i’m a little unheavy

on the other side of overweight

It’s a bit exhausting having your Watch Later list expand outside of reasonable bounds, growing larger until the sheer volume overwhelms you. I already have 30+ things to view across platforms, so thanks for the link to the ’98 Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Final, Aunt Betty, but no thanks. Recommendations for shows and clips and articles generally get positioned below the necessary Watch Later standards I’ve set. But still, there are a subset of people who I’ll at least give their link a chance — at least a 30 second trial run. That should be enough to either win me over or get the boot.

Such was the case when my sister recently recommended that I watch Shrill. I’d also seen a review recommending the show, so her second prompting was enough for a half-minute test run. I ending up pausing the show at 24 seconds to send her a screenshot, not in the “proof I’m watching your thing” way, but because I was frozen on a scene depicting something I’ve only seen in the mirror.

24 seconds in, the frame shows the main character, Annie, putting her arms into her shirt and pushing at the fabric around her chest to stretch it out, before she goes on to squat down and put said shirt around her knees. It’s something that I’ve done countless times in my own life, and seeing that experience represented back to me was enough for a pause. And the continuing representation of parts of my life was enough to keep me watching through all 6 episodes.

It might be helpful to mention that Shrill is about a fat woman’s life; it’s also about acceptance and joy and trolls and stigma and shame and childhood baggage and loving yourself.

But I stopped the show at 24 seconds because I didn’t realize that shirt stretching is something other fat people do. We wake up in the morning and can’t leave the house before we’re straining against the boundaries of our bodies. Gotta stretch out that shirt, cause what’s the point of clothes if they aren’t shielding other people’s eyes from the worst parts of us? Which, on my worst days is everything.

When you’re overweight and someone is looking at you, you feel like you’re wading through a sea of judgement, which to be fair you are. Because you read the worst of your own thoughts into everyone else’s mind. That mom keeping her bouncing kid from dashing into the street isn’t worrying about dinner and the soccer game, and her teenage daughter and her grocery list and her dad’s health and her work presentation and her own body — in short, her own stuff. No, I see through her ruse; she’s really thinking how fat I am. Thank God I’m always on high alert for this very thing, or I might have missed it.

So they see you and you find yourself in the way. You’re taking up so much space that all of who you are in those moments is reduced to being fat, and wishing you weren’t there at all. And it feels like you’re the only one going through this pain, because sure, other people are overweight, but not in the ways you are. You can categorize them as confident or beautiful or breezy, yet you feel a unique burden that they just don’t get. They understand some of your problems and what you’re experiencing, but they honestly look fine to you. From where you stand, they manage it so much better. And that goes double, triple for skinnier people. I mean, do they even have problems at all? If I were that skinny — well, I mean it’s impossible — but imagine if I were? Problems solved, life fixed, happiness acquired, belonging located.

So actually seeing someone in a tv show going through all the small little hurts that you’ve felt really resonates, like Annie in Shrill. I thought those shirt stretching moments were secret coping techniques passed from generation to generation, which I learned from my mother who learned from hers before her. Especially in a culture where the thing that’s wrong with you is so visible, and so much your fault — maybe it’s time for Diet Coke, honey — having some fictional avatar as proof that you aren’t alone in your small sufferings is valuable new intel. “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” Well said James (Baldwin). Or in this case a mini series about a fat lady, instead of books. A story about someone who’s been dealing with the heaviness their whole lives, capturing how the weight of it all is heavier than the scale can account for.

Such is the venture I’ve found myself on, for as long as I can remember. Well actually that’s not true, because before middle school I was pretty skinny, I played soccer and swam and blah blah blah. But then the middle school tween blues hit and my weight ticked up and up as I discovered the safety and comfort of sugar. You know, a candy bar won’t push you into a locker or do some other equally terrible, cliched thing. It gets that sometimes you just need a quick, sweet pick-me-up.

My weight escalated in high school, along with my discomfort in my body, worsening when I couldn’t avoid being seen. Which it turned out was always, since I’m not a chameleon and my parents assured me a full camo outfit wouldn’t actually help me stand out less. But being nice helps to be unnoticeable, to smooth out your interactions, to leave the other person unbothered by your presence. You learn the value of niceness because you’re already imposing yourself on other people enough with your body, so your personality needs to be that much more accommodating, kind, deferential. Let’s just all agree that we’re both better off the less I’m seen.

Lunch was a particularly visible period, because if you eat junk food — hey there’s your reason, that’s why you’re a fatty. If you eat something healthy — nice try, but clearly you didn’t get to that size on nothing but salads and diet water, you don’t need to fake it in front of everybody. A standard lose-lose situation (like many others during those years) but this one around the very substances we all consume to not die. I’m sure this won’t contribute to unhealthy dynamics later on, right?

I fought my way back in senior year of high school, when I was swimming for 20+ hours a week on a year-round swim team. Looking back on pictures or hearing people recount me then, I was fit. I wasn’t uncomfortably fat, I was normal enough. But I didn’t feel it. Being on a team with a bunch of athletes at the peak of performance still leaves a “fit enough” kid quite a bit away from the impossible ideal they’re surrounded with in the locker room. I was still the big kid bumbling through the halls, impossibly trying to shrink into nothingness because then maybe I could be closer to the same size I saw everyone else as. Maybe that feeling will never go away.

Cut to the end of college, I was depressed and heavier than ever with no way out of it, and finally understanding that it’s fine, fat is just how I am, who I am. I couldn’t escape my own body, couldn’t find a possibility of reprieve or salvation. I’d also taken those years to finely hone systems of avoiding my problems, like not defining myself by a number — a skill that has served me well and not so well.

When you (read:me) are near 280 pounds, and you’ve struggled with weight your whole life, the problem sinks heavier and heavier year after year on your shoulders. And on your stomach, and your legs, and your chin — it’ll never get better, never go away. I mean, sure you see stories online or billboard ads about the success stories, but that’s other people. “If I could do it, you can too!”. Yeah that’s probably true for someone — I’ll send the link off to Aunt Betty, maybe, I’m sure she’ll check it out. It just can’t help me. My current graph is only moving in one direction. Like a Hollywood rendition of an ancient Spartan vs Persian battlefield, or a lucky bowling game, my clash with 300 is inevitable.

I remember this one time I was at a bar, a few drinks in with some friends, when one of them asked me to push up my sleeve and wave at him. I tipsily, confusedly did it, and he burst out with booze-tinted laughter as he pinched at the skin below his arm. It took a muddied second to see he was contrasting his toned triceps with my own, flappy arms. “They aren’t supposed to do that”. Thank you for your feedback. Next rounds on him, but I might need them all. Hey, maybe he was just worried about my health. But he provided me with a helpful test I can still make use of to this day whenever I’m down and need confirmation that I am in fact fat.

At some point impossible dreams like one day weighing less than 200 pounds are too far away to see. It’s so impossible that it’s not worth thinking about, because how would you (read:me) ever get there? Hell, make it less than 100 lbs while we’re work-shopping fairy tales. Maybe if we get a moon colony going, gravity does count for less there I’ve heard.

And 200 is somewhat arbitrary, but in other ways it’s a helpful signpost. Because when you’re 280, you know people under 200 lbs don’t have any problems with their bodies. Or more specifically, you wouldn’t have any problems with your body if you could see that 1__ on that scale. Not that you even do step on the scale. It’s just another tally mark against you, adding armor to the dragon you’ll be fighting forever. The battle’s tough enough without facing evidence that you’re losing it a little more every day.

Yet it’s strange to give a scale’s reading so much power. A few brave days I define myself around this single number — good or bad, this is the reality I am facing. More often I define myself by rejecting that the number should have power over me at all. Easier to avoid damnation by discarding the ritual outright. Do I really need a constant metric of exactly how much I’m screwing up? It’s honestly not even that important because, seriously, Monday will be a fresh start.

The scale lets you sharpen your focus around an objective measurement that has no respect for where you’ve been or where you dream of going. Cold, calculating numbers. At its best, a scale stares back at you with an undeniable truth of your situation, upturning your systems of avoidance and rejection of where you’re at. At its worst, it counts heaviness far beyond what your body has to show. Doesn’t it?

Can the scale measure out the shame? Does it tally up condemning glances on the street or in the grocery store or on an elevator? Cause looking at me sideways can only mean the one thing. Is it taking into account the number of people who could find me attractive? That’s definitely gotta help out; if all these positive numbers can weigh me down then the negative numbers should pick me up. Why aren’t you counting that, scale?

If you’re not careful, soon all of your anger and mistakes and fears coalesce into a single point, a lone number as a spear of attack. And the only direction for the blame is you, since ultimately it’s just you and the scale. I wasn’t careful. So I threw mine out.

Cut to me 4 years later on my fitness/weight loss journey, having found a healthier dynamic to break me from my addiction to food (mainly sugar and carbs really). There have been ups and plateaus and downs and stagnations and setbacks and achievements. But with all it’s been, it hasn’t been impossible.

So I was filled with righteous, resigned indignation last week when I told my mom that she needed a new scale, because hers was broken. More proof why scales are trash — untrustworthy.

What’s wrong with it? I’ve been using it nearly every day and it seems fine to me.

Just trust me, I stepped on it, and it can’t be right.

Well is the number too small or too big?

… Too small. Way off.

Well then maybe you’ve just lost more weight than you think you have.

I mean maybe? Pretty sure it’s just not functioning properly.

Well what was the number?

It was under 200. 196 point something. Which can’t be right.

Well I can check myself later at the gym and see how much it’s off by.

Ok yeah thanks let me know.

Turns out the scale was off by ¾ lb, up or down I can’t remember and it doesn’t matter.

So what do you do when you look down past your toes to an impossible number? You don’t believe it, I’ve found. And I didn’t believe it because my body isn’t fixed yet. My insecurities aren’t healed. My vulnerabilities still draw my eye when I get out of the shower. Someone really should do something about the recent interior designer obsession with floor length mirrors.

I thought part of the impossible dream was that if I were to ever make it down to 1__ again, my problems were supposed to go away. When I got under 200 pounds, I was supposed to not have a gut anymore. My arms weren’t supposed to flap about. My legs weren’t supposed to touch. My bracelets were supposed to slide all around my spindly forearms. My chins were supposed to be counted on one finger. My collarbones were supposed to show.

Wasn’t that the deal? I lose nearly 100 lbs and I get to be happy with myself? If I do the impossible thing then I get to brag about it, and post my story somewhere to inspire others and encourage them that if I can do it, You can too! I get to walk around without being self-conscious and without stretching out my shirts in the morning. When people look at me, I don’t have to think it’s because I’m taking up too much space — that I’m just blocking what they want to see behind my hulking frame. When family members I see every other year tell me I’m looking good, I’m allowed to just say thank you instead of brushing it off because they can’t really mean it. I might not even mind having my picture taken. I get to sit on a plane or a bus or a train and not cross legs and fold my arms, desperate to not touch the normal-sized person who deserves their space because they make all the right decisions, and I don’t.

Am I allowed to feel less ashamed? Does the possibility open up that someone might find me attractive? Could other people like me despite my body and allow me to do the same? Will I find a place to belong now that it’s a less tight squeeze into the mold I’m assuming other people expect for me?

So I find myself on the other side of impossible, and impossibly all my insecurities and vulnerabilities are still here, still with me. I got gypped folks. My problems are still my problems. Turns out my pain wasn’t erased because my number starts with a 1__ now. Which is bullshit because frankly, 100 pounds ago I was convinced that an unheavy me would be smooth sailing. I was so sure that being skinnier would offer some permission to start loving myself.

But I guess there’s a lesson here, right? I can’t be writing out all this nonsense just to document vague references about my annoyance to myself.

By looking back to 280, from 196, I can see my ongoing tendency to flatten out all of my life struggles into this one weighty thing. But it turns out that my burdens didn’t get the memo that we were on our way to getting less heavy.

Maybe the takeaway is that we need to work on accepting our insecurities even as we work on bettering our lives — however that looks. Perhaps it’s that the journey really is lifelong, your hike doesn’t stop when you reach a summit; the view from the peak isn’t enough to save you. Maybe it’s that like Angelica, we can never be satisfied. Maybe we don’t need to assume every passerby is thinking the worst of us — and use that as a model to see ourselves in a new, better light. Maybe a digital blinking number doesn’t suddenly grant you the freedom to belong.

Or maybe the value is just in reaching out to someone and letting them know that their pain is shared, the things that torment them have the chance to connect us. You’re not the only one stretching out your shirts in the morning, Annie. The hike is long but we’ve got so far to go, it might as well be together.

At the end of the day heaviness is just one barrier between me and happiness, isn’t it? My lesson might be that there’s no metric, no threshold number that signals when it’s okay to start loving myself. I have permission right now. We all do.

— Yours Mine and Ours, a fat person in a skinnier body