Weighty Issues

This morning I read your article called ‘7 Signs Your Body Image is Bruised’ on the website Beyond Blue. I then proceeded to read the comments. Some of them were very sad from fat people who battle with weight issues and body image problems. Others just enraged me – self-righteous size 4’s and 10’s telling all the fat people that they:
A) had to accept that fat is ugly
B) it was their own fault that they were fat
C) they needed to go on diet and get exercising

As someone who has battled with my weight for over a decade and seen it creep up and up despite trying various diets, milk shakes, pills, dietician’s and doctors, I know how it feels to find yourself getting fatter and fatter. Severe depression and the various medications I’ve had to take to combat that in order to function properly, all of which have the side effect of increasing weight and in some cases breast size. Add to that, annual cortisone treatments to combat lung infections, each time adding another 2 – 5 kg, menopause with its metabolic slow down, fibromyalgia that makes it very difficult to do regular exercise and you have a whole bunch of things that make it virtually impossible to drop that ten, twenty, thirty kilos I’d love to lose.

I’d love to be able to arrange for quick body swaps with the self-righteous and see how they cope with the chronic pain and trauma of finding yourself in a body you don’t recognize. Give me one day in their gorgeous size 10 or 12 bodies, free of pain and able to fit into their fashionable wardrobe, sexy underwear and mind that obviously doesn’t battle with depression.

My niece, when she was 17, suffered from alopecia and soaring weight gain due to insulin imbalances. The most horrifying thing to me was that all the girls in her class, including her so–called best friends became incredibly bitchy, calling her all sorts of names and cutting her out of their social circle. The same thing was done to another girl who was suffering from cancer and lost her hair due to radiation. I think about those petty and utterly nasty teenage girls and have to hope that one day they have to deal with something serious and learn some compassion.

To try and retain a good body image under these sorts of circumstances is very difficult. When one is targeted by mean women it becomes almost impossible. You begin to hate your body and yourself. You feel that you take up too much space and your spirit shrinks to make up for your fat body. The depression sinks its fangs in and you feel more and more unworthy and unacceptable. You start to comfort eat because you feel so miserable and the chocolate monster rears its sweet tooth. You retreat from the world because it means you don’t have to deal with it and it’s judgements on you.

The kind, loving, generous person you really are shrinks into a safe shell. You wear drab clothes so you can be more invisible, but also because the fashion world seems to think that because you are an X, XX or XXX large size you don’t like pretty underwear, lingerie and clothes, or more likely, you don’t deserve them. Beige, brown, grey and black – neutrals that act as instant depressives and don’t do anything for your complexion – all in sack shapes that make you feel even more of a bag, are the options in the shops. How we long for pinks and purples, emeralds and sapphires, spring, summer and autumn colours that cheer us up and make us feel happy. Then again it would be lovely to find tailored jackets and trousers, shirts and blouses with v necks and ruffles that make the most of our generous curves. Long floaty skirts and dresses with pretty sleeves and patterns. No, no, no say the fashion mavens – fat people can’t have anything like that, it would be rewarding them for their unforgivable sin – fatness.

So think twice or three times before you criticize the fat. It could so easily have been you and not me.

http://radicalhateloss.blogspot.com/2009/11/turning-light-on-in-dark.html

Here is the post I did that is a related. Mostly because it was spurred by one of those closet craziness sessions!

I think weight gain is more related to emotional issues than “lack of personal responsibility”.

It saddens me that people point fingers. Even worse that medical doctors do not recognize this. I guess if you have had the upbringing and have the motivation to go through medical school, you would not realize what it’s like to live your ilfe with depression, dysthmia, or anxiety disorders. Depression brings cravings for comfort foods, lack of motivation/will, for example. It’s worth mentioning that most of the medications for mental illness cause weight gain.

I wonder how easy it would be for the self righteous to get themselves to exercise when they are clinically depressed. Being overweight, in terms of not taking care of yourself, or using it as a shield for dating or connecting with romantic partners, just some examples, can be the emotional result of low self esteem resulting from chidlhood abuse or neglect.

Let’s face the truth – how many people WANT to be fat? With about 25% of the population experiencing mental health issues in any given year, I wonder why we are not more supportive of one another. Instead, its pull up your bootstraps..that person is lazy, or somehow less worthy than people who don’t have emotional issues that prevent them from being the best they can be, in terms of health. That doesn’t even include all those who are undiagnosed or who do not recognize they have depression.

I don’t believe it’s victimization, but more related to feelings some have to live with every day of their life. Having suffered from depression for many years, I understand how you can’t just force your brain to process thoughts and emotions as a “happy” person does.

Having a supportive community might reduce obesity more than social shuns. And no, I’m not plus sized….but I do resent having been judged most of my life on my looks-hit on endlessly by men who did not care about me, but were only intrested in me because I was attractive (and thin).

People lack empathy. That thin person who works out at the gym 7 days a week might be the workplace bully, the sexual abuser, or someone who copes with their own emotional distress by being a ‘perfectionist’ or their health obsessiveness could stem from OCD. How would they feel if their OCD brought compulsive eating instead of overachieving or workaholicism? Everyone has some personality defects-yes-even the thinnest.

Just some thoughts to consider. Provoked by the rude and inhumane comment from “Sandi”. Maybe Sandi is one of those people with no empathy-who has abused others-maybe her children, who will grow up with eating disorders as a result. Maybe Sandi is the workplace bully, misplacing her anger by constantly emphasizing the so-called deficiencies of others.

Thank you Margarita and Emma for your balanced and caring comments. I am in therapy, seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist, both of whom are really supportive, as is my GP. I think the point I really wanted to make is that being judgemental of people because of their physical appearance is hurtful and they may not have control over their bodies. When girls and women do that to each other it is very destructive. By just looking at the outside you may miss out on getting to know a special and loving person. Thanks again.

I can relate completely with Emma – I’m also tall – 5’10″, was skinny as a rake through my childhood and teen years and could eat whatever I wanted. My first experience of body bashing was my younger sister, a really skinny size 28, in a temper yelled at me that I was fat. I wept on my mother’s shoulder about this. She listened and eventually said, Darling you’re NOT fat. If anyone should be feeling bad it’s me – I’m seven months pregnant and really feel fat. I realise now that my sister had issues about her nose – she had been nicknamed Skeg at school after the piece on surfboards that curves into a hook shape – and had run through double glass windows shortly beforehand and cut her nose badly and had to have stitches.

My mum always battled with her weight from a very young child and having broken her back in a serious fall when she was in her early thirties and then being involved in a serious car crash in her late thirties, at that stage she was still walking with sticks and her weight had ballooned.

That put my “fat” issue into some kind of perspective at the time, but as I started with a series of major health problems in my mid thirties I found the same thing happening to me. At my one sister’s 40th birthday party my one brother, who had been drinking all evening, greeted me with, “Jeez, your a fat pig, Jaynie”. A glass of red wine in my hand ended up all over his face – major scene all round. I’d never done anything like that before but it was an almost involuntary action.

Family, siblings especially, know exactly where your tender points are and unerringly aim for them. It wasn’t my body that was bruised but my spirit certainly was, especially as these are people who are supposed to love you. We can wound or be wounded and need to think about what comes out of our mouths.