totally rad

Customizable Girlfriends (tw self injury/ED)

Like any other morning, I woke up and dressed myself. I was aware that my skirt revealed the area of leg above my knee decorated with deep scars, scars I had cut into my skin in anger at my body. I wore it anyway because I wanted to and regardless of my previous (and current) insecurities, I love my body and I am not going to hide any part of it out of fear or shame. Of course, a good attitude like that is bound to be short lived if one is unfortunate enough to leave the house.

After a span of exactly 186 minutes, like a snap of the fingers, the blink of an eye or any other imaginative verb/body part combination, my good attitude was replaced by a surge of outrage and self loathing. I recently lost the weight that various medications caused me to gain and I’m pleased that I did. However, every person that I come into contact with that hasn’t seen me in the past few months has only one thing to say, “You lost so much weight, you look great!” Stop it. Stop it right now.

In the past six months I have accomplished so much more than losing thirty pounds. I have ceased my self injury and am finally mentally stable, both things I would like to think are a little more meaningful than the fact that I dropped a few dress sizes. I, however, am wrong. The size of your waist will always matter more than what you do or anything you might have to say.

As if I was not already losing my faith in humanity, I was unfortunate enough to overhear what is quite probably the most grotesque conversational display of fat-phobia and misogyny. My art teacher spent the entire art period discussing diet tips with an old classmate of mine. This alone was triggering, not to mention highly irritating, but I didn’t think it could get worse. Oh, how much worse it got. Said classmate went on to explain where she learned all her fantastic weight loss tricks. She described her hefty 125 pound figure with a pitiable tone of warranted shame and disgust. She went on to explain how her brilliant weight loss came about; her boyfriend told her that he could not take her out anymore because she was just too fat, that she really needed to lose some weight. She told my art teacher, and the rest of the class that was now huddled together hoping to receive some tips to kick start their own spectacular weight loss journey, that she was so incredibly thankful for her boyfriend for being there in her time of need and helping her become more healthy (because losing weight=being healthy).

I have my own thank you letter for her boyfriend which you can read below.

Dearest Asshole,

Thank you so much for encouraging your girlfriend, and women all over the world, to hate themselves and strive to please people like you! It makes our lives so much easier when we exist solely to give your eyes something pretty to look at. I used to spend my time thinking about what I wanted to do with my life and who I am as a person but now, thanks to you, I need only think about how many calories typing this letter to you will burn.

With the most sincere gratitude,

Natalie