I wish there was a way to make everyone I know read this, but since there isn't, I'm sharing it with y'all instead. please be mindful of the ways in which your internalised fatphobia can do real damage to many people! https://twitter.com/theNEDIC/status/1262386241816997892

fatphobia hurts everyone; like every kind of marginalisation, its premise is that the lower down you are on the axis of privilege, the less desirable, worthy and human you are. it pits us against each other in a struggle to become most desired, most proximate to privilege.

and as with every marginalisation, we're driven to do ugly, self-destructive things to gain that proximity. we tear ourselves and others down as a means of climbing up, but all we really ever achieve is more pain and hurt.

there's no way to glorify thinness without demonising fatness. there's no way to celebrate weight loss that doesn't at least hint at a fear of weight gain (and it's rarely, if ever, just hinting).

I've struggled with disordered eating all my life, and I know that sometimes the compulsion to talk about disliking my body or my weight can be a strong one. but not only does it not actually make me feel better, it also makes plenty of other people feel worse.

I do talk about my ED and my body image - privately, with my therapist and with some trusted friends who are safe to talk to because of shared experience. there are some things it's hard to keep bottled up.

I know exactly how much weight I've gained in the past decade down to the closest hundred grams, but you will never hear or see me talk numbers here or in any other public forum. when I talk about weight stigma here, I ask that you also leave number talk at the door.

that's partly because obsessing over numbers on a scale helped me develop an ED in the first place, but also because, as @yrfatfriend has said many times, no matter how fat you are, there is always a chance that someone bigger will hear me, and what then?

I don't want to be the reason someone else starts obsessing over numbers on a scale. I've listened to friends who weigh less than me fret about putting on weight and still weighing less than me, and it just makes me feel bad and drives me back into unhealthy habits.

I'm not fat by anyone's measure (except maybe that of the worldwide aunty community, which judges all afab people as simultaneously not eating enough and eating too much, depending on whether they've just offered you food), but I have internalised fatphobia to unlearn.

the place to do that is with my therapist or in conversations with friends who have freely consented to discuss those issues, not on the internet, where almost 19000 people can see my words pop up on their twitter timelines on any given day.

I never know who might be listening. neither do you. but if that's not enough reason to consider your words carefully, then maybe this will be: when you talk about hating your weight, you are self-harming. and like all self-harm, what feels good in the short term leaves scars.

it's not worth hurting yourself. from someone who's been doing it for almost two decades now, take it from me: once the imagined catharsis wears off, the injury remains. the healing process is painful and ugly. the scars never really fade and you'll never really forget them.

I think it's @KivanBay who describes fat-positivity as a rescue mission. for me, that's exactly what it has been. being fat-positive is what keeps the ED at bay (most of the time - I'm not perfect, I have my lapses). learning to love and accept fatness has helped me love myself.

if for no other reason than that, we should all embrace fat-positivity: because it is the path to true self-love and acceptance, and eventually - hopefully - healing.