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.
RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.
Some of the artwork you see here has been created by our founder or moderators, some sourced when applicable. Please be kind enough to source this blog whenever you share it's content.
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.
as I grew up I saw my little brothers go from pudgy pre-teens to having super muscular bodies and I thought to myself
WHAT THE FUCK?
was I not playing in dirt enough?
did I miss some genetic lottery in which my brothers could just one day stop being chubby as fuck and gain a six pack seemingly overnight?
and it didn’t stop there, the older I got the more I wondered if my fat was something I’d ~snap out of~
that if I just waited, I would one day ~transform~
and then when waiting didn’t work - I tried dieting and pills and all types of shit that just doesn’t work and actually fucks with the health you’re told is already fucked up by being a fat person.
THIS.
My little brother is a super fucken ripped, football-scholarship-toting, dudebro jock extreme - and he was chubbers when he was younger.
I went through puberty and moved to college before he even went to middle school, so we’re ages apart…it’s just weird how body image issues don’t translate in the same ways. At all.
My bro is always like “I’m so glad I don’t have anxiety and migraines and skin issues like you do” (always leaving out the “fat” aspect, though of course I know he’s thinking it) - it just makes me so goddamn angry.
My sister and I both struggle with this shit, and he never has. He’s had everything handed to him on a goddamn silver platter. Though I will admit, he does work his ass off and totally excels as an athlete…It’s just that when I was an athlete, I could never lose enough weight. I was “never good enough” because of my size. And I was a girl, so, you know.
I DON’T KNOW I just totally feel you and wanted to say as much, okay? okay. <3
Whenever anything or anyone ever asks me about my “fitness regimen”, I am quick to say it doesn’t exist.
But, in a way, it does.
This past week, I technically worked out a number of times; It consisted of dancing (by myself) in sporadic bursts of time. Hot, sweaty, and smiling.
I went on a couple of walks, too.
I spent most of my evenings stretching, painting my nails, doing light yoga and exercises while watching whatever, and smoking cigarettes if I felt like it. (For some reason, I haven’t been smoking much lately. Today I’ve had two.)
Somewhere in there I did some strength-training and pilates that I made up along the way, which escalated into testing myself to see how long I could keep my legs lifted, parallel to the ground, with my back to the floor.
The answer was: not long. But I kept lifting them up again anyway, and my muscles became warm and happy for it.
One week can not accurately encompass all of my life habits, but as an average: I’d say it’s about right.
The anxiety I live with every day is dense within my body. It saturates my muscles and nerve-endings so much that it seems I can feel it surge and recede like jolts of electricity.
Sometimes, my body is sore from anxiety’s effect. My muscles twitch, sting, and ache due to internal forces rather than outward physical exertion.
The burn of physical movement and the ache of anxious muscles, together, is bittersweet.
So I focus on that feeling, on myself, when I move my body to music. I feel how my fat sways and gives way as I bend, jump, and stretch - and it empowers me to move more. I test my flexibility and feel as the tension dissipates. I am aware.
I am so aware and in touch with myself in these moments of radical self worth and solitary movement that I actually forget what “fitness” is.
I don’t need a set of rules to tell me how I should or shouldn’t be moving my body in a healthful way.
I know that whatever I am doing is what is right for me because I have learned how to listen to my body’s cues - and we’ve decided to set our own goddamn rules.
Yeah, I’ll say it - this universal call to action for women of the world to “love themselves” is overrated.
Strive for self contentment, be kind to yourself, be critical of media, remain vigilant in seeking empowerment and positivity when you can, form a relationship with your body, live well by your own standards, and by all means - love yourself, if that is within your grasp.
But if you can not find self love, for whatever reason and however long, know that you are not part of the problem.
You have been affected.
Unlearning the hate is hard work, but once we learn how to dismantle the inner-workings of a society and culture that permeates and surrounds our very existence, we can stand a chance of knocking it down.
In the meantime, don’t force it - stop blaming yourself for not “loving your body” enough.
You can not possibly be at fault, when the oppressive culture we live in is the main offender.
I am taking my fiancé’s name for a number of reasons.
First of all, my own last name is descendant from a man who started a family with my Great Grandmother when she was 19 and left her in the dead of night with a newborn (my grandfather) and a toddler (my great uncle) in the midst of a harsh Detroit snowstorm, parting with the most cliche of last words - “I’ll be back, I’m going to the corner for cigarettes.”
He went on to do all manner of things I’d rather not speak about, but most importantly - he never came back, although his name remained.
My grandfather once even entertained the idea of changing our family name, due to my great grandfather’s past transgressions. I think it ultimately became more trouble than it was worth, and he decided against it.
So you see, I really feel no particular affinity for it. Sure, it is part of my identity and my family’s history, but identities change. Lives transform. You become connected to others and start to think about leaving behind your own legacy - and the possibility of a fresh start with the person you love most in this world begins to sound more and more appealing.
In a way, I kind of wish my fiancé (Jamie) and I could make up our own last name. When prompted to make one up, he immediately came up with “The Boopingtons” - not an entirely unworthy option.
As it is, we don’t have the luxury of becoming Mr. and Mrs. Boopington. I could keep my name and Jamie could keep his, I could take his, OR accept a hyphenated mash-up of the two.
On the surface it appears to be a pretty simple decision to make. And at first, I felt pretty confident about it.
When I told Jamie I’d like to take his name, his reaction was not unexpected.
“Don’t you want to keep your name?”
My argument against this was also quite simple - “I am going to be with you for the rest of my life and I want to share a name with you. I want our children to share our name and I want us to be a unit, a force to be reckoned with. I want your name to be OUR name.”
This exchange would start a discussion between us that lasted for months. Just when I thought I’d finally made a decision, I’d start to feel like maybe Jamie wasn’t on board with it. For some reason, he seemed to care more about the preservation of my surname than I did.
We even thought for a while about the possibility of Jamie taking my name. I brought this up at Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, to which my dad replied (in Jamie’s absence), “You may as well chop his dick off.”
Because his name…Is in his dick?
Turns out that for a lot of reasons (mostly due to the fact we are applying for a fiance visa so that he can finally move to the states) Jamie is stuck with his name. But that still leaves my own name to contend with - and a decision that is mine alone to make.
There is a part of me that is wary of being perceived as a “bad feminist”, surrendering myself to the very patriarchy that I’m meant to be fighting against - but that’s not how it feels, to me.
We are both feminists. We both understand the implications that come with sharing a name or not sharing a name.
It doesn’t make me any more or less dedicated as a wife or a partner. It doesn’t mean that I would begrudge any other woman the right to keep her name, or that what I decide on is the best option for everyone.
The bottom line is, I know that Jamie doesn’t view me as his “property” and taking his name doesn’t make me “his”. It makes us “us” in a more obvious way than if we had two different surnames. It’s about what’s right for US. And that is all.
I realize that I am in the majority. Even now that we’ve had the option not to for quite some time, the bride still prefers to take the groom’s surname 90% of the time.
I still feel that this is something that deserves to be challenged, for those of us who feel a particular affinity for our surnames - but I am not one of those women. So I don’t feel particularly empowered to take it on as a personal issue.
The truth is, I quite look forward to changing my name and starting a new chapter alongside my husband.
While my name may change on paper, I can still bring it back as I please. I may even continue to use my maiden name situationally, especially as it is so engrained in the history of my work as a designer, activist, and writer.
So, does taking my husband’s name make me a hypocrite? Have I lost my right to be critical of patriarchal traditions because I’ve chosen to go along with one, for my own reasons? Do I really care? What’s in a name, anyway?
I am totally with Haley, even though when I get married I have no intention of changing my name, and told my partner this in no uncertain terms (to which he replied “duuuh”), I don’t think it is at all anti-feminist to take your husband’s name. There are many circumstances (like Haley’s, or say if they woman’s family or origin is abusive) where taking your husband’s name is in fact a feminist decision. As long as it is a freely-made, conscious choice to either keep your name or take your husbands, then either choice is completely consistent with being a feminist, in my opinion. I think feminism is fighting for the freedom for women to make the choices in her life, not dictating what those choices should be.
These are only my top two ideas so far, I’VE GOT TOO MANY THOUGHTS.
It’d be so brilliant if I could get paid to do good work while raising awareness and funds for mental health services and people that need help, I mean come on, that’s basically my fucking dream. I just have to organize my thoughts and put together a presentation with an argument worthy enough of being selected.
What do you think? I’ve actually planned an event once in the past - made a LOT of mistakes I’ll be happy to have learned from, but it was still super fun (and stressful) and worth it.
I think it stands a better chance against the app idea but I still want to do that too! :3
I’m so tired of people comparing being fat to being a smoker.
- You can’t get secondhand fat from someone.
- When people criticize smoking, what’s commonly said is, “That’s a disgusting habit.”
- When people criticize fat people, what’s commonly said is, “That’s a disgusting person.”
There’s a difference between being judged for your habits versus being judged for who you are as a person.
It’s an example of how out of touch many slim people are with fat people. Because they expect to be treated so well, when they are aren’t, it’s oh so dramatic and they just have to insist it is the same as fat people being treated abysmally.
I am genuinely sad about the way people have come to treat smokers. The level of aggression reached is now mean, vindictive and counter productive. They have fallen from a great height. That must be painful, like someone who used to be rich who is now poor, compared to someone who’s always been poor.
But they must try to understand that their arrogance is part of the reason they allowed that to happen.They thought there was a limit on how badly they could be treated becasue well, it’s not as if smoking is associated with being fat or anything. Nor did they bother to look at the experience of drug addicts and how aggressive and nasty society has been to them. Though they’re happy to pinch their experience to pretend cigarettes are ‘addictive’ (please). Somehow, they thought they were above all that.
The extent of their crude insensitivtiy towards fat people part of that mentality and is winning them no fans. They need to stop appropriating other people’s experience to express their own frustrations. Slim people will never deal with internal beefs; the way slim people attack thin people out of jealousy, trying to ban their bodies (rather like they’re trying to ban fat bodies too) they keep trying to use fat people to express work these throug and it needs to stop. Becuase a lot of us just don’t care.
“I am genuinely sad about the way people have come to treat smokers. The level of aggression reached is now mean, vindictive and counter productive.”
Tell me about it. Check out the comments section of my xoJane article where I admit to being a fat smoker and actually dare to demand respect as a human being. I need to keep myself from reading the comments, there are more and more every day. Some of these people are so full of hate on such an astounding level, yet I’M the shit-stain on society for accepting my body, admitting my vices, and speaking up for human equality? Fuck.
So I know it’s like, a thing, to tell people that they look “thin” when something they are wearing is “slimming” - as a sort of compliment.
But just once, I’d like someone to tell me, “That dress makes you look fabulously fat today.”
Or, “That top perfectly accentuates your back rolls.”
And totally mean it as a compliment.
Overheard getting coffee this morning: “I’m not saying I’m fat, I’m just curvy.”
Bitch, AIN’T NOTHING WRONG WITH FAT OKAY.
This looks like a really wonderful worksheet/exercise to perform for those struggling with breaking down anxious or depressive thoughts. Definitely saving this for my own personal use, especially those panic situations that seem ENDLESS.
One of the biggest struggles I have when talking about fat acceptance is our culture’s fear of the word “fat” and the connotations that come with it.
It doesn’t have to be feared or replaced with nicer-sounding words. It really doesn’t.
Stop spitting it as an insult or accepting it as negative and repurpose it for positivity. It’s just a descriptor, a noun, a way of identifying a body - not the person inside it.
Many people embrace the word “curvy” rather than “fat”, as “curves” are more palatable than “fat rolls” - but really, what’s the difference? It means the same thing, said in a different way, to avoid the bullshit that’s tied to the identification of fat bodies - the implied laziness, lack of motivation, unhealthy, ~OBESITY IS KILLING THE WORLD~ bullshit.
I am a size 16/18 fatty, though of course not fat enough to be deemed the biggest shit-stain on society - I’m just “thin” enough to be given the benefit of the doubt, capable of calling myself curvy rather than fat, but I choose not to. Because my corpulent bod is what it is and there is nothing wrong with it.
This isn’t to say I object to any and all use of the word “curvy” - I use it often, along with “fat”, because there are many different kinds of body sizes, shapes, preferences, and identities and it is good to be inclusive with body image related language.
I simply encourage smaller fats to keep in mind that larger fats don’t have the privilege of being able to lean on the word “curvy” to escape fat-negative language. They don’t exist in that gray area. We owe it to all fat bodies to examine why that gray area exists and challenge it.
Stop fearing the flesh. Fat ≠ Unhealthy, undesirable, unsexy, or unintelligent. All body types have the possibility of being these things and it’s outrageous to me that only fatness is tied to them. Reclaim it.
I turned 24 today. Nothing like a birthday to inspire the kind of deep, retrospective reflection on life that can’t be articulated.
There was a period of time when I, like many other millennial tweens, liberally applied roll-on body glitter to every conceivable inch of my body. My junior high school actually had a rule against wearing it in the computer labs, as the glitter would fall from our skin to clog up and damage the keyboards. All the girls, myself included, took it as a personal slight against our right to express and draw attention to ourselves. Luckily, having a first period computer class meant that I could skip off to the restroom right after the bell rang to apply my glam for the day.
I felt confident in this skin that shimmered and glowed, a confidence that was fleeting and rare in my youth. I’d experienced a very rough couple of years before my acne cleared for a spell and I was able to exchange my glasses for contacts. I sought acceptance in my peers and it seemed I’d finally found it. However, there was still a discomfort I couldn’t shake as a result of existing in a body that had begun to gain weight with the rise of puberty and showed no signs of slowing or changing. There was always doubt.
Suddenly, I found myself being treated very poorly by a number of girls I’d counted as part of my friendly circle. The details of the situation escape me in a fuzzy haze of past grievances that seem so trivial but I know have contributed to who I am and how I think today.
Adolescent girls are more harsh than I know how to put into words - especially the beautiful ones. I thought I had been welcome, I thought I’d found a home, only to discover I didn’t meet some sort of standard. As a moderately rotund and awkward strangeling with damaged skin, unchecked social anxiety, and deep-seeded self esteem and body image issues - I didn’t stand a chance.
Upon my rejection, I progressed through the “cover-up yet remain rebellious” stage. Black, black, black, and more black. I drowned myself in it, got lost in it. There were chains and spiked-collars involved. I chose black as a way of cloaking a body that I loathed, epitomizing the stereotype of teenage angst and self hate.
I would eventually introduce the color red into my wardrobe but continue to hide myself. I wrote poetry about the landscape of my body and how greatly it disgusted me. I wanted to decorate myself and emit beauty, but felt limited in my skin and intimidated by the possibility of being visible.
It is so much easier to remain invisible.
Now in my mid-twenties, as I spend hours painting my fingertips and dipping them into pots of glitter, adding shimmer to my eyes and staining my lips, I still often lack the courage to walk out into the world.
There’s this thing about visibility that I can’t seem to grasp. There are times where I am okay with being visible and will wear what I like, but more often than not I lack the ability to be able to truly let go of the external thoughts and opinions of others. I paint myself up to remain indoors, with myself - because my past experiences tell me that being a hyper-visible (fat) girl subjects you to a kind of vulnerability that can break you hard.
Perhaps it comes down to “not caring” - letting go of inhibition - as I’ve consistently been told. “Just be confident!” “Stop caring about what others think!” “Wear what you want, why does it matter what people say?”
It doesn’t matter, but I believe my mental illness makes it matter. I believe my experiences have conditioned me to feel and act this way, experienced guided by outside forces, so why the fuck is it up to ME to change it? How does one find confidence in the face of a world so quick to judge, so ready to misinterpret my approach to wellness and shame my body? How does one simply overcome mental barriers that have been so solidly built?
I do know that I am tired. I am so, so fucking tired of caring. I have always been exhausted by this innate ability I have to think about every possibility so excessively that it immobilizes me.
I want to die my hair a shocking color and take massive strides toward propelling myself forward and into the light, with glitter on my nails and a rainbow of colors on my body, daring anyone and everyone to deny me self acceptance and the right to express through my appearance so I can knock them the fuck down.
So its been one of those nights where I find myself feeling really dismal about the prevalence of hatred and ignorance in the world. I should really stop reading the comments sections of articles and high profile fatposi stories. The healthist, ableist, fat-shaming and fucked nature of our society terrifies the shit out of me.
Quickie blog post about why I don’t always feel pity or empathy for people constantly worried about their fatness. I had a couple of a ha moments lately. Get it here. (via nudiemuse)
YESSS
read this post, it’s beautiful
“I feel like it is at some point a privilege to have the time and space to worry about what size your ass is constantly.”
Yes yes yes yes yes! This is something I say and think ALL the time.