The Cancer of Fat...

If I told you I had cancer, would you have more compassion?  If I told the cells were spreading, would you wear a ribbon in my honor?  If I told you that the cancer leaves me extremely fatigued with no energy would you send up prayers for me?  Would you post my picture on Facebook and request to receive a million likes?

I often wonder about the compassion of a world that does this for cancer, but practices the horrific act of fat shaming.  Just like cancer, the food I have ingested makes me victim to it.  Just like cancer the process the food has under gone continues in my system.

To make matters worse, food is a legal drug.  I transitioned from a time of pure food to a time when all sorts of things are added to food to preserve it.  Unfortunately, it has preserved my weight.  The chemicals have also altered my thyroid.  I have food allergies that I haven't identified yet.  So until that time comes, if it ever comes, I will continue to swell.

If I said I had cancer, would you exploit it for your own entertainment?  Would you cancer-shame me on Facebook because my cancer has outgrown me?  Would you share videos of me on World Star or YouTube showing me taking chemotherapy and my hair falling out while it's passed around countless times on the internet?  Would you laugh along with all those laughing at my wigs that cover up the bald patterns carved through my head for cancer?

Probably not.

But as a society, we do it to fat people.  Because if we'd just stop eating, we'd lose the weight, right?  WRONG.  First you have to move past the addiction.  Some people never make it past that.  My brother didn't.  At 21 years of age he succumbed to the Cancer of Fat...693lbs wrestled his heart and stilled it in the seventh month, on the 19th day in the year 1991.  For years afterwards, I ran scared, behaving recklessly because I was sure I would also die as he did, 30 days shy of my 21st birthday.

Well I made it to 21 and now I sit here, in my living room on my couch in the midst of praise.  Yes.  I am fat.  Morbidly obese even, but in the nucleus of my heart is the love of God.  This blog and all of you are my support group.  I have suffered  from the cancer of obesity most of my life.  I have self medicated with laughter, jokes, make-up and more food.

Attempts to thwart the Cancer have been futile.  I have been a vegetarian, a Jenny Craig dropout, went into a state of ketosis, injected prenatal urine, had gastric bypass surgery.  Fat shaming is an act of ill repute.  It slowly kills the fat person and diminishes the heart of the shamer.    Before you go shaming a fat person, realize that Fat is a Cancer...