Skip to main content

Invisible


I watched an Ellen DeGeneres show a few months, perhaps years ago, where they had a man on who had a major weight loss transformation, and he said something that has stayed with me ever since. "Being fat is isolating."

 It hit me hard and has stayed with me ever since. Being fat is isolating and who would know that better than I? Being fat has somehow made me less of a person. I'm defined by my weight, it seems now. Ever so often I hear, "She's such a pretty girl, but...."; "She's so smart but.... "; "She has such a pretty smile but... "

I've been looked through, skimmed over, ignored, even when I know what I'm talking about while others skinnier have received all the attention in the world.

It's been assumed that I can't do anything but eat. My interest in football, in being outdoors, in books are all somehow secondary to the kilos on my scale.

The comments/the jibes/the hurt - they've come from all directions, from friends, from family, from acquaintances, from strangers, and each cuts a little deeper, each leaves a little scar, each leaves me crumbling from within.

I hide it, I put on a brave face. I try to let the comments roll off my back, but each time it gets a little harder. Each time I get a little smaller, I seek validation where none is forthcoming. I eat my feelings. I go into my shell more and more. I seek comfort at the bottom of the bowl.

I could lose weight, but part of me is reluctant to do so. Why shouldn't the people who love me love me the way I am now? Why can't they accept me for the way I am? Why should I give them the satisfaction of thinking their words got to me and made me change?

Why can't I just have someone tell me in person that I'm beautiful? Why don't I deserve that?

Comments

sanket kambli said…
I wish I had answer to those questions.
I don't know why people don't accept us the way we are.
Always trying to make us fit into their definitions.
Even guilty playing us and calling themselves a victim.
Maybe they are scared of being around someone who inst their definition of beautiful.
21 November 2019 at 20:14
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Roaring Twenties

So here I am on the eve of my 30th birthday, my very last day of being 29, just about 4 hours left of being a twenty-something. A couple of years ago, I remember snidely chuckling away to myself, when a favourite blogger of mine turned 30, believing that it was so far away, it could never touch me. I'm regretting that now. And to be honest, I thought I would be okay, I really honestly truly believed that I would be greeting this new decade with a casual insouciance and indifference that would normally be characteristic for me, but I'm not. I'm terrified of how quickly my twenties have zoomed by and how little I've accomplished and perhaps that is what is upsetting me. On the cusp of another decade on this planet, well, I feel like a bit of a failure. No, scratch that, I feel majorly like a failure. I'm drowning in self-pity and anguish at wasted opportunities, at thrown-away chances, at my inherent laziness and procrastination, at my never-ending ability to p...
4 comments
Read more

The one with all the food

While I've already done the Happiness is tag once before, I've had food on my mind an awful lot lately. I'm comfort-eating myself all the way to obesity, but I just can't bring myself to care somehow. Anyhoo, Happiness is.. A steaming cup of tea and Parle G biscuits Brun maska and chai Cheese maggi (Double points if it's eaten in a ramshackle hut in the middle of nowhere in Ladakh) Fresh off the tawa alu ka parathas dripping with butter Mutton and cheese burger from Bembos Fiery Mangalorean sorpotel and sannas Tibetan momos from Dharamsala Mashed potatoes with salt, pepper and butter Candies classic roasted chicken Biryani made with fragrant rice and melt-in-the-mouth mutton Cheesy bhajji with warm buttery pav Paya soup from Bara Handi nalli marke Blueberry cheesecake A jar of Nutella and a big spoon Hot McDonalds' french fries sprinkled liberally with salt Rajma-chawal and fried fish Reese peanut butter cups Mangalorean chicken curry and panpoles/Neer dosas Ch...
13 comments
Read more

Remembering Avanti

Day before yesterday, on the 8th of November 2008, Avanti Desai would have turned 21. Instead 15 days before her birthday, as she hurried home to celebrate her grandmother's birthday, Avanti met with a train accident at Jogeshwari station. Just like that. Gone from our lives forever. Leaving behind a huge void and the world a lot more gloomier. And when I got the call first thing in the morning, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a cruel sadistic joke, but as the calls kept coming in, I realised it was true. Even at the cemetary,, it still hadn't sunk in that Avanti was no longer here. The worst moment though was watching her disappear into the crematorium, it was horrible and I couldn't believe we were leaving her there, and through the next couple of hours all I could think of was of her going up in smoke while we stood there in the bright sunshine. It seemed incomprehensible at first, to think of Avanti as dead, to talk about her in the past tense, to get...
15 comments
Read more