How to Become Fat and Ugly: A Manual Only for the Very Brave. Chapter 2: Why

When last I left you, my dear reader, I was thinking about what it means to come of age as a young woman who had been taught by her childhood peers that she was fat and ugly. In the interim I have had some really beautiful conversations with some of my best and oldest female friends from childhood and high school. (This is why keeping these friends close is such a good idea: they can reflect our past back to us.) And it reminded me that something I said in my first post wasn't really true. I said, " I had three best friends in my [elementary school] class who loved me and everyone else was mean." Actually, there were sort of three or four categories of kids in my elementary school world, as I see it. There were the kids who bullied me; the other kids who were bullied too; and the kids who somehow managed to stay out of the way or were just "normal enough" to be left alone. I want to honor those other kids, the fellow-bullied and the ones who successfully hid or were left alone. My three or four good friends in elementary school were in those latter groups. It's also noteworthy that the bullies in my class (male and female) didn't necessarily leave you alone even if you were "normal." The bullies could seemingly make up any excuse to be cruel to anyone at any time. Sure, a few of us happened to be singled out for extra special cruelty and constant abuse. But no one was really safe.

I also want to address -- because you might be wondering -- why I am writing all this and even putting it out in public. There's a bunch of reasons. First, I am finally learning (it's taking many, many years and the process is slow as molasses) that keeping emotional pain secret really sucks. It sucks for me and it sucks for the people who love me. It sucks for me because when I hide my pain, I then feel really alone, and moreover I feel exceptional in my pain and aloneness. So then I think I'm extra alone and extra fucked up, and then those feelings don't go away because they don't see the light of day. Once I started talking to people about my pain, I realized that -- as terrifying and embarrassing as it was to talk about: a) other people also feel pain and sometimes it's even really similar pain and knowing this comforts me and also makes me feel closer with people; b) people actually want to know me better and want to know what I'm really like and who I really am and when I tell them it makes them feel closer to me; c) then I realize I'm not exceptional in my pain and that even if people I know have different pain and really different experiences, I know that having this pain doesn't make me exceptional and therefore maybe I'm not totally alone and a huge freak. There are caveats: there have been people I have loved who kinda really don't want to know about my pain. They can't deal with it, and when I tell them about it they freak out and might go away forever or our relationship might change and they might distance themselves from me. I've been practicing radical honesty more lately. Lately so far it's been going pretty well. In the past especially when I revealed to people how much of an asshole I really am inside (because of my pain) or how much I really feel like I need them (because of my pain), or how desperate I am for their love and approval (because of my pain) or how angry I am at them (because of my pain), they just disappeared or they went farther away from me until we aren't close any more. That is hugely painful and makes it really easy for me to believe I have found evidence that in reality I am fatally flawed and deserve to be alone and in pain. But I have to believe that's not true. And increasingly I just don't have patience for relationships that remain on the surface. And it turns out that, more often than not, radical honesty is appreciated and brings a lot of richness to my relationships. And when people do abandon me because they can't deal or don't like what they see, after I am done being miserable about being abandoned I can admit that they probably weren't going to be able to feed my heart or soul or spirit because they weren't ready to share themselves or love me as I am. And that is what I am wanting these days: heartsoulspiritfeeding. I'm not saying this process is easy: it's terrifying, literally keeps me awake at night, and causes me lots of anxiety. But it's better than feeling totally alone with pain that never goes away.

Another reason I'm doing this is that my relationships with some men (past and present) are really broken. The men might not know this, but it's true. These relationships are broken because I am in so much pain from my early experiences of being bullied by boys and from being crushed out on boys who were bullies. I am in so much pain about this I put heterosexual cis men, and especially good-looking heterosexual cis men, all into a category called "Men Who Were Brainwashed by Society and Can't Think For Themselves and Only Think Barbie Doll-Looking Women Are Attractive and Think I Am Hideous and Secretly Pity Me or Are Repulsed by Me and Will Never Love Me." I also feel a huge amount of residual anger and resentment at them. This is problematic for me because I am bisexual and I often meet heterosexual cis men I find really attractive who are also really cool and with whom I want to be friends. I actually love being friends with men and -- yes it's true -- some of my best friends are cis het men. But when I meet men I find attractive and groovy, especially cis het men, I am scared and I freak out and hate myself and hate them. Mostly I hate myself. And this sucks and means I either never get close to them or I have really excruciating friendships with them wherein I'm secretly in love with them and desire their approval and anguish over it and I'm too scared and ashamed to tell them or anyone else about it. Or I'm terrified of them. Or all of the above. And I'd like that to stop. I know that even men are wounded by The Patriarchy, that even men (maybe even especially men) are prisoners of The Patriarchy. The only way I can think to try to heal this in my own life is to go through this process of telling the world what I've been through and being radically honest with the men in my life. This is an experiment I am currently engaged in and I will let you know how it goes.

Another reason I'm doing this is that when I see or meet skinny, beautiful women -- particularly heterosexual skinny beautiful women -- I hate them and write them off and think terrible things about them. I think their lives are perfect and I assume they feel superior to me and (like beautiful cis het men) that they pity me or find me repulsive and will thus render me invisible. I hate the way these women are rewarded for certain behaviors by society and I blame the women for it, I blame them for behaving in ways that contribute to their enslavement by The Patriarchy. I hate the things they do to themselves to make themselves beautiful in the eyes of The Patriarchy and I judge them for it. As a feminist, this is highly problematic. We are all hurt by The Patriarchy as women, no matter how we look. I know from talking honestly with socially-acceptably attractive women that it's no picnic to be a gorgeous woman in this world: men and women both act insane around you, you may be extra susceptible to assault and abuse, and generally a lot of people (including me) don't take you seriously. You might even think you have no worth in this world UNLESS you are beautiful. Which sucks. But still I often have knee-jerk hate for het gorgeous women and find them highly suspect. This is not the way I want to be in the world. I don't want to be a misogynist. I want to be able to see all women as full human beings deserving of compassion. I want to heal this so that I am not continuing to cut all beautiful het women out of my life and write them all off. I think being radically honest about my pain as a fat, ugly woman is one way to try to heal this.

A related reason I'm doing this is because I think the world needs more compassion, and compassion is really hard when you have not walked a mile in someone else's shoes. It has come to my attention that most men don't have any idea what it's like to be a woman in this world, that classically attractive people don't understand what torture it is to be ugly and fat. They might even see ugly and fat people as inferior or in need of being fixed. Generally we don't know each other well because we are all too scared to talk about the tender stuff. And if we don't know each other, it is my belief that we can't have true compassion for each other. In my mind, I can't help heal this situation unless I revel myself and challenge others to reveal themselves too.

Well, I think that is enough for today. It really is kind of scary to be putting this out here but I am also compelled to do it. No turning back now. More soon.