Let me start this off by saying that I love my family, very much. My mother, brother, and I have all had to survive the effects of my father’s behavior, and are still surviving them, so in a way that has brought us all together and I believe strengthened the love between us even though we are all very different people. I care about them and am actually protective of them both in different ways.
However, I know my fat-positivity makes them…well, uncomfortable, and my childhood in regards to my weight was not that positive. Here’s some history before I get to the point of all this: I honestly don’t remember whether or not I was a fat child. But I did gain weight when I hit puberty, and was noticabley fat then. My mother, apparently, was also fat, but I didn’t notice or care. I only became aware of this when she started freaking out about her weight. She said she had kept all the baby weight she gained when pregnant with me and my brother, and this was no longer acceptable. In her frenzy to be thin, she made me diet with her. It didn’t work. The only time I lost weight was when I stopped eating because of my depression, and everyone in my family was soooo happy for me, ignoring the fact that I was miserable. Obviously, I’ve gotten beyond that, but most of the women on my mother’s side of the family still obsess about their weight and diet obsessively. They know about my opinions about size and body image, and on the surface appear to support me in it. They came to my art show, where I displayed lots of work about size-acceptance, and they congratulated me, but we didn’t talk about it. My weight, and my message (which I think is a positive one) is wholly ignored.
That said, I recently went on vacation with my brother, mom’s boyfriend, and Mom to visit my Aunt (her sister) and her husband and child. I was very much dreading this trip. I did not want to have to deal with talks of dieting and such, the looks my family gives me for being fat, though they don’t say anything anymore. So I bought “Fat!So?” and “The Forbidden Body” to read while I was there, to combat their attitudes. I had to buy a new swimsuit too, and wanted to get a bikini, but I got a tankini instead because I knew my mother would never let me out of the house if I showed that much skin.
Thus prepared, but still wanting to stay home, I drove the 6 hours home, then the next day we all piled in her boyfriend’s car and drove the 8 or so hours to the resort we’d be staying at on the visit. We checked in, and went to my Aunt’s, having a nice dinner where I didn’t feel too awkward yet. My Aunt has gained weight since having her kid, and I think it looks good on her, but I didn’t dare tell her that. Anyway, after dinner, we drove to the closest food market to get stuff for breakfasts and lunches. We were all tired, and weren’t really thinking clearly of what we should get (we actually had to go back to get some stuff we forgot). But my mother was adamant about getting Weight Control Oatmeal. …..yeah. Weight. Control. OATMEAL. Since when is oatmeal the most fattening of foods? Its oats!!!!
*sigh* Moving on. We went back and I did my best to be extra helpful, fully aware that I was only doing it to compensate for being too big. More history: the summer after my first year of college, I went home and spent the break with my mom. Just me and her living in a townhouse. I had developed a much more positive image of myself thanks to being away, but being back, all the bad feelings returned and I reverted to the self-concious, hurt, scared, injured person I was when I graduated high school. I realized, during this vacation, that that was exactly what was happening again. I was reverting to my old behavior and thinking about my body. I knew this, but I couldn’t stop it. I had brought my bellydancing video with me to exercise and practice, but because my family assumed because of my weight that I don’t exercise, I left it in a drawer the whole time. I tried not to eat too much, because I didn’t want them to think I was gorging myself and that’s why I’m fat. I knew I was doing this, and why, but I couldn’t stop. It was weird. So very weird.
Also, because there was a pool at the resort and my mother likes to sun herself, we spent a lot of time swimming. This meant I got to show off my new suit, which I love, but also lead to more awkwardness. The first day we went to the pool, after I had been swimming for a bit, I got out and didn’t realize that my tankini top had ridden up a bit in the front. It exposed about two inches of skin, including my bellybutton. I walked over to my mom, unaware of this, and she freaked, insisting I cover up immediately. Shocked, and still reverting, I did so. She then tried to turn it into a joke about how I had been “flashing” her. Meanwhile, she lay there sunning herself, her flat stomach exposed to the world. My swimsuit also caused issues because it tied around my neck from a single point in the front center, not held up by two straps. I have rather large breasts, so there’s some considerable weight for that to support. When I tied it, my breasts hung pretty low, but they were definitely well covered and I wasn’t flashing anyone in that case either. However, my mom insisted on retying it for me, and every time we swam thereafter she tied it higher and higher, putting more strain on my neck. It was very uncomfortable. I know she may have just been concerned that one of my boobs was going to pop out and startle unsuspecting tourists, but it was still a covering of my flesh, and did not help my feelings.
I also had very little privacy - there were four of us in a small cabin with thin walls, my brother and I were sharing a room, and the bedroom doors were kept open at all times. My llovely girlfriend, the woman who has taught me to be proud of my size, was not with me. I could call her, but the reception in that area was pretty bad, and even when the calls didn’t cut out I still couldn’t speak freely. I couldn’t tell her how they were making me feel.
I tried to read the books to give myself more of a sense of support, of confidence, but I would hide the covers whenever someone interrupted me, and I didn’t read them in public. Not at first anyway. In my reversion, I wasn’t letting them help me. Then one night, we sat down to watch a movie since we weren’t visiting my Aunt that evening. My mom had borrowed Larry the Cable Guy’s “Git-R-Done” from her, and though I knew it was going to be disastrous, I tried to be the good daughter and sit down and spend time with them. I don’t know how long I lasted, but the fact that every time he started losing the audience he defaulted to making fun of his fat female family members and fat female celebrities disgusted me (as well as most everything else he said - the man is an asshole, and he’s fat too, so who the hell is he to talk?). Eventually I gave up, stated flatly that I was going to go watch a different movie in the other room, and did so. I was pissed, and hurt, that my family wouldn’t think that I’d be offended by his words.
After that, though, I did change my behavior a bit. I brought “Fat!So?” to the pool and read it there, making sure the cover was visible. My Aunt, who was sitting next to me, definitely noticed it but looked away quickly and said nothing about it. Several people stared as they walked by, and one woman actually slowed down and gawked. It was hilarious, and it felt great. When I was swimming, I let my tankini top ride up as much as it wanted to, enjoying the feeling of water on my stomach (which made want a bikini even more). I was still careful to have my stomach covered whenever my mom or her boyfriend was around, which I wish I hadn’t, but their discomfort was still apparent and powerful. I wasn’t totally done reverting, I guess. I started trying to do artwork too, and finished two pieces featuring big women (up until then I hadn’t done any, because I was just not in the mood to create anything, feeling like I did).
We also went to King’s Dominion, an amusement/water park about an hour away from where we were. I continued this positive thinking about myself there, and it paid off. Not in the way one might expect, though, its not like anyone hit on me or anything. That would have been hilarious in front of my fat-negative family. But no, this was different. When swimming, I went with my mom, her boyfriend, my brother, my aunt, and my little cousin to do the Lazy River ride, where you just sit in a doughnut-shaped tube and float down a very slow moving “river” of water. The first time we did it, I didn’t have time to hoist myself up into the tube, so I floated with it around my middle, having issues because I could stand up in that depth of water and thus it was hard to float like that. The second time, I decided to take the time to hoist myself up. I put the tube around my waist again, then sat up on one side, intending to draw my knees through the hole so I could lay down…and I got stuck. My legs would not fit through the hole. This was a very potentially embarrassing situation. Fat Woman Gets Stuck in Inner Tube. But instead, I let myself find it funny, and after all, it was more comfortable than what I had been doing the first time. So I floated around like that, perched on the edge of one side, knees sticking out but legs sandwiched in that tiny hole. Anyway, later, I went on two rides - the Flying Swings and the Scrambler. I love the Flying Swings, and even though my large hips had to squeeze into the seat, I let myself enjoy it, wondering what my mother might be thinking, seeing her fat daughter suspended in the air. I went on the Scrambler later, which is my absolute favorite ride ever. I have never, ever had a problem fitting into it before now, and its not like I’ve gained a massive amount of weight recently. But on this one, when I put the bar down to fasten myself in, it dug into my stomach, right at my bellybutton between two rolls of fat. It was massively uncomfortable, and probably dangerous (like what if I had been flung forward and the bar pushed further into me?). I was FURIOUS, but I was on the ride with my mother, and it was my favorite, so I said nothing and stayed on, trying still to enjoy it. That, to me, is blatant size discrimination. Only people who can fit within this much space *makes a two-foot-ish space with her hands* can ride the rides. That is severely unfair, and obvious. After the ride, I did actually complain to my mother and voice my opinion about how it was unfair to limit the enjoyment of the ride to specific body sizes, and she appeared to agree. Regardless of what she really thought, letting myself be angry was extremely freeing. I’d like to write King’s Dominion and let them know about this.
Anyway, for the rest of the trip, I survived much better. I still felt a little bit guilty and ashamed of myself, and I didn’t bellydance, and I kept my mouth shut whenever they said something stupid that made me angry (except for one instance, but even then, after saying something I retreated instead of screaming at them). I returned home still depressed and, well, diminished in spirit. But now I am back with my wonderful llady, and am feeling much better already.
And I will be buying a bikini, as soon as I can find one that fits.
