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A while back, Joy Nash provided us with this excellent quote of the day:
Obese patients are often encouraged to believe that weight loss is an appropriate way to combat depression, save a failing marriage, or increase the chance of career success. The irrationality of hopes pinned on weight loss is so striking that dieting might almost be likened to superstitious behavior…. Passing from childhood into adolescence, leaving home, marrying, starting a new job, having a baby, experiencing marital difficulties, adjusting to children leaving home, and growing old — all these life situations may become unexamined reasons to diet. In other instances, concerns over weight mask even more serious problems.”
-Wooley and Garner, from “Obesity treatment: the high cost of false hope,” published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, vol. 91, no. 10, 1991.
For the last few days, I’ve been thinking I wanted to blog on this subject but haven’t quite been able to pull my thoughts together. (Hence “help me find a dress” post.) Here goes nuthin’.
Once you’ve really started believing in fat acceptance — as opposed to thinking it sounds nice for other people, but you still need to lose X lbs. before you’ll be acceptable — it can be hard to remember how you thought about these issues before (just as it can be hard to imagine what it would really be like to accept your fat body before you’ve done it). I’ve written several times about how I spent ages in the cognitive dissonance phase, thinking it made perfect sense that the OBESITY CRISIS hype was way overblown, and even if it weren’t, dieting doesn’t work anyway — but still wanting to lose weight, still feeling like I, personally, needed to be a size 10, max, before I could really get started on my fat acceptance journey. The thing is, that memory is almost totally intellectual now; I don’t really recall what it felt like to believe those two contradictory things simultaneously.
But then, the other day, I got to thinking about a particular kind of resistance that shows up every single time anyone dares to say that dieting doesn’t work — the kind that comes from other fat people and amounts to, “DON’T YOU TAKE MY HOPE AWAY!” Those of us in the anti-dieting camp are frequently accused of demoralizing fat people, of sending a cruelly pessimistic message. I’ve never quite gotten my head around that one, since the message we’re sending is that you’re actually allowed to love your fat body instead of hating it, and you can take steps to substantially improve your health without fighting a losing battle with your weight. I’m pretty sure that message is both compassionate and optimistic, not to mention realistic. But there will always be people who hear it as, “I, Kate Harding, am personally condemning you to a lifetime of fatness! There’s no point in trying, fatty! You’re doomed! Mwahahaha!”
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. *headdesk*
And then I started thinking about what it was really like before I’d actually made peace with my body. And what it was really like was this: The Fantasy of Being Thin absolutely dominated my life — even after I’d gotten thin once, found myself just as depressive and scattered and frustrated as always, and then gained all the weight back because, you know, diets don’t work. The reality of being thin didn’t even sink in after all that, because The Fantasy of Being Thin was still far more familiar to me, still what I knew best. I’d spent years and years nurturing that fantasy, and only a couple years as an actual thin person. Reality didn’t have a chance.
We’ve talked a lot here about how being fat shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you’ve always believed you couldn’t do until you were thin. Put on a bathing suit and go waterskiing. Apply for that awesome job you’re just barely qualified for. Ask that hot guy out. Join a gym. Wear a gorgeous dress. All of those concrete things you’ve been putting off? Just fucking do them, now, because this IS your life, happening as we speak.
But exhortations like that don’t take into account magical thinking about thinness, which I suspect — and the quote above suggests — is really quite common. Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has. It’s not just, “When I’m thin, I’ll look good in a bathing suit”; it’s “When I’m thin, I will be the kind of person who struts down the beach in a bikini, making men weep.” See also:
- When I’m thin, I’ll have no trouble finding a partner/reinvigorating my marriage.
- When I’m thin, I’ll have the job I’ve always wanted.
- When I’m thin, I won’t be depressed anymore.
- When I’m thin, I’ll be an adventurous world traveler instead of being freaked out by any country where I don’t speak the language and/or the plumbing is questionable.
- When I’m thin, I’ll become really outdoorsy.
- When I’m thin, I’ll be more extroverted and charismatic, and thus have more friends than I know what to do with.
Et cetera, et cetera. Those are examples from my personal Fantasy of Being Thin, but I’m sure you’ve got your own. (Please do share in comments!)
In light of that, it’s a lot easier to understand why some people freak out when you say no, really, your chances of losing weight permanently are virtually nil, so you’d be better off focusing on feeling good and enjoying your life as a fat person. To someone fully wrapped up in The Fantasy of Being Thin, that doesn’t just mean, “All the best evidence suggests you will be fat for the rest of your life, but that’s really not a terrible thing.” It means, “You will NEVER be the person you want to be! All the evidence suggests you will never find a satisfying relationship or get a promotion or make more friends or feel confident trying new things!”
So if that’s what you hear when I say, “Diets don’t work,” then yeah, I can see how that would be a major bummer.
Overcoming The Fantasy of Being Thin might be the hardest part of making it all the way into fat acceptance-land. And that might just be why I’d pushed that part of the process out of my memory: it fucking sucked. Because I didn’t just have to accept the size of my thighs; I had to accept who I am, rather than continuing to wait until I magically became the person I’d always imagined being. Ouch.
That is, of course, a pretty normal part of getting older. You start to realize that yeah, this actually is it, and although you can still try enough new things to keep anyone busy for two lifetimes, you’re pretty much stuck with a basic context. There are skills, experiences, and material things you will almost certainly never have, period. It’s a challenge for all of us to understand that accepting this fact of life does not necessarily mean cutting off options or giving up dreams, but simply — as in the proverbial story about the creation of the David — chipping away all that is not you. But for a fat person, it can be even harder, because so many fucking sources encourage us to believe that inside every one of us is “a thin person waiting to get out” — and that thin person is SO MUCH COOLER.
The reality is, I will never be the kind of person who thinks roughing it in Tibet sounds like a hoot; give me a decent hotel in London any day. I will probably never learn to waterski well, or snow ski at all, or do a back handspring. I can be outgoing and charismatic in small doses, but I will always then need time to recharge my batteries with the dogs and a good book; I’ll never be someone with a chock-full social calendar, because I would find that unbearably exhausting. (And no matter how well I’ve learned to fake it — and thus how much this surprises some people who know me — new social situations will most likely always intimidate the crap out of me.) I might learn to speak one foreign language fluently over the course of my life, but probably not five. I will never publish a novel until I finish writing one. I will always have to be aware of my natural tendency toward depression and might always have to medicate it. Smart money says I am never going to chuck city life to buy an alpaca farm or start a new career as a river guide. And my chances of marrying George Clooney are very, very slim.
None of that is because I’m fat. It’s because I’m me.
But when I was invested in The Fantasy of Being Thin, I really believed that changing this one “simple” (ha!) thing would unlock a whole new identity — this totally fabulous, free-spirited, try-anything-once kind of chick who was effortlessly a magnet for interesting people and experiences. And of course, the dark side of that is that being fat then became an excuse not to do much of anything, because it wouldn’t be the real me doing it, so what was the point? If I wouldn’t find the right guy until I was thin, why bother dating? If I wouldn’t have a breakthrough on the novel until I was thin, why bother writing? If I wouldn’t be the life of the party until I was thin, why bother trying to make new friends? If I wouldn’t feel like climbing a mountain until I was thin, why bother traveling at all?
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Accepting my fat really wasn’t the hard part. Accepting my personality — and my many limitations that have jack shit to do with my thighs — was. But oddly enough, once I started to do that, my life became about a zillion times more satisfying. I found the right guy, I took up yoga, I started taking my writing more seriously, I stopped apologizing for taking vacations in the U.S. and Canada instead of somewhere more exotic, etc. And lo and behold, things got a lot more fun around here. The thin person inside me finally got out — it just turned out she was actually a fat person. A reasonably attractive, semi-outgoing fat person who has an open mind and an active imagination but also happens to really like routine and familiarity and quiet time alone.
That was never who I expected to be — it was just always who I was.
So giving up dieting and accepting my body didn’t just mean admitting I would never be thin; it meant admitting I would never be a million things I might have been. (Which, I’m told, is a phenomenon sometimes known as “maturity.”) I am absolutely not one for settling — which is where the confusion about pessimism comes in, I think — but I am one for self-awareness and self-forgiveness. Meaning, there’s a big difference between saying you can’t be anything other than what you are right now, and you don’t have to be anything other than what you are right now. You will probably never be permanently thin, unless you are already, but other than that, the sky’s the limit. You can be anything or anyone you want to be, in theory.
The question is, who do you really want to be, and what are you going to do about it? (Okay, two questions.) The Fantasy of Being Thin is a really convenient excuse for not asking yourself those questions sincerely — and that’s exactly why it’s dangerous. It keeps you from being not only who you are, but who you actually could be, if you worked with what you’ve got. And that person trapped inside you really might be cooler than you are right now.
She’s just not thin.
Filed under: 101, Dieting/WLS, Fat
The thin person inside me finally got out — it just turned out she was actually a fat person.
HOLY SHIT YES. This is awesome.
And I completely agree that “I’m too fat right now ” or “I will when I’m thin” are just excuses. And understandably so, because it’s terrifying to face up to your REAL abilities and limitations — it’s much more comforting to believe that you don’t have to try anything until you figure out how to get by on 1000 calories. Thinness (or thinnerness) is the imaginary magical talisman that will allow you to have everything, but until you have it, not having everything isn’t your fault.
When of course the truth is, not everyone can do everything, and the things you’re good at or the things you value aren’t necessarily the things that everyone considers valuable. When you have that checklist mentality, you end up focusing on things you think other people would want, not things that would make you happy. I’m notoriously bad at thinking of anything I’m good at, so let’s take my boyfriend as an example — he’s really good at building antennas. Is that something everyone wants in their obituary? Is it on anyone’s 43 Things? Maybe not, but it’s what he values.
When I was in like fourth grade, we did an exercise about imagining what name we would want besides our own. I wrote about how if I were named Ashley I would be skinny and pretty and be good at gymnastics. (The teacher wrote a gentle note about how changing your name probably won’t do those things.) I don’t know if I really wanted to be good at gymnastics — I hate being upside down — but I perceived that as being something that other people valued that I couldn’t live up to. Meanwhile, the things I was good at, like memorizing poems and spelling, were fundamentally worthless because a) they weren’t generically perceived as valuable in a “checklist of things an 8-year-old should be able to do” sense and b) I was good at them already.
Mind you, I still do this, I just haven’t got any decent excuses anymore. Sometimes I blame ADD, but mostly I say “you know me, I can’t do anything I think I might succeed at or also anything I think I might fail at.” And I beat myself up for, say, not immediately knowing how to do things, or not being great at things I admire in other people. There’s no reason for this; I do it because I’m neurotic. It is, indeed, much harder when I can’t blame that stuff on my fat. But it’s more honest, too.
This is awesome, awesome, awesome, and spot-on. The “change your body, change your life” idea is really the only thing powerful enough to keep a person willingingly semi-starved and weak for months (or years) at a time.
Thank you for writing this. It’s precisely the thing I still struggle with, and what you said about the difference between “you can’t be anything else” and “you don’t have to be anything else,” well, damn. That belongs on a throw pillow on my bed where I can see it every day.
Damn. I want to print this out and frame it. I’m one of those people who’s been in single-digit sizes several times only to find it unsustainable. I have a tiny, tiny wardrobe because I’ve only just given up the idea of wearing those really nice clothes I bought when I was a size 6. My larger sized clothes are mostly crap because they were intended to be temporary. Sigh. My thin-person fantasies usually revolve around clothes and exercise… and I can buy clothes and exercise no matter what size I am, right. Silly person.
<…smart money says I am never going to chuck city life to buy an alpaca farm … And my chances of marrying George Clooney are very, very slim.
Oh, my god. Those are two of my dreams, right there! Albeit the former is more attainable than the latter.
I was somewhat surprised when I finally reached the mythical land of skinnydom. I thought I’d finally get a boyfriend, friends, and a good job. Okay, so I was taken more seriously professionally than when I was fat, but the first two never materialized. And, I was more miserable thin than I ever was when I was overweight and didn’t obsess about what I ate and didn’t spend all my free time exercising or thinking about food or both.
At my highest weight, I was fearless. I would debate and argue with people, confront people who gave bad service, etc… After losing the weight, I turned into a wimp. I no longer had my fatness to blame for what I perceived to be wrongs directed at me.
What a wonderful post. Absolutely wonderful.
Fantastic! Thank you so much. This actually made me tear up a little.
I love this post. I love this post. I love this post. I’m having to duck my head under my desk so my co-workers aren’t seeing me get all teary-eyed, but I love this post.
Wow. I… Just WOW. Your blog always makes me think, but this post speaks to me more than anything else you’ve blogged about. I’ve finally begun to accept my body, but I never admitted I cling to the FoBT mindset. This is going to be an ugly, but very necessary, period of introspection. Thank you, Kate.
Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes!!!!
I do this all the time, with almost the exact same fantasies: I’ll get a better job, I’ll have tons of friends, I’ll be confident enough to start taking dance lessons, etc. etc. Fillyjonk is spot-on with the responsibility avoidance thing… I’ve been doing it for so long I’m really not sure how to *stop*.
So instead I swing back and forth between thinking I have this glamorous skinny person inside me and hoping the “skinny person” (where “skinny person” is defined as “person I’d love to be”) inside me is Nikki Blonski. It still distracts me from contemplating what precisely I am, but hey.
Hmm, I never had the fantasy of being thin. I think because at the time in my life (childhood and the teen years) when I was the shy, sad, lonely girl daydreaming of all the things she wanted to be, I was thin. And the time in my life when I started becoming more outgoing and made friends and got a boyfriend and started actually being happy (college) is when I started getting fat. So I never bought into the “if I get thin again my life will change for the better” because in my experience, it was rather the opposite.
The post still resonates though. The idea of: “you don’t have to be anything other than what you are right now”… that’s really just… huge.
You asked, so here it is:
When I’m thin, I will finally be a valuable human being.
And yes, I realize how fucked up that is. YEARS of therapy, people.
You know, “The Fantasy of Being Thin” would make (1) an awesome title for a book and (2) an awesome premise for a book.
Thanks for really digging into what the Fantasy is and what it means to so many people (myself still included, many days), and why it hurts so much to part with it.
I think you’re absolutely right.
But I wanted to add one thing.
Sometimes, people don’t use The Fantasy of Being Thin as an excuse so much as they honestly don’t think they’re allowed to do the things/be the person in their fantasy, just because they’re fat.
I couldn’t have been popular at school – I was fat. Fat girls are never popular.
I couldn’t be outgoing – I was fat, and nobody likes the fat girl.
I couldn’t play sports, because fat girls weren’t allowed on the team (thank you very fucking much, Gym Teacher!!).
Etc., etc., etc.
It wasn’t so much that I was allowing my fat to control me, it was that I really, truly, 100% believed those things. Imagine my absolute shock when I moved to another area and people actually wanted to be my friends? But… but… I was fat!!! Couldn’t they SEE that I was FAT? I honestly didn’t GET it. It took me a LOOOONG time to wrap my head around the fact that these people didn’t just see a fat girl… they saw ME. The PERSON who just happened to BE fat. And they thought that ME was OKAY!!! Wow! I couldn’t believe it! And then even when I moved back to my hometown and would see the bullies and the fat-haters around town (I never went back to the same school) and they would inevitably say some nasty shit… it still hurt, but it didn’t affect me like it did before. I’d already learned that some people thought I was okay, so fuck ‘em.
The one thing that was hard to let go in my Fantasy of Being Thin, though, was the thought of going back there and surprising the hell out of them. I wanted them to look at me and not recognize me, because I wasn’t The Fat Girl anymore. I wanted them to gasp in shock as they looked at me and saw the person that they had belittled simply because I was different. That particular fantasy was hard to let go, because it would have been the sweetest revenge.
Shade, me too.
Actually, I still have trouble with that one. But I’m working on it.
TMI, perhaps, but “I’ll get over my sex-phobia” when I get thin. I got so thin I swooned every time I stood upright too fast, but I was as phobic as ever. Damn. Seriously, this is just such an “A-HA post”. Kate Harding, you are the shit.
Nuckingfutz, we’re on the same page — when I say “excuse,” I don’t only mean… well, “excuse.” I suppose maybe I should have said it becomes a reason for not doing things. For a long time, I was every bit as convinced as you were that fat girls simply COULD NOT do X, Y, and Z, so I totally get what you’re saying.
Shade, sadly, I can relate to what you said, too. :(
Kate, everything you said here is right on and I think you helped a lot of people today.
Amen, sister! What a fabulous post! I found myself literally nodding as I read it (though doing so made it a little hard to read). :)
I’m still kind of in that cognitive dissonance phase. Though I’ve stopped dieting for the last 2 months and it’s quite freeing.
I loved what you wrote about how certain things are just your personality and what work for you and have nothing to do with being fat. Being a fat overachiever for my whole life, I’ve always pursued my goals despite being fat (law degrees, hot boyfriends, exercising healthfully etc.) but still would feel bad about a general lack of outdoorsiness or yogic calmness or whatever the fuck else I decided was lacking in me at the moment. I think that self acceptance and body acceptance really do go hand in hand, and I don’t think it necessarily matters where you start.
I liked what you said about how people often react when you say, rightly, that diets don’t work. They really do respond as if you’ve taken their one shot at happiness away. It’s so saddening and so difficult to get your point across in a way that seems non-judgmental, even though the reason so many people are on diets is due to unfair judgments about what it means to be fat.
Anyway, brava on another wonderful post.
Oh man. This so needs to be a book. Or maybe a sermon.
Actually, my old fantasy of being “normal,” included being thin but wasn’t limited to it. Until very, very recently, I really did harbor the fantasy that if I was “better looking” overall — thinner, full head of hair, better skin, etc. — people would be drawn to me like magnets, that I wouldn’t have to work on anything going on beneath my scalp.
But as I’m finding out, that’s because the child I was made the decision to blame whatever social problems I had on my looks, rather than the fact that my brain was wired differently than most people’s and my family (like most people’s before there was widespread awareness of such things) chose to freak out over it and pressure me to conform (which was impossible! and I tried and tried and tried anyway to make them happy) rather than helping me use my “differences” well.
Truth is, I was thinner once. I had a full head of hair once. I didn’t get the All Access Pass to Valhalla. And if I had, I probably wouldn’t even have seen it. I and the shrink yesterday were talking about the fact that if you have a shot at conforming and “fitting in,” what a powerful lure it is. People want acceptance and the magic bullet that will get them acceptance. They don’t want to know that there isn’t one. But people like me, who will never be “normal” no matter what we look like, we know, we can stop trying and be our authentic selves.
Truth is, I was thinner once. I had a full head of hair once. I didn’t get the All Access Pass to Valhalla. And if I had, I probably wouldn’t even have seen it.
Oh, that is an EXCELLENT point.
Singing in the choir here:
“Kate/you’re so smart/and you’ve hit the nail on the head/with your extraordinary nail-targetting talent…”
Okay so I’m not a song-writer, but you inspired me to try :) Which of course I was going to be when I was thin, and play the guitar, and dye my hair bright red and fall in love with Jordan Catalano.
I love how for you (and me, and probably many others) “thin” came to mean extroverted. Our poor introverted selves need some love too!
Which of course I was going to be when I was thin, and play the guitar, and dye my hair bright red and fall in love with Jordan Catalano.
Hee! Thank you — and everyone else — for the kind words.
The DH and I had quite a philosphical discussion about this topic over the weekend. I think my family has pretty much given up on having the weight talk with me, but his mother still gives him a hard time (she never says anything to me, though).
Anyway, here’s what we realized: we are perfectly, totally and completely happy with our lives and ourselves just the way we are. We’ve got a good marriage, careers we enjoy, enough money to have everything we need and a lot of the things we want. So we’re fat. It doesn’t bother us, and if other people don’t like it, too damn bad for them.
What’s let me get to this point? Therapy, maybe. Maybe it’s because I’ve always had pretty decent internal self-esteem, although I spent years letting society in general keep it knocked down inside me. Perhaps it was realizing that the only thing I’ve ever “wanted” to do in my life and not done is be thin. It could be that I’ve made a conscious effort to refocus my time and energy into things that make me happy. Or maybe it’s just getting older.
Whatever it is, I’ve realized that I AM the person I want to be. And I guess if I’ve accomplished nothing else in 41 years, that’s not a bad thing to be able to say.
This IS a very good post, Kathleen.
Maybe it’s because I’ve always had pretty decent internal self-esteem, although I spent years letting society in general keep it knocked down inside me.
You know, I think that might be a really important point. For me, the bright side of TFoBT — yep, there was one — was that at least I always felt there was an awesome person inside me who would deserve all the things I wanted. So all I really had to do (not that it was easy) was remove the condition that I had to get thin to be that person. I think it’s a whole different ballgame if you’re not starting from a place where you believe that somewhere down deep (if nowhere more obvious), you are fundamentally good and worthy.
Whatever it is, I’ve realized that I AM the person I want to be. And I guess if I’ve accomplished nothing else in 41 years, that’s not a bad thing to be able to say.
That is completely fucking awesome.
“Well roared, Lion.”
You nailed it! Great post.
Which of course I was going to be when I was thin, and play the guitar, and dye my hair bright red and fall in love with Jordan Catalano.
Ha! Oh my god, yes! I also thought I would wear a tank top under a flannel, which would of course look SUPER HOT AND STYLISH, and which I would never dare when I was fat. (I didn’t wear a tank top until college, under something or otherwise.)
I think just finally going and fucking dyeing my hair red was huge for me.
Silly Kate, of course you’re not going to marry George Clooney. He’s going to marry ME.
I don’t know if I ever had the fantasy of who I’d BE if I was thin, but I’m still knee deep in the fantasy of who I’d LOOK LIKE at thin. I mean, I’m a really happy person. I have a great relationship, a nice home, a supportive family, two psychotic cats, a job I love, blah blah blah. I like who I am. But what I look like? I’m still working on that one. So my personal contribution to the Fantasy of Being Thin is:
“When I’m thin, I’ll buy a new, fantastic dress for the annual gala at work, and everyone will say, ‘Wow, Sue, you look amazing!’ instead of just wearing something out of the closet that I probably wore last year. Because why would I buy something new and fantastic in my current size when I’m not going to be at this size much longer?”
That pretty much sums up all of my wardrobe decisions – not just new and fantastic dresses – for the last five years or so. I’m working on it. I really am.
It’s like you’ve taken every stray I have about accepting my body and myself as I am and tied them all together with a big beautiful bow.
The only thing I would say different is that I’m probably not giving up small town life to move to the city :)
Just yes to every word of this. I’ve been saying the same 2 things to myself, “I accept myself the way I am.” and “But I need to lose weight in order to feel better.” The cognitive dissonance is sort of comforting, because it’s been the same noise in my head for 39 years. (Hey, I’m smart! But, I’m fat so I shouldn’t be proud. Hey, I’m a good writer! But, I’m fat so I have nothing interesting to say. Hey, I want to be friends! But, I’m fat so I’ll understand if you blow me off…On and on and on.) You’re absolutely right that the giving up the fantasy is a huge step.
But, here’s another truth for me. When I was thinner, I was more outgoing and more social and more focused in my career and sexier and had more dates. Possibly, I was even smarter. But, it’s like those people who peak in high school and keep on reliving those moments as the star quarterback. You can’t live in the past. I was also twenty-four and all my friends were single and the dotcom boom was happening in NYC.
For a long time, being fat felt like punishment…for getting fat? I was never clear about the crime.
So, getting past the fantasy and truly accepting me, my fat and I is so bound up in actually knowing who I am and who I need to be. In a sense I’m not shedding weight, I’m shedding an outdated and untrue visions of myself. And that’s a lot to ask. Settling on losing weight instead is so much easier.
Sorry for the length and thanks for the space.
Hooray!! SO SO SO fabulous Kate. heart heart heart you :)
One of my clients was watching Oprah the other day while we were working together- She said something like: “I think Oprah’s gained some weight.” and I said “Good for her!” and she said – “What?” and I said it again and she said “What?” We went back and forth about 4 times- I’m not sure if she didn’t hear me, or couldn’t believe that’s what I said. Finally, she says “I really thought she’d keep it off this time, I mean she’d worked so hard…” And I said “Well, you know, 95% of diets fail.”
And my client got really pissy. She got really short with everything I said and made a big point about how she couldn’t wait til she didn’t need to see me anymore… I was kind of taking it personally- but what you’re talking about in this post is ABSOLUTELY what was going on.
“DON’T YOU TAKE MY HOPE AWAY!”
It’s a huge affront to tell somebody that THIS is as good as it gets. THIS is your life. What are you going to do with it?
Or maybe she was just sick of me. heheh
I really liked this post – and it reminded me of a thought I had the extreme makeover show “The Swan” first came out: I was furious that the show’s name was supposedly inspired by Andersen’s fairytale “The Ugly” while what the show promoted was so absolutely opposite to the message of that tale. My interpretation of the story is that if you allow yourself to be yourself and to grow more and more into being yourself you might just turn out to be more beautiful than you could have ever imagined. The show on the other hand was all about turning people (in my opinion quite violently) into something that they were not, or that is at least my interpretation of what I read about it – I never watched it. (After all the ugly duckling didn’t have surgery or even died its grey feathers to look more like a “proper” duck.) Also, swans are not more elegant and beautiful than ducks in EVERY situation. Ever saw a diving swan? It looks very much like the Titanic in its last minutes. It is often similar with ones role models – yes, there are amazing people around, and I have quite a number of people I admire deeply, but I have yet to meet the person that is “perfect” in just everything. And somehow I find that very comforting because that means that I don’t have to be perfect either. Plus, out of some weird reason I love all those little quirks and imperfections of the people close to me – those are the things that make them human and unique. (You could say they are perfect because of their imperfections.)
And yet – I am one of the people that do have a terribly hard time to give up magic thinking when it comes to thinness. I think one of my main hopes is that being thin would somehow erase all the effects that having been bullied quite extensively through most of my childhood and adolescence has had on me and that this would suddenly make me not feel ambiguous anymore about social situations. Oh yeah, and of course part of me still believes that weight loss is a sign of self-control and that by becoming and staying thin I could somehow prove that I am a tough and strong person.
Magical thinking, yes. Mine was this:
When I’m thin, I won’t have a double chin.
I know that sounds strange, but actually I come from a family (on one side) with long, narrow faces, high cheek bones, and “weak” chins. The one time I lost 80 pounds (and gained 120 back) I never lost the second, phantom chin.
It finally occurred to me that my chin was part of my rich Irish heritage and made me part of my family. There is no way I could (or would) get rid of it, except by means I would never consider. It’s mine for my long, healthy, fat life and I love it!
(Hey, I’m smart! But, I’m fat so I shouldn’t be proud. Hey, I’m a good writer! But, I’m fat so I have nothing interesting to say. Hey, I want to be friends! But, I’m fat so I’ll understand if you blow me off…On and on and on.)
Oh, man, do I relate to all of that, MT.
And I definitely found a measure of new confidence when I was thinner, too — it’s hard to avoid when people are constantly telling you how awesome you look, especially if they’ve been telling you the opposite or pointedly not remarking on your appearance for years before that. And then, as you say, you have to factor in the circumstances — I, too, was in my early 20s, in a major city, with a bunch of single friends. So realistically, even if I’d been fat back then or thin when I was miserably single a couple years ago, I’d probably be looking back on that as the easier time in my life, socially. I had a hell of a lot more energy, and a lot more people around who didn’t have partners and kids to stay home with on Friday nights.
Which reminds me of a tangent I didn’t even get to here — the magical thinking about how being thin will affect your health. Also known as, “Twenty years ago, when I was thin, my knees didn’t hurt. So obviously, the extra fat is hard on my joints!” Yeah, either that or the extra twenty years, honey.
For a long time, being fat felt like punishment…for getting fat?
Ha! That’s it exactly.
Whoa.
It occurs to me there’s also a dark fantasy of fat that goes hand-in-hand with the fantasy of thinness, of fat as a malign magical substance which smothers the person within it, a loathly yellow cloak of disease and despair. And yeah, I bought into that one. I hadn’t thought about it, but … I honestly thought that if I only lost some weight — even a little! — I’d not only feel better, that mythical ‘feel better’ we’re all told we’d feel if only we’d diet, but I’d also shed the monstrous, literally monstrous, magical, burden of my fat.
First, great post. I have a hard time letting go of my future thin persona (ftp) because I literally have spent almost 20 years imbuing her with superhuman qualities of hotness and confidence and talent. But I’m slowly figuring out how to live as me, not as me waiting to be FTP.
Second, one of the blocks I run into sometimes is that society does treat thin people better. Now, I know that since the chances of me becoming thin are pretty much nil, that my energies are put to better use by trying to erase the stigma of fat rather than trying to get rid of my fat. But, I think of things like dating (where on online profiles, most of the women I see specify that they’re not interested in the biggest body type option offered) or when I was still acting and being told that I was very good, but there were simply not a lot of parts for fat women (outside of the “OMG! I thought *she* was my blind date, but her massive girth was just hiding my true love!”) and that they would have cast me if I “fit the type better.” And it’s easy to fall back into the fantasy b/c the uphill battle of social change is very hard.
That said, life is better when you’re living it, not when you’re punishing yourself and dreaming of the day when you’ll finally be acceptable enough to join the human race.
I was normal sized before I was fat, so I do know the doors and opportunities that are shut to me as a fat woman as opposed to a thin-enough woman BUT as the rest of you know, being thin enough isn’t by itself enough to make you successful, or enough to help you let your true self out. I think just getting older has helped me come out of my shell.
I suffer this one greatly. I believe in HAES, but unless I am actively making weight loss noises, my doctors don’t help me with HAES, and I suspect they write me off because I am fat, rather than really helping. me. I recently had to throw a temper tantrum to get my doc to write a prescrip I need to help me keep my blood sugar under control ( because it goes up when I exercise, ever heard of that one?) anyways, because I m under so much pressure to keep trying to lose weight, I often get sucked into bad thoughts about it — the fantasy of being thin, maybe if I lose enough weight these health issues will just melt away, too — and my doctors encourage me in those thoughts. I think about plastic surgery, I think about how much weight I would have to lose if I needed a knee replacement (they’d refuse to do it for me at my current weight) and then I wonder how I would do that, because I know from experience that even starving does not work. The fantasy is powerful.
I know the reality is my body as it is here and now, but the fantasy is hard to let go.
Hmm, this sheds some light on why I suddenly became a sexpot around the same time I vowed to never diet again (age 29/30).
I suspect my Fantasy of Being Thin had something to do with being really desireable and sexually open and able to wear flirty clothes if I was thinner. I started dressing in more fitting clothes, more colorful and more flirty, about the same time, too. And I had the most sexual/flirty/affectionate attention at that time, when I was as big as I’d ever been in my life, much more than when I was dieting and completely food-obessed and hating my body.
Hmmm…
Great thought-provoking post.
Magical thinking, yes. Mine was this:
When I’m thin, I won’t have a double chin.
Ah, Lulu, it’s funny because it’s true. Al is, like, ALL neck. And yes, some of it is fat, but A) in pictures of him as a skinny teenager, you can see that’s just the way his face and neck are shaped, so he could lose all the weight in the world and would still look like a bullfrog when he puts his head down, and B) said face/neck shape comes directly from his mother, who’s much thinner than he is. But double chins, like everything else deemed undesirable, are ALL ABOUT TEH FAT, of course.
When I’m thin, my body will work.
When I’m thin, the pain will stop.
When I’m thin, I won’t be depressed.
When I’m thin, I won’t be so afraid of everything.
When I’m thin, I’ll have a sex drive again.
When I’m thin, it’ll feel like my family values me at all. I know they love me, I know they’re proud of me, but they only call on holidays.
When I’m thin, I’ll finally have some amount of the social acceptance that I’ve never experienced, but always hoped for.
When I’m thin, I’ll still keep posting on my own fat acceptance blog, because while I do firmly and feircly believe in the movement, I still have moments where I wish I could be
normalsocially acceptable (read: popular) in at least one aspect of my life.Y’know it’s funny because I totally understand where this post is coming from, but at the same time cannot relate to it at all.
Personally, the only thing I’d really like to change about my life are my salary and being fat. (And I don’t think the two are related, my company just sucks.) I would love to be thin, mostly because then the picture I have of myself in my head would actually match the person I see in photos of myself. It’s not that I am in denial about what I look like, it is just that in my mind, I am of normal weight.
In theory if I were thin I’d be able to buy clothes that I actually liked, instead of clothes that I could find in my size. (In practice, my sister is stick skinny and she still has trouble finding clothes because we’re both so tall, so I’d probably still have few options. And I doubt I’d ever get under a size 16.)
Kate, you fucking rock.
I never had this a-ha moment about my fat (I’ve always been pretty much okay with that), but I totally had it about, you know, life in general. I had this ridiculous idea that, one day, “when I grow up and get my shit together,” I’m going to…finally travel abroad, or buy a laptop and record my own demos, or redecorate my apartment, or take a class in X or Y, or, etc. etc. etc. I decided that my shit was already at the level of togetherness I was capable of sustaining, and no use holding my breath for being more awesome than I already am.
I think of this as another way of recognizing that I have the life I have chosen for myself – end of story. Sure, there are aspects of life beyond my control, but at the end of the day, what I do and how I do it is all me, and the only boundaries that exist (besides that general Golden Rule thing) are the ones I give myself.
I decided that my shit was already at the level of togetherness I was capable of sustaining, and no use holding my breath for being more awesome than I already am.
This A) made me LOL and B) is very well put.
:lol: Ah… the love of all things grunge. ;)
Kate, thanks for clarifying that. To my eyes, it looked like you were literally saying it was an excuse, but I get it now.
It seems almost like The Fantasy of Being Thin is — in and of itself — almost like a drug. We get addicted to the thought that we’ll be able to do or be something else When We Finally Become Thin. When we’re embroiled in The Fantasy, every thought, every deed, nearly every BREATH WE TAKE is caught up in that Fantasy.
It really is exhausting, both physically and mentally. Only we don’t realize it until we either think we just can’t take it any more, or, if we’re lucky, we find somewhere like this place right here, a place that will educate us and teach us that we’re okay just as we are. Fat or no fat.
Ah… the love of all things grunge.
In my defense it was like 1994. :)
We get addicted to the thought that we’ll be able to do or be something else When We Finally Become Thin.
This is exactly what Kate means by “excuse,” I think… not a conscious “my dog ate my capability for self-worth” kind of excuse, but a black hole into which you pour all your mental energy because the alternative is facing up to scary things like success and failure and talent and limitation.
I have been thinking about my thin fantasies for a while and the biggest one to come to me is probably particular to women of color:
If I were thin, I would be white…well as close as possible.
That was the biggest and most heartbreaking revelation for me. I always considered myself the exception to the rule about black folks and maybe it was my way of separating myself from my peers.
To my eyes, it looked like you were literally saying it was an excuse, but I get it now.
Well, I was, insofar as I didn’t express myself very well. :) And I do think it is literally an excuse sometimes, too, in keeping with what Fillyjonk was saying way upthread. But I totally, totally related to what you were saying about feeling like those things are IMPOSSIBLE for fat chicks, not just difficult (as they are for everyone, frankly). I missed out on a lot of male attention when I was younger, for instance, because I just assumed it couldn’t possibly be there. No guy I was attracted to would be attracted to a fat chick, period. There was NO talking me out of that one.
But on the flip side, the fantasy can definitely take up a lot of time that could be spent trying to improve the you you are, instead of wanting to be a whole different person. And in that case, it can become an excuse.
Or, what Fillyjonk just said while I was typing that.
Also, I want “my dog ate my capability for self-worth” on a T-shirt.
Well done Kate!
It comes down to: what matters more to you, your fat or what you want to do? Fat should NEVER win that argument.
Kate, get outta my brain! :lol:
Seriously, though, I am SOO right with you on that one. It took two years for me to realize that the guy I’d been in love with for all of those two years felt the same way about me… and I only got it because he literally had to SPELL IT OUT for me. (And guess what? He was fat, too! It had taken HIM those two years to build up the courage to tell me.)
But this:
I totally agree with. Like, TOTALLY ;)
The one thing that’s kicking my ass at the moment is the one thing that I get stuck on time and time again…if I were thin, someone would love me back. And it just gets more galling as I get older (I’ll be 36 in January), the thought that not once in my entire life have I been loved back by a member of the opposite sex–well, not in the way I wanted them to love me back, that is. It’s so fucking frustrating because logically, I keep telling myself to stop hanging my failure on the way I look, that there are scads of other reasons why nothing’s happening, but emotionally? It’s really, really tough to not pin it all on my fat. And that makes me furious with myself and how, in all other areas of my life, I’m HAESing like a mofo and vocal about fat acceptance.
If I were thin, I would be white…well as close as possible.
Oh, wow, Tracy, that’s fascinating. And heartbreaking.
And you know, my first thought when I read this part of Attrice’s comment:
Second, one of the blocks I run into sometimes is that society does treat thin people better. Now, I know that since the chances of me becoming thin are pretty much nil, that my energies are put to better use by trying to erase the stigma of fat rather than trying to get rid of my fat. But…
was, well, people of color have the same problem, but they don’t have the option of becoming white even temporarily. There’s no choice but to fight the stigma — except hating yourself — if you know you can’t ever be part of the dominant group.
Usually, I try to avoid fat/p.o.c. comparisons, because it’s a minefield and a distraction, but here, I think it’s useful. So much shit is heaped on fat people under the claim that “we could change if we really wanted to.” But, as racism demonstrates, not being able to change sure doesn’t mean people stop hating you because you look different from them. What then?
And I wonder where fat acceptance would be if people really believed that diets almost never work, and for most of us, being permanently thin is about as likely as permanently changing our skin color. Would more people advocate for themselves, instead of clinging to the fantasy of “passing” one day? Or would we just add a big old dollop of despondency to the internalized self-loathing?
ZOMG. Sincerely.
I have needed to read this for like, three months. Thank you.
Kate, you fucking rock, you really do. Awesome post.
I felt so sad over the weekend when a friend of my husband’s mentioned the referee in a game of indoor netball the other day. If you don’t know netball, or the indoor variety in particular, it’s FAST. The ball screams up and down the court. And the referee was, according to husband’s friend, ‘huge’. And he said “I was surprised she could even keep up” in the sort of tone that said “I actually believe that I was somehow being tricked into thinking she was keeping up, because I believe so firmly that she shouldn’t have been able to”.
And I thought how fucking unfair it is, that even when a fat person IS living the life they want to live, when they have ‘let the fat person inside out’ as it were, society still tries to tell that person that actually, it’s a fiction. They’re not really doing all the things they think they are. They can’t possibly be popular, or self-aware, or fit, it’s just a figment of their, and society’s, imagination.
It takes such a hell of a lot of confidence? integrity? compassion for oneself? to convince yourself that thin you and fat you are just the same person, that fat you has all the good qualities of a theoretical thin you, against all the cognitive dissonance, and beyond that, the dissonance between your own idea of yourself, and society’s idea of the same.
But it’s always that little bit easier when someone like you, Kate, stands up and says, “hey, been there, done that, and it’s not easy, but so SO worth it”. So thanks.
Allow me to reiterate the intense love I have for this post. Just the NAME of it describes my whole LIFE.
I’ve been fantasizing about being thin since I was 8 years old and first realized I was fat (some kid called me “Goodyear,” which I didn’t even get at first, and he had to actually clarify that he meant I was a blimp).
My Thin Fantasy has only ever involved boys. While I’ve had it relatively “easy” compared to many fat women (I don’t get much grief from anyone, my mom gave up criticizing me a long time ago, no one has made fun of me to my face since I was like 15), and never had trouble getting jobs or making friends, or being praised for the things I’m good at (I do some kick-ass karaoke); the ONE thing that has always eluded me is attention from men.
I’m 28 and I’ve only had one boyfriend. And I met him after I had Weight Watchered myself down from a 275 pound size 24 to a 175 pound size 12. (I’m now back up to a 250 pound size 20, more living proof that diets fail). We broke up over a year ago and I’ve had about 3 dates since, two of which were when I was a still moderately “acceptable” size 16.
I try, I try SO hard to accept that there are men out there who will still think I’m awesome and want to date me…but I get quite lonely at times and find it really hard to believe. I do all the same things my thin friends do–but they are the ones getting asked out all the time while I stay home alone and frustrated. And trust me, I’m really outgoing, and genearlly really do have a good attitude about my looks…I don’t *think* it’s bc men are picking up on my insecurities. I always flirt and laugh and have fun when we all go out.
I just also do all those things while Being Fat. And I know it’s part of this blog’s mantra that fat women are loveable, and I do believe it, but I haven’t met that many 20something men that also believe it.
So–thin fantasy: When I’m thin, I’ll have a boyfriend!
On another note–count me in among those that often get depressed at the Diets Fail message. I think it’s because I am not a fat woman who eats normally and exercises just as much as her thin friends. I do exercise, but not nearly enough. And I DO quite often binge eat, or “sit on the couch stuffing my face” as the fat-haters always say. So what is my defense when they say that, aside from “yeah I do do that, so?”
Ever wonder what we could collectively do with the energy we use thinking about fat? I do, and I wonder if it’s all a plot to keep the world exactly the way it is.
Well, what I have to say may be hated, but I say it not to provoke, but to ask a question: why am I so pathetic to any of you if I want to lose some weight and, in fact *do* lose a bit of weight, NOT through dieting, but from not bingeing anymore?
Bingeing hurt me terribly and messed up my body. I can’t speak for any other person’s obesity, fatness or call it what you will call it, but my 150 extra pounds came from a self-destructive way of eating. It was fueled by self-hatred and, I suspect, many imbalances that predesposed me to obesity (I, personally, have nothing against this word, per se).
I now eat as I see fit, and that means I avoid a lot of sugar, but still enjoy dessert and treat foods in moderation, and eat what-ever else I want to eat that produces a good feeling in my body.
I am working on self-acceptance. Diets *don’t* work(but I am Not dieting) and I will probably never be thin again, which I was and which was once a natural weight to be. And yes, I wish I could be again – my body looked great and I won’t lie about that.
So, if I can get to, say, size 14 or 16 with eating my own way and some exercise, who is it to judge me? That is hurtful and wrong. And it is also ignorant, because it tells me I must never admit to what is, for me, the truth: being very obese is unhealthy in many ways. It’s painful on my feet, joints and in a myriad of other, physical ways. I also know full well that the psychological pain comes from how this world treats fat people: quite nasty. I don’t hold with that and have always hated people’s contempt.
I’m glad to have a body and to work on loving it (which I do every day by eating fulfilling, reasonably healthy food and getting fun exercise in). I know I have a long way to go with self-love; so does the skinny woman who looks like she’d never have a bad body thought a day in her life.
That’s why I say: Don’t tell me it’s wrong to want to lose some weight when it lessens my physical pain and gives me more energy and I look better in clothes (which I do). Don’t make me feel wrong for wanting greater health by losing a bit of weight in a natural, healthy way. Maybe You feel and look perfectly healthy at the same weight I am. We are all different. Let’s celebrate that instead of instructing people on how to think about their weight and freezing them out if they don’t get with the plan. Sheesh, there is enough hatred directed against fat people as it is. I have never liked being lectured on how to think; I’m fine with different opinions, but don’t tell me what mine should be to be as healthy as you are; I think I already am, as I am.
The one thing that’s kicking my ass at the moment is the one thing that I get stuck on time and time again…if I were thin, someone would love me back. And it just gets more galling as I get older (I’ll be 36 in January), the thought that not once in my entire life have I been loved back by a member of the opposite sex–well, not in the way I wanted them to love me back, that is.
Jane, I can so totally relate to that one.
It’s so fucking frustrating because logically, I keep telling myself to stop hanging my failure on the way I look, that there are scads of other reasons why nothing’s happening
That one is a difficult one, because to me admitting that it is not being fat that keeps me from having a relationship means looking for other things that are “wrong” with me – and that is even more uncomfortable. If I blame it on fat that nobody I have been attracted to seems to have ever been attracted to me I can at least say that it is partially due to the beauty ideal in today’s society and not with possible flaws of my character. AND I do believe that being fat has made it harder for me to find a partner – or more precisely that being fat in a society where fat is generally seen as undesirable has done so. (Not fitting beauty standards in quite a number of other ways does not help either). I am aware that other women my size are in happy relationships. But looks do play some part – hell, I am attracted to men partially on basis of their looks. Plus, having been fat all my life and having had some rather bad experiences of the kind that guys pointed out to me how utterly disgusting they thought I was has definitely also made me more careful and shy when I meet men in a social context. That wouldn’t go away if I suddenly wouldn’t be fat anymore, yet I am sure that I had those experiences partially because others saw my body size as absolutely undesirable (and unfortunately this does not only hold true for the jerks but also for some really, really nice men – they obviously have never made fun of me or humiliated me on purpose but they did point out that they were not attracted to me at all).
A strange thing related to this is that the very few men that were attracted to me a) came from non-Western cultures and b) seemed to look for a rather submissive woman with a rather traditional idea of “feminine” behavior. The first point wouldn’t be a problem and just says something about how cultures differ in their beauty standards – the second one however is a huge problem for me since I do not think I am at all that kind of woman and I probably would make myself and my partner unhappy if I tried to become like that.
Yeah, my dream is, ‘if I were thinner, I could find more pants that fit’.
Well, I was thinner — about as thin as I can get without major health problems, and yeah, that was 14 lbs away from where I am now — and I still couldn’t find pants that fit, in any size.
(OK, I lied: I have jeans that fit fabulously. But it’s still disheartening to try on twenty pairs of pants ostensibly in my size [and a size up, and a size down] and realize that they don’t fit because I curve too much. If I go up a size, they bag out so far around my waist that I can see my own underwear. Also, they bag everywhere else. So I’m saying I just have to accept that my butt ain’t the shape of most pants, and when I’m thinner, it’s exactly the same proportions it is now, so how is that going to change my pants opportunities?)
Oh, and the other dream is, “When I’m thinner, I’ll be prettier/more successful than my cousin.”
Well, I’ve got a waist, which she doesn’t, and a great rear end, which she doesn’t, and much better hair. Also, I’m about 50% smarter than she is. She’s getting underpaid in New York; I’m getting underpaid in Cleveland. My LSAT score was ten-plus points higher than hers. How am I not as successful as she is? Oh, right. I weigh 15 lbs more and wear a pants size higher. Idiocy, ain’t it? And my BMI is in the ‘normal’ range. What we do to ourselves!
I’m just going to dump this and trust that you don’t take it to mean that I disagree; I don’t. I think what you have written here is beautiful and brilliant. I’m just still in that phase of fat acceptance where it’s something I have no problem applying to others, but cannot yet apply to myself.
The idea that there is something I cannot do no matter how hard I work at it makes me ANGRY.
Saying “It’s fine to be who I am, at the weight I am!” feels good, but on my bad days, most days, it also feels a whole hell of a lot like admitting defeat.
And you know, I’m not sure what to think of the fact that I genuinely WAS happier when I was at my thinnest. It’s not a case of “I’ll finally be happy when. . . .” It’s “I was happier when.” Not totally happy. I still tore the hell out of myself. But it was way better than the pain I am feeling now. It seems only natural to want to return to a state where I was in less pain. I am trying to learn to accept this, but it’s not what I really want.
It’s NOT easy to give up the dream. I get a one-two-three punch every time I do something that reminds me that I’ve gained weight. First, the unpleasant realization that all my parts aren’t where they used to be, which is like being trapped in a different person’s body all of a sudden. Second, the feeling of sorrow that comes over me because I, like nearly everyone else here, was conditioned to feel bad about my fat. And third, the slap in the face that comes from knowing that I shouldn’t feel this way about myself, and that I’m failing at that, too. So I feel like I’m wrong by anyone’s standards.
We should all be happy with ourselves and give up our magical thinking. We should live now, love now, and trust that the world will accept us as we are if we just go first and love ourselves. I agree wholeheartedly. It gives me hope, it makes me feel loved to be surrounded by that message. But it’s another thing entirely to actually be in the place where you are having to do that every day no matter how horrible and painful it is — when you feel you are failing at EVERYTHING because you can neither be thin nor love your fat self.
I’d like to hear advice for soothing the pain that comes when you have to give up a dream that you dearly love. Especially when you lived that dream for a while, and you know exactly how it felt and what you are missing. How do we stop it from feeling like settling?
Yes, the basic message is optimistic, and please, never keep reminding us of that. Yes, our clinging to this dream is magical thinking. Yes, we want to like ourselves. But crossing that bridge, one side to another, that is one hell of a leap of faith, and it’s one that you don’t make just the once. You make it every day, over and over. Sometimes fifteen or twenty times. Even the strongest can find that too difficult.
I have written novels, buried family, shoplifted just to eat, been sick with no insurance or money, been bipolar and undiagnosed and unmedicated; I’ve done lots of painful and difficult and humiliating things.
Accepting myself, accepting that this doesn’t mean failure or defeat, that it’s just a more realistic way to live, doing it day after day, is literally the hardest thing I have ever done. It takes just as much effort as pursuing an unattainable ideal. And in between both of them I am expending the energy to do both.
This is exhausting, heartbreaking work. It crushes you, I guess because you have to be crushed to be remade.
My biggest piece of magical thinking? It’s a doozy.
I liked myself for the first time when I was thinner. Obviously I’ll only like myself again when I’m thinner again.
I kick that mangy bitch out the door every damn day. And she comes right back. If I’m lucky, I get a couple of days’ slack in the rope. Sometimes I don’t even get an hour. Today she’s parked in my lap, breathing her stinky, hateful breath in my face and I can’t move her for love or money.
I’m sorry for the semi-rant. I feel horribly exposed and guilty saying all of that, and for taking up space.
It’s just . . . we’d come around sooner if we possibly could.
Jane and queendom, that used to be a major part of my thin fantasies, particularly in college. It was always “if I were thin, X would see me as more than a friend, or Y would see me as more than a fuck buddy.” Sometimes I was right. X, for instance, probably would have been interested in me if I were more his physical type, since he was interested in basically everyone who was. If I’d been thin, I could have gotten my heart broken instead by the fact that he did want to sleep with me but was fundamentally incapable of having an adult relationship, and I would have missed out on a friendship. As for Y, he makes a salacious story that I’ll tell you sometime, but I’m so thankful for whatever it was that made him ultimately not interested in me (and I don’t think it was my body).
My point is, getting rid of the security-blanket excuse doesn’t have to make you face up to your own flaws — it could make you realize that when something doesn’t work out, it’s not necessarily because of you, and it may actually be because the OTHER person has problems. As for facing up to your personality problems, well, see above — what looks like a problem may just be your personality. Er, that sounds bad. What I mean is, even when I wasn’t thinking nobody would love me until I was thin, I certainly never thought anyone would love me until I could make myself more sane. Turns out, I just had to find someone who kinda made me sane, and could deal when I wasn’t. Nothing about me. All about the fit.
But I had to give up the comfort of self-flagellation to find that out.
It’s just . . . we’d come around sooner if we possibly could.
Amanda, your comment deserves a longer response, but for now, just know that I totally get this. And the last thing I want anyone to feel is that I’m criticizing them for not getting there fast enough.
Yeah, my dream is, ‘if I were thinner, I could find more pants that fit’.
Hey, I couldn’t find jeans that really fit until LB came out with the right fits. Now, I’m afraid that if I were thinner, I couldn’t find pants that fit! :)
I totally get it too, and giving it a short or glib response would do a disservice to the depth and intensity of the feeling. It’s a hole you have to dig yourself out of. There’s nothing easy about it.
Given the right combination of factors, you can shift your focus from “I will be happy when I’m thin” to “I will be happy.” But the fact that it’s possible is the only thing I can say universally. Everything else depends on circumstance and personal struggle and neurochemicals.
Now, I’m afraid that if I were thinner, I couldn’t find pants that fit! :)
Is it pathetic that tiny little me is jealous of you size 16-pluses in some ways because YOU HAVE A STORE THAT PAYS ATTENTION TO HOW YOUR BODIES ARE MADE?!?!?
Well, what I have to say may be hated, but I say it not to provoke, but to ask a question: why am I so pathetic to any of you if I want to lose some weight and, in fact *do* lose a bit of weight, NOT through dieting, but from not bingeing anymore?
Zoe, who said you were pathetic? I’ve written several times about how being fat with an eating disorder is a different ball of wax from being fat without one. I’ve never said that binge eaters shouldn’t try to overcome their disorder, which may or may not involve losing weight.
And when you say this:
Diets *don’t* work(but I am Not dieting) and I will probably never be thin again, which I was and which was once a natural weight to be. And yes, I wish I could be again – my body looked great and I won’t lie about that.
I have a lot of trouble believing that you’re coming from a place of respecting what I and this community stand for. So I’m really not sure why I should make a special effort to make you feel more comfortable for trying to lose weight.
This post could speak to anyone who is waiting to live their life until they’re __________________.
I do live in a constant state of fantasy thinness. I love clothing and fasion. Because it’s made to fit smaller body types, of course I would continue to harp on myself for not being thinner or thin enough to pull it off.
I’ve also found that I didn’t “allow” myself to enjoy sex as much. I was completely afraid to be the dynamo I was when I was thin. I am sure my better half doesn’t understand why things changed or why I was not as free as a I used to be. It’s tough going from an acceptable size, and as others have said-praised for being it- to becoming a size that outside forces make you feel wrong for being.
As time as passed I have found myself accepting things about me that I had a hard time with last year. I know as more time passes I will continue to accept that I will never be a skinny version of me. I still find it hard to wear a bathing suit and I still find it difficult to just let my guard down and enjoy life. But, it sure is nice to have a place providing affirmations to not only love yourself, but to love yourself NOW not 40lbs from now.
Okay, Amanda said everything I wanted to say, but said it ten times better!
Also agree completely on the feeling bad about being fat, and then feeling bad about not being able to feel good about being fat! Amazing how we torture ourselves isn’t it?
And also agree on the feeling bad for knowing I was happier when I was thinner. It’s awful. Nothing else in my life was going right at that time. I still had terrible luck with guys (though did also get 100% more attention from them, just never found “the one”), I was flat-broke, the year I was thinnest I had 5 different dead-end low-paying jobs and no direction in life, I got fired TWICE, I had a moderate drinking problem that led to being date-raped….And yet?
All of that crap was easier to deal with than the pain I feel at being 250 pounds now. All of those problems are now “better,” I have a GREAT job, money, security, I drink far less, my life is allegedly far, far better than it was 4 years ago, but all I remember about that time was how good it made me feel to be able to share clothes with my sisters and get hit on by hot guys at bars.
It’s so fucked up, and I don’t know how to fix it. But this blog helps, so thank you.
You know, regarding clothes, I think a big thing for me was starting to look at shopping as a treasure hunt to find things that fit MY body, instead of lamenting what I could never have. I spend a lot of time online just looking at what all the plus stores (and a couple of straight stores) have. Most days, there’s nothing I want. But when I find something that I know will be awesome on me, I either A) plunk down the plastic immediately or B) start dreaming about it and revisiting the page until I either decide to plunk down the plastic or find something I like even better and abandon the old dream. The latter is nearly as satisfying as the former, frankly, although it can bite me in the ass when I decide I’m going to buy something and it’s already sold out in my size.
The thing about that habit is, it still involves fantasy about how AWESOME MY LIFE WOULD BECOME IMMEDIATELY, IF ONLY… but now, it’s “If only I owned that dress that would look amazing on me right now” instead of “If only my body looked better in more dresses.” So I’m picturing how fab I could be with this body instead of an imaginary one. That’s actually a pretty huge step.
And treating shopping as an ongoing game definitely helps. It still sucks when I need a specific item pronto and can’t find it in my size anywhere. But when I’m regularly sifting through the shit that doesn’t fit to find the few gems that do, and I buy ‘em whenever I can afford ‘em, it’s a lot more fun — and it means I usually have something to wear (or at least know exactly what the perfect thing would be and where to get it) when the typical “must buy outfit NOW” occasions come up.
Wow, this is awesome. I don’t happen to be fat, but I’ve often imagined the magical world where I’m “beautiful,” so I kind of get it.* In this fantasy world, I’m a totally different person with a totally different life, where I’m glamorous, loved, successful, brilliant, respected, and of course, conventionally gorgeous. Rationally, I know it ain’t gonna happen – and that there are plenty of more interesting and more important things I can aspire to and actually do – but I still think of this “world” almost every day. But reading this amazing post was like a few sessions of therapy without the wallet-sucking expense! Thanks so much.
*I say “kind of” because I’ve never experienced the level of prejudice the bloggers and commenters here have survived. I’m interested in FA because fat hatred has affected family and friends, but I haven’t lived it and wouldn’t want to presume.
Is it pathetic that tiny little me is jealous of you size 16-pluses in some ways because YOU HAVE A STORE THAT PAYS ATTENTION TO HOW YOUR BODIES ARE MADE?!?!?
Stephanie, pathetic? Hell no! We all deserve that.
Idealizing? A little. Nobody, fat or thin, really has a store that pays attention to how their bodies are made, unless they have a custom tailor. What we have in LB is a store that pays lip service to paying more attention to how our bodies are made (but has kind of crummy products IMHO). It’s way better than nothing, but we still need to find a way to get the fashion industry to actually listen to its consumers!
Yeah, I should point out that I’m one of the lucky ones for whom Right Fits actually do fit right — but plenty of LB stuff doesn’t (like, say, all their shirts and dresses), and I’ve heard just as many negative reviews of the RFs as positive. (And reportedly, it’s that much MORE demoralizing to try on a garment that’s supposed to be made for bodies just like yours, only to find it doesn’t fit.)
I did have pretty good luck with C.enne.V’s “pear” jeans (even though I’m not really a pear), except for their stupid STUPID back pockets. At least people are TRYING.
amanda gannon- I have been thinking about this you said:
“I’d like to hear advice for soothing the pain that comes when you have to give up a dream that you dearly love. Especially when you lived that dream for a while, and you know exactly how it felt and what you are missing. How do we stop it from feeling like settling?”
The only thing I can come up with is kind of wordy. But here goes… When you think back to those times you were thinner and happier what else was going on? It’s probably true that you were doing other things than just being thinner. What did you do for fun? Did you live in a different location? Did you have different social interactions than you have now? All people, fat and thin, have trouble dealing with CHANGE. And yet that is what life is all about. Maybe even if you had stayed thinner you would still feel the same way – looking back on that time in your life and wanting to return to it. But the best thing I think to do now is be proactive. Write down goals you want to accomplish. Make dates with yourself to go and do fun things. Honor who you are now instead of who you were. You are valuable NOW. I don’t think you are “settling” by giving up the quest for thinness. But you may have given up on happiness without it. What does that leave you with? Constantly being uneasy or disappointed in our bodies makes us more prone to depression and illness. Try focusing on those things you like about your self now. I think you can be happy again, just allow it some space to grow in your life and it will come.
I struggle with some of the same issues as you do. These are some of the ways I have found my own happiness. It’s an on-going process. Good luck to you and above all, be kind to yourself.
Jane, and everyone else in this boat, if it makes you feel any better, I had no fewer problems with unrequited love as a size 8 or 10 or 12 than I did as a size 16 or 18 or 20. Please believe me when I say it, it’s true. I met all the men in my life from a) personals ads, b) in situations where I saw them every day (a rooming house I lived in), or c) in group therapy. I am not joking about the last one.
In fact, when I was a size 12 in college, I had this massive crush on a guy who just-wanted-to-be-friends-boo-hiss. I was sure it was because my ass was too big for him. As it happened, a) the girl he married weighed a good 70 pounds more than I did at the time he rejected me, and b) he turned out to be gay anyway. As did his wife.
Again, I am not making this shit up. The process of finding a partner is a giant pile of suck for everyone. I’ve known plenty of slim, conventionally gorgeous women who had a terrible time of it, including my own mom for many years. You might attract more men, but quality is not quantity. (I shudder when I think of some of the house apes she brought home to us in between marriages.)
The closest thing I remember to feeling how Amanda feels — because for me the idea of being thin was always basically a pathetic pipe dream until I gave it up, not a so-close-it-hurts void — is being in love with someone who was awful to me. (Apparently it’s FJ Talks About Crushes Day here on SP… ooh, remind me to put “talk about your crushes” away for a future Friday Fluff.) Knowing that I couldn’t quite have what I wanted, though I could sort of have a pale reflection of it, was a knife in the gut all the fucking time.
But those desires, and I think the desire to be thin as well, were stand-ins for what I really wanted, which was to be a Worthwhile Person (whatever I meant by that… if I’d really known, I wouldn’t have abjected it all onto some fucking guy). That’s what I was really desiring and felt I was lacking, but the substitute pain took all my focus. I didn’t have the first clue how to go about getting what I really wanted (still don’t really), so I tormented myself about not being able to achieve the one thing that I had built up as the Key to Happiness.
So I would say the trick is not to figure out what you used to have, but to figure out what you really want. It’s not weight-loss dieting — even when it is, it’s not. (When you pine for an eating disorder, it’s the control, not the obsession and malnutrition and terror.) So what is it? Fucking hard as hell to figure out and I’ll be damned if I know how to do it — I made some lucky stumbles but I’m no better at it than most and worse than some. But I think that’s the key anyway.
Yeah, I should point out that I’m one of the lucky ones for whom Right Fits actually do fit right — but plenty of LB stuff doesn’t (like, say, all their shirts and dresses),
Yeah. I love the Right Fit jeans, but their other pants are just cheap crap and their shirts and sweaters… ugh. Of course, those of us who are short as well as fat of ass belong to two groups who don’t, apparently, need clothes. If it fits in the boobs, the sleeves go to the knees.
But at least I was able to buy some damned jeans without crying, which was, come to think of it, part of my thin fantasy. For that, I’m grateful.
This is interesting, because when I was younger I don’t really recall that not being able to do the things I wanted to do was very often linked to being fat per se. I just assumed that I was a total klutz at everything. I happened to be a fat klutz, sure, but I never felt that if I were thin things would be any better because, after all, I was me, and great stuff didn’t happen to me.
Now I’m actually fatter than I was then, and happy with that, I find myself looking at stuff I wanted to do when I was younger and wondering why the heck I didn’t, and realizing I wasn’t an inadequate person like I thought. Just scared. Mostly not even of failing – just of not doing things perfectly. Learning that I didn’t have to be perfect at everything was hugely liberating.
There have been a few instances in which I felt something really was impossible because of my weight. One was nothing to do with me, but everything to do with someone whom, I thought, from their words and actions, would love me more if I were thinner. I realized, finally, that this person was using my weight – and a multitude of other things that were ‘wrong’ with me – as an excuse for the fact that they simply could not love me, period, and wanted to project it onto me rather than admitting it and making themselves look horrible. That – as with you and those college guys, FJ – was never my problem.
The other thing, when I was younger, was ballet. I had it clearly spelled out to me that my chances of getting anywhere with it as a fat teen were nil. I’d love to believe that this actually wasn’t the case – although at 14, apart from my weight, I was supposedly too old to make anything of it, as well. I’ve done some breaking down of my beliefs about the limits of age in the last few years, so if I can find a suitable adult beginners’ class, I might just give the other old myth a little push and see if it falls.
Kate, thank you SO much for this post. It means a lot to me right now. For me, the magical thinking is “When I’m thin, my parents will love me.” Intellectually, I know they love me. But they harp on my weight over and over and over and over again, so that what filters through to my brain is that I’m not good enough as I am.
It’s been really, really hard to let go of that magical thinking, but I’m finally starting to do it. I’m finally getting to a point where I can demand my parents’ unconditional love, which I deserve, because I’m their daughter. What has helped in a BIG way is that I’ve found a wonderful husband who loves every inch of me. (And he likes my “extra” weight, because it means I have big breasts. He’s such a lech. :P ) Knowing that, yes, I am capable of being loved for my whole self, not just certain parts of me, has done more to banish the magical thinking than the years of therapy (not to rag on therapy — it’s helped with lots of other issues).
How am I not as successful as she is? Oh, right. I weigh 15 lbs more and wear a pants size higher. Idiocy, ain’t it?
A couple of years ago, when my mom was giving me the biannual “DON’T YOU KNOW YOU’RE FAT AND OMG OBESITY KILLS” speech, she mentioned my old childhood nemesis, and said that the nemesis was “winning.” Because she was thin and married. Nothing my mom has said in all my 29 years has hurt me as deeply as that did, because the nemesis was a horrible, hateful person who made my adolescent years a living hell. And my mom knew that, and also agreed that the nemesis was an evil boil on the butt of humanity.
So for my mom to say that she was “winning” was tantamount to saying that being kind, getting good grades, and accomplishing things in my professional life meant NOTHING, because I was (a) fat and (b) single. (And, of course, my mom thought that (a) was the reason for (b).)
On a happier note, I have recently discovered a new plus-sized store in the Philly area, called Fresh Ayer, which sounds a lot like Lee Lee’s Valise in terms of the lines that they carry. Buying a gorgeous cherry-red shirtdress (from Trentacosta) that actually buttons over my chest (!!) was the highlight of my month.
What a beautiful mezmorizing post. I found myself slowing the speed of my reading just so I could savor each word. And right now, the dissonance I’m experiencing is making me feel a little like the computer in War Games when the kids finally figure out how to stop it from setting off the nukes. Some part of me is furiously grasping at, I dunno, something, trying to get away from the paradigm shift. Isn’t that weird? What am I pretending not to know?
My major dissonance? I am totally smart and a feminist and a major caller outer of bullshit and yet I want to be a waif. And don’t feel in control and pretty and validated unless I’m small.
I obsess about my size, the size of my muscles, my workouts, what I am or am not eating, from the moment I wake till the moment I sleep. It’s a constant background noise that I’m sometimes aware of and sometimes not. Sometimes it’s loud and shrill and othertimes it’s soft. I am always comparing my size to other women.
Weirdly, this fear of fat has worked for me, so I don’t want to give it up. I use the fear of getting fat again as motivation to workout. I use the fear of being messy again as motivation to clean up the house. I use the fear of losing my mother to her cancer to call when I’d rather tuck away from her frailty. One part of me says use the fear, because if I’m more than a size 4, messy and have my head stuck in the sand I am miserable. The other says there’s a better way. I believe that in principal but not in practical.
You have no idea how much I needed to read this today. Thank you.
That was great. Hit the mark (unfortunately!). I don’t think I’m there anymore but yeah, I used to have the “when I’m thin” mentality. I really think the first Joy Nash video whacked it out of me (with a baseball bat ;)
I don’t think I even realized I was thinking that way. It was more that I’d daydream about doing things and in my head the image of myself was always thin. The other day I found some old pictures of myself and was shocked at how thin I was in High School. Even the BMI (yeah, I know, useless) says I was “normal” then. That was when I thought I was the ugliest, fattest (because of course they went together) and most useless in my whole life.
The older I get the fatter I get and the better my self esteem gets. Hmmm :D
I just want to tell you that I am obese (BMI 31), and in the last twelve months I have:
* appeared on stage in my underwear in a burlesque show; and
* ridden a motorcycle across Bhutan.
Live now. Great advice.
But then… I also sympathise with those who are stlll wanting to lose weight. Actually, I’m still one of them. But I’m really readjusting my sights – this site, and junkfoodscience have been extraordinarily enlightening. I think I’m now wanting to be “overweight” rather than “normal”, because I think that’s right for me.
I also believe that I will actually get there very simply by eating well and exercising, and caring about my health, not my weight. My weight went *on* when I was behaving in unhealthy ways – being depressed and hardly moving, and eating ridiculous amounts of comfort food. It seems logical – if you have a natural body shape, it’s equally possible to starve yourself under it or binge yourself over it for a little while. But if you behave in a healthy way, then you’ll eventually drift back to whatever is right for you – which may still be overweight or obese by the current stupid standards. I think this makes sense with the HAES concept. As you get to the “H” bit, your “S” might well vary from where you were when you started. Up OR down, depending on what kind of unhealthy things you were doing before.
It’s hard to just “accept”, when who I am is not so great. I relate Amanda Gannon. Personally, I know I’ll never be thin. I never have been. But it is hard to believe things won’t be better if I were thinNER. I’m not an island. I am affected by other people. Trying to lose weight is one of the few things I CAN control (I said trying, not actually doing it).
This place is filled with awesome people. I am not one of them. No, I don’t want pity. But if I strip away the fantasy of my future, better self, if I look only at what is here and try to work with that…there really isn’t much. The worthy things about me are so non-specific. I’m good at nothing that a million others couldn’t do better. Except maybe talking about me.
Obese patients are often encouraged to believe that weight loss is an appropriate way to combat depression, save a failing marriage, or increase the chance of career success.
Oh man. Oh man. This speaks to me and you know it.
thank you so much for writing this. I can’t explain just how pertinent this is for me. I am 27 years old, I have wasted (WASTED!) the last 16 years of my life trying to be thin, and when I was thin? I just thought I mustn’t be thin enough because I didn’t feel different, I didn’t feel acceptable.
being thin was going to make all my weirdness acceptable. but of course it didn’t, BECAUSE IT WAS IN MY HEAD! (not my stomach, not my chin, not my arms, not the front of my armpits, not my thighs, IN MY HEAD)
you grow up and you have to accept yourself. It sounds so easy, but of course it is not. But the other option, not accepting yourself, living with hatred and fantasy and doubt, that is, for me, no longer contemplatable.
much love h.x
The question is, who do you really want to be, and what are you going to do about it?
I am who I want to be and to some extent I think I always have been. I was also lucky, though, that I was never afforded the opportunity to be part of the in/normal crowd in the first place, so that while it was something I longed for, I always knew that it was never going to happen, which bizarrely, gave me a kind of freedom to be myself anyway? The fact that I was fat was just an extra layer of crap that I had to/have to deal with. And when you’ve been called fat from a very young age, it’s not something that ever goes away, you just kind of learn to deal with it.
I can honestly say that I’m happiest when I’m eating how I believe I should be eating – good, fresh, mostly homecooked food. I don’t lose weight from dieting and that has rarely (apart from the odd bit of brainwashing) been my objective in eating. Besides, fake food is bad for you.
Having said that, there are things that I love to do that I don’t do because there is no consideration taken for my physique. In high school I was literally left behind hiking on ski trails by my fellow hikers, left to find my own way back to the car before dark. I became adept at reading the slightest scuff of dirt or overturned leaf on a trail. I love to ride, but was banned when I turned 190lbs. I love swimming, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I go through that again (and again, and again, and again), I’ve had the humiliation from the age of 6 on, from adults and kids and won’t put myself through it for anybody.
However, I’ve bellydanced in public, I wear tank tops and the odd miniskirt on the beach, I’ve gotten so comfortable wearing tighter clothing that wearing loose clothing feels wrong – even when I’m not going anywhere, I invite people to go hiking with me, etc. I don’t feel that’s progress or personal growth or whatever you want to call it so much as me just being me.
Do I think that being thin would give me advantages? Undoubtedly. I probably would have dated, I would have been more active/invited to things, I sure as hell would have gotten a lot more jobs (well, with the race thing, maybe not), my clothing options would have been a lot nicer (alas, I have expensive tastes) and I would have gotten medical treatment in Britain. The only thing I know for sure wouldn’t have been different is my depression.
Okay, I’m off to read the comments.
I wondered, too, if I might not be trying to recapture something lost, but I honestly can’t say that when I was thin I had anything that I would want to have again. I had family members dying left and right, I was fighting with my husband over his crappy job, I was creatively stagnant, I had no money, no insurance, no car, no friends, no work, no way out of the house most days . . . it was horrid, actually.
But amid all the suffering and the stuff I could not help or change, this was one thing I had that I could actually DO. And I saw results. And that felt good. God, it felt good. I was very proud of it. Proud of myself for the first time EVER. Oh, yeah, I still hated myself most of the time, but it was at least manageable. I’d like that back, yes.
And maybe that’s at the root of some of it; I’ve had the bastard year from hell, and no matter how hard I fling myself back into life, I’m getting nowhere fast. Life is bad again. And being unable to control my weight (god DAMN depression and antidepressants and uncontrollable drug-fueled eating) just fuels the sense of helplessness and discontent. I have NEVER not been unhappy with myself, but now is especially rotten timing.
It’s true: It’s worse because I’ve been there, and know I could be there again if I really worked at it. But I’d have to work just as hard to maintain it; that’s just how I’m made. And I feel lazy because I’m not willing to work that hard forever for anything. Especially knowing that even if I did, I’d still be unhappy with my fat butt and my thick legs, and still have to do the work of loving myself anyway. I might as well just cut straight to getting over myself, and skip the starving and over-exercising.
And for Kate: I totally don’t feel like you’re criticizing. You’re . . . whatever the opposite of that is. I know you know that it’s not easy. If I feel like I’m doing something “wrong” in regards to my own self-acceptance, dude, that comes from me, and not from any messages I am directly getting from you or anyone else. I’m just used to hating on myself in this one area, and I’m the type who can flog myself raw with just about anything.
Honestly, I have no freaking idea HOW to let go of this. I know I need to, I know I will have to, and I’m sure that someday I will be there, but right now, I’m at a total loss, and I feel like I can’t win for losing. That’s at the core of it. I want to do the right thing and just freaking forget about the essentially nonsensical idea that thin(ner) will = (more) content, because I know it would heal so much pain. But damn, that means working at it every day. And there are times I honestly feel like I don’t have the strength to wrestle with all the other crap in my life AND do that, too.
I admire people who have made that journey so very much. And I know that like every other journey, it’s made one painintheass step at a time.
Thank goodness for places like this that have SHOWN me that it’s possible to be at peace. At least I have proof that acceptance is NOT a dream, or magical thinking. And even though we all lapse and have rotten days, you don’t gain back all the self-loathing after two years.
Every moment spent not hating yourself is a victory. That’s way more meaningful than temporarily giving yourself permission to like yourself because you happen to meet some silly standard that has nothing to do with who you really are or whether you’re a decent person.
I think you provided your own starting point, Amanda.
It seems to me from what you’re writing that this isn’t about thinness; it’s about success. You write “this was one thing I had that I could actually DO” and that you were “proud of myself for the first time EVER.” That’s not about girth or adipose tissue; that’s about winning at something.
And then you say this, which is so true: “Every moment spent not hating yourself is a victory.” You are achieving victories EVERY FUCKING DAY. It’s not easy, because worthwhile victories aren’t. But it’s something you are succeeding at, even if only sometimes, and it’s something where success will be really meaningful for something besides your waist size.
That doesn’t solve anything. But maybe it’s a start.
And then Shade said: When I’m thin, I will finally be a valuable human being.
Oh. Oh yeah. On my bad days I still think like this.
I have wasted (WASTED!) the last 16 years of my life trying to be thin, and when I was thin? I just thought I mustn’t be thin enough because I didn’t feel different, I didn’t feel acceptable.
hayley, this spoke to me so much. I was thin in high school (after being a fat kid), but I was completely convinced that I was fat. Why? Because I was still a weird outcast queer nerd with a strange family, and if I were thin all that would have changed, right?
Now, at 28, after being fat and thin and in-between, I’m thin again, and you know what? It’s not the “real me” or a “thin me” that’s been waiting all along. It’s just me. I am even shaped the same; I just take up a little less horizontal space. That I ever thought that being narrower would revolutionize my personality and my family is baffling to me now.
FJ, it’s funny to me that you talk about the sex/relationships-in-college thing, since you got laid way more than any of our other friends. (Well, except Char, of course. But she’s an outlier!)
Kate, you are brilliant, as always, but this post is phenomenal. It’s so perfect.
It seems to me from what you’re writing that this isn’t about thinness; it’s about success. You write “this was one thing I had that I could actually DO” and that you were “proud of myself for the first time EVER.” That’s not about girth or adipose tissue; that’s about winning at something.
FJ, I was going to say that in response to Amanda, too. And relate it to this, from definitive.dot:
Trying to lose weight is one of the few things I CAN control (I said trying, not actually doing it).
I totally get that thinking. But I think recognizing how much you can’t control — and that it’s OKAY that you can’t control it — is also a huge part of self-acceptance. (And reducing stress levels in general.)
I’m still not entirely sure how you set about doing it consciously, though.
I think I need to save this post and read it everyday as part of my morning ritual.
My thin fantasy mainly involves shopping and finding clothes that fit. I have made more online purchases in the last 3 months that have had to be returned than the 5 years prior.
A recent respiratory illness and knee and subsequent ankle injuries have prevented me from exercising. Changes to my meds only added to the lbs I had packed on in early 2007. I went from a cute clothes-wearing 26/28 to a 30/32 and all of a sudden my sources for clothes dried up.
I was a 26/28 for something like 6 or 7 years. I was fine with that. Happy about that. But this weight gain has got me in a funk that is unshakable. I own one pair of too tight jeans (they look ok if I wear a certain jacket that covers my waistband) and a couple of pairs of elastic waist yoga pants. I look like a slob most days of the week. I hate it. I detest it. But I have no choice. I fantasize every day about dieting and losing weight. Just enough to get me back down to a 28, I promise myself. And then I the fantasy gets wilder and more elaborate. High School Reunion double-takes. The ungettable guy/girl asking me to dance.
I cannot be the only 30/32+ out there. Who decided that 28 is the top of the line for most retail stores? Why can’t I find something that isn’t a muumuu?
Given the groping and sexual harrassment (professional as well as personal) that I suffered (from men and women, the female sex is far from blameless at that madness, and it comes with some really interesting permutations) at my smallest size, can we copy this about 10,000 times and tape it up all over the planet?
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeze??
Oh, re: the actual post – I wrote one like it once.
It was not as good.
The End.
:D
Perfectly Said, Thank you.
I cannot be the only 30/32+ out there. Who decided that 28 is the top of the line for most retail stores? Why can’t I find something that isn’t a muumuu?
Alyce, I don’t know, and it sucks.
FWIW, if you don’t already know this, Kiyonna, Zaftique, and Igigi all go up to at least 30/32. (Zaftique goes up to 36/38.) And Junonia’s a really good source for good-quality basics, even though some of their stuff is really matronly.
It still sucks, but there are more options out there than there used to be, at least.
Socially Accepted Worthwhile Person. Yup.
Along with what Joy said about her client’s “well if the richest woman in the world with every resource at her disposal can’t do it I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO” despair, this is, on an almost unconscious level, what the “DON’T YOU DARE TAKE MY HOPE AWAY!!!” gibbering hysterical rage is about, at the gut, I think.
FJ, it’s funny to me that you talk about the sex/relationships-in-college thing, since you got laid way more than any of our other friends. (Well, except Char, of course. But she’s an outlier!)
Oh, I know, I got laid all the time. (Not more often than Char, but probably with more people.) I had almost zero self-respect, and I only say “almost” zero because I never had sex with Julian. But remember also that I spent all that time in total knots about [coach] and [professor], being insufferable and STARVING FOR LOVE. I had sex with a lot of people to prove that I could have sex with a lot of people even though I was fat (and worthless and everything that came with it), and that worked, but proving I could be loved even though I was fat? That was the hurdle I couldn’t get over, and that I put all my energy into, to the detriment of almost everything else — because it became a symbol for failure. If I hadn’t been able to get laid, that would have been my symbol instead.
And this. THIS TOO.
I will sit down and be quiet now.
take it from someone who has a food disorder.
it will never change. the way society makes it seem is if your skinny, your beautiful.
not true.
and i wish i could get that through my head.
thank you Kate!!
FoBT=I will be able to do anything I want and everyone will be accepting of it.
Real Life=I can do anything I want and I am accepting of it.
I think that I may be on the way to acceptance.
Fantastic, insightful post. Julia I think touched on something that was in the periphery of my thoughts when I was reading through the responses: my “when I’m thin…”fantasies were all rooted in fear and generated in me by my parents. Really, for years, my parents were the ones handing me the idea that I would not have any choices in my life because I was fat. If I was fat (or got fatter- that really seemed to be their driving focus) I wouldn’t a. be able to get a job (nobody would hire a fatty) b. wouldn’t be able to get health insurance (fat KILLS) c. wouldn’t find a partner (because they themselves didn’t think fat was attractive, I guess),d .be accepted at my college (I don’t know WTF they were thinking there except maybe they had some kind of sorority rejection picture in their mind? ) and…basically whatever it was in their fantasy of my life that teh fat would have prevented. I know I had a lot of disconnect between what they were telling me and what I actually saw in reality, or experienced personally.I remember thinking more than once: “Don’t they have EYES? Half our family is fat. And they are all married with college degrees and jobs and health insurance ” I mean it was just obviously not true what they were telling me. It was baffling to me for a long time. But I did accept it eventually, or internalized it I suppose and adapted the fantasy to my own purposes:
When I’m thin…I…I…won’t have to listen to them talk about it anymore.
When I’m thin, I won’t be a monster anymore.
I wrote something like this too.
And it wasn’t HALF as good. :-)
I’m gonna print this and paste it on my celing. In large print. Cause THIS is something I wanna see early in the morning…instead of, say, an infomercial about the latest body improving product that DON’T work.
And as always, Kate, you rawks my sox.
What surprised me about this post was how timely it was for me, and for quite a few other shapelings as well.
At coffee after an exercise class one of the women in the class was umming and ahhring about what to have because she’s counting points on some kind of home baked WW program (at least she’s not giving them money!) and my flippant “Well, maybe you’ll be one of the 5%” remark didn’t really go down well.
I know it was a bit rude, but you know, I didn’t murder a kitten.
Which is what the stunned & horrified looks from the entire table seemed to suggest. Thanks to your post I understand the extreme reaction.
polly
Oh, Fillyjonk! This brought a tear to my eyes:
“I had sex with a lot of people to prove that I could have sex with a lot of people even though I was fat (and worthless and everything that came with it), and that worked, but proving I could be loved even though I was fat? That was the hurdle I couldn’t get over, and that I put all my energy into, to the detriment of almost everything else — because it became a symbol for failure.”
Yes. I’ve said I’ve had a terrible time finding guys…but that only means I’ve had a terrible time finding guys to stick around the next morning. I’ve had sex with a lot of guys. I try really hard to not let it get to me, can’t change the past and all that. But I’ve had a hard time breaking the cycle. And every time it happens, and I know the guy is only interested in getting laid, and not in ME, I do it anyway, because I figure “sex without love is better than no sex at all, isn’t it? At least it’s a temporary fix.”
I know I need to stop it and make changes, and that will be one of the first steps towards finding someone to LOVE me rather than just fuck me….but again. Just so hard. Because when you’re used to having no attention, that temporary attention is better than nothing.
I keep coming back to this post, reading it again, and then reading all the new comments. This blog REALLY helps, and Kate, you are a wonder.
I’ve been reading this blog for about a week and a half and I’ve really enjoyed the posts. Today is no exception. (and yay this is my first time leaving a comment!)
This entry is really eye opening for me because I only discovered the whole size acceptance movement about two weeks ago and this post describes exactly how I feel right now. I am full on in the cognitive dissonance phase you spoke about and I’m struggling to reach real genuine, bonafide fat acceptance land.
I think people should be happy with their bodies and get over all the dieting and obsessing about weight, but at the same time I’m sitting here feeling regret about a piece of chocolate I ate a few hours ago because yes, I’m on a diet. Ugh and I hate it!! Like, its ok for others to love themselves but it’s not ok for me, because how could I possibly like myself, I’m fat!
Everything you say about the Fantasy of Being Thin is so true it hurts me. I don’t want to be thin for a smaller waist line, I want to be thin because in this crazy mixed up world I have been taught to believe that skinny people are the happiest people on earth, and I BELIEVE IT. They live in freaking disneyland and I’m sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean because I “choose” to remain fat. My fantasies include various things like:
When I’m thin, my father will be proud to be seen with me.
When I’m thin, I can go to my old high school and show everyone what a valuable person I became.
When I’m thin, I will have the guts to tell people how I really feel.
and my personal favorite….
When I’m thin, my life will begin.
I know that none of these are true, but in a sick sense I want these things to be true, NEED these things to be true, because that means that I can blame everything on my fat and not on, let’s say, my low self-esteem. It’s easier to hate fat and wallow in that than hate the person that I am and try to change it.
Thank you so much for posting about this subject. At least I know I’m not alone and that at one time you felt the way I do right now. I hope one day I reach the point where you are now and I can look back on this time and help others the way you do.
You’ve done an amazing job of expressing exactly what I’ve been going through in my life the last few years, mostly without even realizing it. Thank god we’ve seen the light!
Best. Post. Ever. Anywhere.
My grandmother, when I was about 13, gave me a diet book where she’d helpfully underlined things like “obese people do not ever get offered good jobs” and “obese people have trouble finding a spouse”.
I truly believed things like this because no alternative viewpoint existed. It was the whole truth. I think the internet saved my life; back in the day, I found a text BBS where people were talking about this mysterious “size acceptance” thing and it was like a religious vision.
When I am thin, people will stop looking past me and start hearing me.
When I am thin, I won’t hurt all the time.
When I am thin, I will be a better parent, because I won’t be the one who made my kids fat.
When I am thin, I will belong.
Thank you, Kate- for an excellent post.
Man, you all are making me cry. Starting right from Kate’s first paragraphs I was already tearing. There is something far too…real…about it. Hits you in a place you don’t necessarily want to acknowledge that you understand. You want to be able to shake your head and say “Oh no, I accept myself just as I am. I wasn’t so silly as to think being thin would change my entire personality.” But deep down, you know its true.
For me, it was an odd opposite. My personality became bolder and brighter and I thought I had to become thinner to keep hold of that part of myself. I studied abroad in Ireland for 6 months and travelled throughout Europe, having the time of my life while I was there. I met new friends who were also in the same study program and hence, were a lot like me. I flirted and danced and went out and was fearless – because I didn’t worry about having to spend the next X years with them – I knew I’d be gone in a few months if I made a fool of myself. I was in a new place and wanted to soak up everything I possibly could while I had the chance. For the first time, I felt like I was being the person I wanted to be. I was 100% happy.
AND, there was very little fast food, not as much junk. I made all my meals from fresh ingredients, didn’t have a car so I walked miles and miles every day. So, at the end of that 6 months, I came home nearly 20 pounds thinner than I was when I left. And the first thing every single person said to me when I came home was “OMG! You look amazing!!” It didn’t take very long at all before I began to equate the amazing experience I had and the person I was in Europe with being thin – never mind all the other reasons I’ve already named for letting myself just be me.
I’ve spent the 3 years since coming back to the US chasing that “dream” of being/getting thin again. And I have to remind myself pretty regularly that my appearance had nothing to do with that experience. Its still hard, very hard. And like Amanda, I have plenty of days where I feel like my choice to value acceptance over waist size means I’m just giving up and I get so mad at myself and feel like a failure.
Its a very difficult to find the line between true acceptance of yourself and wondering if you’re just telling yourself that its ok to be who you are so that you feel like you have a valid reason to give up on that “thin dream” without feeling like a failure.
And that’s the reason why I’m so glad I found this community. I truly want to love the me that I am and that I have the potential to be – REGARDLESS of my size – because we live in a society that, by and large, tells us that its not ok to be fat and happy with yourself. And believing that its ok, well, that’s key to the follow through. Its a main ingredient in crossing that line into the “Hey, I really DO like me! I’m not just saying that anymore!”
And Amanda, your comment: I’d like to hear advice for soothing the pain that comes when you have to give up a dream that you dearly love. Especially when you lived that dream for a while, and you know exactly how it felt and what you are missing. How do we stop it from feeling like settling?
Well, I’m not sure I have an answer, or that I ever will. Because I do feel like its settling sometimes, but at other times, I realize that I definitely have days in which I’m happier than I’ve ever been – fat or thin. And that says something to me and I have to believe that its possible to get to that point for the majority of the time (not necessarily all, I mean, no one is that bubbly 100% of the time…). I think, you have to accept that you had a dream, one you dearly loved and that gave you hope. But you aren’t just giving up a dream. You have to set your sights on a new one – finding that happy person you were before in the body you have now – and let and all the people here give you hope.
Again, thanks everyone for all their insight. Was a good way to spend the evening.
Incredibly powerful. There is a true power in the acceptance of what we are–as women–really are. Not I am this because of that. Or, if I was this, then I would be that. Even more powerful would be the type of self love that comes from saying “I dont need to be X to be happy. I need to be me. And the value of who I am is not linked to the size of my jeans, my age, or my breast size.” (or any other physical characteristic)~~Dee
Its a very difficult to find the line between true acceptance of yourself and wondering if you’re just telling yourself that its ok to be who you are so that you feel like you have a valid reason to give up on that “thin dream” without feeling like a failure.
I hear you, but for me, it’s a matter of re-prioritizing the dreams — and at the end of the day, thinness just ain’t that important. If I gave up on my writing, or my relationship or friendships, or wanting to read as many books as possible, there would be cause to worry — and I’d certainly hope my friends and family would inquire about whether I was depressed again. But giving up on getting thin? That’s not a failure or a betrayal of my true potential any more than giving up on the alpaca farm, you know? It’s just putting my energy into things that are far more important to me.
And Kate, I hear you. :*) And that re-prioritizing was what I was trying to get to with the end of my post, though you put it much more fluently. I’m still at the point, as I think a lot of people are, where I very much just want to be accepting of myself but still have plenty of days that slip into “If I were thinner…” I’m working on focusing that re-prioritizing to put all those other things at the top of the list. And accepting that they are very much possible, regardless of the inches I can count around my waist.
Again, thanks for such a moving post! As many people have already said, I feel like I need to frame it as a reminder to myself…
“I, Kate Harding, am personally condemning you to a lifetime of fatness! There’s no point in trying, fatty! You’re doomed!”
I know this was meant in jest, but I actually find this statement helpful. I go in and out of stages where I accept myself for awhile and then I don’t for awhile, but I think that hopelessness is not necessarily such a bad thing. Some things truly are hopeless, but there can be a sort of peacefulness in realizing that something just can’t be changed. And then you can possibly move on to something else.
Thanks for the great post, Kate. It is very enlightening and you are very wise for a mere 32-year-old.
Excellent post, and just what I needed to read today. I got some pictures from my mom of me when I was younger (baby through high school and a little later) and cried when I looked through them. I cried for all the years I wasted thinking I was fat, and that if I could just be thin, she would love me and want me. Well, I did get thin (but I didn’t think I was thin), and ya know what? She still didn’t love me and still didn’t want me, and I spent a lot of years sleeping with any man who would have me just to get that love (well, it wasn’t love, but at least they wanted me for a little while) that I would never get from her.
It took me a long time, but I did find a man who loves me for the person I am, and likes my body the way it is (he has a thing for boobs, and man, do I have them, but he also likes my ass and my thighs, and my face, and my hair, and my personality). So the fantasy of what will happen when I’m finally thin, I know it’s not true. I don’t think DH could have loved me if I hadn’t first learned to love myself. Even though I hadn’t yet found FA when I met and married him, I still loved me most of the time and knew that I would never be thin again and was mostly ok with that. I’ve come even farther since I’ve found FA and HAES, and it’s posts like this one that really drive that home for me. So thanks, Kate, you really rule!
[...] Kate Harding, hat mal wieder einen sehr guten Artikel veröffentlicht. [...]
Oh, Kate, my mind is spinning.
I’m not sure if I’m proud of myself for letting my thin fantasy go while groping blindly by myself or if I’m about to burst into tears because I’m still putting off doing things I’ve always wanted to do because I’m afraid of what others will think.
kate, this is such a great post; I totally relate…and it’s got me thinking about something….
In all the years I struggled for self-acceptance, I think there were even a few things where I went, “I can’t do that if I’m not thin” rather than “when I’m thin I’ll do that.” I just accepted some things as “unrealistic” for me, if I was going to try to accept and live my life in a fat woman’s body. It’s like, instead of sustaining the “hope” of being thin so I could get on with my life, I gave up on dreams because I thought that’s what it would take to be able to live with my body.
The biggest one is being a singer – a performer, really. All my life, since I was a little kid, singing was my life. My parents lied and told me singing at the supper table was bad luck – just to get me to shut up. When I was a teenager, music was what I was going to do with my life…but as a fat woman, trying to be a “realistic” fat woman, I lost my courage, and I slowly put it out of my head…and didn’t take learning to play guitar or developing my voice seriously.
Guess what? I’m turning 39 on Sunday, and I’m in a band, and we’re writing songs, and we’ve started performing at open mike nights….AND I played/sang with an open jam last week, in front of an audience!!!!!! HA HA! And all the feedback from people who’ve heard/seen me has been INCREDIBLE! Music is the most important thing in my life right now.
DON’T WAIT TILL YOU”RE 39 TO DO WHAT YOU MOST LOVE! You’ll still be fat, but you’ll also be older. :D
You are bang on the money Kate. I still remember when I really realised how much I’d invested in becoming thin. It was at the end of a long process of losing any faith in dieting.
I finally promised myself, I would never diet again, it was finished. I said it over and over again, I ‘m never going to do that again!
I was nonplussed when I slowly became aware of a feeling of mourning, ridiculous I know, on closer examination I realised it was so many of my hopes and dreams going down the plughole. Luckily for me, I’d made a promise to myself and when I made it, I felt for the first time in years that I wasn’t selling myself out for once, I was taking what I knew to be a really difficult stand because it was against those I had the upmost respect for.
So I decided, what the hell let the griveing occur, I just don’t give a shit, it kind of petered out after that. I have my days just like everyone else, but I can’t forget that feeling STANDING FOR SOMETHING against the flow. Of finally realising that I and how I felt about myself was worth more than any dream.
But what if you have realistic expectations? And losing weight really makes them happen? Since I lost 96 pounds, a lot of the aches and pains that were a normal part of my life are gone. I have more energy, and participate in more things that tired me out before. My brother, who has lost over 100 lbs., is off his diabetes drugs and is controlling his sugar without the pills that he took before. He’s been off them for a couple of years. If you think being thin will magically remake your personality, that’s wrong, but some realistic things might happen.
To someone fully wrapped up in The Fantasy of Being Thin, that doesn’t just mean, “All the best evidence suggests you will be fat for the rest of your life, but that’s really not a terrible thing.” It means, “You will NEVER be the person you want to be! All the evidence suggests you will never find a satisfying relationship or get a promotion or make more friends or feel confident trying new things!”
Nail on the head. Thank you, Kate, for saying this so eloquently. I am struggling with this and it helps immensely when folks talk about it.
Kate Harding says: “I have a lot of trouble believing that you’re coming from a place of respecting what I and this community stand for. So I’m really not sure why I should make a special effort to make you feel more comfortable for trying to lose weight.”
I’m being honest. Take a look at your own contradictory views on this, Kate: you say that being fat from an *eating disorder” is a “different ball of wax” (I agree – and at least you acknowledge that fatness can come from eds…something others in fat acceptance seem loath to do) – but then, in your very next paragraph to me, you take a hard stance for my admitting that I deeply wish I had the body I had *before* the ed wrecked havoc on it.
I’ve seen your photo, Kate. You don’t look fat to me (I’m, again, telling the truth, here, not in rancor, but in peace, if that’s possible). You look wonderfully shapely – just like your prose. And, good for you, I say! In this demented world, people who don’t look like tooth-picks can get a lot of abuse and disrespect from others who have extremely narrow views of how bodies should look. They can get just as much abuse as the people, who like me, really are fat. Not just shapely.
I’m sorry if this sound self-hating; alot of it is. But, there Is a difference between how I am fat and how you are – and everyone else.
And, also, I don’t need your permission to lose weight in a healthy way, I just want to discuss some of this with you – and others – if possible.
Zoe – I have an ED, too, and I probably would weigh less if I never had had an ED. However, focussing on weight is in my opinion couterproductive in the treatment of ANY eating disorder (yes, including binge eating and compulsive overeating). I cannot speak for you, but dieting, making rather unrealistic weight loss plans, and feeling disgusted by my body and my eating behavior are all just as much part of my ED as binge eating is. Also, deliberate weigh loss attempts are a really great way to keep the ED cycle going. You might lose weight in the process of overcoming your ED, but there is not guarantee for that – and it is very possible that you never again will end up with your pre-ED weight even if you should fully recover. I went through a phase of three years when I hardly binged at all – I kept my weight stable at about 260 pounds but I did not lose any weight. Yet, I was doing in many ways much, much better during that time (for one thing I did not waste energy on constantly thinking about food/ dieting).
Zoe, you set up a strawman argument (”Zoe is not allowed to diet”) that had nothing to do with the point of this post and called it “hurtful,” “wrong,” and “ignorant.” You said you were in pain because of your fatness, but then got defensive about how you’re perfectly healthy how you are and nobody can tell you any different. Is Kate really the contradictory one here?
I think Kate was perfectly justified in saying you were coming from a position that doesn’t understand — or at least doesn’t respect — the basic points of this blog, no matter how often you say you’re trying so hard to be nice. Have you really not seen any of the 23979279726 other times — including this very post — where Kate addressed the “how dare you tell me not to diet” defensive stance? (You can start here.) Or where she addressed eating disorders? (You can start here.) Or, for that matter, the posts about how counterproductive and intelligence-insulting it is to tell a fat woman she’s not fat? (You can start here.) This is not to say that you have to have read the entire archives before you comment on a post, but if you’re going to call Kate’s nonexistent positions hurtful and ignorant? I’d say being minimally informed is basic politeness.
When Kate says “I have a lot of trouble believing that you’re coming from a place of respecting what I and this community stand for,” that isn’t just a “hard stance,” whatever you mean by that. It’s an objective assessment of whether you seem to be respecting — or ignoring — what Kate and this community stand for and have very explicitly stood for in the past.
Linda, have you read this post from the archives? Because when you call 100-pound weight loss “realistic,” I am deeply, deeply skeptical. We bloggers here at SP have lost, collectively, hundreds of pounds on various diets/”lifestyle changes,” and almost all of it has come back. Permanent weight loss is just not a realistic goal — if you can sustain it, you’re a statistical anomaly, and while that might end up working out well for you, it’s a lot like planning your life around when you’re going to win the lottery (and you’re really going to do it this time, dammit!)
Please note that this is not to dismiss your concerns about what your body feels like; that’s your own experience, and of course no one else can speak to that. But I think the point of this post is to live your life now, in the body that you are, as the person that you are.
I tried to keep track of the comments as I went through, so I could respond to a few that I really relate to, but no luck. So, here are all of my fucked up thin fantasies:
1. If I were thin (or even just a better “sexy” kind of fat), I would actually DO that striptease for my boyfriend that he’s always said he wanted.
2. If I were thin, I would actually be a rock star.
3. If I were thin, I would be comfortable calling out fat hatred. Then people wouldn’t be like, “oh, yeah, of course the fatty thinks that!”
4. If I were thin (or even that sexy fat, again), I would walk around in hot clothes, and everyone on the street would stop to check me out.
Why oh why are so many of these things tied up in sexuality? I was trained from a very very very young age that my worth was/is based upon what I can do for others, including having a “perfect” body. I sobbed sobbed sobbed this weekend as I worked on a project for my mom for Christmas, going through old pictures. I wish I could go back and tell that girl in the pictures that she WASN”T fat, not at all, and that she should rebel against her stepdad’s weekly weigh-ins for her, and tell him to keep his stupid fucking car if the only way she could use it was to lose 2 pounds for each opportunity to drive it.
My new fantasy: When I accept myself, I will no longer take shit from anyone. When I accept myself, I will no longer live my life to please others, and on and on.
FJ and SM, thanks for saying everything I would have said. In fact, I probably would have just deleted Linda’s comment, because I don’t feel like saying for the billionth time that this blog’s official policy is that there’s no such thing as “realistic” expectations for a permanent 100-lb. weight loss where most people are concerned. And if you think I’m wrong, you’re free to stop reading the blog and go find any one of the gazillion weight loss blogs that will “Way to go!” you to death for that.
And Queendom, this is bang on:
I cannot speak for you, but dieting, making rather unrealistic weight loss plans, and feeling disgusted by my body and my eating behavior are all just as much part of my ED as binge eating is. Also, deliberate weigh loss attempts are a really great way to keep the ED cycle going.
Zoe:
And, also, I don’t need your permission to lose weight in a healthy way, I just want to discuss some of this with you – and others – if possible.
It’s stated quite clearly in the comments policy, as well as numerous other posts, that we don’t discuss deliberate weight loss here. And furthermore, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as trying to lose weight “in a healthy way,” especially for someone with an eating disorder. (See Queendom’s comment above.) So, sorry, but we won’t be having that discussion here.
If I may, and Kate, FJ, and SM please correct me if I’ve missed the boat here, because I am new to this but this is what I’ve gotten from following this blog -
Linda and Zoe – No one here is saying you Must Stay FAT. There is no “You must be THIS FAT to blog this blog.” They won’t ostrasize you whether you can fit into a size 2 or a size 22. That’s the point. Acceptance at any size. Because, Zoe, as you point out, one person’s view of fat is not someone else’s definition.
There are people here who comment about having lost weight due to illnesses they are suffering from. There are people who have posted that they have been thin their whole lives but who follow this blog because they have fat family members and friends and they want to support them and this movement.
And there’s people like myself, I can barely make it up a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing- not because I’m fat, but because I have been living on junk and do virtually no physical activity. Now, I’m changing that because I don’t like being only 24 and unable to climb the steps to my room. But I’m not doing it for the “Fantasy of Being Thin.” If I lose weight in the process, fine, whatever. If I don’t, ok, whatever. When I posted my second comment here, asking people’s opinions on how to wave off all the comments from people about weight loss that may occur as I make a move to being healthier. No one told me not to do it. No one said “Stay fat! Screw your health!” They encouraged me to be healthy, to check with a doctor to make sure I don’t do too much too fast, and to not make it an option for other people to discuss my waist size since I didn’t want that to be a focus.
And there’s plenty of people here who are happy and healthy at 150 lbs or 300 lbs. And that’s beautiful and refreshing.
This blog, this movement, isn’t about insisting that every person in the world fit some amorphous definition of fat. This is about being accepting of yourself and others and trying to change the societal views and stigmas regarding fat people and the “Obesity Crisis.” Its about being happy and realizing that you don’t have to put your life on hold just because your appearance doesn’t match some antiquated notion of beauty or thinness. Its about realizing that you don’t have to subject yourself to a life of dieting, disordered eating or dangerous surgeries just because you’ve been put-down and made to feel that you should.
luckyliz, you can be my spokeswoman any time. :) This was perfect.
but as a fat woman, trying to be a “realistic” fat woman, I lost my courage
Oh, Dorianne, this might have to become a whole new post. I lived SO much of my life in fear of people looking at me and thinking, “Who does she think she’s kidding?” — and a lot of that was related to fat. Fat women can’t do X, Y, and Z, so if you’re a fat woman and you try any of those things, you’re obviously delusional and making the rest of us look bad. Don’t be that fat chick! Know your place!
Gah. Yep, I’m posting about this, among other things.
I had to read the post a few times before I could say anything.
I think that the part that is resonating the most with me is the aspect of maturity. I feel a bit older than many of you here, I’m nearly 39, and I think each time I took a leap into something in spite of the “but you’re fat, you can’t do it” thoughts, my life was much improved. Looking back on the paths I chose, and the ones I didn’t, I can’t say much other than that. But the questions that are no longer unsettled (Will I ever find someone who I love who loves me? Will I be a mom? Will I have a career and financial security?) even though life is very tenuous and nothing is 100% certain, I have some peace knowing I didn’t stop myself from aiming for the things I wanted just because I was fat.
And when I think about it, the fears associated with being fat bought me some extra time in making some of those decisions (such as becoming a mom) and that made my choice much more conscious.
For me, the biggest FOBT is that when I’m thin, I won’t have (type 2) diabetes anymore (which is false, anyhow). Or I won’t have the guilt about having diabetes anymore.
Powerful stuff, Kate and Shapelings.
this sounds like a tour of my brain. i stopped dieting about six months ago after about 15 years of yo-yo-ing thanks to advice from assorted doctors and my family. i’m very much in cognitive dissonance. one day i love myself. the next day, i can’t look in a mirror and can barely leave the house.
when i am thin, my colleagues will take me more seriously.
when i am thin, I won’t have to justify my educated opinions so vehemently (with footnotes. footnotes!)
when i am thin, i’ll order what I want at a restaurant without worrying what other people will say about my choices.
when i am thin, i’ll bike everywhere.
when i am thin, my doctors will stop implying I’m going to die immediately.
when i am thin, i’ll have a closet full of short skirts and flirty dresses.
when i am thin, my mother will stop worrying about me.
when i am thin, people will actually like me instead of keeping me around for entertainment or because i’m useful.
when i am thin, i’ll be happy.
*sigh*
thanks for helping me see that i’m not alone in this.
I want to send this link to my Mum, but I don’t know how well she would receive it. I try and do my fat acceptance bit when my parents get all excited about their latest diet, but I fear that my comments fall upon deaf ears.
I too have my FoBT. And like a couple of other people who have commented it revolves around sexual attractiveness. I was told as a teenager/young adult that I wouldn’t get a boyfriend or no-one would marry me because I was fat (and I wasn’t even all that fat – a UK size 16 which is a US12!).
I don’t need fantasies about being successful as I am successful in what I do, well respected and have a job I love. I’m not interested in earning loads of cash, and I don’t think my size would stop me if I wanted a different job because I am professionally successful, I just happen to work in the charitable sector where wages are rubbish.
So I have those appearance fantasies that I’m slim waisted, no double chin, big boobs and scorching hot. That a receive approval from men and envy from women (some feminist my subconscious is). But what I don’t get is that I have a husband who thinks I AM scorching hot, and I just can’t respond because I feel inadequate.
So although I have come a long way acceptance-wise, and my life is great in that I do what I want to do and I’m not waiting to lose weight to do it; I haven’t successfully addressed these issues in my sex life. And I find that depressing (and so does Mr Bagfish).
For me, the biggest FOBT is that when I’m thin, I won’t have (type 2) diabetes anymore (which is false, anyhow). Or I won’t have the guilt about having diabetes anymore.
Oh, that’s huge, WRT2. I know I’ve told the story before about how my mom, after 10 years of controlling her diabetes with diet, had to go on medication and absolutely lost it. “WHY? I’m doing everything right! I’m a good girl!” Doc: “But your pancreas is 10 years older.”
The illusion that we can control our bodies to the point of staving off all illnesses — and indeed, death — through our food choices is so goddamned powerful. So if you’re not eating “perfectly,” you feel guilty, and if you ARE, but your body still has the nerve to age and break down, you feel cheated. And of course, if you’re a fat person with a “fat” disease, you’re judged constantly for not “taking care of yourself.” It’s all so infuriating.
kate- the whole “who does she think she’s kidding”…I feel like that when I go rock climbing and backpacking, like all the thin, muscle-y folks are looking at me like, “what the hell, your fatness is totally bringing down our sport”. And another fantasy: If I were thin, I wouldn’t be afraid to do the tight squeezes when caving. Which is total bs, since I hate small spaces…
Problematic:
“when i am thin, people will actually like me instead of keeping me around for entertainment or because i’m useful”
Yep, that’s another one of my greatest hits. With the 12-inch dance remix consisting of a majority of my friends being incapable of dealing with me when I’m not being funny or entertaining. Any time I step even a couple inches out of the comfort zone they’ve established for themselves in regards to me, you can almost hear their brains popping inside their skulls.
Kristin,
I don’t really know what to say besides **HUUUUG.**
I was thinking about this post last night actually and I realized that I gave up on my dreams of being a singer/actress because I am fat. Though, I don’t necessarily think that was a bad decision. (You can’t really play someone’s mother professionally at 25, and those are the only roles I EVER got. Yay child bearing hips!)
I do wish I had learned to use my voice properly though, I regret that I let my parents and my weight convince me it wouldn’t have been a good investment. (Though… it probably wouldn’t have been a good investment for other reasons, and I am SO not cut out for the starving artist lifestyle, I just wish it had been more my decision and less a known quantity.)
Thin. Thin was always my magical starting point for life. When I was thin, someone would love me. When I was thin, I would go out every weekend. I’d have more friends than I could shake the proverbial stick at; everyone would be scrambling for my attention. I’d go dancing and hang out in bars. I’d be the MVP at work. I’d speak up in class, saying only perfectly worded, insightful things. I’d wear all the cute clothes I admired, but dared not try on. I’d get facials and manicures and have gorgeous, thick, hair. I’d have men tripping over themselves to get my attention. I’d go out to eat and not worry that people thought I didn’t deserve to eat. Workouts…they would be effortless.
All of this of course, is bullshit. At my heaviest, I wanted only to be a size 14, and once I got there nothing changed. I still wanted to be thinner. Still kept up my disordered eating. Still worked out and cried because I my body got tired after 40 minutes of kickboxing. Still scolded myself in the mirror for being a worthless, fat, pig. My new dream size was a four, and I knew until I reached it that nothing would be right.
Now, I’m a 16/18 in pants and 20lbs or so heavier than my lowest weight. I won’t lie and tell you that I love this body, that I think it’s beautiful, or that I wouldn’t change it if I found a magic wand, but here, now, for the first time in my life, I stand a chance of being happy and loving myself. I am starting to like my body. Starting to accept that I am indeed a human being who will *gasp* get sweaty and tired from a difficult workout. Starting to realize it isn’t a sin to eat potato chips, to eat a salad with dressing that isn’t fat free, to eat at all. Starting to understand that fat will only define me if I let it.
Thanks for writing this Kate, and thanks to all of you for adding to it. Things like this get me a little closer to sanity :)
Yeah, my dream is, ‘if I were thinner, I could find more pants that fit’.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always been in the single-digit sizes, and finding pants that fit has always been a total nightmare. So much, in fact, that I gave up after undergrad and started wearing mostly skirts.
Ironically, I beat myself up over this for years: “if only my butt/thighs were smaller, I could find pants that fit.”
I finally realized that there’s nothing wrong with my body, but there is PLENTY wrong with pants manufacturers’ patterns. And if they can’t learn to make pants properly, they aren’t getting my money – because why the hell should I wear baggy, gapping pants when my body is fine exactly as it is?
“when i am thin, people will actually like me instead of keeping me around for entertainment or because i’m useful”
You know, this made me think of a comment an old friend made to me recently. “You were the first friend I ever had who I felt wasn’t just humoring me — I actually believed you really liked me.”
That friend is very thin and, in fact, has always been valued inordinately for her looks. So fwiw, that’s definitely not just a fat thing; it’s a universal low self-esteem thing.
And speaking of which, one of the reasons I quit smoking pot in college was that I was prone to paranoia, and the specific form it took was sitting in a room full of friends I’d just smoked up with, convincing myself they didn’t really like me and were only letting me hang out because they couldn’t figure out a polite way to get rid of me.
Pot made those feelings absolutely unbearable, but they were always there in a low-level way. My first year in college was definitely the worst for it; I was suspicious that ALL my friendships were based on sand, because there was no way these people could sincerely like me. And in just about all cases, it was tied to the fact that my friends were (to my mind, at least) far better looking than I was. Why the hell were they hanging out with the ugly fat chick? (I wasn’t even really fat at the time, of course, which they tried to tell me, but I wasn’t hearing it.) When was the other shoe going to drop? When would I find out it was all a big joke on me?
So I would constantly test people and/or try to head off what I assumed they were all thinking by cutting myself down before anyone else could. And here’s the kicker…
I left that school after a year, and the one person I actually stayed in touch with (and whom I’m still occasionally in touch with 15 years later — hi, Lori, if you’re reading) was the one who’d intimidated me the most. She was absolutely beautiful, and even though we got along great on many levels, I could never quite understand why she liked me.
A couple years later, she came to visit me in Toronto and gave me one of the great a-ha moments of my life. I made some joke about how fat/ugly/uncool I was, and she said, “You know, I don’t know how to respond when you say stuff like that. On the one hand, you’re really witty, so I want to laugh, but on the other hand, you’re so mean to yourself, and I don’t want to encourage that by seeming like I’m agreeing with you. It can make being around you really uncomfortable.”
I was absolutely gutted at the time — she just ADMITTED she’s uncomfortable around me! All my fears were justified! — but man, that is totally in the Top 3 Most Valuable Things Anyone Ever Said to Me. (And right this second, I can’t even think of what the other two would be.) That was the great lightbulb moment that the real problem was never my fatness/ugliness/uncoolness, but my goddamned insecurity. I was driving people away because I was afraid they wouldn’t like me — when they would have fucking liked me if I hadn’t been so pathologically afraid they wouldn’t. Talk about your vicious circle.
It took years after that to quit cutting myself down and develop real confidence (and yes, the two are definitely related). But I will never forget that conversation. Or that it came from one of the friends I really believed was least likely to genuinely like me, because she was so much prettier than I was. Gah.
Kate – a person cannot lose weight in a healthy way – and cannot even try, especially with an ed?
That last point is extremely patronizing to me, I think. You don’t know how I’ve worked to heal myself from the ed, first of all.
Secondly, I do believe in acceptance at any size, and it’s vital.
However, I Also believe in the acceptance of allowing hope to be a smaller size (not small size – *smaller*) to exist.
I “try” by limiting foods with, for me, binge-potential. I’m careful around them. And I’ve dropped some weight – which is great.
And, you are not fat and I see no insult. But I think this blog is a wall of resistance that will not tolerate even polite disagreement. So – whatever. Cling to your truth, but it’s not my truth.
Okay, bye, Zoe. Too bad this isn’t the blog for you.
I think it’s a struggle for all of us to truly believe in fat acceptance. Just the other day, I wrote a horrible
email and I’m glad that kate decided not to post it.
I was actually thinking about GBS for aesthetic reasons.
(I’m 5′8 and weigh 285 pounds but don’t look it.)
Everyone on here has been really supportive but I noticed
that most of the people on here are a LOT smaller than
me. I’m a size 22/24 and shop at Lane Bryant. I even
talked to my mother about it who thought it was a good
idea but she likes to watch The Biggest Loser and is a
size 16 self-hating fattie.
It’s probably going to take me a lot longer to reach gain
the confidence of some of the people on here. It’s
just hard when I go to Cedar Point and some of the
rides I’m able to ride on and some not. It’s hard
going on an airplane and always asking for the
window seat because I’m afraid that my thighs
might spill over onto two people.
It’s hard going out to eat with my much-smaller family
members and having the waiter bring me smaller
portions than everyone else. it’s hard going out
with my thin friends and have guys completely
ignore me. I think that if people were to treat me
right, the fantasy of being thin might disappear
but it’s going to take a long time for me to get there.
i think if more thin people were to speak out about
how their lives aren’t perfect, when that happens,
then I’ll truly be able start on the road from wishful
thinking and thin idealism. Until then, I have to
take things one day at a time.
But I think this blog is a wall of resistance that will not tolerate even polite disagreement. So – whatever. Cling to your truth, but it’s not my truth.
I am loathe to even involve myself in this, but I can not help but say that no one here wishes to take your truth away from you, of that I am sure. But you seem to be looking for people here to validate it for you, and since no one seems willing to do so, you claim that we are a bunch of intolerant pricks. I think that everyone who responded to you was polite, but firm in their opinions, which is a far cry from being a “wall of resistance.”
I am sure that my words will not change your mind, but I feel this had to be said.
Take care of yourself.
How can you claim to truly accept your size if in your heart of hearts you are hoping that it will change? And where do you draw the line with smaller? What if when you get smaller you still hope to be smaller? And smaller? And smaller?
Sounds like the same old disordered cycle to me.
i SO needed to read this. thanks for writing it!
Mari,
Your comment brought tears to my eyes. I’m sorry that you haven’t gotten the respect you deserve from life, but believe me, you do deserve it. It’s probably going to be a difficult journey, but if you come out of this happier and loving yourself (as you definitely should!) than it will be worth it.
Hang out with us and we will all help each other however we can. Just never forget, you are wonderful and you are worth it!
I hope this hasn’t been said before, but I’m not in the frame of mind for reading 123 comments at the moment. (I’ll undoubtedly come back later and do that.)
My twist on the Fantasy of Being Thin isn’t that I’ll be magically transformed, it’s that other people will take the time to get to know and like me, and maybe, just maybe, a man will actually find me attractive to treat me well. That’s the fantasy I struggle with. Mostly I’m just grateful for my cats.
Mari,
if it makes you feel better I’m a 26/28 and I need a seatbelt extension to buckle my belts on the airplane. That is hard every single time. people wont sit next to me on the train in the morning so I always try to get single seats so I don’t feel like an asshole. And, I went to cedar point in college and I was only able to go one one roller coaster, I would get on them, be unable to buckle the belt, and have to get off.
I know this doesn’t help that much, except to say that you are not alone.
Mari, you’re far from the biggest person here (I think of 22/24 as being a midsize fattie)… but there are also plenty of thin people who do talk about how it doesn’t magically get easy, which is part of what I love about this community. Unless a commenter specifies his or her size, it’s fair to assume that they could be anything from a zero to a 32 (or above, but 32 is the biggest size I can remember a Shapeling talking about explicitly). Our personal experiences, or at least our internal landscapes, are all pretty similar.
Mari, you’re far from the biggest person here (I think of 22/24 as being a midsize fattie)… Unless a commenter specifies his or her size, it’s fair to assume that they could be anything from a zero to a 32 (or above, but 32 is the biggest size I can remember a Shapeling talking about explicitly).
Exactly what I was going to say. A lot of smaller numbers do get thrown around here, but I actually chuckled a little when I read that you feel like the biggest here at 22/24. Which is not to say I’m laughing AT you, by any means, just that I think feeling like you’re always the biggest person in the room is such a common experience for fat people, even the smaller ones — it doesn’t matter if you’re a 12 or 22 or 32 (and I’m sure there are people who wear a size larger than 32 here, too, even if they haven’t mentioned it). It has so much more to do with the tapes that play in our head than the reality.
Having said that, I am so sorry you’ve been through the experiences you describe, but you are definitely not alone in all that around here. If you’re not doing it already, reading all the comments as well as the posts should give you a much better idea of how common those awful experiences are. Which isn’t exactly cheery, but it can make things feel less lonely.
Kristin, I can SO relate to what you wrote. I may be “outing” myself here in a way that freaks some people out, but I’m part of my local (and national, sometimes) BDSM scene. (Bondage domination/submission, sadism/mashochism. Kinky stuff, basically. :) ) When I first entered what we call ‘the scene,” I was astounded at the size acceptance – there were women of all sizes in skimpy outfits (or NO outfits!), being sexy, finding play partners, finding relationships, loving their bodies and putting themselves out there in a major way. It took me a while, but now I do wear sexy outfits in public – and then take most of it off to “play” in a public dungeon. And the people I play with think I’m hot in my size 16 pleather. :) And my husband hopes I’ll never lose weight because he absolutely loves my ass. And last year, as a gift to him… I did that strip tease you mention. He absolutely LOVED it. I hope you are able to do one for your boyfriend someday, because while it was sort of awkward and embarrassing to try something new and put myself out there, it’s also a really happy memory of feeling sexy and confident.
I also wanted to say thank you to Amanda, who write such honest, insightful thoughts of what it is to be in the “I get the FA stuff, but not for ME” stage. I especially see where you’re coming from about the idea of success. I’ve been trying to lose weight on and off for five years now. It’s started to feel like a goal I have to reach not even for weight loss but to prove myself that I can finish what I started, that I’m not a failure, that I can succeed at this big project that I set out for myself so many years ago. So stopping now feels like failure. And I think I could make a huge step if I could figure out how to make *stopping* dieting feel like a success.
And I think I could make a huge step if I could figure out how to make *stopping* dieting feel like a success.
You should start by reading Good with Cheese for insights into how much willpower and self-discipline it takes to stop dieting. In this culture, it can actually be the more challenging project to take on. :)
OK, I have to confess I didn’t read every single post here. And since I’m a day late, maybe no one’s commenting on this one anymore anyway.
Just wanted to say three things:
1. Let me be the 5,380th person to say this is a great post and exactly what I needed to hear. And I say this as a non-fat person.
2. I know someone also mentioned this, but this is totally not a phenomenon unique to fat people (and I don’t mean to imply that you said it was). I might say, however, that it is a phenomenon heavily concentrated among women, specifically those dissatisfied with their appearance (which is most people). My thinking well into my teens and early 20s was: If I didn’t look Asian (or if I weren’t, in fact, Asian), I’d be pretty. Then, if I were pretty … fill in the blank.
3. All of you should go read “The LIttle Mermaid,” the original Hans Christian Andersen story. Also, a story by Russell Banks called (I think), “Sarah Cole.” Haven’t totally worked out my feelings about the latter, but I find both of them fascinating in this context.
Shinobi asks me: “How can you claim to truly accept your size if in your heart of hearts you are hoping that it will change? And where do you draw the line with smaller? What if when you get smaller you still hope to be smaller? And smaller? And smaller?”
I’d like to answer this as best I can. First, I am realistic in that I do know that being thin will not happen for me. Second, I don’t want it to – I actually like and prefer fuller bodies more than very thin ones. Even outright fat ones, if the fatness comes from balance, not ill health. Third, anorexia is not now, nor will it ever be my problem. Believe me. Fourth: yes, if I get smaller, I might still have hope for even more weight loss and yes, this would be something unhealthy if it dominates me, but not necessarily unhealthy if I can lose some more weight and not harm myself by it. I’m talking about modest weight loss from a high of about 300, to put it in some kind of perspective for people reading this.
By gaining a great deal of weight through disordered eating, I now have sleep apnea, among other problems. My sleep apnea came from having too much weight. Some do have this disorder and are not fat, but many have it from obesity. I am one of those who have it due to being too heavy for my body.
Would I like the freedom to sleep without a mask? Most assuredly, I would.
Kate – I am an artist, a creative woman and a woman of size. Before you discount what I say, ask yourself if, under different circumstances, were we to meet, if you and I might not like each other – even respect each other.
And also: it could be quite likely that a lot of people who comment here *secretly* wish to be smaller and don’t say so. Maybe some of those reasons are not about appearance (not that it’s a crime to enjoy a thinner body), but about health reasons.
If I was your weight, Kate, I’d be turning cartwheels, honest I would. I’d also love to be proportionately fat, but I carry around a body that shames me due to how large my lower half is, compared to my upper.
And, in truth, it’s *this*, not my weight, that upsets me the most.
Anyway, this saddens me because – why must we all change each other’s minds, anyway? Can’t a certain diversity of opinion be tolerated on what seems to be a very creative, incredible and wonderful blog?
I’m not pushing dieting, after all, no matter what anyone might think. I can’t even Do dieting; no way can I and no way do I want to – because I love food! But I do know that less weight on my body would help my health. And I don’t think it’s wrong to admit that or to admire the body I had before the ed harmed it.
And also: it could be quite likely that a lot of people who comment here *secretly* wish to be smaller and don’t say so.
Actually, they do say so — read the comments in this thread.
The difference is that they don’t expect us all to celebrate and validate their choice to pursue deliberate weight loss — because we have said countless times that we do not celebrate or condone weight-loss dieting here, and that there are other places like that, like EVERY OTHER PLACE ON THE INTERNET.
I rather thought you’d decided to go to one of them, actually, due to us all being pigheaded and whatever we were.
Zoe- I am only speaking for myself here, but I don’t think anyone “secretly” wishes to be smaller. In fact, a lot of the comments here seem to address that it isn’t any secret at all…that we all have, at some point or another, and that point might be right now, wanted to be smaller, and associated a major portion of our fantasies on being smaller. I am only a couple of months into trying to accept myself the way I am, but if you read my posts above, you will see that I am obviously not totally accepting quite yet.
Oh. Fj, you were way ahead of me.
Sue- Thanks for your comment…You know how pathetic I am? I read it and thought, well, maybe if I were a size 16 I would feel comfortable, but at a 20 there is no way. I am SO fucked up…
Kate – I am an artist, a creative woman and a woman of size. Before you discount what I say, ask yourself if, under different circumstances, were we to meet, if you and I might not like each other – even respect each other.
Zoe, we might very well like each other in another context. But in this context, you have consistently disrespected the blog’s comments policy, the other commenters responding to you and, notably, Fillyjonk’s suggestion that you read previous posts addressing the very issues you want to discuss here.
You’ve also brought up my lack of fatness cred THREE times now, despite being told that this is both silly and offensive. Especially since, if you’d read those posts Fillyjonk linked to, you’d know one of the reasons I got into fat acceptance is that I have a sister who is a compulsive eater and weighs considerably more than you did at your highest weight.
Can’t a certain diversity of opinion be tolerated on what seems to be a very creative, incredible and wonderful blog?
When it comes to deliberate weight loss attempts — especially in the context of eating disorder recovery — NO. We are unequivocal about discouraging dieting — defined as the deliberate pursuit of weight loss as a goal in and of itself here, for reasons that have been reiterated ad nauseam elsewhere on the blog.
You are derailing the conversation on this thread, and if you make a comment that invites more discussion of why we won’t cheer you on in your weight loss attempts, I will delete it.
Another fat girl here, appreciating that someone was able to express my own inner dialogue so well. I’ve even printed this post to take with me to my (very supportive and accepting) therapist tomorrow. :)
I am learning so much, from you all and from life itself! I look back at photos from high school, my early twenties, and at first was incredulous to see that I WASN’T FAT!!! But I was told that I was, and apparently let that “knowledge” become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Back then (you know, in the “olden days” of the 60s and 70s) the “ideal weight” for apparently most women was 120lbs or less. The lowest weight I ever achieved back then at age 14 was 132lbs. (I’m 5′4″) I laugh when I think about how hard my mom tried to get me down to that weight. Never mind that I was a basically straight A student, or that I could sing, had a gift for music (that I never pursued, but am now!), won my state’s spelling competition…none of that “counted” because I was “fat”. Mind you, my youngest sibling, who was a cheerleader in high school and a model, is skinny as a rail and 5′10″ or so, and is also a raging alcoholic in a treatment program after having lost custody of her 3 little children due to a suicide attempt. Oh yeah, I’m the one with the problem, alright.
Today I am happily married (for the second time, after being widowed) to a man who things I’m the hottest woman anywhere because of who I am, and also because he happens to like curvier — make that FATTER — women. He’s intelligent, devastatingly handsome to women and men alike ;), and pretty much the sweetest man on earth. I need to get him to come here and make a post about being a man who likes larger women and having to hide that fact from other guys as a younger man. Fortunately, he has evolved enough to be able to speak out to others, men and women, about his preferences, which I hope raises the awareness/acceptance level at least a little.
Lastly, I want to express my deep gratitude to all of you for being out there and being eloquent and fearless and willing to reach out. I admire you all, and learn so much from y’all on a daily basis. I wish I had learned about the HAES movement a long time ago — hell, I wish I’d THOUGHT of it myself! lol But right on to those who began this quest and who keep on keepin’ on with spreading the word. As Gandhi said “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
In solidarity,
Suzanne in Nashville
[...] personally relevant post written by Kate Harding over at Shapely Prose. It’s all about the Fantasy of Being Thin. If you’ve ever been fat, you probably instantly know what that phrase means; and if you [...]
To the numerous people who have spurred on the Do They Really Like Me Even Though I’m Fat comments, I have to thank you.
She was absolutely beautiful, and even though we got along great on many levels, I could never quite understand why she liked me.
My twist on the Fantasy of Being Thin isn’t that I’ll be magically transformed, it’s that other people will take the time to get to know and like me…
Sing it, girls!
It jogged a memory I’d completely shoved aside and its not even from that long ago. My freshmen year college roommate was like that. Your stereotypical tall, thin, cool blonde with the confidence, winning smile and sweet-as-pie genuine personality to boot. I had even greater doubts about the friends that she introduced me to. I thought they were all SO much prettier than me and we’d go out to parties and I truly, honestly believed that the only reason they too my ugly self along was to make themselves look even better by comparison!
It took a while, and many a random late night conversation before I accepted that she genuinely was happy she knew me and wanted to continue to know me. To this day though, she’s still my best friend. And is the first one to call me out on self-depreciating comments I make.
“……but I carry around a body that shames…”
Who is the ‘I’ here Zoe. You sound anguished and I’m sorry if I’m being insensitive but if you keep thinking this way-which of course is entirely up to you- you cannot expect to feel bad about your body. Shaming you to who, who is the judge the proportion police? No wonder you see non existent criticisms if you carry around so much loathing for your body. I wish I could tell you how much this is weighing you down, but I can’t only you can by stopping this nonsense. Use the creativity you have to achieve this.
“I wish I could tell you how much this is weighing you down, but I can’t only you can by stopping this nonsense. Use the creativity you have to achieve this.”
Thank you for your kindness, Wriggles. And, hey, I do use my creativity. It’s great, it taps me into something that is very healing.
This healing, in turn, helps me to heal my body. Take care, everyone. It was….if not real, at least a confirmation to me that the world is a big place. There really is room for us all. I will take from Fat Acceptance what I can use…and discard the rest, which is useless to me, guilt-inducing, rigid and a poor fit.
I can’t tell you how much knowing I’m not alone means to me. Low self-esteem and no sense of self-worth? Yep. The bottom line is I’m afraid. I’m afraid of life for all the reasons people have mentioned. I’m afraid to look too closely at myself. I’m afraid not to be afraid ’cause then I’d really not know who I am. This blog, and all the wonderful people who post here, are letting me know that it’s okay; others here are afraid too. Thank you for being someplace I can turn and not feel so alone.
I’m afraid not to be afraid ’cause then I’d really not know who I am.
Man, I hear that, too.
[...] What a revelation, y’all. One akin to this one. [...]
Well… I’ve been reading the post/comments all day yesterday and today knowing that I wanted to say something but not really sure what (beyond, you know, yes).
Mostly all my thoughts could go to their own blog, so I’ll try to be succinct, but don’t get your hopes up.
OMG the when I’m thin fantasies are horrible, I have:
when I’m thin… I’ll start rock climbing
… backpacking
… going to clubs
… stripping (is that weird? I have weird fantasies… sorry)
… wearing designer clothes (especially jeans)
There is of course no reason that I can’t rock climb, back pack, or go out dancing right now. I’m not even all that fat and I get a lot of positive attention when I do go out dancing, but I still mope around because I’m not tiny and hawt like the super skanks out on the dance floor (do I really want to be like them anyway? Not really, but try telling my brain that)
As for the last two… I don’t really want to be a stripper, and if I were thin I definitely wouldn’t want my literal monetary worth wrapped up in the size and shape of my body, so I don’t really know what that’s about. And I don’t think being thin would make me rich(er) so I probably still wouldn’t be able to afford designer jeans without resorting to massive debt or not eating… so there’s that.
Oh and there’s one more that’s kind of silly…
when I’m thin… I’ll knit more sweaters because they will take less time/money since there will be less of me to cover.
This post has made me think about a lot more stuff… but it’s kind of off topic and I’ve already taken up enough space, so carry on.
When I’m thin…I’ll get new headshots. I’ve been using the same old photo for auditions for the past 8 years, despite the fact that I’m about 50 pounds heavier than I was when I had it taken, and the photo barely resembles me anymore.
And I have the stupid boxes of ’skinny clothes’ taking up space in my storage locker, because I still hang on to the remote possibility that I’ll be able to wear them one day.
*sigh*
I’m trying, guys. This post really helps.
I think the FoBT is a lot like other things people hide behind. I have a girlfriend who has said no to all of the holiday party invites she’s gotten because she recently got braces. I kid you not. I guess what I’m saying is that if it isn’t the FoBT, it would also be something else. We ALL have doubts about our abilities and our appearance, and we all struggle to overcome them. I think this was an important post, mainly because it is right on the mark in pointing out the biggest critic of our fat and our bodies and our appearance – us. It’s huge hurdle. It scares people to see other people overcome it.
I remember reading some of the nastiness about tri-athlete Sarah and thinking that the criticism these people were dishing out was far more about them than about her. These beliefs – you’re wearing down your joints, you need to lose weight before you can be considered athletic – these were things that were holding at least some of THEM back and to see her just say, “Fuck it, I’m living my life!” sent them into a virtual panic.
It’s a good thing, no?
SingOut: But now is when you need them! If you got thin, the old picture would look like you again. :)
Seriously, this sounds like a great thing to get yourself for the holidays. Nothing makes you feel good about your looks like totally fierce glamor photos.
LollyDee:
Yes.
But hard.
Suzanne in Nashville – I think we’re the same person! :) I look back at pictures of me in high school and think, “Who in hell ever told me I was fat???” But I have to say that I’m so much happier at 33 and 225 than I was at 17 and 140. And wonderful husbands do help with that.
SingOut: But now is when you need them! If you got thin, the old picture would look like you again. :)
Can’t beat that logic! And, having looked at your old headshot, I am sure you are just as gorgeous 50 lbs. heavier! (Also, drop me a line when you’ve got productions going on in Mpls., since I’m there relatively frequently and would love to see your work.)
You guys are right. I’m going to start saving up for new shots.
Thanks. :)
Here is what I don’t get about the “you’re taking away my dream” people. If you’re really destined to be way smaller than you are, how can we possibly stop you? It’s not like we know where you live and we can tie you to the couch and force-feed you or anything.
It’s not like we know where you live and we can tie you to the couch and force-feed you or anything.
Speak for yourself, Meowser. I KNOW ALL.
That’s why I’m such a danger to my readers, . Most of them are incapable of finding non-fat-accepting views anywhere else in the world, of course, but when the occasional clever soul locates a source revealing that A) Fat is unattractive and unhealthy, B) Weight loss efforts are likely to be supported in this culture, and/or C) You can totally lose weight by consuming fewer calories than you burn, I do indeed track them down in their homes and force feed them until they submit.
Because it’s so much more difficult to carry on with my brainwashing campaign when people become aware that there are alternatives to fat acceptance out there.
So, here’s a funny thing. I don’t really tend to let my fatness get in the way of doing things. I’ll try most things if given the opportunity. But there are things that I am simply too fat for and it hurts.
For example, honeymooned in Costa Rica. The thing to do there are these zip lines through the forest. I *really* wanted to do it, and almost backed out because I thought once I got there, the weight limitation would be too low.
But then, we signed up and got to the bus that was taking us to the forest, and they pulled me aside, behind the bus, to see if the harness belt would actually fit around me. It was HORRIFYING. The worst part, the belt had inches and inches of slack after they buckled it around me! They just saw a fat girl, and I swear, they didn’t want me on their zip lines because, sure I was more work for them to help on and off the zip lines. It’s times like those that kill me.
That whole trip, I felt like the guys working the zip lines hated me because I was making their job harder and that on every uphill hike, they were all worried I was going to keel over…
And, when I got to thinking about that particular moment recently, I realized, my 250 pounds is really nothing when you think that any muscular, stocky guy might easily way that much. And they probably wouldn’t have blinked twice at him.
Same thing happened in Montreal. We wanted to try Segways and the weight limit was 250. I was hovering right around 250 at the time and I didn’t even try to rent one because I didn’t want to be questioned. And it killed me and I cried. And I felt like CRAP about myself.
So, in my mind, sometimes, I *do* feel like I need to weigh less just to do things that most other people can do.
I’ve lately been saying things like this to myself:
I’m fat…
and I have the greatest husband ever.
and I have oodles of friends who heart me.
and I’m a great cook.
and I’m super smart.
and my family is really very awesome and never makes me feel bad about myself because of my weight.
and I’ve traveled the world.
and…so many more things that make me really great even though, and perhaps because, I’m a size 22.
Ok. Lots of blabbering, but this post and comments were great and got me really thinking about things.
“Because it’s so much more difficult to carry on with my brainwashing campaign when people become aware that there are alternatives to fat acceptance out there.”
Well with fat acceptance being all anyone can hear about in the media these days… I mean someone should really be providing an alternative so that all the poor immobile fatties can learn how to be tHin&hAWt.
I mean some of these people don’t even know that it’s as simple calories in/calories out. Maybe with some tough love they’ll learn how to not stuff their faces with donuts.
“Maybe with some tough love they’ll learn how to not stuff their faces with donuts”.
Or McDonalds.
Seriously, Zoe. This is not my blog, and I probably have no right to say this, but the sarcasm is tiresome.
Guess what? I’m turning 39 on Sunday, and I’m in a band, and we’re writing songs, and we’ve started performing at open mike nights….AND I played/sang with an open jam last week, in front of an audience!!!!!! HA HA! And all the feedback from people who’ve heard/seen me has been INCREDIBLE! Music is the most important thing in my life right now.
DON’T WAIT TILL YOU”RE 39 TO DO WHAT YOU MOST LOVE! You’ll still be fat, but you’ll also be older.
Go Dorianne! Isn’t it just the greatest thing ever?
I got the ’shh…..don’t be so loud…pipe down…be quiet…don’t make a show of yourself….’ stuff as a kid, which was tough because I was a born performer, even after they criticized 95% of the confidence out of me. It wasn’t so much body worries that (temporarily) killed it for me, so much as getting roped into a very conventional lifestyle in which I thought those things had no part.
I’m now a guitarist, a singer-songwriter, and a beginning cellist who’s probably enjoying it a lot more than the neighbors are right now! ;) And yes, I think it’s utterly heartbreaking how people get persuaded into putting their dreams aside for so long. But hey, better late than never.
I’m a big fan of a lady called Barbara Sher, who specializes in finding real, practical ways for people to achieve their dreams. Her book Wishcraft is well worth a read.
So, in my mind, sometimes, I *do* feel like I need to weigh less just to do things that most other people can do.
Kerry, I don’t mean this to criticize you at all, but I just want to point out something you may not realize. While I wouldn’t suggest for a second that fat discrimination isn’t a huge problem (that’s pretty much my raison de blog), in both of your examples, it seems like your own fears about your weight might have been a bigger problem than the weight itself.
With the zip line, for instance, you might very well be right that the guys had a shitty response to the fat girl — but you also could have told them there was way too much slack on the belt, and had them fix it, which probably would have made for a more comfortable ride. I know it can be really hard to advocate for yourself when what’s going through your head is, “OMG, they’re all disgusted by the fatty, I just want to disappear,” but sometimes, that’s what we’re stuck having to do. And the more guys like that get experience with fat people saying, “Hey, this is what I need to be comfortable and safe,” the more likely they are to stop being weird around fat people eventually.
As for the Segway thing, you could have said, “Hey, I weigh right around 250, but I’m not sure of the exact number. Do you think I’ll be okay?” Again, I know that is a LOT easier said than done, and it can take a whole lot of courage to say something like that and act like it’s not mortifying to you. But these simple things won’t stop becoming weird and awkward until we stop acting like they must be.
I’m not saying you have a responsibility to be little miss fat acceptance activist at every turn, mind you. And I’m DEFINITELY not saying it’s easy. There’s no shame in not being ready to have conversations like that. But it’s just… there shouldn’t be shame in saying openly, “This is what I weigh, and it’s sure not going to change in the next five minutes, so we need to either work together to figure out how I can do this, or you need to tell me it’s not happening.”
The more we can treat our own fat like a fact of life, not a shameful burden — even if other people aren’t willing to be so realistic along with us — the easier it gets to deal with those situations. Honestly.
My thin fantasy revolves mainly around wearing beautiful clothes (mainly from Anthropologie and j.crew) with gorgeous shoes. And having my husband openly desire me instead of saying “Of *course* I love you!” And walking around naked or in very expensive lingerie.
Apparently my inner thin person is an exhibitionist shopaholic. *shrug*
But really, there’s a part of me that just *knows* he wouldn’t have LAUGHED at me in that bra-and-panty set if I’d been thin (read: smoking hot). And the lame “you just surprised me, honey!” wouldn’t have been necessary.
The whole acceptance thing seems nice, but how is it possible when you’re living the opposite of the fantasy? When things like this you KNOW wouldn’t happen if you were thin — happen?
Seriously, Zoe. This is not my blog, and I probably have no right to say this, but the sarcasm is tiresome.
Yeah, tiresome enough that I deleted her last comment, as promised.
I especially love conversations that go like this:
Me: Violate the comments policy, and you’ll be deleted.
Commenter: Ooh, I’m violating the comments policy! I dare you to delete me!
Me: *hits delete button*
Like, did you think there was another way that would go?
Lexy, I’ve been thinking about all the fantasies of being a stripper and so on myself — I think, for me anyway, they were a way of fantasizing about not only having sexual power but demonstrating that power, and having it acknowledged, in public. It had nothing to do with any of the realities of the job.
The big thin dream I had most recently was this: if I lose weight, I won’t be so ill. (I have rheumatoid arthritis.) It turned out to be dead wrong, too — instead, the diet left me so fatigued and fragile I felt substantially worse and was in real terms more disabled.
But you won’t get the medical establishment to admit to a truth like that. I picked up a copy of Arthritis Today at my doc’s yesterday, and good grief, I swear 90 percent of it is devoted to beating the drums of low diets and vigorous exercise — it’s the holidays, don’t you dare have fun and gain weight!
Sometimes, I really really hate the medical establishment. Seriously.
But really, there’s a part of me that just *knows* he wouldn’t have LAUGHED at me in that bra-and-panty set if I’d been thin (read: smoking hot). And the lame “you just surprised me, honey!” wouldn’t have been necessary.
The whole acceptance thing seems nice, but how is it possible when you’re living the opposite of the fantasy? When things like this you KNOW wouldn’t happen if you were thin — happen?
Gina, what I’d say is, how do you KNOW? I mean, that’s fucking awful that he laughed at you, and I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong about why. But I am saying it’s awfully easy to convince yourself that people are laughing at you because you’re fat when they really are just surprised, or they’re laughing at you for some other reason, or they’re not laughing at you at all.
When you don’t feel confident about your body, the default assumption is often “Everyone else hates my body.” And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you read that hatred into other people’s comments, whether it’s there or not. (Which is not to say it’s never there — just that it’s probably not ALWAYS there, either.)
So really, whether he was laughing at your body or not, the only thing you can do is work on believing that your body doesn’t deserve to be laughed at. Which means you need to recognize that if he really WAS laughing at you, it was just an incredibly jerky thing for him to do. It has nothing to do with how sexy you are — TRUST me, there are plenty of men who would love to see you in lingerie, whatever you look like — and everything to do with him being uncomfortable for his own reasons and taking it out on you.
Oh Kerry, I know where you are coming from. I once had to be weighed in for a helicopter ride, and I kept thinking they were going to tell my husband and me that we couldn’t go. On a similar note, we just got back from a trip to Egypt where we rode donkeys (omg so much fun) and nobody made any mention about if the animals could carry us… until I got back home and my aunt made the comment, “Talk about a beast of burden!”
I guess you just have to try and keep trying, and do the best you can with what you’ve got.
“Like, did you think there was another way that would go?”
Yes, it’s just like a diet; you think it will go one way and it goes the other and you gain even more weight. Well, I’m chastened, indeed, but a good learning has happened to me, too. Thanks, Kate. Group-hug!!!
Zoe, are you done being a nuisance then? Why do people like you deliberately come to a blog with set rules, and then go about trying to break them? Is there no where else on the internet you can go?
I recommend you try Big Fat Deal, it’s a gateway for people between fat acceptance and dieting. There are plenty of “oh, I hate being fat and I hate fatties” people around that area.
Zoe, are you done being a nuisance then?
Well, she is whether she thinks she is or not, ’cause I just banned her. Group hug!
These are always the hardest posts for me to read. I just cannot see how it can be okay to be me. I’ve been told I was horribly fat since the second grade (10-15lbs over), and put on a nightly rowing machine regimin by my parents when I was in junior high. Until adulthood, being made fun of for my weight was a daily occurance. Now, it’s only when I have to fly, or wander Halsted street. Nothing like a crew of gay men hollering at you ‘Work out, bitch!’ while you’re walking home.
This year, I committed to doing something about it (I was 237lbs over BMI), and there have been changes, but I’m spending every waking moment worrying about it. At the same time, I read about how wonderful it is on the ‘other side’ of FA on this blog. And I feel terrible because I don’t have the reserve to make that leap.
-When I’m thin my family will like me.
After 30 years of indifference or hostility, my family -does- talk to me encouragingly or positively. And that’s only at (X) down. How much more will it be when I’m (Y)?
-When I’m thin I’ll be sexually attractive.
I honestly don’t know. It would suck to find out after all this, that once thin, I’m still unattractive. It’s something that keeps me up nights.
-When I’m thin I’ll be able to study martial arts.
This is the fantasy. And it has more to do with wanting to be graceful than anything else. I might hate martial arts, I might still be graceless. But at least…
-When I’m thin, no one will ever use ‘big guy’ as my default name.
Anytime someone who doesn’t know my name wants to address me, from cop to homeless person, that’s the name I have. That is all I am. that descriptor. At this point in my life, I’d almost rather die than have another day when someone calls me that.
I am so dependent emotionally on the moment I hit the scales every monday, that it makes or obliterates my week. And knowing that 5 years from now, I’ll only be bigger because nothing I’m doing now will have any effect just makes me want to die.
I read the blog to read up on the truth of weight loss, and to see what happiness there is in FA. I just have no idea how to make it work for me.
When you don’t feel confident about your body, the default assumption is often “Everyone else hates my body.” And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,
Totally. I rarely have negative experiences because I’m fat (and I’m 325 pounds of unsubtle fatty), even when I ask for a seatbelt extender on a plane or squish my hiney into the backseat of a cab with three other people or ask to be reseated because I’d like to have a meal without a side of boobs-on-the-table. I rarely second-guess myself or beat myself up or assume that someone doesn’t like me for my fat (there are so many other, better reasons!). I find that – because I don’t automatically oppress myself – few people around me do either.
I think this is why doing the internal work of size acceptance is so important. It’s been my experience (with, of course, some exceptions for the real, live assholes out there) that people treat me exactly how I expect them to, in almost any situation.
Which is why this blog (and others like it) are so groundbreaking and encouraging and awesome.
Aw, I wish I’d seen the sarcasmo comment. That’ll teach me to go to the gym. I need built-in blogging software so I can blog on the elliptical!
Gina, my inner thin person is a shopaholic too, but it’s amazing how much the pang brought on by Anthropologie clothes has subsided since discovering FA. In a sense I’ve realized I’m even lucky, because if I wore a size 8 I would be SO EFFIN BROKE. I spend enough on clothes just buying the few things available in my size! Even if I thrifted ALL THE TIME, I would never make enough money to afford all the clothes I would want if I could fit into everything.
But I do still need to learn to sew. We need local Shapeling sewing circles, have I said that before?
Also, about the laughing: That is an awful thing to do and I have done it. Are you sure it wasn’t the lingerie itself? Because when I laughed at someone’s supposedly-sexy underwear (and he was really hurt and I felt terrible), it had nothing to do with his body; it was because the underwear was so stupid and over-the-top. He may just find you sexier when you’re not really trying.
(Come to think of it I have also laughed at someone’s underwear and NOT felt terrible. He totally deserved it, he wore banana hammocks all the time! He was extremely hot though, it was really just the manties that were comical.)
The big thin dream I had most recently was this: if I lose weight, I won’t be so ill. (I have rheumatoid arthritis.) It turned out to be dead wrong, too — instead, the diet left me so fatigued and fragile I felt substantially worse and was in real terms more disabled.
Eucritta, I feel your pain, or at least something like it (not RA, but it’s something autoimmune). The joint pain got absolutely intolerable *after* I misplaced twenty pounds.
(Magical thinking: I say misplaced because if I say “lose,” it means I probably won’t find it again, and dammit, I want it back!)
So really, whether he was laughing at your body or not, the only thing you can do is work on believing that your body doesn’t deserve to be laughed at.
An excellent point. Thank you for the response — and for your insight.
When I’m thin, no one will ever use ‘big guy’ as my default name.
Oh seriously, can we talk about this shit for a second? I know there’s a feminist (and often femme) focus to this blog and I think that’s how it should be, but this is something only the dudes and dude-identified get. People call my boyfriend “big guy” too and it drives me spare. He’s not particularly sensitive about his weight, but I think any mode of address that diminishes the addressee to a single physical attribute, whatever it is, really sucks. (Except when my friend Lynne called everyone “Tits” for a while in college, that was hilarious.)
Don’t fucking respond to anyone who calls you “big guy.” They don’t deserve it.
Making FA work for you: it takes time, and energy, and a lot of thought. There are a lot of people here who have had that breakthrough, where they say “who I am fat is who I am, and a better me doesn’t mean a thinner me.” There are also a lot of people who haven’t. I hope you stay and keep reading, that’s all I can really say.
Well, and I also really REALLY hope you look into trying a martial art, even if you just start with tai chi. Everyone can benefit from training like that, in terms of discipline and physical control, even if everyone can’t be Bruce Lee or even Harper Lee. If you could do it as a klutzy thin person, you can do it as a klutzy fat person — and you’ll probably get a lot less klutzy. (Try fencing if you’re overawed by the more aerodynamic Asian martial arts — fat people can rock at epee, and I say that as someone who knows!) (Kendo too, I bet.)
Rowan- Jeez, your parents sound a lot like mine. I wish there were a support group or something for people with total freak parents. This site helps a lot.
In some respects, I guess I’m pretty lucky. I played the “when I’m thin” game through most of my teenage years, but I still lived my life. By the time I hit college, I put that excuse to bed because I was determined to live my life no matter what the numbers on a scale said. My mom probably played a part in this because the two phrases she constantly used when I was growing up were, “don’t let that stop you,” and, “never let them tell you that you can’t do something.” So despite the fact that she once called me “unmarketable” during an argument (something that she denies to this day, but trust me she said it), she mostly did her best to make me feel like a valuable human being.
I’ve done the waterskiing thing, and failed miserably—not because I’m fat, but because I just suck at water skiing. Being towed face down in the water and forgetting to let go of the tow line—yeah, it’s a really bad look for me. I applied for the awesome job that I was barely qualified for and I got it along with a $12,000 increase in pay—go me! I’ve been a member of a gym for awhile now and I love it—there’s a pool and my Pisces self can swim all she wants. I have several gorgeous dresses and since I don’t diet, I have clothes from 10 years ago that still fit. I looked so smokin’ hot in the last dress I bought that I was sure my family was going to keel over when they saw how good I looked in it. The expressions on their faces said everything.
I love camping. I’ve visited all 50 states along with several countries, and I camped my way from Baltimore to Anchorage. I survived a visit to Russia and that was a bit intimidating, but I did it and I got to visit The Hermitage, which was a dream of mine—‘cause I’m such an art geek. And I have more friends than I can keep track of—but that’s the kind of problem I like having…
The only thing I’ve never managed to conquer was asking out the gorgeous guy. It’s the one place where I lack confidence. I’ve asked guys out before, but never the gorgeous guy. But, I’m quirkyalone so 90% of the time I don’t mind that it’s just me.
Also, my alias on the Web, Weightless One, is a homophone that relates directly to the “when I’m thin” excuse. I’ve always been judged by my weight so to be weightless is to be just me—not judged by one physical attribute, but by the content of my character. Also it means I’m the “wait less one” as well. In other words, I wait less to do the things that society (and formerly myself) wants me to put off until I’m thin.
So I travel because I love experiencing new places and new people. And I ask for the seatbelt extender every time I fly, without a hint of guilt. I go camping and hiking and canoeing and I stopped worrying a long time ago if I was the last one to finish the trail. That just means I have more time to admire the wildflowers or the moose tracks in the snow.
And just for the record—I was in the 325-345 pound range and a size 32 when I did all of these things. Seriously, try being ‘wait less’ for awhile. It is so WORTH IT!
Rowan and FJ- Along the lines of “big guy”: I wish that everyone who doesn’t know my boyfriend and sees a picture of him would stop fucking saying, “oh! He’s such a teddy bear!” He is NOT a teddy bear, he is a man, you shits. When the hell did “teddy bear” become code for “your fat boyfriend”?
DId I misuse my quotes? :)
Weightless One, this was awesome to read. Weightless -> wait less is brilliant and kinda sums up this whole post in a single pun.
Also, I’m looking at your blog and I think we are locals!
Teddy bear has always been the code. Men can’t be handsome and fat. If a guy is mysteriously attractive and fat at the same time, he must be something else:
A giant piece of stuffing.
He is NOT a teddy bear, he is a man, you shits.
This made me LOL. Henceforth anyone who calls your boyfriend a teddy bear is not only a shit, they are a shit IN THE WOODS.
Also, I really want you to just say “nope, he’s a human boy” next time they do it.
I assume they’re referring to apparent cuddliness, but it’s inappropriate to comment on someone else’s boyfriend’s cuddliness. And quite possibly they are unknowingly invoking gay slang, i.e. “bear.” I suppose that private amusement can get you through a trying encounter.
or ask to be reseated because I’d like to have a meal without a side of boobs-on-the-table.
BWAH, Tari! I’ve never done that, but maybe I should start.
What I have trouble with in restaurants is trying to get past other people to go to the restroom and such. I can say “excuse me” or even tap them on the shoulder all I want, but some people just will NOT move their chairs more than half a goddamned inch (even if I can see there’s plenty of space), so either there’s no way for me to squeeze past their table at all, or they end up with my butt in their hair.
And the worst part is, I have never figured out if this is because:
A) I’m fat enough that people think they can safely ignore me, like all fatties;
B) I’m NOT fat enough for people to immediately realize I need considerably more room for my ass than a skinny girl would;
C) People are just self-involved assholes.
Probably all three, and mostly C.
But one thing I have found is that saying, “You know what? I’m fatter than that. Could you help me get by you, please?” will usually A) stun people, and B) get the job done. Once again, just acknowledging your own fucking fat takes away the awkwardness of “OMG, they’re NOTICING MY FAT!”
However, I will admit that I have to be in a certain kind of mood to say shit like that, and more often, I look for an alternate route or just squeeze by and let them deal with my butt in their hair.
Don’t fucking respond to anyone who calls you “big guy.” They don’t deserve it.
Totally. And fwiw, Rowan, my boyfriend gets the same shit.
FJ– Thanks, and seriously, we’re locals? That is so awesome. I had no idea.
But one thing I have found is that saying, “You know what? I’m fatter than that. Could you help me get by you, please?”
I totally did this (four times!) a couple weeks ago – I was playing a gig at a dinner party where there were two six-to-a-side tables set up in such a way that I literally had to go right down the middle to get to my guitar. I basically was all, “Hey, people, I have a large ass and you’re gonna have to part the sea or get some cheek to the head.”
Surprising how accomodating people can be when it’s laid out like that.
I basically was all, “Hey, people, I have a large ass and you’re gonna have to part the sea or get some cheek to the head.”
Ah, you have such a way with words, my dear.
FJ- I had to google “bear”, because, alas, I am completely deficient in the gay slang department :)
Also, fat dudes are not “teddy bears,” or “big guys,” or whatever other lame euphemism is being tossed about.
They are HOT. (Just saying.)
“They are HOT”
I so agree.
Teddy bear has always been the code. Men can’t be handsome and fat. If a guy is mysteriously attractive and fat at the same time, he must be something else:
My husband is a large man, and frankly I prefer him that way. Teddy bear? Hello, no. Just my big ole’ Bear, thanks. :P
Kate, your restaurant-maneuvering troubles remind me of a guy Dan encountered at a crowded bar one time. (I, alas, had to get the story second-hand.)
He was very fat. And he was trying to move through the crowd. And he was doing it by saying the following over and over: “‘Scuse me. Coming through. Very fat.”
Delighted me then, delights me now.
WO, not only are we locals but I need a wedding officiant. I’m gonna email you. :)
-When I’m thin I’ll be sexually attractive.
I honestly don’t know. It would suck to find out after all this, that once thin, I’m still unattractive. It’s something that keeps me up nights.
Sorry for the spam, Kate, but to Rowan: Some of us like some cushion on our ride. I’m just sayin….
He was very fat. And he was trying to move through the crowd. And he was doing it by saying the following over and over: “‘Scuse me. Coming through. Very fat.”
Oh my god, I LOVE THAT.
And LollyDee, you’re totally not spamming. :)
Rowan – I would also encourage you to try out martial arts. If it isn’t for you, fine, but at least will know that you tried.
I myself love to dance. That’s not surprising since I am absolutely in love with music and everything that has to do with it. However, I did not dare to dance for many years – partially because I had made some nasty experiences with dancing, particularly dancing in public, in the past, and of course I absolutely believed that I was too fat and awkward to dance. About a year and a half a go however a good friend encouraged me to try out Oriental dance. Yeah, right – not just dance, but “belly dance”?! I thought she was crazy. But – after a long struggle with myself I finally decided to take classes. And guess what? I love it! Yes, there are days when I feel absolutely awkward and I tend to compare myself with the other women in the class thinking that all of them are thinner (which is usually true). But there are those wonderful, liberating moments when I know that I just get the movement right, and when I feel more at one with my body than I ever did in my life.
Also, my teacher always says that in belly dance you should not focus on how you look, but how you feel. You have to feel the movements, you have to visualize the different circles, kicks, etc., and you have to feel the emotions that go with the movements. If you do that, the rest will follow. I find this advice incredibly useful for pretty much every form of exercise, particularly the ones that are about high levels of body control. It is hard to do at the beginning (hell, I still find it hard to do), but I think that particularly for fat people who are often made to feel that they look ridiculous doing X this is a very, very helpful approach. (Oh yeah, and just to add this: my teacher is a self-identified technique freak – visualizing a movement and focusing on how it feels usually makes you get the technique correct, too.)
When I am thin, I’ll have the body of a 20 year old again: no wrinkles, sags, or grey hair.
sigh. Getting thin will NOT magically reverse the effects of gravity and age.
[...] you have The Fantasy of Being Thin?: I’ve written several times about how I spent ages in the cognitive dissonance phase, thinking [...]
I am Tenthing the Don’t call my boy “Big Guy” or “Teddy Bear.” His father actually teases him about being a three toed sloth, which I think is cute mostly because I love sloths (the implication, less cute.)
Rowan,
If you want a fat buddy to take martial arts with you I live in Evanston. :-)
(Magical thinking: I say misplaced because if I say “lose,” it means I probably won’t find it again, and dammit, I want it back!)
Dani, I LOVE this! I’ve certainly learned since that with chronic illness, stable weight is where it’s at, and that’s a much better way to think about it than loss and gain!
I’ve always been skinny and athletic. I’m 160 cm and maybe 47 kg on a PMS day, and very muscular so most people guess my weight at under 44 kg. I’ve got a 21 inch waist. And I STILL feel shitty about myself maybe 85% of the time- for being too short, too athletic, too Jewish-looking, for having brown eyes and hair and a big nose, whatever.
The stupid thing is that when I feel like this, I automatically catch myself thinking that if I lost 5 kilos, I would magically be tall and WASPy and blonde and look like a model, and guys would fall all over themselves to talk to me. And I’m so skinny I can count my ribs back and front and my abdominal muscles are visible. How completely fucked up is that?
So. My fantasy isn’t of being thin, but I still tell myself all the time that “If I were tall, blonde and not Jewish, I would get more dates/feel better about myself/be more outgoing/whatever.”
I fucking hate that I feel like that, but there you go.
MarqueeMoon, thank you.
It really helps to know that we fat people aren’t the only ones that have self-image/body issues. (I’m not being sarcastic here, I truly mean that.) Because of the blatant fat hate that we go through, it gets easy to think that we’re the only ones that feel that way. It’s easy to the fall into the “when I’m thin, I’ll be perfect” thinking. Because of course, you’re thin! You don’t HAVE any problems! Right? (That WAS sarcasm, by the way.)
The way I’m feeling right now, knowing I’m not alone really IS a huge help.
Because of course, you’re thin! You don’t HAVE any problems! Right? (That WAS sarcasm, by the way.)
Heh. I’ve blogged this before, but it’s worth repeating.
Me, to absurdly gorgeous friend: What’s life like with abs like yours?
Her: It’s awesome. I have no problems whatsoever.
Me: That’s what I thought.
Her: What’s life like with boobs like yours?
Me: It’s awesome. I have no problems whatsoever.
Her: That’s what I thought.
That really kinda sums it all up for me.
It really helps to know that we fat people aren’t the only ones that have self-image/body issues
Lord no. All women have self-image issues, because the female beauty standard in our culture is impossible to achieve. Even for thin women. They’re not thin enough or they’re too thin or they’re too muscular or not muscular enough or they’re the wrong shape or their breasts aren’t big enough or their hair is too thick or too thin or too straight or too curly and their skin is too light or too dark or too dry or too oily or their eyes and noses and mouths are the wrong shape or the wrong size or the wrong colour… I could go on. Achieving the cultural beauty standard is a game that is unwinnable. Not even the women on the covers of the magasines actually look like the women on the covers of the magasines (check out the “impossibly beautiful” series at Shakesville sometime). The only way to be content is to realise: “I will never look like that and it’s okay that I will never look like that because I look fine just the way I am.” Which of course is more easily said than done.
Hehehehehehe :lol: hehehehe
Kate, you must have the coolest friends in the world. ;)
kate wrote (still no idea how to format quotes: “… I lived SO much of my life in fear of people looking at me and thinking, “Who does she think she’s kidding?” — and a lot of that was related to fat. Fat women can’t do X, Y, and Z, so if you’re a fat woman and you try any of those things, you’re obviously delusional and making the rest of us look bad. Don’t be that fat chick! Know your place! … Gah. Yep, I’m posting about this, among other things.”
YES! Please post about this! I suspect we probably don’t talk about this stuff enough when we are struggling to build up and/or maintain our “safe bubble” of personal body acceptance. It takes real guts to risk looking like a fool, and fat people (especially fat women) are set up to look like fools much of the time (i.e.: fatphobic movies, magazine articles, general fat-hating discussions), by our culture. But the discovery that we don’t actually look like fools when we do the things we want…it’s sooooo damned liberating! (Ditto the discovery that people who still think we look like fools aren’t really worth obtaining the respect of.)
Zoe, if you’re still reading, come off it. You can go to 99.9999% of the rest of internet to talk about what YOU want to talk about it, i.e., the deliberate pursuit of weight loss. You can’t talk about it here, period, and there are DOZENS of different reasons for that, which you can discover if you choose to actually read some of the archives. (Start with some of the discussions of privilege and oppression.) Kate has worked hard to create a safe space for us, and we all want to protect it, as you can see from the comments. Refusing to respect our wishes for the space is disrespectful at best, and your patronizing “group hug” shit isn’t making you any more warmly welcomed. Nobody here is interested in your personal agenda, no matter how badly you want to impose it on us. I guess this is moot, since you are banned, but I always seem to arrive here late in the day/comments, and I have to make the point anyway.
Lifetime is about to start a new show called “How to Look Good Naked.” The stated premise is to work with the participants to help them to accept and glory in themselves exactly as they are without diets or surgery to enhance themselves. The trailer shows a woman a bit larger than the socially accepted norm.
Carson Kressley is to be the host. It will be interesting to see if the show actually follows through with its premise. If so, it will be really nice to have a show on the air that tells people to take joy in who they are. Not, “buy clothes that fit you now even though you are trying to/still working on losing weight,” but actual “You are beautiful just as you are and you should take pride and pleasure in that.”
Kerry: A good friend of mine did the ziplines in Costa Rica, too, and he had that problem of being a muscular, stocky guy they underestimated…he found out after the fact that they gave him a harness that wasn’t rated for his weight. It might be embarrassing, but I’d rather they make sure I’m safe, y’know?
When I look in the mirror or sit on the couch I’m fairly satisfied…but I have had a lot of problems with the mountain refusing to move for Mohamed in my life. When I was motorcycling I couldn’t find boots to fit even after a long, humiliating day with my local Daytona dealer; that and the fact that only custom leathers would ever fit kept me out of track days…while the fact that no lower-body dirt riding protective gear will fit me, ever, has kept me out of learning to dirt ride. I tried to laugh off the abuse I get for riding in jeans, but really? If proper pants fucking fit I’d never do anything so unsafe, especially riding aggressively, and that eventually put me off riding much at all. My hockey shinguards don’t really fit (and the elbows aren’t much better), and I know that the right kind of fall is most likely going to do me damage that wouldn’t be done if I could get gear that was right for my body. Maybe rock climbing isn’t a great sport for someone as dyspraxic as I am to start with, but it was awkward enough -15 lb ago that I really don’t feel OK going back to it now (now that the majority of my friends have caught up with how much fun it is, doh). The indoor skydiving place in Vegas won’t take me (but happily the new one here in San Francisco will). Just last night a jiu jitsu instructor (a good-sized person hirself) was cautioning me that I should ideally join the class with a friend about my size…but where the fuck am I going to find another woman of my size who wants to try jiu jitsu, honestly? We’re a single-digit percentage of the population to start with.
I don’t think the right answer is to say “well don’t do anything fun in which you don’t fit the equipment and/or might crush a practice partner under your bulk”…but on the other hand, that mountain still ain’t moving, y’know? It’s draining.
I’m not even going to get into the man problem…aside from giving a virtual middle-finger to every guy who uses the word “active” as a body type rather than a lifestyle.
YES! Please post about this!
I totally will, Dorianne. I meant to today, but I got distracted by, um, this thread.
kate: “I meant to today, but I got distracted by, um, this thread.”
Totally hear ya! :D This particular post, and the comments, has been (happily) distracting! But I’ll be looking forward to it.
And for now, I must shake off this distraction, go put on my Really Hot Fat Chick stage persona, and get ready to play some music tonight.
Well, as for me, I was fat for a long time growing up, spent all of high school absolutely convinced that no man would ever find me sexy or attractive because I was fat – in fact the first few times anyone expressed any sexual interest in me I thought they were making fun of me – seriously! – and then when I was 17, I went on a diet and by the time I started college I was 80 pounds thinner and had dropped about 6 dress sizes.
I was a size 14 (the smallest I’ve ever managed to get without basically moving into the gym and eating pretty much nothing), I was young, I was good looking… I was SURE that now that I was “thin,” of course the boys would be falling over themselves to get with me, and I would finally get a boyfriend, and of course, once I had the boyfriend my life would be perfect.
Well boy, was I pissed off! Because do you know what? OK, I DID get more male attention. OK, people treated me more nicely than I had when I was fat. But do you know what? Other than that, NOTHING CHANGED. I was still the same insecure teenager, only now I was a thinner insecure teenager. And I STILL was nursing crushes for boys who didn’t like me back (And then of course when I did finally snag a boyfriend i realized that they can actually cause more problems than they solve but I digress)
That was many moons ago and now oh what a surprise I am back to the same size I was when I was 17. I do still look back on the size 14/16/18 days with a certain wistfulness but the truth is when you get down there it isn’t actually the be all and end all and I’m glad I learned that lesson.
In spite of learning that lesson nearly over 15 years ago, I resisted the Fat Acceptance movement for a long time because I didn’t want my hope taken away. I think you have to be ready to embrace it – you, I mean. Doesn’t mean every day will be smooth sailing but it’s nice working with what you’ve got than waiting for that day that never comes.
With my mother, when I was a kid, the litany for her was, “When I’m thin and beautiful…” Note that – not just thin, but thin and beautiful. I managed a few skinny years in my late teens, and at 22 started to pack on weight… my biology catching up with me, I think, combined with sudden eating habit changes (new boyfriend at the time ate very differently from me… yeah, that made a difference).
That was over 15 years ago, and the weight’s still here, and you know? I’m learning to accept that I’m okay as I am, even with it. It sure as hell isn’t easy some days, and I have my “OMG I’m so UGLY” days like everybody… but I have wonderful friends and people who love me, and it’s because I’m me, not because I’m a size [some small size I'm not].
Kate, this is so spot-on. Back in the mid 1980’s, a friend and I started running groups out of a local church basement. We called the group “Mirror Image” and our logo was a drawing of a thin woman who looks in the mirror and sees a fat one. We started the group after reading the 1983 version of this book. It was about two premises:
1) that most of us don’t see our bodies accurately; and
2) that because of our unhealthy relationship with food, we make weight loss our only goal, instead of finding out the size OUR BODIES want to be.
At first we were so successful that the pastor of the church in whose basement we ran the group asked me to talk to a group after his Sunday service. But little by little, as women realized that we were not talking about magic weight loss, but about developing a healthier relationship with food and reaching a MAINTAINABLE weight — even if that weight was where we were then — little by little they faded away, many going back to Weight Watchers.
We offered hope for a happier life, but because we didn’t offer thinness, these women weren’t ready to give up the fantasy.
Confession: I’m not either.
No, I’m not dieting, because I refuse to. I am trying to stop emotional eating, which is mostly eating chocolate at work when I’m stressed, which is much of the time — and to keep fit. I wish I could tell you that after fighting this battle for over 40 years, I had finally given it up, and it’s something I still try to do. But I”m not there yet.
I went shopping after work today with a couple of friends and was caught off guard by the self-depreciating comments one of my closets friends was making about herself.
Thinking back on this blog and the immense insight I’ve gained in such a sort amount of time, while the other girls were in the dressing rooms and we were waiting for them, I asked her what was with the comments. I’d never heard her talk that way when it was just us.
She looked at me, gave a shrug and said “You know, I honestly don’t know. To be completely truthful, I feel bad about myself sometimes, but not half as much as I am making it seem. I don’t really have that much of a problem with the way I look, but they expect me to. I kind of feel like I’m not allowed to compliment myself.”
That was just heart breaking. But it made me think about all the times I actually did feel good about myself, but put myself down because I thought everyone else was secretly putting me down and I wasn’t “allowed” to think positive because of my weight. I didn’t even realize that’s why I was doing it and ended up feeling like crap.
Is it just me?
(And I’m really, really not such a terrible speller. I’m usually very good when I write. I don’t know why I only notice my errors after I hit submit, no matter how many times I read what I’ve written before posting.)
I’m still working my way through the comments – it seems like you’re really hit it with this one.
As to the idea of losing weight being winning, being about control… I’ve started concentrating on intuitive eating, on trying to find the perfect amount of the food I feel like eating and acheiving that wonderful feeling where I don’t want any more food but my stomach has not begun to stretch in fullness. It’s very different than control, because I can’t plan how much I’ll eat beforehand. But the idea of reacting to the physical world and embracing sensations is sometimes so much more satisfying than controlling miniscule details of our lives.
As for the post itself, I think it’s really captured why I’ve become so terrified of gaining weight even after three plus months of moving away from supreme health nut obsession and slight undernourishment have not changed me. When I weighed more, I was unhappy. I was lonely. I felt lousy all the time.
Funny thing is? I lost about a size and a half. People noticed, but I think I’m in the same category of neither particularly skinny (especially not for where I live) nor overweight. So why the huge affect? Replacing anti-depressants that made me tired and nauseous all the time with an as-needed regimen and a lot of exercise was a big one. Yep, correlation does not equal causation. Sometimes there’s an outside factor involved.
It just annoys me that we live in a society where it’s so easy to go from changes that make one feel better to obsession over every ounce and calorie and making it all about weight until I felt like crap again.
Also, my fantasy was finally being thin enough that I didn’t have to worry about being judged. I think I’m finally getting to the point where I can accept that people will judge me for the way I look, the way I act, the way I think, etc. And if they don’t share my values, screw em.
Because, really, I’ve come to realize that “socially acceptable person” has so little to do with my own opinion of what makes a person more or less worthwhile.
I just want to remark how awesome it is that you (Kate, FJ&SM) as well as the other vocal Shapelings have created and protect this amazing space. I’ve been struck by how many times in this thread in particular people have described really humiliating public situations caused by ignorant douchebags (I hope there’s a special place in hell for catty a-holes that anonymously yell “work, out bitch” to someone who’s minding their own goddamn business and trying to live their life.) I think it takes a lot of balls to put yourself out there and share that.
Purple Duck Lady’s comment reminded me about my mother finding a list she had made when she was pregnant with me about the things that would make her happy. The top three were as follows:
1) A skinny ass
2) Skinny thighs
3) Dembryo (that’s what they called me before I was born)
Yeah. I was #3.
Yeah. I was #3.
I love it.
You hit it spot on–I’ve had pretty much the same fantasy for my whole life.
The funny thing about it is that it even applies to the fat acceptance movement. At some level, I say to myself, “Hey, accepting and loving my body will be great! It doesn’t matter what size I am, and my life will become lovely and happy! Great! But I’ll start working on it when I’m thin.”
It actually took me a long time to realize how ridiculous that sounds. I guess it’s just another example of the conflation of thinness and happiness.
Wow, you have really got some great insights. And I thought I was the only one putting off my whole LIFE until I lost weight! (Actually, I did lose weight recently. And one of my favorite mental mutterings when I was 20 pounds heavier was, “I’ll be much more outgoing when I lose this weight.” Not. I used to be just shy, but now I find that my personality is kind of…hard, and a little bit brittle. Personally, I’ve always thought that “padded” people were better-natured. Maybe I should gain it back??) Anyway, congrats on hitting home for all of us.
Thank you all for your comments.I wish I knew better what to say. Your words really pushed me out of a dark place today.
Shinobi…I’m going to start in early spring. Tai Chi or basic wushu? :)
My fantasy is to be able to master the guan dao (halberd). To spin and sail, moving like water…So cool.
Holy crap, fillyjonk, that’s sad. What was her reaction when she found it? Does she still believe that at all?
I gave my mom a copy of “The Obesity Myth” because she expressed an interest when she saw me reading it. Last I heard she was a) going to read it and b) dieting for a friend’s wedding. Cognitive dissonance ahoy!
So tonight I went running with my mother. I usually prefer to run alone where I can get down with my music and not feel any pressure to keep up with anyone else, but my mom asked and I felt like it would be asshattish to say no.
Long story short, by the end of the run I was totally down on myself. I couldn’t keep up with my mother. She was a good 50 feet in front of me the whole time. And I was just starting the litany of self-abuse and telling myself that “when I’m thin, I’ll be fast, amazingly fast” when I remembered this blog entry. Suddenly I remembered that I’ve never been fast, but I’m incredibly strong and that my mom is 3 inches taller than me and that I have penguin legs and my legs will not magically lengthen even if I lost weight.
I’m looking forward to the day when the self hate and magical thinking don’t even start, but it’s so great that I’m able to quickly turn it around these days.
And this blog is a big part of that so thanks and stuff.
Fucking. Love. You.
Yeah. I was #3.
Oh, ouch, fillyjonk. :(
I used to buy into the Fantasy of Being Thin, when I first put on weight. (The irony is, when I was verging on too thin, I still thought I was “fat”… and now that I am, I see how skinny I really was back then.) Now? I see how destructive that was to me (and how much my ex-husband fed it). Everything was on hold for that Magical Day When I Would Be Thin Again.
No more.
queendom, I had a liberating experience this spring going to a club targeted towards a more indie crowd with a bunch of friends (straight girls and gay guys). I danced like a fiend, I had a fantastic time, and I even had some guys dancing all up on me. It was amazing. For once I didn’t feel like the freaky fat girl who dared to shake her flab, I felt like a hot dancing fool. I just wish it was here instead of where I went for spring break!
luckyliz, don’t you know? We’re not allowed to feel good about ourselves no matter what. Otherwise we’re vain and self-absorbed. And probably lying to ourselves. Also the entire beauty industry would collapse.
Kate, thank you for this post. I’m thinking about printing it out for my mom (she can’t work the internet, no really). I was trying to explain FA to her over Thanksgiving: that really, I will be fine if I don’t lose any weight, honestly. That I am trying to like myself right now, right the way I am.
BTW- thank you! Because of Shapely Prose and the Shapelings I found a way to re-join my local YMCA, and I have my FIRST EVER Yoga class (which would totally be Kate’s fault… she made it sound so fun when she was talking about it in prior posts) tomorrow at 10 am.
I can stand up in front of 100 CEO’s, directors and administrators and tell them how they are going to run the new program we are funding, but I am very nervous about going to a group exercise class. Go fig.
Oh, good luck, Krista! I hope it’s fun!
I’m thinking about printing it out for my mom (she can’t work the internet, no really).
Haha, oh my gosh, I thought only my mom was that bad!
This post and the comments are phenomenal. What’s really impressive is people managing to tease out where they are in terms of FA and still dreaming about weight loss, self-hatred, etc.
Myself, I’m really not sure. There’s so much of a flurry of thoughts about fat that’s been going on since I was a pre-teen that I can’t even make heads or tails of it. I do know that I’ve never really tried to diet, although I think about it pretty regularly. I’ve never had deliberate weight loss of more than about 10 pounds (I did lose 20 pounds over six months without trying when I moved to Chicago just because of the additional walking), and I’ve steadily gained about 80 pounds in the eight years since I graduated high school.
I don’t think I’ve accepted my size. I still wish that I were back at my overweight-but-much-less-so high school size. But I don’t really think about “when I’m thin I’ll do [X].” I used to think “when I’m thin I’ll be able to land an awesome guy” (as opposed to attractive, depressed, apathetic self-hating types), but then I started dating someone fucking fantastic and I don’t think that anymore.
I dream about what it would be like to be strong and fit, and then remind myself that I can be those things and be fat; they’re not mutually exclusive.
Mostly, I’m in denial. I don’t have a good sense of what my body looks like; my image is stuck at about 50 lbs ago. When I see full-body pictures of myself, I’m shocked, and then I look away. I convince myself that I look “curvy” instead of “OMG FAT LADY” which is how I’m sure most people see me.
When I was in 8th grade, and probably weighed around 150 (although I really have no idea), I was cast as the lead in the junior high musical. I was easily the best in the school, so I was an obvious choice, but after the casting, the director had the choreographer talk to me about losing weight for the role. For a fucking school motherfucking play. She and I were going to engage in some kind of “program.” I said ok, and went home and cried and cried. My dad thought it sounded like a great idea. It never materialized, probably because someone with a brain told the director “WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY,” but still.
I tell all kinds of stories about why I didn’t end up pursuing theatre after my first semester in college, but a lot of it is lies. When I got to college, and saw how beautiful and thin all the girls were that were in all the roles, I knew it was never going to work for me. I was the best there was in junior high and high school, but with all these other beautiful girls who could really, really sing, too, AND were passable at acting and dance, I was never even going to register as a blip on the radar screen.
When I was in law school, there was an annual “follies” where they did little skits and sang and danced. The first year, I was worried about school, so I didn’t audition. Then when I saw the production, I felt like shit. All the women were thin, and wearing tight/skimpy clothes. And dancing. The second year, I found another reason not to audition. And the third year, I auditioned, and the very next day retracted my audition and asked them not to cast me. Just knowing that I would get cast in some “character” role because of how I looked, even though I was one of like three people in the school who could sing worth a damn, was too much to bear.
I’ve just realized it. Being fat was a major reason I didn’t pursue a career as a performer. It brings tears to my eyes now. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress and singer, and I just totally abandoned the dream when I was 18 without even waiting around to get rejected, just assuming that I would. Of course, I don’t think I would want that profession now; I’m a lawyer and the work I do is Really Fucking Important.
But I couldn’t stand the thought of getting rejected and knowing/thinking it was because of the way I looked. Maybe it was a self-protective move, but now I have this mega-talent that’s just sitting there, doing nothing at all.
And it hurts.
I have thought of little else than this particular post today, and I need to say how grateful I am to all of you here for being willing to expose your innermost fears and concerns. One thing I’ve never been able to do well is talk about how I feel about being fat. BUT, since I discovered this blog and a few others who share the philosophy of this site, I’ve been alot more willing and able to just say how fucked up and widespread the hatred/abuse of fat and fat people is in this country.
Someone mentioned earlier that one of the things that went along with their thin fantasy was becoming a stripper. Well honey, I have to say I’ve had the same sort of fantasy. For me it seems pretty clear that the reason I’d want to do something like this is for the power or control that I think I’d feel that I had. Being a desirable seductress was a big part of my thin fantasy, as well as being taken more seriously. However, the reality of my life is that I’m already a desirable seductress, if I only let myself acknowledge that. It’s all in MY head — not everyone else’s.
As I said earlier, I’m taking a copy of this article to my therapist tomorrow, after I highlight the parts that resonate most with me. An issue closely tied to being fat is having Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which has kept me from being able to have children. PCOS and fat are a chicken/egg thing…no way to know which came first, but they’re definitely intertwined. Learning about PCOS, for me, relieved at least a little of the guilt I felt about being fat. But I still have more to learn about being just plain ole me. Period.
I have to add, too, that when I stopped dieting, my weight basically stayed the same. BUT (and this is a big butt..hahaha!) I’ve become healthier! My cholesterol is down, my other labs are normal. Just letting myself off the dieting hook made a positive difference in my health.
Last thing — I’ve also had random grown men holler ugly things at me while I was walking around downtown Boston a few years ago. I was with friends, and continued to walk as though nothing happened. Apparently I felt I ‘deserved’ the abuse hurled at me, and couldn’t even admit to my friends how much it hurt my feelings and how hard I was struggling not to cry. I think about that episode now and it pisses me right the fuck off that I let those idiots ruffle my feathers. I honestly don’t know if I would feel or react differently if this same thing happened today, but I hope that I’ve learned a little since then. I hope I’d automatically realize that the guys who called me names for no reason other than I was an easy (and large) target were not only ginormous assholes, they were saying a lot more about themselves than they could ever say about me. But, truth be told, I’m not quite there. Thanks to you all, though, I’m a lot closer to that than i’ve ever been.
Thanks to all of you who’ve made comments. Thanks especially to penguinlady re: your comments about my first post. First post here ever, in fact — yayay! I found something of use for me in almost every single post. Hell, I wish all y’all were my neighbors so we could hang out and talk and solve all the world’s problems. :)
Peace,
Suzanne
How did you get so wise so young? You amaze me and delight me!
Yes, yes, yes. That is it exactly. The belief is that when I get thin I will be all that I am not and everyone will love me. They sell it to us with the diet articles and weight loss pills and gym memberships. But I can have all that at any weight, if I can have it at all. Nothing wil ever make me a concert pianist. Not losing weight. Not even learning to play the piano — I’m 65 and if it was ever possible, it is long past now. But, I can be me. I can enjoy being me. I can develop my own talents and interests and follow my own dream.
I was talking to my best friend about a year ago and she revealed that she had started a diet because she was tired of feeling bad for not “doing something” every time she saw a diet commercial. And after she started she really did feel much better, and so relieved, because she was finally “doing something.” Even at the time (long before I found this blog, though I have had FA leanings for a very long time) I completely disagreed–maybe I personally wanted to lose weight, and maybe I felt bad about my body a good percentage of the time, but how dare society tell me that I must reduce my self-worth to my weight (and more than that, to whether I was suitably punishing myself for it) in spite of the person I was and everything I had accomplished–and in the middle of feeling very hurt for her, I was actually kind of angry at her for buying into that particular insidious filth. I mean, she is a wonderful, brilliant person, a great and loyal friend and wife, and an accomplished professional–the last thing “we” need is someone like her, who in my view should be rebelling against this kind of thing, buying into what I consider an anti-feminist fallacy. It pissed me off. I mean, want to lose weight, believe the “obesity epidemic” hype, feel you look better in your clothes when you are thin. All of those were understandable to me. But to actually believe that you were only good enough when you were “doing something about it” was not.
OK, so maybe it was inappropriate to respond (all of this was in my head, not verbalized at her, I feel the need to point out) to my friend’s difficult internal struggle by feeling angry at her. And I was certainly wrong to draw lines in my head defining what it would be “acceptable” for her to feel, based solely on my own beliefs and feelings. But in reading this post, I actually realized what a position of strength I have come to over time compared to where I used to be or where I could so easily be, and I am really grateful for that. Really the only thing I can think of now that falls under the category of “When I’m thin, I’ll…” is wearing certain body-unfriendly, “weird” fashions that I feel look best on very thin people. And I don’t even really want to wear most of those things–it’s just a passing impulse sometimes. I don’t know how I got here, but I am really pleased to examine the situation and recognize that somehow, some way, I have made some progress in self-acceptance since, say, high school.
The other thing that hit me recently is that I always felt I was “reasonable” in my desire to be smaller–I was one of those people who would be happy just to wear a 14, just to buy normal sizes, just to be “overweight” instead of obese. Well, I happen to be that size at the moment and now I can truly appreciate and believe a recent post Anne made at Body of Work about how once you become “acceptably normal” in size, the focus shifts to becoming “truly thin” and the whole time you never like your body any better. Yes, I’ve heard thinner women say similar things a million times, but unfortunately I think I subconsciously dismissed these women as particularly neurotic or screwed up. But now I really do understand in a visceral way that how I feel about my body is not correlated to how much fat is on it. I will probably be fatter again sooner or later, and maybe the value to come from being this size now will be the ability to finally really absorb that lesson.
Not that things are not still pretty screwed up. It is such a muddy struggle–on the one hand, I know I am good enough and smart enough regardless of my weight; on the other, from time to time I have heard patronizing comments or seen disapproving looks from coworkers when I’m at the high end of my weight range that I don’t see when I’m at the low end. I totally feel Kristin as well on wanting to be thinner so you can be a more credible FA activist. Fat discrimination is very real and obviously, as we all know, the part of it that is not “just in our heads” can make it all too easy to cling to the idea that things would be better if we were thin. Because they probably really would be, at least somewhat, at least in minor “moving through society unnoticed” kinds of ways. But that doesn’t make it actually possible for me to be thin, so my discomfort now is in realizing how far I have come and how relatively self-accepting my mindset is right now, and recognizing that the next logical step is to move forward and stop trying to “pass” and become more vocal and active about FA. A lot of the beliefs that used to hold me back from that are no longer there, and I am starting to see that it is time to behave accordingly, which freaks me out because I hate calling attention to myself and I hate standing up for unpopular beliefs, and for some reason I have a huge problem allowing people to perceive me as un-selfaware (which they will if I am a fat person promoting HAES and fat rights). But I think I am going to have to start doing these things anyway.
[...] swear I am not writing this just to urge everybody who has ever dieted to go read this Shapely Prose blog entry on the magical thinking that goes into thinking about the life you’re going to have when you [...]
[...] I intended to link to this outstanding piece yesterday, and somehow didn’t. So I’ll rectify it now, with an excerpt, to boot: [...]
Wow. I’ve just sat down and read through all these comments, it’s taken me a couple of hours and it’s been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride.
Right now I’m not all that happy with the size I am. Sure it’s not stopping me living my life and being active and enjoying myself. I have a wonderful boyfriend who loves me as I am, and a family who are completely accepting. But I’m still only 10 lbs off morbidly obese: which scares me, as much as I know it doesn’t mean I’m going to drop dead this instant. I can’t tie shoelaces without having to stop to catch my breath, and I suffer from acid reflux and always have to have a supply of indigestion remedies around. There are only 2 shops in town which guarantee to have something my size, and a couple where I might just be able to squeeze into the biggest size. And there are things I’d love to do where my size is beginning to be an issue:
Someone mentioned the zip-slide thing – there’s a similar sort of thing (thought on what sounds like a much smaller scale) in a forest nearby, with all sorts of obstacles up in the trees as well as zip-slides down. I went a couple of years back, and I’d love to go again. I even just checked their webpages and was chuffed to realise I’m still under their weight limit. Until I saw that they have standard harnesses with a max waist size several inches smaller than mine.
The worst thing though is that maybe I could let go of the idea of weight loss completely if I weren’t so scared of getting *bigger* and all these things being that little bit worse. And that really really really scares me. The fact that I’ll just keep gaining 10lbs a year indefinitely. And that I did it to myself by fucking about with my own metabolism in losing weight in the past. And I feel like a complete shit for being so down on someone this size when really it’s not even all that big and I’m seriously supportive of people who are bigger.
But you guys are awesome, so even though this stuff makes me cry I guess I’m still trying, and wishing I could be more like you.
I need to read all the comments yet so I’ll probably be back, but before I swan off to lunch (my stomach is grumbling), I wanted to respond. :)
I LOVE this post so much! Out of everything I’ve read since I was pointed over here by a dear friend, this resonates the most. I see myself in a lot of the posts on this blog but this time I’m bouncing up and down, screaming, “YES, EXACTLY!!”
I really believed that being thin would change my life. As a child and then a teenager, I believed it would get rid of all the uncertainty in my life. I believed it would cure my social anxiety, my belief that I could never be good enough, talented enough, brave enough. I thought it would make me a social darling; friend to everyone, enemy to whoever had pissed me off and who I finally had the courage to tell “go to hell, asshole”. I thought I’d be beautiful and desirable, and that the depression that was gripping me would vanish because being thin would make me flawless.
And then I was thin but it was never thin enough. I was still miserable, so I had to starve myself to get even tinier. I was torn between wanting to vanish completely, and wanting everyone to notice me.
Something I’ve always had the hardest time reconciling is my desire to be noticed as an attractive woman but also my FEAR of that. I’ve always enjoyed getting dolled up but when strangers actually stare at me, compliment me, I want to run away and hide in sloggy pants and no make-up. I’m always vacillating between what I consider being visible and being invisible.
Lately, since I ditched the scales, the tape measure, and diets, and confessed to myself that I was rapidly heading back into an eating disorder, things have been better in my head, and I think the problem is that I don’t want to be noticed for my make-up, or the way I’m dressed. I don’t want to be noticed because of my BODY; I want to be noticed because I’m ME and, despite everything, I LIKE me, and think that who I am inside DESERVES to be noticed.
I really, really like who I am, right now. And that’s a bit of a shocker because I’ve spent the vast majority of my life believing that was impossible unless I was a size 8.
I have health problems (coeliac disease, asthma) that sometimes get in the way of what I want to do. I get tired relatively easily. I sleep a lot. I’m still not brave enough to embark on some of things I want to do (but I’m getting there). I still get social anxiety, and I’m coming to terms with the fact that I am prone to depression and panic attacks, and will have to deal with that indefinitely.
But, for the first time in a long time, I like who I am for things that are not dependant on how I look.
And through allowing myself to like, and love, myself, I’ve started to realise how hard I am on myself, how critical. I look back on my university years and I think, “I should have done more of X” or “I should have done X harder”, and then my friends point out that I was seriously ill my entire second year, most of my final year, *and* I had a minor nervous breakdown, and I still graduated on time with an excellent grade.
I see myself as nervous and afraid because I feel that way inside quite a lot. My friends and family describe me as courageous and strong, because, despite being so afraid, I always move forwards and I always get things done.
I’m trying not to go off on a tangent, so I’ll sum up by saying that I never knew that abandoning the fantasy of being thin could lead to so much positivity in my life, and so much *actual* self-awareness.
And, now that I’m coming to really, genuinely, truly love who I am inside, I’m so much more comfortable and okay with what I look like. I’m still a little afraid of being noticed sometimes but, when people compliment me, I can smile and say ‘thank you’ and not follow up the thought with “they’d like me more if I was X size”.
I have my bad days, and sometimes I get frustrated and hate who I am, but we all go there sometimes, and I know for a fact that I went there more when I was thin/skinny because I was killing myself to get to that size when I should have been learning to appreciate my body for what it is.
I sometimes feel like my biggest regret is not loving and accepting my body for what it is back before my health problems started.
On getting down to your ‘ideal’ weight and then finding that’s not so ideal: Oh man I totally hear you. When I was a size 14 I spent the vast majority of the time wishing I was 30 lbs thinner (encouraged by my mother who never failed to tell me how gorgeous I would be ‘if only’.) it’s so ridiculous. Funny thing is I like myself and my body a lot more now at a size 20 than I ever did at size 14.
* When I’m thin, I’ll have no trouble finding a partner/reinvigorating my marriage.
* When I’m thin, I’ll have the job I’ve always wanted.
* When I’m thin, I won’t be depressed anymore.
* When I’m thin, I’ll be an adventurous world traveler instead of being freaked out by any country where I don’t speak the language and/or the plumbing is questionable.
* When I’m thin, I’ll become really outdoorsy.
* When I’m thin, I’ll be more extroverted and charismatic, and thus have more friends than I know what to do with.
I’ve always been thin (currently, I’m 170lbs & 6′3″… the heaviest I’ve weighed all my life), and I can tell you, none of those things are true.
There were a bunch of other words in the post besides the bullet points, which would have told you that Kate already knows that. But, um, thanks?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I happen to be that size at the moment and now I can truly appreciate and believe a recent post Anne made at Body of Work about how once you become “acceptably normal” in size, the focus shifts to becoming “truly thin” and the whole time you never like your body any better.
So. Freakin. True. I said it somewhere earlier in this post, but at my heaviest I remember thinking that everything would be okay if I could be a size 14. Once I disordered myself down to that size, nothing changed. I was so close to being, as you put it, truly thin that if I knew I would be nuts not to try and get there. Nevermind that getting there meant I had to live on a grapefruit, an apple, a can of soup with crackers, and some pretzels or a dry bagel (if I couldn’t stand the hunger) a day.
I never really appreciated my size 14 self, and I certainly didn’t like my body any more. My whole focus was on my future size 4 self who never saw the light of day.
once you become “acceptably normal” in size, the focus shifts to becoming “truly thin” and the whole time you never like your body any better.
Indeed. When I was a size 4, I thought my thighs were still too fat, and I’d be happier if I were a size 2. It never ends.
Dang near all the women in my family have a ‘refrigerator’ profile! I used to joke that this is due to coming from good peasant stock, which isn’t so far off base either. Yet all the ‘ladies’ married, had interests, many dressed quite nicely etc. They accepted their ‘Ma Kettle’ image with humor and a shrug at being ‘fashionable’ as their supposed guide line in life.
I hardly ever had excess weight until I hit menopause, then it was like hitting a brick wall with the bricks sticking! After hearing my doctor (woman) say – loose weight, loose weight etc. as the be all, cure all for USUAL aging things like increasing cholesterol, blood pressure, joints creaking etc. etc. I opted to go IE/normal eating. I am just now getting my head reset to MY dictates instead of all the ‘input’ from the EXTERNAL world regarding how I ’should be’. Such an attitude has served me extremely well in my life so far and I suspect it will do just that with my ‘aging’ health too.
Afterall, my one granny at 102 years of age has outlived every doctor who told her to ‘loose weight’. You can’t argue with TOUGH genes :) :)
Kate, thanks for posting that. It’s a huge issue, importantly about fat, but also about all sorts of other things.
I’m not sure how much madness I’ve got about being thin–obviously some madness, since I’ve been losing weight after I discovered that using carbs as a staple is bad for me in the short run, and losing weight is a distraction from the original project of feeling good.
However, I’ve got a parallel issue. As far as I can tell, I believe I’ll be a better, more respectworthy person if I have a smooth connection between perception and action–and that’s a lot of why I’ve been spending way too many hours playing Minesweeper. And aside from that there are other better things I could spend quite a few of those hours on, the self-esteem issues interfere with my reflexes.
I spent a lot of my childhood getting shit for not paying attention. I’ve put a fair amount of work into being less spacey, and I am less spacey than I used to be, and I wonder if the whole thing has been so abuse-driven that I’ll eventually need to rebuild the project of Me and My Connection to the World from the base up.
From the outside, this looks weird–how can a person get so tangled up over something so trivial? Still, it’s actually very painful.
Just thinking about this and planning to write it has made Minesweeper considerably less attractive for me, so thanks for giving me a good basis to work on it.
Nancy, I have two responses:
1) I have been playing Bejewled and Bejewled clones like mad recently, and justifying it by telling myself it’s A) meditative and B) good for exercising a part of my brain I don’t use often. So I hear you.
2) You might want to pick up a book on ADD and see if it sounds familiar.
I have been coming back a couple times a day and reading the comments on this post and I have passed it on to a lot of friends. But this comment from LuckyLiz just says it for me.
Its a very difficult to find the line between true acceptance of yourself and wondering if you’re just telling yourself that its ok to be who you are so that you feel like you have a valid reason to give up on that “thin dream” without feeling like a failure.
Yes. I am mostly very happy with myself – long term marriage (24 years), great job (15 years) and a wonderful circle of friends who don’t have any problem with my weight. But I obsess about it constantly. I have gotten more sedentary this year and gained about 10 lbs and so now I have like 50 to lose to be at my “acceptable” weight (for my ideal I’d have to lose like 75). Except that few times I’ve dieted I’ve gained back more than I lost and I don’t really believe in dieting. But if I just be the happy, juicy woman of size that I am, am I being a slacker? Complacent? Blind to the health consequences? Shouldn’t I push myself to exercise more? (I have always been a healthy eater so there just isn’t anything other than portion size to give up there.)
I think I will make the resolution to stop mentioning to my loved ones that I am obsessing about weight. When told “I love you exactly as you are” I will say “I love you, too” instead of “you’ll still love me when I lose 50 lbs”. Yes, I really do say that when he praises my curves. *sigh* I hadn’t realized quite how bad it had gotten until I read this post and comment thread.
My one last, undying (so far) thin fantasy: that if only I were thin, I could get pregnant. Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon one in PCOS circles, where fat is to blame for everything as much as anywhere else.
Yeah. I’m working on it.
I don’t want to sound old and jaded, but a lot of the thoughts identified here are thoughts I had long ago, when I was young diva.
My life experience of being lesbian brought me to a place where lots of other life expectations thrust on us as a society weren’t going to fit either. When I got that connection, the fat stuff went with it.
It didn’t make sense to build a life on fantasies that were never going to happen- all I have is today. Today I am…
As a result of this credo, I can’t really come up with any phrases that follow “When I am thin..” other than what other people may or may not think of me as better than being fat. And those kind of people, I have found, I would dismiss away as having revealed the true shallow nature of their relationship with me, once they make a comment about how I am now worth something thin.
My life partner, who had a gastric bypass, still has some level of fantasy belief system, even though she IS thin. It’s transferred now to “When the children are older and I go back to working…” which to me is a sad commentary on values and self identification.
[...] there. But today I stumbled on to three new sites worth watching: Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose provides excellent analysis of women’s obsession with dieting, with shape and what makes a [...]
Okay, I have read all the comments! Y’all are all awesome, and I’m saving this post so I can send it to friends. :)
One thing I would like to say is a great big THANK YOU to Kate and Fillyjonk for enforcing this blog’s comment policy and ‘off topic’ areas.
In particular, I am gratified that you did not allow a discussion about weight loss as an effective treatment for EDs. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m still dealing with issues stemming from my anorexia and, more recently, over-eating/cyclical binge eating, and it is very good to know that here is a place to discuss issues openly *without* allowing derailments into unhealthy areas.
Thank you!
Agree with so much of what you write and, as a newbie to the whole intuitive eating focus on health and why did I waste my whole life thinking that diets would work when they never did, I just have to say that, hallelujah, I have found great freedom in accepting who I am RIGHT NOW and not worrying about what I will be, whether it comes to weight loss or any other issue (my husband, for example, has the same kinds of thoughts as I do about weight using what it will be like for him when he no longer has to work).
I think my fantasy of thin had much to do with Approval (as I write in my first post). My parents. My friends. Co-workers. Classmates. Boyfriends. Husband (when we first married — not now). Doctors. Psychoanalyst. My Self. I never felt like I had anyone’s “real” approval, including my own, as long as there was weight to lose. And there was always weight to lose because I was always on a diet.
I believe there is a relationship to fantasy and weight gain — the more I dream about being thin, the more I hate myself in the present, the fatter I get. The only way I’ve found to stop this engine of madness is to get away from the idea of thin as any kind of a goal and to focus on what I have and who I am in the present. No matter what, there are no diets in my future.
Your post said it so well and in such an inspiring way. I wish everyone knew this.
Kate and all, I’ve been reading this thread for a couple of days and your blog for a month or two. I’m so glad I found it. I love your voice and the way you express yourself, and you have some of the most entertaining, intelligent and humane commenters of any blog I’ve read yet. Gosh, that really sounds like a suckup, but I believe in saying just what you mean, even if it’s positive. ;) I’m new to FA and it’s not an idea that I’m really joining in on, just something that’s been creeping up on me over the past few years.
I always felt myself to be too big and/or fat, no matter what I’ve really looked like. And, like many commenters here, I wasn’t fat as a kid–I just though I was. I went through a period of disordered eating in my 20s where I barely ate anything and got really skinny–relatively, that is; I have a pretty big frame and healthy musculature, and even when I was starving and I could feel my bones poking into the seat when I sat down, I still didn’t look anything but merely “slender” to other people, from what they said. In fact, a real eye-opener for me was when I told the guy I was seeing at the time what I weighed, and he was really surprised that it was “that much! You look thinner than that!” This after a prolonged period of weeks/months when I would eat a bowl of corn and smoke a cigarette for dinner and be soooo proud of myself. Dude’s comment really made me realize that numbers mean nothing and that other peoples’ judgments about you (whether having to do with your looks, behavior, intelligence, morality, or whatever) tend to be stunningly biased and ill-informed, and hence also mean nothing. During that time, I was starting to deal with lifelong depression issues and really felt like I was nothing, negligible, too-light. I was uncomfortable. I’m much more comfortable with myself now that I weigh a good 50 pounds more than I did 20 years ago, though I would never claim that I’m in as good shape as I was then (some of that is because of weight and some is because of age).
I’ve indulged in the “when I’m thin” fantasy a lot in the past, and much of it has had to do with male attention or being more like what the patriarchy wants me to look like, even though I’m happy being as much of a square-peg-in-a-round-hole as I am. Sadly, it has been true in my case that every time I’ve had a boyfriend, it’s been after I went on a weight-loss campaign. (BUT see next paragraph.) This really messed with my mind, and after I decided to stop dieting, I also decided to stop looking for men, because I knew I would really resent it if they suddenly started taking an interest in me if I lost weight. I would especially resent it if it happened to be a guy who knew me before I lost whatever weight I was going to lose.
I honestly think that most of the boyfriend-weightloss correlation is in my head, and that my attitude is a big part of it. There’s just too much resentment built up around the issue for me to see clearly. But mainly, I’ve grown up and realized there is a lot more to life. Other things are more interesting to me than men. Thing is, even though I’ve essentially decided dating is BS and not for me (yeah, there’s a lot of residual “oh, who would want me anyway?” crap in my head, but also the men I would be able to put up with are few and far between), I really do feel like I’m in a pretty good place right now. I wish I were more like the people here who sound so positive and active and adventurous, but I may get there, who knows. I have come to realize that I’m fine where I am, and it really seems like the people who care about me don’t care what I look like, either. Go figure! I keep having these moments of clarity, like when I recently stood next to my petite mom in the mirror and realized, “girl, you’re not just heavier for your size than mom, you’re bigger, you have a bigger head, you have bigger feet, you’re just a bigger person! People come in all sizes. Go ahead and quit apologizing for taking up space!” And I thought, “That’s pretty neat that I’m fine with that.” I guess that really does sound like FA after all.
Wonderful Blog. Thank you very very much. :)
Hey! I’m Alexis too! (except not on the internet) *waves*
[...] Read The Fantasy of Being Thin. [...]
I just reread my comment, and even though I read it over before posting, there are a number of things I would rephrase. Most of all, I should contextualize my remark that I have “grown up” and realized there are more important things than boyfriends. I did not AT ALL mean to denigrate other women’s wish for such. I totally understand it, and I DON’T think it is immature or anything like that. I’m just saying that I’m evidently much older than many here, and I wanted to make it clear that I do indeed have other interests rather than being fixated on winning male attention, which is how I thought I was coming off. Eek, sorry. It was my first comment here, and I think I may have fluffed it in a couple of ways.
I know you already have a lot of comments about this post, but I have to say: Thank you. I really needed to hear this right now. I don’t really want to get into it, but my life isn’t where I want to be right now, and I keep using my fatness as an excuse. THanks for reminding me that the real thing that makes or breaks my life is ME, not my body size.
Ooops, sorry! I didn’t notice another (but male) Rowan was already posting. I’ll use the initial if I make further posts. :-) I don’t think I can edit the last one though. Should I delete it and repost?
I wouldn’t worry about it, RowanF… I think it’s pretty clear that you’re not that Rowan, and also we’re nearing 300 comments so I sorta doubt that anyone’s going to be going through the whole lot anymore. ;)
I’m not fat ? Maybe.
But When I’m thin(ner)
I can buy better clothes and i’ll look good in them.
I will be more proessional.
I can go get an MBA
I will wear girly clothes
The cellulite will go away ( my mom weighs in at like 110 at 5′4″ and she still always had cellulite, so i know this is a lie but i believe it anyway)
I will have more sex with the boyfriend cuz i’ll be sexy
Holy shit, almost 300 comments! This is proof that I am right, and this post needs to be the central premise of a full-length book. That would give you plenty of room to include all the spin-off topics which have been suggested by some of the inspired comments here :). I will pre-order it on Amazon. The Rhino can be the cover art. Word.
Thank you – to everyone. Even Zoe. Because her refusal to let go of the belief that it is okay to hate yourself enough to talk yourself into the “if I do this…” fallacy is painfully close to my reality sometimes. I am really struggling with this, partly because I was that thin girl in my 20s. I am hell and gone from my 20s – more like on my way to my 50s – and it is so incredibly difficult to not idealize my thinness by donning rose colored glasses. Life was not better then. I was not happier then. I was just thinner. And the reason I’m not going to look that way again is not because I am a bad person with no discipline. It is because I am 20 years older. It is because I had two children close together in my 30s with a bout of post-partum depression thrown in for good measure. It is because I am no longer so poor that I can’t afford food. I am poor enough that I can’t always afford the kind of food I want to eat, and I am making food for children, who don’t always want to eat the things I do (and I SO am not going down the forced foods road with them, not ever) so I end up eating what we have, which isn’t always the best thing for my body.
My fantasies, therefore, are a little skewed:
When I have money, we’ll eat better.
When I have money, I’ll go back to the gym.
When I have money, I will get the chiropractic I need to relieve my pain.
Money won’t make me thinner. But it would go a long way to making me healthier. And if I could pick one of those things above, it would be going back to the gym – not so I can get thin, but so I can stock up on endorphin rushes because MAN that rocks my world. Does fuckall for my physique, bye and large, but I feel great.
This is the first thread I’ve been on where there’s an overabundance of Rowans.
Rock on.
I think Lu hit the nail on the head:
If the desire to fulfill an assigned spot in the patriarchal order (eek! I sound like an ’80s feminist today) determines the body image–size, amount of wrinkles, shape of nose, leg veins, etc.–then even the supposedly awesome, hidden, “thin girl” or “beautiful girl” will never have any real power because TFoBT has already been handed over to patriarchal dictates. In other words, it’s the framework and the amount of self-determination within this framework that matters. So, if you’re saying “I want to be thinner because my back will hurt less when I get up” or “I want to be thin because I know I can reduce my diabetes,” I don’t see a problem with that because the frame of reference is not something outside of you, but something within you. When I was 15 lbs heavier two years ago, my back hurt like @#$% every time I got up. My then boyfriend loved me no matter what, but I couldn’t stand starting the day with two Advil any more, so I got myself to the gym and after a few months, my back got stronger and my “front” (ahem) lighter–and the Advil was a thing of the past. Bonus: I felt like I had accomplished something for myself (not for someone else!), notwithstanding the fact that my BMI will never be in the “normal” range.
(At this point, I deleted two more paragraphs about “the psychological trap of deferral,” the implications of the mirror stage, and adopting a more spiritual model of living in the moment to avoid having “I’m fine as I am” appear as a defiant excuse. You’re probably grateful for that!).
Now now, no apologies about talking like you’re overeducated.
I would say, though, that we strongly (STRONGLY) encourage rewriting your thinness goals even if they’re completely internal, just because you almost certainly can’t make yourself permanently thin, so why not choose a goal that is achievable for you? For instance, I don’t see anything wrong with the goal “I want my back to hurt less when I get up.” You can get that from strengthening your muscles even if you don’t lose weight (and not everyone does from regular gymgoing). So why throw “I want to be thin because” in there, right? You’re likely only setting yourself up to feel like a failure.
Funny, fillyjonk, but I had something like that in my first draft. One of my knees is going wonky lately, and I feel sure that it’s because the shape of my leg is not right for what I’ve been doing with it. (Doesn’t that sound suggestive?) What I mean is sitting my butt on my heels in a kneeling position. Larger thighs mean that your knee muscles and ligaments have to extend too far if you’re really sitting back on your heels. So the answer would seem to be either have smaller thighs, or don’t sit in that position. Or maybe make my knee stronger? I don’t know, but I really hesitated to make a statement that sounded anti-fat, so I deleted it. I’ll think about the issue the way you put it for a bit now.
Lu, are you talking about sitting in a kneeling position, like in a yoga pose for instance? That’s the only way I can picture what you’re talking about.
[...] The Fantasy of Being Thin [...]
Yes, that’s right. :) Child’s pose, I think it’s called?
Lu, if you spread your legs wider (i.e., don’t keep your knees together) and only go down part way, it will take the pressure off. At least it does for me. I do a lot of yoga poses with a wider stance so my belly doesn’t get in the way. You may want to ask your yoga instructor for alternatives for any poses that hurt your joints. An old ankle injury means I don’t do certain balance poses, but that’s the cool thing about yoga – you do what you can do and still get benefits.
Yeah, definitely talk to your instructor… they would MUCH rather you do a modified pose (or a different pose entirely) than hurt yourself.
Or if you are doing it on your own, talk to AN instructor. Anybody’s instructor. :) They know a lot about anatomy. And it’s not by any means a foregone conclusion that your knees hurting has anything to do with the size of your thighs. For instance I modify where I put my weight in some poses so I don’t hyperextend my knees. Other people modify poses or use blocks because of injuries or just not being very flexible. Yoga is NOT about doing something exactly how it might look in a book, but doing it in a way that works for your body.
Really? That’s neat. Thank you so much for the tip, Reba. And about your ankle injury, recently I was talking to a friend who is a physical therapist. I was talking about a really bad sprain I’d had a few years ago (couldn’t walk for days, was black/purple/yellow for weeks) and how it was acting up lately. He advised me to practice balancing on each foot for 30 seconds at a time, and once I got good at that, to do it with my eyes closed. He said that would help retrain and stabilize the muscles. He also said that I had adhesions from the injury, and that I should massage them. I don’t know what kind of injury you had, and this is probably old hat to you, since you do yoga, but I thought I’d mention it. Thanks again!
Yep, Reba gave the same tip I was going to, Lu! I don’t have a problem with child’s pose, but hero does kill me. I don’t really think it’s fat thighs, though — more like bad knees. And yeah, doing standing poses (without pushing yourself too hard) will definitely build up the muscles around your knees and make stuff like that easier.
And speaking of yoga and anatomy, Paul Grilley is pretty awesome, and says (among many other things) there are some poses that some people will just never be able to do all the way, because of their freakin’ bones — not because they don’t practice hard enough, are too fat, whatever. His bones slideshow is a whole other take on the “different people just have different bodies” theme, and it’s fascinating. Bones get left out of the discussion in yoga a lot, and even though everyone will tell you not to push yourself beyond what’s comfortable, there’s still a lot of talk about how regular practice will get ANYONE into EVERY pose. And you know… probably not. For a lot of different reasons. That doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it just means your body is unique, and you need to listen to it.
WOW! This is amazing!
Kate, what you’ve written here is just, I don’t have a great-enough adjective.
For me, it’s part of this incredible journey – finding out there are (so many!) other people who have felt/thought/think/feel the way I do.
So I was reading your initial post and crying. Thinking about how much time and energy I’ve wasted hating me, and waiting till you-know-when for life to start. How all that time, I wasn’t even alone.
And even though I’m not all the way (or even halfway) through these comments, it’s so affirming that I had to sing a song about it. Okay, not really, but you get me.
I’m being treated for body dysmorphia, and fighting,in general, my feelings of no worth, working on loving all of me. And not just the bits that are ‘more acceptable’ to other people (whoever THEY are). So many days feel like trudging uphill in mud, and then I come across this, and all these people. And, just, WOW!
Thanks so much, all of you, for putting a bit of yourself out here for the rest of us to read about, and connect with. I appreciate it more than I can say.
Sorry I’m so late to the party; working away from home and such. Any cake left?
This is a fantastic post which obviously has resonance for many shapelings.
I don’t think I’ve ever indulged in much magical thinking regarding thinness – my thoughts, such as they were in the days I still dieted, didn’t really extend beyond, “If I was thin…I wouldn’t have so many problems finding clothes and more boys would fancy me”, both of which are probably true, but I can only think of one instance in my entire life when I let my fat prevent me from doing something I really wanted to do. (Long story short: beginners belly dancing class; communal changing room in which skinny professional ballet dancer was wafting about stark naked. Couldn’t bring my twenty-something-year-old self to undress in front of her).
Although my self-hating, serial-dieting parents passed on their fat issues to me, they proved a lot easier to deal with than some of the other ways in which they managed to screw me up. Speaking personally, there are times when I would have loved to have been able to blame my fat rather than my (obviously intrinsically unlovable) personality for some of the crap that’s gone down in my life. I do agree though that blaming missed opportunities and personal misfortune on physical appearance is not just confined to the fat. I have a friend who vehemently hates her (far from freakish) shortness and believes her life would have been completely different had she been tall. (This despite having met and married her soulmate; having 2 daughters she adores, and working in her chosen profession for decent money at the precise height she is). Similarly I can relate to discovering someone who totally put the wind up me in college having been in total awe of me the whole time I was terrified of her. I envied her sexual confidence; she thought I was stunningly glamorous. Go figure.
BuffPuff, you ARE stunningly glamorous. :)
And there’s no cake left, but we might be able to find you a baby-flavored donut.
Yummy! Baby-flavoured frosting. My favourite!
And thanks for the compliment! :-)
I can’t believe how many hours I have ignored my work to keep checking back in here…
Just a tip to all of those with rock climbing/ropes course (the obstacles in the trees)/zip line harness problems: There is a harness made by DMM that will fit pretty much everyone. Because it has such a large range, there isn’t any padding in it, but I climb in mine all of the time and it’s great. I instructed rock climbing and ropes courses, and our policy was if you brought your own harness, we would inspect it and let you use it if it met our standards (the DMM does). If you go anywhere with even slightly talented instructors, they should be able to make you a chest harness the old fashioned way: out of webbing and ‘biners.
Good luck!
I’d just like to echo whoever said that they’re thin but still beating themselves up about not being perfect. I’m a US size 8, conventionally attractive enough that I was asked to model (when I was thinner!!), have a degree from Oxford (was a straight A student), and have a fulfilling and glamorous job. And I still don’t think I’m good enough. I worry about being fat (because I might only be a size 8 but are models size 8? No, they’re size 2, therefore I’m fat). I worry about being single (and seriously, the quality of man you attract when you’re thin isn’t necessarily high – most conventionally attractive men are not Good People). I worry about not being well-read enough, not funny or interesting enough, not having enough friends…
So from my experience, even if you guys ever did attain the fantasy of being thin, it wouldn’t automatically mean your personal demons – about being likeable, loveable, worthwhile, whatever – would go away. Which is obviously simply to echo what Kate’s already said. I’m so, so inspired by your quests to accept yourselves. Hurray for you!
But can I also echo what someone else said – it seems other women need you to hate yourself. Whenever I have said positive things about myself (I may have self-esteem issues but I’m not blind, I can see I’m pretty) other girls look surprised, and have even said to me “You’re not supposed to say that about yourself.” Um, why not? You compliment me all the time – I’m not supposed to believe it? We do cripple ourselves with self-hatred. Many of you are a lot further along the road to self-acceptance than I am, so hats off, and thanks Kate for a brilliant post and everyone else for insightful comments.
Oh wow!! so beautiful!
I am not exactly fat nor am I thin and used this excure to dress so badly. Always thought “when I become thin I will…. blah blah ” A lot.
Not any more. Thanks for the eye opener!
I feel like a hypocrite for being here at all. See, I’m an anorexic just starting out with recovery, and the only reason I saw this post at all is that a blogger friend posted a link, and I clicked it because her links are usually interesting stuff.
I’m glad I clicked that link, though. I’ve read through this post at least five times today, thinking about how badly I wish I could believe the stuff you’ve learned to believe. It really surprised me, in a positive way, to realize how much the things I’m struggling to believe in my recovery from anorexia could overlap with body-positive ideals.
“None of that is because I’m fat. It’s because I’m me.”
That’s the most beautiful statement I have heard in a long time.
Thank you.
I can never get comfortable in my body, because it’s like I am always getting ready to move out into a thinner body as soon as I find the right path, Atkins, etc. And even though I have given up on the whole dieting thing, I am trying to focus on being healthy, but the fantasy of being thin keeps popping up, keeps being my motivation. Thank-you so frieking much for this amazing post! I think making this into a book is a great idea!!! I am still teary eyed right now, this whole thing and all the comments speak to me so clearly. Thank-you.
whoops forgot my to add my Thin Fantasy:
I will marry a hot artist and be his muse
Everyone who has treated me like shit will regret it.
I will have the cofidence to speak in public
I will no longer have anxiety and depression
I will start to live
I will be WORTHY OF LOVE!!!!
Kristin: thanks for the tip, but sadly the tree-climbing place apparently has a policy of not allowing people to bring their own harness.
Still, if you’re under 20 stone and have a waist of 43 inches or less and are in the UK I’d definitely recommend them, they’re really good fun:
http://www.goape.co.uk/
[...] Title from this excellent post [...]
Sara,
Welcome aboard! Congratulations on making the decision to take control of your anorexia; it is a brave and wonderful thing you are doing. If you stick around you’ll find that lots of us here have had eating disorders and/or engaged in disordered eating habits, and as you can see, seems like every last one of us struggles to love and accept ourselves, so you will definitely find support and inspiration here.
You can definitely learn to believe that you are a wonderful, valuable, and worthwhile human being. It might not be easy, but you are all these things. You deserve to have a happy, full, disorder-free life, and it seems like you are starting to see that. If you’re interested, I recommend checking out Good With Cheese and The F Word (links can be found in the colum on the right side of the page) as well as reading here…all those places have really made me think, and they might help you out too.
Best of luck!
Gemma, I was weirded out by the thread of weight loss as ED recovery as well. I nearly replied to Zoe’s first post saying that stopping binge eating hadn’t made me lose a single pound. But then I got distracted by something shiny. Anyway – good luck in overcoming your disorder. I hope it works out for you.
Everybody talking about gaining weight as they get older reminded me of part of a conversation I had with my mom over Thanksgiving break. Basically she thinks she’s getting fat… which means weighing 135 instead of 125. Or something like that. I tried to make her see how insane it is to blame herself for getting fat when she’s going through menopause, but I don’t know if I got through to her. Sigh.
fillyjonk, the “attainable goals” thing is something I’m trying to keep in mind… I’m okay with being fat, but I hate hate hate being so out of shape that I wheeze when I pound up a flight of stairs. So that’s my goal: not being totally out of breath at any exertion. Which will have to wait for after finals. Ack!
Kate, I cannot thank-you enough for this post. You have shined the light on a truth that was always there lurking beneath the surface.
I have always said to myself “when I am thin:”
“I will finally be rid of my depression”
“I will find the One”
“I will be a complete person”
“I will be beautiful inside and out”
“I will be stronger, more confident, more creative, command attention when I walk into a room”
“I will finally be a success and make my parents proud”
“I will be better than my brother”
While it is hard to let this fantasy go, realizing it is there and is just that, a fantasy, is the first step. And I took that step yesterday when I came across your post. I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I look forward to finally starting the life I was afraid to live.
I am letting the thin woman in me come out, and she is fat and she is fierce!
Nomie, thank you. :) I think I’m making pretty good progress, honestly. I certainly seem to be thinking about food less and less when, before, it was *always* on my mind; either what I’d eat, or would I “had” to avoid.
I was thinking about responding to Zoe because I saw a lot of my old, anorexic self in the way she appeared to be thinking about herself and others but, ultimately, that’s a journey we make alone and I know from experience that no amount of good advice will make you see sense until you hit rock bottom, or are forced into a program.
I do appear to have lost some weight since I stopped my constant cycle of starvation followed by binging until I feel sick. It’s hard to say since I banned scales and tape measures, but some of my pants feel looser. I’m trying to see that as neither a good nor bad thing, and I’m certainly not actively *trying* to lose weight. It just turns out then when I’m not obsessing about food, I actually eat rather healthily. Well, sometimes. ;) More often than before is the point!
But, you just can’t go into recovery when you’re STILL thinking “I have to be X size/weight”. It’s counter-intuitive.
I wish you continued success with your recovery, too. Oh, and good luck with finals!
So that’s my goal: not being totally out of breath at any exertion.
Nomie, that’s an awesome goal, and let me just say — as a formerly sedentary person and still far from a workout chick — my best advice to you and anyone else with a goal like that is not only to start small, but to give yourself huge credit for every goddamned baby step. Even if you decide your goal is health, not weight loss, it can be really easy to fall into the same old thinking, with a twist. I’m not getting healthy fast enough. I’m not working hard enough at being healthy. I still get out of breath, so I’m a failure.
And that can lead to giving up on yourself. I STILL struggle with thoughts like, “I don’t have time to do 90 minutes of yoga today, so there’s no point in doing it at all.” Which is complete bullshit. If I don’t have 90 spare minutes, then I can do a 20-minute practice and still feel MUCH better than on days when I don’t do anyting. Ditto thoughts like, “I’m only in the mood for gentle/restorative yoga today. That’s not enough of a workout. I suck.” Again, bullshit. Gentle/restorative yoga makes me feel a million times better than doing nothing, and sometimes, when it’s all I’m in the mood for, that’s because my body’s really not up to a more rigorous practice that day.
The thing that is SO FUCKING HARD for me to remember is actually what I just said twice in the last paragraph — if I do a little bit, I feel better than when I do nothing. Usually much better. And on top of that, every little bit helps in terms of building strength and flexibility, and gradually getting deeper into poses. But some days, it is the hardest thing in the world to get myself to practice just because IT WILL FEEL GOOD AND HELP ME MAKE PROGRESS. I’m so used to thinking that exercise has to be at least a little bit punishing, and has to go on for a really long time, in order to be worth doing at all. That belief is so damn hard to shake — to the point where it’s like, if the only reasons I have for exercising are that it will feel good, be fun, and go toward improving my health? Well, I must be DOING IT WRONG. That is just not good enough!
So, yeah. It can be an incredible struggle to go easy on yourself and celebrate small accomplishments when you start trying to exercise regularly; the “no pain, no gain” mentality can be just as pernicious as the FoBT. Just FYI.
Also, keep in mind that everyone gets out of breath (and sweats) after some amount of exertion. Sure, getting into shape will slow that process down somewhat, but it’s also really easy to tell yourself that if you were a good person who really worked at it, you could eventually run a marathon without sweating or getting tired. More magical thinking to be wary of.
Sermon over. Good luck.
Oh, and Sara, welcome. As Jae said, there are lots of people recovering from EDs around here; you’re definitely not alone . And we’re all pulling for you.
Kate, this post is absolutely amazing – I’ve bookmarked it and sent it out to friends and family who I think could also benefit from it. You’ve taken something that I – and obviously hundreds, probably thousands, of others – have felt throughout our lives, and you’ve expressed it in words that I could never have found. I’ve struggled my whole life with the FoBT. When I was young, I would hold back from doing anything, I wouldn’t try, because why bother? A fat person can’t _______ (be popular, play soccer, climb a mountain, look good in a nice dress, be seen in a swimsuit, be successful in her career, whatever). I was absolutely certain I would have no value until I was thin. Then I did get thin, and that was one of the unhappiest periods of my life!
Do you, or does anyone here, have any advice about how to fight the fantasy and come to acceptance, especially when facing negative external pressure to conform? I began to come to this realization a few years ago, and for a period had truly come to accept myself as I am and do all those things I thought I never could until I weighed x, but then a series of negative incidents (current and ex-boyfriends commenting on and/or ridiculing my weight) sent me spiraling back to my old food-obsessed self. How do you deal with the social stigma, in general and/or when it’s directed at you?