I Want to Get Away

I just joined in the fat acceptance movement a couple of months ago. Well, I’m not sure I would officially declare my membership, since I’m still learning and do more reading then actual activist work, but I am definitely walking down that road. This means, however, that every day I have to wake up and prepare myself for a fight. Whether it’s battling against the self-hatred I’ve been conditioned with, the scorns of strangers I pass on the street, medical professionals if I am sick, or even family and friends who are “only trying to help and want me to be healthy and happy”.

Of course I’m no stranger to fighting the world. I faced years of abuse from my parents, I grew up in poverty, I have severe depression that keeps me from working, I deeply believe in freedom and adhere to the principle that people should mind their own fucking business when it comes to another’s life choices. I was brought up in a world that says everything about me is wrong. I do not fit in socially accepted gender roles, I do not want children, I wilt in a traditional education forum and the idea of being tied to a repetitive job every day kills my soul. These are the things I was told to expect out of life. This is where I come from. Mileage will vary for everyone, but I think there is a lot of common ground to create understanding. Knowing how different I was from what I was told life is makes me wonder how I ever managed to ascribe to the mentality that fat is wrong. That, essentially, one is better off being dead then being fat. Now that I am trying to be a part of the movement though, I wonder if it’s simply due to the fact that it was something I didn’t have to fight with everyone about.

If a doctor lectures me about my weight and health I can simply accept it and move on with what I’m doing. If my grandmother encourages me to have weight loss surgery, I can take to heart that she cares about me and file the comments away. I can handle my own self-hatred because it’s easy. It’s easier, to me, to just accept these stereotypes people have regarding my weight then to build another wall.

I really admire fat activists, hell, I admire any activist. They do things I could never imagine myself doing. They speak so poignantly and with such passion. It’s amazing and for a long time I thought that was the kind of person I would want to be. Always fighting for what’s right. Now I’m at a time in my life where I’m sick of fighting. I no longer want to build walls, or depend on the walls I already created, but instead want to focus on tearing them down. This feeling makes me feel like a traitor to the movement. Not only to other fatties or fat acceptance believers, but to women, folks who come from below the poverty line and those who suffer from mental illness. In actuality I feel like a traitor to everyone because I’m simply not strong enough to stand up and fight for those like me.

Despite my encouragement to friends and associates to be strong and love themselves and keep their chins up, when I lay in bed at night I still cry and pray to God to make me thin and beautiful. Sometimes when I’m home alone I look up WLS and see how much it would cost, how it will change my life. For many years I wouldn’t even consider WLS because of how barbaric it was. The diet one has to go on after the surgery is akin to an eating disorder, not to mention it’s another way doctors get to play God. Yet when I’m alone I daydream about having the surgery and being accepted again, knowing once I was thin I could walk out into the world and not have to constantly be on guard for malicious comments. Of course, in this perfect world I’ve created where I’m thin and beautiful, people don’t make mean comments. Thin women are never attacked or belittled or left feeling the world would be a better place if they dead. So you can see I’m completely rational during this time.

So I am a closeted self-hating fattie. I’m tired of fighting the world. I love the progress the fat acceptance movement is making, the fact there is actual research coming out that says fatties aren’t lazy, walking time bombs as a whole, but I’m not sure I am able to hang in there and be an FA soldier. Intellectually I know something is wrong with my thinking, as mentally beating one’s self up over the fact they aren’t disciplined enough to actually become anorexic is chalked with all sorts of warning bells, but that doesn’t change the fact every night I beg God to make me thin. It’s something I’ve done every night since I was 8 and my mother told me I couldn’t go to dance class anymore because the teacher thought I was too fat.

If I could just be thin it would be one less thing to worry about. It would be one less thing holding me back in life. If I could only be thin then I could let go of all the hurtful comments and the memories of being ostracized. If I could just be thin then people would no longer laugh in my face for being different and wanting to be successful in life, instead they would applaud my effort and give me a hand up. If only I could be thin…