Brilliant must read post by Shannon. It points out that placing any conditions on self acceptance leaves loose strands that can unravel the rest. Usefully offering a way forward, some extra focus on working through and discharging these conditions may be the key to progress in self acceptance. This is great advice for newbie’s, something that is felt to be neglected and give those further on something to think about too.
Though this is not easy to match, it still falls short. I'm grateful to Amber Rhea for explaining why clarity. I've heard similar of quite a lot recently but couldn't respond because they spoke of how alienating FA was with their "Rah rah FA is so easy" mentality. This left me with a total blank. I knew that this was a difference in perception and understanding; I just didn't know what.
The idea that women's self loathing is authentic and to merely put it up for scrutiny is silencing true feelings, which are sacred and pure expressions left me stunned. Only a confidence so protected and sure could say this with such obvious sense of assumed righteousness. As a feminist (who doesn't identify with it is right now), the idea that misogyny from anyone has some kind of deep integrity made my head swim.
I shouldn't be shocked but was, by the clear inference that fat people's gift of self rescue is not only false and shallow in comparison, but possibly self deluding. We speak a lot about our feelings of lack of credibility. Feelings of falseness often come up when you change long held truths. Part of it is your mind wanting to be sure that you really want to stop what you've invested a lot into. If you can get past that, then you really want to.
If anyone was paying attention, they might have noted this was a sore spot with us, but then our feelings are not real they are PC. It's the old, negativity is real, positivity unreal, even though when acting on them brings them low, people still go for happy pills, what's the point? Negative sucks up a huge amount of energy in comparison with posivity which itself tends to unlock energy, that's a lot of the 'more real' feeling of it.
It is also our job to serve others without any regard for ourselves, one of the things that is the source of contempt for us. I think this is the real meaning of the taunt "You have no self respect".
We're told that FA/SA is about all of us getting over damaging fat/body hating, which I assumed. Yet there's this constant switch to "your movement" and what we must do to get others on side, even though it is claimed "I hurtz because of the fat hate too you know, not just you (selfish) fattiez. Which I'd expect to provide most of the momentum.
Selfish here means what this kind of mentality does; puts itself first as a dominant principle. As usual, its negative aspect only becomes real when it's translated into fat. Well, it's nice to know that people know themselves deep down. Of course fat acceptance must carry the can for this 'separation', reasons must be found to rationalize rejection, no matter how unconvincing there's a spirit of, "let's front it".
I'm also amazed at the accusation of lying and being false since if you are not fat and you point to your body parts and say "My legs are so fat" when they clearly aren't and say "I'm so fat" when you aren't even plump, well......
I don't know why, but I assumed it had been realised that saying the above if you are not fat is different from saying it you are. If you are fat, you either stop hating yourself or you do not. Whereas the choice for non fat is stop demeaning fatness so that you can use it to demean yourself. It's a case of direct and indirect consequence, You can see where they meet, but they are not the same.
This has clarified some other things that were just blurry and out of view. We were mostly all united in the absolute certainty that fatness is deeply wrong and bad. From the moment that begins even minimally to go into reverse a gap opens and keeps going. This is about mentality more than weight. By rights those who were hating-whoever they are-should close that gap by ceasing to hate, a neutral stance will do. When we thought we were wrong, we were prepared to do what we thought was right, even though it hurt us directly. I expect at least for that to be borne in mind when others consider what is right here.
Body issues only makes sense if you have a valid body in the first place, if you don't you are supposed to be at odds with it, that's seen as the "truth" and that's how you feel. A lot of fat women especially realised as girls they had to drop out of "I hate my fat thighs etc.,"(says prodding slim thighs) because our thighs were fat. We also tended not to make too much impression with "No your thighs are fine they look great"(compared to ours, anyhow). So that was remiss of me too, I should have expected the same resistance/conflict of interests now as then.
As for feelings of body loathing, no matter how bad any feeling that may come up about body, there simply is nothing to the comprehensive 24/7 abject loathing that I felt for my own body, not someone else's that I almost laugh at the contrast and swat it away. If it lingers it lingers, it doesn't bother me in comparison. Also, I've got too many other powerful hangovers from this; I have to try and step on it and push myself a bit. This is partly why I’m out of tune. I don't have much patience for this kind of shit, to tell the truth.
I don't know how you flee and remain in the place you're fleeing at the same time to keep in touch with those who want to stay or have never been there. See if you stay, then that is clearly, no fat acceptance at all which is I suspect the underlying motivation for this campaign of FA scepticism. Meet people where they are applies here too and that is overlooked.
Nor do I accept the idea that we have to learn self respect; if we did we wouldn't need it. We are born with it and that's what is hurting when what we are told compromises it. The pain and confusion is our mind, sometimes our whole system realising that doesn't match what is inside.
You cannot lose yourself respect totally, it's unthinkable, the fact that we think that compromised self esteem is that, shows it's power and importance to us.
Underneath this entire surface crap, it's still going. Let's aim to allow it to be uninterrupted again and see what happens.
Let's be intrepid.
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