(no subject)
Repostan' from Tumblr; it's not particularly elegant, but I was proud of myself for expressing something intensely personal that's been troubling me lately and managing to make it more or less cohesive.
Okay, so, I’m fat. I am overweight. I didn’t get this way until I was out of high school and never really dealt with people teasing me outright for being a fatty. Still, now is a pretty impossible time to be an overweight person and feel like you aren’t being judged for it. Everywhere you go, you get messages that you, the way you are, are wrong and bad and shameful. You’re an embarrassment. Don’t you know how much better your life could be? No food tastes as good as skinny feels, right?
Sometimes I wonder how my life would change if I lost all this extra weight, if I started eating only food so pure and healthy that people gave me fucking awards for it, if I suddenly decided what I really wanted out of life was to spend a few hours a week in the gym and getting robust amounts of exercise in the fresh air. If the pounds just melted away, in what ways would my life be better? Would my husband love me more, would I get a great job, would my mom decide I’m a perfect daughter, would my friends have more time for me, would I get invited to more parties, would I look great in everything I wore, would the world open up before me with endless vistas of opportunity?
Would I be a better person?
Mostly it comes down to, “you would be healthier and happier.” Oh, yes, of course.
For most of my life I struggled with depression. When I say “most of my life,” I am referring to the time in between when I was five or six and when I was in my mid-20’s. That’s more or less a solid two decades. I’m 28 now, so actually I have spent much more of my life wishing I were dead than not. And when I say “I struggled with depression,” I am mostly not referring to a general sort of gloominess, but a crippling, debilitating, soul-crushing bleak and hollow misery that is impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t been there. There was nothing it didn’t touch, there was nothing it didn’t try to ruin.
When people asked me what I wanted from life, what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was: happy. That was my big goal- to achieve happiness. To simply feel it. To escape the sobbing and the cutting and the aching and the emptiness and the suicide plans I would carefully draw up and abandon and draw up again. To look at the knives in the drawer when I made myself a sandwich and not imagine slicing into my wrists with one of them. To stop hearing people ask what was wrong, or at least to possibly be able to give them an answer. To never again find myself curled into a ball in the bathroom pounding my head against the floor, unable to move or breathe or speak, to never hear my mother screaming “STOP IT, JUST STOP, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU”. To feel like I belonged somewhere, that I wasn’t a mistake and a burden. To be rid of the loneliness. To not detest myself. Just to be happy.
Through all that, there was a scant handful of people who, I would say, were concerned about my health. My mother; the man I wound up marrying; a few teachers who picked up on enough to be worried. I think I could probably count them on one hand. It’s not that I think my friends didn’t care, but I don’t think they understood, I think they were a little baffled, and so they did nothing. I lost more than a few of them when I got to be too much to deal with, when they gave up on me. I don’t blame them.
Here I am, though. I did it. I survived that. It took me a long time, and I fought- my God, did I fight for it- but I came through okay. One day, for the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to be happy. I am happy. I feel joy. It is the most epic triumph of my life. It is the single greatest defense and act of defiance I have: simple happiness.
Meanwhile, here I am, being fat in everyone’s face, and there is no shortage of do-gooders with helpful advice. Eat less! More fruits and vegetables! Put down that Quarter Pounder! Go for a walk! Join a gym! Wii Fit! Cardio! Those special sneakers that tone your lumpy ass, you should get some! I’m just concerned for you. You’ll be so much healthier! You’ll be so much happier! FUCK THAT. I am healthy. I am happy. Where was all your concern when I was alone and weeping and dragging bits of broken glass across my wrists because it was less painful than what was in my head? Where were you all when I was begging for someone to love me and not leave me and tell me I was worthy? Where were you all when I was seven years old and telling myself I deserved to die? Where was your helpful advice when I was on the brink, when I thought nothing could bring me back? Does that seem like it’s all right to you? Is it less important than my goddamn calorie intake? Please do not honestly try to convince me my biggest problems in life are my size 20 jeans, because I will laugh in your face. And I can do that now! I can laugh! People used to be shocked if I laughed, and now I do it all the time! I have a wonderful laugh! It is very infectious!
I refuse to be told what it means to be happy and healthy. I refuse to believe I do not deserve every moment of peace and joy I am given, that I earn. No one is ever going to take that away from me again, not for any reason, certainly not because I look terrible in a bikini. I am fat, and I am happy, and that is mine. I will protect that at any cost.
Have a lovely day, and enjoy your salads.
It's the sort of thing I have to keep repeating during the daily assault: the ads on Facebook or the roadside or the mall or a billboard or a magazine: BE A HOT WIFE. SLIM DOWN FAST. GET SKINNY NOW- NO DIETING! It's easy to give in to the constant onslaught, but I say to myself: I am happy. I am healthy. I am loved. This is enough. It's sad that anyone has to live like this-- that they should have to justify their right to happiness, that daring to be fat and happy should be an act of defiance. I hope I can teach my children to see their own beauty and the beauty of others. I hope I can teach them to be strong when the world tries to break them down. I hope above all they don't have to spend twenty years learning to be happy and love themselves.