Designated Fat Girl (7 page)

I tried, I really did. I was able to lose a few pounds by watching what I ate and exercising. If I were on a reasonable timetable, maybe I would have had a shot at substantial weight loss. But with each passing day, my panic grew, and the weight wasn’t coming off fast enough.
I’ll just have to try harder, take more drastic measures,
I told myself. I severely limited my food intake, or tried to fast altogether. But we all know these things don’t work, not in the long term. After a few days of starving myself, I would binge eat everything in sight. Net weight loss: zero.

In order to keep up my charade, I had to make up an excuse not to attend SuLin’s wedding shower. She wasn’t stupid; she had figured out by now that something was really, really wrong. I hadn’t yet made arrangements to pick up my bridesmaid’s dress, to see if it needed altering. Little did she know that dress could get all the altering in the world; I still wouldn’t be able to wear it. I had also promised SuLin she could borrow my
wedding veil, and she was waiting to see me in order to try it on and make sure it worked with her dress. I was missing all the festivities leading up to the most important day in my best friend’s life. I couldn’t believe this was happening, and more important, I couldn’t figure a way out.

Finally, about a month before the wedding, I couldn’t deny it any longer. I wrote SuLin a letter. I was such a coward, so ashamed, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell her on the phone. I did at least tell the truth in writing, letting her know that my weight had been spiraling out of control and I would be unable to stand up for her. As lame as it seemed, I apologized for lying to her, and I truthfully wrote that I didn’t know what was happening to me or how to stop it. I told her I loved her, and I sent her the letter, along with the veil.

She called a couple of days later, but of course I was too chicken to pick up the phone. She left me an angry, tearful message, questioning how I could do this to her. I had no excuse, nothing I could say, but I should have tried. She deserved so much better than she got from me. I didn’t return her call. I paid for a bridesmaid’s dress I never saw, much less wore. And I missed my best friend’s wedding. I had made such a mess of things, and I had only myself to blame.

About a year later I heard from SuLin. Incredibly, she missed me and wanted to know how I was. I eagerly called her back and learned her great news: She and her husband were expecting their first child. I cried, happy for her, relieved at her forgiveness, and in sorrow for missing so many important things. She didn’t ask me about my weight, sensing (correctly) that I wasn’t ready to talk about it. We promised to get together soon. But
it never happened. I was by this point morbidly obese and so ashamed of how I looked. I couldn’t bear to see SuLin again, and we slowly lost touch. My weight gain, and my inability to deal with it with any sense of rationality, had cost me one of the great friendships of my life. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over it.

If I said the very same scenario almost repeated itself a few years later, surely no one would believe me. There’s no way I could have allowed another friend to suffer because of my inability to admit the truth, is there?

Remember who we are dealing with here.

My other best friend, Valerie, was not friends with SuLin, so she missed the entire wedding fiasco. And of course I didn’t confide in her what had happened—the fewer people who knew about my horrible weight gain and the destructive path it was taking in my life, the better. As luck would have it, Valerie was in college several hundred miles away from me, and the chances to actually see her were few and far between. We kept in touch by phone, and when it was time for her to walk down the aisle, she asked me to be in her wedding. This was a few years after the SuLin incident and several years into my weight battle. I was close to 250 pounds, and again, the idea of slipping into a bridesmaid’s dress was as foreign to me as becoming the queen of England. But of course, I told Valerie I would be in her wedding. I reasoned with myself that I would be more realistic with my weight loss goals this time—I would never try to pretend to Valerie that I could fit into a size-14 dress. Instead I gave her measurements for a size-18 gown, figuring I’d surely be able, this time, to lose some weight. Never mind I was in size-22 work clothes at this point. Never mind that
I already knew Valerie’s bridesmaid’s dresses were strapless, but mercifully, in navy blue this time around. Could I imagine myself wearing a sleeveless dress at a public event of any sort weighing as much as I did? Heavens, no—and I thought that, along with the humiliation and shame that had accompanied what had happened with SuLin, it would finally give me what I needed to lose the weight.

Shockingly that didn’t happen.

Amazingly, though, history didn’t completely repeat itself. With two months to go before the wedding, I found the courage to confess my predicament to my friend. In an actual phone call, even. Valerie was upset, angry that I had lied to her. But she was also sympathetic and wanted to help me. She drove to see me the very next day.

Agreeing to see her face-to-face was so hard. I had hidden for so long from the people in my past, even friends who had meant so much to me. But the shame of my actions and my desire to somehow rectify them gave me the strength to face her. She came to my house, and we hugged forever. “You’re beautiful,” she beamed, and I cried with relief. I had my friend back, and I’d managed to scrape together a bit of integrity.

Being in Valerie’s wedding was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I was never the type to think “big is beautiful,” not as it pertained to my own body. I was ashamed, and I felt gross, but I was determined to be there for my friend’s big day. I went to see the seamstress, who properly measured me and told me I could possibly fit into a size-24 dress, if we could let it out. I choked back tears as I called the boutique and painfully relayed my dilemma. A couple of days later, I received
the bad news: They didn’t make the dress in a size 24. The largest was an 18.

Horrified and humiliated, I consulted the seamstress, who found a solution: I could order another size-18 dress, and she could make it work. Yes, I would have to have a dress specially made in order to fit my big fat body. I truly wanted to die, wanted to avoid this public embarrassment at any cost. But I simply couldn’t do that to another friend. I had to do whatever it took to make it right, even if it meant losing some face.

The dress was constructed. I was in the wedding. It was really, really hard. I saw a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years, friends who had no idea about my huge weight gain. I smiled and acted as though nothing was wrong. They did the same. My heart was breaking inside, finally having to face the disappointment I had imagined all those years. I felt so very low.

But the smile on Valerie’s beautiful face was radiant. She was gorgeous on any day, but on this occasion, she was breathtaking, and I was happy I was there to witness it. I was there for my friend, no matter the cost. And that really did mean something to me.

Like so many other areas of my life, I used my weight gain as an excuse to mishandle the friendships in my life. I lost touch with so many important people, all because I couldn’t admit the truth about who I was or was too ashamed to show myself in public. My weight battle left an ocean of regret in its wake, and even as I write this today, I don’t know that I will ever truly recover from my own disappointment.

I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you about mooning
my in-laws.

Yes, you read that right.

It was way back in 1996. Michael and I had been married for three years, and I was hopelessly entrenched in my weight battle. I don’t remember exactly how much I weighed, but I’m thinking it must have been about 240 or so. I say that because on the day in question, I was wearing shorts. I feel pretty confident that once I hit the 250 mark (and beyond), shorts were not something I ever wore in public. Perhaps this incident is the reason why.

Michael and I had just gotten a new puppy, a cute little Jack Russell terrier we named Sasha and who still lives with us today. We were excited to show Michael’s parents, so we brought her over to their house. We were all in the family room, sitting on the floor, admiring the new snow-white addition to the family. Michael excused himself for a moment to use the restroom. As soon as he left the room, Sasha stopped jumping and playing on the floor and acted as if she might squat and pee right there on their beautiful rug. Horrified, I jumped up and grabbed her, moving quickly to the back door to take her outside.

And my shorts fell to my ankles.

And. I. Wasn’t. Wearing. Underwear.

You see, I was such a hopeless mess about the weight gain and what to do about it that when my underwear no longer fit, I simply stopped buying any. And it didn’t help that the shorts I was wearing were from about thirty pounds previous and the elastic was pretty shot. Of course it made no sense, and the shame that I feel now recounting the story is only slightly eclipsed by the sheer horror I felt right in that moment. I froze for about half a second—which felt like an eternity—as I stood at that back door, completely mortified, wondering what in the hell to do. In the end I felt I had no other choice. As deftly as I could, I bent down (aagh!) and picked my shorts back up. Then I walked out the back door, never facing them or seeing their reaction.

And I never spoke of it. Ever.

I never told Michael. And I certainly didn’t say anything to my in-laws. I remained outside with Sasha quite a while, and when I came back in, Michael had rejoined his parents. They didn’t say a word, and they never indicated they saw anything.

Many of my experiences as an obese person were quite painful and will take years for me to process. But this incident, while embarrassing beyond words, does make me chuckle just a bit. The moral of the story: No matter how much you weigh, if you’re planning to go commando, make sure your shorts fit!

They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I’m sure all of us can think of several things we’d like to go back and change in our lives. I certainly would love to have not experienced such a huge weight gain, with all its implications. But even within that struggle, I see so many ways in which I didn’t help matters, and in some cases, I made them much, much worse.

For example, clothes. When I was a teenager, I was such a clotheshorse. I worked in a department store, and I used my discount to buy beautiful jackets and sweaters and suits. I always dressed older than my age, and I was usually overdressed, even at school. But I loved it. I enjoyed looking professional, even as a young adult. And I loved picking out clothes and trying new combinations.

I suppose you could say I was overcompensating. I was always overweight, and I never felt pretty or admired. Clothes were my way of looking as nice as I possibly could, and I took great pride in what I wore. I may have been chubby, but I was neat and stylish!

When the added weight gain started, I was barely in my twenties. At first I just bought bigger sizes. It hurt to have to do so, but remember: I always had a plan, always had a strategy as to how I was going to fix it. When I had to start buying clothes in sizes 14 and 16, I figured it was only temporary. But of course it didn’t get better, and soon size 16 didn’t fit. And then size 18 didn’t fit. And I was completely lost and devastated. When this happened to me, in the early 1990s, there wasn’t the proliferation of plus-size clothing there is now. Obese women had to shop at stores like Catherine’s, a place I remember going to with my grandmother when I was a little girl—a place that, back then, definitely catered to the over-sixty crowd. There was no Lane Bryant. No Ashley Stewart. I was relegated to the misses section at department stores like Ivey’s and Belk, where I had limited choices. I may have dressed older than my age, but the clothing options left to me were for the geriatric set. So not only was I gaining weight and feeling terrible about my inability to
do anything about it, I was also unable to make myself feel better with stylish clothes, something that had always helped me when I struggled with weight issues growing up.

Shopping for a special occasion was a nightmare, and I avoided it as much as possible by simply not attending special occasions. I made excuses when it came to company holiday parties or special birthday events. But sometimes I just couldn’t avoid it. My brother-in-law’s mother died after a long battle with cancer, and it was important to me to be there for the funeral. The problem: I had nothing to wear. You would think a black outfit would have been easy to come up with, but everywhere I looked, the clothes were fitted jackets and skirts for size-4 women. Finally, after a long day of store hopping, I found what can only be described as a big black tent that masqueraded as a dress. Sure it had little fancy gold buttons and a collar, but it was a size-24 black bedsheet as far as I was concerned. Still, I had to have something, and it fit, so I bought it. I wore it to work the next day before the funeral, and one of my coworkers walked in and said, “Hey! It’s Mama Cass!” You know, from the Mamas and the Papas? Yeah, not very complimentary, unless you have a great singing voice. I don’t. I choked back tears and thought about how that’s what I got when I tried to make an effort.

So, I just gave up.

I was tired from looking, and I wanted to do anything to avoid the pain I felt when I shopped, so I didn’t shop. I bought three to four outfits that I could fit into, and that was all I wore. No, I didn’t think that was okay, but again, the push-pull was always at play. I would convince myself that my state was temporary and I would soon be in more normal clothes sizes.

Over the years, as obesity numbers in this country skyrocketed, the clothing choices got better. You had labels that catered to plus-size women without giving up (too much) fashion. Even well-known brands like Liz Claiborne and Tommy Hilfiger designed clothing for larger ladies. But I, sadly, never caught on. I should have, no matter my size, taken more pride in my appearance. But honestly I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror. I absolutely detested shopping for clothes because it made me confront, head-on, how much weight I had gained and how much I had lost because of my weight. Clothes used to be such a source of pleasure for me, and now the weight and my inability to control it had robbed me of that enjoyment.

Now that’s not to say I never bought anything. I was a professional career woman, and I had to have clothes for work. But I kept it as safe and as bland as possible. First of all, I had every variation of the black top available. Black sweater. Black blouse. Black button-down shirt with long sleeves. Black turtleneck. I wore so much black that my brother once referred to me as Johnny Cash (ouch). And Michael’s grandmother once took me by surprise when several family members were talking about their favorite color. She said my favorite color must be black because I wore it all the time (ouch again). No, black wasn’t my favorite color, but it’s what I thought I needed to wear to hide as much as I possibly could. I had a few pairs of slacks that I rotated around to go with my various black tops, but truly I only had four to five working outfits at any given time. I just couldn’t bring myself to buy more. I stupidly thought that doing so would be admitting defeat, and if I couldn’t buy all the beautiful clothing I wanted in the sizes I longed for, then I wasn’t
going to buy pretty clothes at all. I really made it so much worse than it needed to be. But what can I say? I was mired in sickness. After years of mightily battling my weight, and failing miserably, I think I convinced myself that I didn’t deserve to look good, that it was pointless to spend time and money on my appearance. My self-worth took such a beating; instead of making the most out of a bad situation, I chose to wallow in my misery. Not only did I feel like crap, I looked like shit most of the time.

When I could no longer fit into 3X clothing, I was forced to go to more of the specialty shops. This was when I was approaching three hundred pounds, and department stores tend to stop at size 24W, or 3X. Thank goodness this didn’t happen in the early to mid-1990s, because I don’t know what I would have done then, the choices were so limited. But as it was, I could go to Lane Bryant and find bigger sizes. The cost was enormous, but I had no other choice. I do chuckle to myself when I remember one time being in the dressing room, trying on a couple different versions of the black top in size 26/28 (yikes!), when all of a sudden a woman from another dressing room cried out, “It fits!” I think all the women there could relate to the relief in her voice, and we all broke out in spontaneous applause. It was one of the few times that I can remember somewhat bonding with another overweight woman, although it was through the relative anonymity of a closed-door dressing area.

There are two clothing items I abstained from completely as a morbidly obese person: jeans and bathing suits. The latter has to be pretty obvious, I think. I know there are plenty of plus-size women who have no problem wearing bathing suits, refusing to allow extra pounds to keep them from enjoying themselves. I
am so not one of those women. Yes, I have been known to go to the beach FULLY CLOTHED. We’re talking long blouse, capri pants—the works—because I couldn’t bear the thought of baring it all in public. I think I would have rather died first. I felt much the same way about jeans. I thought once you reached a certain size, jeans were no longer an option. And I made that decision even before “skinny jeans” became so popular. I suppose taking that stance came of out of necessity in the beginning. Again, there weren’t many options when I first started to really gain weight, and other than buying a pair of husky men’s jeans at Kmart, an obese woman was pretty much out of luck. Of course that changed over the years, and now you can buy virtually any size jeans you want; but I still can’t make myself do it, even now that I’m not morbidly obese. I don’t know, something seems too binding about them to me. There have been many, many nights over the years when I wondered if I would ever put on a pair of sexy jeans for my husband again, if I would one day don a bathing suit and play at the beach with my kids. When I was deluding myself, I thought,
No problem, I can easily do that in the next six months or so.
At my lowest I felt as though jeans and bathing suits had passed me by forever. Sometimes, I still feel that way.

Ugghh … my back aches. Wanna know why? Because I’ve had to keep my legs and thighs exactly together all day. Wanna know why? I have a hole in my pants in the inner thigh area. Now I guess you want to know why I wore these pants when I knew they had a hole in them. BECAUSE I CAN’T FIND ANY PANTS
TO FIT ME! I’ve been shopping at least five times in the last ten days, and I’ve come up empty. Yes, I have black pants … yes, I have gray pants. (Gray! Doesn’t that by itself sound terribly depressing?!) But I can’t find cream pants or khaki pants … and I can’t wear the same black pants over and over. In fact I already feel as though I’m doing that, and I am terribly self-conscious about it. So that’s why I knowingly wore a pair of pants with a hole in them. And I am now paying the price in backaches.

I wish I could say that kind of thing was rare, but sadly, it wasn’t. I was so determined not to confront my appearance issues that I let things like that slide all the time. I can remember blouses with permanent stains on them that I convinced myself weren’t that bad and wore them anyway. They
were
that bad. I can also remember taking a shirt out of a dry cleaner’s bag and discovering that one of the buttons had been broken in half. I was running late and didn’t have anything else clean, so I wore the blouse to work anyway. When you only have three or four blouses to choose from, it really puts you in a bind if something goes wrong. So I told everyone I didn’t notice it until I got all the way to work. I tried to laugh it off, but I knew how pathetic I was being.