Strangers remove food from her shopping trolley, humiliate her in the gym and refuse to sit next to her on planes. How did size get to be such a big deal?

To tell you the story of my body, do I tell you how much I weighed at my heaviest? Do I tell you that number, the shameful truth of it always strangling me? At my heaviest, I weighed 577lb, or over 41st, at 6ft 3in. That is a staggering number, but at one point, that was the truth of my body.

I do not weigh 577lb now. I am still very fat, but I weigh about 150 pounds less than that. With every new diet attempt, I shave off a few pounds. This is all relative. I am not small. I never will be. For one, I am tall. I have presence, I am told. I take up space. I intimidate. I want to go unnoticed. I want to disappear until I gain control of my body.

I began eating to change my body. I was wilful in this. Some boys had destroyed me, and I barely survived it. I ate because I thought that if my body became repulsive, I could keep men away. Of all the things I wish I knew then that I know now, I wish I had known I could talk to my parents and get help, and turn to something other than food.

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There was a boy. I loved him. His name was Christopher. That’s not really his name. I was 12 when I was raped by Christopher and several of his friends in an abandoned cabin in the woods where no one but those boys could hear me scream.

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I don’t remember their names. They were boys who were not yet men but knew, already, how to do the damage of men. I remember their smells, the squareness of their faces, the weight of their bodies, the tangy smell of their sweat, the surprising strength in their limbs. I remember that they laughed a lot. I remember that they had nothing but disdain for me. When it was all over, I pushed my bike home and I pretended to be the daughter my parents knew, the straight-A student.

My memories of the after are scattered, but I remember eating and eating and eating so I could forget, so my body could become so big it would never be broken again.

Today, I am a fat woman. I don’t think I am ugly. I don’t hate myself in the way society would have me hate myself, but I hate how the world all too often responds to this body. It would be easy to pretend I am just fine with my body as it is. I’m a feminist and I know that it is important to resist unreasonable standards for how my body should look.

What I know and what I feel are two very different things. Feeling comfortable in my body isn’t entirely about beauty standards. It’s about how I feel in my skin and bones. I am not comfortable in my body. Nearly everything physical is difficult. I have no stamina. When I walk for long periods of time, my thighs and calves ache. My feet ache. My lower back aches.

When it’s hot, I sweat profusely. My shirt gets damp. I feel like people are staring at me sweating and judging me for having an unruly body that dares to reveal the costs of its exertion.

There are things I want to do with my body but cannot. If I am with friends, I cannot keep up, so I am constantly thinking up excuses to explain why I am walking slower than they are, as if they don’t already know. Sometimes, they pretend not to know, and sometimes, it seems like they are genuinely that oblivious to how different bodies move, as they suggest we do impossible things like go to an amusement park or walk a mile up a hill to a stadium.

I avoid walking with other people as often as possible because walking and talking at the same time is a challenge. In public toilets, I manoeuvre into cubicles. I try to hover over the toilet because I don’t want it to break beneath me. No matter how small a toilet cubicle is, I avoid the disabled toilet because people like to give me dirty looks when I use that stall merely because I am fat and need more space.

My body is a cage of my own making. I have been trying to figure a way out of it for more than 20 years.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I think, I am the fattest person in this apartment building. I am the fattest person in this class. I am the fattest person at this university.’ Photograph: Jennifer Silverberg/The Guardian

When you’re overweight, people project assumed narratives on to your body and are not at all interested in the truth. Fat, much like skin colour, is something you cannot hide, no matter how dark the clothing you wear, or how diligently you avoid horizontal stripes. You may become very adept at playing the role of wallflower. You may learn how to be the life of the party so that people are too busy laughing at or with you to focus on the elephant in the room.

Regardless of what you do, your body is subject to commentary when you gain weight, lose weight, or maintain your unacceptable weight. People are quick to offer you statistics and information about the dangers of obesity, as if you are not only fat but also delusional about the realities of your body. This commentary is often couched as concern. They forget that you are a person. You are your body, nothing more, and your body should damn well become less.

Many years ago, at the gym, five of the six recumbent bikes, my equipment of choice, were occupied by gorgeous, extraordinarily thin women, predominantly of the blond persuasion. I looked around, wondering if a movie was being filmed or if it was Sorority Workout Hour. I became irritated and downright angry as I always do when I see exceedingly thin people at the gym. It doesn’t matter that they are most likely thin for this very reason. I feel like they are mocking me with their perfect, toned bodies. I got on the sixth bike and programmed the machine for 60 minutes, knowing I would stop at 40, but giving some room to push myself if I wasn’t dying by then. I glanced over at the girl next to me. She had been on the bike for about two minutes longer. When 40 minutes passed, my legs were burning fiercely. I looked at my neighbour and she looked back at me. She had been eyeing me the entire time, wondering just how long I was going to last.

I am no stranger to dieting. I understand that, in general, to lose weight you need to eat less and move more

After 45 minutes, I locked eyes with my nemesis again and saw a glint in her eyes. She was letting me know that however long I lasted, she would last longer. She would not be bested by a fat ass. At 50 minutes, I was certain that a heart attack was imminent, but death was preferable to losing to that hussy. At 53 minutes, she glared at me, leaned forward, and grabbed the handles of the bike. I turned up the volume on my music and started bobbing my head to the beat. Finally, she stopped and I heard her say, “I can’t believe she’s still on there.” Her friends nodded in agreement. At 60 minutes, I calmly stopped pedalling, peeled my shirt away from my skin, wiped the bike down, and slowly exited the room because my legs were rubbery and weak. I was trying to project poise. I knew she was watching. I was smug and temporarily triumphant. Then I stepped into the bathroom and threw up, ignoring the bitter taste at the back of my throat as I embraced a hollow victory.

I am, perhaps, self-obsessed beyond measure. No matter where I am, I wonder about where I stand and how I look. I think, I am the fattest person in this apartment building. I am the fattest person in this class. I am the fattest person at this university. I am the fattest person in this theatre. I am the fattest person on this aeroplane. I am the fattest person in this airport. I am the fattest person in this city. I am the fattest person at this conference. I am the fattest person in this restaurant. I am the fattest person in this shopping mall. I am the fattest person on this panel. I am the fattest person in this casino.

I am the fattest person.

This is a constant refrain and I cannot escape it.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘There are very few spaces where bodies like mine fit. Air travel is a particular kind of hell.’ Photograph: Jennifer Silverberg/The Guardian

I am no stranger to dieting. I understand that, in general, to lose weight you need to eat less and move more. I can diet with reasonable success for months at a time.

There is always a moment when I am losing weight when I feel better in my body. I breathe easier. I feel myself getting smaller and stronger. My clothes fall over my body the way they should and then they start to get baggy. I get terrified. I start to worry about my body becoming more vulnerable as it grows smaller. I start to imagine all the ways I could be hurt.

I also taste hope. I taste the idea of having more choices when I go clothes shopping. I taste the idea of walking into a crowded room without being stared at and talked about. I taste the idea of food shopping without strangers taking food they disapprove of out of my trolley or offering me unsolicited nutrition advice. I taste the idea of being free of the realities of living in an overweight body. And then I worry that I am getting ahead of myself. I worry that I won’t be able to keep up better eating, more exercise, taking care of myself. Inevitably, I stumble and then I fall, and then I lose the taste of being free. I am left feeling like a failure. I am left feeling ravenously hungry, and then I try to satisfy that hunger so I might undo all the progress I’ve made. And then I hunger even more.

***

At the departure gate, there are uncomfortable looks as people make it plain that they don't want to sit next to you

There are very few spaces where bodies like mine fit. Air travel is a particular kind of hell. The standard economy-class seat is 17.2in. The last time I flew in a single economy seat, I was in an exit row. I fitted in the seat because on that particular airline there was no window-seat armrest in the exit rows. I boarded and sat. Eventually my seatmate joined me, and I could instantly tell he was agitated. He kept staring at me and muttering. I could tell he was going to humiliate me. He leaned into me and asked, “Are you sure you can handle the seat’s responsibilities?” He was elderly, rather frail. I was fat, but I was, still am, tall and strong. It was absurd to imagine I could not handle the exit row responsibilities. I simply said yes, but I wished I were a braver woman, the kind who would turn his question back on him.

When you are fat and travelling, the staring starts from the moment you enter the airport. At the gate, there are so many uncomfortable looks as people make it plain that they do not want to be sitting next to you, having any part of your obese body touching theirs. During the boarding process, when they realise that they have lucked out in this particular game of Russian roulette and will not be seated next to you, their relief is visible, shameless.

On this particular flight, this agitated man called for a flight attendant. He stood and followed her to the galley, from where his voice echoed through the plane as he said it was too risky for me to be seated in the exit row. He clearly thought my presence in the exit row meant the end of his life. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands as people began to turn and stare at me and mutter their own comments. I tried not to cry. Eventually, the agitated man was reseated elsewhere, and once the plane took off, I curled into the side of the plane and cried as silently as I could.

From then on, I began to buy two economy seats, which, when I was still relatively young and broke, meant I could rarely travel.

Even when you’ve bought two economy seats, travel is rife with humiliations. Few airline employees have any sense of how to deal with two boarding passes and the empty seat once a plane is fully boarded. It becomes a big production as they try to make sense of the discrepancy, no matter how many times you tell them, yes, both of these seats are mine. The person on the other side of the empty seat often tries to commandeer some of that space for themselves, though if any part of your body were touching them, they would raise hell. I get very salty about that, and the older I get, the more I tell people that they don’t get to have it both ways – complaining if any part of my body dared to touch theirs if I bought one seat, but placing their belongings in the empty space of the empty seat I bought for my comfort and sanity.

On the phone to the 911 operator, I blurted out, ‘I’m fat’, like a deep mark of shame. He smoothly said, ‘Not a problem’

Sometimes, my worst fears come true. When I was on a tour for my book Bad Feminist, I did an event in New York where there was a stage, two or three feet off the ground, and no staircase leading to it. The moment I saw it, I knew there was going to be trouble. When it came time for the event to begin, the authors with whom I was participating easily climbed on to the stage. And then there were five excruciating minutes of me trying to get on to it too while hundreds of people in the audience stared awkwardly. Eventually a kind writer on stage, Ben Greenman, pulled me up as I used all the muscles I had in my thighs. Sometimes, I have a flashback to the humiliation of that evening and I shudder.

After hauling myself up on stage, I sat down on a tiny wooden chair which cracked, and I realised, I am going to vomit and I am going to fall on my ass in front of all these people. I threw up in my mouth, swallowed it, and then did a squat for the next two hours. I am not sure how I did not burst into tears.

By the time I got back to my hotel room, my thigh muscles were shredded, but I was also impressed with how strong those muscles are. My body is a cage, but this is my cage and there are moments when I take pride in it. Still, alone in that hotel room, I sobbed. I sobbed because I was angry at myself, at the event organisers and their lack of forethought. I sobbed because the world cannot accommodate a body like mine and because I hate being confronted by my limitations and because I felt so utterly alone and because I no longer need the layers of protection I built around myself, but pulling those layers back is harder than I could have ever imagined.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘When you’re fat, one of your biggest fears is falling while you’re alone.’ Photograph: Jennifer Silverberg/The Guardian

On 10 October 2014, one of my greatest fears was realised. I had been having stomach pain all that week, but I often have stomach pain, so I paid it little mind. Eventually, I went to the bathroom in my apartment and experienced a very intense wave of pain. I need to lie down, I thought. When I came to, I was on the floor and I was sweaty, but I felt better. Then I looked at my left foot, which was facing in an unnatural direction, the bone nearly poking through the skin. I realised, this is not good. I closed my eyes. I tried not to think of everything that would happen next.

When you’re fat, one of your biggest fears is falling while you’re alone and needing to call an ambulance. When I broke my ankle that fear finally came true.

Thankfully, that night I had my phone in my pocket. My foot was starting to hurt, but nowhere near as badly as I thought it should hurt based on years of watching medical dramas.

This was Lafayette, Indiana, a small town, so 911 answered promptly. While on the phone with the kind operator, I blurted out, “I’m fat,” like it was some deep mark of shame, and he smoothly said, “That’s not a problem.”

Many paramedics showed up and 83% of them were hot. They were full of empathy, and they winced each time they looked at my foot. Eventually they sort of splinted it and dragged me out on this contraption and lifted me on to a trolley. While waiting for the ambulance, I texted my partner that I had had an accident. I wanted to play it down, but I was slowly realising I had really injured myself.

At the hospital, I got x-rays and the technician said, “Your ankle is very, very broken,” which is not to be confused, I guess, with just regular broken. My ankle was also dislocated.

Two other strange things were going on. My heart was beating in an irregular rhythm, which I am pretty sure has been the case for years, and I had a really low haemoglobin count. They were not going to send me home, so I got a room I would end up staying in for 10 days.

I finally recognised that I matter to the people in my life and have a responsibility to matter to myself

The night of the accident, I had texted my sister-in-law and brother, who lived in Chicago at the time, and said, “DON’T TELL MOM AND DAD,” because I knew my parents would panic. They did, of course, tell Mom and Dad. My parents did, in fact, panic. My brother and his wife rented a car and drove down to see me. The first day was a blur of pain and confusion. The orthopaedic surgeon couldn’t operate because of my low haemoglobin, so I got my first blood transfusion. The next day, the surgeon decided to operate because the ankle was unstable.

While all this was going on, I was communicating with my partner on the phone, via text message. She was freaking out in the calmest way possible. She wanted to be in the hospital with me, but circumstances made that impossible. She was there in every way that mattered and I am still grateful for it.

I heard from my brother that the surgery went well, but that my ankle was even more broken than the doctor originally thought. A tendon was torn, this and that and the other. I have hardware in my ankle now.

When I got back to my room after surgery, my parents had magically appeared, along with my other sister-in-law and niece, and my cousin and his partner. I mean, talk about it taking a village. I was reminded, once again, that I am loved.

I was absolutely terrified going into surgery. I realised I have so much life yet to live. I thought, I don’t want to die. I had to face something I’ve long pretended wasn’t true, for reasons I don’t fully understand. If I died, I would leave people behind who would struggle with my loss. I finally recognised that I matter to the people in my life and that I have a responsibility to matter to myself and take care of myself. When I broke my ankle, love was no longer an abstraction. It became this real, frustrating, messy, necessary thing, and I had a lot of it in my life. It was an overwhelming thing to realise.

***

Years ago, I told myself that one day I would stop feeling this quiet but abiding rage about the things I have been through at the hands of others. I would wake up and there would be no more flashbacks. That day never came, or it hasn’t come, and I am no longer waiting for it.

A different day has come, though. I flinch less and less when I am touched. I harbour less hatred toward myself. I try to forgive myself for my trespasses.

I came to many realisations in the aftermath of breaking my ankle. I was broken and then I broke some more. And I am not yet healed, but I have started believing I will be.