Marge The Barge

On this Transformation Tuesday, I felt inspired to tell you my story of childhood bullying.  I had myself a few nicknames; all were torturous.  I was a chubby kid-as a child of abandonment, I tried to fill the loss of my father with food.  I loved sweets.  I also looooooved "pop" or soda.  I was a pretty depressed kid.  I put on an outward face of being the funny one or the extremely negative child who was never happy.  My mother, who off and on raised my little sister and I as a single parent (my "dad" left us when my sister was an infant and I was 3), worked full time and put herself through school and I spent a lot of time watching television and hanging out with babysitters, most of them were high school cheerleaders.  

Having the pressure to be beautiful and glamorous from all the media that I surrounded myself with, I ate my feelings instead.  The new Netflix show "Insatiable" is HIGHLY relatable to my life.  Fatty Patty was me.  In elementary school, my first nickname was given.  As an Underwood (before Carrie), you can only imagine the teasing that hit with that one.  I was Corky Dorky Underwear (in high school I graduated from Underwear to Thong).  The summer before 5th grade, my mom remarried and we moved up to Gig Harbor, a wealthy boating community in the Pacific Northwest, and I had a whole new start (we moved up from Grays Harbor-a remote logging town with a totally different demographic).  In 7th grade, about the time my family was going through another divorce, the bus ride to and from school was where the true, evil bullying began.  A 6th grade boy thought I looked like a "Marge". After being so clever, him and his friends dubbed me "Marge the Barge".  They even wrote a song about it...

"Marge the Barge, she really gives a charge-she kicked the ball, it hit the wall, and now the world's about to fall"....

8th Grade Yearbook Picture

Yes.  This was my life.  I vowed to change it.  One night I was watching Lifetime and a movie came on about two friends with eating disorders.  Instead of teaching me the dangers of them, it inspired me to start one....I decided to go take a whole roll of Oreos (remember how Costco used to package them that way? They probably still do) and devour them and attempt to vomit them up.  It worked....I remember again trying it after I pounded THREE Safeway brand fruit punch sodas.  Wow, was it this easy?  I spent the summer before freshman year slimming down in an extremely unhealthy way (that I believe has damaged my insides to this day which is why I have so many digestive issues and had to cut gluten and dairy out of my life).  When school started, I was no longer binging so I didn't need to purge.  The "Marge" kids were still in middle school and I had a new world to begin-older students to blend into.  

9th Grade ASB Card

That didn't last as I was awesome and in my freshman/sophomore Spanish class, I chose "Macarena" as my Spanish name and this was at the height peak of popularity for that song.  I then upgraded from Marge to Macarena.  I was cool with it, especially because it was the older boys who called me that, and the nickname was something I chose myself and had nothing to do with how fat I was.  Unfortunately though, I slowly started chubbing back up during senior year when I was put on an anti-depressant.  The entire time I was on any medicine like that, I was a whale-I also felt like I had no control over my mind.  The hunger was insatiable and I just accepted it as my fate until about 2016 as I had cut all chemicals out of my life and focused on curing my problems naturally (mostly by eating paleo, which I need to start doing again)....I AM SO GLAD I DID.  

*disclaimer-do not decide to cut out your own medication.  Consult a doctor first.

Recently, I have been doing a lot of work on my mind (I listen to motivational videos while getting ready).  I have severe anxiety and still view myself as that girl in the above picture on the left-that is still how I visualize myself internally and I occasionally have to scroll through my own Instagram feed to remind and inspire myself that I am no longer that girl.  I will always have Marge the Barge inside fueling me to succeed and I am so grateful to that time in my life to bring me to who I am today.  Thank you for reading!