From Danielle Daigle, Hart County, Kentucky; favorite food: Tastykake Pies

Have you ever looked in a full length mirror, clothes on, or otherwise? Have you ever nit-picked at your own body, all the flaws? All the things you see, that you don’t want to? This is what I go through every day… My only problem is, I “can’t see” well, not literally completely blind, but almost there. My mother always told me I had problems with  peripheral  vision, and depth perception. My vision [as of the last time I had it tested] Was something like 700/20L 300/20R That doesn’t mean I have bionic sight by the way. It just means that my left eye is practically useless. The doctor said it only supports 20% of my vision.

Back to my point. Imagine what it would be like to nit-pick, only not really get to see what you’re picking at? It totally throws off what you “think” you’re seeing, and what you actually are. I can stand in front of a mirror, and do this, until I can’t stomach myself any longer.

   I remember the first time I ever criticized my body. I was seven. My mother took me to buy a new swimsuit. We were in the dressing room of a little store on Torresdale Ave, that’s not there anymore. I had this “totally awesome” bathing suit on, y’know the kind that had a top and a bottom, but the stomach was bare? My mother said I looked like a pink and purple hippo. Maybe not the nicest things that have ever came out of her mouth, and I’m sure it seemed like a harmless observation to her, but let’s face it, anything a mother says that’s negative to their children, is often over-analyzed until you forget about it, then it’s just imprinted into the back of your brain until death.  I have lots of issues with my mom, if you haven’t already guessed. Anyhow, I turned back around and looked into the mirror, a broken hearted child, poking at her own stomach. Swimsuit shopping has been a disaster for me ever since.

 The self critiquing got worse as I got older. My youngest sister, is like 6 feet tall and a whopping 2 pounds. She is the epitome of beautiful, and EVERYONE tells her so. So when people look at us, they never think “oh that’s her sister” no, because we look absolutely nothing alike.

      I am a size 22. I always thought of myself as just “short” or “big boned” or, even better “big boob-ed” I do have big boobs, but right now they’re on top of an even larger stomach. ERGH! There I go again! Why do we do this to ourselves? Why? It makes me angry, the way that women are desired, only after primping and preening.  Size 6 is the new 14? So what does that make me??

    My best friend in the world, is a dreamer, she’s a planner, a thinker. So many times we both have thought about getting one of those industrial ties around our stomachs and then we’d BOTH be done with this “fatness” but it’s still not a sealed deal. Which is why I’ve never gone through with it.

I’ve tried to be thin without such extremes by the way.. I’ve tried the South Beach, the Atkins, the grapefruit, the boiled chicken.. All of those diets never worked. I’ve even gone to the gym, like 5 times a week for a- well it wasn’t that long of a time, but it was enough to see I wasn’t getting any results there either. [The whole big ass breakfast at Perkins after we were done wasn’t much help though] I’ve worked out at home, but still yet, have only lost two sizes at most. It’s hard to maintain healthy exercise.

My one and so-far only big breakup, was just more food to the fire. Sitting at home and doing NOTHING, just made me grow. But, I’m happy for that, because my ex was always skinny, or at most just had a “non beer beer belly”. But now he’s fat too :].

It makes me wonder why the man I’m with now is with me. He’s good looking, has muscles and everything, and he could get someone so much prettier. That’s another thing to. Moving away from home, down here to hillbilly hell has just made me get even fatter. With a non-stop deep-fried, diet, and no exercise, I am going to over-eat until I explode.  But I rarely over eat, I rarely go have a second helping. I try to leave something on my plate to be lady-like. How do these bitches get so thin? Or stay so thin? Every woman who I have met, is blond and is as skinny as a rail. Two words for all of this “fuck Kentucky”. Not literally of course.

Now I’m almost 32 years old. I’ve been done growing vertically since i was 16. An even 5’0”, so that knocks growing thin, way out of the park. I’m getting older, and I can tell my body is starting to age. If I can’t love my body now, I guess I never will. How sad is that?

Ok well, I think this is enough of me posting my inner-most thoughts, and fucked up issues. I just want to add one more thing, Sabrina really is the shit, I didn’t mean to go way off topic there, but she is. I’m proud that she is brave enough to post something like this. I struggle with being fat every day, she just makes it look cool. <3