body positivity struggle bus

Hi friends. Warning: I'm feeling shitty about myself and my body tonight, so this blog is more negative than I'd prefer. Fair warning.

So, I struggle with body positivity. My body, for all the cool things that it can do, is way outside the "normal" range of bodies and therefore I often feel kind of shitty about it.

First of all, it's very heavy, which makes it hard to trust new or small looking chairs. In high school I went to an end-of-the-year bonfire at a friend's house. We were all sitting in lawnchairs, but before the night was over mine began to buckle and, in an attempt to subvert an embarrassing moment with humor, I rode the damn thing to the ground. I still remember that night, 14 or more years later. The heaviness, also, is hard on my feet and my back and my furniture and my bike and etc etc etc.

My body's extra wide, so I'm always worried that I won't fit in a space - booths in a restaurant are both a crapshoot and a hell. They are often too tight (but once you've sat in them it would be anathema to request to move so you spend the whole meal in pain, sometimes to the point of bruising, not be able to enjoy your food or even laugh or take a deep breath). I hate sitting on public transit and I basically won't fly because I don't need that awfulness in my life. This limits my travel options and thus the sphere of life I can directly experience.

My body requires a lot of energy to move. I do love hiking and riding my bike and going for walks, but sometimes the thought of doing that is just... too much. I tire more quickly than most of my friends. When hiking I am *always* the slowest. I tried to climb a mountain early this summer and it was humiliating; for some reason I really thought I could do it. I hiked up steep slopes for a long time, huffing and puffing and feeling out of place but excited. Unfortunately, there was a false summit. I got to the top of the false summit with a lot of encouragement from my significant other, but when I saw the real summit still some distance away I collapsed, sobbing. I failed at something I was really, really excited about. I failed because of my body.

Sometimes because of how my body is, it hurts. Or things happen to it that don't happen to smaller bodies. Or sometimes I'm afraid to try new things with my body because I don't trust it.

Because of how society views bodies like mine, people immediately think they know things about me. About my work ethic, or my motivation, or my intelligence, or my desirability, or other things. Their judgements are usually negative, because society has trained all of us, myself included, to view bodies like mine as bad. As moral failures. As failures of character, or will, or self-control, or upbringing, or culture, or whatever.

I have internalized many of these beliefs. A lot of my core self-talk revolves around feelings of shame and laziness and unworthiness. Some of my fundamental beliefs about myself are so cruel I could never speak them to another person. Yet I carry that weight around too, and maybe my body is a physical manifestation of those beliefs.

But I am trying to unlearn those patterns of thoughts and behavior. Some time ago I began intentionally seeking out the social media profiles of other fat men. I found Chubstr, which discusses style for large men. I found 300 Pounds and Running, which is just what it sounds like. I found Unlikely Hikers and a few other groups or profiles. I'm currently enrolled in a Men's Body Trust group with a registered dietician (though we thankfully don't discuss diet, or at least haven't yet).

So anyway. I'm working on it now, but I still absolutely hate myself sometimes. It's a trip, y'all.