Fatty Fat Fat Talk Part 2

I have been looking into the way the world looks and interacts with me and all that I represent. I am a dark skinned, black, woman, who self-identifies as lesbian, clinically obese, nappy headed, glasses wearer. How do people look at me and interact with me? For the most part on just a physical level I seem to go unnoticed. That is from the neck down of course. My intellect can be titillating for some. My eyes can draw some closer. And my pretty face, oh my pretty face allows the ladies to acknowledge that I have a pretty face and if I was a little smaller I would probably be fine.

This is the problem. I am currently at a point in my life where many a things are in transition. I am not happy with lost of things, on this list of many is my body, body image, and self-love. I have grown to hate this bodythis temple that I have been given to navigate through life with. I can no longer fake the funk and pretend like I love the body that has brought me much pain. I can remember when I was a little girl about 6 or 7 and I was so skinny. My family and peers at school would make fun of me for being so small. Calling me tooth pick. Then during the 4th grade I gained some weight and I was so happy. No one was going to call me skinny anymore. Thats when the other words came into play. I began to be known as Fat Alysia. That phrase followed me up to high school. I began to see how people acknowledge the beauty of my two best friends in high school and totally ignore me. In college I had a new best friend and the same scenario played outI was ignored, she was beautiful, men and women would talk to me about her beauty, and place me in the realm of the cute-girls-funny-and-smart-best-friend.

Now as an older me I am still having problems with my body. I have come to the realization that I have an eating disorder. I under eat or eat in secret. I know that people associate big girls with eating everything in sightso I have developed my own coping mechanism by not eating in front of people or only eating two meals a day; usually a small one in the morning and a big one at night. I have lived a couple of years this waythusly my body has changed. I have gained weight and put my body into starvation mode. Im trying to combat this by actively discussing my thoughts, feelings, and experiences surrounding my body.

I am sick of being fatthat means that I have to work at not being fat. The whole thing that worries me is how am I going to react to the worlds new way of interacting with me at a smaller size.