Seeing Through the Looking Glass...

I started to write this yesterday, but it got too late to finish it.  Thanks for all the well-wishes, I'm finally feeling mostly better today.

I've spent a few days really thinking about internalized size-ism.  Ever since I started the work of posting my pictures, I've dwelt on the waves of emotion that have risen up to the surface as I gazed upon them, each provoking an individual response.  At first I could hardly look at the old pictures.  I did feel a sense of disbelief at the denial I had been immersed in.  I really never did see myself as THAT fat.  I always knew I was big, but I didn't realize how big.  I think that when we look into mirrors there can be a million tricks we play to find the "me" that we want to believe exists there.  I still find myself doing this, angling my face and body to see a more defined jaw, a thinner midsection, sucking in my cheeks to find the bones buried beneath.

Pictures are frozen moments in time; you can't control the image being reflected back at you.  You are forced to face a much more objective version of yourself, freed from the normal filters that your defenses throw in front of your vision.  Normally, when I looked at pictures of myself, my response was to wince, look away.  As a result I almost never looked at those pictures for more than a second or two.  This time was different.  This time I had to choose pictures to post, and to do this I had to carefully contemplate what each photograph was displaying, finding the ones that showed what I really looked like each step of the way that I was willing to share.

At first I found it extremely painful.  I felt embarrassed, shocked, and disgusted when I realized how truly obese I appeared in the pictures.  I found it hard not to be judgmental about each and every one down to the latest set.  I focused on the flaws.  I agonized over the choices, but I made them.  I cropped and brightened, posted them to my blog, made up captions, reviewed and revised endlessly, swapping them out to better tell the story.  A few days passed during this process.  I read other people's blogs while I continued to work on my own, read about their own issues with self-image, and had revelations about how my feelings were evolving as I commented on theirs.  As I scrolled up and down my little filmstrip, something began to happen.  I realized that I had been judging myself in a way that I would never level at another.  Never.  My own dear friends are of all shapes and sizes, from the largest to the skinniest, I love them without prejudice and don't ever even consider what they weigh, only the loveliness that comes from the whole of who they are.  Why am I so hard on myself? 

There was so much internalized size-ism bubbling up from within.  I remembered all the reasons why.   My parents, peers and other adults were ruthless, tearing me down for my appearance at every opportunity.  Add that to the prevailing social attitudes I grew up with where you are thin or you are worthless.  I took it as a child, never able to stand up for myself. I swallowed it and felt shame, though at least part of me felt it was wrong.  I secretly vowed as a child to never judge others by their looks, but it's been a constant struggle to overcome my own feelings of self-loathing, instilled by others.  I was made to feel ashamed, guilty, unacceptable.  I realized that's why I couldn't look at those pictures without it being so painful.  It's very complicated, this seems overly simplified...it's like internalized racism or any other prejudice.  If you're surrounded by it, it poisons you, even if you reject it on an overt level.  My favorite performance artist, Guillermo Gomez Pena helped me see this, that every single one of us walks around with internalized shame and prejudice.  In order to deal with internalized prejudice, you must bring it out into the light, examine it, share it, exorcise it.  Putting up these pictures and talking about here now means that to me.

Repeatedly seeing the pictures began to desensitize me...I no longer flinched and felt bad.  I began to see that I was more than the weight on me...the sparkle in my eye, the way I lovingly held A, the stylishness of that outfit...it was really me in each of those pictures, and there was nothing wrong with who I was. 

Why am I trying to lose weight then?  I'm proud of my ongoing transformation.  I do think that, at least in my own opinion I am now more physically attractive, and I know that am healthier and happier.  But being fat doesn't make me a bad person, and I don't need to feel ashamed of where I've been.  I just wasn't ready to heal in that way yet.  At various times I was working on various things, maybe healing something else, maybe stuck and hadn't hit the point where change had become imperative.  And that's okay.  The pain and suffering, the struggle contributed to who I am today.  Someone who champions the underdog.  Who sees through outside layers to the heart of things.  A person that appreciates diversity and uniqueness, instead of someone who clings to some unattainable uniform vision of who we ought to be sold to us from the powers above.  Someone who knows how easy it is to get stuck, and what it takes to find and embrace change.

This is a very delicate thing to talk about because I don't want to make the implication that being fat means that someone is stuck, wounded or has something else wrong with them.  It doesn't mean that at all.  I meant that for ME, and me alone.  I do not feel that I am healthy and happy when I have a lot of extra weight; it is my choice to lose it.  I think it is completely individual, this choice.  I have a friend who is quite large, and she is happy, vibrant, wittier than ten of me, and I wish I could be her for a day.  She's an actress, comedian, singer and showperson extraordinaire, and the most popular person I know.  She is at complete ease with herself, flirts with people constantly, shoot, even I have a little ol' girl crush on her, to be perfectly honest.  She's perfect the way she is. 

But my journey is different than hers.  I don't think my body and face look as attractive with weight as hers does.  I have health issues that losing weight helps address.  I have emotional issues that are untangling along with the weight loss tied to child abuse, comfort, gender identity, sexuality, loss, self-esteem, all manner of things.  I am not a witty vibrant actress, overflowing with natural charm -  I have a different shape to my soul that demands a different container to be expressed the way it always wanted to be.  I also don't want to sound like a Pollyanna, spouting some gussied up false message that taking this path is all rainbows and glitter and happiness pie.  It's hard to feel your feelings, to make yourself face painful things, to become more disciplined and put forth an effort.  It's not easy, but like most developmental and healing processes, it's worth it, at least to me.  This is the right way for me at this time.  I guess I do have a message of hope, because hopeful is how I feel.  YMMV.  My truth is my truth alone.  Nobody has to feel the same way I do about it.  They can talk about how much it sucks, how it's a drag and a struggle and no fun at all.  They can decide that they are happy to be heavy, and that's totally okay too.  I, myself feel very lucky to be here, becoming what I've always wanted to be.  And I'm very glad that I took the risk to put those pictures up.  It gave me a chance to begin seeing through the illusions, both good and bad that I've always attached to my self-image and into who I really am.