Douchey Couture

Standing there under the fluorescent lights, the shadows spilling and filling in the hollow area under my eyes, my forehead glistening with sweat like a well-lit vampire, my hair curling up and tightening in response to the heat, I looked at myself in the mirror and wanted to cry.  Here I am, up a size and the shirt is still too small, too revealing.  My chest stood out like the burgeoning breasts of a twelve-year-old girl.  My stomach bulged out from the painfully thin material of the shirt and spilled over the one-size-up-but-still-too-tight jeans.  The whole reason why I went shopping in the first place was because none of my clothes fit anymore.  I expected to have to go up one size but the clothes I was trying on proved that going up only one size wasn’t going to be enough.  Have I really gained that much weight?  How did I let it get this bad?

This is so obnoxious.  I’ve always struggled with shopping.  I know next to nothing about fashion and I don’t really have a style.  I’ve tried in the past.  I had a preppy phase and then I tried to do the faux punk thing and nothing ever really felt right to me.  It all felt manufactured and fake.  So, when I go shopping, I never know what to look for.  I don’t have that one store that has everything.  And mixing and matching is hard.  When I do find a shirt or pair of jeans that I like, the next hoop to jump through is the size of the garment.  Since my weight fluctuates so much, I never know what I’m going to be.  It doesn’t help that every store has their own definition of what a medium or large is.  Therefore, everything needs to be tried on and I have to go through the process of undressing and dressing and facing my fat self in the mirror under the unflattering lights.  The worst part is when I find something I really like and then I try it on and it doesn’t look good on me and I don’t like it anymore.  As I pull the shirt over my head, I send out a small prayer in hopes that the material will effortlessly glide over my fat stomach, that the fabric will smooth over and camouflage my man boobs.  And usually, it doesn’t.  Then the disappointment and sadness sets in and I just want to give up and leave.

Shirts are made so thin nowadays.  I don’t know if that’s because it’s trendy or if they are meant to be thin to allow for layering but it’s frustrating when you’re fat.  Thin shirts are clingy and hug all the lumps and bumps instead of hiding them.  It’s frustrating because I find lots of cool shirts that I’d like to wear but I can’t because they won’t look good on me.  Most guys can walk in, grab something they like and walk out the door.  I can’t do that.  It’s a production when I go shirt shopping.  I have to try it on and then decide if it’ll work if I wear another shirt under it or over it or if I need to just go up a size.  If I do have to go up a size, that won't necessarily fix the problem.  At this point, I’m mostly a large.  If I go to an extra large, that’s usually too big because the shirt bottoms end at my thighs and the sleeves go past my shoulders and that just looks sloppy.  But it hides the gut.  So, I can walk around wearing oversized shirts or shirts that show the belly bulge.  I can’t win.

I usually layer.  It mostly covers everything up but it's uncomfortable.  I'm a hot-natured person and being fat makes me even hotter.  And it's no fun having to layer when I can break a sweat walking to the mail box.  And just to top it off, I live in the south where the summers are sweltering and the winters are...well, still hot.  Just imagine all that sweat between my skin and all that fabric, tight and uncomfortable, clingy and cumbersome.  I'm constantly tugging at my multiply shirts and wiping my brow and I hate it.  I just wish I could wear one freaking t-shirt and a pair of jeans and go.

I really hate my body and I know that it's no one's fault but my own which makes me hate myself.  I work so hard to lose weight and as soon as I start to feel good about myself, I always always mess it up.  I don't know why I always do this to myself, always put myself through this cycle of starving and bingeing.  I'm just so weak and unable to deal with my problems in a healthy way so I always turn to food.  I don't want to deny myself all the food I love because I feel like I've been denied so many other things in life, like love and friendship and recognition.  Food is all I have left and if I can't eat, I can't be happy.  Of course, that happiness is always short-lived, especially when I find myself in a dressing room trying on a giant tent of a shirt and realizing I can still see my nipples trying to bust through the threads.  It's all so discouraging.

I just wish I knew how to dress myself.  I just wish I had a nice body to dress.  With a thinner frame, I'll have more options for personal expression through clothing.  Most of all, I just wish I could gain control over myself instead of spiraling out of control every few months, resulting in yet another ill-fated shopping trip that always leaves me feeling more depressed.  Until then, I'll just have to settle for looking like a freaking frumpenstein.