What Being A Fat Woman Is Really Like

Apparently Cosmo did an article interviewing fat women and their experiences. I'm not going to lie, I hate Cosmo and have pledged never to give them my money again. But a bunch of other fat women bloggers have been answering the same questions from the interview to give a wider perspective, and I'd like to jump on the bandwagon. There's a list of other participating bloggers here, and I learned about the project from Issa (whose blog is totally awesome, and you should check it out!). Without further ado, here are the questions and my answers:

How do you feel when other women around you complain about feeling/being fat?

It makes me feel both sad and embarrassed. Sad because they are more worried about their weight than anything else, and embarrassed because they think it's okay to give intimate details of their food and body to someone they hardly know. Why is that socially acceptable? I think it's just awkward, and I try to change the subject.

How has your body image changed since high school? College?

I was pretty self-conscious in high school, even though I weighed a lot less than I do now. I felt fat even when I was in the normal range for my height. In college, I worried more about trying to lose weight simply because I recognized that I was gaining weight (I probably gained about 50 lbs between high school and college). In college, I became more and more depressed, which led to a lot of self-hatred that I still struggle with today. My self-confidence took a nose dive along with my mental well-being. [Also, way to assume that everyone can afford college. Did I mention I hate Cosmo?]

Have you tried dieting? What happened?

I have tried dieting on and off, but my focus has always been more on exercising. One summer I exercised pretty intensely at least five days a week, and I did lose some weight, but of course I gained it right back with some excess. I was never good at dieting just because I don't like to be hungry.

Do you think in your case you weight is partly or entirely genetic?

Of course it's partly genetic. If it has to do with your body, it's at least partly caused by genetics. Other people in my family are fat, and I look like people in my family. (Does the "duh" need to be stated?)

Do you consider yourself healthy? Have there been instances where people assumed you were unhealthy?

I'm healthy in some ways, and unhealthy in others, but that doesn't necessarily reflect my weight. I had depression and asthma before I was fat.

Are your parents supportive of you at the weight you're at? Have they always been?

My mom comes from a family where a lot of the family members are fat. I think that she understands that I look like the rest of the family, and I don't think she's ever really mentioned it. I know that I look just like her and my sister. :)

How do you think retailers can improve clothes for plus-sized people?

Carry more sizes. I hate going into a store at the mall and not being able to find my size at all. Why is it so hard to carry the same clothes in bigger sizes?

Do you think plus-size women are judged differently than plus-size men are? How?

Women are always judged in a more sexual nature, like how sexy or "fuckable" they look. So if we're fat or unattractive, that's worse than a man being fat or unattractive.

Do you think there's an assumption made / stereotype that exists about plus-size people? How would you respond to it?

Of course there are stereotypes about fat people. We're lazy, sloppy, smelly, easy, gross, whatever. Stereotypes about fat people, just like stereotypes about any other kind of people, should be called out whenever possible. If you hear a stereotype, challenge it.

Do you think there's ever a right way or time to express concern about someone's weight?

Not unless you are that person's doctor or baby doctor. A family doctor should be concerned if a patient gains or loses a lot of weight in a short time person, and a baby doctor should be concerned if a pregnant patient is not gaining enough weight or is gaining too much weight. If you are not that person's doctor, then you should not mention it.

What are the worst things people have said to you about your body? How did you respond?

Except for on the internet, people don't say nasty things directly to me. They say them behind my back. In both cases, I ignore them (or block them on the internet).

What have people said (or do you wish they'd say) that would compliment your body or appearance?

The only time I'd like a compliment on my appearance is if I make a drastic change to my hair like dying it or cutting it. Other than that, I find it awkward for other people to comment on the way my body looks. A woman at my old job asked me on more than one occasion if I had lost weight, and I was just at a loss for words. Telling me I look smaller than I did before is not a compliment, and it's rude. Seriously, keep that crap to yourself.

Do you find yourself hanging out with women who are closer to your size?

Not really. I'm very socially isolated (due to depression and anxiety) right now, but in school the people I hung out with were both fatter and skinnier than me. We hung out because we were in the same clubs or the same classes, not because we looked the same.

How has your weight affected your sex life, if at all?

It made me more self-conscious about my body, but I'm getting over that. Other than that, we just push the fat out of the way. (Yay for TMI!)

When you've been single, has your weight affected your dating life?

I haven't been single for more than 6 years. Last time I was single, I was at a "normal" weight.

Do you feel weird if the guy you're with only dates larger women?

First of all, I hate that Cosmo assumes that they have no bisexual or lesbian readers. It would be so easy to change "the guy" to "the person." But no, I don't think that's weird. Unless the person is purposely trying to manipulate fat people because they think that fat people are easy or desperate. Then, it wouldn't be weird, but it would be creepy and manipulative.

Do you feel weird if he's only dated slimmer women before you?

I might feel self-conscious if that happened, but it wouldn't be hard to get over. They're dating me--and not their exes--for a reason.

That's all for the questions, but feel free to ask others. Check out some of the other interviews here!

Intersectionality

To better educate myself, I've been reading feminist and African American history. Currently, I'm reading bell hooks' Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism. In this book and in the article quoted above, the two authors talk about the racism in the feminist movement(s).

Feminism, to me, includes women of color as well as poor women, trans* women, immigrant women, lesbians and bisexual women, disabled women, fat women, ALL women. We have to recognize and work to end problems for all of these women. If we just focus on white, middle-upper-class educated women's problems, then we're not doing anything to help women who may have it worse off than we do.

That's not to say that we should be comparing who is more oppressed or who has it better off, aka playing the "Oppression Olympics." We just have to acknowledge that different forces affect our lives in different and intersecting ways, thus the word "intersectionality." Straight working-class black women have different experiences than do disabled queer white women.

We have to work to end all types of oppression against women. Racism is a strong force in black women's lives, a force that white women can help combat. We have to start by recognizing and fighting against our own racism. And by listening to black women and what they have to say. That's where I'm at now.

My Love Affair with the Vampire

Ever since high school, I've been in love with the vampire. It probably started with Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Ever since I read Interview with the Vampire, I've consumed any and all vampire books that I could find. I read the classic and the modern, the great and the garbage. I don't care if it's poems, novels, short stories, or graphic novels. I'm more picky with the movies I watch, but that's only because I have a hard time watching overly gory or violent movies.

To better remember what I've read and watched, I've started a list of books and movies. Of course, none of these lists are complete, but I'm going to keep working on them. Here's a start:

Literature

The Vampyre - John William Polidori (1819)
Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
Dracula - Bram Stoker (1897)
Dracula's Guest - Bram Stoker (1914)
Dracula (play) - John Balderston & Hamilton Deane (1924)
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson (1954)

Salem's Lot - Stephen King (1975)
The Dracula Tape - Fred Saberhagen (1975)
The Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice (1976-2003)

Vampire$ - John Steakley (1990)
The Vampire's Promise series - Caroline B. Cooney (1991-1993)
Goodnight Kiss Vol. 1-2 - R. L. Stine (1992-1997)
The Last Vampire Vol. 1-4 - Christopher Pike (1994-1996)
Carmilla: The Return - Kyle Marffin (1998)
Carpe Jugulum: A Novel of Discworld - Terry Pratchett (1998)
Vampire and Werewolf Stories - Alan Durant (1998)
Women of the Otherworld series - Kelley Armstrong (2001-2008)
The Mammoth Book of Vampires - Stephen Jones (2004)
Bite - Laurell K. Hamilton & Charlaine Harris (2004)
Fledgling - Octavia Butler (2005)
The Curse of Dracula - Marv Wolfman (2005)
Twilight series - Stephanie Meyer (2005-2008)
The Black Dagger Brotherhood series - J. R. Ward (2005-)
Mercy Thompson series - Patricia Briggs (2006-)
Renfield: Slave of Dracula - Barbara Hambly (2006)
Vampire Doll Vol. 1-2 - Erika Kari (2006-2007)
Marked - P. C. and Kristin Cast (2007)
Vampire Kisses: Blood Relatives Vol. 1 - Ellen Schreiber (2007)
Vampire the Masquerade (not sure which one)

Film
Nosferatu (1922)
Dracula (1931)
Blacula (1972)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973)
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)
Dracula 2000
Queen of the Damned (2002)
Vampires: Los Muertos (2002)
Twilight (2008)

Still Need to Read
Varney the Vampire - James Malcolm Rymer (1847)
Dracula series (the rest of it) - Fred Saberhagen (1978-2002)
Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania - Raymond McNally (1987)
The Vampire Book (encyclopedia) - J. Gordon Melton (1998)
Mina - Elaine Bergstrom (2000)
Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton (2002)
Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004)
The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova (2005)
Real Vampires Have Curves - Gerry Bartlett (2008)
Dracula the Un-Dead - Dacre Stoker (2009)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith (2010)
Shadow World series - Dianne Sylvan (2010-)
Prince Lestat - Anne Rice (2014)

Still Need to Watch (If you have seen any of these, please let me know if they are very violent or gory!)
Vampyr (1932)
Horror of Dracula (1957)
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1969)
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
Dracula A. D. 1972
Salem's Lot (1979)
The Lost Boys (1987)
Near Dark (1987)
From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)
Pitch Black (2000)
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Underworld series (2003-2012)
Van Helsing (2004)
Let the Right One In (2008)

If you have any other good movies or books that you would recommend, please let me know! Especially if you have a copy of the movie or book that I could borrow--that would be awesome.

Stupid Things I Say to My Dog

I live alone with my dog, so naturally I talk to him. A lot. We have some pretty deep conversations. Here are some gems:

• "Do you want a treat? That was a stupid question."
• In the bathroom: "Get out of here; I don't need your help. I can pee by myself. I've been doing it for a long time."
• "It's almost March, so I hope that means it's almost spring. I better not have to wait until April."
• "That would be the correct sentence structure. Not that you care about sentences. You only know five words." *
• "I love kisses. Except the ones that go up my nose."
• After working out: "Yep, lick all the sweat off. Salt is real good. Tastes like Gatorade. Sweat flavored Gatorade."
• "No, if you're not going to pee, then we're going in. I didn't come out here in the snow to chase squirrels."
• As he barks at the neighbors: "You're so ferocious. You just made me shit myself in terror."

He pretty much always has the same response. He tilts his head and looks at me like this:

You talkin' to me?

*He actually knows at least ten words: no, okay, bad, sit, stay, down, out, walk, treat, food, ride, and leave it (which is two words, but he doesn't know that)

Depression Meds

I've been living with depression since my high school years, maybe since 2005-2006. Since then, I've tried a bunch of different medications to try to treat my symptoms and make living bearable.

These are the some of the medications that I've tried:
Prozac (fluoxetine)
Celexa (citalopram)
Paxil (paroxetine)
Lexepro (escitalopram)
Zoloft (sertraline)
Effexor XR (venlafaxine)
Cymbalta (duloxetine)
Viibryd (vilazodone)

Some of these have been more effective than others, and some gave me some pretty bad side effects (like dizziness and terrifying nightmares). I had been using Effexor for a couple years until I started having regular panic attacks--a couple every week. My doctor switched me to Cymbalta (duloxetine) about a week ago, so now I have a new med to add to my list. I really hope that this one is going to work. I have not been sleeping well since I started it, but I'm not sure if it's because of the medicine or from something else. I'll give it some more time and keep my fingers crossed.

Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size

Over the weekend, I went to a GSA Summit at Dickinson College, and I finally got to meet Ragen Chastain, author of one of my favorite blogs, Dances with Fat. Ragen spoke about body acceptance and the media, and she taught a dance class after lunch, which was actually really fun (I've never danced before, so I was waaaay out of my comfort zone).

Ragen Chastain presenting at Dickinson College

Ragen is a really inspiring person and speaker, so now of course I'm stoked to talk about Size Acceptance and the Health at Every Size philosophy.

The thing is: I'm fat. I'm 5'2'' and around 175 pounds, which the doctor's office loves to tell me is obese. I used to be a "normal" weight in high school (still felt fat though, that's another story), and I gained a lot of weight in college. So now I'm fat. There are a lot of fat people in my family, so I'm sure some of it is genetic.

I'm also moderately active: I do yoga, walk my dog multiple times per day, walk 5k's a few times per year, and do other activities such as swimming when the weather permits. My numbers (aside from weight--like blood pressure etc.) are in the healthy range. I happen to have asthma, but who knows if the weight caused the asthma or if the asthma caused the weight or if it was caused by something else entirely (possibly genetics, since my mother also has asthma).

The point is: yes, I'm fat. I'm also working out, trying to stay healthy, and working on loving myself and my body the way it looks now. Yes, I am tired of hating my body, which is why I was so happy to discover the Size Acceptance (SA) and Health at Every Size (HAES) movements.

Size Acceptance is essentially a movement for civil rights for fat people--you know, basic human dignity and respect for everyone regardless of their weight. Chairs and airplane seats and hospital beds to accommodate everyone. Radical, isn't it?

And Health at Every Size is a health practice based on the belief that people can be healthy no matter their weight (thus "at Every Size"). HAES practitioners work on intuitive eating and doing exercises that they enjoy with a focus on being more healthy, not losing weight.

I've been working on accepting myself and other fat people for the past couple months, and (SHOCKER) it's a lot harder to accept myself than it is to accept other people. Thankfully, there are people like Ragen who tell me every day that being fat does not mean that I'm a horrible person and that foods are not morally good or bad. It was wonderful meeting such an inspiring person! Check out her blog if you're interested in learning more: Dances with Fat.

Guilt

Living with depression and anxiety comes with a lot of guilt. Up until recently, the main thing I felt guilty about was moving out of my aunt's house while she was in the middle of chemotherapy treatments. Even though she assured me that she would be okay and that she had friends that she could rely on, I felt lousy about it for months.

Then I drove by the trailer where I spent a few months of my childhood while my family was homeless. I was in the area for other reasons and wanted to show my partner a piece of my past. I figured that it had been many years since I had been by there, and I was a little curious if it looked as horrific as I remember it.

The place itself still looked like a hell hole, but how it looked was nothing compared to the memories it drug up. Being told continuously that we (my brother and I) were unwanted and on the verge of being kicked out onto the street (we were about 10 and 12) is what I had remembered from this time; being told that you're going to be "on the outside looking in" is hard to forget. However, I had apparently repressed even worse memories.

The one that haunts me is of our family dog, a rottweiler/lab mix named Bo (named for Bo Diddley). We usually kept Bo inside at our home, but when we moved to the trailer, there wasn't enough room for 12 people as well as our dog (obviously there wasn't even enough room for just the people). Bo stayed outside like the other animals, tied up by himself.

Honestly, I don't know whose responsibility it was to take care of him and make sure he had food and water. All I know is that one day I saw him for the first time in weeks. He was skin and bones - literally starving to death. I can't even imagine the pain he went through during those weeks. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

Bo survived for about another year before he died when I was in 8th grade. I was heartbroken. I had awful dreams about his death. And now I have the weight of guilt. It doesn't matter if his pain and death was my fault or not. It's going to be on my conscience for the rest of my life.

Bo and I at our old home

"Cultural Differences"

I've been seething about this incident ever since it happened, so I'd like to vent about it here:

One morning at work, my boss was reading off a bit of news to my two co-workers and I about the 8 year old Yemeni girl known as "Rawan" who was sold into marriage by her parents to a 40 year old man. The girl died after suffering severe internal bleeding on her wedding night.

Guy At Work (hereafter known as GAW) just chuckled and said, "Oops." My boss just gave him a dirty look and said, "I'm gonna come over there and smack you." He looked around at the three of us, got only more dirty looks, and then tried to save himself: "You have to understand that their culture is extremely different from ours. That's normal over there." I was too angry to say anything.

First of all, he could have shown some sympathy. This girl was brutally raped and died from the resulting injuries. Even an "Aw, that's sad" would have been better than a laugh and an "Oops," like it was a comical mistake that could have happened to anyone.

Second of all, just because child marriage might be socially acceptable in other countries, does not mean that it is any less of a human rights violation. This poor girl's parents sold her to a 40 year old man to be used as a sex slave, AKA a wife. That is not acceptable, no matter what backwards ass culture you live in. Condoning that kind of social norm in any part of the world only allows it to continue. Women will always been seen as lesser beings, or as property or objects, until we are allowed to decide what happens to our own bodies.

How many more girls have to die this way until people wake up?

Depression and Communication

When you have depression, you can feel very isolated and alone. Talking with other people helps, but holding a conversation can be very difficult.

For example, when they ask, "How's it going?". You want to respond, "Lousy," or "shitty," or "Well, I'm not dead" because that pretty much sums it up. But then they want to ask you what's wrong, and you really don't want to get into it, or you don't even know how to explain what's wrong with you. So you respond with a "Good" or a "Fine," both of which are lies, and they really don't mean anything. Communication failure.

Or they ask, "How's your family doing?" Now, you don't talk to most of your family, and some of them you actively hate, and the rest are in and out of the hospital or just as depressed as you are. You don't want to talk about it, and they don't want to hear about it. So, of course, you say they're doing "Fine."

Or maybe they ask, "How's your job?" and you want to reply, "Same shit, different day," or "It sucks." But you know they don't want to hear you complain about your job; no one wants to hear the constant stream of negative thoughts running through your head. So you tell them the job is "Okay" or that you're just glad that you have a job in this shitty economy.

It doesn't work. While you're busy trying not to say all the negative things that you're thinking and only saying one or two words, you clearly can't keep up your end of the conversation. Sometimes you forget to ask them the same questions, and then there's a lull.

When you go through this process enough times, you don't want to do it anymore. You avoid people and isolate yourself even more, which - surprise! - increases your depression.

I think Allie at Hyperbole and a Half understands:

Fetuses and Doggies and Protesters, Oh My...

I know I shouldn't care about what other people think, but sometimes I have to consider how I present myself and my beliefs, and/or how it reflects on my job.

Let me explain.

If you know anything about me, you know that I'm an outspoken supporter of women's rights and reproductive rights--including abortion. My bumper stickers include a picture of a uterus with the word "Mine," a rainbow that says "If the fetus you save is gay, will you still support its rights?"* and a pink "I Stand With Planned Parenthood."

I also support organizations that rescue homeless and abused animals. I rescued my dog from the Humane Society, and I give money and resources to the local shelters. However, I do not have any SPCA or "Rescue" bumper stickers on my car. I am hesitant to even put a generic dog related sticker on my car.

It's not that I don't feel strongly about saving animals who are homeless or living in abusive situations. It's that I don't want people to think that I care more about animals than I care about "babies," aka fetuses. I can just see one of our protesters taking a picture of the offending bumper stickers and posting it around the internet as "proof" of how terrible Planned Parenthood is: how we don't care about killing "babies" but we care about the poor, homeless dogs.

These are just the things I think about when I'm bored at work.


*This is what my boyfriend calls the "Obligatory Inflammatory Bumper Sticker." I call it calling out the twisted logic of conservatives.