Disappear

So, on the weekends I get really lazy about eating. Also about leaving my room, showering, and putting clothes on. Unless I'm expecting to see people, it doesn't really matter, and I mean, I guess most of that is fine, except for the eating thing.

And it's not even that I'm intentionally not eating, I just get distracted by other things and then think "shit I should do homework" and only when my stomach is like "swegan, food" am I like "oh shit right" and head into the kitchen to make a bowl of oatmeal and today that is what happened but then I went down for dinner. I ate a good amount, wanted to eat more, and suddenly I just felt ill. Like, if I took another bite, I was going to gag. Which usually happens when the texture of food is off, but this was beef stew, and it was really fucking good, and I wanted to eat more but at the same time my brain was just not having any of it. So I ate what was left of my rice, debated dessert before hearing my parents' voices in my head saying "If you're hungry enough for dessert, you're hungry enough to keep eating" and realized I didn't want dessert either because the thought of eating any food at all just made me feel nauseous. So I quit and came back upstairs.

But like,the sick thing is, I know I don't eat a lot, but there's still some fucked up logic in my brain of "this keeps you skinny." Like, whenever I see a body positivity thing, I'm like hell yeah good for you and see all these women loving their bodies, whether they are fat or chubby or whatever, and I am proud of them and happy for them but still on some level, glad I am not them, and afraid of becoming them. Which is really, really unfair to everybody, those women and myself.

It's almost like... I'm happy about body positivity, but glad it doesn't have to apply to me? Like oh thank god I don't have to struggle. But then there's a little voice in the back of my head saying yeah, but if you eat a certain way, you might. People might make mean comments about you in public or look at you in a judgy way if you dare to do something as shocking as eat in public. And don't forget the criticism about how you let yourself go. You were so skinny once. What happened?

It's this paranoia, this fear, that's always at the back of my mind. I worry sometimes it drives more of my decisions than it should. And I buy candy a lot (not recently since I've been so busy), but whenever I do I have to tell myself so much that it's ok, and I still feel guilty about it. Like, first of all, this isn't healthy for you, second of all, it's going to lead to this condition you are afraid of. For no good reason. It's not like if I wasn't this skinny I'd be any less smart or kind or loved or capable, but I'm still afraid of it.

And it makes me so jealous of boys. Do they even get this shit? Maybe now they do, I don't know, but when I'm around boys and men they just seem to... eat. And like, not make comments about what they're eating. I watch the girls in my building and notice how they often comment on their food, or their general eating habits, even when they generally like to eat a bunch of food. The girls are all aware of how they interact with food: how much they eat, when they tend to want to eat, whether they're always hungry or always full. Boys don't comment on that nearly as much as the girls do. And I feel like some part of that is just because they're not really aware, they don't really think about it too much.

And then even with my boyfriend, we have a class together around lunch three times a week, and his lunches look good but I know there's no nutritional value in a lot of them and so even though I want to make myself lunches like that, I can't let myself. And he always just says "food is important" and eats and I'm left there trying to make myself feel not-guilty because hey, there's vegetables in my soup, and those are good for you.

I know some of this must be from getting raised by a mother who was once a dietitian, but it's hard to draw the line between where I'm concerned about the nutritional requirements of my diet and where I'm just concerned about how much food there is at all. Like there shouldn't be guilt associated with eating, should there? I've never wanted to be one of those women who says "oh, I'm so naughty, I had a whole piece of cake at lunch!" or who just orders a salad with dressing on the side or who won't order dessert unless someone splits it with her or who will refuse cake at a party or who says things like "I've been so good today that I deserve to eat this cookie/bag of chips/piece of cake/other kind of junk food" but like that attitude is so tempting when it is surrounded in the language of "oh, but it's about health- I still eat, I just eat healthy" except now the guilt is about making unhealthy choices rather than just making choices. Which I guess is better because it means people are eating, but... it still sounds so fucked up that people should feel guilty for eating something. And then that last comment gets into vegetarianism/veganism which is not the issue here.

All I know is that I wish I could just exist without devoting so much brainpower to worrying about what goes in my body. I mean, maybe there is an advantage to that- I will feel better if I try to eat better- but I wish you could have that mindset without the guilt. And I wish I wasn't so afraid of becoming fat, even a little bit.

Which is the most fucked up thing of all, because on these weekends when I don't eat, some part of me says that's better, because it's better for me to lose weight than to gain it. Like that me losing any weight at all is a good thing because it's always better to be smaller, if possible. Like how little I eat is something I get to brag about, how small I am is something that is just how life works for me, aren't I so lucky. It's better for me to be tiny, tinier than I am now, than it is for me to dare get any bigger. And that is the part that worries me. I don't even really know what a healthy weight is anymore. Does my BMI even matter? How is it that at the size I'm at, my BMI is closer to overweight than it is to underweight? Why am I so hyperaware of this? Why do I care?

I don't really have any answers. I just know that I have to keep eating to live and function properly. So I will, and I'll try not to beat myself up about it. And try to work through all my fears that are so unfair, but that I don't really think are my fault.

yer pal,
swegan

you stupid, stupid girl

It is exhausting to not get things. Trust me, i am the world's leading expert.

I don't get when people are joking. Like not when they're like "okay, I'm gonna tell a joke" kind of joking, but when they tease me. I mean, I guess maybe I am, but it happens a lot. I don't know, maybe it happens a lot to everybody, maybe I'm just a big sensitive baby who's making up all her being upset with this. All I know is that I figured out one day long ago that the boys who were mean to me did so because I reacted. I still react. And it just bugs me when one of my family members says something annoying and I don't catch on that they're kidding and my first instinct is to defend myself and nothing is worse than looking up and seeing that they're smiling and everyone else at the dinner table is smiling and I've become the butt of the joke because ha ha swegan takes everything seriously.

I don't know, maybe I am too sensitive. I like that my dad does this thing now, where he'll put on this dramatic voice when he says something blatantly wrong, and he'll make sure to make it really, really wrong, and then I look over at him and he's grinning at me like "eh? eh?" and I get it, and that makes it easier. But what really bums me out is that one thing earlier this year when I was at my grandparents' arguing back about something and someone was like "it's just so fun to bug you because you react" and i'm like great, how does that make this any different from when I was 12?

But then if I start reacting too much then I'm being the big fat too-sensitive crybaby who took it to far and it's like what, do I just take nothing personally? ever? ha ha everything is a joke ha ha swegan is short and opinionated and thinks she knows everything about the world and in reality she is just a little baby lamb who knows nothing about anything ha ha guys we can't talk about this around swegan, she is too innocent/she'll get offended by it because she's politically correct and it's like can you stop being an asshole OH WAIT BUT YOU WEREN'T BEING AN ASSHOLE AND I'M TOO STUPID TO TELL.

I know people love me, but I know I'm a pain in the ass to put up with. I really hate that I get teased all the time but I hate that I can't handle it, everyone else on the planet can handle it swegan, why can't you? You're just being too sensitive. And it's like yeah, you know what, I probably am. And I can't tease anyone else because I am too worried about hurting them and maybe that's because I know how much teasing bugs me and I only know what it's like to be me and not to be someone else.

You worry too much, you worry too much. Yes, yes, yes I do but are you really surprised given that my mother came up here to deal with what happened on tuesday by forcing me to go to the police who can't do anything because no crime was committed? I regret that. I wish I had never gone to the police because it turns out the whole deal was a big fat fucking nothing that, again, they couldn't do anything about in the first place. My parents worry. My parents worry so much, they always have, my mom still does, she'll make these little comments that sound like she's considering a reasonable bad alternative to a situation when in reality she is just worrying and it's like yeah, ok, my parents are overprotective, are you really surprised that I worry about everything? that i'm scared of life? like, literally everything about it? are you really surprised?

I get that I am a naive idealistic baby sheep, okay, I got it. I get it. It sucks because it means constantly going through life being treated like a child who doesn't know what she's talking about, even when she's writing something like this, because I know I'm making a big deal out of nothing and god forbid any member of my family sees this because they will talk to me like "swegan you know we are just teasing right" YES YES I KNOW THAT OKAY I AM NOT THAT FUCKING STUPID i am just upset just let me be upset. why is it that i am always overreacting when i am upset. why.

I know it is hard to deal with me because I am so sensitive you can't treat me like a normal person. I know real life is going to slap me in the face, it already did when some guy asked me for $80 at 7:30 AM and I gave it to him without once considering he might not be a good person. I still think he is because his story lines up, but I'm still out $80 and having to tell that story to the police 500000 times did not help because they always ask why. Why? he didn't seem threatening. I just wanted him to go away so I just went along with him. You are a big scary police man you don't understand what it's like to be this short and young and female. which implies that i felt threatened but i didn't, just wary, just not sure what to do but continue on like nothing was wrong and at least it was only $80 that got taken from me. I don't care that he promised to repay me, I just want everything to go away, I just wish I could wipe this whole mess away with a big whiteboard marker.

I'm just upset and procrastinating. I'll be fine. I'm always fine. I'll go home for christmas and get teased some more. Which makes me sound like a victim and I'm not. everything is fine. everything is fine. I am just upset right now everything is fine, i will be fine, I always am, I always am. This is hardly the first time I have written a crazy post on here that concerned people but trust me when I say that this too will pass, it is just me being sad and being sad is ok, everyone is sad and I will be ok.

yer pal,
swegan

Names

When I was about 7 or 8 (as far as I can remember), I wondered why, just because I was a girl, I would have to change my name if I got married someday. I wasn't really set up to critique yet that maybe I wouldn't get married, maybe I'd like girls, etc, but I did latch onto that one point. Why did I have to change my name? It seemed so arbitrary. And yet it was all around me, within my own family, within the families of everyone I knew. And I decided, probably when I was about 9, that I would keep my name forever. I didn't bother thinking about the logistics, I just vowed to do it.

To this day, I'm still pretty dead set on that promise.

I mean, we all know where this came from, right? When women were property, they'd change their name once they changed families and the "ownership" changed. Having the father's name was a way to prove that those children were his and not another man's. And this is still around because...? I'd like to think people don't care about that as much now, and furthermore, women haven't been property for a long-ass time now. So why does this continue? Just because? It seems harmless enough, I guess, but it pisses me off.

Furthermore, why is it so revolutionary that someone should take my name? Just because I have a vagina? It's ridiculous. And, this is the one that really gets me- if women do all (yes, all, if you disagree with me here you can literally go to hell) the hard work of childbearing and giving birth, why the everliving FUCK don't their children at least get the chance to have their mother's name? If I'm gonna go through hell, possibly risk my own life, to bring these children into the world, you bet your ass they're going to have my last name. If you disagree? I'm not having children with you. The end.

But. But. I know that hoping for someone to take my last name and agree that our children should have my name is never going to happen, and it pisses me off so much. It's like being tied to a chair. I can't do anything about it. Any of the boys I come into contact with will have been raised with the expectation that they'll never have to give up their identity, and they won't part lightly with that (and I can't blame them, given how little I want to part with mine). They grow up with the knowledge, somewhere in the back of their mind, that someday, should they marry and have kids, those kids and their wife will have their name. And it's such bullshit. Even the nicest boys I meet have never even stopped to second guess this, to think "you know, maybe that's unfair." Which is how privilege works, I guess: when you have it good, you don't want to question it.

There are many, many reasons I dislike being female. The blame for all of them lies in other people (with the exception of periods, which are just unfortunate). This is near the top of the list (along with the idea that I'm more likely to be sexually assaulted, that some people view me as an incubator, and that I'm less likely to be taken seriously, especially when emotional, etc). And that bothers me, because I shouldn't live in a society where I dislike how I was born. And then that gets into a lot of issues with disability that I am definitely not informed enough to talk about, so I'll leave that there.

It just... ugh. I'm not totally naive, I know that I'm never going to get what I want by virtue of living where and when I do. But I still hold out a lot of hope for some kind of compromise, like whomever I marry keeping their name and me keeping mine, or both of us changing to some agreed upon different surname, and then finding some way to compromise in terms of kids. Honestly, I'd still be pretty happy with that- it's still nontraditional and is very balanced. And I'm not willing to be with someone if they aren't willing to compromise with me on that- either I don't change my last name, or we both do. That's it. That's the line. I will not cross it.

As for now, I just got riled up about this for reasons I can't remember, but it's late and I have a midterm in the morning.

yer pal,
swegan.