This was her rationalising me being gay. That I was gay because I was too fat and body-conscious to get a hunky man.
My reply was one that greeted her with shock, but to this day still brings a naughty and provactive smile to my face.
"Have you seen the women I date?" with a raised eyebrow. She seemed to think I was settling for women as some sort of contingency plan for unattractive chubby girls, that because I felt no good man would want me, I had hopped on the other bus.
- My parents views to sexuality have always been fairly alien to me, but their views on my weight, were something that left a much deeper scar.
I have always been big, "big boned" is the jovial remark family friends would often chortle whilst pinching an inch of belly fat, adorably chubby, the ever offensive bonny - I'm pretty, but fat. Thanks guys!
My relationship with food is one of an addict, and given my previous life as a drug addict, this is no surprise. I have an addictive personality, this is sometimes an excellent attritube, as I have grown older, I have learned to apply the negative aspects of my behaviour and turn them into positives.
Addicted to hard work and pushing for the latest milestone - thats a good thing. I don't burn out, I work harder than most I know, and I thrive off it.
Food for me is always something I can justify.
I'm sad - I eat, I treat, I need, I deserve.
I'm happy - I eat, I treat, I celebrate, I deserve.
I'm fat - I eat, I'm fat anyway, I need.
And on the cycle goes.
I was brought up seeing a fat girl in the mirror, which was reinforced with comments like
"Do you want to end up like the girls who have to shop in Evans and can't buy anything in Selfridges?"
To be fair, I had never seen inside of an Evans store until I did actually get to that size where I skulked round in my flat shoes looking for some work pants that might fit, but that was in my late twenties, not late teens.
I am someone who gets agitated very quickly if you tell me I can't. Not in a childish way, in a "let me prove you wrong" way. Eternally stubborn and always with something to prove.
Ok, maybe a little childish then.
When someone tells you that you can't be something, have something, dream something, you either accept it and sit in your self-pity land, or you challenge it and build on it.
This is where my unhealthy 'self-worth' comes from - it's not born out of pride, passion, happiness, I have always found it in the approval of others. Still. But that's changing.
I've had a tough few months in a job I thought was my dream, and it is, because I'm good at it, and I actually fought back the tide to realise - I am, I believe it, I know it, and it doesn't matter what anyone else says.
I didn't think I would find that self belief and it's ignited something.
The weight. It's a pinacle of a lot of things in my life.
If I can tackle my weight, it means I'm in control, but it means I care.
I never realised how little I cared about myself.
I truly just didn't care.
I think it was reflected to the outside world and thats a little sad, and in a world as shallow as we are now, I'm sure it will have shown the worst of me.
My mum got me makeup lessons for a birthday present in my teenage years because she didn't understand why I wasn't bothered about putting a face on, shes the kind of woman who says
"You don't even go for a loaf of bread without putting on your mascara and your lipstick"
Now, I'm not a pyjamas in Asda kind of girl either, but the thought of a bit of lippy to take the bins out is a foreign concept to me.
Never has Ru Paul ever been so true, and I feel like shouting it from the roof tops
I recently found a picture of a 13 year old me, and at the time, I was convinced I really was fat. The way my parents talked about my weight, they way they joked and made comments, I felt obese. Ironically, I never was. Never. But that is what I have become.
Look at this little body
But really, looking at that photo, I was all of those things. I was pretty, I was slim, and sure as hell clever.
I hit my milestones time and again, academically, physically, but mentally, I was all over the place and to that end, pretty hard work.
I went fat, thin, fat, thin. When I went to University, I let loose, drank what I want, ate what I want.
But it was always powered by something unhealthy - the need to please.
When it was my brothers 18th, I was at a size 16, the biggest I had been.
I knew my parents would be angry if I turned up looking like a shamu, so I jumped on the hottest detox of the time - the lemon and maple syrup diet.
I drank this gross liquid for the week before my brothers black tie birthday, the photo on the left below is me after the liquid diet, photo on the right below is before.
12lbs in 10 days. And lo' I fit into that beautiful Karen Millen dress and looked great.
I went back to Uni, a week later, I was a balloon monster again. But I was OK with that, it was easier!
Where as cider drinking, no make-up wearing, living the life of the lesbian off the leash in sunny Aberystwyth, quite a different visage! (getting all my RuPaul references in today!)
Being a closet gay, from 15, despite coming out at 15, I quickly got back in the closet once I realised it wasn't safe to be outside of it.
In my family, the sterotypical denial period of a confused parent assuming their child is going through "a phase" was something that wasn't so much an endearing lack of understanding; it was a "you're going through a phase" which loosely translated meant - this strange and childish rebellion designed to agitate and antagonise us has a shelf life and we will tolerate it momentarily in an aggressive, disappointed and disapproving way that will emphasise this is an unacceptable lifestyle choice and it's time to grow up.
So coming out at 15, really meant, having secret girlfriends and sneaking off to canal street to live the life of a happy little gay and lie to my parents about where I was and who I was.
It's a strange resentment I've harboured towards them all these years - my fathers constant criticism of my life and our daddy daughter breakdown is that I never told him the truth, that I always had a secret life and that he didn't know who I was.
UMM.... I didn't have much choice, it was live a secret life from teenage years or never get to have a flicker of the life I wanted.
He once paid for a private detective to find out what I was doing with my weekends whilst at 6th form, I would tell them I was at a boyfriends, or a friends house, and more than likely I was kissing pretty girls in gay bars and drinking Smirnoff Ice; which was duly proven when he pulled me up with his 'proof' - which is weirder? Lying to your parents at 16 about going to gay bars or your parents paying someone to follow you and prove it?
- that would be the eptiomy of who we were and what our relationship was. I could never tell them because they would hate me and disown me and make me feel disgusting and wrong, all of which were part and parcel of my life when I was part of theirs, or I could lie to them and protect myself from their judgement and protect them from a world they didn't want to be a part of.
I think about Sarah in times like this, shes kind and beautiful and so strong. She brings out the best in me, even when its hard to find. They are missing out on so much.
But in reality, shes too good for them. The kindness, the heart and the purpose, they don't deserve a second of her time.
My mother has never met her, never said a word to her, not a hello, not a how are you. She has only uttered under her breath at a family funeral that Sarah was my "disgusting little lesbian friend,"
- Well for one, bisexual mother. And for two, not friend, BEST friend, of 7 years, the longest and most rewarding relationship I have ever been in, my relationship with Sarah has had more meaning and love that my relationship with the Barkers ever did or ever could. She is someone I will grow old with and love for years to come, despite it all. She loves me at my worst, the good, the bad and the ugly.
AND the fat.
She worries about me, about my health, its been turbulent to say the least, and the fact I'm alive at 30 is a miracle and somehow I don't treat it as one.
We want babies, that's not something that's on the cards for me without another miracle and a lot of hard work. To at least be healthy would give us a fighting chance.
I follow these positive affirmation and postive body image hashtags on Instagram and I wonder, are these women happy? It's something I've never been able to understand because of the way I have been brought up and the opinions I have formed over time. I was brought up in a very shallow and vacuous environment where image was everything and personality was nothing, not really. Interesting people are only interesting if they make alot of money and wear alot of designer gear!
That lovely tiffany diamond is a real talking point, who give a fuck about Brexit?
Conservative party politics? Only if we are taking off-shore tax havens and wondering what all this talk of food banks is about when humus has never been so cheap in Waitrose?
I think my lack of self worth is something that is rooted deep within me, and it rears its ugly head in a variety of ways. When I was a teenager, I was looking for love in all the wrong places, finding validations of who I am in other people, which was never going to work.
Then in my twenties, it was addiction, which was a beautiful blur of not having to give a fuck and if I did start to care, it was a distored drug addled self image of indestructability. Also, coke was an excellent diet aid, always high and therefore not really eating.
A family member once said "At least when you were on the coke you were thin!"
Which again compounds the way the people I surrounded myself with really feel : who cares if you were a druggie, you were thin. And you looked rich, because you were spending lots of money and buying all the drugs - hear no evil, see no evil or however it goes.
So as I type at a sizeable size 18, with gargantoun breasts at a 38G, I'm all too aware that I have let this lack of self care go too far this time.
Having a chubby rebellion and getting fat to piss my parents off, well that should have ended ten years ago. Continuing the chubby rebellion upon realising they wouldn't love me fat or thin, well that really really should have ended a long time ago too.
So why do I do it to myself?
I came to a very simple conclusion.
It's self harm.
Gone are my days of sitting in doctos offices with long sleeves tops on lying about the last time I took a razor blade to my skin and scoffing at their suggestion of a rubber band twanging as a viable replacement.
At 30, I reflect.
Why did I do that? Why cut? The classic control? The need to feel something? Yes. Both of those. But in reality, it was a body I didn't want, I didn't like, and wanted to punish for not being what I needed no matter what I did to change it.
Gone are the razors, and now its cake, its booze, its carbs aplenty and its abuse.
I eat and I get fat. And I hate how I look.
And I eat more, because I feel too far gone to be anything better than this.
And then I purge, I don't eat, I drink energy drinks and I work out excessively and loose weight, quickly. I look better. I feel better. But it's unsustainable and then I go off the deep end with each pound that creeps back on and the cycle begins again.
With the added extra of failure syndrome. This is who I am. I give up. I am useless. I am worthless.
Fat. And worthless.
I spend days in bed, watching netflix, with a hairy fucking face, eyebrows the Wolverine might have something to say about, I won't even discuss the legs! Bigfoot may be one of my lost siblings?
I order takeout, even though I can't afford it, it comes to the door, and sometimes, if I've ordered too much, I'll pretend it's for two people when I open the door. It's not.
When I was teenager, my mum used to count the chocolate biscuits in the biscuit barrell, because she knew if I got at them, I'd eat half a pack. Now, bearing in mind, I was a pretty little size 12, with 34E knockers back then, that wouldn't be a fate worse than death.
But it was the shaming in front of people that I couldn't deal with.
"Francesca, how many chocolate hobnobs did you eat today?"
Brain panics, the right answer is 7, the answer I give is "3"
Quick response from the lawyer "There were 11 in there this morning and now theres 4, so who ate the others??"
CRAP. Busted.
So like the criminal master mind that I am, I got wise to this counting of the biscuits trick.
If I want to smash through a packet of hobnobs without judgement and humiliation I am dam well going to, and THEN, I am going to walk 1 mile to the local shop, buy a replacement packet, eat the amount that is acceptable to the count and put those biscuits back in the biscuit barrel.
HA! I beat the system. And I got exercise ;) Winning.
This is my unhealthy attitude towards food.
When I was adopted, I used to steal food from the cupboards and the fridge and hide it all around my bedroom.
My mum would smell mouldy food and go on the hunt, find blackened bananas and unidentified objects in drawers and under beds. She would scream and shout and call me "slovenly" and a "slut" which as I grew up used to make me laugh because I thought she had misunderstood, actually she was right the defition for slut is not as we think!
I never changed my behaviour, because of how I was born, and the early years of my life, were years without food, or a guaranteed meal, and the need to save myself and my brother, scavenging became a way of life. It was sensible and proactive.
I did it at 4, I did it at 14, I never changed. The way my relationship disintegrated over time with my parents, my childlike safety mechanism was always to protect from being abandoned - I wasn't far wrong, as thats exactly what happened.
So much so, I would collect like a magpie, loose change, I would pinch the money out of my dads money jar, and collect. Store away. I would sell my things, that I didn't think I needed and collect the money. I had a bag in my wardrobe hidden away with clothes, money, books and everything I needed to survive on my own.
I used that bag when I left home in my early twenties and ran away to London, when my secret stash of money ran out, I was homeless and lived like a street rat and a beggar and of course became a lady of the night.
It was essential. It was business. It was self preservation. And I don't feel shame about it anymore.
But it does play a poignant part in my body image saga.
Self worth = how much someone is willing to pay for you, and as it turned out, that was quite a lot!
Not a bad test of evaluating how much you value yourself.
Regardless.
It's 8:45 on a Monday evening, I am making dinner for Sarah and I, chicken breast and a small pasta salad on the side. Neither of us have eaten properly since breakfast, so all in all, its a good calorie in take today.
Tomorrow we will go on our first run of the week, with our last run being on Saturday morning and I have just signed up to join the local rowing team.
Once upon a time, I enjoyed exercise, because I was good at it, and I never expected to be.
I was always a chubby girl, I think, I'm not even sure anymore, I never engaged with sports particularly because my brother took point on that, I was the academic and he was the sportsman.
As it turned out, I was both.
I went from fat to fit, and was running at 6 miles a day, for pleasure.
I went from a size 14, to a size 10, and was pretty dam hot.
I didn't sustain it. I broke my ankle and never motivated myself to be that person again. As time went by, I got heavier, the pain of the ankle suffered under the weight and I found reasons not to be.
The most middle class sob story you will ever hear, I was once in Harrods with my mum, trying on a pair of DKNY jeans, they were beautiful. I was 15, they were a womens size 14.
I was mortified.
I was more mortified when I heard my mum say to the changing room attendant
"I know, she really is big, its embarassing really," and glanced the action that went with it.
She was like a bitchy year 10 girl, only she was my mother.
I was humilated. I cried in the changing room and told her I didn't like the trousers. We left.
A few days later, I went to go and see Kylie Minogue in concert, it was some sort of affirmation of how I was feeling - D&G white cargo pants with fluroscent lining - I wanted them. I wanted to be able to fit into them.
Then came the London marathon, I watched Paula Radcliffe smash it, and decided it was now or never. So I tucked my ta-ta's into a sports bra and went off for a waddle. A fast waddle. Faster.
And then I woke up and was running 6 miles a day before school, and loving it.
It was time to run, time to loose weight, to feel good, and time out of the house away from my family.
And me getting thin was making them happy.
I got my own back.
Changing room saga part two.
This time, Marbella. Zara.
"Can you pass me the size 10?"
"Don't be silly you'll never fit into a 10, I'll get you a 12"
- "pass me a size 10"
Svelt sexy ass slips into light denim size 10 zara jeans, laced them with the suede tie at the front, no overhang, no love handles, no chunky ass. Just a good looking, blonde, slim, cracking rack 16 year old me. This was the year my mother bought me a pink burberry bikini for my birthday thinking I would never fit into it. It was a trap that backfired, because it looked GREAT.
My parents have played a key role in how I view myself, my body, my sexuality. I have felt shame for both my entire life.
No more.
Size 18 Fran has been running and is LOVING it, I remember who I am, or who I was, and I like it.
I'm not the fit unhealthy beast I see before me, I have potential to be the fit healthy person I was, with that comes a future.
My fatty liver is a fast road to diabetes and a heart attack. My biological father died an early death of a heart attack (much deserved, and too good for him, but) a heart attack none the less.
I weigh 16 stone today, thats down from 17 stone and 5lbs in April 2018.
At my heaviest last year, I was 18 stone, not only is that disgustingly overweight, its also dangerous. Really dangerous.
Prepare yourself - and its taken a lot of bravery on my part to share this, but its mostly to benchmark a place in my life I will never go back to.
Last year on the left, this year on the right.
I know we all take our BMI with a pinch of salt, but shit got serious.
I'm 30. I look old. I feel old.
With the change of diet and exerise, I feel better. More awake. More focused.
I look less wrinkly!
I care more for myself, because I feel a little glimmer of pride.
We don't have to loose weight to conform to what other people want to see, we have to loose weight to live the lives we want, for as long as we want.
Its about healthier choices, not defying the politics and the media.
I am ok with who I am right now, working hard in my career, working hard for my mental health, my commitments, my health.
All are moving in the right direction.
I'm inspired at work, I love what I do and I am dam good at it, it drives me to want more and do more. I'm fierce.
I'm in love with a girl who adores me, no matter who or what I am, the silly bugger.
I'm safe, in a house, with a roof, with a fridge full of food and I don't have my escape bag packed anymore.
I'm learning to be better for myself and for those around me.
Most of all I am kind.
Kinder to myself.
Kinder to others.
And I'm ok.
I think, I've spent 30 years being a different version of myself like an ever changing chameleon based of love, friends and family and never taken the time to be me.
Fat, thin, gay, straight.
It doesn't really matter.
I am enough.
I have purpose and worth.
I deserve love.
I don't have to keep punishing myself.
Its ok, to just be ok.
So i'm going to keep on running, start my rowing, eat better, meditate, take my meds, pay my bills, pay my debts, sleep better, be kinder, be stronger, and be me <3
