Why I Miss My Fat Body

CW/TW: mentions of mental health, violence/politics of the body... 

(fatphobia, eating disorders, transphobia, sexual violence/rape, survival sex work)

          A part of me is scared to admit, but it's true: my body has changed, not just physically, but in its essences as well. Not only that, the relationships between my body and my mind/society/beyond, have all changed also. Can a rap*d and bruised body bloom as bright again ? How can my body ever forgive me for negotiating a price, like a cheap potted houseplant desperate to be watered, even if/when it's urine... I root for sex work in all its histories/glories, but not that, not as a trans woman of colour not knowing/believing her full worth yet. And while I must acknowledge the privileges that has helped me out of and away from survival sex work, as well as the intellectual ego to dare claim my worth beyond survival... I am here: raw, broken, rotting but not dead yet, trying/growing to (un/re)learn self-care/love, to appreciate my body and all its flaws again, to be able to enjoy pleasure again without mental/emotional pain, to softly trust finally, and to safely breathe again.

          I knew I wouldn't miss being fat, not that I consider myself "thin/skinny" now only from a 3XL to XL and losing about 30 pounds, as I always knew of fatphobia and the aim/normality/glorification of slenderness in our society. Yet I still miss my fat body, especially with the years of working on self-acceptance and self-love after much violence, I miss my fat body and the weight it held back... It certainly is a practice of grace as well as maintaining my social anxiety/triggers while smiling in response to neck-cracking compliments towards my body/weight loss. I didn't realize I had lost that much weight until people started making such statements, I guess the silver-lining is that I finally get some compliments (more like an impression of approval? still toxic...) from my mother as well. What most people are not understanding/considering is the fact that weight loss is a very common/natural reality after trauma incidents, as well as serious concerns with inhabiting eating disorders. I started losing weight when I was having difficulty securing employment last summer: the financial limitations on healthy resources as well as the traumas of sexual violence from survival sex work definitely took a toll on my body (and it proves to show/feel). Also, I figured with my appetite fluctuating, (common due to mental health and feminizing hormones) that it must have been a contributing factor as well. Thus I don't celebrate my weight loss after all, and yet for the glory of my survival and in honour of its journey of changes: I continue to celebrate my body instead, not its non-consensual affects of socio-economical politics...

"I want to make love, but my hair smells of 

War and running and running."

- Warsan Shire

          Beyond missing my fatter/thicker body, I realize that it's important for me to reflect on and write about because in all honesty, I miss my body in general and whole, no matter the size. It also interests/concerns me that from interpersonal observations: I'm more able to have sex without flashbacks of past ra*e/sexual assaults with people I have less emotional connections/reliance with. I come to understand that after much violence, I have been surviving and coping by distancing/disconnecting with my body physically, spiritually, and sexually. It hurts both me and my partner(s) that I'm not ready to share deeper intimacy without being triggered yet, but at least I don't cry pleasuring myself physically anymore... Such raw confessions I force out of me like waterfalls: drowning myself in the sea of clarity and truth, rivering grace and forgiveness, meditating on healing from the inside out.

          I grew up hating my body with such internal/violent shame, then after years of (re/un)learning to love/care for my body again and preparing for its changes, external violence came and I'd say we're back to square one, but I try not to think like that anymore. To break such intergenerational/ancestral and cycling patterns of violence against femmehood, we must understand it to be a non-linear journey of cleansing grace that is only manifested through/from the light of internal/collective reflection/elevation... I must forgive myself for often false-practicing visibility of body positivity as self-love, as I know now that healing is much more than embracing the physical, but to confront the painful/emotional as well. Sharing my body without knowing its worth became comfortable, and all I had left is power without substance in its reclamation of nothingness. This journey starts with a confession: for I have shared/used my body without care, for the ways I would neglect myself of food, rest, cleaning, and for I have lost my ways with loving my body... Thus I surrender/pause/breathe/start again.

          My body: not a temple but a garden, not to be built but grown, not to be laboured but watered on; I miss fatness/fullness/wholeness, within myself that is honoured with a body in all its phases/changes. This body is not missing, not wasting, not rotting but re-seeding/planting/soiling... My garden watered/meditated with tears and prayers, like a test to patience and a practice for grace; I'll say healing takes forever but then we'll all look back and realize, that we were still blooming gloriously and ever softly all along.