My experience as a fat young person.
If I could erase one experience from my life I would choose the bullying. I’m fat. There’s no denying it and it’s something I’ve been for a while. Fatness was the first thing I can remember being bullied for, and this is my experience.
I always wanted to be thin, delicate, and light. I wanted people to pick me up without a second thought. I assumed being thin would guide me towards acceptance from my peers. You see, I’ve always been bullied for being fat. Even as young as five or six my peers bullied me for being fat. Even when I wasn’t fat I was bullied for it because people knew that being mean to me made me cry. I was a sensitive kid. I cried a lot, I was shy and awkward, I was too anxious to talk to people. Constant bullying made me feel worthless. I had trouble making friends because of this. I was afraid to approach people. What if these new faces turned from smiles to frowns as I approached? What if when I said hello they responded with “Hi, fatty”? What if they refused to even look at me because of my ‘fatness’? The constant bullying brought up a lot of ‘what ifs’ in my childhood; What if I wasn’t born, what if I died now, what if I ran away from everything, what if I didn’t eat, what if what if what if… I think you get the point.
As I aged I cried less. The bullying wasn’t always in person when I started High school. High school bullying was different to primary school bullying. It was worse. If you were at all different you were a target. Not only was I fat, but I was also pretty deep into emo culture and extremely awkward. It was through text and Facebook. The online world brought the bullying to a new platform and as hard as I tried to escape the name calling and vile images, I couldn’t. At this point I had been bullied so much it desensitized me to others sharp words. When people called me names, pulled my hair, and threw food at me I just wanted them to go away. When people posted pictures of severely obese women and tagged me in them on Facebook I felt rage and disappointment that people I considered friends would do that to me. Did the constant abuse still make me cry? Yes, but more privately. I’d try to fight back in person instead, but it felt like it was myself against the world. In High school I developed disordered eating. I couldn’t physically stomach a bite of a sandwich because my body decided starvation to thinness was the only way to get the bullying to stop. I never got thin.
I don’t think the bullying ever stopped. I learnt to ignore it. There are still inactive groups online that use to be dedicated to making fun of my appearance and social anxiety. I could have been bullied for many things that would have hurt 100 times less; I had a stutter when I was nervous, I couldn’t do my makeup like the Kardashians, I had no sense of style. Regardless of all my other uncomfortable flaws I was bullied because I was fat. I was bullied because I had larger boobs, big thighs, and chubby fingers. I was bullied because I was far from a flat stomach and struggled to keep up in P.E.. I was bullied because of how I look and a number on a scale.
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