mostlynerdery: Firstly, I’ve been

mostlynerdery submitted:

Firstly, I’ve been following this blog since coming to tumblr. Fine work you do here. Entertaining as well as informative, I rather enjoy it. There’s something I’ve been wanting to say, however. On the issue of different body types. I’ve encountered a lot of shaming for talking about my end of things, so it’s gotten a bit hard to talk about. But every once in a while I summon my courage and give it another try. Here goes. 

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I’ve spent a large part of my life struggling to get to a healthy weight for my height; but I not only feel like I’m not allowed to talk about that struggle to people around me, but that I’m not allowed to express my pride in accomplishing my goal at last. Because my problem was needing to gain weight, not lose it. 

I have a high metabolism, and grew up in poverty, which means I was dreadfully malnourished. Have you ever seen a particularly skinny child suck in their gut so you can count their ribs? That was me, without having to suck in. I didn’t think anything of it until I had to change around other kids. The other kids weren’t quiet about their horror and disgust. They demanded to know if I was anorexic (first I’d ever heard of the word), and then insisted I was no matter what I said. They were quick to spread the word around. I became known, avoided and pitied as the “anorexic girl”. I wasn’t in that location for more than a few months, but the event really stuck with me. The strength of their disgust wasn’t something I could forget. I don’t know if they were being overly dramatic or not, but one of the girls nearly vomited when she saw me and her friend demanded rather abrasively that I hurry up and put a shirt on. Either way, it hurt quite a bit.

I spent the rest of my years trying to gain weight, trying to reach what was “normal” (more important what was healthy) for girls my size, and often coming up short. My heart sank every time I stepped on a scale and didn’t see a difference, it skipped a beat when my weight somehow dropped again. I didn’t reach 100 pounds for the first time until I was seventeen, and all I could think was that people were going to assume I was anorexic again during that time. 

Eventually my life (and diet) stabilized, and I’ve managed to both hit and maintain where I should be for my height. I’m finally happy with what my body looks like. Healthy. Normal. But I don’t feel like I can fully take pride in my success. I can’t jump and shout “I’ve finally done it!” to the world, because it doesn’t seem like gaining weight is ever an acceptable goal in our society. So many of my female friends spend so much time complaining about how they wish they could weigh a few pounds less, and talking about going on diets, and how I’m ‘so lucky’ to have the metabolism I do. After all, while bad food can still wreck my body’s insides at least I won’t get fat on the outside. It seems like the issue of weight and diets comes up pretty much every time I’m hanging out in a group of two or more other girls and then some. 

It makes me want to scream. If I object, then suddenly I'm insensitive. If I say anything other than “yeah, I guess I’m pretty lucky!” then I’m a bitch. How dare I complain about being skinny when so many girls around me are struggling with being 'fat’! How dare I have an anxiety attack if my weight drops! I should be thankful every time I lose weight! I ought to be ashamed for even thinking about saying any of this! I guess since it’s not what most people have to deal with, my own struggle to be a healthy weight just doesn’t matter. I really ought to keep my mouth shut. Doesn’t mean I will. 

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So if it’s acceptable to submit here, there it is. An experience from the other side of the spectrum. Even I don’t tend to hear about it, but I lived it, so I know it exists. If nothing else it exists through me. I did my best to keep this short.

It’s definitely okay to submit this here, and thank you for sharing your experiences!  It is sad how much we’re bombarded by messages from society to be thin.  This doesn’t excuse the behaviour of your friends though because they’re still responsible for their own words and actions and it’s incredibly insensitive and disrespectful and mean for them to project their insecurities like that on you. :\

The ironic part is that we’re bombarded with a lot of contradictory messages in society about female beauty as well… the images I post on this blog, especially the comic ones, really highlight this well: you need to be thin, with thin legs and a toned stomach, but you also want big breasts, and curves and a butt (some comic artists do this by seriously bending the character’s back so she can have small legs and butt but still appear to have curves) and it can be hell on self esteem.

I know thin women who complain they wish they had curves and do similar things to their friends with large breasts or etc, that they’re so lucky and should appreciate what they have while that friend finds having large breasts really uncomfortable, and etc etc etc…

Even though people knew I had an eating disorder, some people told me all the time how lucky I am, how they want to know my “secret” and how they wish they had my self control.  And this thing was literally KILLING me.

In the reverse, when I talk about recovery and how hard it is for me to eat and trying to eat, I’ve gotten some people telling me “don’t overdo it” or that I should eat healthy doing it, or etc etc… when right now just EATING is a big deal and hard, and the important thing right now is not for me to watch out for what I’m eating but to just eat SOMETHING.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing your experiences, and also that a really thin body doesn’t necessarily mean a person has an eating disorder (and we shouldn’t be shaming people with eating disorders anyway) and that people need to respect other people’s body types and not project their insecurities out like that and ignore how that person feels and that person’s experience.