I started out writing about some hacks I incorporated into my sometimes-bed bound life to get exercise in.

But halfway through writing it, I realize the exercise hack is secondary. (Spun off into a future post.)

I have something to say to people with chronic illnesses, and people in recovery from severe acute illnesses.

And people who are trying to get treatment but keep getting the run-around from doctors because of their weight.

And also people who hate fat people but more on the side. This is more about us and internalizing our hatred of ourselves. But if you’re not chronically ill and you’re reading this because you want to learn how to be more supportive, you can start with this.

I’m fat because I’m sick. Yes, I became overweight because, hey, I like chicken nuggets and I self-soothe with food instead of … I don’t know, cocaine.

But when I rapidly approached and topped 300? That was my illness. And your little comments didn’t help slow it down at all. They just made me feel bad about myself and avoid you.

Well not literally you but think of your former fat friend. The one who you think you’re still friends with but when did you last text?

You said something mean about someone fat, or laughed cruelly at a fat person’s problem, or was particularly unhelpful in a comment about her/his weight like “have you tried being vegan” which… I’m not even going there with you right now because I can’t even with you.

Anyway this next part is for them. But don’t send them this article because that’s just telling them that they’re fat. If you must do something, you can put it on Facebook. That would help me too.

So we’ll be back to you in a minute, person who is not fat. Fat people. Listen. And then stay around so you can say some similar things to your non-fatties.

You’re the only one who knows your body.

You’re the only one who know how you get better.

You deserve to have your illness treated whether you are the perfect weight, underweight or overweight.

You also deserve to be treated with the dignity and respect afforded to others.

Your treatment can coincide with an exercise or diet, without the additional pressure of being some magic number of pounds or stones.

It took me quite a while to come to this understanding and it blocked my healing.

Doctors who don’t understand this are doing you harm. Leave them if you can. They will miss things while they unfairly focus on your weight.

Like cancer.

Mine? Missed freaking cancer. Before I switched.

My extra weight is directly attached to my trauma

Content warning: discussion of childhood trauma, mention of sexual abuse

Except when I was a young teen, I always had an issue with my body size. This stretched back to childhood. Looking back from where I just was with my weight, I now realize that I wasn’t that much bigger than the other kids.

I wasn’t even teased-by-friends-in-school fat. It was purely a relatives-and-their-crap-opinions thing.

I was definitely overweight but it was in the baby fat arena. In therapy I found out how closely it is connected to early trauma in my childhood. Because apparently I did it on purpose.

Subconsciously but on purpose. Now, I eat relatively healthy and used to make up for any shortfalls by being active, especially during my work day.

When I don’t feel safe, I apparently try to build a physical barrier around myself with food, subconsciously.

My body also does not respond to dietary changes as much as other people. It responds to activity. Diet helps sometimes but I’m fooling myself without activity.

If I don’t increase the amount I move, it doesn’t matter if I’m on an all spinach or all liquid or low carb diet. I won’t lose any weight. That just how my body works.

The trauma issue also comes in when trying to avoid sexual attention from men.

As previously mentioned it was a subconscious move..

Without realizing it, I was trying make myself unattractive, even as a child, not just create a barrier via the physical distance more fat around my body would create.

I was sexually abused during childhood and during my initial healing, that physical barrier, built into my body, came up a lot.

There are other layers to it but that was one. Because it didn’t really work.

Content warning: Though I was not officially diagnosed with anorexia nor bulimia, I had some weird food issues that were at least close.

What do you when when trying to get fat backfires and makes you more appealing?

You stop eating.

See my subconscious eat-as-a-barrier plan  kinda helped until I hit puberty. At which point it backfired because the more I ate, the more it went to my hips and breasts.

It became more complicated when I got a very adult figure while still in high school. By “very adult” I mean 38-25-36 on a short frame.

Around that time I started to eat only one meal a day.

I skipped breakfast, had a diet soda for lunch, ate dinner normally at home, as late as I could, because I didn’t want to be judged for whatever I ate.

To this day I hate eating around anyone except my sister to the point that I literally have digestive problems.

All through college it was fine. I didn’t have a perfect body but I wasn’t trying to hide it either.

I ate when I was hungry.

I gained the freshman 15 but it wasn’t a huge deal.

Until relatives began to scrutinize me.

The more male or female relatives commented, the more I wanted to hide. The more I wanted to hide, the more I ate.

Before long I was back to being overweight enough to justify to myself that I needed to hide in baggy clothes.

A back problem I had way before the weight gain grew and suddenly worse, then led to a breast reduction to resolve upper back pain. My insurance covered it because my breasts were THAT big.

This was where my body went from a little overweight to a growing dissatisfaction with my looks. I later learned that my body was trying to grow my breasts back. It overshot though and I had now had belly fat, which hadn’t been a problem since I was a kid.

And that’s why I was overweight. I was still very lovely (didn’t know that at the time) and had a kind of Jessica Rabbit (Google it) or classic Barbie killer body. I wish I had known how lucky I was.

I was still overweight. But it wasn’t conspicuously so.

It didn’t get really bad until I gained 100 pounds during a bad year of MORE problems with my back. I was on a pain medication in combination with some other drugs that made it hard to think clearly.

With the pain it was also impossible to move and the drugs only alleviated the pain enough to sit up for a while every day. Exercise was out.

And exercise was the only thing that ever worked on me.

Even now, I’m 70% bedbound. If I go for two extra walks a week I’ll lose two or three pounds right away, no matter what I eat.

But back then? All I did was sleep, eat and take meds for a year.

One day I was late refilling my meds and woke up from the drug-induced stupor. I realized what happened to me, and went home to my mother. She help me detox my body from the sucky chemicals. And I lost 83 pounds.

And kept half of it off but kept gaining and losing the same 40 pounds until I found out I had cancer. So that and the aftermath of steriods during cancer treatment? Is why I’m fat. Thank you very much.

There’s more to the story but the point is this.

You don’t know any overweight or underweight person’s story. And either way it’s none of your business.

You still there, fat person friend or person who has a problem with fat people that they won’t admit or regular person being supportive?

If you’re disgusted by fat people? I will concede that you have the right to BE disgusted.

Sucky as it is that you judge people on how big or small they are?

As much as you pretend to hide behind concern for their health, instead of the fact that you’re too bigoted to see their humanity?

Even though it makes you a terrible person, in my opinion?

You have every right to be a miserable asshole inside.

But as soon as you express it outwardly you are infringing on our rights to pursue happiness without your fucked-up judgment.

And your judgment IS fucked up.

If you cared about a person’s health as so many of you claim? You’d care about ALL their health problems.

Including the emotional or mental problems you’re causing with unsolicited comments about a person’s weight.

I overate, yes. But no more than other people — they just didn’t gain as much weight as I did. One of my problems is that I eat less than other people most of the time.

So when I comfort eat it also has more of an effect.

My body just works differently. So sue me.

Besides which, it doesn’t matter if I eat a gallon of ice cream at every meal. Still none of your business.

If you want to help try shutting up.

Be nice to me, I’d been hearing fat jokes and snickering all day. Even though I might have been used to it or didn’t care, it affected me.

For example, perhaps my already scant energy was wasted ignoring or avoiding them.

Most people who overeat aren’t even greedy.

You want to know the truth?

I rarely meet another person who is overweight who hasn’t suffered some kind of trauma that put their body in danger, whether they’ve just got XL curves or are very plump.

And the few times I don’t, it’s someone who starts eating to bury or smother their emotions. Some people choose drugs or alcohol. There are those who deal by hurting people physically or mentally, sadly.

Nearly everyone copes in some unhealthy way at some point because adulting doesn’t come with a universal handbook.Choosing cigarettes or (weed if it is legal in your state) or drinking a whole bottle of wine isn’t better or worse, it’s just different.

Just because you might be coping with your trauma or lack thereof okay?

It doesn’t mean everyone else is as impervious to pain as you are. (And it’s not an advantage to not feel pain as acutely. You’re not fully experiencing joy either.)

It seems odd to further punish people who might be suffering through life as much as you are- or more, who at some point in their past were starving for affection, love, freedom from emotional pain or trauma.

Just because they tried to fill that void with food. If that is even what happened? You don’t know that is what happened. Maybe they had too many Big Macs. Maybe they ARE greedy.

I’m telling you those people are in the minority. People who just can’t stop stuffing their faces because they just love food are a TV myth as bad as the one where the disabled person wants to kill themselves because they just can’t bear life after losing a limb.

Which is bullshit. And is a story told by people who haven’t been there.

Fat stories on TV are being told by people who have never been fat as well.

So why are they fat?

Again, maybe they are greedy but that’s usually not the case. And if it is, how does that hurt you? Are they MAKING you look at them?

Maybe because they were raised that food is love.

Or their parents thought only fat babies were healthy and they got locked into the habit of overeating before they ever had a chance.

Maybe they’re short. We short people don’t have as large a frame to spread out our weight. When you’re five three, it’s a much harder struggle to stay or get trim.

Or, like me, by the time they figured out it doesn’t work to self-medicate with food,  they were full-brown depressed.

By then you can’t fix it even if you want to do it.

Maybe if they do everything perfectly, the size they are is as slim as they’ll ever be.

Content warning: childhood abuse & mention of rape

You can only fight your genetics so much.

Maybe they used to be twice that size and feel like it’s a victory.

Until you came along and let them know that getting even halfway better is no use.

If that’s the case? If all that struggle isn’t worth it? Why not go for broke and get as big as they can? Because what if they can’t reach their goal. All of that work will be for nothing if the goal was be acceptable to society.

They may have been big but healthy.

So maybe if you’re still going to moo at them on the street they should not care and just let their body do whatever – which is the goal, but not in via low self esteem.

Because then you become literally immobilized, frozen in time with their pain. And THAT is when the pounds really pack on.

That has happened to me and I become triggered (yes triggered, fuck you if you don’t think it’s a real thing) when people continuously criticize my weight.

And maybe I should have been tougher.

But let’s see how you do being criticized every day, everywhere you go, in vicious and sometimes embarrassing ways, for something you can’t help at that moment on top of other life problems.

Then? I was already emotionally compromised by

• getting used to a new chronic illness,
• losing my job because of it
• moving halfway across the country because of that,
• breaking up with what I thought was my soulmate,
• losing most of my belongings
• having severe and random PTSD from the childhood abuse
• and recently being raped.

I think I was pretty tough up until the public and frequent fat-shaming started.

In my case it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I need those of you judging fat people aloud to understand you are sometimes that last straw.

It tipped me over from thinking I figure my life with therapy into a long and deep depression where I didn’t care about anything.

To which I responded with more food and even less activity.

And the complication of physically being in terrible pain even when I walked just from my bed to the restroom heavily compounded it.

Fat people are like anyone else.

They have that same gulf inside them that you have inside you that you got to fill with ACTUAL love.

Or sex.

Or shoplifting.

Or compulsive lying.

Or weed.

Or smoking.

Or illicit drugs.

Or being a mean person.

No fat person is out here begging for your full empathy. It would be nice but honestly? I’d rather have your apathy.

Just don’t care at all because even your care turns to scorn. We see right through that “concerned for your health” garbage.

I’m concerned you keep knowingly dating losers but do you hear me harassing you about it?

A concerned person cares about other people’s feelings.

A concerned person maintains boundaries.

A concerned person won’t treat you as a lesser human because of the thing they’re “concerned” about.

Never mention a person’s weight unless a person asks your opinion.

Period. Skinny people know they’re skinny.

They don’t need you telling them they look “sick.”

And fat people know that they’re fat. We have to actually carry our bodies everywhere. That alone often hurts.

We don’t need you asking about our weight.

You think we look good? You can say that. You can even be specific “your waist looks so nice in this” works. You see how that told us you think we lost weight without being all trigger-y?

And if you’re a stranger? Minding your business comes with no price tag. Nor does shutting up.

Try them both.

I promise I’d rather you weren’t inspired to moo at me on the street.

I’d love it if you kept your comments to yourself.

It would be great if you could somehow manage to feel however the fuck you want without opening your sorry mouth.

Because without your judgement and heckling when I was less strong? I’d have seen my own beauty a lot sooner. And accepted myself.

Once I accepted myself the way I was?

All the things I used to prefer were different began to melt away. Including the pounds. Right now the pounds are literally melting off me.

Some of it is the antidepressants. Before that though? It was just me working on my emotional blocks and being able to accept that if I never lose another pound?

If I have to stay in this much pain?

If I have to full-blown cancer again?

I love this body I’m in. I love my skin and my melanin. I love my face and my hips. I love my belly and its roundness.

I love everything the world encourages me to hate.

So if you’re really so concerned about my health?

Whether you call yourself friend, family or are a complete stranger?

You’d shut the fuck up and share your contempt with your journal.

You’re also welcome to fuck off.