EL EM AY OH.: So...
I don’t want to write this, but I need to do it. I’ve needed to do it for a long time and I just can’t keep holding it in anymore.
There’s no word for the feeling that comes round when you finally realize everyone would just rather you disappear. I live in a world that hates me, where it’s okay for people to abuse me and even be violent toward me - to invade my privacy, ridicule me, belittle me - and I’m supposed to thank them for it.
As a fat person, I’m supposed to be thankful for friends who won’t idly stand by and watch me “let myself go.” I’m supposed to be thankful for strangers who will question me about my eating habits and how often I exercise. I’m supposed to be thankful for people who will take my photo without my knowledge - because it lets me know I am actually so fat as to deserve ridicule. I’m supposed to accept those harmful behaviors and use them to “motivate myself”. As a fat woman, I’m supposed to let myself be bullied into submission by people online who (for no other reason than that it is Thursday) feel they should let me know, they can tell - by just looking at a picture of me - I am “unhealthy” and will surely die from a host of “obesity-related illnesses like diabetes”, and I am supposed to thank them for “caring about me” enough to humiliate me and try their best to truly hurt me.
I’m supposed to buy the products and watch the workout shows and starve myself to either a “healthy weight” or death (whichever I reach first is fine with everyone else). I’m supposed to hear Jillian Michaels yell at people that she would rather they die than stop walking on a treadmill and not only support it, but internalize it. It is supposed to be my mantra - that, as a fat woman, if i cannot successfully display the results of eating disordered behaviors, such as starving myself and exercising until I am negatively impacted by sickness, until I die, or until I am thin, then I am worthless - and would not even make a good contestant on a fat-abuse television show.
Yes, here on tumblr there is a small and vocal community of people who look like me. They are fashionable and blog about being unafraid of existing! They LOVE their bodies! They are supposed to inspire me to LOVE mine too! Because of course, there is nothing wrong with my body - and if there is, it is my own point of view that is problematic. Yes, they acknowledge the hateful comments and people who say the terrible things, do the terrible things, are the terrible things… they acknowledge the need for “safe spaces” - and they help to create new and different labels for their followers and fans to use so we can all feel individual and special. Yes.
But I’ve found that shit… this tumblr-centric “body acceptance” shit - it’s real nice to type out. It’s real nice to TYPE OUT IN ALL CAPS AND VEHEMENTLY TELL YOUR LITTLE COMMUNITY OF FANS THAT YOU LOVE YOUR FAT. It’s real nice to take your shirt off in the privacy of your own home and show off your love handles or your fat arms, or your belly, but offline? that shit doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t mean anything.
Because when I go to the doctor? They don’t ask me about body acceptance. They immediately ask me if I’ve considered Weight Loss Surgery.
When I go out to eat? They don’t tell me my hair is awesome. They ask me if I want the diet soda.
When I apply for jobs? They don’t say, “We don’t discriminate based on weight.” They just never call me back.
When I managed my store and had the #1 store in the country, I still made $2.75 less than the managers around me, both new and old.
When I talk about what life is like being a 5 foot tall woman who weighs 224lbs and how hard it is sometimes? No one comforts me. No one says, how can I help? Because a: no one can help, and b: no one wants to admit there’s an issue that would require fat people needing comfort anyway.
I’m tired. It hit me earlier this week, I probably won’t get married or have children unless I lose a lot of weight. At this point in my life, no one will even look at me - much less want to have sex with me. I get anon messages constantly that talk about how no one gives a fuck about fat people anyway - and you know what? I don’t respond to them because I know, for the most part, it’s true.
Because to admit that there is a pandemic issue like discrimination against fat people, we would have to admit that we are all part of the problem. We would have to admit that maybe it has less to do with a person’s eating choices and more to do with our own asshole tendencies to have to judge someone else for anything we possibly can in order to see our own existence as meaningful.
I’m tired.
And I’m also turning anon off.
(via fatpeopleofcolor)
