My Weight Story (long)

I came to the weight issue a weird way. I was a thin kid, never had problems until puberty, then I ballooned quickly into a very large junior high student. What a terrible time to get fat. I mean, I was tortured in junior high--so badly I've forgotten large portions of it. I remember getting my hair pulled so hard it brought tears to my eyes with pain. I remember trying to run the mile and being so far behind my teacher would come finish with me. Every week. Pure hell. Didn't help that we were broke and couldn't afford decent clothes. I had ill fitting, bad looking clothes on most of the time. Thankfully, I managed to find a crowd of friends to fit in with. I always had friends, even when most people wouldn't talk to me. I have an uncanny ability to seek out like minded folk who are a bit on the outcast side themselves.

Ugh, junior high. I suppose no one wants to go back to that hellhole time. But I survived.

I went to a great high school, had very good friends who loved me for who I was. I got teased, but by then I was better able to handle things. Then, my mom got the strangest notion that it was "time" for me to loose weight. So she dragged me to the weight loss center and I did. I lost a lot of weight. I became, well, normal anyway if not thin. I discovered the attention of boys. I was attractive, I could wear nice clothes. Life was great.

And like M. Night Shyamalan, here is my twist. I was far worse off being thin than fat. Somewhere deep inside I learned the lesson that I was only valuable now that I had a nice body. Boys had noticed me before getting thin, but lots of boys noticed me now. So I entertained them, and I met many jerks and abusive guys, eventually marrying one. I learned I was only worthwhile as a body, not for my mind or heart since most people had ignored me when I was fat. I made new friends, "cooler" friends, who suddenly noticed me. I lost ties with my closest and dearest friends, though we still talked I was distant from them. The people who accepted and embraced me for me disappeared from my life as I started to believe in my core that I was worthless except for my looks.

I married someone who took advantage of my emptiness and used it. He was verbally and emotionally abusive constantly, bombarding me with my worthlessness and I believed every word. I began to gain weight again, out of high school, mostly because I had no money for healthy food and no self worth at all. My husband cheated on me constantly and I knew it, though I denied it. I assumed it was my fault, he told me as much anyway. I had a baby, I got even fatter. Now, because I had lost weight and learned that my body was my value, I had absolutely no value now. I was nothing. Totally, completely nothing. So I stayed even though I knew to leave. I stayed for a very long time because I was nothing.

Eventually, I met someone. A friend. A big girl like me. My "cool" friends had long deserted me, and my good friends were around but I was ashamed. However, this new friend J took me in, under her wing, and taught me. My philandering husband actually left me eventually--I guess he had new spirits to break--and I was alone. She took me out. Taught me about the store Lane Bryant, where big girls could shop and look decent. Told me I didn't deserve to be treated in the way I had been. She helped me cut my hair, dress like a human being not a potato sack, and find value in the way I was, right then. That, plus lots of therapy, helped me accept myself the way I was. Am.

I met a man. Strangely, he was the same boy who had showed me attention back in high school--he liked me for me then, and still did when we met again. He was kind and gracious, and found me beautiful for all my flaws and history. I married him, and I'll not let him go again.

I guess the long winded point of all this is that, while others strive for self esteem by losing weight, I gained my self esteem by accepting it. Being thin never worked for me. Being fat is part of my identity, a part of what makes me a whole person in the world. I have no desire now for thinness, simply good health and being entirely me, valued and cherished for the person I am. And when I say valued, I mean by me, not by others. I accept that I hold worth and value set apart from what others think of me. I honestly look in the mirror with more pride now than I ever did as a thin person.

I know I rub people the wrong way when I say these things. Few understand how I can believe that being fat is ok with me, but mostly it is. Granted, I have my days. I live in America after all, land of the wanna be thin. But here I am, all of me. Take me or leave me, ya know?