Collection of Short Stories

5. Losing weight.

       In a world where my weight has become my identity, where my weight confirms my worth, where my weight determines my position in the society- in a world like this, I am an overweight twenty-one year old woman.

I wasn't always like this though, overweight I mean. In my teenage years I was a pretty lean individual (initially I was even underweight), and those were the times when I was a happy person.

Then came my eighteenth birthday and I was diagnosed with a disease where I gained weight and my face was covered with clusters of pimples. I became ugly.

In a time in life where looks mattered the most, I was suffering from very low self esteem. An active debater and dancer, I stopped performing on stage because of the way I looked.

I was suffering from severe anaemia and had to be bed ridden for over a month because there was a chance of cardiac arrest if I exerted myself too much. That was my board year. The worst year of my twenty one years of life.

I gained weight everywhere. My older clothes didn't fit me anymore. Shopping for new ones was a nightmare because of how the attendants look at you when you pick up a size L. My hair thinned and no inch of my face was clear. The once happy and joyful girl was now a potato full of frustrations and insecurities.

I stopped looking at myself in the mirror. I stopped socialising. I cried myself to sleep every night. I became rude and cranky and temperamental. I screamed at everyone. I stopped talking to people altogether, except for exactly two friends who never breathed a word about my physical appearance.

Then there came a time when I even stopped attending gatherings where there would possibly be a number of people.

"Oh my god you have gained so much weight!"

"Oh look at your face! Poor girl".

"What happened to you? Why don't you do something about yourself?"

These were the only comments that I would ever hear, and they broke a new part of me every single time.

I finally decided that enough was enough. The doctor prescribed medicines which would rectify the hormonal imbalance in my body and prepared a diet chart for me.

I followed it diligently and lost 4 kilograms in a month.

But that month was a different story.

I used to cry, scream, not talk to anyone, tear my hair apart, bite myself, scratch myself because of the hunger pangs and the food cravings.

All the flowery pictures that you see of weight loss, is a myth.

Anyway, I lost weight and even my skin cleared and my hair too grew healthier.

Then came exam time where I was going through the lowest phase of my life. I had altogether stopped eating. I lost a lot of weight at that time.

My old clothes fit me now. People thought I was pretty. I started looking at myself in the mirror again, and I thought that was the end.

Apparently, it wasn't.

I joined med school shortly after, and the real stress began. I gained back the weight because of all the stress; the irregular sleeping hours; the unhealthy and untimely food habits.

The comments started. The self esteem started to drop. The not wanting to perform crept in. The not seeing the mirror, returned. The crying myself to sleep resumed.

People till date joke about my weight, they call me fat, make fun of my protruding belly or crack a joke on my double chin.

I smile outwardly, not saying a single word. I come back home and when the lights are off, the tears start coming.

Believe me, I have tried all methods of weight loss- diet, gym, yoga, zumba, starving myself- all of it, but nothing works.

It is so easy for people to point out my flaws, to comment on my weight, but why do they not see what it does to me? Why do they not see how much it affects me as a person?

Am I not beautiful with that belly fat and with that double chin? Am I not beautiful with the back fat and the jiggly thighs? Am I not a good person? Am I not a responsible citizen? Am I not a good friend?

Am I not human?

I hate myself for crying at times like these when I cannot fall asleep for hours, searching for various methods of weight loss on my phone. I hate myself when I keep joking about my weight to keep things cool.

I am my biggest body shamer, but that is because my weight is now my identity.

My name doesn't matter. What matters is that I am an overweight twenty one year old woman.