The thing I'm wondering is what you feel you can get -- or would like to get -- from a site like Dimensions. Are you hoping to come to a place in your life hwere you can love your body, fat and all?
Well, only speaking for myself, I'm thrilled to be back here for the "sisterhood"... even if only virtual. I have NO overweight friends. I have no one to go to for fashion advice, relationship concerns, body issues, or whatever. I'm literally giddy just reading all of the posts and being immersed among a group of similar folks... at least on at least one dimension (pun intended, I guess) of our lives.
Being obese is the only life I've ever known... and despite my autoimmune stuff, I'm a healthy fat person, have always been active and loved life, and have never felt that I was treated overtly differently because of my size. The few obese girlfriends I've had in my life had opposite views and blamed everything that went wrong on their size... I've never had a positive communal fat-experience other than my current/previous time with people from this group.
I don't need the companionship in order to love or appreciate myself more... but I think this place gives me permission to love myself outloud. I mean, I'm a fairly conceited fat chick and I smile in every mirror I see just because I love the way I look (literally, I once broke my toe because I was watching myself smile into a mirror and walking at the same time)...
Off of this website, even if my friends love me, most of them take the attitude that I shouldn't love myself as I am... no one is cruel about it but I've never had a friend that wasn't asking me to the gym (as if I wasn't capable of going on my own), going on whatever diet, etc. They equate a thinner me with a better me... and never even ask how I feel about it.
I'm here to be me. I'm here to talk about how I want to be smaller for my own health reasons. I'm here to talk about sizing clothes appropriately. I'm here to get ideas about how to fix my hair. I'm here to be inspired by all of the ladies who haven't let their size slow them down. I'm here to enjoy being me in a way I can't fully enjoy it in the real world.
Society blames fat people for a lot of stuff and even if I haven't felt it directly... it's all around me all the time. It's on the news; just this week stories about state health plans charging the obese twice as much for insurance as those of normal weight starting next year. It's in my home; my family are of normal-chubby size and constantly comment on how every sneeze, ache, or upset tummy is because of "how I eat" even though I'm the only one in the family who actually watches what they eat/cooks/enjoys veggies/fruits/whole grains on the daily. It was even in my classroom with constant social sciences professors going on and on about the poor behavioral choices of the obese.
Ugh. Ok, end soapbox, but that's why I'm here... just to have fun and not worry about who is might be offended that I'm actually a happy, self-aware, self-loving chick.