In the words of Brené Dark-brown, the title reflects what this mail service is about. Using this weblog to own my story.

I was really pumped to showtime this blog 3 weeks ago, and planned to post regularly, but school got busy and emotions got the best of me. I did a lot of 2nd guessing about even starting this blog, not feeling like the things I have to say or my experiences are worth posting. Sometimes sharing things on social media or in blogs just feels cocky-indulgent, like why should anyone give a shit? But I realized I demand this place to say what I want to say and hopefully information technology resonates with some folkx the way that others' vulnerability inspired me!

I wanted to post a bones introduction to who I am and why I chosen this blog UFFFF!

Fat

I currently alive in a body that is fat. Normally I would preface this with my whole sob-story of how I take struggled with my weight and an undiagnosed eating disorder for most of my life, simply I think trying to justify why my body is how information technology is discounts fat folx who don't take an "excuse". You don't demand an excuse to alive in the body you live in. Definitely own your story, but y'all practise not need to justify anything to anyone. So yep, I will share parts of my story in this blog and so that perchance others tin can relate to it and hopefully run across that there are other truths out there than simply the bullshit diet civilisation brainwashing and body shrinking we accept told ourselves forever. But yous

do not need

some type of story or trauma or life event to have happened that "justifies" why you lot are in the trunk you are in.

I used to be devastated at the thought of shopping in the "plus size" section or shopping at stores like Lane Bryant and Torrid. While I was fat as a teenager, those stores did not really be, so somehow I made due getting myself into the biggest sizes at the stores where the absurd kids shopped–Aero, American Eagle, etc. By the fourth dimension the stores became more pop, I had already begun disordered methods of shrinking my body. I will go into this at some other fourth dimension. This was about x years ago. x years afterward, and I now shop at those stores considering that is what best fits my body. I tin find things at other places sometimes, every bit I have the privilege of still being able to fit into Twoscore at stores with direct sizes, or stores that behave "plus size" which is just some bullshit that is only 1-2x.

I even worked at Torrid for the summer last year and had a blast. I met amazing people, I got a disbelieve on amazing clothes, and I was able to help women shop to make themselves feel good! It was a bully feel–and to exist honest I got the job by existence open about my experience with poor body epitome, ED, and told them I used to Fear having to store at places like this. Until into recovery only a twelvemonth or so ago, I even so held a lot of my ain internalized fat-phobia and bought into the vilification of fat people and fatness. I now hold a lot of shame for ways I perpetuated thin privilege and fatphobia when I was in the depths of my ED and in a small body. I knew what it was similar to be fatty and I knew what it was similar to be smaller (still saw myself as fat and still worked toward getting smaller) then I felt even more than in the right to guess fat people. I was And then wrong. Now my recovery and life and struggles with nutrient, trunk paradigm, etc. has me currently living my life in a fat body. A body fatter than any trunk I have e'er lived in. And y'all know what– it is ok. I am ok. Trunk shapes do not have to be permanent, only the but matter that should shape your body is the love you accept for it, the neutral/balanced human relationship you have with nutrient, and the neutral/counterbalanced relationship y'all accept with practice. If you take to manipulate whatever of those variables, y'all are not practicing self dear, you lot are practicing cocky-hate.

Fit
In the depths of my disorder I was an extreme athlete. I ran several marathons and long distance races; I did multiple obstacle course races every weekend for several years; and still went to the gym each day. On top of that I told myself that the more weight I lost the faster I could be, the stronger I could be, so restriction was a huge role of the equation equally well. The other side of it, though, was that I was working my body and then dangerously difficult and not properly fueling my trunk that "cheat meal" became cheat day, became cheat weekends, became a reason to self hate, self harm, and first the bike of over exercise and restriction again. My relationship with exercise caused my to isolate, avoid people, avoid family functions and only keep saying that once I become to X weight I can be social. I missed my siblings' loftier school graduations, I missed many opportunities to go back habitation and spend fourth dimension with my dad, which is time I volition never get dorsum. Information technology also led to many running and exercise related injuries-fractures, sprains, black outs, chronic hurting, etc. These are things I am still dealing with due to my poor relationship with practise.

Information technology was non until I was in treatment for the kickoff fourth dimension in spring of 2017, that I realized how out of control my relationship with practise had become. So in the previous fall of 2016, I applied to be funded to run the Boston Marathon through Dana Farber cancer research. I got accepted and was running for my dad, who had passed abroad in autumn 2022 from stage 4 lung cancer. Of form, training for a marathon while trying to get ED treatment does not really work out well for really recovering. When my therapist suggested I outset handling, I was like okay sure nosotros will blindside information technology out in 6 weeks, iii nights a week afterwards work, no problem. Human being was I wrong..just nosotros will get into that later. While I am learning all of these amazing tools for recovery similar mindfulness and leaning in emotions instead of numbing out this is affecting my ability to train. Part of becoming a long distance runner was using running to a) punish my body for the food I consume and/or exist able to 'earn' food subsequently and b) numb out from feelings I had. This posed serious issues for the last few weeks of grooming where the runs were long. I was too present in my torso, too emotional, to connected. Information technology was fucking with me. BUT I raised money, ran the miles, put in the work, and completed the 2022 Boston Marathon in April.

I was expecting to feel a lot of things after that race. What I was not expecting when I crossed that finish line on Boylston Street was that…. I.Felt.Nothing. Losing my dad is the hardest thing I accept ever experienced and I thought that with all the support I got raising coin in his honour for DFCI–from my family, friends, his huuuuuge network from his job that I would exist an emotional mess like I usually am. I thought I was finally using exercise in a mode that was not negative. I was wrong. Despite running for several hours that 24-hour interval, 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston, in honor of my dad and with the support of my (now) husband, ii all-time friends, and (at present) sister-in police and her (now) husband, that I would lose it. My ED co-opted this from me also. Times during the race when I started connecting with my body, the estrus, the sweat, the humidity, the uncomfortable team jersey, the imperfections of my "non runner" torso was too much to handle. The thoughts of if I simply had lost more weight I would exist doing better and feeling better. The pains of disordered behaviors past crept into my feet, my ankles, my knees. I couldn't handle it and I dissociated for well-nigh of the race. And when I crossed that finish line I felt nothing. Which was immediately followed by guilt and shame and disappointment that I SHOULD be feeling all the means I said before, and now I had exploited my dad's illness and death for my fucking eating disorder. In talking this over with my treatment team and my therapist outside of treatment it made sense and they told me it was not as cutting and dry as I was making it out to be and that I needed to accept more compassion….merely it still felt shitty. The thing I learned to run into is that things are not black and white. It wasn't one or the other, certain function of the experience was my ED yet creeping in, but the other part was me trying to heal and do something for my dad in a way that I knew how. Sorting through the emotional trauma of losing my dad is not something I could do just past attempting to shrink my body or abuse exercise to run a race for him, despite what my ED wanted. Getting through things similar that take parsing through the emotions not fugitive them.

My human relationship with practise is withal very complicated, especially since I live in a fat torso now. It is so often that the old thoughts creep in. But information technology is not blackness and white. I am not unfit because I don't run marathons. Fit and Fat and are not mutually exclusive terms. Part of my journey in reestablishing my relationship with move is figuring out things I Want to do because I dearest my body non because I am trying to change it.

Feminist
I now proudly call myself a feminist because it is what I feel is right. I used to think that being a feminist was a bad thing, and I did not want to label myself every bit such because stupid white men talk nearly feminism in such a negative, polarizing style (for example the term femi-nazi that was tossed effectually). I was afraid to be seen as a potent, opinionated woman who stood up for things I believed in considering I did not want to be seen as a bitch. I now realize that is just function of what keeps the patriarchy in place and keeps women in a lesser identify to be controlled.

In my journeying with recovering from an ED and exercise addiction and years of self-hatred, internal and external fatty-phobia, and body shame equally well as starting a PhD program where I research negative health outcomes of stigma and stigmatized identities, I realized feminism does non exist without intersectionality…and this is where I need to be in guild to heal myself and share my story; in society to help others heal and take a phonation; and to be able to ethically enquiry the areas that I research.

When I showtime thought about researching "negative furnishings of poor torso image" it was really most learning the science backside my own experiences. But the more I dig in, meet people, appoint with the research and the experiences, I realized trunk image is just role of the larger problem which is living in a white heterosexual patriarchal-led lodge that wants command, diminish, shrink, and abuse those who fall exterior of that. Intersectional feminism and the inquiry I want to do and the person I desire to be uses my privilege to make space at the table for the voice of different races, bodies, (dis)abilities, sexualities, gender identities, socio-economic classes, etc. We must encounter people as having intersectional identities–some with more privilege than others–and you must a)be able to suck it up and recognize the privileges you have based on our society'south structure and history, and b) use that privileges to share your story and allow others to share theirs.

Fabulous
I will keep this one on the short side. I am really trying to figure out this self-love thing. Some days I despise myself and who and what I have "get" or where I am at. Just regardless what my body looks like I know that I am still fabulous, have amazing friends, have a supportive husband, have 2 amazingly silly kitties, and am doing my best to shell my PhD program doing research that supports the larger homo rights bug I have previously discussed. If you are telling your truth, your story, and being as real and authentic as y'all can and people don't similar it–fuck 'em.

Think: "Yous either walk within your story and own it or y'all stand exterior your story and hustle for your worthiness." — Brené Brown

Published past katieeewebber

I am a PhD pupil at UConn and my enquiry focuses on body image, weight stigma, and internalized body shame all within the contexts of interpersonal relationship development and maintenance, gender roles, sexuality and sexual wellness, identity, effects of social media, and representation of bodies and gender in pop culture. Long term, I am interested in interventions regarding communication about bodies, health, and food for health intendance professionals and families. Other areas that intersect my piece of work on trunk paradigm/weight stigma: Social support, LGBTQ, disability, social media, trauma. I am in recovery for an eating disorder and exercise addiction. My recovery body is the largest body I am lived in and office of my process if learning to exist OK with that :) Whatever trunk you are in and any experiences yous have been through, only know it is OK to be exactly who you are <iii View all posts by katieeewebber

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