I know you are but what am I?

We've all heard this cliched adage; whether we have used it ourselves or have seen it in at least one scene of every TV show ever, we have all heard it. It's used as a comeback for an insult. Someone calls you ugly? "I know you are but what am I?" Someone calls you annoying? "I know you are but what am I?" But how about we take a more adult, a more real stance on this age old sentence.

"I know you are but what am I?"

This sentence can speak so heavily on the character of a person. I was scrolling through Facebook the other night and I read a post by the lovely, Aarti Oliva from Curves Become Her. This is the post here. This post broke my heart. She spoke about how a person that is -astonishingly- the same race as her, who went out of their way to demean her due to her weight over social media.

Stuff like that breaks my heart and makes me want to go on a "Hulk Smash" rampage at the same time.

No. He did not bother to find out.
He did not care for who I was. What my life has been like. Where I am with my life right now. Why I do what I do.

All he and so many other fat hating eejits saw was an unacceptable body size. An unattractive shape. That scares them because I have made peace with myself. If they can't accept me, how am I accepting myself?

Even if it was "just over social media" Aarti Oliva, a beautiful woman who has struggled, like many of us, with her body acceptance stood up for herself. My heart broke for her pain but my soul beamed with pride for her bravery and courage to in some way take a stand. It made me think of my own life experiences over the years. It made me think of all the times that I had been demeaned or belittled by people, made to feel small and how I never said a word. One instance in particular still stays with me to this day.

I was a senior in high school. Now, to set the scene; I am overweight, asthmatic, wearing glasses that should have been replaced years ago, and I go to a school where a dress code was enforced. This of course meant that my uniform consisted of baggy, ill-fitting colored shirts and tent-esque stretch pants from K-mart. I was often ridiculed and mocked, I was often told that I looked like a teacher and was openly shamed for it. This one day in particular however, my bullying turned physical, it turned into sexual harassment. 

At my school, fights were a very common thing. So common that campus wide "lock outs" were instated. For those of you that don't know: a lockout is when any student caught outside of their classroom after the tardy bell rings is "locked out" of the class room and are immediately sent to the small school leaders (I'll explain that in a moment) and are reprimanded in some way. This punishment usually included either B.I.C (in school suspension), detention, or suspension. My school, which consisted of three usable floors was divided into three "small schools" meaning that each floor of the school was ran by different people and focused on a different job prospect. One day, due to the issue with fights breaking out during the time where students commuted from the first floor to their respective floors after lunch, all the small school leaders decided that they were going to herd students in one direction.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Gone was the students freedom to roam the halls as they pleased, we were herded like cattle up the stairs on the far left of the building, our teachers standing like obedient and observant dogs making sure one of the flock doesn't run off. It was horrible. It always didn't stop bad things from happening in the hallways. If anything the cramped congestion made things worse. On this day, I had stopped on the second floor because -thankfully!- my best friend's locker was near the stairs they herded us toward. I had to grab a text book from her locker because I had forgotten mine that day. It was sitting on the floor of the locker and I bent over to pick it up and....

WHAMM!!!

My head smashes into the back of the locker because some boy smacked me on the butt so hard I tipped over. My butt stung and I immediately felt this insane sense of vulnerability that I didn't even have the day that I lost my virginity. I heard this insane cackle worse than Ed from The Lion King and turned to see the back of this boy who was running like a bat out of hell through the crowd. I'll never forget the crisp color of his blue polo shirt, or the way his dusty braids seemed to stand out among a sea of raven colored hair. A fight broke out seconds after he'd done it and I remember standing their, frozen, as pandemonium broke out around me. I felt vandalized. 

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have said something, I would have hung my head low, kept walking and just tried to forget it. But that was the problem, I couldn't forget it. I couldn't let something like this go this time. I felt so much fear and shame in my heart that I felt as if I would explode. So, with my book clutched to my chest, I marched straight to my small school leaders and told them what happened. I was shaking like a leaf, to the point where they allowed me to stay in the office my entire fifth period. They got all the details from me that they could and then sent me on my way. They assured me that they would find who did this to me and I believed them. My heart was still wrapped tightly in a blanket of fear, but I believed them.

I spent the next three days walking the hallways in a state of constant fear and panic. I didn't know if this boy would hit me again. I didn't know if he would threaten me not to say anything. I didn't know what could happen, so the uncertainty drove me insane. Finally, I got called to the office and I was told that they found the boy who did it on the school's security cameras. I felt so relieved, I felt vindicated. Only to have that small moment of triumph ripped out from underneath me. 

"He's frequently in trouble," I was told. So they slapped him on the wrist. He got three days suspension. My parents weren't called. His mom was called to come get him but she never said anything to me, never saw me, never tried to force him to apologize or apologize for his actions. Their decision was made and final. So, I hung my head, nodded and returned to class. It took my small school leaders three days to find him and by the following Tuesday, he was back roaming the halls again. I could have passed that boy every day for the rest of my year there and never known it. But that wasn't the point. That didn't take away the fear that I felt, wondering if it would happen again, knowing that he would just get away easy. It didn't take away the fact that someone had touched me in a way that made me immensely uncomfortable and afraid, and I felt like no one cared, that no one was on my side. 

That boy saw a fat girl with a fat bottom, bent over, a** up, and what he saw was an easy target. He saw an easy target and he took advantage. He didn't care to know anything about me, just that he could abuse me in any way that he felt like. He did it, he got away with it -in my eyes at least- and he probably did it again to someone else, and got another slap on the wrist. I have held so much anger and hurt around because of this situation. Feelings that I didn't even know I had until Aarti Olivia wrote the words that I wish that I had the courage to say back then:

I will not shrink in oblivion. There is much work to be done. More people to reach out to and empower. More heading to process.

She was absolutely right, and this is why we need the body positive movement, so that young girls and women, and young men and guys the world over don't wind up feeling the way that I felt that day. I will not shrink into the oblivion for you. You have no power over my right to love my body the way that it is, was, and will be. So you can hate me, say that I promote an unhealthy life style by trying to get people to love themselves at any size, you can call me fat...."I know I am but what are you?"