Fat Girl

And not the PH phat.

TW: Suicide

My parents are very fit. My whole family is. My grandfather was a boxing champion, my cousins kite-surf, play tennis, do yoga, ballet, football (the one with an actual round ball and a foot), you name it. I used to play rugby, but in 2011 I got into a car accident that left me handicapped for almost a year, handcuffed to a hospital bed for months, and unable to be who I used to be. But even when I played rugby, I didn’t fit into the US sizes 0-6 my family members boasted about. I was constantly compared to them until I internalized the judgment and comparison.

My parents are, by Egyptian standards, quite cool and alternative. By my standards, they’re hard-working and had a very heteronormative life trajectory. They worked, they traveled for work, they hung out with their friends, they partied, they drank, and they traveled for fun. Being young and clueless, my parents spent a lot on my education, and on entertainment, but they were physically abusive sometimes. They weren’t bad parents; they just weren’t ready to have a child.

Furthermore, I blossomed early and was the first cousin to have anything resembling a booty. Being the black sheep of the family, the only only-child, the only one going to a German school, the one with the most physically abusive but least present parents, I never felt like I belonged. The fridge, however, never rejected me, and she was always there. The agony of being alone more often than not made me turn to the fridge to fill the void. I also didn’t like my own company, so pizza seemed like a good friend. Pizza would never cancel plans or just lay under the duvet waiting for a better-looking plan than me. One night when I was 16, I had an entire medium pizza and tried to kill myself an hour after.

“…everyone would laugh at the hilarity of this violence, and I would turn to chips and chocolate for comfort.”

Slowly but surely in the course of my life, I’d put on a bikini and there’d be no escaping the male gaze. My dad’s friends, second cousins, and everyone else seemed to notice my ladies. In response, my dad said I wasn’t allowed to wear bikinis till I lost some weight. We are not preparing our men for the real world. I felt so small, even though I was physically bigger, because I had to censor myself so these men could control their gaze. 

Then the comments began: my cousin would say things like, “We might have to buy you two movie tickets because you won’t fit in just one seat.” Everyone would laugh at the hilarity of this violence, and I would turn to chips and chocolate for comfort. 

In the morning, my father would have me weigh myself before school and write down my weight in his notebook. That’s the first thing I did (and dreaded) when I woke. I remember walking on the cold tiles from my bedroom to my parents’ bathroom, where the scale was, trying to only walk on the carpets because the tiles sent cold shudders up my back. I’d always pee and take a shit before standing on the scale, just to weigh a few hundred grams less. My mom’s role was to keep a close eye on what was in the fridge, in case I ate a little more than I was allowed. I remember being unable to wait until my parents went out just so I could go to the fridge and stare at the food. Just to have the chance to open the fridge and stand in front of it, looking at what was inside it, trying to figure out what I could take little spoons or bites of without my mom noticing. 

“I am bigger than your common standard of beauty; I have glorious curves, and I love my body. It took years of therapy to not need external validation to feel worthy.”

In the fifth grade, I stole a spoon of strawberry jam out of the fridge. (I just noticed how I said: “stole”. I was going to go back and edit it, but it felt like stealing at the time. It was food in my parents’ fridge, and I was 12 years old — it wasn’t stealing by any stretch, but here we are.) I heard the school bus downstairs and ran out without washing the spoon. I sat in school all day, totally unable to focus on any classes or enjoy downtime with my peers. I came home that afternoon, expecting and dreading my mother’s reaction to my stealing of the jam. My great-grandmother had passed away that day, and my mother seemed to not have noticed the dirty spoon. I was relieved. I loved Mama Soad, my great-grandmother, but I remember only feeling relief the day she passed because I got the opportunity to quietly wash my spoon before my mom could dry her eyes. 

With time, I grew into a woman who fluctuates from sort-of fit to a little less fit. I’ve had two gastric surgeries, one that gave me ulcers that I still suffer from to this day, and was way too young to consent to. I am bigger than your common standard of beauty; I have glorious curves, and I love my body. It took years of therapy to not need external validation to feel worthy. It took years of therapy to get over and laugh at that one-liner joke David Grimm made about my ass in the 7th grade. 

“I don’t tolerate bullshit like I used to, and I am aware of the space I deserve, and I take it when it’s safe.”

It took years of therapy to be able to take up the space I deserve. It took years of therapy to not feel like I have to censor or shrink myself because other women, who can control their hunger and their fitness better, deserve my space more. It took years of therapy to not accept just anyone because I was scared of being alone. It took years of therapy to be able to walk up to a person and flirt with them. It took years of therapy to be able to set boundaries. It took years of therapy to understand that my food addiction was filling a void.

I eat when I’m hungry, and I eat whatever I feel like eating. I fluctuate between a size 8 and a size 12 (US) and I feel beautiful either way. I can sit and do nothing; I can exist alone without being consumed by my own anxiety. I learned that I am not what my parents see, I am what I see, and that my parents didn’t party and leave me alone because I’m terrible or because they’re terrible, but rather because they were still too young to have a child, still too self-absorbed to accept what’s different — someone with different standards of beauty, and very different priorities in life.

Food is glorious, and I still love and appreciate it, but it’s not my companion anymore, I am. I grew into myself, and it wasn’t until my late 20s that I did. Having grown up as the one everyone made fun of, as the one who had to be funny to be loved, and the one who had to accept a lot of abusive behavior just to have company, it took half of my adulthood to grow out of these patterns. I don’t tolerate bullshit like I used to, and I am aware of the space I deserve, and I take it when it’s safe. I am endlessly grateful for my therapist, endlessly grateful for my willpower and determination to love myself, and the friends I have now for loving me.