Fuck the people who dared to tell me I was fat when I was at my lowest mentally

I don’t think anyone will read as much as I have to say but it would be nice to let this out :)

Preface : I’m just going to refer to these people as bully 1, bully 2, bully 3, etc... I don’t believe I was actually bullied but maybe my perception of bullying is warped because I had a pretty rough time socially in my childhood and I don’t really feel like any of that was ‘proper bullying’ however I won’t get into that. I’m just stating them as bullies so it’s easier to get into.

I’ve always struggled with my self image, I (15f now) was a pretty tall, chubby kid growing up and I always saw that as a bad thing as I didn’t look like the other kids around me and I was always determined to lose the weight. - I didn’t end up doing that (at least not safely) because I had a general lack of support from my parents as they are overweight themselves and I’m pretty sure they found it hard to provide a healthy routine for me when they couldn’t really stick to one themselves (I’m not blaming them or anything, I love them dearly, it’s just the way it is). So whilst I look back and think how easy it could have been to fix my habits healthily back then, unfortunately that’s not the case, and it doesn’t help pondering on what could of been.

Anyway when I got into secondary school (middle school-high school for Americans and such) I found I was more in control of what I ate, and since I had a lack of knowledge about proper nutrition, I decided the best way to lose weight was to just not eat/ eat a little bit less. So I didn’t eat lunch and tried to eat as little as I could when I got home. I also did a bunch of swimming as that is the only sporty thing I truly enjoy. Anyway I lost quite a bit at the start, and it was all going well even though I was practically starving myself, and I still wanted to lose more. The problem was I really love food and so I started reintroducing snacks into my daily diet and I gained a lot back in the span of a year. I went back to not eating lunch however it wasn’t as easy as it was before and I struggled to lose weight. I believe this was the cause of what I think is my ‘binge eating’ as I really have trouble controlling my food now and it is my downfall. I don’t believe I had anorexia or bulimia before and so I wouldn’t want to invalidate anyone’s legitimate struggles with those specific eating disorders by pushing me into the same boat. Anyway I gained all of it back and more and since then my weight has yo-yoed which has caused me a bunch of other insecurities such as incessant, unrelenting stretch marks and a tad bit of loose skin.

I also have problems with skin picking but that’s an entirely different story.

Anyway when I was at my heaviest (and also current weight due to quarantine, thanks mrs rona) about a year ago, there was a group of older boys who I sort of had a crush on, or at least respected. They sat opposite me and my friend group and would often strike up conversations with us in which they would tease us, and we would tease them back, but it was generally nothing malicious until they just started making fun of things that we had no control over such as looks, or voices ( idk either?) and just things like that which I wasn’t a fan of. So we never really provoked them since unless they started with us ( I know it’s stupid to talk and give them ammunition however we still believed it wasn’t entirely viscous and they were just toying with us or whatever ). Anyway they started making fun of my prominent features or whatever ( I’m taller than the average and whilst I don’t believe I am entirely ugly, I have a few things that aren’t considered the norm which I kind of liked in my own way but guess what, I don’t anymore), anyway I wasn’t really that bothered about that as it’s the norm to me and it’s what everybody goes for when h they know they’re losing the battle of wits, and then they made fun of my weight. And I guess take it if your dishing it out but I just sort of stopped going for them as I didn’t really care anymore and I just thought they would get bored or whatever but apparently this pissed them off more so they went for the cheap shots.

Anyway I started gaining a reputation within the group as the fat friend ( I will admit I did antagonise them a bit as I wanted to teach them a lesson but obviously the points went right over their heads and they just made fun of me more, so the blame lies on me for that one), and they would make a few easy jokes and I’d be fine with that, it was what it was.

Anyway I’m sure you know by now that I never got lunch, I was still trying to slim down to no avail, so I spent all of my lunch with my friends at the bench tables. The group of boys knew this as they always saw us before they got lunch, and saw us sitting there when they came back. On one particular occasion they were eating their packed lunch from the cantina at the benches. And then bully 1 got up and walked over to our table and targeted me (I must say they never explicitly said I was the fat friend however we all knew it) saying “ oh you must be hungry” and then proceeded to throw the empty sandwich at us (me) that was filled with nothing but crumbs. The gaggle of guys laughed and I wanted to sink into the floor. I know I was made fun of for being overweight before however it was only ever the odd comment and it was only implicitly hinted that it was me, however this was malicious, I was actually the butt of the joke and I didn’t have a witty rebuttal I could throw back in their face like they threw their waste at me. This was something I’d been struggling with for ages and on this occasion it was completely unprovoked and undeserved (IMO) as I never did anything to wind them up. I’d never felt more embarrassed and i was frozen to the spot with shock, I was incapable of running home to cry as it was the middle of lessons and I still had the rest of the school day to go. I just remember holding in my tears and as soon as I got onto my street i started the flood.

I know a lot of people would say you have to take what you give but I never personally insulted them in whatever form they came in, I simply just made stupid snarky remarks to what they teased us for originally and they took that as an opportunity to make jabs about my size. It’s something I hold with me to this day as i struggle enough as it is without the people who I thought I could respect or even have a crush on telling me that I’m not enough. I am so thoroughly saddened even though this happened over/around a year ago. Idk man. People are mean