Thrown Away

The following is a story I wrote long ago but still hold dear to this day. 

He stood back, a silent observer, watching people pick out their packages a knowing smile washing over his face. His eyes kept wandering over to one particular package and His smile would brighten. Shuffling with excitement and glancing around hoping to see who would chose that one. Years past by and day after day The Man would watch the goings on always keeping an eye on that untouched package. From time to time his eyes would brighten then sadden as he watched the package being picked up, or bumped around, once or twice it was even picked up and taken away only to be returned later after someone had dropped it.

Finally one day it happened, someone picked it up, The Man beamed as he watched it being carried away, but then his face fell and he stepped forward quickly.

"Are you just going to throw that away" He asked worry very evident in his voice.

The worker he had spoken to turned with a start, unaware that anyone else was around, he shot a glance at the dumpster where the package had just been thrown. "What else can we do with it? It is worthless, unsellable"

"Sir why would you say that, why just throw it away, do you even know what it is?"

"Well no but look, no one wants it, look at it it is scratched and dented, and way to big a model for anyone to want these days, look at this package.... it is trash"

"I made that, I crafted it carefully, and I put it in that package to keep it safe. Yes it is damaged, and yes it is bigger then alot of the other packages in here, but it is most certainly not trash, why won't someone give it a chance?" The Man moved towards the dumpster looking in, a look of compassion on his face. "Won't you give it a chance?"

"Look there is no point, no one will want that piece of junk, look around buddy, there are so many more beautiful packages. Honestly who cares what is inside that stupid thing, it is the package that sells, that is what people get to show off to others, THAT is what matters... look you can have that junk if it is so important to you, but I am just saying how it is" Turning on his heel the worker started to walk away glancing back to see The Man tenderly lifting the package from the trash.

Slightly curious at what could be in that horrid package he watched from the corner of his eye as The Man gingerly set it on the floor and then started to open the package gently.

A gasp tore through the workers throat as he saw what was contained in that package, Radiant beams danced from the contents inside, his eyes blurred, and crossed as he tried to take in the amazing treasure that had been inside that box. "What have I done? What did I throw away? I just lost the most precious thing, How was I to know?

The worker sat there watching as The Man cradled the treasure in His Arms and heard Him speak gently to it. "Don't worry my child, there will be someone who can see you through my eyes, they will be the one who deserves a such a treasure, they will be the one I have created for you.

Getting to the bottom of my dislike/fear of exercising. -Part Two

Continued from this post

Even at a very young age, physical education was something that I dreaded to the point it would make me sick, and filled with anxiety. For example the track meet that a bunch of schools in our area had, my dad was a teacher at the time and so I rode with him in his car to the meet that was being held in another town. The closer it got the more panicky I felt to the point that I sat bawling in the car begging my dad not to make me go to it. To let me sit in the car for the day, I was terrified at the thought of having to do it.  As I got older I started noticing something that would happen whenever I was doing strenuous exercise, I would struggle to breathe and then I would start coughing, A LOT! I would cough to the point my eyes watered and I would gag, and what was worse that coughing would make me lose control of my bladder a bit and I would pee a little. Now I am sure you can imagine how great a thing that is for someone in elementary school? It wasn't like I would just pee my pants all at once, but a tiny trickle would leak out and since I wasn't allowed to stop I would just keep coughing, and well, those little trickles would add up. It was so humiliating and the thought of telling someone was even worse. I was way to old to be peeing my pants, and so I tried to keep it hidden. It wasn't until I was in grade 9 that I finally tried telling my parents, and then my gym teacher at the time. Hoping beyond hope that they would understand why I hated exercise so much. 

Now even though I weighed a whole lot less than I do now, I was still on the chubby side and had been on diets since I was 7. My complaints were written off as some fat kid just trying to get out of exercise so she can be lazy, and instead I was made to do more exercise and put on a stricter diet. It felt like I was being punished for telling the truth and so I stopped telling them and instead did everything I could to avoid or get out of gym classes and other strenuous activity. This lead to me having to lie, and fake illness or pain, just to avoid that feeling of breathlessness, the coughing, and consequences of said coughing. I hated having to do it but the alternative seemed worse to me, and so physical exercise became an anxiety filled experience for me. 

Fast forward a decade or so to a time just a  few years ago when my mom and I went to a Women of Faith conference. We had floor seats at the same end of the stadium that we had parked on, the "shortest" route to the car was going up the stairs to the second level and then down again and out to the parking lot because they had the exit on floor level blocked because there was something else going on in that area. The other way out would mean walking to the other end of the stadium and out the floor level exit there and then all the way back the length of stadium to get to our parking lot. I tried to encourage my mom to go that way because the thought of taking all of the stairs through a crowded arena to get up to the second level was something I wanted to avoid. My mom however was having none of that and headed up the steps, telling me I could go the other way if I wanted to but I could tell from the tone of her voice she was upset and disgusted and so I followed her. I kept up with her pretty good but by the time I got a little over halfway up the steps I could feel that familiar tightening in my chest. I was wheezing and by the time we got outside I had started coughing. I could not stop coughing as I drove us to the hotel and was still coughing when we had gotten into the hotel room. Of course with the coughing came the trickles and I was so ashamed, upset and frustrated. It was the same feeling I had back in school.

I haven't been able to get that out of my head as I read about people who love to exercise and move their bodies. To me it is a terrifying feeling and I can't fathom it being something joyful, and it confuses me why even when I was much much thinner I still struggled and felt that way because isn't being skinnier supposed to make it easy to move?  Anyway I was talking to a friend about this a while back, the first person I had told about the troubles I had with exercising and how I didn't understand how people could love that, they mentioned that what I was describing sounded a lot like the asthma attacks her brother gets. I kind of brushed her off by telling her that it couldn't be because it only happened when I was doing something strenuous and that it didn't look like the ones I see on TV. She mentioned about something called Exercise Induced Asthma, so when I could I researched it and was dumbfounded at how much of it sounded like what I have been dealing with my whole life.  Now I haven't been to see the doctor about it, me and doctors are not on the best of terms so I keep putting it off. I can't help thinking though, if I had been taken seriously all those years ago in elementary, if the doctors I had seen, and the adults in my life had taken it seriously and not just brushed it off as a lazy fat kid excuse, that maybe I could feel that enjoyment of physical activity. Maybe, possibly, exercise wouldn't be an anxiety filled experience. 

Now I need to figure out where to go from here I would love to see a doctor about it and maybe see if I can get it in control so that I can have a much better relationship with exercise and movement. I just gotta take it one step at a time for now.

Getting to the bottom of my dislike/fear of exercising. - Part One

I have been thinking a lot lately about exercise. I read some incredible blogs about fatties loving exercise first there is Shaunta  who inspires me so often as she blogs about setting realistic goals and find ways to move her body that she loves.  Then there is Ragen Chastain, she makes me long for a fat friendly dance studio around my area because I have always loved the idea of dancing and would love to learn how in a safe space.

Both of these women are inspiring and they are making me want to get my body moving more in ways that I love but in thinking about that my brain hits a dis-connect and I have been pondering why. The thought of exercise fills me with this sense of dread, fear, and failure and it is so deeply instilled that I am realizing it is something that has become ingrained in me at a young age. I was never really an "athletic" person but the more I think about it the more I realize somethings were very off.

Of course back when I was very young I was not as fat as I am today but even back then I remember always being the slowest one, the one struggling. I can vividly remember walking with the rest of my family through a parking lot or mall and crying cause I couldn't keep up to everyone, and being scolded or prodded to hurry up. Even at that young age I my stomach would churn and i would be filled with anxiety when thinking about having to walk a long distance or do something strenuous like walking up a very steep hill. I find that very puzzling because I could do it fine when left to do it on my own pace, but there was just something inside me that fought against it.

My first memories of sports and exercise was in kindergarten/first grade where the dread, failure and ultimately fear started. I remember having a gym teacher who was very competitive and into winning. His idea of motivation was to yell, scream, and ridicule any student who did something wrong.  My first memory is of being up at bat and due to the fact that I had severe astigmatism which means I have very little depth perception so keeping my eye on the ball was pretty much impossible. I kept striking out and therefore getting yelled at by my gym teacher and then insulted and ridiculed by the other kids. We were thrown into games without really being taught the rules of how to play them, and so if and when I made  mistake it was a repeat of the same thing. People would get so focused on winning that if you messed up or didn't do something right you were yelled at and made to feel like a failure. Often times I didn't really even know what I had done wrong because it was never explained to me. I would see other kids being made fun of or ridiculed and I hated it but I couldn't do anything cause the teacher was just as bad. I still hate competition, hate it with a passion. I hate what it does to people and I hate the feeling of being competed with. Competition is such a frustrating thing for me that I will willingly take myself out of it or in the words of my awesome nephew "choose to lose" so I can avoid it.

I realize that some people really do like competition and they respond well to insults and getting yelled at, but I am not one of those people. Even when I am playing Online Role Playing Games I prefer going through quests and conquering bosses rather than competing with other people.So that is one thing that has cultivated my lack of enjoying physical activity. Next post I will talk about the other main reason, and then maybe I can figure out how to find enjoyment through movement. See you in the next post!

Happy Joy?

I found this little video a week or so ago and I love it. I have never really paid much attention to Sara Bareilles before but I really should have! The song is fun to listen to and the video is so fun to watch. I especially like it because there is a wide variety of people and body shapes in it and not a bit of shaming for one type or another. It makes me smile and want to dance a bit.

We all need a little fun so here you go a little happy for the day!

No, you feel pregnant,... not fat ...there is a difference!.

A few days ago I was reading a lifehacker blog post about 10 food myths that just won't die. It was a pretty cool post and many of the myths or lies they talked about were diet related that people speak as gospel. Well that post has now been deleted but there was a comment on there that always manages to get me angry.

It was a comment from a lady who was going on about how the post was so wrong regarding a few of the myths and how posts like that one are going to make people  so unhealthy. She ended the post with something along the lines of "when I was pregnant I gained twenty pounds and I know what it is like to be fat. I was so miserable, you can't be fat and happy and this post is doing no one any favors."

Y'all I can not tell you how many times I have heard otherwise skinny or normal weight people say that since they have been pregnant they know exactly what it is like to be fat. Ok, umm.....

NO YOU DON'T!!

Seriously it drives me absolutely nuts when I hear this, and I hear it often. People who have never experienced really being fat getting pregnant and then going on and on about how fat they feel. They talk about how hard it is to find clothes, tie their shoes, and so on. I hear them whining about it on Facebook and have had friends and family members go on and on about it to me, some even remarking how now they understand what I go through and oh my goodness how can you stand it?

So ok, let me just say this, you being pregnant does not induct you to the fat sorority. You have no clue how it feels being fat because you are pregnant and that is so not the same thing. Please let me tell you why;

First off, my fat is soft , squishy and somewhat mold-able because it is full of adipose tissue (fat), your pregnant belly is growing a human, it is hard and really resistant to changing it's shape. So when you find it hard to get out of a chair because your stomach does not move like my fat one does, there is a child in there. When I go to stand up, sure I may not do it as gracefully as others but my stomach squeezes and moves so that it is a whole different experience for me. You don't know what that is like, your experience is not mine, you are pregnant not fat.

Secondly, when you are pregnant you gain weight rapidly because once again there is a child growing inside you and it needs room and your body is holding onto more weight. My fat has taken years, decades, and many failed diets to grow on my body. I have been able to slowly adapt and function with it, it is a part of me. You go on and on about how you can't even walk upstairs without getting tired, how you can't walk like you did before, and about how out of energy you are all the time. You are not used to carrying around that weight and so of course it is going to feel drastically different, but here is a news flash... it is not always the same way for fat people. Your hormones are going wild and your body is busy growing life, that will drain energy pretty quickly. Once again, for fatties like me that is not the case, we are used to our bodies and we have adapted to how it moves and works. If we are low on energy it is not the same kind of feeling or reason. You are pregnant and your body is doing something amazing but you are not fat  so thinking that all fat people feel the same as you is just ignorant.

One of the biggest things though, is you are pregnant, and people love and adore pregnant women. They often held up as special and wonderful, people see a pregnant woman and they congratulate you. They get excited and happy and see you as beautiful. You do not get the vast quantities of hatred and stereotyping that a fat person does every day. People see a fat person and they are often disgusted, full of assumptions and fear. Your pregnant body is celebrated, the fashion industry feels it is important to give you cute trendy clothes. You do not hear the constant stream of veiled death threats simply because of the shape of your body do you? Have you ever heard 'you are pregnant, you are going to die,' or 'don't you know that you will get a ton of fatal diseases by being pregnant?' You don't see people posting comments on a picture of another pregnant person talking about how they just want to beat-up or kill anyone who is pregnant. I however do see those things, often, daily and more than you can and every will truly be able to fathom, to the point that the world can seem like a very hostile place.

So please, the next time you are tempted to commiserate with a fat person because you are, or were, pregnant at one time, well just don't. You being pregnant does not give you the right or place to talk about what it is like to be fat, cause girl you have no clue. You may be miserable in your changing body but that doesn't mean that all fat people are miserable too, so stop talking for us.

The same goes for all those people who put on fat suits and then say they know just what it is like to be fat. You are hot because you have a huge fat suit on, my fat body however does a good job of regulating my temperature and it feels nothing like being in a huge padded costume. Maybe I am the only fat person who gets completely annoyed by this but I dare say I am not. Are you bothered by this like I am? What would you say to a pregnant lady who is going on and on about how hard it is now that she is "fat?"

I could be angry, instead I just feel a lot of pity. ~ When Trolls 'Attack'

A little while ago I joined a group called Super Sizes, started by Sleepy Dumpling, on Facebook, it is for those of us who are tired of having such a limited selection of clothes to choose from.  a place where we can share the places we have found that do a good job and have a pretty good selection. It is nice to have people who understand the frustrations I face because they deal with them too, it is a great group.

Now today I found a message in the "other" section of my Facebook message box that had been sent to me on Aug 31st but being that I rarely get messages from people who aren't on my friends list I always forget to check it. Today as I was sewing a long black skirt with my mom, who had just gotten a phone call from my sister, I took that time to peruse Facebook a little. I was sending a message to a friend of mine and then checked out my other section and found the following message.

 

At first I was a little taken aback because I hadn't looked closely at the name or the picture and so I thought it was from a friend of mine. Once I saw that it was from a completely random stranger I will admit I was angry and hurt, cause shoot that kind of stuff is just uncalled for if you are a decent human being. I also got a little frustrated because I mentioned it to my parents and they were just silent, and that annoyed me cause you know what I stand up for the people I love when they are dealing with dimwits. 

I didn't respond right away however, because I had much better things to do (finishing my awesome skirt) and I wasn't going to let ignorance de-rail my fun. So I finished the skirt (it rocks) and went downstairs and finished my homework that I needed to hand in. While I was working on the coding for my programming class I found myself mulling over the message. 

At first I was still really mad and my brain ran through all the insults and stereo-typical assumptions I could throw at this person just from their picture and actions, and let me tell you I could have thought of a lot.  I realized though that that would truly make me no better, I try to work to get people to realize that stereotyping someone because of their looks or first impression is not cool and shouldn't be done, so me doing that even if I was hurt wouldn't be cool. You can't argue or fight a person into agreeing with you, but I find you CAN set a good example, and what that person does with it is their responsibility. 

So I stopped thinking about how I could hurt this person back like they had hurt me and started thinking about what would make a person do something so pathetic as to message random people to insult them. Now all I can possibly feel is pity, cause when you take out the hurt feelings, you have to be a pretty sad person with a sad life to find some fulfillment in that kind of stuff. It just says so much more about the person sending those messages than it ever does of the person they are putting down. So I went with this feeling of pity to try to respond to the message and found myself wanting to know what is so bad, so fulfilling, and so shallow about this persons life that they would do this. What I found was a display picture taken from a porn type site about "jailbait", showing a girl in a tiny bikini on a beach (I love this firefox add-on),  who has liked numerous other "plus-sized" groups on Facebook and I can imagine is doing the same to others. 

That is just so pathetic, here you have someone attacking and hurting other people who have never ever done anything to them except be themselves. Thinking that they have done it to someone else who might not be where I am in my journey to self acceptance, who could actually be truly hurt and affected by the message they read. Well that gets me upset cause they are damaging that person's heart and soul for their own enterainment and that just shows what a small insignificant person this "Christie Clements" must be. Now I know people like this christie find such safety in the anonymity of the internet and I am not willing to help her hide her inner ugliness by just staying quiet about it rather I plan on contacting the employer that she mentions on her Facebook wall to let them know one of their employees is harassing random people, and using a picture from a "jailbait" site as their display picture.  I will also post the public information that s/he has provided on Facebook here so that it can be located should an prospective employee along with this blog post so they can the real activities of the person they might be thinking of hiring. Maybe that will make her think twice before she hurts other people. Then I will forget about her and her sad existence and enjoy my wonderful friends and look towards much more worthwhile things

You just can't escape the fat hate.

So I joined Pinterest a few days ago and I have really been enjoying it. For those of you who haven't heard of it yet Pinterest is a social networking site that works by pinning images onto "boards" which is basically just a group of similar pins that share the same topic or idea. Once you have "pinned" something to a board it attaches a picture or video along with a little comment or description of the thing you pinned and if you click on it it will bring you back to that page. Some of the main categories are home, recipes, crafts, fashion, and so forth. It is a quick visual way to group things that you see while surfing the internet and being that I am a very visual person it works well for me. I also like being able to follow my friends and family who are also on Pinterest and see things that they post. I have found that my second oldest sister and I actually have a bit in common in regards to what we like and that is a neat thing to know.

Anyway I have really been enjoying it but last night I got quite frustrated with a common theme that was popping up as I was browsing other people pins. That theme was fat hate, thinspiration, body snarking,  or diet propaganda and all that jazz. Now I am not surprised at all to see it there, what did surprise and hurt me the most is who I saw it from. Seeing those pins from people I love and care about, and whom I am close to, hurt a lot and made me wonder if that is how they also see me. Seeing or hearing how awful fat is, how badly they want to get rid of it, and how much they despise or fear it,  from close friends or relatives in my life made me start wondering about our relationship. If they feel that way about fat how can they separate that from me when I AM a fat woman. It really made me think and examine some of my relationships.

Now while that was a sad thing to see and ponder I have to say it was also nice to see fat/size positive pins from people, pins about HAES and speaking up against the fat hate. We need more of that to keep popping up and I truly believe that the more people see and become familiar with the fat positive message the easier it will become to help show what we are all about. I think that every little post, pin, or other kind with a fat/size acceptance kind of message helps to plants seeds in people that will get them to find out more or be more open to hearing about it in the future. So while it is true you really can't escape all those negative messages unless you sequestered yourself into a padded room, I think we can all fight back against those messages by sprinkling positive ones where-ever we can.

Do any of you have pinterest accounts? What do you think about it? What kinds of things, or methods could we do to spread a positive message about size and fat? I would love to begin to pin as much FA/HAES and body positivity messages as I can so if you know of something that would make a great thing to pin along those lines please leave a link here.They may seem like little drops in the sea of fate hate we face, but I think they can make a difference.

You are all awesome!

I came across the site AwesomenessReminders the other day and it instantly made me smile. AwesomenessReminders is a simple idea, you sign up for a monthly cost and they provide a phone call everyday just to tell you or someone you love that they are awesome. If they don't reach a person they leave the message in voicemail. How cute is that?

Now you can have all of the calls go to you, or you can schedule the calls to go to other people on certain days. Such a simple idea but wow what a great one, I think receiving a call from someone just to tell you that you are awesome would really have an impact on people. So often we are bombarded with a ton of messages that tell us how imperfect we are, how we need to do this or that to even be acceptable, and it has become very uncommon to hear that hey you are ok just the way you are and actually you are quite awesome.

This site just made me smile because it is a little drop of a positive message in the deluge of negativity we deal with. Who doesn't need to hear that we are ok, it kind of reminds me of the daily affirmation skit on Saturday Night Live. Now say it with me folks ...

Because I'm good enough.. I'm smart enough.. 

and, doggonit, people like me!

I AM AWESOME!

Please allow me to introduce myself

Wow, I started this blog a long time ago, back when I was 28-29 and honestly a completely different person than I am today. I really haven't done a good job with posting here and I was finally able to pinpoint a few reasons why that is.

First off I started Scattered Marbles at a time in my life where I was basically living two separate lives, my real-life one and my online one. I was struggling with so much inner stuff that I found impossible to show to those people in my real life, but I felt a safety and security from the online format that allowed me to let that out more. I was hiding secrets, and feelings, in real life that were slowly killing me and putting my into a very dark place. I hated having to hide that part of myself to the people whose acceptance mattered most but the fear of them seeing who I really was and deciding I wasn't worth their time was too much. So I started this blog as a way to get that all out and yet was so worried that someone would find it and figure out it was me that I would procrastinate writing about the things on my heart. I hated having to be fake to people and so that held me back.

Secondly I was so worried of doing it wrong. I would start to write about something that I just needed to talk about and then found myself reluctant to publish things or expressing my genuine feelings for fear of offending someone in the fatosphere that I looked up to, and/or getting hated for thoughts that might go against the norm that I would just give up and neglect posting. Now I know, that being able to get out what I am dealing with, thinking about, learning, and going through will be a big help for me, and hopefully help someone else as well. I am done with hiding parts of who I am and have decided that it is time to be genuinely me, and learn to accept and love both the good and bad and everything in between. So please allow me to re-introduce myself...


Hi! I am Teresa, a 33 year old fat woman. I am a full-time student pursuing my bachelors degree in web design and interactive media and a part time freelancing graphic designer. I have spent the majority of my life hating myself and my body and pursuing the "fantasy of being thin" (go read it!) and living my life as an apology for just existing. I live with depression, agoraphobia, and severe self-esteem issues, and I am learning to accept and cope with them.

I have been a missionary kid (MK), teachers kid (TK), and now I am a pastors kid (PK). I have a relationship with Jesus that means to world to me and I am constantly wanting to grow and learn more about Him. I try everyday to live my Christianity as a relationship with my savior and not a religion. I love being creative, and am enamored with color. That love of color has spurned quite a large nail polish, and makeup collection which is fun for me. I love laughing and being silly and am learning to find joy in both the ups and downs of life.

I am not perfect, far from it, but God is working on me everyday and I am starting to like myself. I hope that I can find more strength and healing by sharing who I am with people and no longer hiding things I think will drive people away. I think it is so important to let our voices be heard, and mine will be talking about fat acceptance and HAES, what it is like living with depression, what God is showing me everyday, and any other thing that pops into my head.

I welcome you all to read, comment, and join me in this blogging journey but just remember respect is vital here and as long as we respect each other I think we will get a long ok! I have deleted all the previous posts save for a few that I still loved and wanted to hang onto but as for now this is a new slate to fill.