#anyways I ate junk and now my body hates me but it was worth it

[milo-is-rambling]

My stomach hurts and I have to schedule my complaint for an hour and fourty minutes from now why must tumblr have a post limit - 10:20

[moonshinemornings]

in my skin

i’ve been thinking about writing this for a long time, and I think I’m at a place where, more so than being comfortable talking about it, putting my thoughts down might help me continue to chip away at my complex.

I want to preface this by saying that my fixation on how my body looks is infuriating to even me. this is for 3 reasons:

1) there is an endless list of more important, broader existential crises to be concerned with instead of how I look (what am I heading towards? am I genuinely happy pursuing a capitalistic, societal definition of success? what is purpose or value in my life???)

2) even on an individual level, so many other aspects of a human make up their person and make them interesting other than how they look and its stupid to be so concerned with this one thing that means so little if anything at all

3) I’m not even that stupidly far away from societal beauty standards anyway wtf like stfu

regardless, I think my thoughts about my body are reflective of how I think about myself relative to the world in general. I’ve also found that the relationship I have with my body is often a symptom about how I am feeling about my self worth at a certain point in time, and also manifests in how I see and treat the people around me. for these reasons I think it can be valuable to unpack these feelings even though they may seem asinine.

the first time I became conscious of my body was in my primary school dance club, when we had to get measured for our costumes. most of my friends were generally skinny and I wasn’t significantly larger than any of them. but the nature of (chinese) dance and the kind of girls that joined it made the general impression that it was better to be lithe and delicate - the moves just looked better that way. the revelation that I wasn’t as thin as I could be was not groundbreaking. it didn’t trigger any immediately toxic thoughts either. it was just a thought I hadn’t had before, that my body wasn’t perfect. It also didn’t affect me much because I had a lot of good stuff going on in school; I had great friends, I did well in school, everything looked good on paper and in real life (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I peaked in primary school). so it wasn’t a huge trigger for anything, just a planting of a seed, I guess? dormant.

as I grew into my teens my body was often too busy serving its intended purposes for me to be concerned with how it looked. I played sports all the time, I woke up early and went to bed early (when possible). I ate well and I was active. It wasn’t difficult to be relatively fit, so I wasn’t really that concerned with how “good” my body looked. like all teens, I did become more concerned with standards of attractiveness and whether or not I conformed to them. I noticed how people’s bodies differed and what people liked. I was aware that I was not on the top of my teenage male acquaintance’s who-would-you-bang list, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. I wasn’t super pleased with my body but I definitely wasn’t unhappy with it. and frankly speaking, I didn’t think I was unattractive lah like ya I might not be hot shit but I was definitely not ugly and I was pretty confident with what I had to offer. this was probably also due to the fact that I did well in school and extra-curriculars, so I found my validation elsewhere. 

for a short time between high school and college I had a body goal I wanted to work towards, time on my hands and a motivated support system, so I started working out for an aesthetic. It wasn’t super serious and there were no hard and fast rules, plus it was genuinely fun to work my body. I had been an athlete for several years at this point and I knew I felt good when my body was well-worked and maintained, so it was never difficult to bring myself to work out. the results were a happy bonus. looking back that was probably the time when I had the healthiest relationship with my body. I liked using it and spending time on it for the sake of doing it, I liked how it made me look but never to the extent that it became my main motivation for working on my body. if I had the luxury of unadulterated, stressless time, I could probably do it again. when I started college I was healthy, I looked good and I didn’t even care (we’ll come back to this).

when I started college things started to fall apart. my time in university was, overall, pretty shitty for my mental health. it was great in a lot of other aspects, and I can say with little doubt that it’s helped me grow into a person I not only want to be but am comfortable with. but the process was a shit show to put it lightly. when it comes to my relationship with how I look in particular, I think my years in London have unfortunately left me with a considerable amount of trauma. to make a long story short, I had an ideal of what I wanted my college experience to be like, but half a year into it I found myself severely unsatisfied with every aspect of my life. I wasn’t doing well in school, I felt like I was underperforming socially, I was conscious about the difference in affluence between me and the people around me and I was generally unhappy with the space I took up in my own and other people’s narratives. amidst all this, I put on some weight because (1) I wasn’t working out anywhere as much as I used to (2) the weather, my mental wellbeing and the food readily available made me eat a lot of junk. but instead of acknowledging and focusing on the underlying inferiority complexes that were eating away at me, I sought alternative validation through things I could seemingly control i.e. how I looked. it became the case that it was no longer that I looked a certain way because I worked out, but that I worked out because I wanted to look a certain way. and when I didn’t look a certain way because I was eating shit or going out or because it just plainly was not realistic given my living situation, the lack of validation would further aggravate the inferiority complexes and unhappiness with my person that started this toxicity to begin with. i ended first year treating the people around me like shit, not having anything to show for the hours of studying i put in, and a lot heavier than when I started it. family and friends pointed it out and i was pretty chill about it whenever it happened. i honestly thought i wasn’t that affected by it (again, brushing under the carpet the problems I had with the expectations I set for myself), and that i could lose the weight if i put my mind to it.

then in second year i developed an eating disorder. a couple months into second year I hadn’t made much progress with either my mental or physical health. I often ate till I was physically uncomfortable because I had a general problem with self control (I had none, in fact I didn’t want any, but that’s a story for another time). One night after eating too much, I went to brush my teeth and I was so full that when I gagged lightly from brushing my tongue, I involuntarily threw up the food that was filled up to my gullet. A normal person would’ve registered this as a cue that they should be more conscious about how much they’re eating. I saw it as an opportunity to eat as much as I wanted (for what?) and still be (or at least feel like I am) in control of how much weight I put on. and so I developed bulimia. the bulimia was closely followed by a binge eating disorder - seeing that now there was a mechanism to keep my intake in check, I could let my eating habits, which were in fact reflective of my control problems unravelling, go crazy. I told a couple friends about it because I thought maybe I needed help, but I never really told them how bad it could get. some nights I would go down into the kitchen in the middle of the night twice. thrice. seven times. I would look for anything I could inhale. cashews dipped in peanut butter. seaweed with a cup of yogurt. three packets of chips and a large slice of cake. instant noodles and jam straight out from the jar. it didn’t matter. it all ended up coming back out of my mouth and into the toilet bowl anyway. I would go out for meals with my friends and we would over-order. the paiseh pieces would be left on the plate and if no one wanted them, i would eat them. immediately afterwards I’d go to the restaurant washroom and throw it up. and all this time while I treated both food and my digestive tract like they were toys, my fixation on how I looked grew. spoiler: i did not lose weight from being bulimic. but I very much did lie to myself about it in order to keep at what was actually a coping mechanism for the rest of my life that was falling apart around me. I threw up everything I ate today, do I look different? I didn’t throw lunch up, but I worked out, so it should cancel out, does it show? I ate a salad but because for dinner we had baked rice I threw half of it up, it didn’t make me bloat did it? 

towards the end of second year I had a rude awakening that forced me to drag myself out of the shit hole of a mindset I had casted myself into to address the personal issues and the lazy, irresponsible, selfish attitude that had gotten me to this point. luckily, when I dealt with the underlying dissatisfaction I felt towards myself, my problems with food disappeared along with it. right now I don’t have an unhealthy relationship with food. if i were being generous, I’d say it could even be considered pretty healthy. my relationship with my physical body is also pretty good. I eat balanced meals, I sleep well, I work out when I want to and lay in bed and eat junk when I want to. I don’t force myself to get activity in, I don’t force myself to eat more or eat less. in fact, I think I am really inching towards getting the intuitive eating and living thing down. I’ve lost some weight and I definitely don’t hate how I look anymore. so I think I am in a good place for the most part.

my relationship with body image and the validation I feel from how I look however, has been (permanently?) affected. as it stands, I am scared about two things.

first. I like the person I am right now. my life is not super in check, but I’m holding it down pretty well. but in the past two years, when i had nothing under control, the way I looked was the only measure with which i valued my worth. do I only place less emphasis on how I look right now because, like when I was in high school, I have other things going for me? if, come one day, life happens and the going gets tough, will I once again come down on myself because I don’t look perfect, even though I don’t look shit? will how I see my body and how I feel about it be affected every time something else in my life causes anxiety or unhappiness, and if that happens is there a risk of it starting a vicious circle of self-toxicity?

second. like I said, I don’t hate how I look right now. but I also don’t love it. since coming back home, after a shower or when I’m changing or whenever I’m deciding what to wear, I stand in front of the mirror, and I look into it for what I can tell is longer than I would like. I don’t give myself shit for how I look or dislike what I see. but why am I looking anyways? am i checking to see if i like my body any more or less today? why do I care? why should it matter how close or far I am to society and my own definition of an ideal body?

recently I watched a video that said despite the positive intentions of the body positivity movement, a better approach would be radical body acceptance. body positive says that even though I’m fatter or shorter or flatter or whatever-er than the beauty standard, I am still beautiful. radical body acceptance argues that words like fat or thin or flat or short or thin should just be neutral words. there is no good or bad linked to them and there is no good or bad body type. bodies are not “beautiful however they may look”. they are just bodies. I’m trying to strive towards this idea of body perception, to go back to a place of not caring how I look in and of itself or relative to anything else. how I look will just be how I look. to be clear, I don’t think this mindset is the best one that should be universally promoted. I do however think it is the best method for me. this is because I’ve found that ever since developing a fixation on my body and how it looks, sometimes when I see other people the things I take notice of most are their bodies as well. I don’t think I go as far as to assign worth to their person or character because of how their body looks, but I can tell that I’m developing a fixation on other people’s bodies (even if I don’t compare it to mine) and I feel like it subconsciously blocks a clear, genuine perception of them as people. and, of course, it feeds into my obsession about how I look. the more I care, the more I care. so I want to focus on caring less, and eventually not caring.

I would like for a day to come where I can put on clothes and not feel the need to change out of it because I don’t like how I look in something before leaving the house. I would like even more if I didn’t feel the need to look in the mirror before leaving to begin with. I would like to be able to not feel badly if someone points out I gained weight, but I would like even more to not feel happy because someone says I’ve lost weight. I would like to stalk fewer girls on instagram to see what their bodies look like in different photos. I would like to stop being concerned about how my body looks in different photos. I would like for a day to come where, whenever I’m not actively thinking about it, I forget how I look. slowly but surely, I will take steps to make this happen. it took a while to rebuild a healthy relationship with food, and then a healthy relationship with my physical body. surely it will take longer to rebuild the relationship with the image and idea of my body in my mind. I think the moment I forget the image exists will be the day I manage to do so.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: In a Twinkling (baon, 12 days of Cheer)

Note:  For the 12 Days of Cheer!

Day #5: Decorations

Notes:  This one is Kustard for a change of pace and I don’t think the word ‘cheer’ quite applies. Melancholy would be more appropriate and a reminder that growing up in Underfell didn’t make for much of a childhood. A little citrusy at the end. 

Tags: Kustard, Alcohol Usage, Hurt/Comfort, Growing up in Underfell sucks

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Read it here!

~~*~~

Red’s front door was almost always locked; wasn’t much point in ever unlocking it, not when the two main occupants of the place didn’t need to use it. Sometimes Sans wondered if being able to shortcut was robbing him of a prime opportunity to gauge his relationship with Red, cause seriously, why bother giving him a key?

Thinking about that too long would give him indigestion in the guts he didn’t have and maybe he should take the fact that Red didn’t shove a bone through his socket whenever he shortcutted in as a sign of...well, something, anyway.

He always stuck to the doormat when he shortcutted in, not because he cared about tracking in anything on Red’s already dubious carpet but because it made it easier to find his damn shoes when they weren’t buried in whatever wreckage Red had scattered around. Today was about the same as any, bare walls except for the occasional hole through the drywall, a coffee table that was probably scrounged from the side of the road, covered in dirty dishes and fast food wrappers. It was sat in front of a swayback sofa that was currently occupied by everyone who actually lived in this shithole. Namely, Red and his damn cat.

Red didn’t even look at him. His head was tipped back on the sofa arm, his sockets closed, but only an idiot would think he was asleep. Sans might be a fool and proved it every time he came here, but idiot was a title he hadn’t earned. Not yet, anyway.

“nice to see you’ve done up the place for the holiday,” Sans said, prying off one of his snowy shoes with the toes of his other foot. He kicked it off, repeating the process on the other side even as he hissed at the cold against his bare bones. “they got those charlie brown trees on clearance down at the pharmacy in town.”

“don’ need a fucking tree.”

That made Sans hesitate. The way Red’s words slurred together was telling, a slurry of consonants in search of a vowel. That damn cat was sitting curled into a loaf on Red’s lap, purring rustily. Red could call it any name he liked, but in Sans’s mind it would always be that damn cat. Had its motor running pretty good right now, Sans could hear it purring from way over here.The cat opened one yellow eye, glaring at him balefully, daring him to try to unseat it.

Yeah, it was way too early to try anything like that. If this was gonna end without broken furniture, then Red would push the cat off his lap himself, and if it wasn’t, eh, Sans was fine with having a furry little hostage sitting between them. Gave him a few more seconds to dodge.

He sat on the opposite side of the sofa instead, sprawling out so his foot barely touched Red’s ankle. Not to play footsie, nah, he didn’t try any fancy footwork. But he left it there, like a conduit between them as he asked lightly, “not one of santa’s biggest fans, huh.”

Red snorted loudly. He shifted, rummaging next to him and pulled out a whiskey bottle from the couch cushions like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. The loud sloshing was a warning of an awful lot of empty space in it. “never met the guy. only nobles got to have a gyftmas in underfell. ain’t much point for anyone else. when you don’t got any food or a bed, you ain’t putting up lights.” He took a long pull off the bottle and Sans could see the flow of it underneath his jaw, guzzled so fast that a few drops splashed down before his magic could incorporate it.

He lifted the bottle in offering to Sans and he took it, but only drank a small swallow. What he wanted more was to keep the bottle until Red demanded it back. Could be immediately, sometimes it was. This time, Red only slumped back against the sofa arm again, gazing pensively up at the ceiling. “but there was this one time…”

His hand never paused in its stroking, the damn cat purring so loudly Sans had to strain to hear Red. “we were still living in new home in those days, mostly. back then, we didn’t go any further than hotland and paps hated that place, whined and bitched so much i usually went there alone. so we hung around town together, kept in the alleys and shit.” Red blinked slowly, once, and the soft diffusion of his eye lights seemed less from the booze than memory taking over. “this’s before we found the dump, even. shit got a little better, then. less havin’ to steal and more’n sellin’ the junk i could fix up. i ain’t no engineer but i don’t do too bad--”

It was damn hard not to prompt him to go back to ‘this one time’, but Sans was afraid to speak. One word and he might break the spell, get this memory stuffed back into the overflowing closet of Red’s mind, and he’d bet hard G that Red would never bring this up again, no matter how much he drank. He sat, statue-still, listening to Red ramble and the damn cat’s engine revving until he thought he’d lose his mind. He almost missed it when Red did wander back, words slipping over his drifting thoughts until they jolted him back.

“it was cold that day and i left paps bundled up with all the blankets in one of our better hidey holes. figured i’d try to find us somethin’ to eat. most places threw away at least some food at the end of the night, and if ya were quick enough, you could get your share. i was on the main walkway, didn’t usually use it, but it was so damn cold even the beggars were takin’ the night off. and that’s when i walked past it. muffet’s bakery.” He sounded dreamy and far away, lost in the cloudy memories of childhood. “she had these lights up. i’d never seen anythin like ‘em before, tiny and twinkling, like stars are supposed t’ be. they’d painted the front window to look like snowflakes were fallin, only any snow i’d seen never looked like that, big snowflakes with patterns i never dreamed of. and right up front in these trays were piles and piles of gingerbread cookies. every one of ‘em was decorated different, weren’t two alike in the whole pile and there musta been a hundred, two hundred of those fuckin things, sitting there behind the glass and fake snowflakes. i thought i could even smell ‘em, was drooling on my damn shoes, lookin’ at those things.”

“what did you do?” Sans’s voice sounded strange, too loud, wrong in the midst of the past.

It was enough to yank Red back to the present. He snorted loudly, slanting Sans a look. “what the fuck could i do? i threw a fucking brick thru the window, grabbed some cookies, and ran.” He sank back again, scratching the cat under its chin maybe a little too hard, but it only purred on. “wasn’t worth it; we were on the move for weeks after that, couldn’t hardly stop to sleep. muffet almost got paps once, and after that, i took him to waterfall. wasn’t worth it.”

He trailed off moodily, staring empty-eyed at the ceiling, but Sans wasn’t entirely convinced, thinking back on a coupla faded memories of his own. “how did they taste?”

That got him a startled look. “what?”

“the cookies. how did they taste?”

Red’s mouth worked for a moment, sharp teeth gnashing, and here was the part where he might say something awful, that volcano of anger in his soul would erupt. He’d spew out a lava flow of bitterness and cruelty, and Sans’s would have to decide if he was going to take it or if he was gonna hang up his hoodie for the night.

Instead, Red threw back his head and laughed, his entire body quaking with it. “they were the best fucking cookies i ever ate!”

That thrashing laughter was enough for the cat. He hopped off Red’s lap, giving both of them a snooty look before wandering off to see if any kind elf left him some tuna in his dish. An empty lap was a terrible thing to waste and Sans crawled into Red’s, straddling him.

“know somethin?” Sans murmured, draping both arms around Red’s neck. Hands settled on his hips, fingertips pricking sharp even through his shorts. “sounds to me like you just need some better experiences with decorations.”

Later, when he was riding Red and trying to keep his balance with both hands tied behind his back with a shiny strand of garland, Sans was the one snarling and swearing. The Santa hat perched crookedly on his skull was making him sweat, his knees were aching, and Red only lay there, grinning up at him and letting him do all the damn work.

“come on, harder,” Sans panted, “get your elf on my shelf.”

Red laughed, rough and gleeful, and he wasn’t thinking of any awfulness from the dregs of childhood when he panted out, “that don’t even make any fucking sense!”

“harder!” Sans snapped, and the glitter in Red’s eye lights as he did, bright and fierce and wild, was better than any shitty light on any tree.

-finis-

[siredtofictionalmen]

Insecurity 1: Being Overweight

Disclaimer: Everyone has gone through different experiences and this is my expierence. This falls into my number one insecurity and I need to let it out.

Warnings: fat shaming

Growing up I was thin, I ate whatever I wanted; chips, soda, junk food, fast food and never gain weight. Until I entered middle school I hit puberty and thats when I began to gain weight. Middle school was when I began to be more weight conscious. It was when I learn what the doctor would measure on the scale. How junk food made you gain weight. Learn how to starve myself and went through emotional suffering for something so insignificant; my weight.

For the years to come, I believe the numbers on a scale determine my worth and that I wasn’t “good enough, beautiful enough” because of the number on the scales, the shape of my body.

I wasn’t obese but I wasn’t model skinny nor was I thin. I was chubby. I had stomach rolls and I could never get rid of them. Wherever I was, I felt utter shame. I dont remeber a day in middle school were I felt confident, not even one. Sadly my family was there everyday to remind that I wasn’t thin, and that if I ever wanted to be I wouldn’t achieve it by eating like that, as my grandma would love to point out.

It all starts one day it was the first month of school. I had gotten my period for the fourth time and I remeber coming back from school. My grandma had gotten us McDonald’s to eat and I remeber there being chicken sandwhiches. The joy on my face when I saw McDonald’s soon would be let down by my grandma who passed me a salad. I frowned confused, I look at her and she told me it was for me. I told her its not what I like and she said I know but it’s healthy you need to change your habits the pounds you are putting on your getting fat. I quietly ate my salad quickly and went to the restroom. My grandma lived in a studio so the only room for privacy was the bathroom. I look at myself, pinch my chubby stomach and cried. Tears flowed down my cheek and I remeber tasting them when they came to lips how they tasted much better than the salad I just ate. Ashamed of my fatness I just sat on the toilet. I was 11 at the time and when my mom came home to pick me up my grandma made some more comments about my weight to my mother. I love my grandma and I know she did it because she cared for me but the way she made me feel that day and the rest of the years to come could have been avoided. I never enjoyed my middle school life because of my “guilt” of being fat.

The middle school I went to was so much worse. It was by a rich area and all the girls there were already wearing crop tops and short shorts. Like COME ON YOUR 12!!! Like how can the parents let them dress like that. Anyway I remeber most of the girls being skinny. I remember envying them and thier looks. I beat myself up everyday because I didn’t have the ideal body, skinny. I felt ugly because of it and I was depressed and because of it I never enjoyed my middle school.

The people who fat shamed me the most was my family. I have mentioned my grandma but lets talk about my mother. I love my mom and I know she loves me but I think some comments could have been avoided. I remeber once I was in 8th grade I was with my mother and she was talking to my aunt and my girl cousin about losing weight and then she said oh yes she needs to lose weight too, look at her hippo legs. She began to laugh, i chuckled looking at my legs so did my aunt and my cousin awkwardly laughed. I remeber that night I went to bed and I couldn’t stop staring at my legs I would squeeze them and the thought about cutting some of my flesh with a knife occured to me. I knew that wouldn’t help and I remeber thinking whats wrong with me. Who have I become. I never felt happy anymore I always wanted to be alone. I never wanted anybody to see me. I was ashamed, embarrassed of my chubbiness. My mom would take me to a restaurant and she would see an omd guy friend. I remeber him saying wow she getting taller. My mom would laugh and say yes she getting bigger and from the sides also. I would smile I hated that so much like she fat shames me enogh I dont need other peoples opinions on my weight. He never commented on it though and he was respectful when it came to me.

I started starving myself after new years. I was in the second semester of the 8th grade. I starved myself for two weeks and you could see change. I was becoming thinner, I was getting closer to what I always wanted to be skinny and beautiful. I remeber my grandma congratulated me but on the third week I couldn’t keep it up I began to eat much more than before and before I knew it I had gained weight and probably more than I was before. My grandma said it was such a shame. I remeber her frowning and nodding her head.

Highschool was so much better. I couldn’t believe it people were nice and it wasn’t like mean girls. Majority of girls at my school were chubby, thicc, overweight. I saw some thin but I felt like I fit in. I began to feel confident, comfortable in my own skin. My best friend was thin and I remeber her complaining because some girl called her skinny. I remebering wishing that’s something I could complain about and instantly I becam insecure again. I shrugged it off the next day. I felt ridiculous.

My best friend could eat whatever she wants and she couldn’t gain weight. I was jealous, envious I wish for her metabolism. I remeber telling her as a compliment that her fingers were long and she must of took it as offensive because the next thing she said was look at yours there fat. I remeber telling her that I meant it as a compliment and that I wish I had skinny fingers like her. She said my fingers were cute that they were tiny and that guys like tiny fingers.

I remeber my friend would call herself flat and I would always tell her shut up she has good body proportions. I told her she may not have big boobs but she has decent ones. I remeber telling her that at least her stomach wasn’t bigger than her boobs. At least she didn’t look deformed like me. She told me I wasn’t deformed and that I had a big ass. I would smile pretending that I was comforted when in fact I felt sick because I also had a big stomach.

My confidence really went up in highschool during freshman year when guys were lining up for me. FOR MEEE!!! I was surprise my mom once told me only fat ugly guys would be attracted to me if I continued at the weight I was. I was fed up and told her so what fat guys arent always ugly and they might actually have manners. Just because someones fat doesn’t mean they are ugly. At least I wouldn’t attract abusive alcoholics. I told her that and then I felt really bad. My dad was an alcoholic and so was her new boyfriend. It didn’t stop her from fat shaming me. I remeber she told me I can’t see move your fat ass legs. I cried that night. I remeber three different guys asked me to homecoming and they were fine as hell. I was surprise they liked me and even if a guy wasn’t that attractive and ask me out I still would have given him a chance being an expert with feeling ugly.

My friend constantly nagged about how no one had asked her to homecoming and how three guys already asked me. She called herself fat a couple of times saying she wasn’t pretty enough because she had been getting fat. I reminded her that she was beautiful and that she wasn’t fat and even if she was she would still be beautiful. She continued to call herself fat. During 6th peiriod she called herself fat a couple of times when let me remind you she was model thinnnnn. Skinny af!! I didn’t say anything because I felt like she could complain. I remeber a guy who sat in front of her and next to me would taalk to us. She went up to him and said I feel fat. He said you aren’t fat and hugged her. After she stop complaining. This just reminds me how most girls define thier worth from guys when we shouldn’t. Guys shouldn’t build our confidence but we should ourselves. I remeber making a vow whether I had guys lining up for me or not I would never let myslef down.

Now I barely finished my tenth grade and Im still overweight. Now that I dont let my mothers comments get to me and feel more confident I have more energy. I started exercising and still struggling with my eating habbits. What I learned and continue learning is that your weight does not define your worth. And fat shaming does not work. I read stuff online about how fat shaming motivates people to lose weight. As someone who has been fat shamed it just makes people hate themselves more and in my case I felt depressed. Depression only gave me less energy and no motivation whatsoever. Fat shaming is not the answer. First accept your body for what it is then if you want to make minor changes go for. Lose weight gain weigh whatever makes you happy but never let yourself down in order to achieve it. Remember weight does not equal worth or beauty. Your beautiful whatever shape you are. This is my experience and it still continues today. Also anyone can feel worthless even skinny ppl. If ur skinny friend cals herself fat remind her that she is not and that fat does not equal beauty. Never respond with look at me Im a cow. Never put yourself down to make someone else feel better and never put someone else down to mane ur self feel better.

[somerandomwriter1234]

Riley and Maya: I Think I Wanna Marry You - Chapter 13 (Summer Camp Counselors Part 3)

*Writers' Note - This chapter was based off of an experience I had at summer camp from when I was younger, and the moral message of this chapter is very important to me. That's all I'll say on the matter.

It was a sunny day as many of Riley and Maya's female campers were running around a soccer field playing a game of organized soccer together. As they played, Riley and Maya stood on the sidelines as Maya yelled, "Come on girls! Lets see some hustle!" As they continued to play Riley looked at Maya as she said, "You're really making them all work hard now." Maya then said, "Well I want these girls to experience how their bodies can be used to do more than just pose scantily clad for the camera." A concerned looking Riley said, "You got real upset last night Maya. Like... what happened seem to get really under your skin." Maya then said, "It's just... how could those girls talk the way they did? Acting so chill about doing... well, you know. I mean... we had the internet when we were young Riley. But no girls we knew when we were preteens were sending sexy pictures of themselves on their phones. But now these young girls today are acting like they're already so grown up and..." Riley then put a hand on Maya's shoulder and said, "Maya. Instead of talking about how they're doing the wrong thing, tell them about how to do the right thing." Maya sighed and then said, "Yeah. I should. Or rather... we should."

Later in the middle of the day: Riley, Maya, and the campers were sitting around a camp fire eating lunch. As they ate, Maya said, "Well girls, you all worked hard today. And... I just wanna say I'm sorry if last night it might have sounded like I lost my cool. It's just... I really care about you all and want each and everyone one of you girls to make good choices with your bodies." Then one of the girls said, "But my mom says when it comes to my body, I can do whatever I want with it. So what's wrong with doing what we were talking about?" Riley then spoke up and said, "Hey girls. If your best friend gave you a pretty sweater as a birthday present, how do you think they would feel if you just threw it on the ground and stepped on it? Or if you got it in the mud and then ripped it to pieces?" One of the girls then said, "Well if it was a birthday present, it's yours now. So does it matter what your friend thinks?" Maya then said, "If it's your best friend, it does matter. Growing up, if Riley ever gave me something, I'd treasure it. A gift from a person you love is something you always treat with respect." Riley then said, "I don't know what all of your beliefs are, but if you believe in God; I mean if you think about it, our bodies are a gift from Him. And how do you think He feels when we use our bodies to do harmful things? Whether it be we eat too much junk food, or harm ourselves, or show off our bodies in an inappropriate way, it all probably saddens Him." Then Maya said, "Or if you don't believe God, then think of your bodies as a gift from your parents. They brought you into this world. So do you think after all the craziness that went into helping you be born and helping you get past diapers, you think they want you to use your bodies in a way that could get you into some kind of trouble?" Riley then said, "Regardless, you all are amazing young ladies that have been given the gift of having amazingly beautiful bodies. So use them to do good, and only give your bodies completely to people that are gonna treat them like the greatest gift it is. To not do so would just be an insult to yourself and those that helped bring you into this world in the first place."

Later that day, the preteen girls were all swimming in the lake as Riley and Maya were sitting on the beach watching the girls. As they sat together Maya said, "Look at them. So young with so much life ahead of them. God, listen to me. I really am an adult now aren't I?" Riley smiled and said, "It suits you good Maya." Maya sighed and said, "So... think our speech made any difference in their young minds?" Riley then said, "Some of them hopefully. But they're still young. Still not stubborn adults like we are. They still have the capacity for change. We did do a good job with that combined speech though. My dad would be proud of us." Maya then said, "Riley, speaking of parents. I wanna talk to you about..." Suddenly the two were interrupted by a girl walking over to them and saying, "Riley, Maya. Stacy got scratched on a log over there and needs a band-aid." Riley then stood up and said, "I got it. Thanks for letting me know Sabina." Riley then walked away as the girl Sabina sat next to Maya. Maya then looked at Sabina as she said, "So... having a good day?" Sabina nodded and said, "Yeah. Maya... do you really believe what you were saying... about how our bodies our gifts and we shouldn't just give them to people that don't treat them like gifts?" Maya nodded and said, "I do. Trust me. I waited to give mine to the right person. And I am so glad I did." A few tears then began to appear in Sabina's eyes as she said, "Well... I guess I'm not a good person because... I didn't wait." A look of shock and confusion went across Maya's face as she said, "What? Sabina, what are you saying?" Sabina who looked a bit shooken up said, "Last year there was a boy I met at another camp and he said I looked hot. And so I told him we should sneak into the showers after lights out and... we took off all our clothes and I let him... me and him had... it was quick but we went all the way and..." Tears began to come out of Sabina's eyes as Maya suddenly hugged Sabina and said, "Shh. It's okay Sabina. It's okay. You're not in trouble. You're a beautiful young woman still and you shouldn't hate yourself." Sabina then looked at Maya as she said, "But I gave myself completely to a boy that I barely knew. Does that make me like leftover trash now?" Maya then said, "No Sabina. You're not trash. Never think of yourself like that. You made a mistake. You learned from it. And your body is still a beautiful gift worth sharing with the right guy one day." Sabina then took a deep breath and said, "It's... not a guy I want to share it with one day." Maya's eyes widened a bit as she said, "Oh." Sabina then looked out at the water at a particular girl. Maya noticed this and said, "Oh, I see. You know... Khloe is a pretty sweet girl." Sabina began to blush and look caught off guard as she said, "What!? I... How did you know?" Maya then said, "The way you look at her and talk to her. It's the same way me and my significant other look at and talk to each other." Sabina smirked as she said, "You mean you and Riley?" Maya suddenly began to blush and look caught off guard as she said, "What? I... How did you know? As counselors we weren't supposed to let any of our campers know about our romantic lives." Sabina then said, "Hey. We're preteens Maya, not idiots. Anybody can see you two are obviously so in love." Maya sighed and said, "Well anyway... Sabina, don't think your mistake in the past will keep you and Khloe from having a future." Sabina then said, "But... she doesn't know about what I did. When we get a bit older and we're ready to... you know... do you think she'll be mad that she's not my first?" Maya then said, "Sabina... if she loves you and realizes you truly love her... she'll forgive you. That's the power of love. The ability to look past the flaws and forgive." Sabina smiled and then hugged Maya as she said, "Thanks Maya. You're the best." Maya hugged Sabina back as she said, "I try." Sabina smiled as she continued to hug Maya as she said, "You're gonna be a great mom someday." Maya had a look of surprise on her face but then smiled as she said, "Thanks."

Inside of a large auditorium, dance music was playing as many preteen boys and girls were dancing around the room and talking with one another. As Riley and Maya stood in a corner together Riley said, "We did good these two weeks Maya. The girls all stayed safe, they learned new skills, made new friends..." Maya then put a hand on Riley's shoulder and said, "And got to learn a thing or two from some pretty cool counselors." Riley smiled as she said, "Yeah. We... Oh wait. Look. Is that Sabina doing what I think she is doing?" Riley and Maya then saw close to them was Sabina walking over to another girl: Khloe who was sitting in a chair. Sabina then said, "Hey Khloe. You... you wanna dance with me? I mean you don't have to. Unless you're waiting for a guy or something like that." Khloe then stood up and said, "Actually... I was just sitting here hoping you would ask me." Sabina and Khloe then both began to blush as they held hands and walked onto the dance floor together. Riley and Maya who were both watching had looks of adoration and happiness on their faces as they both said, "Awwww!" Riley then said, "Just look at them. They are so freaking adorable together." Maya then said, "And we helped make that happen Riley. You know... before this camp thing started I never thought I could handle taking care of kids but now... I don't just think I could handle it... but I wanna do it... on a more permanent basis." A confused looking Riley then said, "Maya, what are you saying?" Maya then looked right into Riley's eyes and said, "Riley... I... I wanna have kids."

TO BE CONTINUED…

Coming April 14th: A New Saga in the Riley and Maya Married Life Series Begins When Everything Changes

*Note - To read the entire series in one convenient location, click here - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13229693/

[memories-of-a-sleever]

Let's ramble for starters...

I had thought about making a tumblr for a while now, mainly to use as a personal diary. Something I can look back on as my journey progresses and remember where I came from. Because that's important. You never appreciate where are if you can't look back on where you've been. I don't know who said that, someone much more inspirational than me. I suppose since I took this long to start my Tumblr, I'd better start from the beginning.

Let's start with the basics. My name is redacted. I am an Australian gay guy in his mid to late 30s. I have a wonderful partner of many years, a steady job and own my own house. I love Nintendo, Pokémon Go, comics and Marvel (Both the movies and the comics). 

Oh, one more tiny thing. I also love food. I love food more than I probably should, and let's be real. I've always loved food. I can remember loving food from a very early age. I love the taste of food, I love trying new food, I love socialising with people over food. I obviously love food too much, and this shows through my habits, my weekly food spend and most importantly my body.

My body has been ravaged by food all my life. I don't think there was ever a time that I was skinny or a regular weight. I was a chubby kid, who turned into a fat teenager, who turned into a morbidly obese adult. There's a fucking awful thing to be called. Morbidly Obese. It makes you feel like you are so disgustingly fat that you belong in a freakshow. Whoever coined that term, you are a cunt. Unfortunately, facts are facts America; I am morbidly obese. I currently weight 196kg (432 pounds for those not on the Metric system). I am currently the heaviest I have EVER weighed and I have myself to blame.

I don't think I remember a time as a kid or teenager when my mum (who is also a larger lady) wasn't on a diet or forcing me to be on a diet. They never lasted long, and some of my most prominent memories are my mum and I sneaking treats when we should be dieting. I remember hating the diets though. We would eat diet food that always had that artificial sweetener taste that I fucking hate and we would have super restrictive food intake. Although, it probably wasn't as restrictive as I remember it to be, but I just remember being REALLY hungry a lot of the time. 

I would cheat a lot on my diets. Sometimes, I would have a spoonful of milo to get that sugar hit I was craving, or a spoonful of peanut butter. Always spoonfuls of things, because you can't get caught for that. No-one keeps track of EXACTLY how much of something is in a jar, so if the spoonfuls are small enough you can absolutely get away with it. I remember that my mum used to pack me diet yoghurt in my school lunches, which of course I hated. So I used to trade them for nicer food with a kid at my school. I don't think we were even friends, so looking back I don't know if she had a body image issue and wanted diet food (Cause she wasn't big by any stretch) or maybe she just liked me. I guess I'll never know. The point is, I cheated. A lot. 

I remember always feeling like I was in a constant state of misery or shame. I'm sure I remember things way more intensely than they actually happened, but I guess they're the only memories I have. So I hate dieting. Always have, probably always will. When I became an independent adult, i.e - living out of home and earning my own money, I decided I didn't want to diet anymore. I wanted to enjoy my life. And I did. I spent over 10 years, basically eating what I wanted and doing what I wanted.

I remember when I was at home by myself one night, I cooked an Enchilada kit and then ate the whole thing. Those kits have 8 servings in them. So I ate 8 servings of Enchilada in one sitting. On eating the 6th or 7th enchilada I started to feel overfull, but I kept going. I've learned to hide any evidence of eating poorly by ingesting the evidence and that's what I did. When I finished the 8th enchilada, I felt so ill. My stomach was bloated like I've never felt before and was physically hurting. I actually thought I was going to burst my stomach and I was panicked and embarassed and sore. Turns out, your stomach can put up with a lot of torture from you. After a few hours, it righted itself. Needless to say, this is a moment that I remember with pure horror. I was so embarassed and I knew it was wrong, but I kept going. I kept eating whatever I wanted.

Now, anyone who isn't fat or has never been fat probably wont understand this, but I was a fairly healthy fat person. I could run if I wanted to (Though rarely did), my breathing was fine, I didn't have diabetes and my blood sugar and pressure were always normal measurements. All those things that they tell you will happen to you if you are a fatty. They didn't happen to me. My doctor would always say to me that I should lose weight, and that he wished he could tell me that I was unhealthy because of it to motivate me, but it just wasn't the case. I was able to live a fairly normal life. I mean, I still got the stares in public, the children whispering about me to their parents, I still felt uncomfortable on a plane (I'll come back to that another time >_>) and had trouble finding nice clothes that fit me, but more or less I lived a happy life.

When I was about 24 I think, I had my first real relationship. I had wanted a relationship for a while, but never had the guts to talk to anyone or ask them out. Truth be told, I probably didn't understand why they would want to go out with me. I was the exact opposite of what the world tells us we should want to be or be with. Just to be clear, because for some reason I need it stated I was not unfamiliar with the more carnal desires of life, just the relationship part, as a teenager I experimented with every person who was willing on the down low. Probably partly because of my shame with being gay at that age and partly with my shame of being fat. It doesn't really lend itself to self worth. Anyway, my first relationship. 

I was with a guy who I suspected at the time, but confirmed towards the end, was a chubby chaser. He liked bigger guys, and that worked for me at the time. He was attractive and we made it work for a good few years. We did the normal things; dated, moved in together, bought each other promise rings. I started to get REALLY comfortable and happy. And when I'm happy, I like to increase the happiness with my old friend food. I was in charge of cooking most nights, so we would usually have food that I liked; burgers, nachos, stir frys. We would go out for dinner at least 2-3 times a week. Couple that with the fact that I would buy lunch at work and lived a fairly sedentary lifestyle playing video games and understandably, my weight started to increase. 

This is when I started to become sneaky in my relationship too. I would come home from work early and cook myself a burger before dinner, or if I worked from home I would get a bunch of junk food and eat it all before my partner came home. If you are trying to figure out how much junk food that is, an example could be: A pack of donuts, a 2L coke, a bag of chips, a family packet of M&Ms and a packet of shapes. I don't remember when I got to this weight, but I think I was around the 150-160kg mark at this stage.

Looking back, I suspect that I had become too big, even for my chubby chaser boyfriend because he started to flirt with a guy at work, he told me it was harmless and meant nothing, but when I came home from work one day and they were in our apartment building's hot tub together I knew it wasn't nothing. Those were some of the hardest days of my life. I broke up with him on my birthday, when I could tell he just didn't care less about me anymore. He cried and made me feel bad about my decision, but by the next week he had started dating the guy he was flirting with. I was pretty heartbroken. Looking back, it's a sad memory but at the same time it worked out for the best, and also those two didn't last long so they can go fuck themselves XD.

The months after the breakup brought on a level of depression I had never felt before and I learned I have a VERY different reaction to depression than I expected, but I will add to this later.

[justtryingtwolive]

Hello

TW: self harm, ED

I know this is really long but it’s all worth it to understand me. I’m not great at talking about myself but here it goes... My name is Marina, I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia. This means that I am in a lot of pain most of the time, the issue with fibromyalgia is that there is no cause for the pain it just exists. To understand me and the causes you need to understand my life so...

As a young kid growing up I played outside a lot, spen the summers swimming in lakes and the winters figure skating. When I was 9 I started to train for competitive figure skating. At 10 took a year off to focus on dance and how to be more fluid with my movements. This year was amazing, I met so many new people, learned ballet, jazz, lyrical and tried hip hop. This was also the year I goined Girl Guides I had done Brownies a couple years before but that was my parrents choice. I had always wanted to move up to Guides but it conflicted with skating so I couldn’t. After the year was up I went back to skating. I had done a bit of training in my off year but not too much so I was a little rusty at first. It took me a couple weeks but I got back into it and was better than ever, but everyone else seemed to get skinnier and i got bigger. None of my old dresses fit nicely I needed all new skates, pants and tops. This was so embarrassing I had just taken a year off to get in better shape and I just ended up ballooning (or so I thought). This is when I started cutting back and selectively eating. I wouldn’t eat junk food, or eat after practice. I stopped having oatmeal and cereal for breakfast I instead had a frozen fruit smoothie. Lunch was easy because I just “forgot” my lunch at home, making sure I brought it once in a while to not seem suspicious. Dinner was hard to avoid, we had family dinner almost every night, if I had practice at 7 we ate at 6, I got off at 6 we ate at 7. The rink was walking distance from my house so I was often there on my own and just walked home. (This was in a small village where everyone knew each other). It started getting worse and worse but I started to lose weight and that meant I could jump higher and spin faster because I didn’t have as much gravity pulling me down. I felt like I was floating on air. I spent 15-20 hours a week on the ice and it only increased as I got older.

The worst part about going back was I couldn’t do Guides. When I started middle school I was able to join pathfinders and it set me on my new life journey, although I didn’t know it yet.

As a skater I got injured a lot, mostly just strains and sprains but the occasional break. It got to the point I would just wrap my anke, wrist, knee or whatever body part was hurting that day and ice it.

By the time I was 16 in Grade 10 I was competing at a youth provincal level. I was so excited, I had just qualified for my first national competition I was so excited it’s what I had dreamed of since I was 5. Getting ready for nationals was the hardest grind of my life, training went from 20 to 50 hours a week, I would spend entire days on the ice. I did school work in between ice times when they had to clean the ice. It was hard but I was loving it. My diet consisted of protein bars and coffee. (I blame this for my ice coffee obsession) at this point I was no more than 100 lbs and 5’4. I felt on top of the world.

But a week before nationals my ankles started getting really bad, then it was my knees, then other parts like my wrists and shoulders. I didn’t think anything of it at first I till I woke up one day and could barely walk, still I brushed it off as just muscle strain from working too hard, I would be able to rest in a week. Typically my joints would feel better throughout the day as I warmed them up. By the time I got to nationals I was so hyped, I had never competed on a scale like this, there were cameras, people bought real tickets and I suddenly got overtly nervous. I was walking through the dressing room areas and everyone else had the expensive rolly skate bag with the tailored dresses made custom by a professional and I had a ratty old suitcase we found in the basement and a handmade dress sewn by my mother. As a kid I was embarrassed, everyone else looked so much better than me. But I was just happy to be there and able to compete. The competition took place over a couple days. I was close to the beginning because I was new and didn’t have a real chance at placing. I spent the first couple days grinding on the ice, or practicing in the hotel or in the pool or wherever I was. The day that I was finally going to compete in my short program I was up at 6 in the gym and on the ice by 8. The competition started at 1 and I was in the first group. We all got kicked off the ice about 11:30 so they could clean the ice and get ready. Looking back I don’t think I had eaten anything that day, I was so stressed and the thought of food made me sick. The first group of 10 skaters including me were let into the ice for a final 15 min warm up. This was it, after this I was officially and national level skater. And that’s where everything went wrong. I was practicing a double jump (I can’t remember which one anymore) and when I landed my foot slipped and I heard a crack. At first I didn’t thing anything of it and tried to get up but my right leg wouldn’t move properly. Then my tail bone started hurting and I started crying, I somehow managed to get myself up and over to my coach. I had a choice suck it up and compete or go see a doctor. I went to the comp medic to see what they thought and they rushed me to the hospital. (A lot of this is a blur that has been filled in with stories from my parents and friends) I was in the ER and the doctor told me I had a broken tail bone, not a big deal I’ve done that before, but also I had fractured part of my hip and needed surgery right away. After this I remember very little, only the roof of the surgical suite and waking up unable to move most of my body. I was devistated, of all times why did this have to happen now! I was on my way up I was living my dreams.

I was in the hospital for months. I couldn’t get out of bed because they casted my hip area and leg, it sounds really weird but I can’t explain it any better. This was the worst time in my life even 7 years later I can’t thing of anything worse. I went from being an athletic, skinny, girl always on the go. To lying in bed, eating chips and watching Netflix 24/7. During this time I went from under 100 to about 175 lbs in the span of months. I was so embarrassed and made my dysmorphia even worse. I went back to high school in May 2013. I hated every minute. Everyone looked at me and talked about me. I was the joke of the school. During this time I got really depressed my parents tried to get me to talk to someone but they made me very uncomfortable and I was very closed off eventually they gave up and told me to suck it up. I felt like the world hated me and that no one wanted me here anyway. I started self harming to numb the pain but also feel something. I felt like If I hurt me them maybe I won’t hurt any one else. My parents only recently found out about this recently.

I made it to the summer but nothing fit me, my bathing suits were like strings compared to what I now needed and I didn’t have any money to get new ones. That summer I spent doing a lot of lounging reading books, swimming and exploring nature around my house. Honestly looking back this was one of the best summers ever. I was home alone most of the time because my dad worked and my mum took my siblings to her cottage. This was more freedom than I had ever had I was able to do what I wanted I didn’t have a training schedule for the first time in 6 years. I wanted to go back to skating the next September, but everyone was whispering and looking at me just like in school but this time is was the adults, I don’t think I even made it onto the ice that day. I had just stared a new school, leaving all of my friends (not that I had many) behind and starting over where I knew no one. When registering for classes I picked the typical grade 11 English, math, bio,physics, chemistry. But I was left with some extra electives for the first time. At my new school they offered a dance program, but to get into the grade 11 class I needed grade 9 or 10 so first semester I took grade 9 and seccond I took grade 11. The dance teacher was very understanding about what was going on and allowed me to adapt to what I couldn’t physically so while still recovering. Even now she is my favourite teacher ever! I made it through my other classes and the rest of high school was pretty un eventful, except I started to get hurt again. I could just be walking on flat ground and my ankle would give out or my knee would lock up or my wrist hurt so bad I couldn’t take notes. I went to the ER at the start but each time they said they couldn’t find anything and they thought I was making it up. After a few months I stopped going because they seemed annoyed with me even though I was in crazy body pain. I couldn’t move some mornings, others I was fine, some days I needed crutches but others I could run and dance. It was crazy and everyone thought I was making it up so I started to belive them. I ended up taking an extra semester of high school to finish off some classes that I wanted for university. I also stayed behind because I needed to have jaw surgery. This was due to a craniofacial difference I was born with, a cleft lip and palate. While this surgery is not necessary in all cases, my jaw was small and slightly mis alligned. This was fine I had no issues with this I spent a week in the hospital, watched Netflix and hung out with friends. This stay wasn’t as hard because I could move around, I wasn’t confined to my bed.

In September 2016 I started University at Dalhousie I. Halifax , Nova Scotia. This was amazing because no one knew me there I didn’t have people holding me to old standards. I met some of my best friends (and former roommates) in my residence building. We would have movie parties in my room and study parties in another, it was a blast. I became vegetarian very quickly, partly due to the gross meat options in the meal hall but also because I didn’t like the taste of meat I had cut it out almost completely when I was young and didn’t like it after that. Another reason was the ethical portion of it, why should they die to feed me when I can survive without it.

First year ended and we all moved out and into other apartments, we were still close but not as close as we were. When I moved I started working at a Sobeys grocery store close to the school. It was great I was shy and quiet for the first little bit but I came out of my shell and now they want me back in it lol. During seccond year I was trained as a supervisor so I made sure that all the casheirs were looked after(I often describe it as adult babysitting). One day I was standing arround checking out how the night was and I notice this woman come in and she askes me where to find tape, she is wearing a Girl Guide shirt!! I had been trying to reach out to a unit here for a year!! I told her where to find it and quickly wrote my name number and email on a piece of paper and watched as she was trying to check out. I made sure to find her and open a register for her to go through. I also gave her my number and asked her to contact me and that I had been trying for a while to join a unit she seemed confused until she remembered she was wearing a guide shirt.

I get an email a few days later explaining what their unit was doing and they were exited to have me. So the next Thursday I show up to this meeting and the other leaders and I immediately clicked. One of them had just graduated from my program and most of the others were all young students just like me. That first meeting I ended up skipping a physics exam to go to, but I don’t regret it one bit. At the end of the year we were moving locations, this meant that the craft tote bins had to be removed and stored in someone’s house.

The only people returning was me and one other girl Natasha, she wasn’t there very often but she was super cute and seemed really nice. Since I had moved into a house I offered to store them in my place rather than her apartment. We spoke mostly over email for the first bit. I ended up running in to her at her work place and we finally exchanged numbers and facebooks. We talked a bunch over the summer to figure out what we wanted to do.

During this time I was trying to focus on me, I spent so much of my youth worring about how everyone else perceived me and not as much on how I did. I stoped self harming on my own but like anything else it’s addicting, I started talking to a therapist at the university and she recognized that yes I was depressed. she was also impressed that I was able to have the will power to stop on my own, but really I had just thrown out the jar and didn’t want to dig through the garbage. I started on some anti-depressants and it took a while but we found a good concoction.

When we started meeting to plan we were still kind of awkward, she was super sweet and I wanted to get to know her but I come off as overbearing sometimes and I didn’t want to scare her off. It worked out that we had the same time off classes. Whe had another class and I had work, so after class I would go to her school meet with her for ~3 hours then walk to work. The best part about Halifax is that the university’s are downtown and super close to everything, so even when busses are slow or not running it’s not too far a walk. During this time we became really close we spent a lot of time together planning, organizing and getting to the meeting location. For the first few months we bussed there each week with the craft totes, we then started to bring only what we needed but it was typically 4-6 reusable bags worth. Eventually we were able to leave them at the location, this made it much easier. Only having 2-3 bags worth each week. The next obstacle was cookies, we had 30 cases of cookes and neither of us had a car. Luckily our Commissioner was able to drop us off with the cookies. But we still hauled some to and from my house each week. With each week Natasha and I grew closer, she was the first person I came out to as bisexual. We also got a new leader Jordan, she is super nice and a real adult (not a student) I was worried at first that she would throw off our dynamic but she just made it better. In the winter I ended up buying a car, this was the smartest thing I’ve ever done. It made getting to work and guides easier, I could just keep stuff in my car I didn’t need to haul everything around with me. Unlike most units in our area, we stayed going until the end of June, many units close early due to students going home for the summer.

In May i had moved once again into a bigger house and Natasha was a huge help in that, she helped me set up my room and unpack. During this time I also went mostly vegan, there was some things that had milk or eggs in it but I did buy any more. We were rarely spending a day apart, we became best friends. We often went camping with her parter. The three of us would pack into my car and go, often booking a site on our way there. We stayed at 5 different provincal parks and visited about 10 others. We spent so much time together and it was some of the best times we would often get home and just sit in the car and have life chats or was really nice to be able to talk to someone who actually cared about how I was doing. My life seemed great for a bit, my one roommate stared to get toxic, she ended up kicking out my really good friend. I only stayed because I had nowhere else to go, I ended up getting a cat because she was so lonely and sad at the SPCA. She is abosolutly amazing and I love her to death! I don’t know what is it about petting cats that seems to make the rest of the world invisible. The toxicity got to the point of me wanting to sleep in my car rather than potentially run into her. This caused my anxiety to sky rocket and throw off the balance I had going.

Natasha started to talk to me about this pain she was having but having no idea why it was occurring. This reminded me of when I was younger and I would constantaly have weird pains I thought it was normal because there was no physical symptoms so I thought it happened to everyone. I talked to my doctor about it and he ordered a bunch of tests to try and determine what it was. All my tests came back clean and I seemed in perfect health. The stress of my living situation, as well as school and my grandfather passing away sent me into a spiral. There were days that I wouldn’t come out of my room. I often only left for work or the bathroom, I fell back into the not eating food habits, I stared self harming again. I was so low I went weeks without showering simply because I didn’t have the energy or will power to do so. My toxic roommate told me that my depression wasn’t valid and that my anxiety is fake, I got so mad that I slammed and locked my door, I left out my window and went for a drive. I ended up calling Natasha and she calmed me down, I don’t know where I’d be if she hasn’t picked up that phone call. By mid October I couldn’t stand it any longer. And I knew I need to make a change. At the same time I got my fibromyalgia diagnosis, which is a rule out everything else diagnosis. This also threw me through a loop realizing I don’t have to just internalize this and suck it up, this caused me to end up not going to classes in the fall because I simply couldn’t mentally or physically do it.

Natasha had been talking about moving out of her place and I thought this is my chance. We are already best friends we spend so much time together this will be great. In November we signed a lease and moved in later that month. It was a journey and a half, we tried to move as much as we could using my small car and managed most of it but beds and bigger stuff didn’t fit. We ended up sleeping on our camp matresses for the first little bit until we got our beds. All four of our cats are getting along for the most part. They are the cutest little demons, as I type this the 2 youngest are play fighting over top of me... ok no longer playing.

It has been a crazy couple moths with my diagnosis and trying to get meds to help it. Luckily my pain base line is really low, but it flares up a lot, often at work or when I’m not moving around a lot and it’s even worse on my period, I can’t walk some days it gets so bad. Luckily I have a team of amazing people working with me to get myself back on track. I’m back in school now and it’s going much better, I still haven’t found the perfect drugs but we are getting there. I have my down days but am having more and more up days. And I know that if ever I need something that I can always holler and/or pet cats. I have the best support team in the world and wouldn’t change a thing.

[maggiemuggins-blog1]

2016 You.Did.Not.Break.Us.

(me unleashing the fuschia sparkle on new years eve and Princess Leia keeping it motherfucking real. RIP.)

Babes welcome to 2017. We made it through what was, for many of us, a shit-box of a year. Box after box, babes, just full of shit. We all just kept unpacking it and unpacking it. But we are here, the last carton full of crap has been delivered and, if you are reading this, you have hopefully emerged unscathed. I feel like a goddamn warrior slowly standing the fuck up after a serious, didn’t know if I would make it, battle. 2016 babes, she was a doozy. for me personally, for nearly everyone I know, my community at large, and the planet, specifically. For real, babes, 2016 unleashed a bag of dicks upon humanity and I for one am ready to put those dicks back where they belong: on the internet quietly jerking off to shit they find on Reddit.

  And now here we are in 2017. ‘Who knows what this year will hold’ feels pretty goddamn ok to me. I’m not gonna lie I get wooed by a new year. Feels like the world is full of possibility and that suits me. That said, I’m not really a fat babe who waxes philosophical about the new year, and goal setting, and intentionality. I’m down for however my fellow fats want to roll, and I’m not gonna lie, I get inspired by that shit all the time,  but y’all I’m still wearing my armour and I’m hopped up on the adrenaline rush of getting through 2016, and it just seems like maybe a bitchy, blaspheming, Fat Babe in full armour is just what we need to get through the fuckery that is January. I mean, babes, it is a month like none other for the spewing of body hating nonsense. It is the month where collectively the universe does that thing that I hate the most about office lunch rooms: atoning for the fun you had on the weekend by punishing yourself come Monday. Fuck. No.

Welcome to January. Had fun over the holidays? Saw people you love? Ate seconds at turkey dinner? Went out drinking with friends? Got sick by eating multiple boxes of tofifee? You didn’t think you could get away with just enjoying life did you? DID YOU? Don’t worry, January is here to disabuse you of that notion. January is here to say natural consequences are not enough, that you should be mixing that hangover with a hearty dose of shame. January is here to sell you lies about your body. January is here to distract you from the fact that we have some serious organizing to do in order to deal with the aftermath of 2016.  January is the fun police. January is a punk ass mother fucker and I have no time for that. So here I am, feeling ballsy as fuck for getting through 2016, and I think Ill just ride that feeling a little goddamn longer. Cause babes, we can gently, lovingly, and intentionally work our way through January by giving zero fucks about what she has to offer.

Looking hot as fuck while giving exactly none.

    6 ways to give zero fucks about January, her evil twin Fatphobia, and her kid sister, Capitalism

             Don’t drink the mother fucking Kool-Aid– do not be fooled. January is not about making changes. It is about making us feel so shitty that we buy stuff/memberships we are not actually gonna use. Once the ‘joyful xmas/xmas frenzy’ marketing strategy of December is behind us, the strategy switches gears to bring us the ol ‘buckle down/you are the worst’ strategy for January. In the same way that December manipulates, so too does January. And it is sneaky and, unfortunately, a part of the collective consciousness. It is at the dinner table, in our workplaces, and cozily wrapped in our hearts and minds. We confuse naming our hopes and desires for the year with guilt and the feeling that we have somehow cheated and must atone. We need to slow down that thinking to give it a closer look. Cause when we really think about it, we know what is real. We know that behaviour change is complicated and isn’t magically successful just because the year turned over. That is clearly bananas. I go to the gym every damn day and January is full of people ‘making a change’, but y’all, come February it is back to regulars. January is not about behaviour change, it is, like always, about consumption and capitalism. Babes, lets not get sucker punched by some gym trying to sell us a boxing class, yeah?

Make space – making space for reflection, goals, and hopes for the new year is a bomb ass thing to do – in January or when the fuck ever. Fat Babes, we deserve to take a minute, catch our breath and think about what we are proud of, what we wish we could do more of, and how we want to move in the world. So feel free to make some space in the world for yourself. Space that allows you to gently and kindly celebrate who you are and who the fuck you want to be. Sit down with a coffee, or tea, or whatever you drink, and think about how you honoured yourself last year and what you want to do to honour yourself this year. It may be cheesy as fuck but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good for you.

Take space- Babes, remind yourself of why you are worth rejecting the resolution, you are goddamn enough. Ima just say that again for the hell of it. You.Are.Enough. No one has the right to tell you to change, to suggest you improve, to tell you what would make you better. You are the only one who can do that for yourself. And only if you goddamn want to. So take space back from the toxic lunchroom chit chat, don’t attend family dinners that make you feel bad for eating, and go dark on social media if your feeds are all about body hating and diet talk. Resolve to take that space back for yourself. Go ahead. You deserve it.

Remember to breathe – Babes, if you had asked me 10 years ago if I would ever consider mindfulness to manage my anxiety, and my constant state of being emotionally over stimulated, I would have told you to take your junk science and get the hell out of my house. Today I can say that I was deeply wrong and for that I am sorry. If I can do nothing else but save other cranky dirt bags the time it took me to get over myself and try a thing that is super far outside my comfort zone, my work on this planet will be done. Look I get it. It is a stretch, a different way to heal from what many of us have been taught. And also, it seems kind of like the ol ‘take a bath and go for walks’ strategy to manage the deep traumatic ache of the planet. I mean exactly how many baths must one fat babe have to get rid of rape culture, hmmmmm? Self-care practices ain’t gonna convince brahs to change a damn thing. But babes, my logic was flawed and my attitude was shitty. And really, where has cynicism and detached irony got us anyways? If we are gonna be tackling this shit head on, if we are going to stand firm, if we are gonna protect each other, we need to breathe. We need those moments to store up a little flicker of energy and hope here and there. So whether it is a bath, or a walk, or shaking your ass on the dance floor, remember that you are storing up these tiny breaks so that you can face the world with an open heart and kindness while giving a total of zero fucks. Taking a breath to be in the present, to just be alive, and feel the wonder of that, is not twee (or like maybe just a little twee). It is living. I even have a fucking app that guides me through the whole practice of mindfulness. That is how hard-core I am now. An app. So whatever your version of breathing is, however you take space for yourself to be alive in your body do that now, cause we need it this time of year.

Move your body – Yall just cause I am opposed to having exercise sold to me under the guise of self-improvement/body hatred doesn. I love exercise and I even love the gym. If you can find a way to move your body in a way that celebrates it, then for shit sakes, go forth and move.

Eliminate diet talk- I did this for myself years ago and it is the total best. I started telling the people around me that I didn’t want to hear about diets or the ways they hate their body. I was ruthless in that I was all ‘look you can either stop talking about it around me or we can’t be friends. It is that important to me.’ I reminded my people that they can be celebrated for their diet talk by nearly EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD so surely they could just not around me. It worked. I had maybe one post on my feed about losing weight this January. That’s it. Feels good. Maybe that should be the resolution, y’all.

Babes, it turns out we can step into new things, and care about ourselves in loving ways, and swear like a sailor, and shit talk the clusterfuck that is January, and fight the fucking shitstorm of douchbaggery. From where I’m sitting, this year has literally nothing to do with diets and weight-loss workouts and EVERYTHING to do with loving our selves in a deep and real and fucking righteous way, and then getting out there to fight the misogyny, racism, white supremacy, and environmental injustice that is exploding extra all over North America. If our resolutions have nothing to do with fighting oppression and everything to do with fighting our bodies, well, babes, we are doing it all wrong. Don’t let vapid resolutions take up any brain space just cause your co-worker/sister-in-law/auntie/bestie is making bad choices. Make your body a safe and cherished place to come home to. Cause babes, it’s a riots not diets kinda year. Welcome to 2017.

Smooches.

  Stepping into 2017 like a Fat Babe does 2016 You.Did.Not.Break.Us. (me unleashing the fuschia sparkle on new years eve and Princess Leia keeping it motherfucking real.