The F Word

I hate the F word. Absolutely. Hate. It. I cringe when I hear other women say it. My niece has used it many times and I felt both angry and sad. And the one time my 5-year-old used it on herself I wanted to cry. I would rather her say ‘fuck’ a million times then say the word ‘fat’ in reference to herself even once.

I see many women on social media who have taken the word fat and given it power, turned it into something beautiful, something to not be ashamed of, and I applaud these women immensely. But I’m not one of those women. For me, fat has always been a bad word, a shameful word, something you should never become.

I have been heavy all of my life. Some years I weighed more than other years, some years I weighed less, but I’ve never been skinny. Although looking back at some old photographs I would give anything to be the size I was in high school, realizing now that I wasn’t as big as I thought. I try not to use the word fat in conversation, I do my best not to say it out loud, and I never say it in front of my daughter. But in my head, my bullies, my enemies, my inner critic scream it all the time. For years I would look in the mirror and that’s all I would see. I would look at myself every time and only see the extra weight staring back at me. The thickness in certain places, the rolls that I knew shouldn’t be there. I’m in my 40’s and it’s still a struggle.

And as I think about it, I try to pinpoint when the negative thoughts started and why. Like I said, being bigger than other people has always been a problem. I was always heavier than my classmates in elementary school and I was the girl whose body developed quicker than everyone else. I’ve always had a big chest which never helped the situation. But when I think about being a kid my weight was never a problem for me, I hardly ever thought about it, and kids I knew never made fun of me for it. I never saw myself as fat back then even though there were times that I was. And I think that’s because I had confidence in myself with other things. I didn’t care if anyone thought I was fat because I could hit a ball better than most kids, and throw a spiral further than most of the boys. And my weight wasn’t an issue because I was known for other things. When I was in elementary school, no one cared. I had my friends and they loved me for me. Being fat wasn’t a ‘thing’ yet. I was a tomboy, still am today, and that meant that the boys liked me because I knew sports, and the girls liked me because they knew I wasn’t going to steal their boyfriend. And that followed me all the way to high school. My confidence in my abilities back then made me who I was, my weight had nothing to do with me.

Food has always been an issue for me. I realized long ago that I am definitely an emotional eater. I eat when I’m depressed, I eat when I’m angry, and since I have spent a lot of time being both of those things, weight was always gained. I grew up in an Italian family where every Sunday we would go to my father’s mother’s house and before I stepped foot into the apartment a meatball was shoved in my face. And then another, and another. Dinner was a four-course meal and pasta was put on your plate and the minute you were done, you got more. No one even asked if you wanted more, you just got it and you were expected to eat it because 1) you couldn’t insult your Grandmother and 2) there were starving children somewhere. So, you ate, and ate, and ate. In those few hours I probably ate three days’ worth of food. And soda was everywhere. I don’t think I ever drank water at my grandmother’s house. And I never questioned anything because as a kid you just do what you’re told. You don’t have much of a voice. You eat what’s on the table and you don’t complain. This was my normal and back then it didn’t bother me. Food equaled love and I ate it up.

But again, none of it bothered me back then because I didn’t know enough to let it bother me. My family never discussed weight, never talked about healthy eating. It wasn’t a big thing when I was growing up. And as a kid your parents bought what they could afford and you ate whatever was put in front of you, sometimes more than once a week. Nobody talked about eating healthy. I hated vegetables as a kid so I never ate them so the healthiest thing I probably ate was salad, but I would drown that in dressing so that doesn’t really count.

When I think about it now it does bother me because even as an adult I feel bad if I leave food on a plate. If I throw anything away, I feel guilty. It’s another brainwashing thing where I feel like I’m wrong if I don’t clean my plate. I’m an adult who has made many changes in the way I look at food but on any given night I can still feel like the little girl who can’t leave food even if I’m full. It’s hard to retrain your brain, but I’m working on it.

I don’t know how old I was but I can remember a time I became aware of my weight. I started to get marks on my thighs but didn’t know what they were so my mother took me to the doctor who simply stated ‘they’re stretch marks. She put on a lot of weight’. And that was that. We left with the answer we needed. I don’t think anything else was ever said about it, but I remember feeling embarrassed and ashamed. Another time I was at the doctor and he straight up called me a ‘fat ass’ because I had gained weight since the last time he saw me. Shortly after that he had a complete mental breakdown but that didn’t matter to me. He said it, I heard it and it stayed with me. I don’t think I told anyone and back then it didn’t bother me. I already developed my thick skin and put a wall up so nothing got to me. And yet, I can still remember it, clear as day today. Maybe I imagined it, maybe it never happened, but I don’t believe that.

I didn’t grow up having negative thoughts about myself, that wasn’t my mentality. In high school, I think it started a little, but it was never about my weight. It was about all of the other things that I felt different about. I would honestly have to say that my negative body image started after I got married. I was a heavy bride but on that day I didn’t care. My wedding day was only one of two days where I felt I was beautiful. I felt beautiful in my dress, in my make-up, from head to toe I felt it. The other day was at my cousin’s wedding where I was five months pregnant. My belly was showing, I had the pregnancy glow and I felt beautiful. But that’s it. Two days out of forty-three years. I got married in October of 2001 and I put on a lot of weight in those first few months so by the time January came I was the heaviest I had ever been, and for the first time in my life I really hated it, and the negative thoughts entered my brain.

The first time my husband called me beautiful I’m sure I either laughed in his face or had a sarcastic comment as my response. And that went on for years. To this day, after being together for over twenty years, I still can’t completely accept a compliment from him. I’ve gotten better, I don’t laugh anymore, but it’s still hard to think he sees me like that. Before him I don’t remember anyone ever telling me I was beautiful. It might have happened, but I have no memory of that.

At my heaviest, whenever I was out with my husband, I felt people staring at me with disgust. Wondering what he was doing married to someone as fat as me. I heard the names they called me, I felt their eyes look me up and down, I saw their faces filled with hatred. And of course, none of this actually happened. This was all in my head. This is what my brain made me think. I projected it onto myself and felt it so deeply that I believed it to be true. I disgusted myself, I hated myself, I couldn’t look at myself and I wondered why he married me. What could he possibly see in me? How could he stand me at the weight I was at? There was a long stretch of time where I would only have sex in the dark because I didn’t want him to look at me and see all of the extra pounds. I was afraid he would get disgusted at what he saw, even though I knew he loved me more than anything and he never said a negative thing about my appearance. In some ways I think I blocked him from loving me because I didn’t think I deserved it.

I used to hate looking in the mirror. I would step out of the shower, dry off, and get dressed as fast as I could without catching a glimpse of myself and everything I hated. I used to hate looking at old photographs of myself, especially at my heaviest, not being able to stand the sight of myself. Used to, past tense. I’m 43 years old and it’s only in the past few years that I’ve started to change my body and my mind. It is a daily process and some days are hard as hell. I’ve learned to eat better and not eat my feelings away. I’ve learned to make better choices so that I can feel better physically and mentally. It’s a tough thing to change the way we think about ourselves after doing it a certain way for so long. But I have to, for myself, for my sanity and for my daughter.

I’ve learned that the scale is the devil and I try to stay away from it. I’m not going to find myself in the numbers that I see. I am more than that. I was never the person those numbers said I was and I have to let her go. I know I’m getting healthier because I feel it in my soul, I feel it in the way my body moves and the way my clothes fit. I know my mind is getting healthier because those negative thoughts are being replaced by better ones. Not every day is a positive one, not every thought boosts my confidence, but I’m learning to silence my inner demons.

Today I can look in the mirror and admire the curves that weren’t there before. I can look at old photographs and feel proud of how far I have come, proud that I’m not as heavy as I once was. I can look at my body and admire the scar that shows my toughest battle. I once hated my body for letting me down and losing two babies. But my body did that so I would have the beautiful, amazing daughter I have today. And on the day she was born, that same body stayed strong and fought death. I have many scars, some you can see, some you can’t, but I am grateful for all of them. They made me who I am today. Am I the weight I want to be? No, and I may never be. And for the first time in my life I’m ok with that. The number on the scale is going to fluctuate from year to year. But I will still be me. I don’t want to worry about my size anymore. I want to be healthy when I can, and indulge when I want, never going to either extreme. I just want to be happy with the body I have.

Every time I get dressed in front of my daughter she tells me I look beautiful. Doesn’t matter what I’m wearing, she never hesitates to say ‘Mommy, you look beautiful’. And I smile and say ‘thank you baby. You’re beautiful too’. She’s watching me, taking in everything I do and say. And I want to be a good example to her so she never feels the way I did for one day of her life. I want to protect her from that kind of pain. And I can only do that by teaching her to love herself, every inch, every pound, every part. I don’t want her to hate the F word. I want her to be so happy with herself that she doesn’t ever think about it. I am blessed in this life, in this body. My husband loves me, my daughter loves me and I am slowly starting to love me too.