This morning, when I logged onto The Fat Girl Blog , I was met with something disturbing. While glancing at my blog stats and seeing where all of my visitors are coming from, I noticed something in the “search terms” that deeply bothered me. Someone had found my blog by typing into Google the phrase “I’m a fat girl, will high school be awful for me?” This nearly broke my heart.
Coincidentally, the other day I was remembering high school with an intensity I hadn’t had in a long time. This search term has compelled me to share my high school experience with you (in hopes that the young woman will land on my page again).
I had the unique experience of attending both a public high school and a private high school. And they were very, very different. I was in public school my entire life. But when I reached high school, there were some things going on in my district that made my experience there less than desirable. Therefore I went to a private school my Junior and Senior years.
Catholic school was better, in terms of academics. But it was brutal on a social level. In public school I had been somewhat popular, I had friends, people I had known for most of my life. In private school I was an outcast. I was made fun of because my family didn’t have money, because I wrote poetry (who does that?!?), and lastly, because I was beginning to struggle with my weight. My peer’s ridicule only sent me further and faster into the comforting arms of food. So I spent my days in school not with the cheerleading squad or drinking in the woods on weekends, I was writing and reading. I was learning and bettering myself.
High school is a tough place. It’s full of people who judge you, snicker at you, and sometimes flat out make fun of you. But there are some positives to look forward to. Most of those people, the very popular ones who usually lead the charge in ridiculing others, peak in high school. After graduation they usually go on to do nothing much. They bang out a few kids and then whine about their lives on Facebook. They are bullies and their kids are usually bullies too. There’s nothing you can do about them.
And here’s the best news: High school ends. I never see the people I graduated with. Sure a few of them tried to friend me on Facebook, and I’ll accept because, hell, it’s been almost twenty years, but that’s it. They don’t have a daily influence on my life anymore.
Bottom line: will your life be hell in high school as a fat girl? Yes. But high school is hell (at times) whether you’re fat or thin. And it all ends rather quickly. Get through it, focus on yourself. Read, learn, and in the end you will win the race. You will outsmart and outwit them at every turn. And if you don’t? Just ignore their friend requests, they’ll go away.
thefatgirlblog.com 
high school wasn’t rough for me as a fat girl. i went to a public school (dunmore), though, and i was smart. the popular kids at my high school were smart too, so i was in class with them, every day, all day from 8th grade until the day we graduated. that probably helped, but i’ve always been chubby, and i can count on one hand the number of times i heard someone make fun of me (and it was a snide comment as i walked by but never to my face). that being said, i drove by scranton high school the other day when school was being let out, and even though i didn’t have a horrible high school experience, i don’t think anyone could pay me to relive that time of my life again. college, on the other hand, i’d go back there in a heart beat! 🙂
I had never been made fun of until private school, and even then it was the form of being ignored or sneered at. But I remember the girls who were mercilessly tormented by others, and my heart breaks for them when I remember it.
I’d go back to college in a heartbeat also!
Thanks for reading!!