My Beastly Story

And then, one day, it clicked. Granny wants me to go to camp to change my body. Kids at school are mean because of how my body looks. More dots connected. I looked down at my tummy and, for the first time in my life, felt disgust toward my own body. A feeling no child should ever have to experience-not at eight years old, not at ten, not ever.

But let’s be real. This was never about my health. It was never really about my health. I wasn’t even that chubby. But in her eyes, I was too much. Too soft in places that should have been smaller. Too visible in ways she thought should be controlled. Too much of a reflection of something she didn’t want associated with her.

My grandmother wasn’t concerned with my well-being; she was concerned with appearances. With how my body fit into the carefully curated image she wanted the world to see. The way she looked at me-assessing, scrutinizing-felt less like love and more like an appraisal. As if my worth hinged on whether or not I could take up less space. As if my body was a problem that needed solving.

And I can’t help but wonder, was she embarrassed by me? Ashamed to have me around? Did she see me as a child, or just a reminder of everything she had been taught to fear? A reflection of something she thought needed to be “fixed”?

Years later, I learned the truth: she had done the same thing to my mother. The same disapproving glances. The same quiet jabs disguised as concern. The same unrelenting pressure to shrink. The cycle ran deep. And the cycle didn’t start with me. 

Mom said no. No to fat camp, no to shipping me off to be “fixed.” Instead, Mom found me a counselor to help with my emotional eating problem. But instead of diving into my emotions-the sadness, the confusion, the loneliness-our sessions barely scratched the surface. There were no deep conversations, no real attempts to understand why I turned to food for comfort. Instead, it felt more like physical therapy, focused on “correcting” my anterior pelvic tilt because, at the time, it made my tummy stick out.

And if my tummy didn’t look so big, I wouldn’t look fat.

And if I didn’t look fat, I wouldn’t feel bad about myself.

And if I didn’t feel bad about myself, then I’d be happy, right?

At least, that’s how it felt. Because in the counselor’s eyes, the real issue wasn’t my pain-it was my body. And since I was already starting to struggle with speaking up, my silence was mistaken for progress. My mom thought the therapy was working.

While I was bullied at school, my biggest bully was outside of it? Granny. She would throw big holiday parties, filling the table with appetizers and treats, but I wasn’t allowed to have any because, “Well, you don’t need it.” That sentence was always followed by her puffing out her cheeks, holding her arms far from her sides, exaggerating a fat body in the most mocking way possible. That’s the best way I can describe it without actually showing you myself.

When my brother and I stayed with her for the weekend, the favoritism was blatant. My brother, who naturally resided in a smaller body, was given twice as much food as me because, “Well, you don’t need it.” If we went out to dinner, she’d scan the restaurant for fat people, point them out, and then make that face again, as if their existence alone was something to ridicule.

Needless to say, I hated going to Granny’s house. She never said, “I love you.” She never said, “You are amazing just as you are.” Because in her eyes, I was never good enough. None of us were.

When I was 10, I was fatter than my mom.  She had just embarked on yet another round of disordered eating, this time fueled by phentermine, the so-called miracle drug that was supposed to melt the weight right off. I watched as she swallowed those little pills, her hunger disappearing along with the numbers on the scale, and I wanted that. I begged her to let me take them, too. And because she didn’t know any better, because she had Granny’s voice echoing in her head, whispering that her daughter was too fat and that somehow, that was her failure, she took me to her doctor.

And he handed my mom my prescription without a second thought. No hesitation. No concern that I was a child. Just a signature on a slip of paper. Phentermine and Pondimin: the two drugs that made up Fen-Phen, a weight-loss cocktail that would later be banned for causing valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension. A drug that was wrecking hearts and lungs while doctors were handing it out like candy to desperate people looking for a fix. 

I was ten years old. And this doctor, the one who had taken an oath to do no harm, put me on a drug that could have killed me. Because in his eyes, my size was a bigger problem than the risks. Because to him, and to so many others, being fat was the real disease.Two weeks later, I had my first follow-up appointment. I stepped on the scale. Eight pounds down. The room lit up. Smiles, praise, congratulations. No one asked how I felt. No one asked if I was dizzy, or if my heart was racing, or if I was struggling to sleep. Because none of that mattered. All that mattered was that the number was lower.

More dots connected: The smaller the number on the scale, the more praise I received. The more weight I lost, the more visible I became. It didn’t matter if I was tired, if I felt weak, if I was learning to ignore my own hunger. What mattered was that I was shrinking.

This was the moment the programming locked in. The moment I learned that smaller bodies were good, bigger bodies were bad, and that gaining weight was always a failure, always the result of eating too much, of not having enough control. It didn’t matter why a body changed. The only thing that mattered was keeping it small.

I didn’t fully grasp just how fucked up this was until I started writing it out. But here’s the truth: this was never just about me. This is generational. Systemic. A cycle passed down like an inheritance no one asked for.

That same year, my mom lost her job, not because of her work performance, but because she made the decision to stop dating her boss’s brother, whose alcoholism was hitting its stride. Her boss threw a hissy fit, found an excuse to fire her, and that was that.

Looking back as an adult, the whole thing was messy and sad and gross. My mom had actually been really good friends with her boss, but apparently, friendship had limits-specifically, the limit of acknowledging that a family member had a drinking problem. When she refused to play along, the friendship-and her job-were cut off.

After what felt like forever on government assistance and food stamps, my mom finally got a job 86.4 miles away. And, surprise, surprise, it just so happened to be in the same town where her long-distance boyfriend lived.

Fuck. I strongly disliked that guy, and I had no idea why. I just knew.

And now, we were packing up and moving 86.4 miles from home to be closer to him. Ew.

The destination? A tiny little town called Moorpark, population 29,000.

Starting at a new school was brutal for the shy introvert I had become, fully aware that everyone was looking at my body and judging it. Right?

But if there was one skill I had mastered, it was hiding behind my smile. In the imaginary conversations I had with people in my head, I’d tell them:

"Behind my clothes, the secrets lie. Behind my smile, I softly cry."

It was my silent plea to be seen past my tummy, past my goofiness, past the laughter I used to camouflage the pain. I had become a bona fide professional stuffer (and no, I’m not talking about my bra). I stuffed my feelings, my fears, my sadness, tucking them away beneath jokes and forced cheerfulness.

I remember the first time one of my so-called “friends” pointed out the cellulite on my legs. Of course, back then, I had no clue what the fuck cellulite even was. But she was pointing. And laughing. And when I finally asked what was so damn funny, she smirked and said, “All the dents and ripples on your legs.”

Great. Fake friends. But hey, they were friends nonetheless.