The Champagne of People

When I was a freshman in high school, I was telling some friends about a dream I had had and I said, “I dreamt that I wasn’t everyone’s favorite anymore.  It was so odd.” This, of course, elicited peals of laughter and eye-rolls from everyone around me because that dream, and that sentence, was so utterly me.

 

I have never been one to think poorly of myself.  On the contrary, I have and have always had incredibly high self-esteem.  I say incredibly high because as a fat person, I really had no business feeling as good about myself as I did.  I don’t mean that I deserved to feel bad about myself.  I mean that society, directly or indirectly, told me I should not feel good about myself.

 

This messaging manifested in various ways.  There was the obvious messaging in magazines and tv shows and movies, where the skinny girl was always the hero, and the fat girl was just comic relief (never a real person).  There were public humiliations at school, usually in PE—remember when it would actually hurt your academic grade if you didn’t score high enough on the Presidential Physical Bullshit Test (or whatever it was called)??  

 

My doctor actually just told me the most horrifying story: when she was in school, someone decided it would be a great idea to weigh middle schoolers to see who was closest to 100lbs (it was in honor of the the100th anniversary of something) and then give the “winner” cupcakes…..

 

"I wasn’t better than, I was just great."

 

I was, miraculously, impervious to this kind of messaging.  I leaned into my differentness. Somehow I was self-possessed enough at the age of 10 to know that I had other, more important qualities than being conventionally pretty.

 

There was other messaging though, subtler and more personal.  It came from friends, family, and teachers, persistently telling me I was selfish or self-centered or full of myself.

 

First of all, why shouldn’t I be?? I was smart and funny and pretty (at least to myself).  I was not mean or a bully. Praise of myself never came at the expense of others. I wasn’t better than, I was just great.

 

Second, and more importantly, fat people (especially fat children) endure an incredible amount of torment and are much more likely to become depressed than other people.  In light of that, one would think that the people in my life would fully encourage my self-love.  But even into adulthood, I was treated as if my self-praise and self-acceptance were un-earned (what a concept).

 

This more intimate messaging, telling me that as a fat person I did not deserve the same things as my skinny peers, was harder to endure.  On the surface, I’m sure, I seemed bulletproof, but inside a tension was building. The sureness of my self-confidence was unable to reconcile with what literally every external factor was telling me: fat is bad, so I am bad.

 

 

"the contradiction between how I felt and the societal implications of how I should feel left me astonishingly frustrated"

 

 

Somehow my plus-sized self-confidence survived both the obvious condemnation by society and the subtle disapproval of those close to me, but the contradiction between how I felt and the societal implications of how I should feel left me astonishingly frustrated.  

 

This frustration deepens, though, when I think about how many people in the same position as me have not come out unscathed by the remarks and actions of others.  It is baffling to me why I get to feel good about myself when so many people better than me feel so bad about themselves.  And at the end of some days, I'm left actually feeling guilty for liking myself.  

 

Obesity aside, 96% percent of women interviewed by Women’s Health said they would not describe themselves as beautiful.  NINETY-SIX PERCENT. And something like 85% of people, in general, have low self-esteem.

 

That is insane.   It is insane primarily because the world is full of extraordinary people, and I operate under the belief that most people are good—and if you’re good, you should like yourself, or at least not actively dislike yourself.  It is insane secondarily because when I think about myself—my successes and failures—it makes no sense whatsoever that I should get to be a part of the minority in this case.

 

Looking at myself objectively, I know I am not the smartest or most talented or best at anything really.  But I have always always thought I was the cats fucking pajamas.  And I don’t know why. Why do I get to just walk around feelin’ great about myself when there are people ten times greater than me with half the self-worth?

 

Statistically, I should have low self-esteem.  I have always been overweight—obese even— which studies show goes hand in hand with depression.  Not the case for me. Sometimes I think I kept gaining weight because my self-esteem was too high.  I didn’t see any reason to change so I never had the motivation to diet or exercise.

 

I have friends who, again, statistically, should have the highest self-esteem.  They are smart, well-liked, fit society’s definition of pretty.  Yet, if asked, none of them would characterize themselves as “confident”.  They don’t look in the mirror and, like me, think “Dope, I have a kick-ass face”.  Instead, reflected back, they see flaws and failures. Which is not to say that we should be blind to the parts of ourselves that need improvement—we need those things so that we can become better—but why is it that we have been trained to primarily see our negatives and believe they are more important than our positives?

 

"It’s not fair that I feel good about myself—

I am so undeserving in so many ways."

 

I don’t ever want to imply that I am better than anyone else.  The “best” that I am is the result of criteria that only I am subject to.  I think everyone is the “best” if they are being their best selves.  And I think you are being your best self as long as you are trying to be your best self.

 

(Don’t get me wrong, not everyone is the best.  Some people suck)

 

But there are so many people in the world who really are the best and just don’t see it.  There are people with so much beauty and potential who think that all they are is a burden.  And that makes me so incredibly angry. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that we live in a society, in a world, that does anything other than build each other up.  It’s not fair that not everyone feels good about themselves. It’s not fair that I feel good about myself—I am so undeserving in so many ways.  And it's really not fair that I have not figured out a way to share my self-esteem with others.  Telling someone they’re great only goes so far. In the same way that I am inexplicably into myself, some people are inexplicably not.  There is something in their code that is sending an error message. And it sucks.

 

That’s the fun thing about being a person.  You can be the shit and your chemistry will still fuck up and tell you the wrong thing.  I still have no answers. I couldn’t tell you how I get through my anxiety or why I feel good about myself even when society says I shouldn’t.  And sometimes I hate myself for that. I feel like I have no wisdom to give and that this gift is wasted on me.

 

I don’t really have a conclusion to this.  I still don’t know where my confidence comes from.  I still regularly feel undeserving of such confidence.  I wish I could offer wisdom or insight, but I cannot. What I can say is that it didn’t come from anywhere other than myself.  I also know the fact that I am undeserving doesn’t mean I am undeserving, ya know?  We are all flawed and figuring it out. But we will figure things out faster and become better if we believe that we are worthy.  So if you’re looking for someone to tell you that you're worth something, anything, the only person who can do that is you.

 

"if you’re looking for someone to tell you that you're

worth something, anything, the only person who can do that is you."