The Value of Self

One of the biggest roadblocks I have had to overcome in this journey is my own self esteem.  I used to begin weight loss regimens by just being so disgusted with my weight I had to do something about it.  I began to hate the fat with a passion - needing something that strong in order to jumpstart my goals.

The problem was, eventually that hate turned on me and ended up putting me right back on the path of destruction.  When the plateaus came and I couldn't lose that fat I detested so much, my own self loathing would eat me up and I would implode.

I had to finally come to terms with the fact I am not a fat person.  I am a person who is fat.  Fat is not my identity - it doesn't define me.  I define me.  My heart, my compassion, my passion, my intellect, my creativity - these are the things that define me.  They change not at all whether I'm 100 lbs or 500 lbs.

In our society women are judged by how they look and men are judged by what they make.  If women are unnattractive by society's standards, or men are unsuccessful by society's standards, there's an unspoken undercurrent that they are substandard.  We buy into this ideology whenever we perpetrate this myth onto our children by accepting this as truth. 

Women who constantly go on and on about how fat they are are teaching their daughters that they are somehow inferior to their thinner counterparts.  We teach the girls of tomorrow their value comes from their dress size.  We teach young women that if they are overweight, they aren't worth love.  We accept this drivel and internalize it - spewing this venom onto others out of our own self loathing souls just by accepting it as our own personal truth.

I thought I had this conquered until Steven's indiscretion in February.  Then I realized I only had an artificial self esteem that came from knowing I had to be worth loving because someone else was loving me.  Once that love was questioned, my self esteem sank and my self destruction returned.  The minute I allowed myself to question if I was worth love just because I'm morbidly obese - I was buying into society's lie that as a woman I'm only worth a damn if I can look pretty.

What a superficial and destructive view of love this is.  This isn't the love of God's example - this is lust of man's example.  I let men judge me so badly I'm afraid to be myself in any forum that men dominate - including the screenwriting world.  I keep thinking if I just lose the weight then I'll have the physical attractiveness needed to survive in that world.  This is fueled by years of hearing things like, "You're so pretty in the face."  "If you just lost weight you'd be a knockout."  "Don't you want to attract a man?"

Not once was my weight addressed as a health issue.  Not once was I told I had value enough to take care of myself and my health to live a long and happy life.  Not once was I told that if someone couldn't love me because of how I looked on the outside, they weren't worth a damn on the inside.  No - I instead bought into the whole degrading myth that I was an unworthy, subhuman who only deserved to be used.

The reason this journey has lasted as long as it has is because I had to separate my identity from my dress size.  I had to recognize I have value even if I'm not at my goal weight.   I had to realize that I had to love myself as is, to get to where I wanted to be. 

I've watched other people on the same journey who had such low self esteems (demonstrated by how they talked about themselves - calling themselves big fat cows, etc) fall by the wayside, giving into the comfort that comes from depending on the love of food.  The reason being you cannot be that abusive to yourself and then do what is necessary to nurture yourself.  Most people wouldn't call another human being half the ugly things they call themselves when berating themselves for falling short of physical perfection.  I watched my own sister swing from one end of the spectrum of being anorexic to being overweight because her value was so wrapped up in being thin - so other people could fill the gap of self esteem that she could not.  A lot of women all over this nation are starving themselves so that other people whose opinion should not even count can bear to look at them. 

We, as women, need to stand up and refuse this terrible destructive myth that is killing us and destroying our lives and our happiness.  We need to recognize the value we have just by being who we are and stand up for that value in the face of anyone - including ourselves - who seek to diminish us due to physical imperfection.

No one is perfect, no size is perfect, no woman is unworthy of love just based on the shell her soul needs to house it. 

Reject the vanity of a superficial and unforgiving society.  If you live to please others, you're always going to fall pathetically short.

Love who you are now, and that will pave the road to who you want to be.