I’ve been dreaming about High School. (Again.) This happens semi-regularly, but it annoys me. High School was alternatively utter bliss and pure crap. It was long bouts of feeling awkward in class and having the absolute certainty that I didn’t fit in, knowing that the people around me were just tolerating me, and feeling like the annoying outsider whenever I tried to join in. (Of course, at the same time, I had an amazing group of friends, but when we did different subjects I was stranded.) I remember feeling bewildered and unsure and, yeah, fat. I felt ugly and completely socially incompetant.

So these dreams I have semi-regularly tend to randomly include boys I used to know/like, people who made me feel awkward…suddenly being my friends. It’s a wierd interaction (obviously — I’m dreaming), but my dreams never have that feeling of self-consciousness.

I wish I was over this feeling. I’m 4 years out of high school and I still feel like this. I still go to events (like the Ceilidh and I need to push myself to dance, because I’m always worried that my partner is thinking “Oh no, I don’t want the fat one.”

I need to lose this weight, because I know it’s a big part of it. But more than that, I want the confidence of losing weight — the knowledge that I can do it to be there. I want the confidence of liking who I am to go through everyday life and to throw myself into it. I need to do this. I just…didn’t realise how much.

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I’m not one of those people who have difficulty when I’m home alone. I don’t really snack so much as stare — if you were a fly on the wall you’d no doubt see me get up and, trance-like, open the pantry and just stare. The novelty of having a pantry and fridge and food just available whenever I want it is like a siren’s call. But I’m never really fussed enough to actually eat it. I just like looking.

Plate Food (capital letters required) is another story. When I was a kid I was a picky eater. I ate carrots and beans, potatoes and peas, sausages and bacon and ham and white bread. That was about it for a dinner meal. Mum must’ve hated me. But we always went around to a family friend’s place for dinner and I remember not being allowed to leave the table without finishing. I was a slow eater even when I enjoyed my food, but when it was something I liked — I could finish 30 minutes after everyone else had left the table. But I wasn’t allowed to leave. So Plate Food is a big deal for me.

Today, I didn’t finish all of my Plate Food. I left about two bites. Which seems ridiculous, but is a big deal for me. I was ‘listening’ to myself. Hurrah! Onward and downwards.

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Have just bought (and read — it was that good) The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl by Shauna of DietGirl fame. It’s a fantastic read, evidenced by the fact that I kept my Mum waiting unnecessarily in the slightly brisk winter cold while I finished it, rather than picking her up on time. I devoured the words like they were KFC chips, points and scenes hitting home like it was my life she was talking about, rather than her own. ‘Yes!’ I wanted to cry, “I do do that! They did say that! I do think that!”. And I thought about how good it would be to be able to look back and see how far I’ve come, to be able to read the past entries. So I’m going to try to post in here more often, to look back on. And I figured that the best way to start this new philosophy is to figure out where the issue came from.

Background

I was always a fat child. Other obese people, they were healthy and then the weight just ’snuck up on them’, like they turned around one day and it was in the mirror. Not so me. From the get-go, I was large. As far back as I can remember, I’ve felt uncomfortable in my skin. I’ve compared myself with the other children, other people and felt inferior to them. I don’t remember the times before school started, but I do remember year one, when I weighed in at a long-forgotten number of kilos (it is written somewhere), and I remember being the second heaviest in the class. I remember it being public information; ergo, public shame.

And I just kept on growing. My mother became concerned about my weight long before I did. I distinctly remember in Grade 7 or 8, standing by the back doors of our house. We were staring out into the garden beyond, peering through the panes of glass, and Mum, hesitantly, kindly, said, “I think we should do something about your weight.”

I felt the pangs of shame I normally pushed down, but too came anger. It was the we that got me, the idea that the problem was so bad it couldn’t be done alone. The idea that Mum was so ashamed of my weight that she had to help me change it. I vaguely remember shrugging, feeling so horribly uncomfortable in my skin that even that action didn’t feel right.

A few years later, I remember sitting in the car with my Mum, aftere dropping my brother off to school. She looked at me for a few seconds longer than normal, then, “Your hair looks lovely today.”

I smiled, shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Hesistant, again, “You know, you’d be really gorgeous if you lost a little weight.”

All my defenses crashed back down. To be honest, I think they’ve stayed there since.

By no means am I blaming it on my mother. Not at all. The fact is that what it comes down to is that I was a fat kid, and the long and short of it was that I was lazy. I grew up trying all sorts of sports, but I had no real talent for them and I was too lazy to work at them. I hated being in the sun, I hated being sweaty, I hated feeling inferior to the people who did it well, and I hated the feeling that I let my team down because I was so fat. I avoided sport during school like it was the plague.

Because I was so large, I never really socialised, and when I did it was an exercise in humiliation. Part of the issue was that in my mind, the outside didn’t match the inside. I went to a social in Grade 9, and one of the girls (horribly skinny: was one of those people who could eat anything — literally anything and not gain a pound) said she’d find someone to dance with. The entire time I had No no no no no no no racing through my head, violent hopes of finding a nice boy to talk to and dance with who would see the princess beyond that fat… the guy she brought was as large as, if not larger than, me. He was also significantly shorter, and not really all that attractive.  We didn’t dance. We both felt awkward and just shuffled away, because we’d both just been told that that was all we were worth.

That started the routine for going out. People can be cruel. I’ve had people betting within hearing distance, daring each other to go to talk to ‘That Fat One’, thinking they’re hilarious. I’ve had people talk to me because I’m with prety friends, some because they think I’m easy. There’s a reason Fat Girls don’t go out. You constantly walk the Tightrope of Sociability. You have to be nice, but not too nice or earnest, a tiny bit flirty but not too overt (they will think you’re a slut, and they will comment on it), and reserved (but not so much so that they think you’re a bitch). If you get the right balance, then they’ll talk to you, laugh with you, flirt with you — and go home with your friend.

Because a lot of the time, people forget that you’re actually human. Like when boys call out names to me when I’m walking down the street. When a guy at the bar grabs my arm and squeezes it as I walk by — to feel how fat it is. All of it adds up, and it becomes very easy to think that that is all you’re worth.

Some people talk about a lightbulb moment, a time when it just clicked and they found the motivation. I’ve never had one. I’ve had moments of revulsion — a couple of pictures from a certain album, for instance. (Although they came after I decided to take action.) What came instead is the slow, creeping horror at the thought that my life will always be like this. Because I refuse to let this be who I am for the rest of my life. Instead came the very slow realisation that the only thing that can stop me from getting larger, can stop me from staying this way forever — is myself. So now I have to. Otherwise, there’s no one else to blame but me. I’m the one who has made myself this way. I’m the one who has put myself in this position. And I just won’t accept that.

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