is being fat, hell?

Lately I’m trying this extremely annoying new thing where I attempt to believe in myself and my ideas. This writing is foundational to a larger project I’m working on, and my fat hell ambitions come up in conversation as result. The response is mostly positive, but it’s also been a great reminder of what happens when you use the word “fat” in a sentence in mixed company, with people who don’t think about fatness or use the word fat on a regular basis. Just last week I told a colleague about my work, and who this writing is for. She wondered if the audience for this kind of writing goes beyond people on social media who are well-versed in the language of body positivity — could it also be for people who aren’t? She used the example of “friends in her hometown who can’t even bring themselves to use the word fat.” Truthfully, for a split second, the comment made me feel embarrassed — her entire friend group would be horrified to be called a word that is my baseline state of existence? But ultimately, I get it. The word fat has all kinds of powers. 

For me, the word is mostly neutral — though I have to admit that sometimes, I feel negatively about myself and my body, and tie the word “fat” to that feeling

of shittiness and shame. As much as I respect people who can use the word fat freely and proudly 100 percent of the time, I’d be lying if I said that was me. I’m far from fat-actualized, and maybe never will be — but for me, acknowledging that fact while regularly using the word in a neutral or positive way about myself and others is a strategy to chip away at its power and do my part to help it evolve into something new. 

For years though, whenever someone used the word fat in my presence, I got hit with a debilitating wave of dread. I’m not even talking about bullying, either — though there was plenty of that. If anyone even talked about fatness as a concept, I got an immediate, overwhelming urge to shrink myself down and make myself as invisible as possible, terrified that whoever I was talking to would notice that I was fat. Sometimes, I heard kids whispering in class and catch something that sounded like the word fat and it would be enough to send me to the bathroom to vomit. Not only did I not want to be fat, I didn't want to be anywhere near the idea of fatness. Plus, long before the days of body positivity, fat acceptance, clever, identity-affirming marketing campaigns for plus size clothing and fat celebrities, being fat was always a bad thing to be, and the word fat was never used in isolation. Instead, it was always attached to something: Fat and ugly, fat and smelly, fat and stupid, fat and lazy, fat and uncool, fat and useless, fat and untalented. The list goes on.

If you spend enough time hearing that the size and shape of your body is the absolute, most disgusting, most grotesque thing about you, and you hear it associated with all these other negative things, it’s not long before your brain just automatically conflates fatness with everything bad. Somewhere along the way, I realized I would have to figure out a way for the word fat to become something that was mine again. And I’ve done that through my writing.

However, I’m also fully cognizant of two things. One, not everyone has had the opportunity or privilege to wade into the waters of their own psyche and examine their relationship with their body, and even fewer people have had the opportunity to create a body of work as a method of processing. Secondly, I  realize there’s some cognitive dissonance in how I describe my relationship to the word fat, and the name of this newsletter. Is being fat, hell?

To the first point, I say this: This newsletter is first and foremost for people who are fat, and are interested in exploring the experience of existing in a fat body and having to present it to the world every day in clothing. It’s also for fat people who don’t like that they’re fat, fat people who prefer other synonyms to describe themselves, and fat people who’d prefer to shed their bodies and exist as the gentle mist hovering just above the lake at sunrise (me). It’s also for non-fat people who have varying relationships with the word fat — those who want to shed biases, those who are curious about the experience of fatness, and those who need to unpack their own body image issues and don’t yet have the language to do so.

This newsletter is not, however, for Christie, the woman who sent me this message on LinkedIn:

To the second point, fat hell is not a literal interpretation of the idea of what it’s like to be fat. Being fat is hell, sometimes, but it’s also many other far more interesting and nuanced things. Fat hell refers more to the state of the world as it relates to fatness. We’re living during a time when more fat people are more visible than ever. People are paying attention to body positivity, fat acceptance and inclusivity in a way they never have before — but often, the same people who champion a more accepting, less shamey way of life are loath to refer to themselves as fat, and get visibly uncomfortable when the word fat is used around them. That cognitive dissonance — finally seeing yourself in a world that largely still feels, at best, uncomfortable with your existence and at worst, still thinks your body is the byproduct of a series of dangerous mistakes (hey christie) — is what fat hell is all about. 

TLDR: Being fat isn’t hell, but fat hell is real.