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My mom and dad were both big. My dad was about 6’4″, 350lbs, maybe even more than that, I don’t know. He was a very stocky guy, very Burly — his arms were just MASSIVE, his forearms. And he had a belly on him, but he had skinny legs and he was just massive, he was a massive dude. And fat, yeah, but man — did he pull it off. He had a lot of charisma. He was a con artist. And it just never seemed to hold him back. He was “DAD”. Mom was fat. Mom was maybe 240/250, 5’5″ or 5’6″ – I’m not sure exactly. Very docile, very submissive. She did all the cooking. She also did most of the working, job-wise.

And I remember the hierarchy of the family, and how it played out in terms of how much food you got at dinner. We never filled our own plates. Mom did that. We’d set up the TV trays in front of the TV and she would bring us our dinners. And dad would get the most, by a significant amount – he’d have just a mountain of food on his plate. And Mom and I would usually get about the same portion, but I always wanted more.

I don’t know what that was about; wanting more. I was a kid, but I could sure put it away. I would go into the kitchen afterwards because it was always my job to do the dishes and clean up after and I would eat whatever was left on the plates. I remember one time I was – my timeline is so off, I don’t really remember ages or dates or places. But I do remember being in the kitchen, and we’d had steak that night, and there was a piece of steak left on the plate; a little strip of steak, and I tried to eat it very quickly and I started choking. And I didn’t call for help. I was CHOKING, I couldn’t breathe, I was TERRIFIED. But I was so ashamed that I had snuck something that I didn’t call for help.

I don’t know how I dislodged it. I don’t remember. I mean, I remember being ashamed, but I don’t remember how I saved my own life. The shame was a more powerful thing in that moment than living.

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Stacy Bias can be contacted at StacyBias.net

I learned I was fat in sixth grade. This was the beginning of junior high, at a school where I knew no one, having just moved into the area. I did not make friends quickly at this school, but I eventually got to know a boy in my math class who seemed nice. I thought he liked me, so when the Sadie Hawkins dance came around, I asked him. When I asked him why he turned me down, he told me it was because I looked like “the dancing elephants from Fantasia.” The asshole didn’t even know they were hippos, not elephants. The boys began to tease me. The girls simply ostracized me.

During the summer following seventh grade, I decided people would like me if I were thin. I refused to eat anything my mother cooked. She and my father were both fat too. I refused to eat anything with even a bit of fat in it. I became anorexic. When I returned to school, the boys who used to tease me were now competing for my attention. The girls got mean. Instead of ignoring me completely, they began spreading rumors that I was a “slut” and a “whore.” I had never even kissed a boy. I had never even been to a school dance.

In high school, I continued skipping meals and took up smoking. I discovered mini-thins and took them every day. What started out as 6 became 20 by the time I was 18. At that point, I added crystal meth to my regimen. I became a drummer for a male band. I was thin and “hot” and could get any guy I wanted. I felt beautiful for the first time in my life, not realizing that the attention was negative, that my physical attractiveness was all that these people cared about. I have a 150 IQ. I am in MENSA. I paint, I write. But I was just a decoration on a stage, made slightly more interesting by the fact that I excelled at a traditionally male skill – playing the drums. I can’t count the times I heard “Wow! You’re so good for a girl!”

At 21, I overdosed. Could have been the mini-thins, could have been the meth, or the exorbitant amounts of alcohol I’d added to the mix by then. I remember feeling like I was floating away. I saw only blackness, but I heard my friends arguing about to taking me to a hospital. No one wanted to get in trouble. They left me.

I left my friends, I stayed in my bedroom, and I suffered through overcoming my meth addiction. I self-medicated with alcohol. I was now having panic attacks regularly. I gained 85 pounds. My entire identity as “the hot girl,” the identity I had worked so hard for, was gone. I weighed 230 pounds. I was a size 20. I felt as though my life was over.

I made new friends, once again taking up my mantle as the Funny Fat Girl. I had crushes on boys who did not reciprocate. I was desperate to lose the weight. The only way I knew how was by starving. So that’s what I did. When I would “mess up” by eating more than 1,000 calories a day, I would make myself throw up. I got down to 180 pounds.

I met my husband 5 years ago. He tells me over and over that I am beautiful, that he loves me that I cannot expect to get back to a weight that I reached as a teenager on drugs, that I am being ridiculous. He is right. But still I starve, binge, purge, and feel like a worthless pile of fat. I weigh myself every morning, every evening, after every shower.

I am a good person, a smart person, a good friend, a loving wife, and damn good dog momma. I am an artist, a teacher, and a volunteer. I have two college degrees, a husband who loves me, and friends who respect me. I appear successful. But I feel like a failure because I can’t fit into those jeans.

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Agnes Day is a writer, a voracious reader, a music lover, a wife, and a dog momma. Feel free to contact her (especially if you’d like to pay her to write) here.