Mirror Mirror on the Wall; Who’s the Fattest Girl of All?

It is everywhere: splashed on walls, promoted on blogs, competing messages of self-loathing, self-determination, shame and strength. Where do I turn? Where does anyone turn?

Two dear friends post about their weight loss/fitness challenges. They want to change their bodies in the next few months. They want to eat healthier. They want to exercise more. No one can argue with that. We could all use a little more exercise and some healthier food.  While I certainly can’t climb into anyone’s mind, I wonder if they are disgusted by who they have let themselves become or if they are ashamed of their bodies. Maybe they will reshape and contort into an image of themselves that feels worthy. Or maybe they want to feel powerful, strong and healthy.

Which one is it? Are they mutually exclusive?

Can strength and shame stand together in one body?

Then I jump to the opposite posts. The post about self-acceptance and pushing back against shame with acceptance for one’s body–poignant pieces about not wanting to be invisible. Poignant comments from women who feel invisible and don’t want to hide anymore.

Everyone’s shame starts somewhere. Mine begins and ends with my mother. Hers begins and ends with her parents. It’s vicious cycle of self-hatred. My mother’s parents made her fearful of her own image. My mother weighs her jeans. My mother weighs her food. She weighs everyone else’s food in her mind and then she tells you how much she thinks other people are eating.

My mother spent years binging.  She spent years starving. She spent years staring in the mirror, picking herself apart.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fattest girl of all.”

The mirror always called my mother by name. Until one day, it didn’t. It spit out mine instead.

Horrified, my mother made it her mission to save me from my fat that wasn’t actually there.  I wasn’t even chubby. I was 117 pounds. I wore a size 8.

She brought me to a weight-loss specialist.  She tried to bribe me with fitness classes on a beach in California. I called her a bitch.

Despite her, I did have friends, and someone did love me, and I’ve always loved myself…just to spite her…most of the time.

Eventually the mirror stopped lying. I had become truth. By then, my size 8 dresses were in the plus-size range. Somehow, I still had friends, a husband, and I managed to hold onto some shred of self-confidence. But that little voice in the mirror started whispering to me. “You’ve become her worst nightmare. You’re everything she fears. And what’s worse, you refuse to listen to her. You keep fighting.”

 

“Don’t you think you’re husband would…”

“We don’t have a problem in that department mother.”

“Wow, really. That’s surprising. Your father likes me thin.”

“Good for him.”

 

But then I go home to my husband, who according to society should want to go to bed with a mask so he can’t see me, and yet he never makes me feel shame. He isn’t one to praise with words, but he still praises. He’s that guy that nobody talks about. He’s that guy that would never inch away from me on the street. He’d probably wink at me. (if he was the kind of guy that winks)

But don’t tell his friends…they might shame him for loving me as I am.

 

Over-sharing Zavtik Mama, Editor, Writer, Yiddish Lover, Reform Jew, Avid Public Breastfeeder, and now,  the Not-So-Silent B in LGBT, — Shoshana Rachel puts the Shosh in Meshuga one word  at a time.  Read her ever-evolving voice on her blog, Shoshuga or follow her on .