Have you ever been fat? Not just overweight but obese, fatter than young Monica in F.R.I.E.N.D.S, fat like needing two airplane seats, fat like you’re the only one in a four-person elevator, fat like customised doors in your home, fat like I-broke-four-beds-because-I-sat-on-them, fat like nobody-spoke-to-me-because-they-thought-I-was-smelly-and-gross fat?
I have.
And the trauma of it? I don’t think it ever leaves you. Sure, you can go to therapy, you can attend healing circles, you can sign up for anger management classes because the world is cruel and you were its victim but the root?
I don’t think it’s ever rooted out.
I tried. For years.
More than the mean comments and the “funny” remarks, what really got to me was fat camp.
If you don’t know about fat camp, it’s the place where fat kids go to lose weight.
The politically correct term is “weight-loss” camp. The politically incorrect term, which was used a lot around me, is “fat farm.”
Do you know the Wiki definition of fat camp?
A fat camp, weight loss camp, or fat farm is a type of residential program where people who are overweight or obese go to lose weight through exercise and lifestyle changes. The goal of the camps is to help the guests lose weight, raise their self-confidence and self-image, and teach them healthy life skills and choices.
Idealistic, right?
My experience was hell.
For one thing, nobody told me about the fat-shaming.
“Nobody will ever love you, if you look like this.”
“Your parents look at this ugly face every day?”
“Careful, Wally, we only got one bed for you.”
Wally? Short for walrus.
And these were not the kids, oh no. These were our instructors.
Yes. Instructors.
They had read about tough love. This was their idea of it – to push us so far that we would lose weight just to show them; out of anger, out of desperation.
Now, in all fairness, this is not all fat camps. It was my experience at the one I went to.
The result though was that I came back just 10 pounds lighter. I gained them back quickly, in just under a month.
That was my childhood: taunts, guilt, a feeling of never being able to fit in (literally and otherwise) and truckloads of anger – at my family, at my school, at my peers, at the world.
I had resigned myself to a life of being fat, of being overlooked and of dying early because of my numerous health challenges.
All that changed when I met Linda.
She was the cashier at the supermarket where I worked, bagging groceries. I got assigned to her counter one day. It began with a smile.
Every morning, when I arrived, she would send a smile my way and carry on with her work. No other words, no attempt to communicate. For the first few days, it left me stumped. What did she want? And it also left me feeling wary, uncomfortable and tingly all over. Nobody had ever initiated any form of contact with me, ever.
At 22, that was my sad reality.
Two weeks later, we were smiling at each other every morning.
Another two weeks later, we were wishing each other.
Another two weeks later, she slid a book my way as she was leaving for the day.
I looked at it. Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Huh.
It was a book of 101 inspiring, real-life short stories. As I picked it up, I saw it had been bookmarked to a particular page. I opened it.
It was a story of a woman who had grown immensely overweight after giving birth to two kids. When she was told she would die if she didn’t make serious changes, she flipped a switch. Every evening, she parked her car near a wheat field and walked.
By the time she reached the mile-mark, she would be panting and out of breath. But she had no choice. If she wanted to go back home, she needed the car. And so, back she walked.
A year later, she had lost numerous pounds. Another year later, some more. At the third-year mark, she was the fittest she had ever been.
What kept her going? Her kids. And a single stalk of wheat she had picked up on that first evening. Every time she wanted to give up, she looked at the stalk. It reminded her of how far she had come. And it kept her going until finally, she was where she had always wanted to be – fit, healthy and happy.
I quietly closed the book.
The next morning, I handed in my resignation letter.
Two years later, I bumped into Linda at a coffee shop. She didn’t recognize me until I pulled out of my wallet, a wheat stalk.
A year later, we were married. Five years later, we had three kids.
Today, I’m 55 – fit, healthy, happy.
Linda showed me how to overcome anger: by channeling it, I changed my life.
So, I guess trauma can get rooted out, after all.
Love is the answer.
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