YUP! A True Story!

[RJ'S/beginning 5,357]

Let me start at the beginning. A lot of you know I am taking a creative writing course. I used to have no trouble coming up with ideas and putting them on paper. After I had my WLS and all the complications I was blocked. I could not write a thing. Tried, mind you but came up empty This course came up and I thought maybe it would kick start my writing again. It has been fun but at times nerve wracking to say the least.

Last night like every other class we had to write a story on the fly. I mean no prep, on the spot, no time to think. This time the teacher handed us a slip of paper and gave us a topic and let our minds go where they decided.One of my classmates wrote about her two sisters. The story went something like this. " I was always picked on at school for being bony thin. Elbows, knees and everything else. I was also tall and lanky. I couldn't even get a date. My family, especially my two sisters used to pick on me all the time. I was the different one compared to almost everyone who lived in our little town. I stood out as weird. My sisters were short, blond and saw themselves as voluptuous, where I saw them as fat.

As the years went by I stayed exactly where I am now tall and bony and they have continued to expand their voluptuous bodies. They are coming for a visit and my daughter and I are taking bets on how long it will take them to start on me about putting a few pounds on and be more healthy like they are. That is the gist of the story. She went on to say that she loved her sisters but did not understand their view of her.

It was a well written story and a spin on abuse. She assured me at our ten minute break that yes she did have two sisters and that they were short blond and stacked. She told me about high school and how she felt she was treated there. Her sisters are fat as she calls it but a healthy fat.

I told her that it was interesting that she wrote it that way because usually the prejudice is reversed. Thin people picking on heavy people. Not where I come from she said everyone there looks like my sisters. I stood out as different.

I repeated that it was interesting how they all saw her. She said why can't people just be happy with who they are and not pick on others. I said society does not like differences. They want us all to be cut from the same cookie cutters. Well she said if your fat then your fat. If your bony then your bony. I don't get it.

I said that the thin is in revolution started when they saw Twiggy in the 60's and she modeled for clothing companies and they liked the way clothes sat on her frame. It spiraled from there and now bone thin, no breasts, no shape is the ones they want us to look at on the catwalks. She then talked about her daughter who is voluptuous as well and how she gets mad at her because she goes to weight watchers because of health reasons she now has to stay this size.

I asked her who is voluptuous in her mind and she said Marilyn Monroe, Loni Anderson and a singer that I did not recognize the name. I said I still find it strange that a person who is thin could be picked on in our time when everyone is concentrating on the obese society who by the way out number thin people 2 to 1.

NOW!!!!!!!!! This was the shocker. She said I wouldn't expect you to really understand. If you were fat you would get how it feels to be picked on for who you are....I stared at her and my head spun. IF I WERE FAT I would understand. Looking at me she new it would have been an insult to say if you were bone thin because obviously I would have taken offence in her mind. So looking at me she used the IF YOU WERE FAT instead.

She continued to talk until the teacher called us all back to our places and it was over. I spent the rest of the class wondering if I should have pulled out a picture to show her I knew abuse. Tell her that one was not the same as the other. Let her know a year and a half ago I weighed 380 lbs. But I could not get it out of my head that she said " if you were fat you would understand abuse"

She was telling my I was not fat....It was like I had heard it for the first time. In my wildest dreams I never thought that someone would ever see me this way. I guess you could call that a NSV.

Edited March 26, 2014 by RJ'S/beginning

[Teachamy 1,042]

Yes. A definite NSV. And I would share a picture with her from a year and a half ago. It might help her to know that we're all in this together. Fighting our wars against society's expectations and our own inner battles.

[RJ'S/beginning 5,357]

Yes. A definite NSV. And I would share a picture with her from a year and a half ago. It might help her to know that we're all in this together. Fighting our wars against society's expectations and our own inner battles.

Right now @@Teachamy I am enjoying the fact that I am there and no one knows one thing about what I have gone through. It is like being thrown into a new world, you know. I did not want to tell her about my life in any way. I just took it in and was blown away that she said if you were fat you would understand.....35 years no one has ever said that to me... i just wanted to enjoy that part of it without giving away my secret!

Edited March 26, 2014 by RJ'S/beginning

[Teachamy 1,042]

Understood, RJ!

[m&m4ever 109]

Totally teared up from that story. First, congrats and enjoy that feeling! Second, it made me remember a conversation with my brother about 20 years ago. He was always tall and thin and I was always fat. I don't remember what we were doing, but he had no shirt on. At the beach or something probably. His ribs were showing and I said, man you can see your ribs. He turned around and said something about my being fat. I was like, that was rude and he said so were you. I was like WHAT!!??! That's a compliment. He explained that to him it wasn't and that he was self conscious about being too skinny the same way I was about being fat. That blew me away. How could anyone feel that way. I apologized to him and explained how I would never in a million years think he felt that way. It really opened my eyes to see it from the other end.

[RJ'S/beginning 5,357]

Totally teared up from that story. First, congrats and enjoy that feeling! Second, it made me remember a conversation with my brother about 20 years ago. He was always tall and thin and I was always fat. I don't remember what we were doing, but he had no shirt on. At the beach or something probably. His ribs were showing and I said, man you can see your ribs. He turned around and said something about my being fat. I was like, that was rude and he said so were you. I was like WHAT!!??! That's a compliment. He explained that to him it wasn't and that he was self conscious about being too skinny the same way I was about being fat. That blew me away. How could anyone feel that way. I apologized to him and explained how I would never in a million years think he felt that way. It really opened my eyes to see it from the other end.

I sometimes forget that it can happen to others. I have always been the victim of the jokes because of my weight. Then to see the pain in an extremely thin persons face over the opposite was really eye opening for me

Thank you for your comment!