CW: Some discussion of dieting and “o”-word

By Marcy Cruz

My body has been a topic of conversation since birth. The only time I was ever thin was the first few years of my life where I was praised and told how beautiful and perfect I was. As the years passed, so did my body, where the thinness turned into me being a chubby kid. I began to hear words such as fat, obese and big. I had no idea how that, along with the change in praise to scrutiny, would have a major impact on my mental wellbeing going forward.

When I was 10, the doctor told my mom that I was 30 pounds overweight. At the time, I weighed 120 pounds and according to the infamous “chart”, I was supposed to weigh 90 pounds. I constantly heard from family and strangers that I had such a pretty face, if only I could lose some weight, I would be perfect.

A close relative offered to help me lose the weight and I spent five months with her where I, not only lost 40 pounds, but was also physically, verbally and mentally abused by her. I chose to bury that within the file cabinet in the back of my brain where I put all of that bad stuff that I just didn’t know how to deal with as a kid and later as an adult. Honestly, I am still in therapy working through that and being able to fully deal with what happened to me, including talking about it in full detail. One day, I will.

It felt good to tuck it away and just never think of it again. However, I didn’t realize that it would manifest itself in other ways of my life and alter my path in so many ways. It would impact the choices I would make along the way in everything from relationships and job-related experiences to how I lived my life. 

It would shape me into a person that at times, I wasn’t too fond of. I had a tendency to be controlling and come across uptight. I didn’t really feel comfortable around people and was awkward. I didn’t trust too easily either. I knew a lot of people and I was known as being nice. But I kept my distance and controlled how much of myself I let people see. I didn’t like to cry and instead was just so angry. But when I got very angry, I would end up crying anyway and then get mad at myself for showing weakness.

Over the years, I would commit to things and then back out at the last minute. I would later appear to be someone who wasn’t reliable and it affected my career and relationships. When I committed to these things, I would be genuinely excited and inspired but then would sabotage myself with negative talk and convince myself it was better to stay home. 

I would dismiss my behavior to the friends I did keep in my tight circle, telling them “I’m just funny like that.” And they accepted me for who I was. Not many stayed for the long haul and my resentment grew because I felt like they abandoned me.

That’s not to say I haven’t done some incredible things in my life because I have. I’ve built a career within the plus size fashion industry. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve walked a runway and been featured in videos and articles for major magazines. I’ve won awards within the community.  But when I look back, I see that I was only operating at about half of my potential. I was hindering myself by holding myself back. All because of fear of the unknown.

It’s hard to navigate the world in a fat body because it feels like living in a place where you are not loved and don’t feel safe, simply because most people hate fat bodies. Managing your mental health in a fat body becomes a challenge because you don’t feel seen. The irony is you are seen but you’re only seen as a body and nothing else. Who you are as a human being is not seen or regarded.

So I lived my life from the standpoint of avoiding anything that made me uncomfortable or unsafe. I did have fleeting moments when I would dip a toe outside that comfort box and feel so good after doing something that had initially made me uncomfortable. However, I still held back because my fear of the unknown would overpower that feeling of accomplishment. 

I didn’t realize that there was a name to what I had until I was 43 and my brother died. Grief, not my experiences living in a fat body, was what led me to get help and it opened the door to me healing not just from great loss but to work through my childhood trauma and feelings about my own body and its worth.

My dad had died four years prior and I was still dealing with that grief. I was spiraling but didn’t realize it because I still managed to keep living, one day at a time. I certainly wasn’t at my best but I hadn’t hit rock bottom. Yet.

My dad died suddenly and while it was devastating, my brother’s death was different and in some ways, worse. I used to resent those who had time to say goodbye to their loved ones because I felt like my dad was taken from me and I never got a chance to say everything I wanted to say to him. But with my brother, I did get that precious time and still, it was not enough.

He was in a coma for two weeks and I had so many opportunities to talk to him, tell him what I wanted to say, make him promises and tell him I loved him. But when someone is in that state, you still have hope. The day the doctor told us that he was brain dead, I refused to believe it. And even after he was taken off the machines, I didn’t want to believe it, so to cope, I tucked all those feelings into that magic file cabinet in the back of my brain. And I dusted myself off to help plan his funeral and move on.

Six months later, I found myself in bed, not wanting to get up. I felt so heavy and just didn’t want to deal with anything. I just laid there. And when you are in that state, time doesn’t exist. That file cabinet had become full and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I could not deal with anything else anymore. It was too much to carry. I knew I needed help. But it took so long for me to get out of bed. Then a voice in my ear and I swear, I think it was my dad’s voice, told me to get help. And I got out of bed and made a phone call.

I started going to therapy. And the psychiatrist asked me so many questions… Do you get frequent headaches and lower back pain? Do you feel helpless at times? Do you tend to isolate yourself? Do you feel you always have to be in control? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and was told that what I was experiencing was depression. At that moment, I was speechless. There was a name to what I was going through. And it made me reflect on my life as a whole. My therapist told me that I probably developed this as a child because of that experience when I was 10 and she said that she was in awe that I had dealt with this for so long on my own.

I was put on Lexapro and started going to therapy once a week. And I have to tell you, once you start to work on yourself and heal, you see the world in a different way. You make different choices and you realize that life can get better. I never knew what it was like to be calm and at peace. Now I know. 

Those weekly talks started with me sharing the pain and grief I felt over losing the two best men in my life. Then things shifted and we started to talk more about me and how I felt about myself. Grief has a way of forcing you to look at your life as if it is a movie of your memories. 

For me, I looked back and felt ashamed of all the time I wasted, the poor decisions I made and how I held myself back. My brother died at the age of 40 and never got to do half the things he wanted to. This weighed heavily on me and still remains in the back of my mind because the main lesson learned here is that time is never promised and we choose how we spend that time. I have since learned to not have any regrets or feel shame as I can’t change the past and honestly, there is always a lesson to be learned, even from the bad moments. I can only control the present and look forward to the future.

But with the stigma of therapy and being on medication, I didn’t tell many people and kept things a secret for the next three years. I was booked to speak at the Dream Big Midwest Curvy Fashion & Beauty Conference in Chicago in 2017 and the title of my workshop was “Becoming Fearlessly Just You”, an extension of my blog Fearlessly Just Me. I had everything written out with plans to talk more so about living in a fat body and being confident. But something happened after I started speaking.

I looked out at the audience and saw all these faces, looking to me to drop some major knowledge and I felt that I had something else to offer than just giving them tips on building their confidence. So I shared my story. That day, I told a room full of strangers about my anxiety, my grief and most of all, how therapy and medication saved my life.

It felt like an out-of-body experience because I honestly could not believe these words were coming out of my mouth. But it felt like I was purging my soul and emptying that file cabinet.  

Afterwards, I felt that dread come over me. What would these people think? I just told them I am on medication. That stigma of mental health weighed on me. But then when I turned around, there was a line (yes, a line!) of people waiting to meet and speak to me. I couldn’t believe it!

And they were all in tears and as they came up to me, one by one, they shared their stories and tears. They hugged me tight and said that I have inspired them to get help and share their stories. This showed me that I was not alone and neither were they.

So every year, when May rolls around, I celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month by sharing my story. It continues to evolve. I lost my oldest niece in 2018, four years after her dad/my brother died. She was 18 years old. And while it was the hardest loss in my life to deal with, I’m still standing. I’m still in therapy and on medication. I live. I am normal. I just needed help.

That day at the Dream Big MIdwest Conference changed my life.  I’m still a work in progress but I am more self aware than I have ever been and am consistently trying to be a better person for myself and my loved ones. I still have bad days and times when I want to bail on something I committed to. But I work through that and I end up with more wins than losses. 

1 in 5 people live with a mental illness and no one should ever feel afraid to ask for help. We’re only doing the best we can with what we got. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide remains the second leading cause of death among youth aged 10 to 14 and adults aged 24 to 35. And generalized anxiety disorder affects 6.8 million adults in the U.S. with women being twice as likely to be affected (ADAA (Anxiety & Depression Association of America). We are made to feel ashamed for needing help or having a mental illness when in reality, it is essentially part of being a human being. 

No one is perfect and it’s perfectly okay to seek help when you need it. My dad used to always tell me, “Marce, there’s only one you in the world and that’s an amazing thing”. That is a constant reminder to myself to always put my mental health first so I can live my life fully during this wonderful, and sometimes rocky, journey of life.

If you or someone you know needs help, here’s some important phone numbers and information online:

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264

SeizeTheAwkward.org: 1-800-273-8255 (They also have toolkits and info here)

MHA (Mental Health America): Interactive Help Tool here

ADAA (Anxiety & Depression Association of America): Help Tools here

Marcy Cruz is an award-winning writer/author, educator and activist with 20 years of experience in the plus size fashion industry. She is also signed to State Management as an extended-sizes (4X+) fit model and is the content creator of the blog Fearlessly Just Me.