Melissa A. Fabello

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

"A common response that folks struggling with eating disorders hear is something along the lines of “Just eat,” “Just stop purging,” or “Just stop overeating.” And that’s akin to telling someone with depression to “Cheer up” or someone with anxiety to “Calm down.” That is: It’s not effective. At all. It’s actually kind of offensive."

Right now, today, as of writing this, I identify as queer. But I didn’t always.

And as much as I’m a Swifty, I’m a feminist first (a white one, by the way, at that), and I’m not here for any kind of feminism that would excuse, for instance, Taylor’s misunderstanding that race is irrelevant in pop culture politics (a la the feud with Nicki Minaj that never was).

“I don’t have a problem,” I repeated, this time with my voice raised. And then, spitting defiance, “You’re just jealous.”

In my experience dating and sleeping with straight, cisgender dudes who worship hegemonic masculinity, I’ve noticed that there’s something really — umm — special about how they go about sexuality.

I finally looked at my syllabus today. It’s been sitting in my inbox for over a week, flashing at me to find out what I have to look forward to this upcoming fall semester – which books I need to buy (and how much money I’m going to drop on them), how many assignments I’ll be graded on, what I need to have prepared before our first class meeting.

It might take years before you can hold a cupcake in your hand and not nearly have a panic attack.

I was jealous of the dog. “That dog gets to be so thin,” I tried to explain, tearfully, to my partner, “and it doesn’t even have to try. I’ll never be that thin.”