A Question For People That Are REALLY Overweight

In My Humble Opinion
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I look enough facially like my “before” picture that people ask “Is that your sister?” (I actually keep on in a frame in my office - a small one among other photos).

I speak at high schools about obesity and my presentation starts with another picture of me pre-op where I’m unrecognizable. In this one, I look like death although I’m dressed well. I start the presentation by asking the kids what their impressions are of “this woman”. Boy is that ever an eye-opener for them once it dawns on them that it’s me. I hope that lesson carries over into their personal lives.

VCNJ~

[QUOTE=Litoris]

Veuve_ClicquotNJ – I like to carry my “before” picture with me, too. It looks nothing at all like me, and most people are in shock. I very much will pull it out and say “oh, you think fat people are disgusting? What do you think of this?” I let them rattle off all the hate and ugliness they can and then I smile sweetly and say, “Thanks. This is a picture of me, and it’s nice to know what you really think of me.” I leave it at that, I don’t respond to the apologies or the questions, I simply turn my back and let them live with themself. I imagine many people move on and forget about the encounter very quickly, but I am sure that many more have guilt that eats at them for a while later.

I am lucky that I have great skin, and am still relatively young. Even in a bathing suit, if you didn’t notice my tummy tuck (full anchor cut, hip to hip and sternum to mons) scar, you would never believe I once weighed 3 times what I do now, so I get a lot of people who think they can trash fat people in front of me. I have even had comments made in front of me such as “you know, if those fat asses would just stop shovelling food in their mouth, they wouldn’t need to have surgery to help them lose weight!” I just smiled and walked away. Some people like to be ignorant and they’re better ignored than helped.

[/QUOTE]

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[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Well, I’ve been morbidly obese for most of my life. Unfortunately my method of self-medicating for the crap I used to get from people was to find something nice to eat. Not the best strategy when trying to lose the weight again.

I’m also hugely clinically depressed - I’m still working on treating that, first, before I work on the weight. I’m not sure that’s going to be remaining a viable option for much longer, though - I’m starting to get some secondary effect that should be scaring me.

As for dealing with strangers? Well, it’s a bit of a yes and no sort of thing - for the most part, the people I meet in the street don’t say anything to me, simply because I’m obese. If I were to get into any kind of altercation it would be the first button that would get used, but most people don’t go around saying things like, “God, you fat slob.” Well, except at the beach.

Fortunately I’d never really gotten into sunbathing.

But there are enough that I’d say I bump into someone who feels the need to say something hurtful, usually in the guise of trying to “help” me that I tend to avoid leaving my apartment.

Of course, that’s also a behavior that fits well with massive, chronic depression, so, I can’t say it’s all on the obesity.
[/QUOTE]

I could’ve written this exact same response. Depression, anxiety, and weight issues. All my life. I’m finally making progress on the first, but I don’t kid myself into thinking the weight is going to ever really be ‘in-control’, and I’m trying to learn not to obsess about it. Of course, people who do point it out make that more difficult.

Still, in a way it’s heartening to see people willing to talk about it here, and not get overly offensive or defensive either way. Makes me feel somewhat better about the whole thing.

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[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
And inside a lot of us fatties is a really, really hungry child. There was a particularly bad stretch in my family’s life when I actually did go to bed hungry, and not just once. Being hungry was a symptom of being poor – and I mean really poor, as in having to decide between paying for fuel oil or buying groceries. So when I became reasonably successful as a young adult, having enough to eat was my assurance that I wasn’t poor any more. There’s nothing wrong with feeling a hunger pang or two before lunch or supper unless that hunger pang reminds you of a time when there was no lunch and there was no supper.
[/QUOTE]
Elvis. This reminds me of Elvis, newly rich, swearing that he’d never be hungry again. :frowning:

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[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Elvis. This reminds me of Elvis, newly rich, swearing that he’d never be hungry again. :frowning:
[/QUOTE]
Ah, thankhyew, thankhyew verrrrah much! Unfortunately for me, “Elvis” hasn’t yet left the building, but I’m doing my best to evict his fat ass.

The thing is, I know how hard it is for me to drop the 70 or so pounds I need to get and stay healthy. So, while I know that morbidly obese people face challenges that would drive me whimpering into a deep, dark cave, and they do it with grace and dignity, I whole-heartedly support any attempt anyone makes at change. I make self-denigrating jokes about my own condition because I have to remind myself constantly that I can lose weight, I just have to make the hard decision to do it. But that’s just me. I make no such judgement for anyone else.

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This thread has been an eye-opener for me. It’s way more enlightening than the threads that start out with someone describing someone as fat, which is always followed by defensive comments which bring lots of fire but no light.

This in particular:

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]

For me, the biggest problem was and still is my perception of what normal life should be. When I was dropping a pound a week (about right, according to my doctor) I was living what I believed, deep in my mind, was an abnormal life. Yes, I was succeeding – buying smaller clothes and looking better and feeling better. But the “new life” I was living was alien to me.
[/QUOTE]

I think this puts a light on all kinds of self-destructive habits, whether it’s overeating or smoking (she said as she coughs her lungs out) or staying in an abusive relationship, etc etc.

There’s a deep truth in what you say, Sunrazor. Now if someone could just come up with some way to psych ourselves out of that mindset.

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[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
I make self-denigrating jokes about my own condition because I have to remind myself constantly that I can lose weight, I just have to make the hard decision to do it.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve moved on to the flip side of this. As much as I assume inside that people are judging me, I have made the conscious decision not to refer to my own weight (except in situations like this where it’s relevant). It only brings pity or discomfort or takes something away from me. I carry on as if I am a perfectly valid person and don’t judge others either. If I want to be accepted for what I am, I need to just be, and maybe others will see me as just being, and being valid, as well.

I used to think I had to put a caveat on everything I said so people know that I know that I’m fat, but I figure they probably know that.

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[QUOTE=gigi]
I’ve moved on to the flip side of this. As much as I assume inside that people are judging me, I have made the conscious decision not to refer to my own weight (except in situations like this where it’s relevant). It only brings pity or discomfort or takes something away from me. I carry on as if I am a perfectly valid person and don’t judge others either. If I want to be accepted for what I am, I need to just be, and maybe others will see me as just being, and being valid, as well.
[/QUOTE]

Gigi, I’m… Going to try this. If it works, I’ll be a much happier person. Thank you for that insight.

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gigi I’m glad that you found something that works for you but I wonder if you are able to see the humor in your weight. I know for some people it sinks them into depression and self destructive cycles. But you seem to be in a good place so I wonder if you can see the humor in the fat guy sitting on a bench and lifting the pencil thin guy in the air type situations that you encounter in your life?

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[QUOTE=Oredigger77]
gigi I’m glad that you found something that works for you but I wonder if you are able to see the humor in your weight. I know for some people it sinks them into depression and self destructive cycles. But you seem to be in a good place so I wonder if you can see the humor in the fat guy sitting on a bench and lifting the pencil thin guy in the air type situations that you encounter in your life?
[/QUOTE]
I’m not gigi, but gigi is female. Do you think that it’s easier for you to make light (sorry) of it as a man, who theoretically isn’t judged quite as purely on appearance?

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You know i think that it is entirely possible that being a man makes it easier. When i recently flew from Dallas to LA I requested an exit row so I would have more room. Unfortunate most other large people know this trick and on a plane that had three seats across the entire plane they put three hefty guys my shoulders were touching both of the guys next to me and one of them was across the isle. We all shared a laugh and then moved as the flight was relatively vacant to a more comfortable arrangement.

I have never sat down to ask any of my large female friends if they find humor such as this in their lives or if they are able to laugh at it. I realize that for some people they would be to embarrassed to laugh and with them it is hard to even bring up their weight. But gigi seams like she at least owns her size and does not let it own her so I figured if there was a chance to ask a question and not have it be turned into an insult this was it.

I’m not asking if she is feels people judging her based on her size I’m asking if the humorous situations that appear due to weight are funny to her.

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[QUOTE=Oredigger77]
gigi I’m glad that you found something that works for you but I wonder if you are able to see the humor in your weight. I know for some people it sinks them into depression and self destructive cycles. But you seem to be in a good place so I wonder if you can see the humor in the fat guy sitting on a bench and lifting the pencil thin guy in the air type situations that you encounter in your life?
[/QUOTE]

I’d like to respond to this, even though I am not gigi. Those situations may be bowel-shatteringly hilarious to someone who has never been overweight/obese, but to those who have lived it, they are fucking mortifying. Imagine how funny it would be if you suddenly shit your pants because of having a digestive disorder for which you can’t find effectual treatment. Or how funny would it be to you if during sex your partner commented on just how horrible of a lover you are and started snoring.

Hey, I have a great bit of hilarity – how about how funny it is when an epileptic has a seizure and pisses himself? Doesn’t that crack you up? Maybe when a cancer patient pukes on herself because the chemo has made her sick? Oh, even better, how funny they look with nothing but peachfuzz for hair?

Look, some of us can make fun of ourselves, many cannot. We should not all be expected to be able to “see the humour” in our weight. I understand that this is coming from a point of view of someone who is overweight, but I wonder how many obese/overweight people laugh in public at themself only to cry in private? I know I was that person. There is no humour in humiliation, IMO

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[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
I think this puts a light on all kinds of self-destructive habits, whether it’s overeating or smoking (she said as she coughs her lungs out) or staying in an abusive relationship, etc etc.

There’s a deep truth in what you say, Sunrazor. Now if someone could just come up with some way to psych ourselves out of that mindset.
[/QUOTE]
AuntiePam (or anyone else who wants to answer), do you find that being overweight makes you more sympathetic or understanding of people in situations such as the ones you listed above, that are different but in some ways analogous to self-destructive overeating?

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[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac]
AuntiePam (or anyone else who wants to answer), do you find that being overweight makes you more sympathetic or understanding of people in situations such as the ones you listed above, that are different but in some ways analogous to self-destructive overeating?
[/QUOTE]

I’ll chime and say hell yeah. Everyone has some Achilles heel and while I may not be able to understand it, I respect that they are living with whatever limitations they have. As familiar as I am with compulsive overeating, I still have to take it on faith that my friend can’t stop at one drink, while the impulse is to say “Just don’t drink any more”. :smack: I can compare it with what I go through and at least empathize.

I also don’t use addiction as an excuse, but as a reason. Knowing there’s a program for addiction keeps it a reason, but I don’t know what rock bottom means for me. I never thought I’d be this big but now that I am it seems inevitable and I adjust. I also completely understand the mindset Sunrazor describes. When I was losing 100 pounds, I felt it was someone else and that what was happening, and my own behavior, was not really me. I am not someone who can restrict my eating and continue feeling OK. So I knew it was a matter of time before the real me was back. And yet, when I did start gaining again, it felt like a surprise and a failure.

As far as joking about it, the question doesn’t bug me but it confuses me. What is the joke? If I am to accept everyone at the size they are (which includes super small people – you won’t catch me saying “you’re so skinny, I hate you!” :wink: ), there’s nothing inherent funny about any of them. I do have to sometimes explain myself and refer to my size (I couldn’t try out a chair at Ikea that had a weight limit, I couldn’t get a free fleece at work because they got the “normal” range of sizes, etc.), but for the most part, it just is.

I’ve been thinking recently about the gender disparity too. A guy with a beer belly might think about losing weight but I don’t think there’s the same pressure on him. But I am open to another view on that. It’s along the lines of guys with acne scarring get still get leading man roles, but I don’t remember seeing a woman lead like that. Different standards may apply?

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[QUOTE=gigi]
I’ve moved on to the flip side of this. As much as I assume inside that people are judging me, I have made the conscious decision not to refer to my own weight (except in situations like this where it’s relevant). It only brings pity or discomfort or takes something away from me. I carry on as if I am a perfectly valid person and don’t judge others either. If I want to be accepted for what I am, I need to just be, and maybe others will see me as just being, and being valid, as well.

I used to think I had to put a caveat on everything I said so people know that I know that I’m fat, but I figure they probably know that.
[/QUOTE]
I make those remarks about myself because of exactly what AuntiePam said in the post just before yours. I know some people just don’t have a choice about themselves. I do have a choice. I’m not morbidly obese because of a physical or chemical condition; I am overweight because I’m too lazy and self-indulgent to make the dozens of little decisions that I need to make every day. Believe me, I know people to whom losing a few pounds is a monumental task because of their physiology and body chemistry. I’m not one of them. I want to have a 38-inch waist for one reason and one reason only – I’m as shallow as a teaspoon and as vain as Paris Hilton. If it makes me healthier, well great, I won’t have to hear my doctor and my wife yap like little dogs at me all the time, and that’s one less stress point in my life. But I’ll still be a vain, shallow prick because THAT is something I am utterly unable to change.

But I’m the only person I know who is like me. I have to re-define normal for my world, and in my world “normal” excludes from my pantry most of what 21st century Americans take for granted. It means I go to a restaurant for the comraderie and ambience, not for the food (and don’t try to tell me I can “eat sensibly” in any restaurant in America – my son is a chef, I know what goes on in those kitchens!)

Circumstances beyond my control led to me having the body I have. But not all circumstances are beyond my control any more. You have become comfortable with yourself because you posess the confidence, dignity and grace to do so. I lack those attributes. Body fat makes me dislike myself, even though I easily accept other people exactly as they are. Who knows, maybe I’ll slim down to my old Army weight and still hate myself (I am, after all, a shallow, vain prick.) But maybe then I can start to work on what’s REALLY bothering me.

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[QUOTE=Sunrazor]

One doesn’t get this way overnight. It takes years of the wrong kind of reenforcement – food as reward, food as hobby, food as comfort, food as revenge. And inside a lot of us fatties is a really, really hungry child. There was a particularly bad stretch in my family’s life when I actually did go to bed hungry, and not just once. Being hungry was a symptom of being poor – and I mean really poor, as in having to decide between paying for fuel oil or buying groceries. So when I became reasonably successful as a young adult, having enough to eat was my assurance that I wasn’t poor any more. There’s nothing wrong with feeling a hunger pang or two before lunch or supper unless that hunger pang reminds you of a time when there was no lunch and there was no supper.

[/QUOTE]

Man, I totally relate to this. Food was always a major point of stress in my parents’ house. We could get in serious trouble if we (us kids) ate food in the house that didn’t belong to us. I’m talking yelling/beating/groundings if we ate the leftover pasta in the fridge because that was “supposed to be dad’s lunch.” This is partly because we were poor enough every bit of food had to be stretched as far as it could go, and partly because my parents are just kind of selfish people. I was an adult before I ever ate Doritos because they belong to dad. We never went out to eat with our parents. Never. They went out to eat without us and I can count on my fingers the number of times we went out to any restaurant. My parents were always dished up first, and we could have what was left over—and some nights, that wasn’t much. We never were deprived. Nobody was dying of starvation. But the constant message in the house was that we were lucky to get what we had and not to expect anything more. And on top of that, we were told constantly we were fat. Constantly yelled at for it. Constantly punished for it. Constantly blamed for it, like we had absolutely any control over what we ate–we had none. The only junk food in the house belonged to my parents, and do you think for one second I would touch that? No cupcake is worth my mother going absolutely apeshit on us.

Can you imagine how I reacted when all of a sudden I had full control over what I bought and what I ate? I have serious control issues with food. And I can’t seem to let them go. There’s always one thing left over. Always. A cookie nobody else is allowed to eat. 1/4 left over in cracker boxes or chip bags. A portion left in the fridge. It drives my husband crazy that I don’t want people to eat food I’ll never touch, but damnit, it takes more than 5 years to counteract 18 years of training–and you better believe my parents would bring the hammer down if we ever finished all of anything. And also, just feeling hungry is enough to make me feel guilty. For example, if it’s 1 and I know I’m going to eat dinner around 6, and I’m hungry, I’ll ignore it. Any time I told my mom I was hungry, she told me to “live off my reserves” and “shut up.” So now I’ll skip breakfast and lunch–and it makes perfect sense to me. Why eat breakfast at 9 if I’m only going to eat lunch 4 hours later? And why eat lunch at 1 if I’m going to eat dinner at 6? My husband doesn’t understand why he’ll come home to find I’m starving because I didn’t want to eat before dinner.

And for a long time, I thought this was perfectly normal behavior. Apparently it’s not? My husband seems to think it’s not.

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I have no vanity at all because I hate myself. Nothing I do will make me think of myself as worthy or lovable and if I were thin enough to attract attention I would be very afraid of that. My father has got his own issues with food and body image but I had to respect that during the loss he didn’t chime in with everyone saying “Oh, you’ve lost so much weight!” like that made me notable or more valid. Nothing makes the low opinion of myself feel much better.

Now do you feel healthier?? :stuck_out_tongue:

ETA: in response to Sunrazor

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There are many different ways to take hilarity. Physical comedy is funny there is a reason that it has been around for so long and based on your reaction, to what I can only guess is my chair breaking comment, you don’t find it funny Litoris. I personally think the three stooges were genius.

I do not find people most of the situations you listed as funny. But I did have a friend in high school who had a brain tumor and when he lost he hair to chemo he bought dome polish and made cue ball jokes. After he beat cancer he made some of the most inappropriate cancer jokes that I have ever heard, They were damn funny but I cannot repeat them ever. Talking to him later he said that he figured he might as well go out happy as crying at night and while he was scared he wasn’t going to let it control his life.

Maybe it just me and I’m starting to pick up that it is because of how upset you are but that seems to be similar to how she is owning being heavy. I’m not saying that all awkward situations involving weight are the height of hilarity but some of them sure are. Now there are people who cannot see the humor in the fact that when I got into the limo with my date for junior prom I split the pants to my tux and had to go home and change while the limo waited out side. Sure I was embarrassed but I also think it was funny and I tell it as one of my funny fat stories. Again I was not trying to be offensive to people who have trouble with their weight and the problems it causes I was just asking if she finds humor in every day situations.

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[QUOTE=pepperlandgirl]
I was an adult before I ever ate Doritos because they belong to dad. We never went out to eat with our parents.
[/QUOTE]
Heh. My parents bought soda in glass bottles that was off-limits. Of course we also had sugared Kool-Aid that was available to us kids. But yeah, things were rationed. One glass of O-J in the morning. One glass of milk with dinner. Dinner out was rare but it meant one glass of milk and one entree. Supper was somber with no talking, but eat up–and the food was buttery, meaty, starchy.

Can you imagine what I did when I could go out and buy my own dinner? Who knew there were such things as appetizers, and restaurant dessert?

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[QUOTE=gigi]
I have no vanity at all because I hate myself. Nothing I do will make me think of myself as worthy or lovable and if I were thin enough to attract attention I would be very afraid of that. My father has got his own issues with food and body image but I had to respect that during the loss he didn’t chime in with everyone saying “Oh, you’ve lost so much weight!” like that made me notable or more valid. Nothing makes the low opinion of myself feel much better.

Now do you feel healthier?? :stuck_out_tongue:

ETA: in response to Sunrazor
[/QUOTE]

Umm . . . ya I’m going to withdraw the questions about the sunny side of life and laughter and such. Sorry. :smack:

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[QUOTE=Oredigger77]
Umm . . . ya I’m going to withdraw the questions about the sunny side of life and laughter and such. Sorry. :smack:
[/QUOTE]

Not at all! One can plumb the depths and still be able to function perfectly well and even make a positive dent in the world. I’m just *acting as if * we’re all valuable people, even me. :slight_smile:

Like I said, I would have a low opinion of myself at any weight. And I actually do a little bit of what you said about the big guy and little guy–I think it’s really interesting the range of sizes and shapes people come in, that I and the 4’10" 85 pound friend of mine are both human women…neither better or worse than the other.