WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.
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We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.
This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.
I am chapped skin, gaping pores,
Angry spots and red welts.
I am a child of anxiety subjected
To states of over-everything.
Over-productive sebum,
Over-zealous picking,
Over-sensitive reactions,
Over-and-out.
I am stubborn coarse hairs
In “unladylike” places,
Self-inflicted scars from
Conditions so imposed
To wax and wane
Beyond my control.
I am good enough.
“Beauty” is elusive,
And I am happy to own “ugly”
When my lips form the words
So naturally.
I am a fat woman
I say this, and immediately the cacophony of voices rush to my ears.
‘NO, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL!”
We have been told too long that fat and beauty cannot exist on the same plane.
Everywhere I go I see this
The War on Obesity has us in the trenches
Fat bodies shown headless like prisoners long gone to the guillotine.
My doctor says I need to lose 50 pounds while the duck lips are inside me
Free shaming with every pap smear, his sign should read.
I walk down the street and I hear the word: hippo.
Whale
Cow
Fat ass
Humanity has a weight limit of 150
The gym is the bane of my existence
I walk in and immediately feel the stares
The lithe and muscled bodies shun my fat presence
I am unable to comprehend the hate
Just 20 minutes ago I was told to be here
And now I hear the silent screams of the judgemental trainer
GET OUT FAT ASS! YOU DONT BELONG
“Nobody wants to see a fat girl in video games” I’m told
There are no fantasies of fat women
No alternate realities of love and affection and awe for the corpulent
I eat and I cringe as I hear the girl behind me
“I’ve lost my appetite looking at that”
I’m told my basic human needs are not as necessary as my weight loss
Lose 10 pounds quick
Get your sexy slim body today
Trim down the FAT
Such a crisis
Yet I still exist
Fat and beautiful and smart and kind
A goddess amongst mortals
Venus of Willendorf
Rubenesque Nymph
Glorified and exhaulted beyond measure
I exist
I am
I be
(tw:discussion of dieting, eating disorders)
You Have Such a Pretty Face
Each week before New Year’s
my mom made me write
a list of resolutions.
And each year she told me
to include how much weight
I wanted, needed, would loose.
Last year I wrote two resolutions.
I would strive to be happy
with myself, aim to be healthy.
My mom wanted me to put down
an exact number. I refused.
You Could Be Such a Pretty Girl
At ten I started packing on the pounds.
Grandpa Bob died. Type Two.
Dad gave me pancakes and hugs.
At twelve my mom got me a personal trainer.
Bribes of clothes and shopping.
At thirteen, my best friend suggested
liposuction for when I got older.
Bribes of money or books.
By fourteen I could count the times
I ate until I cried
over the toilet
wishing it was as easy to lose
weight as it was to lose my dinner.
Maybe new furniture, your own room?
On my sixteenth birthday
not a single thing was said about my weight.
The next day my dad called me a bowling ball.
I punched him in the stomach. My mom
never said it wasn’t true.
Negative for Type Two.
Five hundred calories a day
with daily HCG injections.
Weekly doctor visits
for more shots,
to make sure nothing went wrong.
This was the cure all,
my mom said,
the pounds would melt away.
You’ll feel great, look great.
And, instead of gaining that freshman
fifteen, I’d lost thirty.
A trip to New York?
But they gained back that summer.
You don’t need to eat that.
At twenty I started to tune my mom out.
Not even pre-diabetic. Because you’re young.
By twenty-one I told my parents to back off.
Wear something else, you look pregnant.
If You Just Lost Some Weight
I admire girls with asses and guts
larger than mine who carry
their weight with confidence
I wear my insecurities
like a fat suit I can’t take off
I can’t hide them
behind a smile
behind a shrug
or a ‘I don’t give
a fuck’ attitude
you know exactly
what looks
what words
make me feel
like shit
The night you came to pick me up
I had just finished a long,
gut-wrenching cry and I was
wearing my baggiest clothes in an attempt at
tranquilizing
a concoction of apathy and alarm;
too much flesh
puffed out
from swelling boredom, finally released in an explosion of salty water.
You see, my “cleanse” had done just the opposite:
filled me with toxic
stories,
stripped me of
elasticity and
nailed wooden shelves of fear inside my head;
rearranged spirals and circles into
dogmatic squares and I was hungry.
The night you came to pick me up we:
hugged
drove down the street
and ordered a plate of curly fries which you only pretended to eat
(leaving them all for me — which I had no problem with).
The night you came to pick me up all things fell away:
grease
seeped into my stubborn renovations and
I came out of it maybe
half or a sixteenth of a pound heavier than before
— and this didn’t matter —
not one
fucking
bit.
[tw: suicidal thoughts]
1.
Your roommate comes home to find you
in the kitchen, in old sweatpants and a lace bra,
heating soup on the stove. You wonder
what she thinks of your stomach, its pillowy folds, if
it isn’t a little obscene, how it grows softer every day
while you stand there, tearing chunks off of a baguette,
barely chewing, constantly swallowing.
2.
Your friend invites you over for a movie. Cancel because your
feet hurt. Cancel because your fat stomach hurts. Cancel
because he thinks you’re beautiful and you know you aren’t.
3.
Consider writing the boy you love another letter
to tell him you are sad that he ignored your first letter.
Wonder when you stopped worrying about being
a “crazy girl.” Acknowledge that becoming one
feels natural, like tugging at ivy until it’s uprooted, like
holding the vine and watching soil fall from the roots,
back to more soil, gently.
4.
Fear every man who looks at you.
Hate every man who doesn’t look at you.
5.
The train whistle you hear every night
sounds like the cawing of an angry crow.
This is not the mournful song everyone
writes about, not the lone bassoon stretching
its neck into the night—this is something harsh,
dogged: blaring sandpaper, a smoke alarm.
6.
Think about getting hit by a car almost every day.
Resent that you can’t think of anything more creative
or less passive.
7.
But that boy. You have spent most of a year unraveling
your skin for him, draping strands of it places
you thought he’d notice, your teeth always chattering
like crude drums calling him to battle across the room,
across three states, across your bed. The woman he loves
is a magnet. You don’t know what you are, but you suspect
it is something less permanent, something
more likely to dissolve in water.
8.
Eat the whole baguette. Lay in bed
sweating. Don’t call anyone back. There’s
that train whistle again: furious, obscene.
I say, ‘I am fat.’ He says, ‘No, you are beautiful.’ I wonder why I cannot be both.
10 Honest Thoughts on Being Loved by a Skinny Boy - Rachel Wiley
God, this shit just gave me chillz. Love love love.
with an army of magazines
and beauty queens
how do i compete?
when my trophy case of
unattainable standards
stays
empty
spiders hibernate and weave in my
valley of insecurity
when its a race
pick up the pace
because today’s the sale
for a new face
the lines are long…
makeup commercials merge into
songs
and I’ve memorized the lyrics
and studied the brochures
because only four payments of
shame ninety nine
can buy me a better body
words sting when miss Tennessee
is the new model for recreational
or the norm
LORD PLEASE tell me
how i am supposed to compete
with beautiful woman
who DISGUSTINGLY bind their feet,
but metaphorically
how can i impress when i cant afford that dress
and who is gonna love me
take care of me
accept me
when I jackhammer off the
makeup…
wipe off the touch up
let my mascara run
so liberating
so fun…
yet i fear
that it wont be clear, exactly
what my intentions are
my bridge of doubt runs for miles
with mirrors broken
and my BEDROOM IS STOLEN
with fake faces on faker magazines
i question…
WHY you mock me
WHY MUST you rob me,
of the confidence and beauty,
i was born with, why oh! why
do you make me believe
that real beauty is a,
size negative thirteen
AND WHY DO I STILL TRY
to be that size
try to fit in those jeans
when even though…i know
if that zipper zips
if that button buttons
it means I’m in a coffin
but why do i still crave it…
why do i need it
AND WHO F***ING DARED
MADE ME THINK IT…
models with mile long legs
are prettier
when the camera is clearer.
why do you fear me?
try to conform me
leaving me and she
and ALL of we,
feeling useless
leaving me clueless
as to whether or not my hips are bad
or if i should be
mad
about the natural sag of my skin
wanting to be thin…
but learning to accept,
and forget
about the ads that stiffly scatter on my bed
keep trying to creep into my head
but they wont oh not today
for i stand tall
my lumps and all
for i am proud to stand among
the thinnest crowd WITHOUT
holding my head down.
I’ll keep it up
cause if you stand high enough
the words
the images from the magazines
can not reach me and we
if i become a skyscraper
i will be untouchable
unbreakable, no make-up on…
BUT UNSTOPPABLE….
——
submitted by dirtysocksinmydrawers
(Side note: There’s a comment in the video about size six and size eight which is funny but remember people who wear those sizes are real and beautiful too. And when I’m at my smallest those are my sizes so I definitely don’t mean to insult anyone with those measurements.)