Saturday, October 23, 2010

My self-worth and how it has nothing to do with anyones genitalia

So, I have this problem that resurfaces every now and then...I, like many other women and men in the world, find myself thinking that my value is dependent on what other people think of me. More than just what other people think of me, but how much other people want to sleep with me. And that is a problem. It is often specifically a problem if I've been in a little bit of a funk and then get drunk, because the end result is almost always throwing myself at someone and either being rejected and crying, or waking up the next day wondering why the hell I did that.

Here's the thing, I'm fat. Not like "chubby" or anything like "plus size model"...just fat. Death fat, if you will. And I'm mostly okay with it. Yeah, there's some stuff I wish was different. I wish there were more cute clothes that fit me, preferably less expensive and better made ones, but in general I don't think it's my fault that those clothes don't exist. And yes, I could stand to be healthier, but if I've learned anything about my body in my 22 years it is that in this body, healthy and thin aren't really the same thing.

The other thing is that I've got some serious food issues. I don't want to get in to the back story of that just now, but let me give you some examples. At 16, I made my boyfriend ration cheese cubes to me and worked out at two separate fitness centers so no one would notice that I went twice a day...my family was so proud of how disciplined I was being. When I was 18 I got put on adderall for ADHD and was seriously thrilled by the fact that when I took that medication it was super easy to not eat. And then I spent an entire day throwing up because my stomach did not like not having anything in it when I was taking said medication. That didn't change my mind about it though, I just ate before I took it and then very little after that. I remember a number of occasions when friends forced me to eat, and I remember the somewhat panicked look on my roommate's face when she noticed that I was binging with the intention of purging. When I was 19, I only ate more than 1000 calories a day if someone caught me, or if the guy who was the object of my affection wanted to cook dinner for me, and if that happened I always had to eat less than them. Through all this, in moments of clarity I'd tell friends what to look for so someone could maybe stop me when I got out of control...some times I was too good at hiding it though. It never worked, maybe because I'd get scared of the vomiting or whatever else was happening and try to eat sensibly for a while, maybe because sometimes I'd get stressed and decide to eat everything instead, maybe because my body just refuses to be smaller than a size 12, I don't know and it doesn't matter. It was fucked up. And saying was isn't exactly correct.

The one constant through these food issues was that they would generally calm down if someone seemed to be physically interested in me. The problem of course was that I'd only trust someone's statements of physical attraction for so long...I only even trust people actually wanting to have sex with me for a while. When I was 20 I started dating someone who was wonderful for me, I got comfortable and I also think something weird happened in my digestive system, and by a year in to our relationship I was a good 80lbs heavier than I had been when it started. A bunch of things happened, a lot of death in my life, a serious bout of depression, and some issues of his as well...and somewhere in there I stopped believing that he thought I was sexy, and I stopped believing that I was. Needless to say, that fell apart for a variety of reasons, and true to form one of my first responses in my head was to try to find someone else who might be attracted to me and want to have sex with me. That was also kind of a disaster. And as obnoxious as it is, to me and everyone else as well I suppose, that's sort of how I've been living my life...looking for someone to validate me, someone to want to sleep with me so I can feel okay. And when people don't want to sleep with me, I'm deeply hurt, as if they've just confirmed every mean thing ever said to me and possibly a number of things that have only been said to me by myself.

How I got here is a whole other story, but the point is that this idea I have that someone else can fix me, or more accurately that if someone else's genitals are somehow stirred by me that means I'm ok, is profoundly fucked. What started this post is in part, a kind of messy alcohol fulled trip to "I hate myself" last night, and in part a post on reddit about why reddit hates fat chicks so much. Somewhere in that reddit post someone says that his problem with fat chicks is that his penis doesn't like them, and you know what, it's totally fine if his penis doesn't like me or any number of other fat women, as someone (possibly the fantastic Lesley of Fatshionista or Marianne of The Rotund) once wrote, I can't possibly sleep with everyone. But there's this idea that as a woman your whole point in life is to be considered sufficiently fuckable by men you may not have any desire to fuck anyway, and I think that's the heart of this problem. I also think that this is exceptionally difficult for me, because in my world I feel like I'm considered to be like, about sex, because I love to talk about sex, think about sex, and have sex...so, if I'm failing to be actually having sex I feel like I've somehow failed to be successfully myself. The fact however is that I am not about sex, well, not just about sex. There's a lot to me, and what I'm worth has nothing to do with anyone's genitals.

Wall of text said, I'm hoping to explore some thoughts I've been having about a wide variety of things, sex and otherwise. I have time now, so, hopefully posts will come with some regularity. I'm sorry if this post didn't make the most sense, I needed to get it out in to the world instead of thinking about it endlessly, so, here you have it.