When I am on my own, looking at myself in the mirror, going for a walk, or simply existing, I do not feel shame. I feel proud, and I feel like I can belong. I can find clothes that fit me. Sometimes they feel awkward, or too tight. But when I find something that makes me feel pretty, I feel very pretty, like one of a kind.
I imagine finding that person who sees me the way I see me, and loves it all so much that they’d want to be with me forever.
When I am with my friends, playing video games, watching TV, or going out for a meal, I feel valued. They do not look at me with judgement, nor do they affirm my insecurities when I point them out. I can make fun of my chub, and there is either no acknowledgement, or I am paid compliments. I am told that I am beautiful, that I am sexy, and that I am desirable. There is beauty in my curves, and the changes in my body are just the tales of time.
I can wear what I want, eat what I want, be how I want. And I feel good.
If strangers look at me and think I am too fat, I do not notice. I notice their kindness, their generosity, or their smiles. I do not usually perceive the mistreatment that most fat women feel they receive from the world, unless it’s clothes on the rack. Perhaps I am just not fat enough, or perhaps I have learned to only see the good in people? But strangers never make me feel ashamed of my body. Not in stores, or the gym, or restaurants.
I can just be no one.
But these moments of peaceful existence and affirmation are tainted when I am with you for too long, or if I even just imagine you. I imagine the day you called me ‘skinny girl’ when I was a 14, and I felt proud. I was starving myself, skipping breakfast and lunch everyday before gorging at night when you went to bed. I still do that, sometimes. I remember you taking cereal out of my bowl, even when I was really hungry and trying to eat again. I remember you signing me up for Weight Watchers before I was even done puberty. I remember you showing me your prom dress, and feeling overwhelmed by how much smaller you were at my age. I remember telling you that I think I’ll never be skinny, that I’d be okay with that, and I swore I saw something die in your eyes.
And now I’ll always remember coming to you in tears after finding out my favorite sundress no longer fit, hoping you would say that I am beautiful no matter what, and that one dress does not define my worth. But you looked me in the eyes and told me I will lose weight on the picket line. And just like all those moments before, I felt my heart shatter.
I can take the pain. I have become used to being verbally poked at. Told what to wear, how to fix my hair, whether my makeup was too colourful, or if I did not dress feminine enough. But when you comment on the size of others, especially my friends or my family, the rage that I should feel for myself comes out like a storm. Because I love these people, and I do not value their worth with a number on a scale. We disagree, we fight, there’s misunderstandings because we are emotional, scarred souls who desire connection just as much as we desire independence. But in the end it’s always trivial, because we respect each other as individuals. I would never bring them down by making them feel shame in their own skin the way you do towards me. The very concept of saying such things makes me feel sick, because I love how different we all are.
You don’t see it as intentional. You tell me to change my mindset on your words, that you don’t want me to be a Barbie doll. So why do I feel so much fear when I imagine myself the size you want me to be? If I magically found that answer, the one that would not just stop the pounds from adding up, but take them away altogether, why do I think I would be more miserable than I am now? Because I think the poking could stop. If I wore dresses while being a size 8, if I ate less than my stomach wanted, would it finally be enough? Would you call me beautiful instead of telling me how I could take off the pounds? Would I no longer feel fear coming upstairs in just my pajamas? Would I be able to stop sneaking food into my room so I could eat on my own? I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to accept the reality society shows me, rather than just loving myself as I am now.
I want to eat healthy because it makes my stomach happy. I want to exercise more because I can do more. I want to feel good in my skin. But when I am away from you, I eat worse because I’m scared of it being taken away when you’re back. When I live alone, I exercise without thinking of the pounds I’ll lose. But when I am home, I feel spite when I go to the gym. I feel like I do it just to prove you right. That I need to do those things so I fit your standard of beauty. I picture myself on the elliptical, because it’s right beside my bed and ready to be used. But I am terrified of you coming downstairs and seeing me on it, as if your pride in my efforts are built off of your perceived idea of me, and not who I am now.
I am 27-years-old, and I cry almost every night because all my brain can imagine is what I could do to finally feel beautiful around you. Do I need to exhaust myself at the gym? Am I not doing the right workouts? Should I try Ozempic as well? The family doctor would never allow it, because she says I look fine. But maybe I could get my hands on it some other way? Should I get it illegally online? Should I steal it? Maybe I need to start starving myself again? Maybe I need to research how those women in the 1990s and 2000s stayed skinny with diet pills that made them sick and destroyed their muscles? Maybe I need to get some sort of surgery across the border that’ll cost an arm and a leg? All of it sounds terrible, and I know I’d end up hurting myself. But if I am honest with myself, I know I would do terrible things to finally make you happy with how you see me.
But then I get some sleep. I wake up tired, but I dress up in something nice and do my makeup. I get out of the house to work, or to be with my friends, and I am whole again. I can be funny, sassy, kind, generous, or just an asshole. But I know that spiral is going to return. And it’s going to hit harder than it did the time before.
Since that last time, those moments that I had every once in a while have turned into everyday. Often multiple times a day. I can be eating, or walking, laughing or just standing. And then it washes over me like a suffocating wave. Shame, disgust, the concept of being perceived. It doesn’t matter who is around me, or if I’m even just on my own. I feel a thousand eyes on me, and I am naked and vulnerable. I want my ghost to jump from my body and throw it away. I want to be anyone else but myself. It doesn’t last too long, maybe ten seconds at the most. But it makes me pause and remember just who I am to you. The person you wished I wasn’t. And for those ten seconds, I agree with you.
I’m starting to wonder what my life with you will look like in ten years, when I’m living on my own, and I inevitably become bigger. Will you put your foot down and just say you hate how I look, instead of dancing around the issue? I think life would be a lot easier for both of us, then. I could finally exist knowing you think my beauty is defined by my waistline, and not who I am.
I am a pant size 16, 46G bra, 2XL shirt. I’m probably 260lbs or more. Of course I am not the most mobile. I make poor food choices. I drink too much diet pop. But I think I’m also this way with the help of powers out of my control. Antidepressants, birth control, hormones, more than likely endometriosis or PMOS. But I think the biggest reason I am the way I am now is because of you. Because despite your efforts to keep me small, I needed to escape your gaze by breaking out of that box. You fought my body and it has fought back. My own wants were never in the equation.
Maybe when I find that someone, when I have my friends within an hour’s drive, when I am doing the job that I love, will we not be seeing each other at all? I can’t bear the thought, because you are my mother, and I love you more than anyone in the world. But I don’t love myself when I am with you, and I know that I need to come first.
I have asked you to try and change so many times, and for so long that I can't remember a day where my size wasn't on your mind. But we keep coming back here, and I keep hurting. I don't need you to stop thinking the way you do. Just pretend you don't. That's your own monster to fight. Lie through your teeth and tell me I'm beautiful the way I am now.
Online dating sucks. Sexual expectations suck. Hook-up culture sucks. But so does risking your life going out to meet men in bars.
The moment I tell a man that I want to wait to have sex or basically any physical intimacy, they either unmatch me or go no-contact. I keep getting told "it's not all men". Then why has it been every man that I date? Is it really that weird to want to love someone before giving your body to them?
The gossip between my close friends and their families is that I'm "looking for a unicorn." Someone who I find physically attractive, emotionally available, easy to converse with, and respectful of my personhood. If that's a unicorn, then so be it. Call me horny. As long as it's just one.
I'm new to this whole 'asexuality' spectrum. I've been a hetero-cis woman my whole life, and am just now coming to terms with the fact that I do not (and probably have never) fit that binary. If I could meet people who are like me, occasionally horny, wanting love, but have those two factors flip on and off like a switch day-to-day, that'd be pretty sweet.
I'm just tired, y'all. Tired of wanting something I see everywhere but inside myself. Tired of crying from yearning so hard. I know he's out there, but I'm sick of searching.
If I'm still 50 and waiting, maybe he'll appear at 51.
Before (and during) Covid: Had basic service work. Overworked. Burnt out. Treated like shit by customer and managerial base. Was happy to leave and start university.
After Covid: Have degree, with 700+ hours of experience. Only able to get relief work outside my field, 24-30 hrs a week. Living with my parents because 24-30 hrs doesn't support average living costs, or even below average. Can't find a second job in any field. Dying inside because for five years I was told my field was in demand. Now I'm on tenterhooks.
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