Doomed Forever?

I've been avoiding blogging for awhile-- partly because I've been super busy and partly because I don't like admitting where I'm at in this ongoing journey of mine. The simplest way to put it is that the cycle is still continuing.

However, this time it seems a lot worse. I weigh more than ever--- yes EVER. My weight is this continual struggle that I can never seem to get a real handle on. I'm so tired of it controlling my life, limiting me, consuming my every thought.

I know that I have to take responsibility for my role in getting myself where I am today. It's not all genes or a low metabolism-- I have contributed to it too. I can't grasp how quickly it gets all out of hand and how fast the weight comes on.

There is so much shame associated with being obese. It's absolutely humiliating to have lost weight and gained it all back and more-- multiple times. It's hard not to imagine the judgements that people make about me-- lazy, doesn't try hard enough, has no will-power, is weak minded, makes excuses, etc.

I wish I knew the answer. Is there an answer? Am I doomed forever to be obese? I can't be that kind of example for my daughter. She looks up to me, she loves me, and I cannot let her down in that way.

After stepping on the scale this morning, I made it my goal to eat more real food and drink more water today. I've done very well-- although maybe not 100% perfect. I hope to feel better soon. I set a small goal and when I reach it, I will do something for myself.

Honestly, I am feeling very hopeless right now. I feel stuck, trapped, imprisoned in a body that won't cooperate with me and a mind that abuses my body with food. I never would have imagined that this is where I would be today.

I turned 31 last Friday. While being in my 30s doesn't bother me anymore, it does bother me that I've wasted more time of my life not really "living". I am limited by my weight and the shame that surrounds it.

For once, I just want to be thin. I'm not giving up on it and I will make some hard choices to keep working towards getting there.

Inspiration Sunday

What You Don’t Know about the Obese Woman You’re Judging

She carefully inspects a carton of strawberries in the produce section of the grocery store and, after she approves, she places it into her shopping cart. She continues shopping for the items on her grocery list. Dressed comfortably in yoga pants, a sweat shirt, and flip flops, she self-consciously pulls at her sweatshirt where it stretches snugly at her hips.

She breathes a quiet sigh as she adds blueberries, raspberries, bananas, avocados, tomatoes, spinach, carrots, and broccoli to her cart, a rainbow of produce accumulating with each item.

Maybe you are her, perhaps you’ve been her in the past, but at very least—you’ve seen her before. She has a story that the core of her being has been built upon but it’s a story left untold.

She’s not a woman who packed on extra weight after settling down and having children, occasionally reminiscing about the perfect figure that she had in her youth—the one her husband fell in love with.

This isn’t her first diet.

She hasn’t let herself go, although that’s what it looks like upon seeing her and many assume that’s the case.

She has been on diets since she was a child.

She has been bullied and rejected.

As much as she tries, she has never been able to escape the heaviness that she has built around herself. Pain wraps around her soul like the excess flesh that wraps around her waist.

In high school, she wore the largest size gym uniform available and it was still too tight—the shorts would ride up with every rub of her thighs.

On graduation day, she worried that the gown would be too small.

On her first day of college she worried that she wouldn’t fit in the desks.

She desperately tried to convince herself that she felt pretty on her wedding day in the dress which a tailor had to let the seams out of because she had gained more weight.

Pregnancy made her feel even uglier—a time that was supposed to be filled with happiness was filled with shame. Her doctor told her she wouldn’t deliver her baby if she weighed a pound more and it shattered her heart and broke her spirit.

Every single event of her life has been tainted by obesity. It has stolen her happiness and every ounce of self-esteem. She wishes she could forget the heartbreak and that the pain would evaporate, but the memories linger and the weight remains.

Occasionally, the pain overflows and slowly runs down her cheeks. When you ask her what’s wrong, she can’t explain. It’s a lifetime of pain and she doesn’t know where to begin—so it’s a story that’s left untold and she simply carries the memories in her heavy heart.

She continues shopping, marking each item off of her grocery list. Once her cart is filled with the best of intentions, she pays for the items and drives home. Ready to begin on Monday, she’s hopeful that this will finally be the time she sheds the extra weight for good.

Always Fat: I Hate Almost Every Picture of Myself

I’ve been going through boxes of photos while at my parent’s house. It has been fun to see all of the moments from childhood. But I am embarrassed of myself in most of the pictures and it makes me very sad.

I love the photos of me until I turned about 7 or 8 years old. At that point, I went from an average sized child to an overweight child. The pictures of me from 6th grade on are even worse. I can tell that I had zero confidence and can imagine how anxious I felt back then.

Adolescent years are hard for everybody but I think that those years are even harder for those of us with weight problems. Insecurity and not really knowing who you are or where you belong is at its peak in those years, and to feel like you don’t fit in with your peers (or your clothes) is a difficult thing.

My clothes were oversized because I was embarrassed of my body. The styles I had to wear were that of an older woman because there weren’t a lot of plus size options back then.

I went through a phase in 6th grade where I wore black tights every single day because I was embarrassed of my legs and feet.

(After my 6th grade graduation. Notice the baggy mom-clothes and tights.)

A volunteer mother at the school asked me why I wore the black tights all the time—I felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself because she looked at me like I was strange. Thinking back, it was strange—but it was my way of hiding.

It looks like my smile is forced in every picture. The look in my eyes does not reflect the happiness I was trying to show. I don’t know that I hated myself back then as I came to in later years, but I just felt awkward, insecure, and ugly.

To this day it hurts to see those pictures. I flip through them with both hopeful anticipation and dread. It makes me sad about my years growing up.

In some sense, it feels like I never really lived—but at the same time it is what made me who I am today. I felt heartbreak, shame, bullied, belittled, and afraid of people and what hurtful words would escape their lips—and these experiences taught me valuable lessons by which I live by today.

But I can’t help but think of where I am now, at 30 years old. My life turned out better than I could ever imagine. God planned the perfect match for me—a handsome, kind, and generous soul who I now call my husband. And now we have a beautiful and happy little girl. I have all of the things that I ever wanted on an existential level.

But I still don’t like the physical package that I come in and it has weighed on my shoulders like a load of bricks through every life event, from college, to marriage, to pregnancy. It taints every moment and threatens to destroy every happy memory.

I don’t want to go through my entire life being fat. It seems to be a common denominator in my life. I have to do better. I owe it to myself.

I don’t want to hate every picture of myself for the rest of my life. I want to feel good in my body. I don’t want my size to be on my mind all of the time. I don’t want my size to get in the way of living life to the fullest.

I have a lifetime of habits to undo. It feels like a daunting task to try to figure out how to change and to change for good.

Maybe I don’t have to have it all figured out, I just have to take the next step.

Sincerely, Your Fat Patient

Dear Physician,

This little hospital gown that I’m made to wear is too small and it leaves my entire backside uncovered. Fat bulges from my sides and stretch marks cover my body like tiny scars.

The exam table creaks as I sit down on the white crinkly paper and I see the disgust on your face and in your cold blue eyes, though you don’t express it aloud.

I tell you my ailments, my feelings, and my concerns—things which I needed to tell you a month ago but you wouldn’t fit me into your schedule for. I wanted my life to be over back then, and yet that wasn’t urgent enough a reason to be seen.

Now I’m here asking for your help and you minimalize my concerns by making uninformed statements which tell me you didn’t even take the time to read my file.

If you had read my file, you would know that the last time I was seen in this office I weighed about 90 lbs. less than I do now.

If you had read my file, you would know that I’m recovering from postpartum depression while taking medication and going to therapy for it—instead you brush off my concerns and tell me I’m not on medication for my depression so I’ll be fine and postpartum depression doesn’t last this long. You seem surprised when I tell you that I am on medication. I want to tell you that this has been a process of recovery over a period of time, but instead I don’t say anything because you’re the doctor and you should know the facts about the illness.

Your first comment to me is to see a nutritionist about my weight.

The months of struggle, pain, tears, psychiatrist visits, therapist visits, and pure war within my mind minimalized to what you can see—my fatness.

And when I tell you my story, how I know what to do because I’ve done it before and the weight came back on as a result of depression, you tell me that it must be hard to eat right when I’m feeling moody.

That stings like an unexpected slap in the face.

Moody. This was far more than being moody.

I tell you how sometimes like the flip of a switch I begin to feel like I don’t want to live anymore—that life is just too hard and this lasts for weeks sometimes. You look at me like I’m crazy and tell me that I do not have a “profound” problem where my hormones are imbalanced—but this is just an issue that’s common in people of my size and BMI.

You don’t seem to hear me over the thunder in my thighs. While a sunshiny smile remains firmly planted on my face and I kindly thank you for your time, the dark cloud has begun to creep slowly over my soul and my eyes begin to feel heavy. When I am in the safety and solitude of my vehicle, the tears fall.

Please don’t disregard me and my feelings because of my weight. Don’t assume that because I am fat that I don’t care or that I don’t try to change.

Please consider that I have a history and that you don’t know my story. Don’t belittle me or treat me like I’m a series of numbers on a chart.

Please take me seriously. See beyond my ample curves and flabby arms and see that I am a person—not just a specimen or textbook fat person. I’m unique, as is every single patient you see—skinny, fat or in between.

I don’t want your sympathy. All I want is for you to understand that today, my weight and the snugness of my clothes, are just a part of where I am in this moment, and my life is made up of millions of moments—not just this one. I understand that my weight is unhealthy and I would give anything to get it under control—I worry about it every single day and I’m trying. Really, I am.

This isn’t the beginning of my story nor is this the end. It’s just a moment in time that is a result and accumulation of all of the prior moments that have affected me physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’m not just my fatness—I’m a struggling soul, someone continuing to fight to become better.

Remember that each patient has a history that you have no clue about. The fat may just be a symptom of a life that has become unbalanced for some reason or another. Beneath the excess fat is a human being with feelings who is fighting battles that you know nothing about.

Please wrap this around your finger and as you open the door to greet your patients, let it be a reminder that each one has a unique story of the road they’ve traveled so far—don’t make assumptions. Be informative, be professional, but most importantly—be kind.

Sincerely,

Your Fat Patient