In sixth grade (1996) I asked for a black and white Adidas puffer coat for Christmas not at all expecting that I’d actually get it. We didn't have money, so when I opened that package Christmas morning I was beyond elated. I couldn’t wait to wear it to school and finally, just maybe, be cool. When I decided to write this piece, I asked my mom if she could find the picture of me wearing that coat, she sent it over, and my face is somber and almost sad looking as I posed in front of the tree. I was perplexed because I remember well how excited and happy I was, so I asked my mom, “Any idea why I look so serious?” To which she responded, “Welllll……you were serious quite a lot. This was probably the beginning of the troubled age.”
After Christmas break that year, I waited for the bus, rode
to school, and when I got off and walked to the door, felt like a million bucks
strutting down the sidewalk until I heard a seventh grade boy yell, "Look at Sadie! Now she really looks like Shamu!" (Shamu was Sea World’s most famous killer
whale at the time.) And this was a nickname that unfortunately stuck for years.
In the hallways, on the bus, at recess, I would hear the voices of little shits
of all ages shouting it out. Of course
that wasn’t the only name they had for me, and other kids called me straight up
fat nearly every day, in addition to “mayonnaise girl” (my personal favorite)
and other equally crappy things.
The school I went to was so small, I literally had seven
kids in my class, that when we started playing instruments, we had to take a
bus to another, larger school to be part of a full band. In eighth grade after practice, while waiting
to head back to our school, a younger kid called me Shamu as we boarded the bus
and it was just not the day. I grabbed
him by the collar, slammed him up against the side of the bus, put my face in
his face, and snarled, “Don’t. Sayit. Again.”
I will never forget the look in his eyes as he stammered, “O, o, o,
okay…” I got on the bus, he got on behind
me, and another kid who had not seen this altercation, looked my direction and
said, “Hey Shamu!” I took three huge
steps toward him, pushed him into the bus window, and yelled, “It’s enough!
Shut up!” Word must have gotten around because that was the last time anyone
called me Shamu, but was unfortunately not the last they called me fat.
At fourteen, super traumatically for me, we moved from that
tiny town in South Dakota, to an even smaller one in Northern Minnesota. Although
I was heartbroken, I thought this was finally my chance to rebuild myself as
the cool new kid and because my parents felt guilty for ripping me away from my
friends, they bought me a whole bunch of new clothes. I felt like a badass when I started ninth
grade, and was surprised how nice people were to me…well most of them. I made friends easily, although maybe not
with the best people, and for the first time in my life, felt like I fit
in. For a while. After some months though, a few of the older
high schoolers started noticing that I was a bit different and didn’t quite
mesh with their rural Midwestern crowd.
I called out bully behavior when I saw it and confronted peers when they
were being assholes to other people. I
guess that really stuck in the craw of one guy in particular, Bryce, who made a
point of saying jerky things to me whenever he had the opportunity. He knew I was always in the art room, because
that was my haven, and would often open the door, stick his head in, say my
name until I looked at him, then yell, “Yer fat!” and close the door to take
off down the hallway. One day he did
this but, instead of leaving, came into the room. He muttered something mean as he walked by
me, I turned, asked him to repeat it, he did, and I punched him directly in the
stomach. He bent over, let out a
breathy, “oof!” and then bent over, pretended to be looking at something on a
table while his eyes watered and he tried to catch his breath. Once he’d mostly recovered, he called across
the room to the art teacher, “Mr. Wolf!
Did you see what she did!?” Mr.
Wolf, who had been watching the whole thing, looked at Bryce, looked at me, and
said, “Nope, sorry, I didn’t.” I
grinned, Mr. Wolf smirked, and Bryce asked for a pass to the bathroom. He still said nasty things to me now and
then, but nowhere near as often. Two
years later, I was all but engaged to his best friend and boy did he love that. I wish I could say that was the last time
some prick thought they needed to report to me their interpretation of my
appearance, but alas it was not.
In my first year of college which I was extremely not ready
for, I was so petrified that someone would point out my weight or be an asshole
to me that I rarely left my dorm. I
started using chat rooms online when these things were in their infancy,
texting didn’t exist, I didn’t have a cell phone, and my social anxiety was
such that it almost completely paralyzed me.
I spent innumerable hours in chat rooms talking with strangers from all
over the world. I was fascinated by
everything I was learning from them as well as shocked and flattered by how
many thought (or at least told me they thought) I was beautiful. Eventually, I ended up talking more with one
specific guy who was a photographer in the military and stationed in
Afghanistan. Lazaro was so unique,
uncommonly intelligent, interesting, surprising, poetic, artistic, and had
these dark intense eyes that seemed to gaze into your soul. When he finished his deployment, he came to
meet me in person and we fell into an intense, passionate, and dangerous
love. Because I really wasn’t keen on
college at eighteen in the first place, when he suggested I move down to
Clarksville, Tennessee to live with him right outside the base where he was
stationed (Fort Campbell), I miserably finished the semester, packed up
everything I could fit into my Accord, and drove the thirteen hours to
Tennessee. There is a whole lot more to
this story, but to make it brief, Lazaro was severely mentally ill and I was so
young I didn’t understand what was happening, so thought I could somehow make
it better. I tried my best to help and
support him, be an adult, have a job, and live a thousand miles from my wonderfully
supportive parents.
Not long after the move he was discharged from the Army due
to his mental instability and we moved back up to Minnesota. The relationship progressed horribly, as did
his at that time undiagnosed Schizophrenia, and turned into a physically,
verbally, emotionally, and sexually abusive cluster fuck of huge emotions,
manipulation, gaslighting, and cheating.
On more than one occasion he packed all of his belongings into his
rucksack and told me he was leaving.
When I begged him to tell me why, to stay, to talk, he would say that if
I gave him a BJ, he’d wouldn’t leave. And because I truly believed I was worth next
to nothing and that women were meant to suffer and serve men, I did it. Afterward he’d force me to unpack his things
while berating me. Saying things like,
“The skin on your stomach is literally ripping apart
[stretch marks] and you just keep eating!”
“Why do you stomp around the apartment?! [Me just walking
normally.] You know we have downstairs neighbors right, what is wrong with you?!”
“No one could ever love you the way I love you, look at how
fat you are.”
And although it hurt to hear, I knew he was right. Eventually,
he decided we were no longer going to eat any animal products and were to be
Vegan from then on. I came home from
work to him having thrown all of my recently purchased groceries into the
dumpster. The next morning he woke me up
at 6:30 demanding I get dressed and jog around the apartment complex in the
frigid December air. Lazaro jogged
behind me yelling various insulting comments about my appearance and pushing me
to keep going. Similar things went on
for about two years before a close friend recognized what was happening, came
over with her sister’s truck while Lazaro was at work, helped me pack all of
his stuff, drove it over to Barnes & Noble where he worked at the time, and stacked it on top of his
car. He came out while we were putting
the last items on, held out his hand for me to shake and said, “Nice knowing
you.” I was shattered.
Despite that coldness, after I kicked him out, he stalked
and harassed me; showing up at my job, my apartment, and calling hundreds of
times a day. I tolerated this behavior
for about five years before it finally stopped completely. Several years later, after having had no
contact for a long period, I drunk dialed him like a complete and total idiot. Regrettably, he answered and I chose to share
that I no longer dated men and now identified as a lesbian. He laughed and laughed then told me I didn’t
know what the hell I was talking about and, “what a ridiculous thing to
say.” It was then that I hung up and
made that the last time we ever spoke. Needless
to say, it has always been difficult for me to stand up for myself, until for
one reason or another, it isn’t.
I think a huge part of why I put up with the asshole kids
calling me names, Lazaro treating me so poorly for so long, and all of the
other awful relationships I had as a young person, because I had been receiving
the message loud and clear from the time I was able to comprehend it, that I
deserved it all because I was fat. While
reading Seventeen magazine at fourteen years old, I learned that women must be
stick figure thin to be found attractive or ever even have a chance at happiness,
and that I should draw as much attention to my mouth as possible when I was
around boys. At the same age, I observed
my mother, after having worked at least a nine hour day, cook dinner every
night, serve it to my father, more often than not accept his snarky criticism
of her food, and then say nothing about it being shitty of him to mention. She did this because she was constantly
sacrificing herself, striving to calm his tumultuous mind, and to keep the
peace.
At the same time as literally every Disney movie I loved as
a kid was telling me I should be a demure young lady who needed a man to save
and take care of me, my mom poked me under the table when I said things she
knew would upset papa, shot me the scary severe mom face when she recognized my
attitude was irritating him, and consistently demonstrated an overall tense and
hushed tolerance of each of his juvenile and intolerant behaviors. She regularly tip-toed around pa’s fragile
identity, sidestepped any subject that would set him off, and strongly encouraged
her daughter to do the same.
As I was simultaneously hearing fat jokes on every show in
existence and being called fat every day at school, my mother was suggesting I
have an Herbalife shake instead of breakfast or lunch and saying things like,
“Too much is too much, Sadie.” My nine year old self in turn believed that I was “too much,” and began the
inveterate battle of making myself smaller in every way possible. None of those ways being the one in which she
subtly and not so subtly suggested I shrink.
Flying in the face of her staunch Second Wave Feminist
ideals and fierce advocation for her only child, my lovely mama has always been
captured by the predominant thought and mainstream notions of weight, health,
and appearance. Although she’s exceedingly
kind, loving, thoughtful, and generous, for as long as I can remember she’s
made self-deprecating comments about her weight (and that of others), her shape
(and those of others), how her clothes were fitting (and those of others), how
she knew what it was like to be fat since she weighed one sixty in college…
(Mmm hmm, okay, mom.) She’s been
drinking that Kool-Aid for so long, she’s literally blind to how destructive
her particular brand of self-ridicule is for herself and for everyone around her. Pretty sure though, that ninety percent of us
do and say similar, if not exactly the same things because we’ve been hearing them
all our lives and now believe them reasonable.
(They aren’t.)
Speaking of unreasonable, my father had some influence in my
thought processes as well. He was born
with the soul (and talent) of a tortured artist and unfortunately grew up with
a rigid father who pushed him to be someone he wasn’t. His retaliation then, was the decision that
he would never change for anybody, not even himself. He has maintained the emotional intelligence
of someone less than half his age and took/takes pride in having never
changed. My mom confirms that he’s been
the same since he was about twenty five.
Invariably, papa became the victim in life situations whether or not he
actually was. He was hyperemotional,
extremely sensitive, and has never had much control over the expression of
intense emotion he seems to nearly always be feeling. Since mom is not the same way, they would
often snip at one another and argue over her lack of passion versus his
overabundance of it. Pa didn’t
understand how she could be so contained and stomped around the house yelling
and demanding to know why she was never as upset about things as he was.
Since we lived in the middle of nowhere and I was a "gifted" child with no siblings or neighbors who didn’t easily relate to kids my age, my
parents were my examples for development of social emotional “skills” and ways
in which to relate to myself. At quite a
young age, I was emulating not only my mother’s self-deprecating behavior, but also
my father’s fly off the handle emotionality.
I considered my husky frame disgusting because I wasn’t built like the
tiny-waisted women in the cartoons I watched or the hot models in Seventeen and
YM magazines. Because they fed off of my
substantial overreactions, the kids at school called me names making those
awful thoughts about myself worse, and my mother solidified the beliefs with
her abundance of negative self-talk, comments or suggestions on my food
choices, leaving “Prevention” and “Shape” magazines in my bedroom with articles
about exercise/weight loss highlighted, and offering to bring me along to her
Weight Watchers meetings.
Despite their obliviousness for how negatively I was
affected by their shortcomings (which could have been greatly reduced with some
self-awareness and therapy), I am supremely fortunate to have had the love and
unconditional support of my amazing parents all my life, and I wouldn’t trade
them for anything. They are wonderful
people and taught me so many invaluable things, but neither of them realized
that their behavior, the way they navigated their relationship, and my father’s
volatility were not only affecting me hugely, but were building a scaffolding
it would take several years to identify and a lifetime to dismantle. They didn’t realize that when Lucinda invited
everyone but me to her Halloween party in sixth grade, that it wasn’t because I
was in a “troubled age” and had something wrong with me, but that I was
behaving just as my father did which made other kids uncomfortable and not want
me around. My emotional outbursts,
inability to express or manage my feelings safely or rationally, hyper
defensiveness, and a propensity for self-victimization, were all things I had
learned from observing my father. I had
also gleaned from watching my mom, that my job as a lady and partner was to comfort,
pacify, and care for men. So later on,
when I began dating, that belief and the deep-seated conclusion that being
chubby made me worthless, assured that every relationship I had as a young
person was unhealthy and ultimately, traumatizing.
My mother wasn’t (and still isn’t) able to see, that when I
was a child I never felt comfortable or safe because of papa’s unpredictable
explosions of emotion and her insistence upon normalizing and glossing over
them. I was perpetually anxious and anticipating
his next detonation, so comforted myself the only way I knew how: with food. Instead,
they identified me as the problem and put me in therapy, having never attended
themselves. They had no comprehension of
the message that would send to my impressionable adolescent mind, and never
considered that I’d have a genetic predisposition for depression due to papa’s
brain chemistry. They didn’t realize that I would deal with many unnecessary challenges
in my youth as a direct result of my emulating the ways in which they had conducted
themselves all my life. They still don’t
see that their behavior, action, inaction, word choices, language, and lack of
reliable self-awareness molded who I was and paved the way for most of the
painful and traumatic situations and relationships I got myself into. I know that I sought out and stayed in
terrible relationships and sexual circumstances because my misled, abused, and
bullied mind convinced me I couldn’t do any better and probably deserved to be
treated so poorly. I know that I absorbed
my parents’ marriage dynamics and adopted them as my own which led me into
codependent relationships with severely mentally ill people. People who were not self-aware, weren’t working
on themselves and weren’t participating in therapy with a professional…people who
shared some of the same negative traits as my parents. I know that I equated my value as a human to
how much others wanted to have sex with me because society and media strongly
suggested I do so, and I know the things my parents did and said only made that
worse. To this day, they don’t look
inward, they don’t seek therapy, and they don’t see how their poor mental
health formed who I was and am. Which, I
can only speculate is why two days after Christmas last year (my 35th),
my mother chose to write a secret e-mail to my
therapist (Amy). Mom expressed her
concern over some comments Amy had made that I’d shared with her. The context is irrelevant so I’ll spare you
the details, but Amy is amazing and this is what she said,
“Direct them [my thoughts] towards
self-acceptance and love. Your body and
self is an illusion. And all the
bullshit is just that, bullshit. You
have no problems. There’s nothing wrong
with you. There’s that shit that
happened to you, effects of that, but you are perfect and lovable and worthy
and all ten things right now, just as you are.
I mean, there’re problems…don’t get me wrong, but you are not one of
them! That bullshit has to go. It’s the only thing in your way. Your belly, your weight, your sweaty
nervousness, none of that is the problem.
It’s how you are relating to them influenced by the problems, namely
shame and stuck trauma. Time to fuck
that shit hard and get it gone.”
This apparently triggered my mom because she is so “under the influence,” (as Amy
puts it) of our culture’s garbage. She
wrote to Amy that she appreciated her encouragement for loving myself as I am, “…but
it seems treating the eating disorder should also have top billing.” She went on to list all the reasons why she
believes it necessary that I lose weight, from medical issues not even related
to my size to her constantly worrying about me being unhealthy because I’m
fat. She mentioned more than once how
she should probably “keep her nose out of it,” and should, “maybe not be writing
this at all,” before she ended the note with a, “P.S. I ask that this
communication is just between you and me. (smiley face & peace sign emojis)”
My mother obviously assumed that Amy and I have less trust
and respect for one another than we do, and clearly had no concept of how far
this would set me back mentally. I’ve
been working with Amy for just over five years, have been in therapy for about
twenty years all totaled, and still have yet to overcome the self-loathing and
insecurity that permeate every aspect of my life. Over the last year or so I’d been feeling an
internal shift and thought maybe all the really challenging work we’ve been
doing for so long was finally permitting my mind some divergence from those negative
beliefs that have traveled for thirty years down, now deeply entrenched, neural
pathways. It’s as though, since learning
of my mother’s letter, my brain reverted back to old patterns and thought
processes because regardless of her assurance that she hadn’t silently judged
me (I’d always suspected she did) the same way she openly judged herself and
others, I now know she did/does. I feel
betrayed by the one person whom I believed I could always trust, and also feel as
though she’s been lying to me about how she really sees me for decades. Which are probably some of my biggest fears
realized.
When I look back on the threads of my life, my childhood,
the people who hurt me, what they said and did, how they made me feel, what
American media taught me to believe, and how my parents handled it all, I realize
that those traumatic experiences have been tightly woven together into a
tapestry of lifelong insecurity, low self-esteem, self-injurious behavior, codependency,
depression, and anxiety. And I can’t
help but wonder, had my parents cared for their own mental health with the help
of a qualified professional, would this tapestry exist at all? Would it be so impenetrable if the kids who
bullied and put me down had gotten the love and help they needed? Would my adolescence and young adulthood have
been so tumultuous and painful? Would I
have experienced all the trauma that daily incapacitates and keeps me working
jobs that undervalue me and waste my mind and talent? The answers to those questions are unknown,
but what I do know is that I’m better off now than any of the people who contributed
to my trauma.
Most of the kids who called me Shamu have significant Googleable
arrest records, the one who harassed me in high school (Bryce) literally shot
and killed multiple people, a cop, then himself, Lazaro is unable to function
on his own and lives in an inpatient treatment center on the East coast, my
father still maintains that never changing is a positive thing- not seeing how
his insistence upon this has had a hugely negative effect on his (and his
wife’s) life, and my mother has been in an emotionally abusive, codependent
relationship for fifty years. This is
not to say that any of them necessarily deserve the negative things in their
lives, but had any or all of them had some sort of intervention by a qualified
mental health professional, maybe it would have been different for each of
us. If only someone had helped them
recognize that their trauma was suggesting all sorts of shitty behavior to
compensate for the shitty things they’d experienced as young people. If only someone had told them they weren’t
the problem, that trauma was the problem, and then helped them work through it.
I think part of why I’ve survived so much in my short life, found
the strength to do the hard work on myself, and continue to struggle with healing,
is to be here to share that regardless of any of the incoming garbage
suggesting otherwise, you are not
the problem. As Amy reminds me
weekly, “people are not problems, people
have problems.” Untreated and unacknowledged trauma and its
effects lead people to create new trauma for themselves and for others; whether
or not they realize this is what’s happening.
It is very much a vicious cycle that must be consciously confronted,
interrupted, and (in the case of my mother’s internalized fat-phobia) must also
be actively resisted.
So then, how in the fuck does one actively resist the
predominant view of fatness and fear of being fat or in the proximity of
fatness? Let me offer some (semi) simple
suggestions:
1. Pay attention to the language you use both
internally and externally and actively change it.
When your mind offers up completely
unprompted comments like, “you’re fat and gross,” literally tell yourself to
“STOP.” Saying it aloud can help a lot
to redirect the neurons in your brain traveling down well-worn pathways. It takes practice!
When criticizing someone else’s body shape or how their clothes fit seems like something you should do, remind yourself that you don’t have to be part of that negativity and tell yourself to “STOP.”
2. Call other people out on their fat-phobic
(& racist, sexist, homophobic, ignorant, etc.) language.
Let them know it’s hurtful, anti-feminist bullshit, that you won’t tolerate it, and let them know why. Even when you hear that stuff in shows or movies, call it out to yourself internally. Remind yourself that it’s bullshit even if you can’t say it aloud.
3. Surround yourself with people who share your
values and will help you resist the garbage.
If you have friends who still make comments
that perpetuate stereotypes and straight up lies about fat people (or anyone
else for that matter), have a chat with them about this. If they make no effort to change and/or can’t
understand why this is important, maybe move on from that person.
This includes TV and social media! Don’t follow celebrities who are drunk on the
toxic messages of society and choosing to use their platforms to perpetuate
those messages. (Ahem,
Kardashians.) Do follow those who are
working to invalidate untrue and harmful perceptions and introduce positive and
factual thought processes (Jameela Jamil).
Here are some Twitter & Instagram accounts
to follow (some handles are only one or the other, some are both):
@yrfatfriend, Michelle Allison- @fatnutritionist, @bodyposipanda, @KivanBay,
Michelle Elman- @ScarredNtScared, @Lizzo, Jameela Jamil- @jameelajamil,
@i_weigh, @Ok2BeFat, @Artists_Ali, Cake Plus-Sized Resale- @cakeplussize, Cat
Polivoda- @CatPolivoda, fiercefatfemme, rachel.cargle, simonemariposa,
chikalogy, mattzhaig, brenebrown
(some of these people are local and host in-person events!)
4. Remind yourself often, that you and others
are not the problem, but that those messages and the trauma they cause are the problem.
You are only human and have absorbed these
ideas via the social environment in which we all developed. None of us, “licked it off the ground,”
(another therapist Amy saying) and we will have to work hard to change it. Although it may feel Sisyphean, observing the
changes that have already happened show us that it’s possible!
