Stop Fat Shaming. Or I Will Cut Off Your Head and Shit Down Your Neck.

My daughter and her boyfriend went to the movies Saturday night. For once, she had some money and was excited about taking him out on a date. He is a truly lovely young adult: kind, smart, kind, funny, kind. He sends her love texts in the morning; treats her like a princess; makes her feel loved and good about herself. He’s a wonderful actor and student. He is a gem. A mensch. We adore him.

They got a bite to eat and headed to the movies. They didn’t care for it and decided to leave early. As they were walking out, a young woman made a shitty comment about his weight.

They — two teenagers on a date — had their night ruined because some piece of shit adult thought it was perfectly fine to mock an overweight kid. I’d like to hunt that bitch down, chop off her head, shit down her neck, and mail her body to her family.

A little extreme, you might say. No. No it’s not. Because that old adage about sticks and stones? Wrong. Names DO hurt. Insults DO leave a mark. One that I, from having been mocked as a chunky kid and a 400-pound adult, know all too well.

One afternoon long ago, I was walking down a street in the shitty little West Virginia town where I lived and worked. I was on my way back to the office from the courthouse and had to walk past the open door of possibly the most redneck, low-class, foul, bar in the world. The smell of poor and drunk oozes out onto the sidewalk. And then.

HEYHEYHEY…It’s FAAAAT ALBERT!

Followed by the braying laughter of some of the world’s most pathetic losers.

I wanted to die. Truly. I wanted to be swallowed by the world. Instead, I walked more quickly back to my office, closed the door, and cried. Shame. Self-loathing. Self-hate. Fucking loser. You fat fucking loser. On repeat, as I sat and wrote another news story about how a local coal mine owner was under investigation for his deliberate polluting of a tributary of major river. (It was one of many stories that I wrote and won awards for and the first time I truly discovered the power of being a reporter. The piece of shit eventually pleaded guilty to violating the federal Clean Water Act — the first coal mine owner in the state to be convicted by the Feds. That came about in no small part thanks to my reporting, according to folks in the know. I eventually was selected for two competitive journalism fellowships. Just saying.)

But in that moment? Where some vile piece of shit thought he could cow-call me? I was filled with shame and doubt and hatred for myself. It would take me many years of therapy to finally realize: I ate to stuff my feelings. I became morbidly obese as a way of protecting my inner little Heather: to become unattractive to men. Because men and a boy raped and sexually assaulted me as a child. Stole a piece of my soul. Violated me in unspeakable ways. Killed little Heather. And so Big Heather literally became Big Heather.

This is painful to post, to admit that for quite a long period of time, I was morbidly obese. What started out as creating a fat barrier to ward off sex abusers, became a wall to hide behind, and then a mountain of shame and self-hate. Until it wasn’t. When I look at this picture — and there are few pictures of me, because I was too embarrassed and was even in a bit of denial about my size — I feel compassion for that me. I was suffering, and didn’t know how to cope, except food.

That redneck fuckwit wasn’t telling me something that I didn’t know already: I was really fat. So fat that the scale at my doctor’s office, which went up to 400 pounds, couldn’t actually accurately weigh me. So fat that I often avoided sitting in chairs in public because I was simply too big. So big that, when my then-husband and now late brother went to the olympics in Atlanta, I was left with bruises on my legs from squeezing myself into a too-small seat at the stadium where we watched track and field. So fat that every step eventually became too painful to take; I was forced to walk down stairs backwards to try to take some of the pressure off my knees. So fat that I eventually, after many hundreds of pounds lost and gained and gained back, opted for gastric bypass surgery. Surgery that twice nearly killed me. I’m a healthy weight now, but still. I relate.

1 February 2016 Yes, I am probably about 250 lighter than I was in the first picture. But I am still the same me. And I deserved the same respect when I wasn’t average size.

So. The next time you see an obese person and make judgments about what’s on their plate or in their grocery cart? Check yourself. It’s not okay to dismiss someone based on size. Try some empathy. You don’t know the why of someone else. You don’t know their truth. You don’t know their pain or their shame. For all you know? They love their big bodies. And that’s their choice.

Keep your fucking opinions to yourself. Or I will hunt you down, cut off your head, and shit down your neck.