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anonymoushotsexyperson · 6 months ago

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GROWING UP A FAT GIRL IN THE Y2K ERA

I know peoples attention spans suck so don't worry im adding sections. So you can scroll through and just read whatever intrigues you if you can't commit to the whole thing!!

this post will talk about my experiences growing up as a fat girl and just a little bit about how it effected my relationship to my body as I grew up as well as the struggles of fatness intersecting with racism and ableism as well as very briefly touching on the wojack giving fat girl backshots meme going around!

SECTION 1 THE BEGINNING OF MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY BODY AND HOW FAT PHOBIA EFFECTED IT.

My first experience with fat phobia I remember consciously is around the ages of 6 or 7. My mother and father had recently divorced and I was growing into myself more and more everyday getting stronger, smarter, limbs getting longer, body getting bigger. I was going through growth spurts. I would chub up a little then id grow a few inches, chub, grow, chub grow. Seems like a pretty normal concept or idea to manage right? Well not for the average y2k adult. Everyone would always make comments to my mother or out of fear of being judged for being a bad parent she would bring it up herself. I remember my mothers response to the comments about my body. "she is stress eating because of the divorce!" was always her reply... and giiiiirl no the fuck I wasn't. I was not really that effected by my mom and dads divorce till later on. At that age as long as I was surrounded by most of my family and I had YouTube much else didn't matter to me and kind of went over my head if i'm being real with you. Hey I'm a kid though who knows maybe I was stress eating and just had no idea what to call it at the time and then don't remember but honestly, if my memory is serving me correctly I used to be so confused when she said that! If I was eating a little more it was probably because I was GROWING INTO MY BODY MAYBE?? That was my first run in which followed up with many more, like when my dad made me step on a scale in the living room of his new home strangers -that later became family- walking around, free to stare at whatever the number said. "If you don't lose weight you are coming to live with me." Still echoes through my head, I was about 7. It doesn't stop there I was being called a cow at school, or by my older brothers at home during petty fights we'd have. Some how none of the insults really stuck like that (besides the situation with my dad). They definitely hit me, but if I denied that they did then that counts as dodging them right? Growing up I always thought I wasn't that heavily effected by the raging and rampant fat phobia permeating through the y2k, but in reality it caused me to start neglecting my body all together. Up until the summer between 7th and 8th grade I never looked at myself in the mirror. Maybe a quick glance but I would never fixate on my appearance. Now hyper fixating on your appearance can be unhealthy but so is pretending you don't have one at all which was the type of timing I was on. Fat phobia among other factors was the leading cause of what became a history of neglecting myself.

SECTION 2 DEVELOPING AN EATING DISORDER AS A FAT PERSON

scroll to the next section if you want to avoid triggers!

The effect fat phobia had on me didn't really start to show on the surface until 7th-8th grade. My girlfriend had an eating disorder and she was living with me at the time because her family was homeless (we were closeted as best friends). She didn't encourage my eating disorder but it was kind of a monkey see monkey do kind of thing, she made me start to consider it. At that age range I was looking for different ways to destroy myself as well as connect with my peers and some how those too things strongly intersected as the glamorization of self harm and mental illness was at an all time high. I'm not sure why twelve to thirteen yearly anon wanted to destroy themselves so bad but I think if anything it stemmed from a need for control over my surroundings. At this age my home life wasn't the best. I forgot how, but I think maybe through just looking up depressing quotes in general I found the infamous Ana and Mia. Oh and trust me Cassie Ainsworth from skins did not help AT ALL. CUE THE INFAMOUS GIF:

TW CASSIE AINSWSORTH GIF:

even LOOKING FOR THIS GIF BEGAN TO STIR SOMETHING INSIDE ME OH MY GOD??

The worst part about being a fat girl with an eating disorder is how proud of me everyone was. "Anon you're getting so slim!" "Anon look at you slimming out see I knew it was just baby fat!". My friends knew of my ed so they would never compliment me for it or really talk about my body in general, probably half because of my ed but also half because I was still fat and not considered desirable or something to be jealous of regardless of if I lost a few pounds. But my family complimented my figure a lot as I slimmed and I got less fat jokes and the doctor was happy and people did treat me a little different. JUST a little cuz I was still fat but a noticeable enough change in the way people treated me for me to want to keep going and indulge myself deeper in my unhealthy habits.

But yeah long story short I developed an ed and I thought I was so fat and gross and disgusting and dude I look back at myself and why was my body LICHRALLAY SO T??? I honestly wasn't even morbidly obese or anything (which I am now BECAUSE of my eating disorder but fuck it we ball and also I ENJOY BEING FAT I knowww plot twist right?) also you minors in the ed community YES YOU take NOTE at this next part: I was literally just growing into my body... but then I fucked up my metabolism really bad and completely skewed my relationship with health, dieting, and workout culture so i'm either doing too much or not enough. So not only did my metabolism get utterly destroyed but having to learn how to take care of myself from scratch ended up destroying all the progress made and here I am literally 60 pounds heavier than I was back then and i've dropped weight since i've developed a healthier relationship with my body so if we are keeping it a buck until about a year ago I had accumulated about 100 pounds of weight since my pre ed days because of the effects the eating disorder had on me ! (oh and I have heart problems now not from being fat but from attempting to become skinny the wrong way! if you fast and binge or fast and do cardio and feel your heart beating like that... if you know you know...yeah you're fucking up your heart and need to stop like right now girly!) SO yeah I am a recovering anorexic with some bulimic symptoms. Though even after developing my eating disorder my issues with body image didn't really really affect me until later on.

SECTION 3 THE SOCIALIZATION OF FATNESS/THE INTERSECTIONAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN MY BLACKNESS AND FATNESS/ BECOMING THE DUFF/ WOJACK MEME.

Along side subconsciously neglecting myself I would also publicly portray myself as very tough skinned and overly confident all throughout middle and high school as a defense mechanism when in reality I was pretty indifferent toward myself and extremely sensitive. I think that my tough exterior wasn't only due to me being fat but also being a black woman although I am biracial/light skinned in complexion I feel like I was still hyper masculinized due to my blackness especially growing up in an area where I was closer in proximity to blackness then a large majority of my counterparts. I feel like a lot of my aggression and flamboyancy came from constantly being in a state of self defense and also subconsciously feeling like I had to play the role that was written for me or else I wouldn't be loved or appreciated or wanted. By the role that was written for me i'm talking about Precious, Rasputia, Mercedes Jones, Ivy Wentz, the stereotype of being the fat black women, and for my non black fat baddies for you this would be The DUFF role. This is when you're known as the flamboyant friend with the attitude that everyones scared to make the butt of the joke because she is NOT afraid to snap you in two. The stereotype isn't entirely wrong i'm sure a lot of people fall into it for the same reason as me but then it becomes our main character trait, and that mixed into a juicy cocktail of dehumanization of fat bodies turns you into the friends the skinny girls bring to the club to scare off ugly dudes as if you're a bodyguard and are immune to sexual or physical assault because you're fat!

So I grew up neglecting my body because of fat phobia developed a life altering eating disorder because of how romanticized they were due to fat phobia, and spent my whole life being guys secret crush, or the "annoying dramatic fat girl" because of fat phobia but still even then it didn't seem it had the real detrimental effect on my body image everyone said it would until I was 20. When I was 20 I moved back to my hometown for a little bit where the beauty standard is very much "ambiguous white skinny girl" and I thought that maybe I would get play because hey we are like adults who are deprogramming all that bullshit anyway right? WELLL I did get play, crazy play of course! Just in secret, and I've had guys have secret crushes on me etc but never to the extent I began to face it in my 20's where they would so obviously be horny over me all the time while simultaneously being mad at me for making them horny because I'm fat and it confuses and embarrasses them ( men are genuinely socialized to be suchhhh fucking psychopaths. -if you're a guy and you're reading this don't say that not all men bullshit yes we know not you i'm not gonna specify every time to preserve your ego goddamn). I have some sad and weird stories about that, that involves men thinking they could be more aggressive with me or literally impose violence on me or be extremely weird and creepy because they're embarrassed they're attracted to a fat girl and on top of that a fat black girl that they hyper-masculinized and degraded in their head due to societal pressure/influence... but imma save that for another day or maybe never because I see nothing coming out of me posting that on here but relived trauma. Also the type of man I just described are the same ones reposting this new viral wojack meme by the way:

thats all im saying about that meme, the guys reposting it like fat bitches and are scared that they like us and can't think for themselves thats literally all I wanted to input into the conversation regarding THAT....

also I use the word bitch in an endearing aave way not in a deragotry way so please don't hit me with that "don't call women bitches" thing I don't be doing it a lot but im also not gonna stop using aave and also i'm LICHRALLY AFAB sooooo shut up...

ANYWAYS...The violence I faced at this point in my life really triggered something in me it made me realize that because of the stereotypes held up against me I will never be treated or respected or perceived authentically by the average Joe. The only person that would see me is those who have taken extensive time to deprogram parts of their brain that created these deep routed bias etc. ( also if you're wondering why these biases were created it all leads back to capitalism but THATS for another post..) After facing literal violence cause of my body it definitely caused a blow at my self esteem, but even then I shined on and persevered continuing to be my sexy self.

SECTION 4 FAT PHOBIA AND ABLEISM INTERTWINED.

It wasn't until I randomly got into an accident and became temporarily handicapped while also in the most toxic relationship of my life did I really start to fucking hate myself. For multiple months I couldn't walk, and not only was I physically handicapped but the trauma I was experiencing at that time of my life had left me mentally handicapped as well I simply didn't want to be alive and exist in this body or any body I just didn't want to exist. I had a foot I could hop on but I couldn't carry all my weight on that foot because of my previous issues with my health, (I had already been struggling with a chronic illness that effected my muscles) and i didn't have the strength in my arms for the crutches so I succumbed to my injuries, resulting in weight gain, eventually hip and back issues etc. Then, when my leg healed, the access weight made me feel like I couldn't walk without pain. I was having issues with my health unrelated to my weight since 2020 but I was homeless up until last year and it was also covid so I had no way to really see a doctor and also I was like 18-19 and had no fucking idea how any of that worked and am still figuring out how it works to this DAY. I actually just got my insurance card for the first time this year. YIPPE YIPPE EVERYBODY CLAP. These issues with my health effected my muscles and my bodies ability to absorb the nutrients from the food I ate so this injury was kind of like the icing on top of the cake because my chronic illness made the recovery almost in possible. I would cry a lot, stopped taking pictures of myself, and everything. But even then I knew I didn't really have any interest in being thin I actually really fuck with my warm fluffy voluptuous form, I just didn't want to be unhealthy.

I still haven't fully unpacked the shame I felt around being unhealthy, I was so ashamed despite me trying my best with what I had, and what I knew, and I also still haven't fully unpacked why I feel like I have to specify as I literally just did a few lines earlier that I was 'trying my best', why do visibly disabled folks only deserve care or sympathy when they're actively trying to fit into a world that isn't set up to support or aid them when it very well could be? The intersectional oppression of ableism and fat phobia is still something i'm actively developing my thoughts about.

A thought ive been thinking about a lot is how obesity is a health condition and it can be detrimental to some folks and that saying that it isn't is a reactionary trauma response to fat phobia BUT also a lot of things can be detrimental and the level of detriment different things give you differentiates based on the person. Some people are bigger than me and healthier. Some people are smaller than me and UNhealthier. The detriment fatness has on your health as all things doesn't exist on the linear scale we have created for it. SO although obesity is a disease and proposing that fat doesn't correlate with health in an important way is harmful it is also harmful and plain weird to hyper fixate on obesity. Im also thinking about how obesity is treated this way because it's one of the most visible health issues and how that bleeds into ableism. I'm still working on these thoughts i'm having and how to explain and dissect them in a proper digestible and understandable way. So I think this where I leave you to think on your own about this, what do you think? Please feel free to comment below!

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