Body Shame

 

"In our society, living a happy life as a fat person is an act of rebellion. Never underestimate the huge middle finger you are giving to the world when you make peace with your body." 
-Frances Lockie

Ever realize something about yourself that just staggers you? About two years ago, I caught myself looking at a morbidly obese person in the street and feeling disgust. In fact, I often felt disgust looking at big people in the street. I was no spring onion at a size 24, so I felt extreme guilt about my feelings and chastised myself for being so hypocritical. Then I realized that I wasn’t really disgusted with them, but with the weight problem in them that I also saw in myself every time I looked in the mirror. I was projecting my own body insecurities onto them. This revelation was actually a step toward body acceptance for me, because it helped me to identify some of my own problems and insecurities about my weight and self image and confront them. It helped me to understand that for me, fat and shame have always gone hand in hand. Something needed to shift in my thinking. It didn't even occur to me that body acceptance was an option.

It also made me realize that those who are most critical about the weight of others actually harbor serious fears around body image themselves. Have you noticed that some “regular” sized people are more obsessed and fearful when it comes to body issues than a lot of fat people? The healthier your own self-image is, the less concerned you are with the bodies and weight of others. Truth.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, wrote on her blog, 

They [thin people] don't know the self-hatred to which we [fat people] are exhorted in big and small ways, and how it can turn into hatred of other fat people. They don't know the ways in which the shaming, the bullying, the body policing, the rank hatred, the disgust disguised as concern can make a fat person maintain a physical and psychological distance from other fat people, especially people just that much fatter, because we are keenly aware that proximity is guilt and grotesquery by association. They don't know the contemptuous stares of patrons at a cafe when two fat people walk in together, or, Maude forbid, even more of us, like some kind of freakish human herd that storms across the countryside devouring the resources that belong to decent folk.

They don't know how difficult it is to hate yourself as much as this culture tells us we should hate ourselves for being fat, but love other fat people.

The self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-love that allows fat people to really embrace and adore one another are hard-won—and, because those precious commodities remain elusive for so many fat people, it is not by any means axiomatic that fat people like other fat people.

She's right. Fat people that hate and despise their fatness can find it difficult to like other fat folk.

Starting to read plus size blogs (especially the ones I have listed) has totally changed my life and way of thinking in regards to my own self-image, self-worth and weight related journey. On a side note, I suppose that's why I felt compelled to start my own blog. I wanted to be a part of that community of fatshion blogging. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we have to learn not to equate our self-worth to the number on the scales. Throw out the scales! At least put them away until they no longer run your life and embody the shame they induce. I am starting to realise that to accept my body now, as it is, is the key to freedom from the fears and shame linked to weight. It involves totally retraining my mind. But I'm getting there, and I can honestly say that I'm more at peace with my body, and furthermore I enjoy my body, more than I ever have in my life. Writing this blog has been a big part of that. I started the blog so I could learn to love my body.

I don't know about you, but I owe plus size bloggers a big fucking thank you.