“Fat” was always synonymous with horrible.
It was a word I became so familiar with, I used it against myself in addition to words such as “evil,” “nasty” and “selfish.” If I had to pick things I hated about myself, the word “fat” was up there with the very worst of them.
Trigger warning: Descriptions of eating disordered behavior.
When I was 11, I started secondary school. I was a nervous child, struggling with social difficulties. I suppose that I was never designed to fit in. This made my self-esteem suffer, allowing me to become an easy target for those who enjoyed picking on or making fun of others.
It was particularly bad for me on the school bus. Our bus journeys were 40 minutes long each way. That meant I dreaded 80 minutes of every single school day.
The bullying ranged from insults, to the odd trip, to having empty crisp packets rubbed on my hair. When you get off a bus after that, you feel disgusting and greasy for the entire day. The words hung to me and I couldn’t unstick them from my skin no matter how hard I tried. Each word felt like a dagger to my heart.
I didn’t know how to fit in. I never did. I thought that maybe, if I was a different person, the bullying might stop…
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