Wicked Reflections : The Tale of the Little Fat Girl

The Tale of the Little Fat Girl

 by: a. wicked with cuten-ing by a.lumination

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A long long time ago, there was a child who’s name would someday be Auntie Wicked. This child was rather short and stocky, but pretty athletic. She was active, and every year passed the President’s Fitness tests; with very good results. This child would have described herself as a rather regular little blonde girl (with a mildly eccentric personality) which, for a Native Southern Californian, was pretty much to be expected.

Little Wicked’s Mother had what she liked to call “itchy feet” which resulted in much moving around for the young lady. She started small,, but in due time the circles she drew for adventure grew wider and wider, and Wicked soon became accustomed to being a stranger in a strange land. One day, they landed in a teeny-tiny town out in the middle of nowhere, and for the second time in her life, the young Wicked, found herself the target of much mocking about her appearance. To be honest, it was the first time she thought twice about it, perhaps because of the factories where they grew little blond girls in SoCal, perhaps because her-self’s appearance had never been called into negative question by the vast majority before.

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 The little girl, over the years, out in the boonies began to be a woman.  Wicked had been taught her whole life that becoming a woman would be a celebratory thing, she imagined sweaters and poodle skirts, and sharing a shake with a boy, while everyone cheered that she was a woman. Unfortunately, it was nothing like this, the grown-ups who had been such a previous source of giant people who treated her special, all the suddenly began to treat her with suspicion the moment she grew her boobs. They stared, down their noses, eyes glittering with emotion-things that the young woman didn’t understand.

As any young girl knows, the common things happen. People stop touching you, boys get more hostile, adults start hedging about hugs and spouting rules, the relationship with “The Gaze” begins.

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All these things made young Wicked shy about her body, about her shape, and her form. She went right to covering it as much as possible. Perhaps, in theory, if someone is given no particular opinion one way or another about their body, and what it is doing as it becomes adult, their very opinion of self is shaky. I didn’t know if i was pretty or not, fat or thin. I knew I didn’t look like the other girls, and that odd social dynamics where emerging (although the boys treated me with the same distaste that they ever did, either ignoring me or spitting/poking/abusing).

One day, the unsure young woman had come to near-womanhood. It’s that slightly chubby awkward stage that many of us go through, the phase that spawns 100,000 eating disorders. In that stage of her life, the young Wicked had the huge misfortune of having a Grown Man who didn’t hold his boundaries with her. He did creepy things, said creepy things, and made her feel very violated.

It was then that Wicked’s relationship with her body took a turn downward. She felt inexplicably dirty, and as though it had been her fault. It was her fault for being attractive to this Grown Man. She remembered what her mother had taught her about not being a ‘cock-tease’, and to never so much as to promise a boy a kiss without the intention of having sex with him, as it was unfair to his penis, or some stupid rot. This was obviously her own fault for being attractive.

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She had no idea what to do with the growing feeling of loathing. Nobody spoke about it, there was no one to talk to and so the Young Lady was Alone, left to figure out what this feeling meant. It felt like greasy walls, like she was a bug in her own skin, like Kafka’s giant beetle writhing in her human flesh.

Fine Art America – James LeGros

She’d lock herself in her room when allowed. She didn’t notice she’d started to eat more, to hide her body more, to participate less, to wear giant cloths to hide her body.

She also didn’t notice when she grew from her stocky 5’3″ frame and around 140 pounds, to close to 190 pounds within a few months. Old clothes that didn’t fit were old news, she had to change them out yearly around that age stretch anyway. It wasn’t till she was out playing with the animals, and her parent’s took pictures that she realized something had happened to her body. It was puffy and pale like the Marshmallow man, her face was chubby, eyes smaller.

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The next thing she realized was she had ripped her flesh to pieces in gaining so much weight so fast, angry red stretchmarks that hurt like hell radiated across her arms, breasts, stomach, and thighs. They where so irritated that people took notice of them, and those too had to be hidden.

She cried, and still no one would talk to her about how this had happened. There was a disconnection between the comfort of stuffing her face, as it was something her Mother was trying to help her with. “Eat! Its just BABY Fat! You are just Big Boned, everything will come off and you will EMERGE a beautiful Slim Woman… ” The young woman thought in the back of her mind that this might not be right, but after all, Mom’s know best, right? She would ask her Mother if reducing portion size and watching the fats in her diet might get her back down to her 140 pounds that seemed much more comfortable, and bring back those bring pretty perky little boobs that had turned into sacks on her chest. Her Mother would say,”Hmmm…maybe?”, or wonder what the point was, then bake her a chocolate cake, brownies, or cookies. “No sense in not treating yourself, is there?”.    ***

  Young Wicked was an Actress, in her previous adventures. The plays they had done where all very Ensemble pieces, with no particularly big stars (although Wicked wished so badly to be a STAR!) There was no conception in her mind that she wasn’t lead material. The first time she came face-to-face with this was the day that the play “Fall of the House of Usher” was put on. Wicked was a passionate fan of Edgar Allen Poe, and there was nothing more she could have EVER wished for than to play Madeline opposite one of her favorite gorgeous willowy blonde fellow Drama persons. She was crushed to death when the role went to a tanned cheerleader-girl. The look on her Director’s face when she was trying to gingerly tell Young Wicked the reasons she didn’t get the role. She was too young (but the cheerleader was her age), she would be better in the character role, who else could do the accents (anyone?). Finally in the awkward silence she realized the words, “You aren’t the right type” meant her body. There where then the kind of stupid fat greasy tears that laid a dark moment for the young woman (that her optimism wouldn’t allow her to accept), would her exceptional talent in the theatrical arts always be over looked because she was …Fat?

Her young mind also began to discover(section by section)that the boys where dating girls, or that everyone was crushing on each other, and that despite the best efforts of the adults, some mild dating was going on. By the time she was 14, Little Wicked was friends with several boys, but always was the center of some cruelty involving a boy. It was around that age that some other girls, having elicited the clinical assertion that she did find Willowy Drama Boy to be attractive, and ran with that, assuming that she was something called ‘In Love’ with him. They wrote a note asking me to prom in his name, and stood by, laughing as I discovered it, and marched straight to him to ask if he’d written it. Of course he hadn’t, and there it was, the glee that spread amongst the girls tormenting me over my looks. Pathetic, they would murmur, how she thought he would ask HER out. (I was confused by this considering Willowy Boy had a pretty girlfriend, and he was not the subject of my teenage heartachey LOVE, and on top of it, why was I pathetic to think someone could love me back?).

Why was I too pathetic? My body? I would examine it. Well it wasn’t the best body. The other girls had young bodies, pretty ones, perky and smooth. I could see why the boys liked them, there where no horrible scars, no folds of flesh… yes it was probably my body. I had some faint idea that bodies had something to do with sex, but I was still, in my Young Lady Mind, convinced that kissing, talking, and holding hands… even finding someone’s brain interesting had almost nothing to do directly with looks. This strange idea lingered, and left me at an impasse… a lonely one.

By the time Young Wicked was around 16, she was in another part of the country with new classmates. These ones where not as openly vile to her, however they where just as derisive and frightened. She was avoided at all costs, and dare she even breath in the direction of a boy, he would get skittish and start making excuses as to why they couldn’t date. About a week after her ‘friend’ reported to her that the men she knew described wicked as “Big”, “Huge”, and other choice references to her weight.

There where two boys in her circle of slight-outcasts whom she asked what her level of appeal was to men  and told them the story she’d been told about her accused HUGENESS. They said that was mean, then promptly started trying to find adjectives to describe her. Finally the tallest one chocked out (like he was sick) that she was “attractive”. The word lingered for a moment as he dagger eyed his friend, who stuck his eyes to the floor and said, “yeah… attractive”. They then both nearly ran out of the room, and never spoke properly to her again. The taller talked about his girlfriend when and if Wicked ever dared speak to him on any subject, as though being choke-back attractive was enough to send the HUGE Wicked into a beast-spiral whence he would be raped by a fat-ass in the stairway.

 Adam Green, “Carolina”

When the youthy Wicked had finally ended the drudgery of High-School, she was 18 years of age and newly and officially in charge of her mind, body, and soul. This began a time in her life when she explored some new ways to treat herself. Her first boyfriend’s mother bought her a Gym membership, which worked to a degree. Wicked found on school-break when meeting old classmates on the street, they seemed to be more interested in the words she had to say. Once again confused she would go to her mother, her friends, and even strangers in the restaurants and ask them if this was simple nostalgia? They had never been interested before?

“You look goooood” they would say and gesture to her. How did Wicked look any different? She had no real conception until she lived in New York City. New Yorkers are not the kind of people to mince words, and much like Meg’s Family giving her advice, they suggested she develop the kind of eating disorder that made her thin instead of fat. Wicked, the worm of realization turning in her, thought she would go along with these assertions. After all, wasn’t being open as opposed to resistant the key to being successful? That was what she was told.

She binged, she purged, she over-exercised, she over-ate. She took those Ephedra pills that caused horrible heart defects later, which gave her enough energy to jog 5x a week. By the time she re-hit 140 she fit into tiny jeans that had been hidden in the back of her closet. She wore a striped shirt she hadn’t fit into since she was 12. There was nothing but misery in the mirror, she looked sick and troubled, but wore tiny dresses and acted very tough.

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Naturally at this time her slim looks made her quite popular in a new circle of friends… and found her suitors. The one she choose was the one who seemed most enthusiastic, as she had long known nothing about how to read when a boy liked her, so open enthusiasm seemed to be the best choice (after many very humiliating moments where boys would pre-turn her down if she so much as smiled at them). Privately she stopped taking the pillz that made her heart flop around, and re-dedicated herself to trying to eat in a proper healthy manner, instead of trying to stick to a 600 calorie a day diet. She gained weight. The boyfriend quickly noticed, and intentional or not scared her by telling her he’d find her beautiful if she was thin. The qualifier reared its ugly head again. 15 pounds was the difference between love and forever alone.

This was not the first, nor the last boy to make an issue of a body, and soon our fair little Wicked knew in the metallic depths of her heart, that the only thing that anyone could love her for was her body, and if that was imperfect… she would never be really loved. “A Man can be loved for his charm, or his Money, his Power or his things…” She would say, “A woman can only be loved for her Looks”. They would stutter like they wanted to disagree… but no one could.

She steadily gained weight again, tripping through her life, running after ambitions, tripped only by people who where hateful, boys that where troublesome, and situations she was forever told she’d put herself up  to. Boys she did adore where often fled from, or evaded until she was almost so starved for love and touch she would make a foolish decision, and date another fool that at first was enthusiastic, then directly ‘honest’ about how her body disgusted him.

“She’s too fat for Me”

One sunny hot summers day after a fest with a Fatty Pizza, Wicked had a horrible pain in her stomach. This had started to happen after she’d worked at the fast food places, the proper diets long since abandoned as she struggled to make it emotionally through a day, not thinking twice about taking care of herself. By that fall she had an attack, they said it was her Gal-Bladder, but assured her if she simply avoided fat she would be fine.

Post the first attack Young Wicked felt so horrendous that she simply didn’t eat for 3 weeks, living on pedia-lyte and gatoraid. In three weeks she lost 60 pounds, and got Jaundice. There where black marks under her eyes, her skin was hanging from her arms, and her ribs poked out. People swarmed her, young men flirting, looking her up and down. Once again the sly stare and gesture to her form, “You Look Goooooodddd…” They said. She stared at them like she didn’t understand, her eyeballs where yellow, she was sluggish and slightly unresponsive, and no matter how much she dyed her hair it just kind of hung there, stringy floppy. How could this be good?

Isaac Nicholas Caruso

Her Gal-Bladder was finally gone just a few days short of it bursting and giving her sepsis. Her recovery period was long. Her slimness didn’t change the insanity of a new breakup, or the gross mistreatment of her person, which had long since been the kind of relationship she’d had with people.

She did notice outside the chaos of her situation that she got attention. People that thought she was a horrible BITCH (and said so frequently) suddenly laughed at her, and said she was just SO funny and cute. She would pay half price sometimes when she’d go to eat food, she would get free things wherever she went. Sometimes when she was in a bad mood, she’d randomly abuse people that had in the past been gnarly with her, and they would giggle or call her beautiful and smart. She had started asking about going overseas the semester before, back when she was heavier, and there had been no way. The last month of her Semester the doors opened like royal gates, and with a bit of skittering work, she found herself headed to what she’d been working for 2 years. LONDON!

Wicked cannot speak much about weather she had the time of her life there because she was a relatively tiny for her 135 pounds (roughly an American size 8).  She likes to think that if she had shown up her basic size 18 that she would have dated the boyz the same, been on the stages the same, been invited out post-Hedwig the same, and had all the same incredible experiences. The voice in the back of her head sings a single clear note of doubt, that she will ignore, always.

Anaballerina

By the time she was back in the states, she had become mildly accustomed to not-being-invisible. There was plenty of attention, plenty of boys, and plenty of really fun drinking. Perhaps it was due to perennial shifts in management, or perhaps because boys are shallow horrors, but she still struggled as she slowly began to gain all the weight back that had been gone for 2 years.

She passed 150 with one boyfriend who couldn’t handle her parent’s divorce (and just hated sex, apparently). 180 by the time she had eaten Waffle-Hut after stressful work for 4 years. The attention although still there, had taken a more hostile edge again, and people would ask her things they hadn’t when she was smaller, like “Who do you think YOU are?”, and “Who are you to be so picky?” when she didn’t find a potential boy attractive.

Time passed, she became a care-taker, normal outside jobs eschewed for this new strange consuming life. She started to have severe stomach troubles that limited how far she wanted to be from home, and by the time 3 years had passed, Wicked found herself at 223 pounds, and a size 20.  Now we can preach all day and twice on Sunday that body is a state of mind over matter, but the fact is the very first and natural consistent reaction to a change of your body like that is the kind of depression that makes you choke.

Thomas Pollack Anshutz

  Wicked was SO lucky for a long while to have adopted a Sister who was the same size as her. They both shared a certain pain, and whispered secrets that they felt horror at their weight, and felt so lucky every day that anyone would love them. When the Sister got sick, she started to loose weight, and the forever beautiful girl became translucent with beauty that everyone could see. Wicked could always see it, and anyone that loved her could too. It was my first MOMENT where she saw that beauty and love was more than a body. She had spent my life looking into everyone else’s spirits, falling in love with their souls, lecturing about their beauty… and it had never until the moment she knew this Sister, occurred to her that SHE had something like that, that was worth loving.

Wicked once told her, “I don’t mind if I’m being Picked on, I’m used to it… But it bothers the hell out of me when someone does it to someone I care about…” and Sister said, “I mind if someone picks on you!” Your Auntie Wicked is not much for crying, but she almost over-came all her Northern Reserve and burst into tears.

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It had been one thing to see her eating disorder friends struggle, they where often very slim and acceptably beautiful girls who got the proper attention, the free coffees, and had Wicked as their charity-case fat friend. She had no feelings one way or another about this, but perhaps the very personal knowing that someone in the world shared her pain, her size, and even to a degree her stories about how unfair it seemed that when one slimmed down they had WORTH of VALUE that had nothing to do with their SOUL, spirit, or shimmering inner star.

Wicked knew if she was going to beat this horror feeling of being in a giant skin-suit, she was going to have to accept, in a tiny part, the regard that her Sister had felt for her, instead of rejecting it as a strange character flaw she knew nothing of. Furthermore, she was going to have to start treating her body, as well as her mind and spirit as though they where things that where actually precious to her, regardless of their size.

And that auntlings is where she is today.  Trying very hard to balance moderation and indulgence.  Trying to treat herself as well as others and most importantly to take care of herself as well as others.  Your Auntie Wicked still has a very long way to go to a healthy view of self and losing this weight but gone are the diet pills and the insane workout programs.  Though, admittedly I am still not celebrating myself – i am not hating it all.  Your Auntie Wicked has been facing this body change in photographs and with friends. Never any more hiding the words like “Yes I am fat” that used to be echoing only to herself in the lonely caverns of her head.  To say it out loud like most things that get outed is a breathe of air that everyone needs.

Found at The Life, Shit, and Times of Zidni hendrazid

Okay so I am fat/overweight – okay so this is why – this is what is hard about it and what it really feels like – okay so this is what i can do about it.  Wicked’s only advice for you is to try and find all the help and support you can get in eating healthy and increasing your normal daily physical activity – it’s not easy – you’d be surprised how lazy and horrible eating many of your skinny friends are but if you can find it…even a little support goes a long way.

  This blog has taken your Auntie a long time to write because it’s one more step in facing fat. I can only hope that someone takes comfort in this story or conversely we get a rollicking good debate going with the pro-fats.  Either way, it will have been well worth it.

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and please check back with us we have john waters and skirts coming up though not necessarily in that order. Thank you again for reading Auntie Wicked – we do this for you – well and for us – but also for you.