For the Scared Fat Girls
Dear Survivor,
To be honest, I struggled with what to say here. Everything comes off like a useless platitude—“thoughts and prayers”. What can I possibly say that would make anyone who hasn’t been through something like this understand? And what else is there to say to someone who does that they haven’t already thought or experienced first hand?
However, to silence myself now would be unforgivable. How often are the words, the truths, of survivors silenced through stigma, fear, or shame? I’ll be damned if I’m going to silence myself by my own inability to find the right words. I don’t know if what follows is right. But it is mine. I’ve kept quiet for decades in an effort to minimize the damage, which of course only created more complicated, more layered damage. What I’m saying is, sexual assault can be hard to face. I fought through years of repression, dissociation, denial, and fear to even recognize what was done to me, to the point that I actually had to Google the definition of sexual assault and write it down in my therapy journal before I could admit to myself that I was assaulted. Twenty years after it happened was the first time I was even able to say the words out loud.
What followed was years of therapy and trauma processing to untangle all of the knots I twisted my mind into in an effort to avoid dealing with it. I just wish I hadn’t wasted so much time hiding from the truth. Because I wasn’t moving on. I wasn’t living. And in those intervening years, life did not stop and wait for me to catch up. Our time on this earth is precious, and there is so much in it to enjoy if we let ourselves. It made me profoundly angry, at my assaulter and myself, that I had allowed either of us to rob me of so many years.
I spent so long trying to forget, and it was scary how successful I was. I would refer to it in my mind as “a close call” or “a bad night”, anything to sidestep the reality of what actually happened. And I internalized the blame for all of it. I don’t want that for you, dear survivor. So I hope, if nothing else, these words can get you to rethink some of the false narrative in your own brain, so you can release every last speck of shame or blame you’ve been harboring.
Because here’s the truth: What you did, said, drank, or wore does not matter. The blame lies squarely with your assaulter and no one else.
A big part of why I decided to participate in this project is to be loud, unapologetic, and visible. Because I’m done hiding, and if seeing me can help you step out from behind the shadow ofyour own assault, then I want you to see me, in the hope that you’ll start to see yourself. For me, there was (and continues to be) a lot of shame around my body and what it looks like wrapped up in this experience. It was specifically made an issue during and immediately after my assault in an attempt to shame me into silence and to shift suspicion away from my assaulter. It was far easier for everyone to believe that the fat girl was a desperate sl*t than to accept that the hot guy would even want to go near someone that looks like me. Unfortunately, it was devastatingly effective - even on me.
But sexual assault is not about what’s considered sexy, it’s about power and control. Andpeople of all shapes and sizes get assaulted every day. So it’s become very important to me to be as visible as possible. As with everything else, representation matters here, too. So while I am addressing ALL survivors, I am very specifically doing this for the scared fat girls. I see you, and I want to tell you that your fatness does not mean you invited or deserved your assault. I want to say that you are just as deserving of help, compassion, and love as anyone else. You are worthy of basic human dignity, respect, and bodily autonomy. You deserve to love yourself and think you are beautiful and you don’t owe anyone your attention or your body. For any reason. Ever.
Love,
A beautiful fat girl who is done being scared
- Danielle