The Attacks on the Disabled: Clueless NPR Article on the Disabled.

It gets tiring, lately even the left is claiming a social security check is the poor person's get out clause. The attacks on the disabled seem never ending and now seem to be coming from BOTH the left and the right. To the right we are all lazy bums that won't get a job and moochers crashing the economy even while trillions are sent overseas. The left used to be more understanding but now seems to be joining some of the decrying voices.  Hey the police state is now A-OK with the left now so why not hate on the disabled and blaming the poor?  This article outraged me so much I had to post on it. Basically the article has the theme undergirding it that disabled people are malingerers all "playing the system".

To be frank with you all, I am scared of the days coming where they will toss us all in the gutter. I'm praying to God to take care of me. I have several disabling conditions, the biggies are the heart and lungs. The lungs went before I became fat. My heart was damaged from undiagnosed thyroid disease not just obesity itself. I even attempted a career change and went to vocational rehab by the age of 23 to avoid disability. Even if I woke up thin tomorrow, there would still be serious health conditions to cope with such as losing my hearing and balance. 

The reality is $12,000 a year isn't much, and many people on SSI make even less. No one says "Hurray, I get to be disabled!". I wish I had lungs that worked, I wish I was not housebound, it stinks, and it kills your fun even if you have all day off. Becoming disabled is hard. No one wants to throw away their dreams and place in society, but when your body doesn't work right, there is no other choice. The loss of one's health is one of the biggest losses any one person can face.

 I thought I would have a nice teaching job when I was out of college, I didn't see me being ground into the dirt and denied health insurance and forced to work jobs that didn't buy me a stable life or even a safe and decent place to live. With my health, I failed teaching job medical exams. The only good job I had was the art teacher at an alternative school job but sadly that was part time with no medical benefits and short term grant based. My residential care job was so low paid and long hours, I lived in the ghetto getting sicker and sicker, even having to spend a total of 2 hours on the bus to get there back and forth a day while dealing with potentially violent clients. The "medical insurance" had a $1,000 dollar spend down, my bills were so large, I let even that go.  Substitute teaching paid some of the bills but didn't provide benefits. Yes to this day, I wonder how my life would have gone if things had been stable and I had decent medical care on the front end.

So this is one of the most clueless articles I've seen in a long time. This guy has no idea. He is another smug urban sophisticate pontificating from his tower on high.

Read the article here:

Unfit for Work

1. THE AUTHOR IGNORES THE REALITY OF POOR PEOPLE'S LIVES

They ignore the fact that many disabled people move to poor rural areas to survive. I did so. If I had not left one big city, I would have been homeless and the life I lived there was horrendous where resources were in very short supply and the climate of high crime and danger weighed heavily. Of course there are some disabled people who are unable to move or get out of dangerous areas, whose options are even fewer.

The reason many go to rural areas however is, your rent will be cheaper. So Hale County will have more disabled people then NYC where the disabled would be living in a card board box and unable to afford the basics of everyday life. One can tell when a rich person writes articles, they do not get realities of rich vs poor life. Their judgments are skewed. Sadly the elite are running the media, but some of this stuff, they show how out of touch they are. I know that I cannot live in a city or town over a certain population, that will force me as a low income person on disability to either end up living in a very dangerous high crime area, or non-suitable living conditions. So there is a reason there is a preponderance of disabled people living in small rural areas.

"In Hale County, Alabama, 1 in 4 working-age adults is on disability. On the day government checks come in every month, banks stay open late, Main Street fills up with cars, and anybody looking to unload an old TV or armchair has a yard sale."

2. WHAT MATTERS IS IF YOU CAN HIDE THE ILLNESS OR NOT AND WHAT LEVEL YOU ARE FUNCTIONING AT.

I did hard low wage work, the problem with low wage work, is you have to be in better shape then the guy at the desk.  Desk jobs and sit down jobs are getting hard for even those with college degrees to get. In my old rural town, there were people with college degrees and even experience with higher level jobs, relegated to working on your feet service jobs. Factory work was rare and hard to get and getting more dear. Our economy is sliding into an abyss, where the choice has become between a thin sliver of "good" middle class jobs whose numbers are growing far fewer that mostly only the well-connected can get and manual labor and "on your feet for hours" service jobs. The latter actually are being snapped up by immigration leaving more and more people desperate for any work.  His focus on education is skewed ignoring the realities of endless unemployed and underemployed people who have college degrees. Here we see an Obama supporter who probably believes that the economy is "improving".

And if you are old, or have any personality differences or even minor health difficulties you are forced to work harder then the "normal" people to prove yourself.. During the days when there were family businesses and local business that was part of the social contract things were far more forgiving on people then today's megacorporations that just see people as cogs in the wheel and demand higher levels of conformity and allow for fewer "minor" health problems or other differences. This statement by the author show such utter cluelessness about the reality of working class life I was flabbergasted.

People don't seem to be faking this pain, but it gets confusing. I have back pain. My editor has a herniated disc, and he works harder than anyone I know. There must be millions of people with asthma and diabetes who go to work every day. Who gets to decide whether, say, back pain makes someone disabled?

Is he kidding me? 

There is a big difference too between an occasional asthma attack, and daily breathing problems that are centered around chronic bronchitis and COPD even if you never smoked, and a back twinge and debilitating back pain that renders you unable to get out of bed. It's all relative. And big differences between what is required at a low-key office job, what is expected in a class room, the factory floor, or a retail job where you are literally on your feet for 8 hours.

Severe breathing problems make working beyond difficult. In my pre-disability days, I would go to work crying because I could not breathe, I had many tearful mornings during my commutes, hoping and praying I'd get through the day and if I was at one of my sub teaching job, I had to hide even the smallest snippets of pain and distress. There were times, I was in acute asthma attacks, trying to manage classrooms. Leaving was not an option unless I got so sick, I couldn't hide what was happening. Throwing up every morning from breathing difficulties actually became part of my daily routine.

We are talking puking and coughing up phlegm in the bathroom having to hide it from employers and having to do things like hiding a breathing nebulizer in a teaching office.  At my last job, abuse for my health conditions was extreme, where I was mocked for hair loss. Instead of people understanding that weight gain could be medically caused, I was taken into offices and dressed down for gaining weight so fast and yelled at "To get yourself together!"

Anxiety from severe health and having to get through a day, where I would collapse into the bed with exhaustion. Getting in trouble over having my hair fall out--written up for hygiene when I could not afford or find a decent wig. . The difference is the pain that shows. If you can hide the pain, and say get through a work meeting without racing to the bathroom due to an IBS attack, try that fun as you get written up for spending too much time in the bathroom, or not show your grey face from passing out from your lungs closing down, there within lies the difference. How about having to work around vats of stinky chemicals in a factory when you are an asthmatic or being told you have to lift a 150lb patient when alone or being berated by a co-worker because you could not hear what a client said?

How many people do I know who have been laid off, due to simply SLOWING DOWN with age? One I know was told they had to work 14-16 hours a day instead of 12 in a salary position and they said with all honesty "I can't do it, I'm pushing myself now", and they were laid off into perpetual underemployment and scrapping by for survival. 

One job where I had to mop floors, a fast food job after a lay-off I was severely allergic to the caustic soap used to clean the grease off the floors and thankfully I had a kind manager, because I could see me being fired, it would instantly make my lungs close up. So there were moments of mercy in all the mess but they were few.

Here is another clueless statement about disability. This one too made my jaw drop.

3. DISABILITY IS NOT THAT EASY TO GET.

They may be right about the increased numbers, but to blame it on people being malingers and trying to game the system is a load of garbage. During hard economic times, disability is even harder to get.  It is not that easy to get disability. You can't just walk in and say "I'm sick now give me my check!". I would argue that Americans are getting sicker. Why? Because our lifestyle is untenable, the social connections have broken down, there is no social contract, no help out there, the food is garbage, and people are getting sicker younger.  He names back pain and mental illness as the fasting growing causes of disability but acts like these are nothing.

"The health problems where there is most latitude for judgment -- back pain, mental illness -- are among the fastest growing causes of disability."

Does this author know to get a mental health disability, you have to prove that you have had at least several times of decompensation where you absolutely could not function? We are talking mental hospital in patient treatment that is repetitive not just once. These are people who hear voices, and who need social workers to manage their affairs.  I know at least two people with serious back pain denied disability, you can't just walk in fill out an application for back pain and boom you are done. If your back injury or illness doesn't show on an MRI, you aren't going to get disability. Even with physical disabilities you have to prove things.

It gets even worse, he writes:

"But disability has also become a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills. But it wasn't supposed to serve this purpose; it's not a retraining program designed to get people back onto their feet. "

This is a lie. This guy acts like anyone can walk off the street and get a disability check. There are many people WITHOUT jobs who have college degrees. This liberal canard that a college degree is a ticket to guaranteed employment is failing. One thing I notice in these false articles from the left is they claim that a college degree and education  is an automatic ticket to a good job. Why that myth has refused to die disturbs me. Why hasn't this author even looked at the realities of life for most of his fellow journalists many of whom happen to be unemployed as the newspapers in this nation crash and burn? I guess writing propaganda for the elites pays well. The elites are greedy. Do your own math as to why this article was even written.

4. WHAT DO THE EMPLOYERS WANT?

I know so many smart people denied decent employment. People who studied even practical fields like IT. People who have had their lives ruined by lack of employment. I often have wondered what the outcome of my life would have been if I had a decent job with good medical insurance at an early age, so I could have gotten help with my undiagnosed illnesses.

People you know could be given a job and do it well. We are entering a society now where only the well-heeled and well-connected are being allowed in and the elite want it that way. What is going to happen in a society where so many people are "throw-aways" and told they do not belong anywhere? This has been a theme within my own life.  Remember that NPR though it is liberal and left represents the ELITE.  Even education has become more about being able to afford a special piece of paper with tens of thousands of dollars or borrowing tens of thousands of dollars rather then learning or acquiring actual definable skills.

Do the Americans really lack the skills and education? Or is it that they sent all the jobs overseas? or they are importing immigrants to do the jobs for slave wages?  Or that they are increasingly being denied a chance and an opportunity to prove themselves and this is the excuse? The author mentions one off handed comment about manufacturing failing but it deemed far more of a mention. The skills of people are not being cultivated or even used. The smallest difference now, and you are weeded out. Even those who are moderately overweight know how strong the discrimination is, and that is the healthy people who can walk and move unencumbered. We have entered a world where even the smallest difference, MINOR medical problems, aging, cognitive differences or personality ones, seems to render people on the outs forever. Are the age discrimination laws even on the books anymore? I saw what happened to my husband as he aged a bit, and slowed down. They are throwing people overboard all the time. Even if you manage to get a job, and do well at it, it doesn't stay secure.

Or that the educational requirements are more about class and weeding people out who actually could DO the work presented? Of course being a doctor and an auto mechanic, one needs specific skills and knowledge but I am talking about the endless number of paper-pushing and other kinds of jobs out there.  Sometimes I read job ads for a family members and they are so specific, it's like they want a robot rather then a thinking human being.

"Somewhere around 30 years ago, the economy started changing in some fundamental ways. There are now millions of Americans who do not have the skills or education to make it in this country."

The employment process in this country seems to have grown over-formalized, and for the elite, to keep the so called "riff-raff" out. He is a defender of this wall so to speak. I am going to call out that his statement that there are millions of Americans without skills or education to make it, as total nonsense. How about the fact that there is no on the job training anymore?

How can you give disabled people a hard time when one knows out there in the job market, even a little bit of old age, or MINOR health conditions is enough to kick one out of the running? My health problems are serious. I believe I would have died long long ago if I was not on disability. Even writing this blog, I have to time the writing around pressure sores, a hand that goes numb and making sure I do not sit up too long and retain water, so this one took two days to write.  Hidden disabilities in my case go along with the stuff that shows. I am sick of all the hate on the disability. To me this is a postcard from the elite, that they plan to toss us into the gutter soon. Are there some cheats out there? Sure there are. But there are systems in place to find them, something this guy seems unaware of. If you are on disability they do put you under review, they send paper work to your doctor. They get your medical records down at Medicare knowing what is happening to you.  

But labeling everyone who is disabled as a malingerer who wants to "game" the system is absolutely disgusting. It's getting very scary. By the way if you are a supersized person who is on disability, the hatred out there is bad. Unless people know you and what you personally suffer they see you as scum of the earth taking from the system.  I am not surprised the so called "progressive" left has jumped on the blame the disabled bandwagon. 

It's funny how they never question the system but just prop it up. 

"Quote of The Day"

From Living~400lbs:

"Scientists who study obesity at the cellular level say genetics determines people’s natural weight range, right down to the type and amount of food they crave, how much they move and where they accumulate fat. Asking how someone got to be so fat is as meaningless as asking how he got to be so tall. “The severely obese have some underlying genetic or metabolic difference we’re not smart enough to identify yet,” says Dr. Rudolph Leibel of Columbia University Medical Center. “It’s the same way that a 7-foot-tall basketball player is genetically different from me, at 5-foot-8.”

Fat has been blamed for cardiac trouble, diabetes and some forms of cancer. But fat-acceptance activists argue that the epidemiological studies that link fatness to disease often fail to adjust for non-weight-related risk factors found more often in fat populations. Poverty, minority-group status, too much fast food, a sedentary lifestyle, lack of access to health insurance or to nonjudgmental medical care, the stress of self-loathing and being part of a stigmatized group — all are more common among fat people, and all are linked to poorer health outcomes at any weight. This makes it harder to say to what extent an association between obesity and disease is due to the fatness itself or to the risk factors that tend to go along with being fat. Robin Marantz Henig in the New York Times Magazine"

You all know where I stand with the fat acceptance folks, but I agree with Dr. Rudolph Leibel....I am glad someone has finally said it-- that there are differences not being yet identified.

Would you like to be a guest blogger?

Would you like to be a guest blogger?

I would be interested in other supersize people sharing their stories on this blog as well. You can be any weight but I would like to give people who also deal with my special challenges an invitation to write on here. Of course I would need to screen the writing, but I would be interested in giving others here a place where they'd like to share their stories.

My email is available on the profile. I'd type it here but the spammers would probably go crazy. LOL

A Fat Artist

This was a batik I did before I took the wax off...

 More and more I consider myself an outsider artist though I have an art education degree. This was a topic of discussion this Sat with local artists. I do think the art world has some serious fat and class discrimination within it. Ever go to an art opening? I go to many around where I live because they are free, and you will see me in the local art museum at least twice a month when the weather is good. The artists always seem to be lean and wealthy. I know they come from a different world then I do, but I go to enjoy their art and many of them are nice. Art does need some money to keep afloat, but one thing that I support is keeping art available and accessible to all comers.

I know my art isn't considered the norm. I am going to do some art work for a themed art show. I have not been part of what people call the "normal art world" which class wise for me remains a place of expensive entrance fees my household cannot afford. My art shows have been independent sort of events, where I have tossed in music and food.  I've sold independent paintings and I've had  DIY [do-it-yourself] art shows. I want to plan another but need to do more art work since I sold a lot off 4-5 years ago. One thing with me the desire to write now wrestles with the battle of being an artist. I am working on a comic too that is a story about my life. Perhaps I am too scattered, but I know time is short and want to get some of these things done while I still can.

One dream for me would be to spend a week at a handicapped accessible artist colony. I would love this, I don't know if I can make this happen, but the best memories in college were old times in my painting and printing studios.  I did take a drawing class at our local art museum but have to call them to see if I can get a scholarship for one of the new art seminars. Once a week, if I am not housebound, I go to another local art school, to do collages, batik and spend time at. This is where some of my most fun times I have been. That's my arm in the picture working on a batik last year. This week I went and did collages.

Art has always been a part of my life, I majored in it, and was an art teacher for a time before I was disabled so young. I've kept it as a major part of my life. I hope to show more of my art on this blog, both older and newer stuff.

See:

Fat Hate and the Art World

Fat Art Show #2

A-Mini-Art Show: My Painted Fat Ladies

If you are a fat artist come say hello.....

Don't Wait!

To be frank lack of money is keeping me from more things then being fat, but I always felt I was a person who did what they could with what they had. Too many young fat people are told to wait "Til the day they are thin" and it is a waste of time. [cite for cartoon] I know I will never be thin, my best hope is smaller versions of being fat. Live the life you have today!

"You Just Don't Want to Lose Weight!"

I had this happen the other day, a Facebook argument that was bad the people [friends of a friend who I do not know in person] told me "you are lazy and just don't want to lose weight. You have given up trying." Every fat person probably can attest to this, especially those of us who step off the diet or diet hamster wheel. I didn't realize the conversation would go so badly, both parties THEMSELVES were fat up in the 250-300lb range, but what I have said before about some indoctrinated to always hate those who are fatter then them? One mocked me even for having lost weight too slowly, when I said I had lost 100lbs over the last 5 years! 200lbs off since the peak weight means nothing if you are still fat.

The relative whose wall this argument was on took it down in my defense which I was glad for. If someone is fat, they understand the invalidation. To be frank invalidation of that fat is one reason the obesity research is FAILING in my book. If the person from a certain malady is deemed a liar from the start how can the research be honest?   Most do not believe you.

I had to come to accept this, to get around in the world. When I had my weight gain, I remember telling everyone how and why I gained the weight. I am open about things on this blog where a degree of anonymity protects me but out in the world, do such a thing and say it to near strangers, and 99% of people outside of your close friends who see how you live, eat and act will just call you crazy. People believe what the media tells them. In fact his is one of the worse things about being fat, the ones indoctrinated into calories in, calories out, see your fat flesh, or in my case the hundreds of lbs of fluid included, as supposed proof you are liar. Even if you tell people I almost died from a weight gain, where doctors would not listen and then got help, that allowed at least some weight loss, they will not care.

The fat person becomes enemies with their own body.   This happened to me. I struggle now, seeing my body as the enemy even today. Even today I was sitting here at 11:00 am, feeling hunger pains hit my body. Knowing it was too early for lunch and if I ate this early I'd end up eating too much food today just out of hunger, the math projects never end for some of us. This time the hunger pain went away without any food but it doesn't always. My heart is already kind of speeding up. Would the thin diet or die crowd even understand? No, they never do.

There are OTHER things I'd like to attend to then my body all the time. It's medical demands are wearing me out. I feel like I have to run my own self-nursing home, watch the pressure sores, time for bath, time for pills, time for physical therapy, time to chop vegetables, because everything I could buy ready made is horrible, time for laying down to control water--would you all believe me if I said at least 5 hours a day are devoted to something regarding my body?

Even if you have gotten to a place of realizing fat is just an attribute, out in the world, we are seriously faced with those who hate us just for existing. No amount of effort if one is "still fat" is deemed enough. Not only do we have to deal with our bodies betraying us, but this becomes a double-edged sword when society decides to get their chimes in. Yeah these people were jerks, but the problem is when you have years of choruses of jerks all joining together. It gets tiring thinking, someone will understand or there can be some true discussion only to get the knee-jerk brainwashed responses. I thought the day having a cousin defend drone warfare in America, and the police state was bad enough but these people took the cake. I told them, "You are still fat! How's the blame and shame game working to make you thin?"  

Losing weight is the only way to redemption according to these types. I don't mean losing some weight or a part of the weight but ALL of it given what has been said to me. Imagine that fatness is like a bad back, imagine being looked down on for having your back go out. After all you could have been wearing a back brace, you could have done more exercises to keep your back stronger. This is the same. But society doesn't reject those with bad back, you could have done more exercises to keep your back stronger.

One interesting comment, I received from the two Facebook fat haters, was "you will lose weight when you are ready!", wow don't we all hear that one as if our bodies will magically get in line at our behest. "You have to be the one to do decide to do it!" This constant bulletin contradicts itself. It assumes I have total control over my out-of control body.

My body does a lot of things I do not want it too like forming kidney stones, or deciding a little bit of cold air, will make it's lungs seize up. So supposedly I can tell it what to do when it does so many things I do NOT want it to do? It's like I am supposed to mold from within the iron bar cage that lies on the outside. Such types will tell you "Go work out!" as if your lungs and heart were capable of a full burn without death looming over. None would believe that just doing the short walk I do daily, is done to the point where the lungs burn, and I am coughing.

It also set up a life that would be lived later rather then in the present. I hate my feeling of time is short, like every forced housebound day is keeping me away from making positive memories. Today's cold temperatures forcing me inside feel like the torture of a water faucet dripping the minutes of a otherwise short life away. I have dreams of heaven to give me solace, but days like this, sometimes the unlived life can press so hard. And the worse thing is the feeling that I am somehow to blame for the CAGE so to speak really stinks. Even when housebound, I feel like I am in a race with time, there are things to be done, that time seems to slink away so easily. I am not sure if this is fatigue, or the propensity of multiple hobbies and projects or what? Even writing on this blog is a project of getting out my truth while I STILL CAN.

How many fat people though who still are functional and can DO things, though always have this idea, I'll wait til I'm thin, and push off things they could do. If I had money, I would not be home right now, I know I would be DOING things. I would take a trip into warmer temperatures, where I could go and function and live life, go look at things and DO things, fat or not.

But who understands? A few close friends do, but the world does not. This renders fat people voiceless, and invalidated. I notice even on the websites, of fat professionals who even seem interested in helping a bit, that there is always this feeling, that they assume the fat body works the same or there is always a locus of control over obesity, that is so complete. Sorry it just does not exist in my world, and I don't care if people tell me til the cows come home, that I am just making excuses, or "don't want to lose weight" or any of their other loads of garbage they choose to pile on me. Fat people get tired of being told they are not worthy on so many different levels. Even if I woke up 150lbs tommorow it would have come too late, for me to not have the feeling of what was all this for?

The funny thing is while one is aware of the true nature of how an almost 500lb person and used to be almost 700lb person is approached with different reactions from different people. The question does remain, "how would I be treated at a more normal weight"? I have seen changes from pound to pound. The fat haters refused to listen, all us fat people have been down that road before. Treated as though you are invisible. I knew even prior to my huge weight gain, once upon a time when in class or other situations my words may have been paid tribue too, now they weighed heavily in the air, only to sink and be unanswered. The size acceptance world with a few notable exceptions has deemed me too fat to be worthy of mention, or notice or listening to what I have to say. So far more then just the "thin" world is guilty of the invalidation that goes along with fatness. Fat but still active and mobile, you are okay, fat to the level you need the scooter and can barely get up, your views are ignored. It is a cruel joke to tell fat people, "you just don't want to lose the weight" or you are lazy, etc.

This blog has shown over and over for years that weight loss efforts are bound for failure, and there are far more factors impacting people's weight then just personal responsibility, but for some reason this is going unheard by the general populace. Size acceptance as I have illustrated in their other side of the coin delusions, has failed to change people's beliefs about obesity. What will? If there is no truth, no honesty, no reporting from fat people themselves ALLOWED or LISTENED TO, do they expect to get a handle on the obesity epidemic, NO they never will! Things will not change for fat people in fact I expect them to get worse, as our food becomes more adulterated, life more stressful, and toxic.

I wasted too many years hating myself for being fat. I refuse to blame myself anymore. I tried my best, surrounded by the economic factors I faced, and the rest. I never wanted to be this fat and still do not. I do not want to wake up everyday anymore with that feeling of I have failed at life, that the lacks are all my fault. This is something that has been imposed on me from the outside. I actually prayed to God before, "you will know what I did and did not do".

I am very fat, the weight may be on a downward trajectory now but I know one little thing could upset it from more steroids needed for lungs, loss of mobility, or being told I have to go off a drug that helps my heart--keeps more water off and also androgens down for the sake of one that may dissolve a kidney stone. Telling fat people you are all liars, isn't going to help anyone. Telling fat people, "you just don't want to lose weight" and have "chosen" this is wrong as well. America gets fatter as their fat people are silenced, ignored, and invalidated. An overall sign of a declining culture. My wish for fat people all over the world is that they stand up for themselves, refuse ill treatment, educate people and say it is NOW TIME TO LISTEN. Your ways are FAILING.

Too Fat to Date or Marry?

For women, the association with obesity with asexuality largely stems from the assumption that fat women have chosen not to make their bodies attractive, chosen to be unfeminine, to avoid sexuality and sexual relations, The image of keeping men away with a “wall of fat” is a popular expression of this psychological interpretation of obesity. In this the media offer assistance Typically the media caricature fat women as loud clumsy, hostile aggressive and indelicate. But the physical bulk of fat women need not have acquired this image. In other societies or historical periods a fleshy woman has often been viewed as sensual, graceful sexual and particularly feminine.  "Such A Pretty Face" Marcia Millman


What large woman or even very fat man doesn’t experience problems in dating ? I am haunted by a memory of the comment (“You better lose weight or you’ll never get a boyfriend”) which came from a full-figured friend of my mother. My family was visiting her and I got the message at a pool party, sitting there fourteen, forlorn and vulnerable in my bathing suit. With my smug mother nodding her agreement I slunk into the bathroom and cried for half an hour.

“Why!” I wondered aloud “did boys seem more interested in bony girls when hugging a soft girl seemed more enjoyable? Put bluntly “Wouldn’t it be better to lay on a human pillow than a bag of bones?” They’d forgotten that I know about the outlines of sex only to discover that my later question would prove prophetic.

I’d find myself wavering when boys asked me out: They’re not serious they want to make fun of me” Often I was correct but I lacked the confidence and self-esteem to say “yes”; I’m sure this policy helped me overlook men who wanted to know me as a person. As a result my dating never developed into relationships. Three young men throughout my college career became friends with me but hooked up with one of my thinner female associates, (sadder for me, one of these couples wound up getting married.)

I knew the usual scenario at that time, due to my weight I was not even in the running, one potential beau gave it to me straight: “You are a good friend but I am just not attracted to you because of your weight.”

One funny thing I noticed is while these men chased after thin women and obtained them as girlfriends, to me I was still a close friend. “I just see you as a friend not a lover” became the standard refrain so much that I began seeing myself as asexual and unmarried for life. By age 20 I’d stopped dating for awhile. Sick of rejection I’d began buckling down to my expected future alone though without such distracting sideshows of my parents questioning why I never had a boyfriend and telling me that something was "wrong" with me and that I was too fat, and therefore did not deserve one.

At 22, I encountered a man who’d always been attracted to large woman and wanted me accordingly. I refused having more conservative viewpoints regarding life, love and commmitment. The discovery of men who were more open to fat women turned around my thinking; even if the hard core fat admirers were a select group, I had problems with, in terms not wishing to be objectified, the discovery that they existed made me realize I might yet be attractive to someone else.

When I hit 24, I approached finding that special someone like a science: tell them I’m fat, I reckoned and those who are truly interested will respond. I was open to also considering other fat men, and went on a single ad date with a man that was 400lbs but we were not otherwise compatible. Having made good male friends, I’d made up my mind to find the lover and husband I so desired.

After a year of many blind dates, I met my present husband. But all that loomed well ahead in the future when I graduated at 21 in April of 1990. Facing a brutal job market, I admitted defeat and moved back to my parent’s home. I’d always dreaded the notion especially when my 20 year old thin sister had met her destiny in the form of a 28 year old upscale professional.

My parents opted to reward her with a then $20,000 wedding in which I had no starring role let alone a supporting mention. That came across loud and clear when my mother said “ We’ll never find a dress in your size [which was then size 22], and you’re too fat to be in your sister’s wedding” My sister signaled agreement though I believed she just wanted to keep the peace I argued to no avail. One friend would tell me regarding those days "In regards to your family, the clearest incidence that I remember was with your sister’s wedding. It appeared that she and your mother didn’t want someone who wasn’t “photogenic” to be in the wedding party or affiliated with the wedding party."

When I point out that my family was very appearance oriented, this is not coming out from left field. Later I would realize the depth of the family dsyfunction regarding the lack of love or care as a person that was shown me then and later and would be able to confront many things, that went well beyond a fat girl feeling rejected but during those days, I thought this was "normal" and "deserved" and it was anything but.

In protest I arrived on the wedding day dressed all in black from head to toes, wearing black lace and silver jewelry in the 'goth' style. Probably not the nicest thing to do, but it made my displeasure known. My relatives realizing the hurt I had suffered had known of my plans; not my mother who got the point just the same. When I look back on this, while some say, "how could you?" I understand exactly why I did it, it was my way of announcing I am a person of worth as well.

The satisfaction such a gesture could not wallpaper my unpleasant daily reality, working a minimum wage child care job, trying to find a better job,  between the inevitable daily bulletins: “When are you going to get a real job?” "When are you getting to get a boyfriend?" My brother had experienced a huge weight loss of over 150lbs from a diet of lettuce leafs, cereal and dry skinless chicken breasts. No matter that he gained it all back; I was constantly chided to eat likewise and told I needed to diet too even as I was working 12 hours a day both at student teaching and a part time job. I know this is about the time I started getting sick, the stress, the pressure, everyday wake up feeling "rejected" though a part of me inside, still keep saying inside, I can find someone to love me, I can find self-worth, and people who care.

Those days had too many rejection underlying it all. I want to tell young fat women you can find someone to love you even if the people around you do not, or tell you that you are a "lesser" not worthy of love. The above is something I should have never suffered. When I look back on those days, I think of what could have been if I had refused to believe the messages surrounding me. I ended up married, but wish I hadn't spent my single days in such psychological suffering. I never want to see another young fat woman go through what I did.

SEE: Fat Love