Roxane Gay might just have saved my self-esteem
Hunger, by Roxane Gay, has been on my ‘to read’ list for a while, but it was not until this Christmas that I was able to get my hands on it. The reading took me longer than I thought it would but I can understand why. The 270 pages book (in the Brazilian edition) gives you the false impression that it was going to be easy reading. It won’t. The book makes you constantly think about things she endured and at times you can feel her pain. The words Gay put in the paper aren’t easy to read, on the contrary, it’s painful to get into her head.
Even though there’s all the pain, Hunger turned out to be a friend. As I was reading it I could see a lot of me, I could see myself in her pain, in her disgust for her own body and I could see all the anxiety and dilemmas that comes to my mind every day on someone else. Being a fat woman is a lonely task but when you find out that others have felt the same way you did, it turns out it kind of comforts you. I know, it’s awful to find comfort on someone else’s pain, but when you find there are others that have been suffering the same you do makes you feel like you are not alone.
It’s import to point out that I wasn’t raped like Gay was, but, somehow, our bodies and the way we dealt with it all our lives resemble. Or, at least, I thought so. To be able to get to the point I’ll have to tell a short story first. I have been reading and getting to know more about feminism, fatphobia and the whole body positive movement for a while now, and even though I still struggle a lot with my self-image I believe I can say I’m some miles ahead from where I started. But, as I said, there is still a lot of struggle.
This week I had to do some cleaning and I found some pictures of me as a kid and as a teenager. I have always had this image of myself as some gigantic person when compared to others around me. Well, I was never a thin person, like people expect Brazilian girls to be, but to my surprise, I wasn’t that gigantic person I always thought I was. And that hit me like a Mike Tyson’s punch in my stomach… And the pain is excruchiating. Just like that I found out that I have been rationally and conscioully depriving myself of living for, at least, 19 years. Not only that but I have been mistreating and fattening my body because I believed that was all that I was.
My first reaction was to cry and then I simply couldn’t because I was too angry with all that I have been doing to myself, but mostly, what I allowed the sickness of others to do with myself. I have been sickening myself (body and mind) because others can’t see beauty beyond a size 2.
If you read all of this I ask two things out of you: first, be kind to yourself. Like Roxane Gay did, and I did, take a good look into you and find out where all the lack of self-love comes from, and from today on start looking at you in a loving way. Second, after finding your scars, take a good look at them, yell at them, fight them and take your time to cure them. At the end of Gay’s book, she said she is freeing herself to be and feel all she could. May we all find our road to freedom.
