My entire life I’ve grown up hearing a lot of negative things out of
the mouths of people I care about. “Why is that girl wearing that?”,
“What is going on with your hair?”, and “Damn, they’re fat.” are things I
heard them say about people all the time. As a child I saw it as
normal, although in the back of my mind I knew something was off about
it.
I come from an extended family who consider
themselves Christians and wondered why they were the people I heard most
negative things from. I often heard them say hurtful things about
people and laugh as though their words had no negative impact. I grew
up feeling inadequate because of it, I’ll admit. I never felt food
enough. As a kid I was very scrawny so the fat comments didn’t come
until much later, but back then I was (still am) different. When I was a
kid I was just devoted to being me. I didn’t want to conform to
whatever normal was and most certainly didn’t want to follow the bumpy
road of sticking to a stereotype. I had no idea that I was straying away
from “normal” I was busy doing things that made me happy. I was always
reminded that I was weird and I could never understand why I was always
made the outcast. As I got older I tried to keep my distance from them.
I’d go to family functions, say the minimal, crack a joke or two, but
mainly just kept to myself as not to bother people with my weirdness. I
did anything and everything to keep from being noticed.
Now that I’m a bit older I’m more irritable. I have no patience for
people’s judgmental bullshit. With the passing of my aunt last month
(and even many months before that with my aunt was in and out of
hospitals) my mother and I have been spending a lot of time with my
grandmother. I’ve noticed more and more that I have to keep telling her
how her words can affect people. We’ll be out and she’ll comment on
someone’s weight, although she’s overweight herself. If something comes
up about homosexuality she calls them “funny” and trans people are
“its”. Every time I have to correct her and let her know that you don’t
know what the hell people are going through to pass your judgement on
them. People are overweight because it’s fun. I have to tell her “What
if that person suffers from PCOS and it trying their best to lose? What
if that woman gave birth to a still born child last year and is
overeating to cope? What if that person you’re calling fat was actually
100lbs heavier months ago and is starting to feel good about the weight
they lost and people like you come around to ruin their high?” I usually
only get a chuckle and an “Okay, Asia. Okay.” as a reply, but it’s not
funny and my words to get grown people to be compassionate should not be
chuckled at. That just tells me that my words are invalid and others
feelings are even more invalid. There are a few people in our family
that has battled with eating disorders. The rest all want to blame
society and peer pressure as to why these few went down that path, but I
always felt that it’s possible the beauty standards in our society
contributed to that, but I’m pretty sure 80% of that blame should be
placed on family, because I know how they made me feel. Other people
can’t make you feel as horrible as your own family can.
Most would like to brush things like this off as “Sometimes older
people are set in their ways and are going to say and do things that
we’d consider rude.” I don’t think so. For instance, I’m 32. This isn’t
recent behavior. I have witnessed this for all of my 32 years and it’s
the same hurtful rude comments. As far as I’m concerned I don’t think
people should use the age thing as a scapegoat. As an adult you should
be aware that the things you say can hurt feelings if they are heard
(and even if they aren’t). People should especially be aware if it’s
brought to their attention time and time again. Being a product of my
environment I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do these cruel things I
mention. It’s what I grew up with and it’s what I know, although I was
more aware of the things I said whereas my family was not. I still slip
every now and again. I’m human. My only difference is I keep these
thoughts to myself and don’t make them out loud and within earshot like
my grandmother does.
The post is in no way to take a
poke at Christians. I have a habit of coming up with tongue in cheek
titles for things I write. It has more to do with my observation of
people who call themselves devout Christians who go to church every
Sunday, but sin more than the rest of us the other six days of the week.
I was always fascinated by that. Seeing that throughout my life is
probably what made me want to be agnostic. I also know that just because
a person may be judgmental that doesn’t make them any less Christian.
In closing I hope no one gets the impression that I might be harsh on my
grandmother after she just recently lost a daughter. I just try to let
her know that she may not know that the people she criticizes may be
going through what she just went through or some other tragedy and
shouldn’t be made fun of because of their appearance.
-Asia Aneka Anderson
Tumblr: AsiaWrites
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