#8.21.18

I have felt too big since I was six years old & a neighborhood boy called me “fat”.

This was the first time.

I had never even noticed my barely there baby pudge before, never felt like  I took up too much space until the moment he imprudently used that word.

Those words stay with us.

By middle school, I would have given anything to shrink away so I wouldn’t be a burden to a burdened family, so I wouldn’t be another mouth to feed or a growth-spurt with sudden breasts and hips for them to figure out how to clothe.

My peers saw my grown-woman curves and echoed the word “fat” at me daily.

As an adult, I felt I needed too much, felt I took up too much space, so I took blades to my skin and left lines like I was building fences that said, “You can take up this much space but no more.” It didn’t work, and my fences faded.

The darkness grew & with each new medication meant to bring me back to the light, it brought the weight, sometimes 40 pounds in a month it came, & I was helpless to stop it, so I decided to become less full.

I tapered back my meals & began to ignore the sounds of hunger.

With every illness it was the same, every doctor blamed it on my weight. I was too fat at a size 16 and even more so at a 24, so they told me to eat less.

If you’re fat, you must be eating too much.

As the hand on the scale pointed higher, society screamed louder, my body was unacceptable. I had no right to feel pretty or comfortable in my clothes, much less my body. They don’t like to make cute clothes  or lingerie for “fat” girls.

They don’t think we should feel sexy.

So I started embracing the emptiness, ‘til my hair started falling out, my nails went brittle, & I couldn’t eat even if I wanted to without getting sick or crying over the shame of existing.

If I’m a “fat” girl, I must eat a lot, right?