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.
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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.
There’s a weight loss incentive going on at my place of employment that involves losing weight to contribute money for charity.
My coworkers are all on diets, talking about cleanses, and detailing their personal work-out and exercises…ALL DAY EVERY DAY…and it will continue to last all month.
While I’m over here, totally in my own head enough as it is about my fitness and eating habits, now screaming on the inside from not being able to escape any of it and hoping to god I don’t break and start going on a weight-loss mission that I know will TOTALLY FUCK ME OVER.
Hell, I’m having a hard enough time just getting myself to eat anything without over-thinking every aspect of it, now this?
How do you deal with such triggering environments? How do you respond when others seem so hell-bent on discussing the things that make you feel like shit?
We don’t get to decide what triggers people.
To be frank, the thinspo bombing pisses me off. I don’t find it productive, positive, helpful, or as an act of reclamation in any way. There is a difference in standing up for the idea that your body is inherently valuable, and refusing to accept abuse/fat-shaming from other people, and seeking to engage with people who have a very real and dangerous mental illness in an attempt to flaunt the fact that you are in a part of your journey that seems unimaginable to them.
I’m pissed off that most of the people involved in the thinspo bombing are members of the feedism community, because your right to a fetish does not outweigh someone’s need for mental stability and self-love.
Don’t get me wrong. The people who are responding to the thinspo bombing with fat-hate, racial slurs, and whatever else are fucking up too. Because they’ve surrounded themselves (intentionally or not) with so much hate, so much negative thought, that they’re grasping onto any hurtful material they can use to throw back at the people who are thinspo bombing, and that is unacceptable. Racism is unacceptable. Fat-shaming is unacceptable. Telling people to go kill themselves is unacceptable.
But it’s not just about posting pictures of fat people in the thinspo tag. Because there have been so many captions to those pictures that say something like “I hope this helps you puke!” That’s NOT body positive. It’s fucking ableist. It’s NOT a form of fat acceptance. It’s not fucking acceptable.
I really really hate that the fat tag is largely negative. I try to change that by tagging body positive posts with “fat” in the hopes that it will create a more positive tag. But bombing the thinspo tag with triggering messages is not positive or cute or okay. It’s just not.
Why don’t we bomb the fuck out of the fat tag? Why don’t we post tons and tons of positive fat messages? Because going into a space that is mostly for mentally ill individuals and saying “HEY LOOK AT US WE LOVE OURSELVES WHY CAN’T YOU LOVE YOURSELF YOU’RE SO BAD BECAUSE YOU CAN’T LOVE YOURSELF” is not fucking okay.
There are better ways of standing up for fat bodies. This isn’t it.
rebloggable by request
I am all about bombing the “fat” tag all day every day forever.
…people are not suddenly more sensitive than they were before. They are just starting to get more vocal.
We’re talking people who have survived horrible, terrible things. In the past, there was no way for them to really talk about their experiences. There was this huge culture of silence and shame. The internet and post modern critique and the explosion of voices in past decades have broken open that wall and given people a chance to improve the way they live and see themselves.
If you are not interested in people being more human, more capable and more productive members of society, and giving the respect required for that, fine. Your loss. But don’t be surprised when those people turn out to be your closest friends, your loved ones, your teachers, your siblings, or even YOU. Society is not perfect— it’s far from that— and we are all around you as the examples of that imperfection. Not broken, but getting better.
We are going to demand that the traumas in our lives are treated with respect not because we’re petty and shallow, but because we have as much right to survive as you.
triggerwarning: dieting, body shaming, weight loss talk, eating disorders
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