Friday Anti-Fluff

This isn’t fluff, nor does it have anything to do with being fat. I’m posting it in part because it’s the reason why I haven’t had the time or energy to post anything for a long while, and in part because it continues to weigh on me and the more publicly I express myself, the more that feeling goes away.

When I was an undergraduate (which I was up until all of six weeks ago; sometimes I forget that), some of my work was plagiarized by another student. It was difficult for me to tell anyone. I was certain that they would just tell me what the plagiarist told me, directly or implicitly: that it wasn’t a big deal, that I must have given permission and was therefore ultimately responsible, that he had some kind of right to take my work and claim it as his own.

I felt a loss of power, a loss of self. This same student also abused and sexually assaulted me, but (and it feels really strange to say this) the plagiarism was ultimately more traumatic and dehumanizing. The assault was an attack on my body; the abuse I was able to recognize and unlearn the terrible things he taught me to believe about myself. But the plagiarism was an attack on my intellect, an attack on my right express myself and to have my accomplishments publically recognized. I don’t mean to dismiss anyone else’s experiences of assault and abuse, but this is mine, and this is how I feel.

When I finally worked up the courage to report him I figured things couldn’t really get worse. If they didn’t believe me, that would hurt, but at least I’d know. At least I’d have tried. And if they did believe me, justice would be done. Universities took this sort of thing seriously; at least that’s what everyone has always told me.

Soon I realized that there was something worse than people not believing me: people believing me and still somehow believing that the plagiarist didn’t deserve to be punished. Professors who had such little respect for me, my work, and the principles of academic honesty that they would defend someone who stole from me—despite not doubting his guilt—to the point of granting him awards and honors in the subject in which he plagiarized. Department heads and administrators willing to turn their heads and close their eyes, to pretend that they had no power or that something that would (or at least should) reflect poorly on the department and the school wasn’t any of their business or concern.

It’s difficult to recover from having your work stolen, but even more difficult when that theft is accompanied by a loss of faith in justice, the academic system, and people you once respected. It’s hard to keep from losing heart altogether; what reason do we have to put our best work and our passions into something, when someone else can steal it and no one in power will care?

They say that success is the best revenge, but they’re wrong. Justice is the best revenge; success is just a consolation prize. And success in what? When I was certain that there was no way that something like this could happen, that no school, no department, no professor would logically see this as right or even acceptable, I was certain I wanted to go into academia. Maybe I could still be successful there, successful enough to feel that I’ve had my revenge. But the last thing I want to do is watch this happen all over again to someone else and not have any power to stop it.

I might start posting here again; I don’t know. I’m certainly not leaving the Fatosphere entirely. But this blog brings me back sometimes to things I’d rather forget. Finding the Fat Acceptance movement right at the point where I was gaining a lot of weight and starting to feel terrible about myself, right at the point where I was being reassured by an abusive boyfriend that my fat body was perfectly acceptable because it pleased him and learning that what I felt about myself was irrelevant, right at the point where I needed something to latch onto to build my confidence, acknowledge my rights as a person, and help me feel like I was worth something—finding Fat Acceptance was ultimately a big step in getting me out of that relationship. (I’ve tried to write a post about this a hundred times here, but I kept deleting it, kept not knowing what to say. I never knew I’d be able to get it out in one sentence.) And now that things have ended this way, sometimes I feel like there are too many bad associations. Maybe I’ll be able to move past them and claim my own space again, but I don’t know.

Dieting and Hunger

Back for a moment; have been busy with little things like college and having a nervous breakdown. Fun times.

I’ve talked in the past about my tendency to not eat when I’m hungry when I’m stressed, depressed, or anxious. It’s been going full-force for the past week or so. I think every day I’ve eaten a few bites or less and a coffee for breakfast, and then when it comes around to lunch my stomach hurts too much to get much down (even if it looks appetizing, which it usually doesn’t). By the evening, when I’m back at home and don’t have to depend on planning ahead or working around my class schedule (which I don’t seem to have the presence of mind to manage), I usually manage to get a full meal into me even (mostly takeout, which worries me–first because my fruit and vegetable intake has been far less than balanced, and second because I feel like any day now my need to not spend money will override my need to feed myself), but it feels like too little, too late.

I’ve never dieted. And it occurred to me the other day–is this really what people do all the time, just to try to be thin? How can people stand it? I just want nothing more than to eat normally again and have this constant gnawing hunger go away.

On Admiring Fat Bodies

A friend recently posted a question about feederism, and if fat acceptance was okay with such a thing. After reassuring her that no, feederism is absolutely not okay, I looked up NAAFA’s official statements on feederism and fat admirers, and these two things jumped out at me:

[NAAFA advocates:] That people of all sizes become empowered to demand respect for their bodies in the context of sexual relationships, without attempting to lose or gain weight in order to win a partner’s approval or attract or retain that partner’s desire.

Further, NAAFA believes that in a society where at least 65% of the population is considered fat, a preference for a fat partner is normal and should be encouraged rather than discouraged.

I’m sure most people, including myself, would see feederism as a fetishizing, objectifying practice–and yet people have no problem with expecting their significant others to lose weight for their own sexual satisfaction. The fetishization of fat is disgusting and wrong, but the fetishization of thin, that’s just normal.

I was reading some posts on a messageboard yesterday about spouses and weight gain. One man posted that his wife had gained a lot of weight and was also not interested in her personal appearance, sex, or exercise–and how was he supposed to deal with the fact that he didn’t find her physically attractive anymore? Even if she didn’t, as seemed likely from the comments, have depression, why would someone be interested in exercise if her husband is clearly only pushing her into it to try to get her to lose weight? Why would someone be interested in sex if her husband doesn’t find her attractive? This is why empowerment is so important–empowering people to demand respect for their bodies as they are, and empowering people to feel confident enough in their bodies that they demand a partner who finds their bodies attractive instead of settling for one who will try to force them to change.

Another thread was about husbands who loved their wives’ fat bodies, but instead of bringing a breath of fresh air as I’d hoped, I found this comment (paraphrased): “My wife is 60 lbs. overweight and I love her body the way it is. I wouldn’t want her to lose much weight, maybe just 30 lbs. or so.” What? As we’ve seen before, 35 lbs. is the difference between “normal” and “obese.” 30 lbs. is not a little bit of weight. What kind of world do we live in, that someone can claim to love someone’s fat body just the way it is, and still want her to lose weight?

Ever since I got engaged, I started getting a lot of weight loss ads on Facebook. Here is the worst offender, I think:

“You’re beautiful already–but you should still lose weight!” It’s like the mainstream anti-diet doublespeak: “Diets don’t work, and you don’t have to be thin to be healthy, but you should still diet make ~*~lifestyle changes~*~!” It seems so much more dangerous to me than “you’d be beautiful if only you lost weight,” because it’s a lot more insidious. It’s fat hatred in fat acceptance clothing. And it does make me wonder if the people who talk like that are maybe just afraid to admit that they find fat attractive without adding the obligatory “but weight loss is good” disclaimer to the end of it.

Depression and My Eating Habits

When I’m depressed, I tend to stop eating. Most of the time I just don’t feel hungry, and when I do feel hungry I can’t bring myself to care. When I finally force myself to eat something, I don’t usually feel like cooking, so I eat what’s convenient rather than what my body needs–which leads to situations like in the previous post, where I’d go a whole day eating nothing but coffee cake, or, if I hadn’t baked anything, Kraft mac & cheese, or potato chips. Not more calories than usual–in many cases, less–but just too much of the same thing. I don’t believe foods are inherently “bad,” but eating an unvaried diet of mostly the same food group is, which is something I don’t do when I’m taking care of myself.

I know other people have gained weight from their depression without changing their eating habits, and I know that things like food, stress, and genetics have a complex and interconnected relationship when it comes to determining someone’s weight. But the overwhelming perception, in my experience, is that depressed people gain weight because they’re self-medicating with food. I remember telling a nurse once, when she raised “concern” about my weight gain, that I was struggling with depression. I didn’t even get to the part where I am recovering well (with some occasional setbacks), eating a healthy, balanced diet, and exercising, and that my weight is probably the most stable than it has been in the past year and a half, and I’m the healthiest I have been, before she started asking me about my overeating problem.

I don’t think people need an excuse to be fat. Even if weight weren’t influenced by genetics or other factors outside of people’s control, even if being fat was completely and totally a choice, it would be a person’s individual choice and not something for society to judge. But I do think it’s important to teach people that fat and weight gain is caused by things other than food, and that even when it is related to food the relationship is much more complex than “calories in, calories out,” and much more complex than the pictures of lazy gluttons choosing to stuff themselves or of mindless, passive consumers brainwashed by the evil fast food conglomerates–and to remind people that health is about your mind, not just your body.

That was a bit rambly, I think. I have grown frustrated lately, feeling myself falling back into the depression and realizing, now that I’m fully entrenched in the idea of intuitive eating (I’ve been doing it somewhat informally for at least a year now, but I’ve only fairly recently been able to put a name to it and truly separate it from the guilt-inducing ideas of “good” and “bad” foods) and have seen what benefits it gives me when I’m feeling healthy, how frustrating it is that when I’m depressed, intuitive eating doesn’t work.