made it that way.

Society has made it that if fat chicks (and men) stand together and stand up for themselves, it's automatically insulting and putting down thinner women and men.

Raising one up doesn't mean the other is being put down.

What people don't realize is that size and mental health go hand in hand.

Someone who wants to feel good about themselves and take care of themselves can't because it's "glorifying obesity."

Just because a fat person is happy doesn't mean they are "glorifying" or "supporting" bad habits.

They also don't care or question about how they have lost the fa— even if it's done dangerously.

Here is the "norm":

If a fat person goes to the gym, they get laughed out of the building.

If they take the stairs instead of the elevator, someone has to make a crude and unnecessary comment.

If they have veggies instead of fries, they are stared at with disgust.

What people don't realize is these things mean (and prove) they are on the path of self-love.

That is the road map for them getting healthy for THEM.

Not you.

People are not put on this planet to please you.

We are all on the same journey—just taking different highways.