I’m the problem, it’s me.
When you don’t look like society’s standard of beauty you grow up being ridiculed because you’re “too fat” or whatever attribute they deemed ugly, it would get pointed out. At one point in my life I weighed 150lbs, and I remember feeling too fat, too ugly, too little. Mom and sister both were skinny, I was the only fat one. Dad was fat as were a lot of the men in my life, but for some reason they’re not held to the same standards. I felt inadequate. They couldn’t relate. It didn’t help that everyone around me would make the same idiotic comments: “Carolyn, you’re fat, that’s not healthy for you. Maybe you should lose it.” Well gee Aunt Tina, I did not know that fact, thanks for letting me know! My parents were no better, and I get that the comments from certain people were coming from a place of love, and care. But at the same time, when they’re 1. Unsolicited and 2. Given without any solution, the comments are useless. I own a mirror, I know I’m fat and I know it’s not healthy. None offered to join me in a gym, none cooked healthier foods for me (when I was a minor and not in charge of my own meals of course). I always figured there’d be a time where I’d go to the gym and I’d lose the weight. Only problem is that I always postponed that. For whatever reason, I’d always find an excuse. Not one of my greatest moments. Looking back when I was “fat”, I was quite literally a few pounds away from a healthy weight. I’ve been suggested Herbalife, I’ve been criticized for how much butter I put on a toast… think of criticism, I’ve probably gotten it.
I’m the problem, it’s me
Taylor Swift
Since I have memory I have always wanted to be skinny. Even when I was 150lbs. Whenever I look, at the rare pictures that exist, I could have lost a few pounds, was I as fat as I thought? No, absolutely not. I have always felt I needed to lose the weight to feel good with myself. Until I lost it I wouldn’t feel good. I didn’t like feeling inadequate, ugly, fat, or that I was taking up too much space. At several points in my life I have joined gyms. I would go, highly pumped… for a whole month, and because I wouldn’t see results in that short time, I would get discouraged and I stopped going. I was expecting results in a month for something that had been years in the making. None of the people that would critique me ever joined me. All encouraged me from afar, no one put their money where their mouth was. I’m not proud of the times I quit, but it is what it is.
I’m not proud I quit, but it is what it is.
I always had this idea that fat = ugly and I felt bad about myself, I just wanted to hide. I hated cameras! There’s evidence of those times, but not a lot (hence the really bad cropped pictures I am showing here), I really lost a lot of memories because I didn’t like capturing my fatness, I didn’t want to be reminded at the time. That’s how bad I felt about myself. And it’s sad, no one should be made to feel like that. I look at pictures of my friends in high school and I’m not in a lot of them, I would take them but I’d never be in them. And the ones that do exist I look fucking terrible. For fuck’s sake, I would dress so bad. But that only speaks to the level of confidence I had at the time, which was essentially none. Oh and on top of it I’m tall for a woman, so not only was I fat, I was very tall, everything about me was very difficult to hide. It pains me to look back at those pictures, not because I was fat, but because I see that insecure little girl that never felt pretty enough because she was fat. I also missed out on so many things. I didn’t do a lot of things, I didn’t take enough pictures, I would wear the most hideous things ever, again, it’s very sad I lost so much because of that.
Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
Taylor Swift
And I’m a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out
Slowly lurching toward your favorite city
My confidence had always been close to zero, fat people can’t be pretty can they? So why would I feel any confidence? There’s not much representation of fat people in the media, no one looked like me. Insecurities built up, for me this translated into baggy clothes, long sleeves, layers of clothes all in order to hide the fat. Of course, I was not hiding anything, I was just looking fucking terrible in the process. I mean, that’s all looking at it retroactively, I am pretty sure at the time I thought I looked great. Well, never hot, I had never found myself looking hot, there are always Jennifer Annistons walking around, I could never measure… Even though I loved it, part of the reason I cut off my hair into a pixie cut (inspired from Ginnifer Goodwin), was because I would not know how to handle my long hair. I never felt I could do or wear “girly” stuff because I was fat, you’ll see that I looked like a tomboy for a hot second there, that’s all I felt comfortable in.
There’s not a lot of fat people portrayed in the media, though we are seeing more each day, but not when I was a kid. Those that were, were just made fun of. Being fat is funny (sarcasm). The fat character was always the comic relief. They were never the love interest, they were the funny-reliable-relatable best friend. I never felt identified with any character on TV, the were not a lot of fat people, much less fat women. There’s this moment that replays in my mind every once in a while, I was in elementary school and girls are forced to wear skirts (even though pants cover up much better), very little schools allowed us to use pants, but even then, sometimes we couldn’t afford both the skirt and pants, so skirt it was… anyway, there was this kid I had a crush with, and I guess he knew, not sure, so I’m walking upstairs and if you were standing below them, you could see up all of our skirts, he’s standing below and looked up and said “eww”. It’s almost 20 years later and I still remember, that clearly scarred me. Outside of school I’d never wear a skirt, if I did certainly not one short enough that you could see my thighs (there were some rare occasions but just know I was very uncomfortable). I would never wear sleeveless shirts, or dresses, my bathing suits consisted of shorts and a shirt, I encountered many instances of going to a pool and having anxiety because it stated that bathing suits were required. I would always be wondering if I’d be allowed in or if in this instance I’d be kicked out. Wearing shirts with sleeves allowed me to hide my chubby arms, but who was I really fooling? You can still see it, you just can’t see the skin, my mind lied to me that this was better. First time I wore a sleeveless dress, that was just right above my knee was 2017/2018. I was 24 years old, this means I had basically spent most —if not all— of those 24 years, hiding my body. It also didn’t help that I was raised in a pretty strict-Christian household, it was nowhere near as strict as what my parents encountered when they were growing up, but strict. In the church, there seems to be this idea that to appear Christian, you have to look bland, I’d call it ugly, but I don’t know what they would call it. If I had a penny for the amount of people I saw looking the ugliest a person can look… I’d be rich. And this is not talking at all about their physical appearance, this is talking about their dress choices. I get that there’s modesty involved with being Christian but you can be modest and still look good, something the people I encountered growing up did not know, or chose to ignore, I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that I inherited insecurities from the adults around me, not necessarily on purpose but it’s what happens with people, we project our insecurities onto others. “Cross your legs, ladies do not sit like that” or “lower your skirt! There’s people around!” or my very favorite, the chaos whenever your bra strap slipped over, as if people didn’t know women wore bras…. And don’t get me wrong, we don’t want people looking up our clothes and we want to be modest but at the same time there shouldn’t be the taboo there is.
Summer of 2018 I took an impromptu trip to Iceland, when I went to the Blue Lagoon I had a one piece bathing suit, one of the first times I had ever worn one. With a short pant of course, you can’t be showing thighs, fat thighs are ugly and no one wants to see that… my friend and I had to use bathrooms far from each other and she had my shorts in her bag, I can’t recall why. So when I’m putting my bathing suit on, I found I didn’t have the shorts with me, so I had to put my metaphorical big girl pants on and walk out wearing only the one piece bathing suit. By the time I found my friend, I had lost the shame and I decided to just not wear the shorts. I was still nervous when I went in and out of the water, but I did it. That was the first time I’ve ever worn a bathing suit without any cover up. It wouldn’t repeat itself until this year, but instead of a one piece, I wore a two piece, high waist bottoms, sure, but still. After a lifetime of feeling ashamed, in 2022, I finally felt comfortable in my own body. But I’ll get to that later. The summer of 2018 was important in my growth, it was the first time I had worn a sleeveless dress and a one-piece bathing suit without shorts. I would go to wear more dresses, makeup, especially a matte-red that everyone compliments on me. It also didn’t help that the world closed in 2020, I gained weight, lost the weight. I don’t like to think I’m the person that looks from validation from other people, but I am, though now that I know, I’m aiming to validate myself. I don’t need someone to find me pretty to feel pretty. That summer was also the first time that I liked someone and I wasn’t concerned about whether or not they wouldn’t like me because of my body. I was slowly shedding the insecurities.
I was slowly shedding the insecurities.
Summer of 2022, I matched with a guy on a dating app, I wasn’t sure about him, too young, his profile pictures were terrible, but I decided to give it a shot. He was very attracted to me, and at any given point he’d let me know. This made me want to look pretty for him, I’d go on to dress up so he’d see how pretty I was. In doing so I started feeling myself. I started wearing things I would have never worn, I bought lingerie, leather skirts, bodysuits, I realized I had nice clothes, but there were even nicer things I could get. In my mind there was a line on what stuff fat people could and couldn’t use. Turns out it was a fucking lie. I found out I look smoking hot wearing a leather skirt, that it accentuated my fat? Yes, did I still wear it? Also yes. All of this was in part for him, that’s how it started but then somewhere along the way, it started being for myself and if he liked it was a huge plus. It felt very nice to be wanted. It took me a while to understand that it needed to be for me, rather than him, because it got to a point that I was looking for validation from him. He needed to tell me I looked hot, to feel hot. This was also the first time I looked at myself and thought I was hot, it was no longer a label exclusive for the Jennifer Anistons of the world. At the moment he withdrew his validation, I wavered, man did I waver… But then I found myself, I realized it had never been for him, it had been for me. His loss really. He met this very insecure woman and unknowingly allowed her to find herself and when he left, she was not the same person, again, his loss, who doesn’t want a woman that feels confidence in herself, her body whichever way it looks at any given point? I still want and like to be told I look good, who doesn’t? But I also don’t need it to feel myself or to wear something I like. I sent my aunt a picture and she replied with: “confidence looks good on you.” And that’s something I had never felt. I walked out in public wearing a leather bra, skirt, and a sheer top. I WOULD HAVE NEVER. But did I? You bet I did.
Confidence looks good on you.
My aunt
Am I the problem? Abso-fucking-lutely not. The problem is society fucking up with anyone that’s not a size zero. This is not in any way of form criticism to size zeros, it’s to the people that tiered who deserves to be respected and who doesn’t. I deserve to feel happy wearing whatever I want to wear. I realized I gave people too much power, I get to decide how I feel about myself and no one gets to dictate what is good or bad for me. No one is walking in my shoes, I am, no one knows what I go through, what goes through my mind or what I am working towards.
My goal with this post is to, hopefully, inspire you, if you’re anything like me, my best advice is to fuck all the people that have made you feel inadequate, wear whatever the fuck you want, if you love it, wear it. Wear it confidently, or fake it until you make it. Do all the things you want to do, don’t follow in my footsteps and don’t miss out on things, your family, friends and people that love you, will thank you. You will regret all those instances where you missed out. I know I do. But no more.
As always,
With love,
Carolyn