I'm roughly three semesters away from a degree in "food science and human nutrition". There were a variety of reasons that I failed my last three semesters of school, none of them very good. To sum it up, Life Fucking Sucked because of things both in and out of my control, and I couldn't cope.

Now ... I'm thinking it's time to go back. I was always planning to--in fact I'd planned to go back last fall--and now I think it's time. And I realized something today while looking over courses I have left to do: I don't feel afraid.

See, when I was taking my classes before, I felt ridiculously out of place. I was always the fattest person in any of my classes. I always felt inferior to the skinny, "healthier" people around me. When I think about it, none of them ever discounted what I said or ignored me. They were all perfectly polite and friendly and willing to listen to my opinion, just like anyone else's. I was just so ready to be shot down that I expected it, and censured myself because of it.

Why? Why did I do this to myself?

Partially, I think, it was because my well-meaning father always asked me why I was pursuing that degree when "Nobody's going to listen to a fat dietician". But more, I think it was just a habit ingrained into me from middle school (mainly), when people DID discount and ignore me.

I'm not saying I failed my classes because of this perception, but I do think it was in there somewhere. There were a lot of things causing me to feel so defeated that I let myself fail, and I just realized today that might've been in there.