Hey guys, so its been a freaking age since I posted on my blog but here we are! I'm in need of a major vent so I hope you're ready?!
So, some of you won't know that I have split up with my husband. This happened at the beginning of October but this isn't the point of this vent, I am simply setting the scene! It would be a couple of weeks later that I am at work and I go outside my clients house (I'm a carer) and the next door neighbour shouts me over to the fence to tell me how sorry she is that my marriage hadn't worked out. I thought, bless her, how lovely! Then she says, 'I presume he left you?' and looks at me awaiting a response, dumbfounded at her bluntness I say nothing. 'Well, you better start losing weight again if you want to get yourself another!'
What do you say to that? I laughed it off at the time and then justified the comment saying to myself, she's old, old people just say whatever comes into their head and that's how that generation thinks.
I wasn't laughing when I binged and purged three times that evening and then starved myself for four days straight.
A few days ago, whilst sat in a cimena waiting for a film to start, I overhear two women talking about someone they both knew, I don't know the womens names so I'll call them bitch 1 and bitch 2- the conversation went something like this;
'The wedding is in March, she's kidding herself if she thinks she's going to fit in her dress! And I mean she really is attractive, its just you can't tell because she's so fat. I don't know how she could think about getting married at her size, everyone looking at her.'
'Yeah I know. More to the point, I don't know how she could get someone to marry her at her size!'
I remeber thinking what utter cows! Then I remember similar comments being made about me before my wedding and again, I stayed silent. I was still silent as I puked my tea into a bin bag that night as I heard their comments over and over in my head.
Today, I was invited to my Mum's for dinner. Though this causes no end of uncomfort and stress for me, I go because my Mum loves family dinners and I always want to please. I get there to be asked, 'are you sure you're meant to gain this much weight in recovery?' Again, I say nothing. I think, she doesn't understand what this is all about. Then I come home and weigh myself and then decide that she's right. I get on my knees and throw up the dinner I had only hours ago before walking in to my Mum's house, promised myself I would try and keep down. Then I cut myself to further my punishment.
I asked myself today why I never say anything, why I stay silent and let these people say whatever they think without any idea of how it effects others. And its because I agree. I've been taught to agree. We hear comments like this all our lives, whether directed at us, or at others and we develop our beliefs and understanding and behaviours as a result. And we are taught not to challenge elders or people in authority, or society as a whole because to go against society makes you an outcast. But you know what? We cannot stay silent any longer. We cannot allow these kinds of comments to remain acceptable. Because while we teach our children that we don't challenge others, we are teaching them that what they hear from others is truth.
The fact is, that the people making these comments are our Grandmothers and Mothers. They are our aunties, our teachers, our church leaders, our sports coaches and they are people we look up to and respect the opinions of. They are the people that teach us about who we are and who or what we should be.
And as we stay silent, we are allowing generations of women that have been taught to hate themselves to birth generations of women that hate themselves. We are allowing generations of women to raise generations of women that can only value themselves by the scale, that think they can only succeed at their career if they look a certain way, that believe that if they are thin enough they will get their prince, that if they are skinny they will be happy.
If we continue to stay silent, we are continuing to allow people to shame people into believing they are not good enough for this world simply because they are not a size ten.
I watched a friends video on youtube the other day. A friend who I consider to be very beautiful, very intelligent, very kind and wonderful. A friend, who in her video used the term 'I hold my hands up, I'm not small' by small she meant thin. This use of this phrase really struck me because it holds such meaning. This is a phrase we use when we are confessing to doing something wrong, 'I hold my hands up, it was me, I'm sorry.' She was saying 'I hold my hands up, I'm sorry I'm not 'thin', and I feel bad for it so I confess'. This struck me so hard because its something I feel every second of every day. I genuinely feel sorry for other people having to look at me. I feel guilty that I do not fit societies ideal. I feel like I need to apologise for my very existence- simply for being fat. I feel like I have to compensate for troubling others so much by having to 'put up with me' as I am.
This is so sad. But so many of us feel this way. And its because we allow such hateful and unjustified comments so slide. How many times have people made comments about you, about your weight or someone elses weight that have caused you to feel bad about yourself but you've never said anything? Ask yourself why you have stayed silent? Is it because you feel you deserve it? Is it because you agree? Do you really agree or have you been taught to?
Its time to speak out. Its time to change things. If eating disorders are ever to be irradicated we need to change the way we allow women to speak about other women. Next time someone says something, just think, it could be your little sister, or niece, or daughter that these comments are influencing. Next time it could be your little sister, or niece, or daughter, weighing out her self worth and starving herself to death to fit in this broken mould.
Can you have that on your conscience?
