In Lincolnshire, in the summer of 1996, Rae goes back to her daily life after a long vacation. Her vacation was at a psychiatric hospital. Rae was admitted to a psychiatric hospital due to self-inflicted injuries from a panic attack. The British series, My Mad Fat Diary, begins from here. Rae cannot get along with her friends because of her worries about what they think about her. She worries even more because she considers herself abnormal. Her self-esteem is further compromised because of her large figure that she has to face every day in the mirror. Because of strangers staring at her and their ridiculing, Rae’s mind is never at ease while walking on the street. She then goes on a binge to numb her pain.
Rae feels disconnected from the world. However, there are many people who love her in her life. But she can’t open her mind easily because of her victim mentality and sense of inferiority. She later realizes that her friends also experience the loneliness, inferiority, jealousy and fear that Rae experiences, as well as have their own secrets that they cannot openly share and are constantly hurt by. They are also fiercely fighting against them. Rae also thought that her mom didn’t even care about her and that she was always strong. But Rae comes to understand that her mom also feel emotions and always had to show that she was strong for her daughter even though she faced her own difficulties. Rae eventually shows tears of deep repentance, not just sympathy for her mom.
Rae finds new hope from a life that didn’t work out as she had wished – the vicious cycle of binging, the sense of inferiority about her appearance, and her relationships with other people that were unintentionally tangled with miscommunication. If she tried to solve everything by herself, she would probably have given up. However, she finally feels like she belongs to a gang that she feels truly comfortable with like her real home. While they try to solve problems together, they also fall down together and become frustrated. Despite their frustration, Rae and her gang learn to overcome their adolescence, a period of thick fogginess and uncertainty. Step by step, Rae comes closer to happiness through hope – hope that she can also become happy, hope that she will not hurt others anymore, and hope that she can become happy together with everyone around her including her mom.
The deepest and most important message My Mad Fat Diary delivers is to find the real me. It shows that one can finally be happy when one is able to honestly see oneself as it is. Rae learns how to love herself, little by little. That me that is attached to the images of me that is fat and narrow-sighted with the countless images imprinted in my mind, can’t love myself. Also, I can’t love the image of me, that image which other see me as. There is actually a true me within that has existed even before any description was given of me, and that which is not bound to any form or words. Only that true I can truly love me.
So many people are trying so hard to find the true me. But not many people would be able to answer clearly the question ‘who am I really?’ Where would I have been before myself that I know at the moment? Where would be my original home that is before the physical shell that I call my body? If you find that home, you will be always peaceful and happy no matter where you are and what you do. In order to find that home, the first step is to understand the concept of “home.” Until now, “Home” is some place limited to space and physical conditions. However, the true home, which is the key to happiness that we are looking for, is the state of mind that is completely free from concepts; the state of mind that you can take the greatest rest and where you can be the most comfortable and happy.
I also had a difficult time because of my appearance and suffered from my sense of inferiority by comparing myself to my “flawless” friends. Because of my similar story, I thought of my own experience during Meditation while watching Rae’s story of struggle and triumph. Even though I felt stress from my own negative mind, I put on the façade of happiness by showing a bright face. But I realized, through Meditation, that such fake minds actually made me feel rather unhappy. Not only that, I cannot describe in words how liberated I was when I realized that those minds were just the illusions that I created. I have now become a really happy person, full of confidence, and someone who loves me the way I am.
In fact, my appearance hasn’t changed much. But when I look at myself in the mirror now, I no longer make judgments or think negatively about myself. I now know the real me that is something beyond the image that I see. I have completely escaped from my sense of inferiority. I, who was once lost and wandering around, far from my true home, am no longer lost at all. Through Meditation, I have completely settled into my true home. Even now, every day, I am truly living freely in that place.
After breaking my conception called “me” and my conception called “home,”I found that everything was actually here in the world the whole time, not just in my mind. This pure empty universe that always exists even if eyes are open or closed is my true home. I truly hope that everyone who is roaming, lost, becomes liberated from their mind and finds the real home so that everyone can become happy like me.
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