First, more on my back. I have a Pars defect, which is essentially a broken vertebra. Cut a doughnut in half and you know what I mean. This break allows the spine to slide out of place, pinch nerves and cause pain. It's either a stress fracture or congenital. I didn't play football in high school, so I imagine I was born with it. Physical therapy is in my future.
Next, I wanted to talk about the article in Marie Clare magazine by Maura Kelly, Should 'Fatties' Get a Room (Even on TV)? I've seen a number of articles about it, and I understand that Maura Kelly is a former anorexic. Basically, she doesn't want to see fat people do much of anything, from walking across a room to making out and getting it on.
The article was insensitive at best (hell, just the title was insensitive). Most fat people feel invisible anyway. I don't think most people (fat or thin) think of fat people as sexual (though I have a theory that heavier people are more sexual than thin ones. Maybe I'll write about this sometime). I find Kelly's thought process interesting.
She says that being fat is shameful. Commenters all over the web are saying she's mean. But I think most people agree with her. I think most fat people agree with her. The sense of shame at being fat is enormous (pardon the pun?). Once in a WW meeting, a leader said that you can be a drug addict or an alcoholic and it's not obvious to others just by looking at you (for a while, anyway). But everyone knows if you're fat. Lots of fat people feel ashamed and loathe themselves. Lots of people fear being fat.
That's what I think is going on with Maura Kelly. She's deathly afraid of being fat. And we hate in others what we hate in ourselves.
I understand that fear. I've put on a couple of pounds lately. It might be last week's cake. It might be that I've figured out the high range of what I can safely eat. It might be the meds I'm on for the back (they make me thirsty, and I think I'm retaining water). It might be a lack of exercise (which I am not allowed to engage in right now). But it scares the shit out of me. I'm about 80 pounds down from my all-time high. I have a long way to go, too. I don't want to go back to how I was.
So I'm going to keep eating right and eat a little less. I'm just going to ride it out. I was hoping to be down twenty pounds from now by Christmas. That's very unlikely now. But I've had some success, too, so I'm going to focus on that and on taking care of myself. I'm also going to try to feel some sympathy for Maura Kelly, because she fears what I fear.
"we hate in others what we hate in ourselves." Skip, it scares me how you always put your finger on the issue, exactly. When someone is spewing a bunch of hatred - it's difficult to see it, but there is usually a whole lot of pain and self-hatred in them. That doesn't excuse it in any way! but it does help to answer that question "how the heck could anyone even think that??"
ReplyDeleteThis is always my reply to people who don't want to look at fat people: Not MY problem. Don't look at me. If that's not good enough, gouge your eyes out with a fork. Not MY problem.
Of course it's easier to say that with bravado on a blog than in real life :)