Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries
i. The Bra
You were nine the first time your shape displeased you. The bra had been a present on Christmas. Absurd. You’d wanted a doll. The bra was white and smelled like a grandmother’s house. You were less than enthused when your mum showed you how to put it on properly. The clasps were awkward to reach at the back. It felt itchy and you folded your arms over your tiny chest and silently vowed that you’d never wear it again. But then she hugged you and said, I can’t believe how fast you’re growing up. And you liked that, you liked being her grown-up girl. You weren’t a baby like your sister. You were growing up – a young lady – and you were so pleased that she could see that.
In the changing room, you took off your red polo to replace it with the white one you wore for P.E, and you heard a snicker from Chelsea behind you. It started quiet, but then it got louder – Ashley, Sarah, then all the girls were giggling and pointing at something. At you. At the bra. Because the bra was absurd. The bra smelled like a grandmother’s house. You wanted to tell them that you needed to wear it, you were a young lady not a baby. They’d have bras of their own soon, your mum had said. But they laughed over your words and your nipples itched and you tugged the polo shirt over your head and ran out without your shoes.
ii. Curvaceous
You were fourteen when you realised that there was something wrong with you. You and your sister sat on your Mum’s bed while she placed her white dress into a dust-proof cover. You loved her wedding dress almost as much as she did. Even though you had decided that weddings were patriarchal and sick, privately, you’d loved going with her to the boutique downtown. All the lace and chiffon, the high neckline, the crystal buttons on the sleeves. Mum looked like a princess. She was so happy to be married again, and Larry was nice. You could put your hot takes on marriage aside for Mum and Larry.
It would make me so happy if one of you girls wore my dress when you get married, she said, running shiny red nails along the fabric. Then, she wrinkled her nose and said to you, Well perhaps not you. You’re the wrong shape. You’re so… curvaceous. This style dress would suit Abbie so much better.
You’d thought about that before. Your hips were too wide and your chest too big, it meant you had to wear a size too big for the rest of you. Your sister was tiny, ballerina small. You’d always been a little afraid that there was something wrong with you, but nobody had ever come out and said it before. The word curvaceous made you want to peel your own skin off. Tear chunks out of your arms and thighs, rip the skin back from your hips and hope to find someone like Abbie on the inside.
But then Abbie shrugged and said, Nah, I’d never wear an ugly dress like this.
iii. Angry Fat Girl Disease
At seventeen, you decided that your thing was being mean, especially to boys.
One night, curled up in a sleeping bag at a party, you overheard Matt and Tom talking about girls. Fat girls are more grateful, they said. Jolly. Like you know… You know they’re talking about you, their whispers get quieter, they shift around, checking if you’re awake. She’d be… proper fit if she lost some of the heft. Then they laughed amongst themselves and you thought comprehensively about sinking into the ground.
It hurt because you’d felt fat since forever. Your outfits made you feel lumpy. A bag lady. You were so sick of fighting with Mum about your clothes. You’re torn between wanting to cover yourself completely, and desperate to show that you aren’t some gelatinous blob beneath your ankle length black skirts and shapeless black sweatshirts.
After that night you decided that you weren’t going to be jolly or nice or grateful for anything a boy said to you ever.
Mum calls you curvaceous, voluptuous, shapely. You feel bile rising in the back of your throat every time she says it. You want to scream. You’re so tired of her trying to excuse it away. You take after your father’s family. You have Grandma’s ankles. You just gather weight in the wrong places. Worst of all – Well, obviously, you’ll never be Abbie’s size. Your bones are shaped differently!
You skip P.E to eat biscuits behind the old school greenhouse and mope. You’ll never look how you want so what’s the point in even trying. You scowl constantly. You always have an edgy comeback. You get so good at picking out someone’s insecurities instantly. Nobody is going to call you jolly or grateful or anything.
You get asked out by Dave from the café where you both work on Saturdays. He’s dorky and awkward and you and your co-workers all make fun of him behind his back. But one day after work, he asks you to go and see a disaster film with him at the cinema. He’s nice about it, shy, nervous, trying to make it sound like it’s no big deal, but you can see from the look on his face that this is very much a big deal, this is huge. And maybe a year or two ago, you’d have been nice. You’d have made up a boyfriend, a commitment to your exams, a strict mum who won’t let you date. But you’re a mean girl now, you’re not grateful for his or anyone’s attention. Sure you’re not… Megan Fox levels of beautiful, but it should be obvious that you’re several social stations above Dave.
So you’re not nice. You laugh like he’s told you a joke. And when he gets mad, you tell him you’d rather drink paint than be seen with him. You text the group chat about it. Everyone tells you that you’re a riot, you’re Stone-Cold-Steve-Austin.
A week later Dave has handed in his notice and when you’re taking the bins out at the back of the café, you overhear Ffion and Jake talking about you. At first, you think it’s just about Dave. They’re laughing about how weird he was, how glad they are he’s gone. But then Ffion says that you are ridiculous levels of harsh. Jake shrugs and says, Yeah, well, she’s got angry fat girl disease, doesn’t she? Ffion snorts, What’s that? – You know, he says, she’s like… perpetually angry and mean because she’s angry about being fat. Classic case.
After that you realise that there’s no way for you to be seen that doesn’t revolve around your weight. If you were funny, you’d be jolly, if you were nice, you’d be grateful, if you’re laid-back, you’re a typical lazy fatso. And if you’re dry and sarcastic and mean, it’s angry fat girl disease.
There’ll always be a label, there will always be someone laughing no matter who you were that day. You’re still stuck.
You’re still you.
iv. Lookalike
The family GP tells your Mum that Abbie is severely under-weight. That night, you and Larry sit watching The Simpsons while Abbie and Mum scream at each other in the dining room. It goes on for over an hour. Crying and shouting, something being thrown. Are you afraid of looking like your sister? Larry turns the volume up and up and up but Mum keeps saying it and you don’t want to hear her but she’s shouting, she has to shout over Abbie who screams Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup over and over again.
After that, Abbie starts going to see a therapist once a week. There’s a member of staff who watches her eat all of her lunch at breaktime, follows her and waits when she uses the bathroom. She gains a little weight, not much, but enough to keep everyone happy.
You wait in the car with Mum while you’re waiting for your sister to come out of her appointment one evening, and you try and confront her.
Are you blaming me for Abbie being ill? She tells you that your sister is having a tough time at the moment and she can’t believe you’d try and make that about you.
The two of you sit in a frosty silence until she adds, Well, maybe a diet would help.
v. Freedom
You love being away at university. You like living away from your mum. You reconnect with your dad on Facebook. You’re having fun for the first time possibly ever. Of course, alcohol is the reason for this.
You’ve been low-key drinking since you were fourteen – trashy Lambrini with Carys, blue WKD and stolen beer at someone’s terrible house party. But now you can drink legally. Now you can have as much as you want. You like to drink. You feel confident when you drink. You find that the only time you’re not embarrassed in your own skin is when you drink.
When you drink you can be laid-back without being lazy, you can be funny without being jolly, you can be mean without having angry fat girl disease, you can be nice without being grateful.
You just wish that you felt the same way when you go to lectures. When you’re sober you hate yourself all over again. You avoid people. You don’t put your hand up in class. Sometimes you don’t even go to class. You hate seminars where you can’t blend into the background. You wait for that confidence to kick in, but it never does, does it?
You’re still you.
vi. Pose
You’re sat on Mum’s bed, helping her sort through old Christmas decorations. You’re laughing about old times – where you used to think she hid the presents when you were little.
While you’re chatting, she finds an album of old photos. She gushes over you and Abbie as toddlers. You don’t like looking at old pictures of yourself. You feel completely detached from the happy, bright-eyed little girl in Mum’s album. You feel like you let her down, that little girl. You filled her insides with junk and lard and wiped that happy little smile right off her face. You made her ugly and gross and if she saw you, she’d cry.
But these photos make Mum happy, so you smile and tease Mum about her terrible 90s bob instead.
Only at the end of the album, there’s one photo from just a few years ago.
You’re fourteen, stood with Abbie at the beach facing the sea and you’re thin. And that thought wrecks you because you remember being fourteen. You remember skulking around in shapeless black band t-shirts. You remember your double-chin, clutching at the flesh beneath your face, trying to push it up and up and up until you looked like everyone else. You remember hating yourself. But here it is, you at fourteen, you can see your long slim legs and arms, your stomach is on show. You were fine, but you thought you were a lost cause. You let yourself rot because you believed there would never be a way to feel good in your own skin.
You’re twenty, but your body feels like a fat suit you’re stuck inside. Lumps of gelatine clogging up your throat, strangling the words out of you.
But that’s okay, because your mum always knows what not to say – You were so slim back then. Such a shame, eh?
vii. LOYL
Clark is the love of your life. His positivity cancels out your negativity. You had decided that love was patriarchal, and you had no interest in becoming an unpaid cook, housekeeper and bedwarmer to some idiot man.
Clark surprised you and you became the cliché you hated. He’s perfect, from the curl in his hair to his hairy hobbit feet. He’s quick to laugh and never worries about looking stupid for not getting the joke.
You don’t know what he sees in you.
This is where it all falls apart. You wince when he tells you that you’re beautiful. You get angry with him when he tells you that he loves how you look. You hate eating in front of him. You take 100 attempts to take a nice photo together because you will only let yourself be photographed from a certain angle.
Then you agree to meet Clark’s parents and that’s worse. Because you see the disappointed look pass between his parents. They wanted their little Romeo to bring home Juliet, not Juliet’s Nurse. They make polite conversation about your course, your friends, your life, but you can see their eyes glaze over. You imagine them ten years’ time, joking around with Clark’s new girlfriend about Clark’s fat fetish back in university.
A week later the two of you get into a fight about nothing in particular and you break up with him. You do it shouting and vicious and you scream It’s over at him when he stands there, stunned. He’s heartbroken and you sneer in his face and tell him that you’re just giving him the chance to impress Mummy and Daddy by bringing home someone suitable.
You end your relationship with the only person who has ever loved you, without ever finding out what he saw in you.
viii. Cut-Out
You start to think of your body as a fat suit. Once, drunk and unhappy, you get a red felt-tip pen and you draw yourself thin. You draw legs onto your legs, half the size, slim and beautiful. You know just what to leave out. Someone could cut you – the ideal you – out with your directions. Chop off this excess fat. You stand naked in front of your bedroom mirror and admire yourself. How beautiful you could be if there was only half of you. You press your fingers in hard enough to bruise. You dig in and find your joints under the mush of flesh.
After you wash the red ink from your body, you feel itchy and sore from scrubbing. You curl up with your laptop, hair still damp from the shower and you google cheap plastic surgery. You don’t even know where to begin. It’s not a matter of a tummy tuck, a breast reduction, a face-lift. You want it all gone. You want to just press undo on your body and have them start you from scratch.
You’d take care of this one. You’d diet. You’d exercise. You wouldn’t let men treat you the way you do now, you’d demand respect.
You’d look people in the eye. You’d smile. You’d chat. You’d do all that – easy! You’d want to take care of you.
ix. Graduation
At your graduation dinner, you upset your Mum by telling her that you’re moving to Swansea to live with Dad. The two of you get into a screaming match in the restaurant toilets. She slaps your face – something she hasn’t done before – you stand there in shocked silence. She apologises and you tell her that you will never ever forgive her.
The next day, Mum stays in the car when Larry and Abbie come and say goodbye. Larry has a sad look on his face when he gives you a hug and says Keep in touch, kiddo. We’ll miss you at home. You tell Abbie that she’d be welcome to come and stay with you and Dad whenever she wants. She shrugs her shoulders resigned, Thanks but no thanks, he’s basically a stranger, I wouldn’t be comfortable.
x. Being Good
Her name is Laura-May and you’ve started to wish that she’d just die. The small accounting company you both work for hired her after your far superior colleague, Ellie, went on maternity leave in October. Before Laura-May, the office was a nice place.
But then they hired Laura-May and now you’d jump in traffic if it meant you’d never have to see her again.
Laura-May is a size 10 at the most but thinks she’s enormous. She tells everyone that she used to be – you’ve checked through her Facebook, she wasn’t. Ever.
Laura-May started the tradition of ordering from the deli on Friday. Fat Friday, she calls it. Soon everyone is asking you if you’re up for Fat Friday and you find that familiar urge to peel your own skin off. Once on a night out, Laura-May places her bony hand on your arm and asks if it’s alright to call it Fat Friday, you’re not offended, are you?
You smile and report any mistakes Laura-May makes to your manager. You daydream about her being arrested for fraud or arson.
The truly sad thing in this is that you are dieting. You’re replacing lunches with a food supplement shake that tastes of baby sick. You skip breakfast, have a baby-sick lunch, and then head home to a small grilled chicken breast and green peas.
xi. My Big Girl
It’s awkward at Abbie’s graduation, but you put that aside. Today isn’t about you. Sure, you haven’t spoken to your mum in four years. But you promised Abbie that you’d be civil.
You mull over every way this reunion with Mum could go badly. You panic and calm down and panic again. You enter the Arts Centre and spot her at the top of the stairs. She looks older, more grey hairs and glasses – she was always way too proud to wear her glasses before. She’s holding Larry’s hand, glancing around nervously. You realise that she’s just as afraid of seeing you as you are of her. She seems very human in that moment and you’re struck by how much you want to run to her.
When she sees you, her eyes water and she yanks you into a tight hug. You blink fast to try and stop yourself from crying and ruining your mascara.
Gosh there’s my big girl! she says.
xii. Hank Marvin
You fall off a treadmill at the gym and walk away with a split lip. As you sit with an ice pack in the staff room, one of the tiny blonde personal trainers asks in a quiet, kind voice, if you’ve eaten today.
You open your mouth to answer, to explain about your bottle of baby-sick and your grilled chicken breast waiting for you back home, but your split lip starts to sting and suddenly you realise there are tears running down your cheeks.
xiii. Thirty Years of Fatness
You share a bottle of wine with Abbie on the last night of her visit. She’s ripped the label off so you can’t try and count the calories. She tells you that she loves you, but she’s worried about leaving you. You tell her that you’ll be fine but see right away that neither of you are convinced. She rests her head on your shoulder and the two of you stay like that for a while.
You close your eyes and wonder how long you’ve wasted hating yourself. How you mull over every encounter of your existence and how different it would have been if you were thin. You think about that reset button so much that at times it feels close enough to touch.
Then you say it, you say it out loud: I’ve ruined my life.
Your sister asks you why, she very slowly and kindly lists all the amazing things about you, all the things she admires. And you start to cry because everything she values in you feels fake. All of it seems fake. You aren’t strong, you aren’t smart, you aren’t kind. You hate yourself so much. You’re wrecked your body beyond true repair. You want to scrub out your life and start again, even if it meant erasing the good.
Why, she asks, why does how you look matter that much? And that’s so unfair because it’s not just women gathered in an office kitchen moaning about the wait for cheat day, it’s not that permanent media-driven misogynistic dissatisfaction with shape, it’s not about wanting to look like a model or an actress or someone with limitless access to fucking Ozempic. This is your daily horror that you live in this body. The urge to squirm if you catch your reflection in the mirror. The fact that people are aware of your biggest fear all the time, people have an opinion on you right away: lazy or fat or greedy. You stopped going to the doctors after every issue you brought to their attention was somehow looped back to your weight. Depressed? Lose weight. Insomnia? Try losing weight. Suicidal thoughts? Oh I bet if you lost some weight, you’d be much more cheerful. And there’s something else as well, there’s always the fear that in ten years’ time you’ll see a photograph of yourself as you are now, age thirty, and you’ll realise that you were actually fine. It wasn’t as bad as you thought at the time. And it’ll make you want to die because that’s three generations of your life gone. You’ve wasted your whole life hating yourself.
She tells you to get help. You start ranting about how much you hated going to Slimming World, about how you tried to get help before and nobody would help you, no-one! She tells you it won’t be like that again, but it will. You know it will.
Do you want to try something? Abbie says after a while. You shrug and wipe your eyes. She tells you that the psychologist she used to see when she was underweight, had her write a letter to herself. He said I had to include all the worries I had, all the bad things I thought about myself in that letter, so I did. I wrote about how much I hated myself, I wrote about how I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. But then he told me to picture reading the letter to myself. I told him that would be easy. So he told me to imagine reading the letter to version of myself who last felt comfortable in her own skin. At the time, that would have been me at age ten. You don’t want to do that; you hate looking at the happy little girl you used to be enough. Try it, Abbie says, try writing that letter to the you who liked herself. I thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t. Try it. For me, as a first step.
xix. Dear Rebecca,
How’s it going? How’s school? This is Thirty-Year-Old-You and I’m writing you this letter because I’m not doing so great-
I know you’re excited about growing up, but for now, you should try and enjoy being eight years old for as long as you can because you’ll never get this time back and
Listen, Rebecca, I know you’re excited about growing up. I know right now when you think about the future, you think you’ll be a genius inventor or a lawyer, you think you’ll be married with three children. Happily married, not like Mum and Dad. I’m sorry, kiddo, but I’ve let you down-
Biggest piece of future advice – don’t listen to your Mum, please. She’s going to tell you you’re shaped differently, your bones or whatever. It’s bollocks. It’s complete lies. You’re going to believe her and hate yourself until you’re as big as a house and then that woman is going to have the nerve to tell you that losing weight in your thirties is so much harder than as a teenager-
You’ll let yourself get treated so badly that when someone does love you, you’ll respond to every kind word like it’s acid in your ear. You’re so fundamentally broken that you only know how to accept relationships that are bad for you-
You diet and you diet and nothing changes. You’re paranoid that everyone around you is judging you for your weight. You don’t get that promotion at work because you decide the boss has already decided that you’re lazy and unmotivated. How couldn’t she think that? You can’t even drop a dress size all the way-
I’m going to let you down so many times and I-
You’re a such a sweet girl. Seriously, you’re so kind. I know you want to think that you’re mature and sophisticated but being kind is good too. Remember how you used to sneak into Abbie’s room when Mum and Dad were fighting and play that Disney CD so she wouldn’t hear and get upset? And I know your Mum is going through the worst heartbreak of her life right now. You’re so gentle with her. In a year or two, when Larry comes onto the scene, you’re never difficult about it. You accept him and Mum won’t ever tell you but that meant the world to her. You have such a big heart. I’m so sorry I didn’t protect it better. I wish I could properly tell you that you’re beautiful. You’re smart and funny and bright. You deserve respect. You deserve to be treated kindly. There’s nothing wrong with you inside and out. I know there are going to be times ahead where you hate really don’t like how you look. But please remember that your body is you. It’s your home, not your prison. Don’t let go of yourself. Keep holding onto us and I promise I’ll do the same.
Stay with me, girl. We’ve got this.
____
Rachael Llewellyn (she/her) is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals, including Divinations Magazine, Crow & Cross Keys and Polari Press. She is currently a PhD candidate at Swansea University working on her thesis on trauma and memory in folklore. In 2019 she was awarded a Francis W Reckitt Grant. She lives in South Wales with her husband and their rescue cat.