You Wouldn't Believe This Even If You Read It

So there I was minding my own business in this crazy world, when I get an email saying that one of my favourite bloggers has written a new post. My heart skips a beat as I hurriedly open my email client and ravenously run my eyes through the post. A little shiver of dread and excitement slides along my spine when I discover there is a link to a hash tag on twitter. It must be brilliant or eye opening for it to inspire a post on Big Liberty's blog so I clicked #thingsfatpeoplearetold and my life was immediately changed.

The sheer volume of tweets by other fat people stunned me into awed silence. There are so many people, like me, who have been treated appallingly just because they don't look like a socially acceptable stereotype. As I kept reading I realised that 95% of the tweets posted have been said to me and this was a huge shock. For so very long I have ignored the comments and somehow put them out of my mind because no one else understood that what was said was not only hurtful but rude and generally disgusting. The bubble I have hidden inside for so long was burst and there, in it's place, was the blunt, heartfelt truth. Holy shit, batman.

That brings us up to right now, this minute, as I type these very words and the next. I was inspired by all these wonderful people and their stories, I was inspired by all the blog posts I've read in the last 48 hours and decided it is time for me to add my voice to the thousands of voices already calling for Fat Acceptance. So here I am.
It wasn't an easy decision for me as I have spent more time avoiding any kind of waves that would bring attention to me and my non "normal" flabby person. It was almost a case of if I don't talk about my fatness they won't even notice it and so I became the apologetic fat chick.

What do I mean by "apologetic fat chick"? Melissa from Shakesville explains:

I've said it before and I'll say it once again: It remains a radical act to be fat and happy. If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.

Instead of remaining apologetic I'm moving towards true self love and therefore have this insatiable need to voice my opinion on how fucked up and discouraging it is to be ridiculed for being who you are. No more will I sit passively and let others dictate how I should act, what I should eat, how to dress my flabby body and other such nonsense. See this post, it's my big FUCK YOU to the world that says I am unhealthy for being a size AU22-24 and that I am "diseased" for being who I am. 

But it goes deeper than that as Fat Heffalump explains On Expressions of Dismay and Disbelief...

So I want to say this to all of the people who are horrified at the things they read in these tweets.  Don’t just shake your head, gasp in horror, and cluck your tongue at how terrible people are to the poor fatties.  Stand the fuck up. Say something when you hear fat hate.  Speak up when you see someone being treated badly because of the size of their body.  Challenge those articles you see in magazines, newspapers and on television that perpetuate myths about fat people.  Ask questions of the “facts” you see spouted that shame fat people, think about who might just benefit from fat phobia.  After all, fat activists have been doing just this for decades.

 I may have had my head in the sand for a long while but now it's time to be honest with myself, and with you, about what it is really like to be a fat woman living in a skinny world.