Fat Girls in Real Life

All my life I have been fat, even as a child, but it wasn't for lack of exercise. My mother has a video of me around age four literally running in circles. I was a very active child; my body was just made to have some extra poundage. It never bothered me until I hit those terrible puberty years. I was very into the teeny-bopper magazines and pop music, which all featured petite and sometimes risqué images of girls and grown women. How the media just fawned over them! I remember drawing a picture of who I wanted to be when I grew up, and of course I drew myself a lot slimmer.

I am blessed enough to have been raised in a family that embraced themselves. Tall, short, fat, skinny, you were perfect no matter what. But as a girl going through these changes, I hated myself. To add to my almost nonexistent self-confidence, I was born with a crooked leg. I let it hold me back for 18 years, but at 22 I can now say that I love who I am. You can lose weight, get corrective surgery, but in the end, the people who were rooting for you and praised you did it because of you. You can look like road kill on a Monday, but if you have that inner light, you could melt the heat of any stranger. The same can be said concerning the Botoxed treadmill junkies, who can be externally the picture of perfect, but if that person is selfish, mean-spirited, and shallow... it bleeds through and exposes itself. Trust me; I know this from personal experience.

I am in a way better place right now in my life, but my weight does still give me problems. Sometimes I sell myself short when it comes to men, the cuter they are, the smaller (figuratively speaking) I feel, "there's no way he likes big girls." But more times than not, I can shake that off and just dive in. I gave out my number for the first time last year, and have a few times after that. No responses yet, but I won't let that deter me. I know that as a person I am quite a catch, and I always say it will take a special kind of awesome to handle me.

Basically, I am writing this article to reach out, and to encourage big girls to realize their worth. I don't have a mansion, a male model husband, everything I could ever want, but really... I don't need that. I look at myself in the mirror and smile at who I see. I have seen girls starving themselves and committing self-mutilation just to escape that negative voice saying you're not good enough. I was one of them. I used to cut myself because I was ugly anyway. It has been two years since I last harmed myself (purposefully, I'm not the most graceful so I do hurt myself a lot, but it's not planned, trust me!), and I plan on never getting back to that mental place.

I currently want to pursue a career in counseling. I feel like my reason for being, the reason for my years filled with sorrow and self-delusion, is so I can help those who are afraid to speak. Those who don't think they can be better. I am proof that yes, things are never going to be perfect, but perfection does not equal happiness.

I started this article because I wanted to discuss the social vision of larger people, the struggles, the fears, the difference in how normal things affect people of different sizes and backgrounds. This was supposed to be a very literary piece of analytical comparison, but hey, I hope someone got something out of this. And if you would like to hear more from this Fat Girl, or if you have anything at all to add or comment on, please do!




Quotes and biographical information courtesy of Wikipedia
Picture of Dawn French courtesy of Google Image & Mirror UK