Killing Demons
Killing Demons
This is a real story; it's about me and my fight with fat and my body image. Since the age of 8 I have struggled to get to grips with being overweight. I wasn't a fat child, just chubby and happy to smile shyly when Mummy would stand in the street with her friends and make comments about me being the ugly duckling of her three children. She had not got a clue what she was planting in my head. Her comments were made with a 'make them sturdy now, toughen up or be trampled' attitude. I can see why. I just don't think it was always the right thing to do.
My earliest memories are of my Mum testing every diet to try desperately to lose her excess weight. From popping 'diet' sweets to wearing a rubber suit to bed with the hope that it did what it said it would on the box 'Lose weight overnight, no dieting necessary'. Before she jumped onto the scales in the morning our job before breakfast would be to rub her down with a towel, to get rid of the sweat and because 'that's what the booklet told you to do'. I didn't realise that her obsession would become mine.
To me she was perfect. She was my Mum! But in her mind, looking at her self in the mirror each day what she saw was the body of a woman she didn't like. Once a size ten now reinvented over time as a full figured woman. We must have signed up to Weight Watchers from the womb. This obsession with weight ruined her and it also had an affect on her daughters.
And now, I'm 42 years old and I feel like I am 80. I walk with a lethargic plod rather than a skip in my step, I feel as though the fat load I have to bare has become a prison of my own making. The Voodoo Queen has truly disappeared for good, this once expressive dresser is now a grey, drab 'grab what you can as long as it fits' kinda gal. I have been at war with fat for longer than I care to remember. Looking back at photos I can see just what a pretty little creature I was and although at the time I thought I was humongous, I was actually a normal size. I just didn't see it then. I saw my body through glasses marred by those days watching how hard my Mum had tried to change herself. I knew the pain in store, in some ways I created it from a very young age myself by being cruel about my body image well before anyone dared say the first words of ridicule to my face. I think all the mirrors in the house were distorted because through those mirrors, I learned how to hate myself. My belly was huge by the age of 14. When all my friends were fitting into slim fitting jeans and weird trendy high fashion coloured canvas belts, I was stuck in the same old dull garms, just because it fitted at the time. 'High fashion at minimal cost', but that offer wasn't open to plump kids, not in those days. I had one going out outfit and friends would laugh 'we all know when it's a night out for you, 'cause you wear your hair out and that pleated skirt with the floral pattern comes out the closet'. That much was true. The same skirt, blue jumper the weird shoes with the strap and buckle and wedged heels (not knowing where I got the nerve to walk out in those). We didn't have lots of spare cash, I also at that time didn't have much style.
So, whilst other girls of my age bloomed, I seemed to lose myself inside my head. I made people laugh at school rather than be seen as the wall flower, I chose to write stories about sex and American teens rather than be labelled the spinster girl at 14 that no boy wanted to snog. I had to create this oddball world to recreate myself. But to be honest I was lost inside my fantasy world of Hollywood, passing out autographs for the sake of maybe becoming a star one day. The only way I could like myself was if others liked me too. I was happy with my friends, they made me feel safe. But still, my confidence was a faade, it was put on to protect myself from the vicious comments that people felt it was ok to throw at a rotund girl in her teens in the street. At 16 arriving at college to discover this amazing new world, I thrived. It didn't matter that I was chubby. Before the college term began, I had already reinvented myself. The New Romantics, fashion movement of the 80's and chance to be free in my thinking and dress sense. Everything and anything was excepted, the more wild and outrageous the better. It was my blessing in a dress-guise! I began to make my own clothes, recreating the designs I would see in the magazines. ID Magazine was my bible. Body map, Vivien Westwood, Kensington Market (the real one not the tourist trap of today), The Kings Road, charity shops filled with retro clothes that no one wanted. Portobello Road a dream market for all that was second hand and cheap to buy. Ellen Terry, Ruby Turner and Alison Moyet were seen as big women with talent and huge voices. They became my inspiration. If they could walk with their heads held high being larger than life women, so could I. I could wear what I wanted I was free.
I was butch before I knew what that word really meant. Trilby hats and Russian army coats, Lawrence Corner, army surplus was my second home. I cut my hair and had designs shaved into the back long before it was a trend. I loved that I could express myself like this, my image was important to me now, I didn't hate myself anymore. I was accepted, I loved the fact that college was my first experience of young dykes, open and honest about whom they were. I still didn't know what I was. I loved that finally I was being looked at for being more than just overweight. I could hide under big nighty hooched up with thick leather belts, or wore my pyjamas on the street as day wear and no one blinked an eye.
As time went on I became more obsessed with my size and with my looks. I began to change again, I became more and more aware of losing weight and boys and that boys (even freaky boys) wouldn't be seen with fat girls. My weight dropped and then I would gain some, it would drop again and I would gain some more and so I became aware of the term 'yoyo dieting' and 'binge eating'. My onslaught of laxatives had begun. In a strange way I guess it could be seen as vain, I didn't want to stay fat, but I also didn't know how to control myself. I had no understanding to why I would over eat for comfort, and then experience the pain of defeat and binge until I popped some more laxatives. I have two good looking sisters to compare myself to, daily. To be honest, the more I compared myself, the stranger and unique I needed to be. My hairstyles became weirder, clothes more outrageous. By the time I was 19 I was in snakeskin stilettos, home made shi-shi skirts, fishnets and leather, with pink hair and bright red lippy - and for a mixed race girl from Stonebridge, that was some doing. I look back now, and I know I was normal weight, but I still wasn't happy! My mind was messed up with the constant battle against myself.
So, you're wondering if it went away? If I managed to control it, or except it?
No. None of the above.
Am I still at war with fat? With my image, my size - YES! Aren't most women? The change has been my bolshie attitude as I've grown, my confidence is alive and kicking and I no longer except ridicule in the street from passers by who have nothing better to do that bark.
Some days it can be hard to walk out the door when I know I have over eaten and yes, I am still trapped inside that same world. I still don't know how to escape it and I certainly don't have tools of how to control it.
And what about willpower? Yes, Will power is a very powerful thing, once you're trapped inside a habit, any habit is hard to break. Over eating for me, is partly habit and mostly a way of numbing the pain I feel inside. It solves my reason for many things but it also weakens me as I grow older, faster. The more I over eat, the more I feel the pain of my belly stretching. That pain removes the thoughts in my head; it makes me focus on one area. When I feel that pain inside my stomach then the thoughts that plague my head, the stress, the unhappiness all seep away for a while. But once the hurting of the stomach stops, the guilt sets in and the pain comes back inside my head.
If you haven't been here, you won't have a clue about this horrid little world some of us live in. I fight with myself every single day to try to change the habit that I have become, to escape this self made prison. But somehow, somewhere along the line I sabotage my own being. I imprison myself in this hatred every single day and every day is another addition to that cycle of hate.
So to think that it's an easy thing to control, when the issues which cause most of it are deep rooted, is naive to say the least. I still have hope that one day I will control this world of which I created, one day I will love myself just a little bit more. excerpt from Prisoner1964 www.SugarNation.com
Lorna Stucki
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