“With a disgusted look, my own trainer asked, ‘Why are you SO overweight?’ I felt like I was just punched in my (fat) gut. I cancelled my gym membership and dropped out of high school. Ashamed and embarrassed, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and cry. I always felt in competition with my siblings.”
‘You’d be SO MUCH prettier if you lost weight.’ I was 10. My siblings got juice, while I was only offered water. When we got into fights, ‘fatty’ was their low blow.’
Boy grows hair to donate to kids in need: ‘What are you doing in the boy’s bathroom? You look like a GIRL!’ One parent asked, ‘Is that a boy? That is such irresponsible parenting!’ His hair was long and angelic. I never understood.’
“No matter what he wore, he was mistaken as a girl by strangers. Even in his Spider Man costume, someone said, ‘Oh she’s so cute!’ I got used to correcting people. One day, I was called into the principal’s office.”
‘My boss said, ‘PLEASE wear makeup like other girls. And do something about your hair.’ It felt intentionally hurtful. ‘Don’t you see it? We’re immigrants. Other staff don’t get treated like we do!’
“I loved my frizzy, wavy mane. I protested and the mind games started. Gossiping to other staff about me. Asking to have me fired daily when I did nothing to deserve being fired. It got personal.”
‘One person told me, ‘Your stomach is so nasty. How can you be confident and sexy when you look like that? Take care of that mess of a body.’ Those harsh words stick. Ugly. Fat. Worthless.’
“Out of nowhere, I was being told I should ‘lose the baby weight’ so I could get back to the way things were before. WHAT? How I was before? Before what?”
‘Oh wow, my thighs look huge in these jeans. After you have an eating disorder, they say you’ll never be normal again.’
“The next five minutes I spent trying to change the illusion of what I had just seen, pulling up the waist of my dark jeans a little higher, smoothing out the denim hoping that may give the twins a slimmer appearance. I pulled on the hem of my sweater a bit, pulling it down a little further than the widest part of my thighs, hoping once again to give a thinner illusion.”
‘I can’t live like this anymore!’ Binge, purge, starve, repeat. I spent hours fantasizing about food. When my brother asked to play, I snapped at him and plugged calories into my app.’
“I had only wanted to lose 15 pounds before school started. I remember searching ‘fastest ways to lose weight’. I saw picture upon picture of skin-and-bone bodies. I’d never seen anything like it, except in German concentration camps. I was repulsed and intrigued.”
‘I couldn’t hide the huge bumps on my face. I felt hideous. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I genuinely HATED what I saw.’
“A friend told me, ‘You must not be trying hard enough. Do you wash your face at all?’ For years, I didn’t leave the house. He would offer to take me on dates. My answer was always the same. ‘No.’ I became obsessed.”
‘At the pool, a boy screamed, ‘Look at her feet!’ Embarrassed, I quickly ran away. I had to hide my secret. I was the only girl in 6th grade wearing it. I felt I had no choice.’
“The doctor marinated my skin with liquids strong enough to take off nail polish. I begged for answers. They didn’t know how to cure it. They still don’t.”
‘A boy tapped me. ‘Why do you have a mustache? What’s that mark between your eyebrows?’ I was shocked. My face flushed with embarrassment.’
“My mom started letting me wear concealer. I wouldn’t allow myself to go out in public without my ‘mask’ on. I was terrified of what people would think if they saw me in my raw state.”
‘I was the ‘fat kid’ and my father was disgusted with me. Fat people were never the heroes or love interests. My mind became a very dark place.’
“I didn’t realize I was ‘the fat kid’ until 5th grade when a classmate so helpfully pointed it out to me. That’s when my carefree childhood ended. I started to find my way in the world. However, I was still plagued by my negative body image. My solution? Find a man to validate me.”