A Complete 180 - Bully Awareness

When I hit 180 lbs I will be having a party. I'm not sure of the details just yet, but I *will* be having a party. It will probably be in July, if I can somehow continue to lose 10lbs per month since I'm only 50lbs away from this monumental goal!

As a weebie! Aren't I so cute?

Why the party, you ask? Well 180lbs has so many meanings as I discovered last night whilst talking with my husband. 180 is a sore number to me because in sixth grade, during our trip to commemorate our last year of grade school, we went to Ski Martock, in Atlantic Canada. At the ski counter they need to calibrate your set of rental ski/snowboard/etc to your specific weight, and I remember the shame and leaning over the counter to whisper "180 pounds..." to the man doing the calibrations as all my classmates looked on.

So, 180lbs will take me back to my last absolutely known weight in the 100's. In seventh grade I had steadily climbed over 200lbs, and honestly my weight was completely lost to me during that time. I remember dating someone in seventh grade, before he became 'popular' and after I dumped him and moved on he fell in with the more popular crowd...I still remember sitting on the bus three years later and having his friends tease him about how he and I had gone out, and they called out to me to confirm. From the pleading look in his eyes I knew he didn't want me to say anything, and as much as that was a smack in the face I decided to roll my eyes, tell them all to fuck off with a flick of a finger, and go back to my mp3 player. I neither confirmed, nor denied..I put it in his hands to deal with it and I don't have to guess very hard that he vehemently denied it having ever happened.

Brownies! Before weight had taken hold.

I was always the butt of every joke and always the least athletic. I was never, ever, truly happy. My mother has asked me before, probably rhetorically, what ever was 'so really wrong with my life' as I was struggling with depression/acting out....and that's the answer. Cold-hearted bullies that beat me down, beat my self-confidence into a pulp, and then continued to torment me until I forgot how to cry anymore. I was so into the habit of being large and being picked on that nothing ever seemed like it could change. I eventually had a reliable group of friends, and a boyfriend, that made me feel more secure and things stayed good. After he and I broke up, he being what I'd consider my first 'true love' I hit a downward spiral unlike anything I have ever experience. That first love was everything to me at the time, and still weighs so heavily on my heart. The group of friends was torn in two, and everything you'd expect from a bad breakup occurred. I think my heart really did break..not in the parting, but in the refusal to ever speak to me again, something he has remained steadfast to until this day.

My..what a walk down memory lane. I was horribly bullied and tormented, worse than anyone would ever have known (since I didn't mention much). I lashed out at everyone, I lashed out at myself, I wanted so desperately to crawl out of my skin that I had dreams, that to others seemed like nightmares, of being able to take a blade and peel my skin off like the layers of an onion until the only thing left was a white, gleaming skeleton. A skeleton I could rest in the grass, and let be absorbed by the earth.

My Aunt's wedding. Before weight had really taken hold.

I wasn't emo, I was horribly depressed. I was horribly imbalanced. I had no sense of self, and I struggled with this for years. I wanted to suffer because I felt that was truly all I deserved. I started fights with my family because I felt their persecution was what I deserved.

I hated...everything.

Portia, pictured left, helped me reclaim a piece of 'me'.

I'm better now, but reaching 180lbs to me is a driven mission; a goal I must accomplish and must accomplish as soon as possible. At my largest a friend of mine dragged me to NAAFA meetings where I learned to love/accept myself at my fattest..and truly accepting myself is what made losing weight to be healthier possible. Through her horrible suicide, the one I witnessed firsthand, seeing her blood cover the wall and the smell of gunpowder fill the room...it changed me. It freed me from the prison I'd built around myself, and so I started..slowly to reclaim what it was that makes me me. Slowly, at first, I reclaimed my mental and emotional stability. And now I'll be damned to hell if I let anyone stand in the way of me reclaiming my physical stability.

Please, teach your children not to be bullies. Teach them not to be soul-murdering, heart-breaking bullies. Bullies do nothing but destroy everything they touch, they leave no happy memories, no sweet smiles....they leave nothing but a thick slice of pain and hatred and continue to stomp their victims into the ground long after they're gone from the victim's life.


180? Here I come.

Eggs out.