Thick Girl Problems

Well, since my post on the Anaconda video got A LOT of feedback about the issues I (among many other girls and women) face out there being a little bigger, I thought I'd make a post about it and discuss it a little further.

So. What's the absolute worst thing anyone has ever said to you related to your body? Mine was that I should certainly enjoy the attention given to me non-consensually because it's the only attention I'll ever get.

When I was a young girl, around seven, I moved in with my mom and her new husband. He was a controlling and manipulative force in both of our lives, something I often block out as a young adult now. I do remember on multiple occasions things he used to say about my weight, though. Let's call him E. So, E would fill up my plate with as much food as he could. Mountains of it. And force me to eat all of it before I could leave the table. This happened everyday for four years. Not only that, but we went out every single weekend, sometimes for the whole weekend. He did all of this on purpose; to "fatten" us up and make sure that no one else could possibly want us. That was his logic. He would buy me extra large clothes, even if they hung off of me. He would humiliate me in front of his friends and co-workers in my bathing suits that seemed to show off how big of a belly I'd gotten. Told me I was too fat to do anything right. E was verbally and emotionally abusive in all forms. He did anything and everything to push me down into a space so small, I had no idea how to live with myself.
I hated myself. I hated myself as a little girl. I grew up to make that worse.

It didn't work. When I'd had enough, I moved into my dad's when I was twelve. I stopped being hungry. My dad didn't question when I skipped meals, or I'd lie and tell him I'd eaten earlier. It went on for a year and a half before he figured out how I'd seemingly dropped from an XL to a Medium. I was fitting in size 8 jeans and still feeling enormous. I'd avoid cake at friend's birthday parties, and my own, even if they baked them themselves. Little did I know, I was at a weight I would kill for now. I thought I was fat because my thighs touched, because my stomach wasn't flat, because my calves and butt are wide and because that's what was drilled into me.

My dad wouldn't stand for it. He would fix my plates, but not as ridiculously huge as E. I would sneak food at night whenever I was hungry, so he cut that out really quick. My mom divorced E, and in the course of a year, dropped over one hundred pounds just from dieting. Meanwhile, because my dad was watching me so closely, I started to enjoy the taste of food again. I stress ate, I became uncontrollable. In the last four, maybe five years, I've gained possibly more than eighty pounds back. I hate myself more than ever.

Now you have somewhat of an idea about that, I can start talking about issues I've dealt with because of all of that. Aside from the constant bullying and suffocatingly disgusted looks from my peers, I'd somewhat moved on. I'd tried my best to do what I thought would be best for me. I tried to eat and maintain a weight. I tried to heal myself.
Yet, every month, my jeans feel tighter. My skin loosens. Shopping is the worst nightmare to ever fall upon a person like me, which sucks, because I adore shopping. My winter closet is almost exclusively dedicated to two-three pairs of jeans, boots, and sweaters or hoodies. Summer is the exact same thing because I cannot stand going out in shorts. I tried to be confident and bought two crop tops this year. I've worn each of them a total of one time.

Sometimes, my dad's girlfriend makes comments. The last time I bought jeans, she scoffed at the size and then sneered. I went home and cried alone in bed. 9 months later and they're tight now.
I'm dating a skinny guy. Skinny to the point where even my wrist is thicker than his. And I literally put him through hell because I'll get bouts of extreme sadness and frustration about my appearance. He can't do anything but hold me and tell me it doesn't matter, that I'm beautiful anyway. It helps to a point. I know I have to learn to live with myself, to accept myself.

I can't walk into a department store or eatery without feeling like eyes are on me. I hate dressing rooms; I try to avoid them as much as often. When your sizes constantly fluctuate and you have no choice but to try those cute jeans on first, it's heartbreaking when your original size won't come up past your knees. And you sit down and stare at yourself in the mirror and your mind repeats the nastiest thoughts over and over. I fight back as hard as I can. Try to reason that there is some way, some how, that I am beautiful. Alex sees something in me more than my personality, right? There's got to be something about my body that is even a little attractive. And that voice kicks up when those jeans won't button and those shorts make my thighs look strangled.

So when I see these girls like me, and they're confident, I'm so happy and so jealous. I wish I had the guts to wear a crop top more. I wish I could find high waisted shorts that would fit me. I wish I could wear that flowing summer dress or that cute pencil skirt. But I can't. My thighs rub together and hurt, and I feel like my stretch marks call to other's eyes. Look at me, I'm too big for this.

When I went to the Rixton/T.Mills show last Friday, Airy's guy friend looked at a girl taking pictures with Lewis in a crop top. She was bigger than me, but so precious. She was just bursting with happiness and tears over how sweet Lewis was being. I know how that feels. I know when you meet your favorite band member, your heart stops and your breath catches and you want to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. What if they don't want to take a picture with you? What if they take one look at you, give a fake smile, and send you on your way? What if you look fat in the picture? What if that is the only possible chance to ever take a picture with them, and you can't even stand to look at it because of your size? That is what goes through your mind. That is exactly what happens to us.
Lewis didn't care that I had a belly. He didn't care that she had a belly. The whole time we were hanging out in that alley, he didn't treat me any less than the rest of the girls. He still took pictures with me. He still called me beautiful. He still gave me numerous hugs and listened to my stories intently. He just cares about the person standing before him. And she was ecstatic. I was delighted for her.
"Looks like someone shouldn't be wearing a crop top." 103 coughed into his fist rather loudly. My eyes snapped at him, probably burning red in the darkness. He was fine until then. He was okay. And then he ruined it all. Luckily, she didn't hear him. I was bristling with a madness I haven't felt in a long time. I hated him. Never ever had I got the feeling that he was so blind to another person's feelings. A little fucking girl, for gods sake. She looked fine.
This young woman, maybe in her twenties. Probably a size zero. She nudged me, and when I looked at her, she smiled at the girl and said "She's adorable, she's so precious." And with that, I felt better. I felt like not everyone was looking down on us for being something that we couldn't control.

When I met David, I didn't know what to expect. He's this tiny little tatted up dude who seems super sweet, right? I was terrified. Not because of his 'fame'. Because what is this man, a beautiful thin person, going to think of me? How's he going to react?
Know what he did? He hugged me. He took a picture with me. He IS sweet. But my mind tried to convince me that he'd belittle me because of my size. How fucked up is that? David couldn't hurt someone who loved him so much. No one could look at someone who admired them so, and walk away from them because of their appearance. And I was thinking he could. Shame on me. Shame on me for treating myself so terribly. To try to convince myself to leave the opportunity I'd been waiting on for five fucking years, and I wanted to leave because I was embarrassed about myself.
I'm really glad I stayed.

The thing is, most of these people who look down on us, they don't get what it's like to be us. They really never have had to go to a handful of stores in one day for one item of clothing they can't find to fit them anywhere else. They've never slid down in the shower and clawed at their skin, screaming about hating themselves, telling themselves they should just die because they're so big. They've never skipped meals for a year straight. They've never not had balance in their eating habits. They've never thrown out a scale because they had to convince themselves that the number does not define who they are. They've never faced scrutiny under their close one's watchful gaze at dinner, or their drunken slurs of 'You'd look better if you lost weight'.

Those things well up inside you. They settle in and bury under your skin to come out when you're at your lowest. Even the most confident person has these moments. And we know we have to help ourselves to gain confidence, but it's fucking hard.
It's fucking hard. It's so fucking hard to have all of that inside you.

What else do they say; fake it 'til you make it, right? Maybe that might work. I'm not afraid to admit that I need to work on myself, but society tells me I need to work on my body instead of my soul.

I know it's possible. There wouldn't be plus size models if it wasn't possible. This revolutionary idea of loving yourself has made it possible for many to continue living. For many to sweep under the rug the trash talk of every other person. To calmly and casually wear what they want.
I want that. I know others want that too.

So, I guess we'll have to work on our souls for a while, huh?