By Kaylee Johnson
Campus News
A decade ago, when I was a teenage girl, trying so desperately to fit in and meet the social standards of whatever group I deemed better than me at that point in time, I was fat. There is no point in sugarcoating it by using dandelion scented words like plus size, heavyset, chubby, husky, or curvy. I was simply fat, and I still am. Back then, when I had a distant sense of identity and confidence, I dreaded those empty juvenile days of walking around the local podunk rural mall with people I deemed my friends. There were only a few stores in this mall – an FYE video with cardboard cutouts of teen icons like One Direction and Justin Bieber, A Claire’s where the emo girls will pierce your ears begrudgingly and make it as painful as humanly possible, a typical food court that was surely breaking many health codes, and a Victoria’s Secret with the same lighting as an operating room. I remember those days of panic and horror as I pinched at the fat of my belly, trying desperately to make those pink sweatshirts fit, so that I could match with my friends, but they just would not budge. I remember the feeling of sucking in my belly for photos from a young age, and asking people to only shoot me from the neck up. In high school I was shopping in the Kohl’s plus size clothing section with my mother, dressing in attire similar to what an elderly churchgoer would wear.
The rapid weight gain was perplexing for a number of reasons – I was a dancer who attended five classes a week, my endurance was strong. I was not overeating to the point of uncontrollable weight gain, at least I did not think so. It had been my third year without a period. I was beginning to feel envious of the girls who smiled and played tennis with their friends on TAMPAX commercials, wondering if my life would be any more typical and evocative of the 80s high school rom coms I often fell asleep to, with some form of hormonal regulation. I was not diagnosed with any disorders until I went to an OBGYN for the first time in college. My primary doctor at the time, a man who was overtly sexist and ignorant, remarked that I would be fine if I lost a few pounds and stopped stressing so much. I began to wonder if my symptoms were psychosomatic, as I shaved my chin hairs every morning, and continued to struggle to zip up my pants.
When I received the diagnosis of severe endometriosis, thickened endometrial lining, and polycystic ovarian syndrome, I had already begun rewiring my life to adapt to the pain and restrictions that my body demanded of me. Everything seemed to make sense at that moment, as I was prescribed the first of many hormonal therapy pills.
My twenties have been spent in a body that I have learned to love and accept, but society has not. I got glances when I ate something high in carbs in public, or from shop people when I asked if they carried my size. Accepting that I will never be thin or meet conventional beauty standards per se has been an uphill battle at times. I went through phases of SPANX, bleached blond hair, red bombshell lipstick, and fasting diets. I even went through a period of time when I was only eating Skinny Pop from the vending machine of the science wing of my undergraduate school, and forcing myself to vomit if I ate more than 600 calories a day. None of these torture methods achieved what I hoped they would achieve, instead I was left with the softness of my belly fat and a sort of peaceful neutrality that younger me never would have imagined. My body is the only body I have, so I want to treat it with the integrity it deserves.
That Victoria’s Secret from when I was a teenage girl has since been closed down and converted into a used video game store, strangely enough. The dressing rooms I used to panic in are now boarded up and covered with Minecraft and Call of Duty posters. There is never a single woman in sight in that store now, a cemetery that used to make women feel so uncomfortable in their own flesh. The closest thing the store sells to body dysmorphia now is “Barbie Boutique” for the Gameboy Advance. I think it is better this way – younger me would have benefited from a Hot Pocket smelling video game store instead of whatever else corrupted my mind and body back then.
A longtime contributor to Campus News, Kaylee Johnson is now a school teacher.
Facebook Comments