R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Is it fat acceptance that I am after? Definitely not- not for me personally. It is human acceptance that I am after. I think that if I accept wanting to be accepted for being fat, then I am not only helping dehumanize myself, agreeing with society that I am fat first, human second, but that also it will act as a scapegoat for not losing weight. A way of giving myself approval to be obese, a way of saying Hey! It's ok that I am morbidly obese and getting bigger every year.

And I know that it is not ok. And I know that I do not want to be that person. I wish I was a genie and could just blink myself thin. And healthy. And happy.
Yeah.

What I think I really want is respect. Not to be thought of as that fat...(insert noun here). I want to be taken seriously. My boss just disregards most of what I say, and I am sure it is because he looks at me as that fat girl that isn't important, and what she has to say isn't important. I have tested this theory out, as I have ran some ideas through a skinny counterpart, who voiced them to the boss, and action was taken. VALIDATION.
Don't misunderstand-my boss cares about me. He really does. But he doesn't respect my opinion and that is because of my weight. And that SUCKS.

My family has that same lack of respect. I have a bunch of brothers, and we are all overweight, although they are not as big as I am- they have always referred to me as "cowie" or "fat girl". Literally, like those were my name.
Now the fact that I was a teenager and being called these names at about 160 pounds really pisses me off. What I would do to be that weight now! How I would prevent them from stripping my self esteem and help to put me on this wheel of self destruction. My feelings of not being worthy, not being good enough, all brought on because of WEIGHT.
Makes me sick.

My mother was a conservative woman when it came to raising a daughter, and as a result, even though I grew up in the 70's ( born in mid 60's) a time when girls were able to wear pants, I was not. Not for religious reasons, but for whatever reason my mother felt was right. So, everyday for school, I wore a dress and leotards. The only reprieve I ever got was in the summer when I could wear shorts and ride a bike. I remember in 6th grade, a time when girls are starting to want to look cute and stylish, a boy two years older came up to me and asked why I wear a dress everyday. I had no answer. Seems harmless, but it stayed with me till this day.

As a continuation of that conservatism, I was limited in my contact with boys. One afternoon when I was about 13, my brother came in and told my mom that a boy wanted me to come out to the school where kids my age hung out. From that day until I was about 15 I wasn't allowed off the property after school. Nice. So, I never learned to have those interactions with the opposite sex. The playful banter and harmless flirting. The freedom to be comfortable with my looks and what the opposite sex actually thought of me. I missed out on all that. It may seem like nothing to those reading this, but to me I think it really played a part in my lack of self esteem.

Now you may be wondering- what happened to change that when I was 15. I moved away from home because my parents were having marital problems and my mother had decided that to try to save the marriage, they needed to lose the kids for a while. I kid you not.
So I went to live with a cousin. And that is where the weight gain really began.