Monologues of the mind

Changing room

NOTE:
This is more of a diary entry/monologue thing; so if that's not your thing then feel free to skip if you like, and I'll see you in the next section

~ Titanium. H

How did I end up here?
Crying in a changing room, staring at my half-naked reflection, with misleading clothes spewed across the floor and my mother waiting patiently behind the privacy curtain.
I never "got on" with changing rooms.
Something about the bad lighting, lack of ventilation, cramped environment or that whenever I entered one I knew I would leave feeling disheartened. So I knew very well to know my size accurately, go up a size if I'm worried about the fit and also AVOID changing rooms. But today was different.

For my sixth form next year, I need smart business wear, a style I never really needed to venture into and I now know why.
Usually my style varies from retro to boho, with a few highlights of goth and tomboy in there. I've perfected my style into something I'm comfortable with when I look in a mirror, and as a plus size teenage with depression, that is a rare thing. So I thought today I was strong enough to brave a new style with my mind as open as the Atlantic ocean.

After the first shop we hit, a store that my family and I have trusted for years, I felt very disillusioned. After trying on several pairs of trousers, all looking like someone shoved too much sausage meat into a black plastic sack, I walked away with two pairs of trousers; yet I didn't feel that sense of comfortability like I do with my other outfits.

Blaming the terrible sizing, I carried on, knowing that there were other shops lined up and that they would be more my style.

But that's when it happened.
The first public breakdown I've had since my diagnosis.
I felt the tears slowly prickle the back of my eyes until they fell down my face; one at a time initially and then a whole waterfall until my mum had to come in a calm me down. To those watching it must have looked strange to see this tall, large teenage shadowing over a shorter, smaller woman, who is calming her down.

So why am I telling you this?
Why publicly share an 'embarrassing' moment with strangers?
Because for so long I've been taught by shops, society and the media that being "fat" is something to resent. That if you're fat, you need to change to fit in or be left an outcast to the world.
Yes I could loose weight, yes I could stop eating foods I like, and yes I could go to the gym regularly. But yet, due to genetics, I will always carry extra weight and not be "skinny". As well, if I was comfortable with my body before this whole process then why change? To fit in. But yet we were born to stand out.

The point to my day was to get clothing for school, but I came away with something far greater. The realisation that I, Titanium-Heart, am fat. I'm large. That's just the way I am. I've accepted it and am slowly becoming more comfortable with that fact, so why shouldn't clothing companies be?

~ Titanium. H