This is the sixth in a series of things that have helped me, I believe in, or people have asked me to share. Basically, things I do or think or whatever that have helped me be a better person, activist and positive fat lady. Check out  Step 1,  Step 2, Step 3, Step 4 and Step 5.

Step 6: Take Lots Of Pictures

One thing I realized while recently going through old photos was that there are very few pictures of me between the ages of 14 and 19. You see, I was in an abusive relationship. I had my once vibrant and endless self-esteem taken from me by an older man who took more than just that. For five years I was hidden away from the world and my friends and even my family. I had no joyful times or travels or anything other than misery to possibly capture on film. The few times I did snap some pics were mostly of still life/nature things. I have no idea what I looked like or how a camera would have captured my misery, or not, during this time. It seems once I escaped the clutches of abuse, the camera was once again an often present companion seeking out new adventures and friends and things. I also realized that there are very few pictures of my little brother and sister after my mom left.

Pictures are a funny thing. We love to look at our parents old pictures and laugh at their hairstyles or fashion choices. We love to see our grandparents wedding photos and sigh and swoon at the old timey romance of it all. Baby pictures are typical fare and are a great conversation starter for family gatherings; everyone saying the infant in question looks like old so and so. Then you reach whatever age it is that self-consciousness feels like knives in your face and you don’t want your picture taken or for anyone to see photos from your past, either. And if you were fat before or during this “whatever age” then it can be all the more painful to see or remember.

The thing is though, pictures are bookmarks in time. That Smurf top from Kindergarten? My fave! Oh how I wish they could make that exact top with the peter pan collar and key hole tie in front in my size now! I loved that shirt so much. It may have been the first and last item of white clothing I’ve owned. Ha-ha! And I know that at that age I wasn’t yet concerned about the giant gap in my front teeth. This was before the bullying and the abuse, before mom left. Before I cared what anyone thought of me. I was terrified of adults that weren’t my parents at the time, but kids? I loved them all and instantly made friends, if even for an hour, on the playground of the local parks. Without that picture of my five-year-old self in front of the kindergarten playground in my Smurf top I might not remember all of those details.

And some of you  may recall my post about a picture I’d found from when I was about 15 or 16. It still surprises me what others see in photos of me. There was a picture of me looking very odd and sort of out of it and a friend’s boyfriend at the time said I looked super hot in that picture. I thought it looked like someone else entirely. Perception is a funny thing. And it changes so much over time. And this is why I ask you all to take more photos! You may not enjoy or appreciate them now, but you will, I promise! I can look at that photo from back when and see the innocence I’d once had. And to look back and actually think, “Wow, I don’t know what that boys’ problem was, I was fucking hot!!!” it’s fun and nice. I think about how far I’ve come since then I have to step back and breathe for a minute. It’s just astounding!

If you’re reading this, you’ve already decided for yourself that there is a better and healthier way to live your life than the bullshit self-hate/diet cycle. You’ve already realized that you’re better than that. You’re on your own journey toward self-acceptance or perhaps you’ve been on your journey for some time now and all of this is old hat. Either way, take more pictures! You don’t have to share them online if you’re not ready, but it is quite fun/exciting/liberating sometimes. No one says you have to take nudie shots or whatever. I’m more talking about capturing moments in time anyway. But whatever you do, just do it for you. Do it for the future you and your future relatives and whatnot, because someone will enjoy them!

I highly recommend practicing taking pictures on your own first. It is how I learned what angle/face/etc looks best or works best for me. I even went out of my way on occasion to take the worst pics ever so as to not repeat later on and to see just how “bad” they could be. This way you also control who has access to those pics and wether or not you’d like to keep or delete them. Gotta love digital cameras! Now I don’t shy away from the camera anymore. In fact, I don’t even shy away from the video camera! I recorded a video of my friends and I singing the other night and I am enjoying the editing process simply because my inner critic seems to be on permanent vacation! I love it!

So, invite some friends over, have a few drinks, bust out the camera and see what happens! It sounds like a super fun time and you should totally invite me over, too! Ha-ha! Seriously though, once you get passed all of the body hate we place upon ourselves, often unwittingly, you can start to appreciate and have fun with this stuff. Try different angles or candid shots or action shots. There is nothing I like to see more than fat-in-action shots! Which, hey, I need to take some of those! Put up a fun/funny background and do silly portraits or corny poses. Wear matching scarves or something and have a blast! Once you start, if you allow yourself some judgment free head space and time, I know you will start to enjoy it, too.

**************************

I hope you are ready to experiment, not just with taking pictures, but of trying the other steps in this series. Have you been liking this latest series of posts? Have you tried any of the steps? I would love to hear from you! In fact, I would love some guest posts with your thoughts/experiences/pics/etc from the series.
Please hit me up! notblueatall at notblueatall dot com

You can “Like” this blog on Facebook for additional content, articles, random thoughts, outfit pictures and more.

Have you ever seen a picture of yourself and were actually happy with it? Or heard your voice recorded and liked it? This is sort of what happened to me last night. My BFFs came over and we ate and drank and…Sang! It was super fun, too! I had this brilliant idea to video tape a tribute of sorts for our friend who moved back to the east coast and it turned into quite a hilariously fun evening. I don’t want to give too many details in case that friend is reading, but man, I hadn’t laughed that hard since…okay since last weekend, but only because we went to a comedy show.

So we taped this thing and we gathered around the ole laptop to watch it after and I was surprised by how I looked, acted, carried myself…all of it. I surprised myself. There was no inner critic talk happening. None of the old self-hate even showed it’s ugly head. And this surprised the shit out of me. I mean, I had thoughts, I like the weird thing my hair was doing even though I’d said all weekend how much I now hate my current hair cut. Suddenly, I liked it! I noticed that I am a bit wider on screen than I had thought, but it was a neutral thought.

And then I noticed my face! Oh my gosh, you guys, my face!!! It’s like I have no control over my facial muscles or something. Ha-ha! I make hilarious faces and I think my BFFs and husband are simply used to it’s contortions. I was laughing at my own damn face and that thought made me laugh even more. I was dying, side-splitting, laughing my ass off! Also, I am hilarious! I used to fantasize about doing stand-up comedy, and I am not saying that I have the nerve right now to do it, but my timing ain’t bad, yo! Ha-ha! I certainly have no problem making an ass out of myself, so that’s a plus!

I dunno. This whole experience was super positive. It was a bit of a lark, the actual song and how we went about it and all, I thought there would be much resistance. But I am mega convincing, especially while drunk! And I think we all truly had a blast. When it was decided that we were done, we watched “The Walking Dead” and later a Food Network Cake Challenge…just how we roll. Ha-ha! It’s quickly becoming a weekly ritual and I think a much needed one. We all need to just cut loose and kick back from time to time. And when times are as tough as these? I think we all need it that much more.

I’ll be honest though, since that is what I do, I haven’t always been so chill about seeing myself on film. Oh no! I used to hide or run or scream, or whatever. I was horrified. Even when I was doing regular podcasts it took so long for me to get used to hearing my own voice. Sometimes one will pop into my shuffle on iTunes and I will leap across a room to skip the track. I’m not entirely sure why now, but I’ll get there, too. I know I will because I am now able to want my picture taken or see myself on video. That is such a huge leap. It takes time and self-work and it’s totally worth it.

This fat liberation/acceptance journey is different for all of us. But no one could ever tell me it’s not healthy and good for me. Fat liberation/acceptance has improved my life in so many ways, there’s nothing that could replace it and certainly nothing I would turn away from it for. When people ask me what fat liberation/acceptance is, well, it’s difficult to explain. So I try to explain how it has made me feel about myself, my body, the world and other people, too. And that is when they can see that little sparkle in my eye and how it’s impacted me and continues to do so. I tell people how depressed I used to be, how much I hated myself and went out of my way to make myself more miserable. And then I explain how fat liberation/acceptance has taught me how it didn’t have to be that way. That I am worth something, that I am worth anything at all was a revelation, but that I could be happy and fat and wear pretty dresses and want to do so? That, my wonderful friends, is a revolution! I hope that you find or make your own, too!

S
<3

This is the fourth in a series of things that have helped me, I believe in, or people have asked me to share. Basically, things I do or think or whatever that have helped me be a better person, activist and positive fat lady. Check out  Step 1,  Step 2, and Step 3

Step 4: Be Honest, Even When It Scares Them/You

This one is tricky for a few reasons, but I have been pushing myself more and more to be utterly and completely honest and it has proven to be surprisingly awesome! My only rule with this one is to never be rude. You can be honest without offending, you just have to be tactful and occasionally more creative in your vocabulary. Ha-ha!

There is something very powerful and empowering about being completely honest.You often hear people saying how “real” someone is and how they admire that about that person. You’ll hear someone talking about being “your most authentic self” and how liberating that is. I have heard this stuff over and over but it wasn’t until I stopped lying all together that it became invaluable to me. My world views have shifted and I see and think more clearly now, I think. I often give advice to friends on a variety of matters, but lately I have been pushing them to be more honest than they have ever been before. And guess what? It works!

The hardest part is starting with yourself. Stop lying to yourself, about yourself, just stop it! Stop lying about your age, your weight, your height, your income, your family, your shoes…just stop! You’re not helping anyone and you may not realize it, but you are in fact hurting yourself. Because you know what the truth is, you know the truest you. You know how it feels to be truly proud of an accomplishment versus lying about one. So why bother? It ain’t worth it! Once you can stop lying to and about yourself, you can stop lying to others and about others, too. It’s fun, I promise!

There was a point in my old career where people began to ask how I moved up so quickly in such a large company. The truth was that I wasn’t really trying as hard as I could, but that I’d put my intentions/desires out there as soon as I realized what they were and people responded to my directness. I enjoyed helping others and training them and streamlining our processes and so I quickly developed a relationship with our trainer and let it be known that I would love to step into a similar role if one should arise. A few months later she moved on and I moved up! Plain and simple. I always felt like an outsider, but I did my job well. I loved the shit out of that job, honestly. I miss it. But I only ever truly pushed myself for that job a couple of times. Somehow it just came easy to me, perhaps because of my passion for the job, but it rarely felt like “omzsomuchwork!”

We are all so afraid to appear vulnerable, ignorant, weak or any other thing that could be deemed “less than.” Somehow I hadn’t caught onto that so much and so I had no issue with telling someone they sucked or that something could be done more efficiently. The key though is to not be rude. Don’t actually tell that guy “YOU SUCK” you have to use words that get the point across without making the person feel like a heel. Sometimes all I wanted to do was to yell at someone, but that just isn’t how things get done in the corporate world and I learned as I went. And I gained a lot of attention and accolades for what I was able to accomplish in my short time in that position.  And if only I knew what was to come next, man, it would have been so awesome!Ha-ha! This is the period of my life when I got married, went on my European honeymoon and found fat acceptance all at once. So yeah, honesty? No problem!

What you say and do in the world matters. You have a circle of influence. You affect people. So why not do so positively?! I had an interview recently for a position I thought I’d applied for with the title, “Bad Ass Admin” and I couldn’t help myself from falling in love with that moniker. Okay, it’s on my blog’s business cards already, but to apply for a job with that title? Amazeballs! So I applied and they responded, how could they not*, and went to the interview. Yeah, let’s just say that the interview went fine and all, but I made a bit of a fool of myself by not cross-checking my stuff first. D’oh! I went to an interview alright, but not for a “Bad Ass Admin.” No I interviewed as a Bad Ass for an Office Manager job. Oops, my bad! What’s funny is how good it felt not to wear the typical suit bullshit I would have, but I also went into it unprepared for the actual job available.

Here I was telling them how awesome I was and how I’d consider a lower wage if I could keep the “Bad Ass” in my title. They must have thought I was a lunatic! I felt like I was, in retrospect. Ha-ha! But it felt good at the time and I have since reconsidered what is “appropriate” versus what is typical/expected/scripted/bullshit. It is absolutely liberating! Funny thing, as much as that whole thing influenced how I approach interviews and even applications now, that original job never so much as responded to my initial application email! Sadly, neither did the actual interviewer for that other job. Oh well. I really do feel like it was their loss now. And it is, because I am a Bad Ass Admin and I don’t care who knows it!

I give you my deepest respect and sympathies and all for those of you in the modern dating world. I don’t know that I could manage it, honestly. But to date in the technology era is to play a game without any rules, it seems. So I say why not scare the hell out of them? With honesty! Be you and only you and see who sticks around, I say! Better to weed out the jerks and players before you get attached to one. It seems we play games even without trying now days and this makes me sad, yo. I mean, is it so terrible to be open and honest? I don’t think it is. I think if your honesty freaks someone out, that is all them and not you. And hopefully you’ll soon find exactly what you’re looking for in a relationship. I seriously do not see how presenting yourself as something you’re not will help you find true love or even a decent relationship. It’s time to get real and keep it there!

Soon you will wince when you feel a lie cross your lips or tickle your tongue. Soon you’ll feel bothered by people’s remarks about how “flattering” something looks or jeans that make “anyone’s ass look perfect” because you’ll know better and you will have lived a more authentic experience in your own life because of it. It’s work, I won’t have you believe otherwise. You’re breaking down some social barriers. But when you can step back and see how things are just better without the lies? Well, it’s a lot like walking away from dieting and scales and shame and guilt and all of that bullshit. It feels good because you’ll own your words without worry. You’ll be your most authentic self and you will smile easier and not worry about what other people think. Besides, you stopped giving a damn anyway! <3

*Trigger Warning for mention of eating disorders and typical medical shaming things*

Ahhhh.. doctor’s offices…. Aren’t they just the nightmare for the Fat Girl? Like many of you, I avoid them whenever possible. As long as being of an overweight category means I will be shamed, ignored, trivialized and disrespected while seeing a health “professional” about physical matters it will always be an appointment of absolute necessity. As sad as it is to say it.

So I get called in and have a health aide walk me directly over to the scales. Now, I do not weigh myself. I have not in years. I do not want to ever again. Why? The number will never ever ever be the number I want. It will always be higher and trigger very old recurring panic attacks that then begin the very terrifying slide down into a very scary and horrible place, a place that lacks all logic and is pure panic… I do everything I can to avoid Body Dimorphic episodes… weighing myself is the Queen of all triggers.

So as I am being walked to the scales I say to the young lady, “No… no, I do not do that. We can skip this portion of today’s visit.” I’ve got this down to a science, this whole, “refusing parts of treatment” thing. Most people do not realize they can refuse any part of their treatment… most people have been raised to view their health as something they just have to “open and say AHHH” to… and that we are not allowed or should not voice things that make us uncomfortable or awkward….

So, I have gotten pretty good at voicing my own needs but every time I do it I always get such interesting reactions from people. The last time when I said,  “We can skip this.” There was a middle aged woman, perhaps of the same size, maybe a little less, walking towards us in the hall… (of COURSE the scales are in the most public, most well trafficked part of the offices just to add a little more shame to your otherwise stellar day) and she actually backed up a step with a shocked, “what?!?!” that was half laugh, half incredulity…half wonder… so I responded, “I know I’m fat… so what’s the point here?” and she kept staring at me as I rocked it down the hall. Her reaction was a mixture of WTF/yes you need to get weighed, fatty/could I do that too?/she is going to get into trouble/and, I wish I had done that, too. This is very typical in terms of reactions.

A couple of years ago I would tell people, “I am a recovering Bulimic” and even though I had no basis of understanding why, I just knew that if I said that people would back off and become compassionate or they would ask me, “is your Bulimia under control? Do you get triggered often?” It seemed funny to me that being the same person in the same size that I am would get a compassionate, understanding response if I claimed that my issue was in regards to my attempts to become thin… but I get a whole range of responses (none compassionate) I do not play homage to societal norms.

How would people react if my authentic response was, “I do not weigh myself because I am struggling with overcoming body dysmorphic disorder due to years of horrific social abuse because I was and am fat and weighing myself only triggers intense feelings of shame and guilt that I know are reactions to not attempting modify my body to the cultural ideal.”

What say you darlings, should I try this line and see what the outcome will be?

So instead of telling others I’m bulimic I just let it ride as it is. I do NOT have to explain myself or my choices to you. I do not have to place myself in a medically induced state of anxiety nor do I have to deal with practices or a conversation which are not only completely useless in terms of my weight but actually is harmful to my mental health, well-being and physical wellness.

So after my little scale avoidance episode I am left in the office to await da’ Man. While in the office I took note of my surroundings. On the walls of the office were:

A calendar

A “Quit Smoking” flyer by the American Heart Association

3 flyers calling for participants in various studies at the local research hospital

1 poster detailing the symptoms of depression (brought to you by Zoloft… no I’m not kidding)

1 poster giving me a number to see if I qualify for Gastric Bypass Surgery

1 flyer to see an in-house “Nutritionist”

…. Uh…. Well, I….don even…..

The only flyer that actually is concerned with health and wellness is the quit smoking one.  So in case you aren’t ALREADY coming to see the Doc for depression, anxiety, etc etc etc… ZOLOFT wants to make fucking sure that just in case you didn’t actually “know” you were depressed well ZOLOFT has is right there in a 2 by 3 foot poster… and the remedy…hmmm… lemme guess…Zoloft?

And the other one… the OTHER ONE…. Same thing…. Say, let’s not talk about health, REALLY… let’s not talk about lifestyle, holistic health practices or just taking a fucking walk every day no we want you to know that we are there for you… if you want to cut your stomach in half… we are here to “help”.  And if you don’t want that then we have a Nutritionist because you, fatty, you we are sure do not know how to eat… as if eating well is a science… have any of you seen a Nutritionist? You get weighed, you are given a menu then you have to cough up your weekly write-in diet and get shamed for bad choices…. Hmmm what does that remind me of? Oh yes! Every other weight loss plan out there!!!!

Before I am even seen by my doctor I am bombarded by messages… no, not messages… billboard advertising… telling me what my problem is and what thing I can buy to fix it.

First a patient is weighed. Then she is left to sit in a room with a Zoloft and gastric bypass ad. It doesn’t get any more genius than that, does it? The doctor need not say a word… the system is doing all the work.

Any posters about health? Wellness? Meditation? Yoga? Walking? swimming? The benefits of a vegetarian diet? Managing stress? Nope.

I wonder how much Zoloft pays doctor’s offices to allow them to place their posters up in each and every examination room.

So anyway, that is why I avoid seeing my health practitioners as much as possible. A for profit system can never be honest in that it has your health and wellness as a primary concern, nor are the health prescriptives based on health as much as it is the bottom line.  As long as society is pulling its collective hair out running around in circles, “OMGOBESITY!!!! Run!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES” and the government supports it and Hollywood supports it then there is good money to be made in making fat a medical issue worthy of reduction at all costs… and even better, at a high cost.