Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by Anonymous

I was never thin. Let's get that straight right off the bat. I'm not "curvy" or "thick," I'm fat. But fat doesn't mean ugly. At least, it shouldn't. I always thought my story was so different from other people's that I was alone in the world.

Yes, other people had it so much worse than me, I realized this, but I still felt alone. I still feel alone a lot of the time. But I'm here to make sure other people know they aren't. My story is pretty long, so bear with me.

As I've said I've never been thin. And all my life my family have been obsessed with my becoming thinner and looking good. They'd point out my flaws until it hurt to look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't go out of the house without something about me being pointed out by someone in my family. I still can't. That's where it started. The feeling of not belonging started in my own family. But in school it was worse.

I had always been a pretty popular, out-going kid. I was smart, funny, and nice. Kids liked being around me, before looking good was a means of popularity. I also went to a Catholic School all my life, so my class was small and stayed nice for a few more years than the public school kids. Up until 3rd grade, the public school kids and the private school kids stayed pretty much separate. But then 3rd grade came.

I had a tight group of friends in my grade and in our school, we were popular. I had my best friends: J, Al, and L. And then there were some miscellaneous boys, main ones being T, N, and An. J started to distance herself from me, her family was going through trouble and she was moving soon, she was just going through a hard time. I was feeling bad about that but then something happened.

I was on the playground sitting with some friends when N and T came up to us. N pointed at me and taunted "Look, she's as big as a watermelon!". T then added "and the shape of one too!" The girls around me, which included Al and L, laughed and joined in on the taunting. It felt like slow motion as they ran around me. I started to cry, and I immediately told a teacher. N and T got in trouble, but N got suspended right after because as soon as he came back from the principal's office, he told me to die. I again told. But what happened after that was much worse.

I stopped talking to Al and L after that and started talking more to C and his friends M (boy) and S (girl). We all became really close and I was starting to feel happy again when I saw a few girls looking at me and laughing at a notebook. When some of them went to the bathroom, I looked at the notebook. The page it was open to was a page I'll never forget. "How To Squash A Watermelon." Theses 3rd graders were literally plotting to kill me. I grabbed the book while crying and showed a teacher. A bunch of them got suspended and I was pretty much shunned for the rest of the year. I still had C, S, and M though.

By 4th grade, things had worked out. I made up with Al, L, T, and N (because apparently saying "sorry we plotted to kill you" was enough) and I started hanging with them more. 4th grade went by pretty smoothly.

In 5th grade I started to partake in something I'm not very proud of. I "slut"-shamed. I "slut"-shamed my best friend. Never to her face but that doesn't matter. I would spread the rumors about her. That she kissed like 4 guys. That she wasn't in school because she got mono after making out with N. Stupid stuff. I barely even knew the word slut at 5th grade, but here I was calling someone one. This went on until I joined Tumblr in 8th grade and learned about "slut"-shaming. I had known what I was doing was probably wrong, but Tumblr just made it all make sense.