a picture is worth a thousand hours of therapy

I am feeling pretty terrible about myself today. I saw photographic evidence of my fatness last night, and it drove home a few things for me. The first of which is why I fight tooth and nail to prevent pictures of myself from existing in the first place. Because honestly? I know I'm fat, but for the most part I think I'm kind of cute, at least from the neck up. But I photograph like Jo Jo the Dog-Faced Boy. Photogenicness is not one of my many fine characteristics.

But when I drink I let my guard down, and there they were, a whole bunch of pictures of me being fat. And drunk. Which, let me tell you, is not a good combination. Bad angles, stupid faces, the loss of all ability regulate my fat rolls... ugh. Not a good time. Let's just say I was immediately put into a bit of a funk when I saw them, and I walked away from the night feeling like garbage. Absolutely worthless. Like gum scraped off a tire. Except not as thin, clearly.

It's one thing to know you're fat, but it's another thing entirely to be confronted with it like that. "Hello, fatass! This is your life!" I'm in a picture with two of my best friends, who are both smiling and happy, and I look miserable because there was a camera pointed at me. And when I look at the picture, instead of recalling how fun the evening was and all the reasons I love these people, all I can think about is how terrible I look.

I want to say right now that I in no way think that being fat is bad. I am all about size-acceptance. It doesn't matter what you weigh as long as you're happy, you know? Being thin doesn't equal being happy, or bursting with self-worth. But that's just the thing. I'm not happy. At all. And I bitch about it a lot, but I always end up falling back into the status quo instead of taking any positive steps toward change. Which makes me a big fat hypocrite, since my advice to someone who's complaining is always this: Stop whining. If you're not happy, either do something about it or shut the hell up. If you really want to change, then change.

It's good advice. I should take it.

But for the time being, if you point a camera at me, I will probably punch you. And nothing hits like an angry fat girl. Just saying.