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caterjillar · 6 years ago

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I was a fat child. Fat teen. I am a fat adult.

I started reading Shakespeare when I was 11. I've been writing stories of all types since I was 7. In highschool I worked every musical. I wrote plays. I played Vampire the Masquerade with my friends and walked to the arcade and played laser tag. I did figure skating for a few years. I took voice classes and was in my high schools chamber ensemble. I was in the performing arts program at my school - the first type of program like that in a Catholic high school in my area, which you had to audition to get into. I worked on the spot lights, co-directed, was in dance, and even improvised my own 2 minute dance (which I aced) for my performing arts dance final my senior year.

I wrote an essay about Sweeney Todd just for the fun of it.

My friends at the time and I ran a fairly popular Harry Potter RPG play by post message board.

We did karaoke about every week, and met up at the local coffee shop like we were adults.

But

I also suffered from (and continue to) depression and anxiety. High school was terrible because people were terrible to me. I would lay in my bed wishing o could just cut off slabs of flesh from my body. I'd pull at my stomach and hips to the point of pain. I would scrub myself raw in the shower or bath because people said I smelled and even though I realise as an adult I did not and they were assholes I believed them and tried so hard to stop smelling. I thought about the various ways I could kill myself and knew that if I went through with it no one would miss me and the thought of how utterly worthless I was and how much more of an inconvenience I would be as a corpse than alive. Yes. That thought kept me alive at least once in my life.

I shut down emotionally because if I showed emotion I'd get bullied even more than if I pretended the relentless onslaught of harassment didn't bother me.

This has permeated so much of how I approach relationships that it's affected some of them negatively.

Even now as an adult these things still have lingering effects and I work hard every day to try and sort through what is bullshit and what is real.

And if I could just take my fat suit off I would. Like I said earlier, I literally fantasized about cutting off chunks of my body to be acceptable.

DESPITE all that shit and trauma I carry on.

I went on to (eventually) get my BA in Culture and Media Studies focusing on film studies, and did pretty well there. I've edited a few things for fun, and discovered how much I love audio stuff, made some videos and one short documentary that made everyone in my class cry.

I went to London. By this I mean I went to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and got my MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media, with a 2:1, which is a B+ or A- depending on what conversion chart you're looking at (and I'll be honest I probably could have gotten better marks if I hadn't found myself in a depressive spiral during my second year but hey. B+).

I got to say the most obnoxiously writerly thing I think you can say which is "I'm going to the South if France for a week to finish my scripts."

And I did.

I've performed in a bunch of improv shows and met some amazing improvsers.

I met Tim Crouch, and actually performed at Edinburgh Fringe in a touring production of his play, Adler & Gibb, produced by the Royal Court. I got to perform it in London, Lancaster, Manchester, and LA.

I visiting Kyiv. On a whim. Because why the hell not? On my own.

I've restarted a girl gamers program at my job, and it is pretty successful. The girls who come love it and we can get up to 30 girls at a time!

I'm currently writing a play and so far it's gotten really good feedback which is terrifying and also tells me I need to keep working on it.

I'm working on applying for a few PhD programs, and the people that I've told my proposal to really like it and think it has value.

I made friends with a neighborhood black cat near my job. She runs up to me and follows me around the block whenever I see her and cuts me off whenever I'm about to cross the street because she doesn't cross the street because she is a good and smart kitty.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed and tired and sad and frustrated because it feels like I have to try so hard every day to prove I am a human worth the bare minimum of respect.

Sometimes I remember carving my bullies names into my arm with a safety pin so it didn't leave a scar but I could still feel the pain and see the names and remember who did it to me. I have tattoos there now that remind me of the things I love instead of the people who hurt me.

I have friends who I work with who I absolutely look forward to seeing and hanging out with. And the thing is, they look forward to seeing and hanging out with me too. They are a diverse group of people and they are all great people.

I don't know that I ever had a revenge fantasy about getting thin and hurting my bullies. I wanted to get thin and be accepted.

Truthfully I never had a revenge fantasy. I had fantasies about running away, starting a new life at a new school, and all that. I guess the revenge fantasy I have is the life I'm living now - doing cool things, living my childhood dream (being a writer/actor in England), traveling, having a bunch of diverse friends from around the world... My bullies are just going to be what everyone else in my horrible hometown is.

I feel like I'm leaving stuff out. I probably am.

But I just hate what I know about Insatiable. I hate fat suits. I hate the lack of empathy for fat teens. I hate the lack of fat writers. I hate thin people thinking they understand the absolute psychological torment fat children and teens go through. I hate anything where the solution is the fat person becomes thin. I hate it when the lesson is "I just needed to learn to love myself" because loving yourself isn't going to stop the world from beating the shit out of you (literally and metaphorically).

Fat people live amazing lives. Despite society making it hard for us to do just that.

And so we're clear. I am fat enough to need a seatbelt extender, and economy class airplane seats hurt me. I can't buy clothes in straight sized stores.

So be fat and go do the thing and love your best fucking life cause you're amazing!

The “Insatiable” Reality: What Fat Teens Are REALLY Like

When I was a fat teen, I was in softball, school musical theater, community musical theater, debate club, marching band, symphonic band, jazz band. I wrote novels, screeplays, and fucking composed musicals in my spare time. I kissed a boy at a summer theater summer camp and we’re still in touch. I kissed a girl a couple years later and we’re still in touch, too. I went through a goth phase, then a skater phase. I won academic, club, debate, language, and music awards. I got bullied, changed schools, and things got way fucking better in a place where the adults seemed to care. I wasn’t safe from developing a starvation eating disorder later, and yes, adults and kids cookied me for my weight loss. I got thin privilege, and realized that it changed absolutely nothing about the things *I* loved about myself. (I eventually recovered from my eating disorder and am doing great!).

I wasn’t a cartoon, tethered to a couch, ice-cream spoon permanently lodged in my mouth, hand glued to the inside of a chips bag.

I was having sex with people who respected my agency, going to parties, trying things, challenging myself intellectually and creatively.

You know. LIKE A PERSON.

FAT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, @netflix.

Readers: I would love it if you would reblog this post with your story, or submit a new post to us titled “The “Insatiable” Reality: What Fat Teens Are REALLY Like” and tell Netflix what you were up to when you were a fat teen. The good and the bad. From the mouths of people who were (or are!) actual fat teens. Suggested tag: #InsatiableReality

-ATL

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