“Too Fat to Be a Journalist”
“You’re too fat to be a journalist”
“You better be careful. The camera adds ten pounds.”
“I’m telling you this out of love, but to be a journalist, you need to loose weight.”
These are all things I have been told. By my friends, by my family, and by strangers.
Imagine having the guts to walk up to someone and tell them that because of their weight, they can’t tell stories. How do those two things correlate? How are those two things related?
Let me take you back in time.
I was in high school. I had just gotten back from a tour of Europe. I played in a band and sang in a chorus through Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France.
I stood on the Swiss Alps and ate mac & cheese made from real swiss cheese.
If the saying “Life is Good” was a picture, this would be it:
I got home from Europe and had lost weight during my trip. No big deal I thought.
“Europe probably just uses less salt and so I lost weight.”
I was eating plenty so why else could I have been loosing weight?
A few months later, I had gained it back. I looked in the mirror and cried.
This would began a year of hell for me.
Eat an apple. Throw it up.
Skip breakfast. Throw up water.
Drink some juice. Throw it up.
It was a vicious cycle of hell.
In just 6 months, I had lost about 60 pounds.
Looking back, I realize how bad it was, but at the time, I thought I looked good.
Then the depression came. Anorexia, bulimia, anxiety, depression and a partridge in a pear tree.
It was the worst year of my life. I had two mental breaks, although at the time I told nobody. I had a plan and the means and was ready to end it all.
One photo stands out to me to this day. It is a picture of me in a musical called “All Shook Up”. I was playing a character named Dean Hyde.
Dean was a troubled kid, but not in the regular sense. He went to a military academy. His father died before he was born. His mother was the mayor of a town and she couldn’t have cared less about him.
In this scene, Dean’s mother is yelling at him. The below picture was taken:
Yes, I was in character so I obviously looked a certain way. However, looking back, I see myself in this picture more than I see Dean.
There I was, the world yelling at me, standing straight faced, numb to my surroundings.
So why do I tell this story? Why would I relieve this part of my past? Why would I post this online for a class assignment I really don’t need to be this deep for?
When you tell people things about their appearance, think about what you don’t know. Think about the struggles they have faced behind closed doors. Think about the challenges they have overcome in the shadows.
I’m okay now. I am safe now. I am better now. I am confident in who I am. I am blessed with the life I have.
So think before you speak because the response you might get, especially from me, isn’t always what’d you’d expect:
“Okay dumbass.”
