Believe me when I say I’m fat on the inside

Fat people are more than their fat. They have minds and personalities. They have other physical attributes. They have lives.

They’re still fat, even those that are not fat.

Fat is a physical attribute, to be sure, and people have varying degrees of fat Thus, they have varying degrees of fat stigma aimed at them. Being a small fat or not fat at all won’t save you from personal shame at the idea of fat, though, and that is because fat is an internal experience as well as an external one.

I like to cross-dress. Readers of my blog will be aware of this. A handful of people in my offline life are aware of this.

To the average person not in the ‘know,’ I am a cisgendered woman.

I am biologically female with notable male physical attributes and an androgynous mind and personality. I like to dress and androgynous clothes and sometimes in full man drag. I’m good at it too. Sometimes I do it in public but usually it is private. If you were to assign a label to me, I am androgynous/queer transvestite. At one point, when I was going through a particularly masculine phase, I identified as transgender, but as an adult, that is not a totally accurate description of me.

So queer it is.

Well, not everyone agrees, because I spend most of my time presenting as the average cis woman. I have been accused of lying or not doing it right. Never mind that I tell people upright my biological sex and how I present (not that that’s their business.) I’m lying because I do not fit the image of Teh Queers that some people apparently have.

Put aside that my identity is my choice and my business. No one can tell me who I am or how to do ‘me’ right. They can point out that I am privileged over a full-fledged transsexual. Such people are people whose bodies are utterly at odds with their minds, who cannot hide it from others yet are forced to, and whose safety may be at risk if they are found out. Such an observation would be 100% true.

I’m still queer.

Back to my main point, I am queer and a cross-dresser regardless of how I present because it is an *internal* experience first and foremost. One of my favorite outfits is my traditional Catholic schoolgirl outfit. I put my hair in pigtails or ringlets. I might even wear the chapel veil. Despite the fact that this outfit is very much in line with my biological sex, I feel very much like I am cross-dressing when I dress like that. My presentation as the Catholic school girl is very much at odds with my internal gender and I feel like I am playing pretend.

The aspects of my gender that get highlighted when I present as a Catholic schoolgirl are the hyper-feminine ideals of innocence, chastity, classic beauty, sweetness, and obedience. I have hyper-feminine qualities, but they do not constitute all or most of my gender identity. On some days, I feel at home in my plaid skirt and in others, my skin crawls because it is not natural for me to be wearing this.

A more outright cross-dressing experience is when I dress in man drag, either as a business man or a bishop. I embody the personality traits of strength, dignity, and frankness. I like the image of the smart, classy masculine ideal more so than  the butch one (not that there is anything wrong with preferring the butch ideal.) I like it because it in itself defies the ideal for a man. It proves that a man does not need brute strength to be worthwhile and that having an agile mind and noble character is more important.

Of course, feminine women can be dignified, frank, and strong, but there is something about the symbolism of the bishop, or the businessman, that conveys those parts of me better than any feminine costume could.

Cross-dressing has been a passion of mine for much of my life and I love everything about it. But if I had to choose what I love most, it is knowing that, at any given time, no one knows my real gender. At the same time, every time you see me, you get a new taste of my real gender. I am not a doll you can put back in its box but rather a free-flowing energy (if you want to wax poetic.) You can literally be anything you want to be and that is so freeing. No one can guess at me or have preconceived ideas of me, no matter how much they might want to. For those who do not cross-dress, an overwhelming feeling of “special-ness” is the best way to describe it, your own special little secret.

For me, having an obese BMI and being somewhat visibly larger than average has that effect. No one would guess that I have an obese BMI, but I feel a combination of pain and amusement when I hear the typical tropes against fat people right in front of me. They have no idea who they are talking to. When I go clothes shopping, and the salesperson tries to guess my size, I get a similar feeling. When I try on the clothes, other people might not see what the big deal is and might even think I look fabulous. On the inside, though, I feel lousy. I know what size I am really wearing and it is something that I cannot share with other people. I cannot share with others what I see when I look in the mirror.

That’s on a bad day.

On a good day, I see a star that other people have not discovered yet. I sense the power that comes with having a larger than average body that can do some pretty cool things that, again, other people cannot fully appreciate yet. I feel I deserve clothes that do it justice.

FA should center around those who are most stigmatized by fat hatred, namely those who are most fat. However, especially in an age where weight and health hysteria is hitting people at lower and lower weights, lower and lower health indices, and younger and younger ages, FA is for everyone. Fat people are conditioned to feel doomed and to do anything to avoid that doom. Thin people are conditioned, similarly, to feel a sense of impending doom and to stay vigilant. They are fat on the inside because they are taught that, if they aren’t careful, their inner fat will consume them (pun intended).

If I were to lose weight for any reason, part of me would be happy and part of me would be sad. I am okay with whatever my natural weight should be, but I don’t want to lose weight. I have become comfortable in my own skin and am really starting to like it. I also know that I am a bad food or a pound away from being a pariah again. No matter how thin I got, I will remember the abuse I endured for being larger than average and that will always cloud the way I feel about myself and the way I interact with others. No matter how thin I got, people who knew me when I was fat will never let me forget who I used to be and who I should never again become. In that sense, I am fat on the inside.

In order to understand EDs, thin people with body image issues, or to understand anyone who has ever struggled with feeling fat, it is important to remember: fat is an internal experience. Fat is loaded with cultural and emotional implications and there are whole philosophies and lifestyles which are dedicated to avoiding fatness. Fat becomes you, for better or for worse, often because society requires it of you.

Fat may be part of you, but it does not have to define you. If you choose to reclaim it, you can do so on your terms. When I cross-dress, I reclaim and adapt the hyper-feminine ideal. Why not do the same with fat?

 

Heal Thyself, O Clueless One

Tags

education, friends and family, future plans, mental illness, personal, trauma, vocation

Okay, some good news.

I talked to my mother about my moving out and we seem to have come to an understanding. I explained to her how much it sucks to live in a Section 8 building and not be able to own a decent car, work more than a certain number of hours a week, etc. because they will cut you off of assistance. I impressed upon her that I will never get anywhere in life if I stay here, which means she will have to support me forever. Then, in turn, I won’t be able to support her when she needs me. Of course, I don’t intend to support her anyway unless she improves her life, but I didn’t mention that. The sole purpose of this exchange was to make her like the idea and to make moving out as drama-free as possible for me. She seemed really receptive to that idea. The next step is actually making plans to move out and making sure she does not interfere in the process. If you make it sound good for her and assure her that you’re not leaving her all alone, even if it’s not true, she tends to go along. It is unfortunate that my mother thinks like a child, but there are times when it works to your advantage.:)

Turned out better than I had hoped.

The problem is talking to my college counselors about my transfer plans. One of them is great. He pays attention to what you want and what your situation is and try to help you get there. If he likes and believes in you, he will go above and beyond. If I tell him what my situation is emotionally, I think he will be very receptive.

I was originally planning to transfer to a college out of state, but I don’t think this will work now. I want to recover from my trauma and my emotional issues, and this will not happen if I am separated from my psychiatric team, my (supportive) family, and my parish. It is really important to me that I finish receiving my sacraments in the Diocese of Portland (I did not receive them all yet. Church law, yoiu know). I don’t want to have to worry about adjusting to a new state, finding a new job, taking a full course load of upper-level classes, finding a new treatment team, not being near loved ones, having to establish new relationships, extracurriculars and worrying about money, going back home, having a place to live when the campus closes, ad infinitum.

It’s a LOT to take on. Plus, I’m just not prepared. This whole situation has interfered with my education and my work. So I’m really not ready academically and financially to leave here either. I have been falling behind in my classes and have barely touched college prep because I just don’t have the energy to go to interviews, write essays, go to the meetings, take the entrace exams, and all that bullshit. I don’t have transportation, so I can’t do much of the stuff I am supposed to do anyway, which sets me back even further.

Blah blah blah.

There’s this one lady, though, that had given me good advice up until now, and I really like her. Then she said something that pissed me off, and it’s a great example of cluelessness and privilege in action. I explained my (possible) diagnosis of PTSD, the disruption to my life, and all the reasons why I just wasn’t ready to move on. It’s not like I was asking for advice. This is my decision. Deal with it. I was looking for someone to vent to.

She told me that I didn’t want to hang around here and that I would be better off moving on.

NO WAY!!! The problem is that I can’t yet, and forcing myself to move on won’t help. It will only make the symptoms more deeply entrenched. But Jesus, how dumb is that comment? Why is it that when you have mental health issues or are a survivor of trauma, people talk to you like you are stupid?

So I explained why I didn’t want to leave (again). Primarily because I don’t have what I need and I don’t want to leave my support system.

She said, “You can still move out and move to a new place where you can go to college and live the life you want.”

Head meet wall. Did she not hear ANYTHING I just said?

She told me not to worry about money because there were lots of job opportunities where I was going (obviously blissfully unaware of what I said about problems with finding employment and balancing that with schooling.) Besides, you don’t uproot yourself and start a new life without savings. You just don’t.

This is someone who comes from an urban background and has a bachelor’s degree. She has NEVER heard of PTSD. Granted, not everyone will be an expert on it, but in this day and age, who hasn’t at least HEARD of it? Christ! Especially with that kind of background. I’ve known about it since I was a kid. Kids know about it.

She told me something I already knew and that she had told me before anyway, that there was a great Catholic center at one of the colleges I was looking at. It was very supportive so I wouldn’t have to worry(!)

Hello! That requires time to hang out at the center, which I won’t have, and it requires the skills and energy to establish a WHOLE NEW support system. And when you become attached to a parish, they become your family and you don’t just fucking leave them. Especially when they are the only real family you have.

Yeah, I’m sure the Catholic center is great. It looks great. I’m excited to go there WHEN I AM READY! That’s IF I go to that college. I might go somewhere else.

So I summed it up, getting ready to end the conversation.

“I just want to recover to some degree first from all this mess.”

Then comes the most incredible comment of all: “Well, you’ll still have it six months from now. What’s the big deal?”

Uh, the big deal is you don’t leave mental health symptoms untreated and you don’t toss a newly diagnosed mental patient head first into the clusterfuck that is Teh Real World. My symptoms have already gone untreated for some time now and they have gotten worse. Fail.

Fail fail fail.

Then again, if you are a normal person with a normal life, it doesn’t make sense to you, does it? Why don’t those crazies stop being so goddamn crazy? It’s so much more fun!

So what are you doing to control your eating?

Just about every fat person alive, at least in the Western world, has been accused of overeating and members of the Fat-o-sphere can testify to the fallacy of that claim. I want to share a personal story about how fat prejudice diminishes the quality of care of those with mental health issues. Actually, it is a random collection of anecdotes and observations, but it has been bothering me as of late.

Fat people get depressed because, well, fat people have feelings. I know that’s a novel concept to many of my non-FA readers, but look at that! Whenever a visibly fat person walks into a helping professional’s office and claims depression, it is likely she (I say ‘she’ because women are especially victimized by this) will be asked what she is doing to fix her weight problem. The assumption, of course, is that fat people are depressed, universally, because of their weight. It does not occur to anyone that fat people could be depressed for the same reasons that so-called normal people are depressed-or, if a person’s weight is the reason, that the problem is the stigma associated with her weight, not her weight in itself. I hate it, particularly, when articles about the improvement of self-esteem and self-concept discuss diet and exercise as a way to be slim, healthy, and accomplished. What they are basically saying is that, in order to improve your self-esteem, you should hate your body and seek to change it to feel better about it? If I were to give a redhead or a naturally introverted person the same advice to change to be better regarded by others, I would, rightfully, get an earful. Yet this treatment is par for the course for fat people.

A trend that I have been seeing in health articles, especially mental health articles, that disturbs me is the near ubiquitous “lifestyle” advice that is offered for every imaginable problem. Eat a healthy diet-not just a healthy diet, but The Healthy Diet. There is no room for meeting individual needs-physical or emotional.  Then there is exercise, but not just exercise. It must be Exercise (TM) and it has to be vigorous and routine. Yes, diet and exercise have a role in overall well-being for all people, but these articles act as though diet and exercise as wonder drugs for all that ails you. The amount of attention paid to these two behavior vastly overstates their importance.

Once you have regained functioning, it is a good idea to have a diet, a workable (and enjoyable) exercise regimen, and adequate sleep to maintain energy and mood. It keeps you occupied and can help stave off obsessions and troubling thoughts. I’m not knocking the health benefits of these lifestyle factors. However, they are not quick fixes any more than medication is a quick fix. To ask a person with major depression to get up out of bed and go for a jog, or to ask someone with anxiety to just relax and go to sleep, makes about as much sense as asking the rain not to fall. You are asking them to achieve a (seemingly) impossibly mighty effort. This is just another offshoot of the idea that we bring ill health on ourselves and that we could change it if only we were better people somehow. Plus, there very often is veiled fat hatred in such pronouncements as evidenced by comments about how your “self-image” (weight) will improve, how  you will avoid “ill health” (fatness) down the road, and so on. “Excess” weight and excess depression, whether as a cause or an effect, are forever connected in their consciousness.

Diet and exercise can be part of health management, but they do not treat anxiety, depression, OCD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. They don’t treat any mental health conditions, and the advice to live a better lifestyle is really basic, banal, and applies to everyone. It doesn’t need to get so much attention. Can we stop bringing up lifestyle in every  discussion on health out there? If you have something new, then share it, but if it is just the general “Eat well and get moving,” enough already!

Now for my personal stories…

Personally, I am depressed. I am extremely depressed and it has been worse lately. I do not get along well with my mother and sister and they can be very emotionally abusive. My father has bipolar psychosis and does not always remember to take his meds, he has his own trauma, and lives in poverty. It’s a crap shoot whether I am talking to my father, Oscar the Grouch, or Eeyore when I call him. He doesn’t even live near me, so when I DO avoid both Oscar the Grouch and Eeyore and talk to my father, he cannot be there. I live in a semi-rural area with no car or public transport, can’t do much of anything because of that, am struggling financially like too many people these days, and I feel very much like I live in a cage. My family doesn’t even know my religious affiliation because I kept the whole thing secret. I miss my old parish, my old friends and my old priest something awful and I feel like it is just another thing I am not allowed to have in my life. I keep in touch with them, but it is not the same as having someone consistently in your life.

By the way, in addition to depression, anxiety, and a developmental disability, I was told I might have PTSD and OCD. While I do have florid psychosi features and am moody, this is a function of trauma and obsessiveness, not with any actual perception of reality. So I am not schizophrenic, nor do I have  bipolar (at least not yet. It takes longer to develop in women.) Good news!!!

My blog is pretty much it for letting it out. That and my artwork, stories, etc.

Anyway, last week, I lost it. I wasn’t in public, and I kept it a secret, but I still lost it and it is humiliating to think of how much I lost it. First of all, I had not slept at all, or slept very little, for the past week that week. I had one or two nights of good sleep and the night before I broke down, I had not slept at all. I started crying hysterically for no reason except that My Life Sucks and I have no one to talk to. I was crying so hard  that I threw up (or would have thrown up if I had eaten anything). I was retching, had a splitting headache that lasted well into the next day, horrible chest pain, a red face and swollen red eyes. I was talking to myself and nothing I said was making sense and I had trouble standing upright. I looked and acted, literally, like I was tweaking on meth. I tried to go for a walk to calm down and I’m just glad there were no cops around to see me.

Anyway, the first and obvious solution was to sleep. Part of the reason I was tweaking was because I had not slept. So I did that, and the next morning, I called my father and talked to him. Granted, I was talking to Eeyore, but at least I got to talk. The next time he called, he was my father again and was more engaging. I got it off my chest and that’s what I care about.

My next step is finding someone to talk to consistently and go about freeing myself from my living situation. That’s the long and short of the problem right there. No amount of medication, no lifestyle change will fix the isolation and the circumstantial pressures that I live with. Once I get out and create my own life, I can go to therapy, possibly take medication to take the edge off, and move on. I have started to formulate a plan as to how to make this happen, the first step of which is to get a car. There is a full-time job opening at my college in the office that I work in as a work study and I have excellent recommendations from the heads of department for that office. I like to think that God has been waiting all this time to give me a very special reward, but we’ll see. I hope so.

Wow, that was a tangent! Back to my original point, which is that it is hard to get people to listen to you and take you seriously if you are fat.

Here I am not talking about any specific incidents, just general advice I  have been given.

I eat little when I am depressed or anxious and I don’t exercise much either. I don’t want to go out because I don’t want to tweak in front of other people. One of the first things people ask you if you have mental health issues  is what your lifestyle is like or what you have tried doing about it. When I tell them I don’t get out much and don’t have energy, that’s when it goes to Hell.

Aha! She does not exercise! Well, you wouldn’t be depressed or apathetic if you got up off your fat ass! They don’t say that, but that’s what they mean.

How do you exercise when lifting your head makes you want to curl up and die from exhaustion alone? When you have paranoia and anxiety about being outside in the company of others? Oh, that’s right-sheer willpower.

Then I am asked about my diet. I tell them I don’t eat much and then she asks if I am sure. I should probably keep a diary, blah blah blah. I’m Not Thin, don’t exercise, and am depressed, so I must be overeating and bingeing on junk food. I can’t get help if people refuse to acknowledge what my problems are.

So I am told that diet and exercise will improve my self-image and it will get better. Yeah, whatever.

When I discussed the issue of medication for my mother, one of the first things she said to me was, “Thank God. I think that would be so helpful in addressing your eating compulsion.”

Uh…wha…?

“You’ll have so much more energy and be thinner and you’ll feel so much better about yourself!”

Yeah, that’s my most pressing concern. Not about going without food for days or heat for two months in the winter. Not having a slew of years-old untreated  medical problems (all minor, but still, that shit adds up.) Not being a victim of educational and emotional neglect for much of my childhood. Not having a father that terrorized me, threatened to kill my pets and himself right in front of me. Not having a sister that bullied me, a mother with an ED, or being totally isolated or living in poverty or anything like that. I want to get down to that magic dress size without which no joy can be had. Screw that!

On top of that, I tried to talk to someone about my mother’s and my sister’s EDs and how they are projecting them onto me. I talked about the damage it is doing to me emotionally and the first thing she said was that, “They didn’t look sick! You know, some people are naturally thin, Joanna, and it’s not fair to judge!”

Wow, some people are naturally thin! I had NO idea! Thank you so very much! And you don’t need to “look sick” to be sick. Most people don’t look sick but on the inside, they are dying. You can be a 400-lb anorexia or a 90-lb compulsive overeater.

I found out later this woman had been talking to my psychiatrist suggesting that I have binge eating disorder. I used to hoard food because I went without as a child, but the more autonomy I have around food, the less I hoard. I also do not necessary eat the food and rarely eat it all at once. Anyway, there is no evidence that I have any sort of ED. Eating while fat is not sufficient for a diagnosed of BED. So I was looking at being diagnosed for something totally other than what I had and getting a totally fucked up treatment plan out of that.

I’m sorry this was so long-winded, but I wanted to share this and point out how fat prejudice diminished quality of care. You already know that, but I thought these examples were too egregious to ignore.

It’s not always about you.

Tags

lost causes, trauma and recovery

Before I begin the subject of my post, I want to post a random rant because I am in a kind of a crappy mood.

Has someone, usually a parent, ever gotten in your face about something and they wouldn’t let it go? Then, when you are sick and tired of their non-stop bitching, you yell, “OKAY!”

Then they reply with the (idiotic) response, “NO, IT’S NOT OKAY!”

That’s totally, obviously, not the correct use of the word ‘okay’ in that particular context and they should know that. When someone yells “Okay” in that context, they are not saying, “The problem is okay, so don’t get upset.” What they are saying is, “Okay, I heard you, now get the fuck out of my face.”

‘Okay’ in this instance means ‘yes,’ not ‘not a problem.’

Why don’t people realize how fucking stupid this sounds and why don’t they stop saying it?

Another thing I hate is when people make me repeat themselves rather than listening the first time. No, you won’t always hear or understand what is being said, and that’s okay, but make the effort. It’s the not trying that pisses me off. This means look at me, don’t do something else, and don’t interrupt me! Maybe if you let me finish a sentence, you would get what I was saying, douche bag.

Now for the substance of this post…

I’m done with therapy.

I will continue to search for the right therapist with the right approach, but right now, I’m fed up.

Lately, I feel like therapy, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy, is an excuse to blame the victim. If someone is actually wrong with the way you think or act, then CBT can be a Godsend. It can re-teach you not to have those obsessive thoughts and to think more logically about the possibilities of something bad happening and to find other ways of dealing with it besides acting out obsessions.

If you are in a couples or family therapy, it is the same thing. What attitudes and behaviors are causing the conflict? What can you change?

The problem is that this type of therapy is predicated on three assumptions:

-That the problem is at least partially about you

-That you have the power to change it

-That the other person is as willing to change as you are

This is very often true in healthy couples and healthy parent-child relationships.

It is NOT possible when one of the partners is an abuser and the other partner, almost by definition, has no power to change anything. When you ask an abused person to stand up to her abuser, you are basically asking her to expose herself to more abuse. And if her friends, transportation, money, and resources for self-improvement have been taken from her by the abuser, this is a risk that she cannot take.

No, abuse does not always stop once you stand up for yourself. Some people will back down and say, “Shit, I better not mess with this person.” Others will escalate in an attempt to keep you down. How far should someone go to stand up for themselves anyway? Having all her money taken away? Being viciously slandered in order to alienate her from her friends? Getting stabbed a few times?

Would you take that chance? I don’t think so.

Frankly, especially in an age where knowledge of psychology is a thing for casual conversation, much of the advice is been there, done that and no duh.

Have you tried telling her how you feel?

No WAY! Why didn’t I think of that?

In some cases, you might not have taken the advice, but you don’t bother because you know it won’t go over well. If you have seen the way your abuser reacts to criticism, are you REALLY going to take the risk that comes with that behavior? Should I?

Another common, crazy-making gaslighting tactic that therapists use is to insist that you are misinterpreting things or that the other person ‘did not mean it that way’ or that she ‘meant well.’

I am sick, sick to death, of people justifying cruel sadistic behavior on the basis that someone else ‘meant well.’ I know someone who had complications from a bowel condition she had and she would regularly soil herself.

In response, her mother would not ask her what was wrong, relieve her pain, or get help for her. She refused to get her help, laughed at and insulted her when she was soiling or in excruciating pain from her symptoms, and tell all her friends all the details and make sure no one helped her because she was doing it on purpose. When it was time to do laundry, the girl’s mother would rub her face in the dirty underwear and refuse to buy more. She would have to wear the dirty underwear to school. Her mother encouraged other kids and the girl’s older sister to make fun of her.

This woman does not have any deep issues except that she is a sadist. There is no misinterpreting that woman’s actions.

But what have therapists and counselors suggested to her? That she was misinterpreting it. A mother would never do that, oh no.

Some people cannot accept that some people are just cruel and sadistic and they abuse others because they enjoy it and they feel entitled to do it. I don’t care what deep psychological issues someone has when she engages in depraved behavior, behavior that everyone with a brain and a conscience should know better than to engage in regardless of what issues they have.

I get a similar response whenever I talk about weight issues. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass if someone is “concerned” about me. If I ask you not to comment on my weight or lifestyle and I don’t have have serious illnesses, then I expect you to respect that. A failure to do so is a deliberate decision to not respect my boundaries, and I am fed up with putting up with it because so-and-so “meant well.”

Much of the time, they don’t really mean well either. How is it meaning well when someone tells you they think you are ugly when you are fat? When they demean you and accuse you of lying when you talk about your lifestyle, or when they suggest you could use a little anorexia?

How does a parent mean well when she starves her children to death or over-exert them like a so-called well-meaning grandfather did recently?

I have heard people suggest that such people are a tragic product of a culture that hates fat. That may very well be true to some extent, but there is no excuse whatsoever for an intellectually normal, non-psychopathic person to think this is acceptable. I have limited sympathy for adults like this or for parents like this. I am naturally a very sympathetic person and I emphasize forgiveness, but I wish we would stop making excuses for this sort of behavior. Any idiot could tell you that these parents, and the aforementioned grandfather, would going to kill these kids. Understanding and forgiveness can only happen when the behavior is acknowledged, when it is corrected, and when the trauma is healed.

There needs to be the right time for forgiveness. Forgiveness also does not entail erasing the victim by telling them it did not happen the way they said it did or telling them they need to get over it.

When it comes to abusers and people that just don’t respect you or your boundaries, it is useless to try to get along with them or discuss anything with them. The only real solution is to leave.

It’s NOT always about you. Sometimes, it really is about them.

Personal Rant: WTF is wrong with some people?!?!

Tags

friends and family, personal dramas

As the title suggests, this is a personal rant about some truly stupid people in my life.

I know someone that is actually jealous of someone with terminal muscular dystrophy because he does not have to work. This is the kind of person who hates working and who sponges off of disability money from a back injury he got years ago. (It’s ALWAYS a back injury, doncha know?) He actually told this guy, another casual acquaintance, that he should be thankful he has this disease because he gets to live on disability (which pays crap wages and you’re better off working anyway.)

What…the…fuck?

This next, related rant is about one of my relatives. My sister is jealous of me because when I was going to community college, I got to go to school for free. She is jealous of me because she has to pay student loans and has to pay bills.

What she conveniently forgets is that I live on less than $2000 a year, with another relative who is seriously emotionally disturbed and who also lives on sub-poverty wages. I have no car, physical health problems, a mental handicap, no health insurance, and I DO pay bills-insurance, medical, transportation, and I was paying for my own prepaid phone for a while, which was eating into my finances big time. I have been working all this time despite not having a car and not having a car pretty much guarantees that I will never get any farther than I am now until I either get a car or move someplace with public transport. I also go to a community college in an area where poverty is rampant, there are next to no jobs, and the classes and activities offered by this college are extremely limited. It offers the basics and little else. I have had to drop classes for lack of transportation. I had to pay my own therapy bills…during a period when I was unemployed…yeah.

My sister has a boyfriend to help out with expenses and has had a car since she was sixteen. It was PAID FOR IN FULL by my father. She has health insurance and access to public transport, a job, and opportunities where she is. She has NO health problems or handicaps. She is still sponging off of my father for phone bills (and car insurance, I think). She got to go to three really expensive four-year schools and to travel the world. She had some financial help for this from my father.

I by contrast had next to no mobility until recently. Forget about extra-curriculars, traveling, or any time to socialize or anyone to socialize with.

Oh, and BTW, I will still have to take out an assload of loans so I can finish my education.

Even though it sounds like I am complaining in this post, my life is pretty good for what it is. I have some great opportunities coming up with regard to college and am planning for that. I got two jobs too. (I’m a work study, so I am only allowed so many hours, and this new job won’t offer much more in time. The pay is better, though). Since I can go to school full-time again, I will have health insurance.

The point is that this person has the nerve to accuse me of sponging and to be JEALOUS of me. She thinks I could be working more (Believe me, I would if I could) because she works two jobs. (Uh, I do too, plus full-time schooling and some volunteer work). She DID NOT do anywhere near that much when she was in school. She got to have fun.

But, you know, she’s almost thirty and she has to pay actual bills now. So I’m going to trade places with a mentally ill relative who lives in a backwater, in social isolation, on $300 a month and who has, well, almost nothing materially.

Yeah, makes sense to me.

PS I don’t begrudge my sister these benefits. Hell, I wish I had  them. I just resent her making unfounded assumptions and implying that I’m not trying hard enough or doing something wrong. I could also use less of her complaining about how ordinary demands of life are SO incapacitating and how I have it made somehow (!) Privilege is a bitch.

Quick Hit: How the Vatican Operates

Tags

Catholicism, humor

Someone comes along and states the obvious within earshot of a bishop. The bishop is offended and tattles on said person to Rome.

Rome gets offended.

Person states her case and does not back down.

Five days later, a papal bull arrives stating, “You are hereby excommunicated, you heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church and you should burn in Hell forever and ever!”

Five weeks later, the heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church who should burn in Hell forever and ever presents herself for communion at another parish. She is denied, with the parting comments:

“You are excommunicated you heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church and you should burn in Hell forever and ever!”

Five months later, she goes to yet another parish, STILL not repenting for the sin of dissent, and she gets the same response: “You are excommunicated you heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church and you should burn in Hell forever and ever!”

Five years later, after being in hiding, she moves to a remote village and attends Mass there. She presents herself for Communion and the priest says, “The Body of…wait, are you the heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church who should burn in Hell forever and ever?”

Five decades later, people are mourning her death and some people continue to hold a grudge against her. However, some are starting to ask, “You know, she was a bit of a rabble-rouser and I’m not sure I agree with her, but was she really a heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church who should burn in Hell forever and ever?”

Five centuries later, a parade and a lavish feast are held at the Vatican in the name of the heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church who was going to burn in Hell forever and ever with the parting comments: “Today we celebrate the life, legacy, and miracles of this faithful, obedient, humble woman of God who we know, and have ALWAYS known, of course, is being rewarded in Heaven forever and ever!”

Brought to you by your favorite heretic, apostate, schismatic stain on the sanctity of the Holy Church. Who of course will burn in Hell forever and ever.

Oh, by the way, I was invited by church officials to a bonfire, but you have to bring your own kindling. Who’s with me?:)

Food Feeds People

Tags

food issues, self-care, snobbery

Food feeds people. This is hardly a radical statement on its face, but in our culture, it needs to be said again and again.

Food feeds people, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Today, admitting that you like food and the act of eating is tantamount to admitting to a love of heroin and the act of shooting up. We are not allowed to enjoy food or eating because then we might overeat and become fat. If we allow ourselves to enjoy stereotypically unhealthy foods, we will eat ourselves into disability. An inability to stop oneself from moderate eating is viewed as addictive behavior. (The fact that food is necessary for life is not considered.) Anyone who is aware of the physiology and psychology of addiction knows better than to equate an enjoyment of food, even to the point of eating *gasp* seconds, with addiction.

Then again, I paid good money for this pitchfork and I aim to use it.:)

I can’t decide who is more insufferable-those who bemoan their inability to not enjoy eating or those who have successfully conquered their desire to eat, moreso when the foods being given up are “bad” foods. This is how the conversation generally goes:

Person A: Do you want any pizza/ice cream/insert naughty food item here?

Person B: No, I’ve given up all that stuff.

Person A: Really? Why?

Person B: I’m on a diet/want to get healthier.

Person A: Wow, isn’t it hard?

Person B: No, I don’t miss it. It’s all garbage anyway and you realize once you’ve eaten real food how unnecessary it is.

Person A: You have so much willpower! I’m so jealous.

I hate these conversations. More than anyone will ever know. I can’t say anything, of course, because then I am just another jealous fat-ass who wants to justify her gluttony and tear down that poor courageous dieting soul for being so much better than I am.

No one is obligated to like anything too sweet, sour, bitter, salty, too filling, too light, or anything else that doesn’t strike your fancy or meet your feeding needs. If I offer someone a sip of my mocha latte and she declines because it is too sweet for her, I am not personally offended by this. If you tell me, a die-hard chocolate lover, that you don’t eat chocolate because it is too bitter or too filling, that wouldn’t bother me.

What does bother me is that in these conversations, the only foods that are attacked are those foods considered “bad” by our culture and the comments are more than just expressions of personal taste. They are veiled insults aimed at those that do like those foods. Anytime someone offers a comment that pretends to be an opinion but that is really a personal attack on someone else is an occasion to take offense. However, in our virulently healthist culture, these comments take on a whole new meaning entirely.

Under any other circumstances, you might roll your eyes and fight the urge to tell them to zip it. We’re trying to have a good time here and no one cares anyway. There’s a time and place to bitch and there’s a time and place to let it go and relax.

Healthist comments in and of themselves are mere annoyances at which you just roll your eyes and kindly reply, “Let it go.” When healthist comments are made against the backdrop of a deeply healthist culture, they are so much more. They are personal attacks that cut into your worth as a person. The implication is that you are too stupid to know what is good for you and too incompetent to keep away. You are too degenerate to care about the damage you are causing yourself and others, even if no damage is in evidence, or to at least admit you are wrong. You are too lazy to make the effort to be as righteous as I am. You are what you eat, and if what you eat is junk, then…

Healthism disgusts and infuriates me. Those who feel that the need and the desire to eat are sins that must be overcome make me sad. Those who cannot or will not enjoy eating make me sad, too. You have only one life, and there is so much joy to be found in what life has to offer, big or small. Food is one of those small, and for those fortunate people who don’t live in poverty, easily accessible pleasures. Food feeds people, and it can feed you too.

Food feeds people physically. It provides you with the energy and nutrients you need to survive, thrive, and lead an active life. It relieves hunger pains, dizziness, and fatigue. It is essential to the management of countless medical conditions like diabetes. Filling, flavorful foods make mealtimes easier for those who suffer loss of appetite because of illness or who conditions restrict what they can tolerate. For those who find eating painful or otherwise difficult, having a few culinary treasures makes the effort worthwhile.

Food feeds people mentally. Food gives us the energy to think and remember. When food is restricted, it becomes an obsession and our obsession makes us depressed, irritable, and irrational. When we feed ourselves regularly, we are allowed to have lives outside of food and to have control over our emotions. Food is intellectually stimulating for those preparing it. It is a challenge to prepare food safely, properly, and to experiment with new ideas. Creating a dining atmosphere and giving food attractive presentations stimulates our aesthetic senses.

Food feeds people emotionally. It is something we can prepare and share with others. It is a modest pleasure whose taste, texture, and fill can give you a pick-me-up when you’re down, bored or want to celebrate. Giving food, i.e. agreeing to nourish someone, is a way to show others you care and being fed is a sign of being cared for by others. Making and presenting food gives us pride and it is fun to do. On the other hand, food can be easy if that’s what you want. Lots of foods can be heated up and eaten and others don’t need any preparation at all. Food is a benchmark of security. When you have a full pantry, you can take a breath and know that it one less thing you need to be concerned with.

Food feeds us spiritually. When Catholics consume the bread and wine offered at Mass, they consume the body and blood of Christ and become one with His holiness. When Jews celebrate the Passover, they eat matzoh bread as a way to commemorate the pains taken by their people while fleeing slavery in Egypt. When pagans consume an apple, they are reminded of the Divine Energy that allowed that apple to exist. When people of faith obey fast and abstinence guidelines, the guidelines proposed have spiritual significance. Jewish people don’t eat leavened bread for Passover because their ancestors did not have time to wait for the bread to rise. If they waited, they could be caught and punished. For religious people, food is a blessing by the Creator and something to be happy about.

The bottom line is food is essential not just to live, not just to be healthy, but to nourish your whole self. You can choose to deny yourself food, but people who do that tend to starve. Humans are *designed* to want to eat, and this is a *good* thing.

So how has food nourished you today? I want to know.

Sentimental Saturday: It’s Not Hard

Tags

friends and family, trauma and recovery

“How could you?” is one of those hard-hitting, classic questions. When uttered in exactly that way, it is usually in reference to something unconscionable. More commonly, we ask “How could/can you possibly do X?” with regard to something exceptionally good or difficult.

“How can you manage such a busy schedule?”

“How could you face your fear of public speaking like that? All those people? Wow.”

My personal favorite is “How can you forgive someone for saying/doing such horrible things?”

I have had this question asked of me, and I have had people tell me how “big” I am for not feeling hostility for my father after the way he treated me and for wanting to be with him. My mother has told me, time and time again, how “sweet” it was that I was willing to forgive. My response is always “It’s not hard.”

It really isn’t hard.

My father has long since apologized to me and stopped doing what he was doing We have been close for years and it would take much more than what he had done to separate himself from me. He was ill at the time he did what he did. Basically, I had a choice: I could choose a grudge or I could choose my father. I could choose to carry this burden forever or I could be free from it and move on.

People experiencing ongoing abuse sometimes hear the word “forgiveness” and they immediately think of victim-blaming,  ignoring the problem, and denying you a right to your voice and your feelings. This is not my intent at all, as you will see.

Granted, I did what I did because what happened to me happened and was over. It is not possible to forgive conflicts that are ongoing. If someone in your life insists on causing offense to you and on your complacence, you are not obligated to take this. I love my mother. She has some positive qualities and has done good things. She has also neglected and abused me and continues, in some ways, to not give me the respect I deserve while demanding deference from me. Forgiveness does not mean a refusal to challenge that which is wrong, but the *openness* to let go and love again after. I might challenge my mother, be upset with her, and separate myself from her, but I will never stop trying to reach out to her and to get her to see the consequences of her actions. I will never totally stop loving her and should she one day decide to change, I will be open to her and will forgive her completely the sins of the past.*

Love and respect do not necessarily equate to forgiveness. I believe in affording every person a most basic level of love and respect simply for being a human life, and I would not ever rejoice in a person’s pain, loss, or death. Temporarily, if I am angry at someone, I might fantasize about it but I could never actually do it. Basic reverence does not mean you have to forget wrong, trust that person, or enjoy that person’s company.

Anyway, my father now has my full forgiveness and I have a great relationship with him now. And it wasn’t hard.

However, despite my strong propensity to favor forgiveness over holding a grudge, there is one person against whom I routinely hold a grudge.

Me.

I hold grudges against myself over lots of things-lies I told years ago, the times I offended someone inadvertently, the times I planned on doing something but never did it, not being who I wanted to be, etc. You name it, I hate myself for it from time to time.

Over the past few years, I have often hated myself for being fat.

It is not that I think I ate or slothed myself into fatness, but that I feel like a shadow of the former self that could wear a size 10 in juniors (when I was 14, aka pre-pubescent.) In every other respect, I am better than the person I was at 14-more mature, more intellectual, more industrious, more sensitive, and more articulate. I am otherwise happy with my appearance.

I  still feel less than.

I still feel a twinge of guilt when I go for the “bad fatty” foods or when I realize how little I have exercised lately. I still feel like I lack control over my body, my mental state, and my life as a whole. I blame myself for this. After all, if I exercised more and ate a little less of the “bad foods,” I could at least be somewhat thinner and closer to my ideal self.

I blame myself for secretly thinking that because I am fat, I should not wear or do this or that. I hate myself for using “fat” as an insult, like big fat moron. I have never, not once, said these things out loud to myself or anyone else. My visceral reaction, however, that visceral reaction towards the word ‘fat’ we are seemingly born with it is so ingrained, was still one of disfavor.

I still have these feelings after “converting” to fat acceptance, but I am much less apt to feel this way. I have long since learned something about myself.

Someone’s person, body and mind, are sacred. Not just in the religious sense, but in the sense that it is something to be revered. It houses YOU, a special, unique person! You have you OWN DNA that includes programming for body size and shape. No one has the right to assert superiority over you over something as random shallow as genetics.

The next step is learning just what weight loss methods do to the body and the attitudes implicit in these acts. The act of dieting sends the message that your genetics are inferior, and that the body that houses that special person called you isn’t good enough. Most insidious of all, there needs to be LESS of that body.

Once  I accepted that I would rather have a father than a grudge, I chose my father and forgave him. Over time, you learn that you have two choices with regard to your body. You can choose love and freedom. Or you can choose to bear the burden of hatred and *create* an ongoing conflict with yourself. Once you see the body as being a sacred vessel, once you learn what intentional weight loss does to that vessel and how weight loss messages desecrate it, you can “forgive” yourself for the culturally imposed sin of being fat and really start to live.

It’s not hard.

*Unfortunately, if your mother is a narcissist, psychopath, or has some other personality disorder, this might never be possible. In this event, being able to forgive *yourself* is where your focus needs to be.

You need a bigger shirt.

Tags

fashion, fat life

How often have you heard that line?

When you go into a store, people tell you that they don’t carry your size. Relatives tell you, like you don’t already know, when you’ve put on weight. They might also tell you just to wear bigger shirts.

No one explains why. They are attractive and comfortable to you (whether it looks that way to anyone else is 100% irrelevant.) The garment covers you. If you are going to a place that has a dress code, your outfit meets the dress code. So what gives?

What they simply don’t have the courage to explain is that it makes you look…fat.

If someone thinks a garment makes you look fat, that suddenly means that it does not fit you and that you cannot wear it.

I have had this conversation with my mother countless times. Most of my clothes fit me just fine. Some, especially the jeans, are uncomfortable when you first put them on after a wash, but that’s hardly unusual. Otherwise, if I like how they look and I can move in them, they’re staying in my wardrobe.

Still, my mother thinks I should not have them because people can see that I’m fat. My breasts are too big, people can see my back fat, or they can see some rolls.

My mother is exaggerating, of course. She has a morbid fear of fat on herself so she is hyper-vigilant about fat in others. She is the type of person that thinks her life and her opinions represent those of the entire world and she lives in constant fear that someone somewhere won’t like her or approve of her.

I, on the other hand, am miles past getting other people’s approval for anything. Anyway, what the hell am I supposed to wear? Tents?

If people are that concerned about my fat ass, then that is all they’ll see regardless of what I’m wearing.

Oh, and by the way, breasts grow independently from the rest of your body. Having large breasts does NOT necessarily mean you are putting on weight anywhere else. Tiny women also have racks of doom.

Anyone who asks me to wear a tent to cover my fat can go fuck themselves.

Does anyone remember when it was somewhat okay and perfectly normal to have bra-related back fat or a muffin top and not have it be cause for apocalyptic meltdowns on the part of *everyone?*

Or is that just me?

Get this: I don’t wanna talk about that!

Tags

blogging, self-determination

I don’t agree with or approve of much of what appears on the internet, and you might feel the same way.You may or may not feel compelled to address something from time to time if it is unusually bothersome to you.

At the same time, the internet is largely a free speech zone, as it should be, and people have the right to delineate what goes on in their spaces. Should you desire to challenge something, then you should start your own online space and do that rather than derail discussions. For people who are entering social justice blog spheres for the first time, especially if you don’t agree with the social cause they are advocating, it’s tempting for them to barge in and tell them how the world works or tell them what they SHOULD be writing about.

I’m a feminist. I’m also a men’s rights activist, and I am not afraid to admit it. I am not afraid to criticize feminist doctrine or factions of the feminist movement…

BUT…and this is a big ‘but’…

I’m hardly a hard-line MRA. Hard-line MRAs might be far to the left or far to the right, but what they have in common is a genuine hatred of women and either a denial or minimization of women’s issues. Some will deny that women have ever been oppressed in the past or that women were the oppressors of men. Besides being alienating and hurtful to me as a woman, it’s just plain unhinged…especially when coming from other women like Connie Chastain. I removed the False Rape Society from my blog roll because of this mentality, and I LOVE the work that they do in speaking for those who are falsely accused of rape and domestic violence.

I’m not a hard-line feminist. I do not adhere to the notion that our society is a patriarchy in which men as a class are collectively oppressive of women as a class. I do not always agree with feminist scholarship or characterization of issues like rape, domestic violence, and women in the workplace. I sure as hell don’t listen to factions that “us” men or women as groups of people that magically share one experience around which a central ideology can be advanced.

I think, if you look at the whole of the human society, most people are moderates on most issues but we don’t hear about them either because they cannot be heard or they are too occupied with everyday lives to get involved in online discussions. This creates an unfortunate phenomenon in which those who are online are the radicals and they pile the fuck on your every word, whether or not it’s relevant to the discussion, and usually mutilate it into a shadow version of its former self. Then they pretend it came from you and express righteous indignation. They seem to have forgotten that they ARE on the internet, and the whole world can see that they are full of it.

Back to the topic, these people frequently seek out blogs that they disagree with and tell them that they are wrong, that the issues they discuss are not important, and ask why you don’t talk about what interests *them.*

It happens all the time when feminism and the MRM are being discussed. If I or some other blogger discuss women’s experiences with abortion or alienation in the workforce, some MRA will barge in and complain that it’s not that big a deal (and he knows this how?), that it didn’t happen the way I thought it did, and I ought to be more concerned about *insert men’s issue here.*

Conversely, I could be discussing my experience with false accusations and being silenced in a domestic violence program, and a feminist might barge in and say sorry, but male-on-female abuse is really much worse than what I was witness to. Why can’t I talk about the real issue?

Here’s the deal: I don’t WANT to talk about that right now. I would be happy to talk about it some other time and I probably already have, but right now, I want to do something else. And I will thank you very much not to tell me what’s important to write about and what isn’t and how to write my blog.

In fat acceptance, you might be blogging about the rise of eating disordered behavior as a result of obesity interventions and the difficulties of recovery in a diet-obsessed culture. I can guarantee you that someone will demand that you focus on the health implications of obesity because that’s the REAL health issue that plaguing us today, not the (insignificant) few who have eating disorders. God forbid we talk about something other than the utter hideousness of fat.

In discussions of fat activism, bloggers are often chastised for excluding thinner women and that this is about accepting ALL people, you know! I won’t argue that shame for being thin is any better than shame for being fat, the stigma of being fat has far more cultural reinforcement than any shameful notions of being thin and…I don’t want to talk about that right now. Maybe next week, I can write a post about the intersection of body size and culture in other cultures where fat is more desirable. I could also talk about how those with eating disorders are treated for their thinness or behavior, here or elsewhere on the globe. Right now, I want to talk about fat stigma in Western culture…is that okay with you?

In my personal life, when I talk about the religious persecution of Eastern Catholics in the Middle East and China, I get the trope that Christians aren’t oppressed in America. They simply think they are being oppressed because they aren’t allowed to do whatever they want and run roughshod over other people’s religious (or non-religious) rights.

Well, my friend…I wasn’t TALKING about Catholics in the US (and you know the Ku Klux Klan persecuted Catholics during their heyday, right?) I was talking about Catholics elsewhere in the world where the religious and political dynamics are very different. Oh, and by the way, nine times out of ten, the people they are complaining about are not Catholics but fundamentalist Protestants. There is quite a bit of difference between the two factions. Elsewhere on my blog, you can read any  number of posts promoting a separation of Church and state and decrying religious fundamentalism. I would be happy to hear comments there.

I never liked privilege checklists or lectures on the subjects of privilege because, despite people’s claims to the contrary, you ARE making it about the privileged. You’re writing a post about how they allegedly benefit from your disadvantages and how they allegedly think and act. On top of that, assumptions are being made about how the DISprivileged think and act, which many minorities object to.

For example, I don’t like people assuming that because I am bisexual, that I consider gay marriage an important part of my activism or that I should want it for myself. I respect personal privacy, choice, and a separation between Church and state, and I support gay marriage on those grounds. At the same time, I am not a fan of it personally and I don’t like how gay rights has become synonymous with gay marriage.

To make, essentially, a list of assumptions and accusations directed at a group of people and get offended when said privileged group of people react accordingly is a bit rich. Even more rich is when people claim that when they write these posts that they “aren’t talking about them.” If you write, say, a thin privilege or able-bodied privilege checklist, that repeatedly references or sometimes directly addresses (“As a thin person, you can count on…”) thin or able-bodied people, how are you magically *not* talking about them?

I can see where the defensiveness comes from in discussions  like that, and *I* feel defensive, even if I am a member of the oppressed group that people are trying to include. I think the best way to discuss oppression is to discuss the oppression and its targets. Rather than talk about the perks of being thin, although they do exist, it’s a better approach, IMO, to focus on the downsides of being fat in our culture.

The fact of the matter is, though, even if you do just that, some people just don’t want to hear it. They don’t want any discussion of oppression or its targets to take place at all, no matter how patient, true, inclusive, or non-confrontational it is. Anytime you focus on something that someone doesn’t want discussed, said person will derail the discussion with “What about this, which is so much worse?”

All I can say to that is, get this: I don’t wanna talk about that.