Help me understand why some people let themselves go.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Seeing as how this thread is kinda serious (I’d thought maybe it was gonna get flip and glib), I’ll give a more serious answer.

I am very much the person the OP doesn’t get. My factors:

[ul]
[li]Both of my parents were extremely emotionally abusive, and moderately physically abusive. It didn’t feel moderate at the time. All I knew is I was always getting hit; I didn’t realize till much later and Lifetime Television that some kids had it even worse than I did. [/li][li]My mother was raped when she was 8 months pregnant with me, so (she acknowledges now) she never really “bonded” with me.[/li][li]I began exhibiting symptoms of what was later diagnosed as major depression when I was 7. I had debilitating migraines from then through highschool. [/li][li]My dad was a wife beater. I entered puberty within a year or so of my parents’ divorced. My mom, who’d finally gotten the violent Man out of her life, suddenly found another Man emerging in her house. (I had three sisters, no brothers). So at 11, my mom sent me away to boarding schools. I never lived at home with my immediate family again.[/li][li]The feelings that I’d always had for other boys, but not for other girls, was finally given a name and a social context when I went to boarding school: I discovered that I was a faggot, a queer, a homo; an aberration, a monstrosity, a crime against god. This was a loathsome secret I had to keep to myself, or else I would be probably be killed. And I would deserve it: I was a mutation and a monster. Even keeping it a secret, I was singled out for punishment: my true nature leaked out. (What do you want? Gang showers, roommates, from age 11 on.)[/li][li]I grew up in boarding schools and my grandparents’ house; my mom didn’t even want me around for school breaks. My grandparents, in their own way, were just as emotionally abusive.[/li][li]Hardcore, crippling depression kicked in sophomore year of highschool. I lost days, never leaving my dorm room. No one tried to find out if there was something wrong with me: it was my fault. I was lazy. I had been academically tested, several times, and had always been labeled “gifted/genius.” This was a curse. It meant that anything that went wrong in my life was my fault, because I was supposed to be smarter than that. So I was punished for my depression, rather than helped with it. I went from 5.0 grade point and freshman valedictorian–in an academically prestigious prep school–to not being invited back for senior year. After meeting with the dean, my invitation was reinstated, by my mother and her parents decided I didn’t deserve to return to school. So I never had a senior year. [/li][li]After not having lived with him since I was 11, and always (and still) having hated him, I was shipped off to live with my wifebeater alcoholic dad when I was 17. I don’t remember much of the 3 years I lived with him; my image of that time is of me in a fetal position on the floor of a dark room, wedged between a bed and a wall. I don’t think that “scene” ever happened, but that’s the image those three years evokes for me.[/li][li]I moved out when a friend gave up his apartment–he’d been badly mugged–and I moved in. [/li][li]Since then, I’ve worked a series of jobs; 19 different occupations at last count. My pattern is I work for about a year, and then the depression kicks in and I begin to self-sabotage until I drift away or I’m fired. This is the result of a fear of success; a fear of my vaunted “potential.” It’s a kind of manifested self-loathing. After all, you learn what you’re taught.[/li][/ul]

Now, the above narrative strikes me as maudlin and self pitying. Which is my point, by way of answering the OP. The facts of my personal history, combined with my organic tendency to depression, not to mention the fact the both sides of my family are carriers of whatever fat genes you can name–90% of my relatives are fat, or in constant battle against fat–have produced, in me, a person who doesn’t have the self-love or self-confidence to bear the burden and fight the battle against the downward inertia of that history.

For me, UrbanChic, liek for many people, life’s a mountain stream and I’m a salmon. It just gets old after a while, the whole “trying” thing, and sometimes you give up.

22

Thanks for all the honest answers. Your responses are very helpful. I won’t tell you some of the (very) mean things I assumed about such people, but I will say I am somewhat surprised by the answers here.

As for looking good for your spouse, I think it goes beyond dressing well. I know a couple of husbands whose wives are stay at home moms/ housewives (one of them has no kids) who would love it if they came home to someone not wearing the same thing they wore to bed last night. It’s hard–I know. We have four boys. On the weekends, we do a lot of things together. If we don’t get out one of the days, I still get up, shower, get dressed, get the kids dressed and then do whatever chores, projects or crafts that need doing. When my husband comes home on Saturdays (he’s usually gone most of day that day), I want him to see someone who bothered to take care of herself and the kids.

I also know a woman whose husband works three days a week. She says the other four days, he’s quite a slob. If he showers once during those days, she considers it a boon. He often will wear the same thing for a few days in a row and might, just might, accidentally run a toothbrush over his teeth during those four days off. He wasn’t like this before they were married; he’s a classic case of letting oneself go.

Of course you still love your spouse for who s/he is; I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. It’s still a nice thing when your spouse puts a little effort into looking nice for you. No, it doesn’t change how much you love him/her, but little things like that can sometimes make a pleasant difference.

23

Not being a jerk, just explaining, I work with two ladies who laughed a lot about this, just not on your side, you see, where we work, we get dirty. After they dropped their kids off, they would come to work laughing about how all the other mothers must think they are poor, ratty clothes, dirty shoes, undone hair. One drove a piece of crap Festiva, so she used to joke that she looked extra low life, granted she owns two houses, a BMW, a Cadi, two pickups, a '53 chevy and a town car, (the shit box gets the best milage) but she isn’t wearing fancy clothes and makeup on her way to a job to where she is going to get dirty, I guess she must not care about herself.

You should see me on the way to work, ratty t-shirt, stains and holes, the jeans are good for a minimum of 3 days. Do I not care, well, sort of, but I relegate one pair of jeans to work, they get wasted way too fast and I try to keep as many pairs socially acceptable for social situations as I can, shirts the same thing(one day only), but I try to keep 5 in work rotation. Not all people are so unfortunate to have “clean” jobs, and take the appropriate measures.

The letting yourself go thing, I’ve gone throught that on different levels at different times. I was in a crappy relationship that I wasn’t smart enough to get out of, while at the same time in a job I didn’t like, while having a ‘what the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life’ crisis. I put on about 70 pounds and didn’t even notice, maybe a little, but it didn’t even register, I only went up 2 pant sizes in 4 years.

Letting the house go, working 12-14 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week, that will happen. Not college dirty, but the dishes will build up, the cat box might start to smell a bit, the clothes stay in the dryer, the bed doesn’t get made, and you might put on a few pounds because when your running on fumes, packing a lunch, cooking or shopping so that you can cook or pack a lunch, gets put on the back burner. This also leaves little time or energy to put some miles on one of seveal bikes or the spin bike sitting 10 feet away from me. Is it letting myself go, a bit I guess, but is it because I’m a lazy piece of crap? I don’t think so, I bust my ass all day long, get out and do something when I can, clean when I get a day off. My house may not be perfect and you may think I’m a drunk bum when I’m leaving work with a sagging face and one eye part closed and the eyelid twitching (that happens when I’m exhausted), dirty clothes and not smelling too good, but I wouldn’t have stayed to exhaustion if I didn’t love what I do, and just becuase my clothes are dirty and my hair isn’t perfect does not mean I’m lazy or poor.

As for people who eat twinkies until they can’t fit through the door, with no job, I don’t get it myself. But who people who you may think are letting themselves go, may not be, they just might have other priorities.

24

I don’t attribute my sloppiness to depression, although when I went through bad periods of my life, it certainly didn’t help.

Here’s my take: sometimes I just have more important things to devote my energy to. Go onto a college campus in exam week and you’ll see this in action - men stop shaving and everyone looks vaguely like a zombie wandering around in their pyjamas. If I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep and I have to write an exam, there’s no way you’ll find me in anything but voluminous sweat pants and sweat shirts.

25

I imagine people think I’m sloppy, etc. I always look presentable when I leave the house, but I simply don’t think, at all, about my appearance. I get home and go to the bathroom, and glance in the mirror when I wash my hands and I’ll find smudges of dirt on my face or wild hairs sticking out from the sides of my head. I’m also growing my hair out from very very short, so it always looks bad, regardless of the time I spend on it.

I’m often shocked at how bad I look after a day at work. :slight_smile:

26

You’re only talking about moms you see dropping off their kids at school in the morning, right? So you don’t actually know that these women spend the entire day looking like that. They could be on their way to their morning workout and planning to shower and dress properly afterwards, they could have the aforementioned dirty jobs, they could just have rolled out of bed and be on the way home to shower in solitary luxury, or any other scenario you can come up with.

It seems to me that unless you’re seeing them at 3pm, still looking just the same, and then at dinnertime, still looking just the same, you can’t really assume that they have let themselves go. Most people don’t dress for a spouse at 8am, they wait until the spouse is actually going to be around.

For myself (a SAHM), I like to look reasonably nice and so on–but I don’t shower before my morning walk. I go out in sweats and look bad, and I don’t care because I’m getting sweaty anyhow and am about to shower. Otherwise, I don’t go out in public without being put together–but that might change if I ever have to drop my kids off at school that early in the morning. (Hey, another benefit to this homeschooling gig…)

I know some moms do let themselves go, but most of the ones I know are more likely to be on their way to their morning water-aerobics class if they’re looking bad. (And we aren’t even upper-middle-class yuppies! We’re small-town mommies on budgets.)

27

I’d like to add a response to the OP, because I certainly have let myself go in the past. I believe I am turning around on this issue now, but:

I realized recently that I have been fighting my weight since I was 11 or so. Spurts of growth helped thin me out, but also encouraged me to eat and eat and eat, because I could get away with it and it felt good (not getting much emotional nutrition anywhere else).

So I was mostly winning this fight until I turned about 39. The wreck of a very emotional relationship let me to start eating again, and (non-clinical) depression led me towards that sedentary lifestyle. Everything was too much trouble. This started a downward slide that went on for the next several years.

About 6 years ago I signed up for a gym and went very religiously for a while. But I didn’t understand about nutrition and what it takes, beside exercise, to reduce my weight and size, and to continue to have success. So I hit a plateau and eventually gave up. After that I felt hopeless about my weight.

So I went into complete denial. I didn’t care that much. I tried to eat more healthy sometimes but I didn’t try to lose weight. I didn’t try because I didn’t know of any strategy that would actually work at turning this situation around, other than bariatric surgery, which I didn’t really want to do.

Thanks to a co-worker, I have found something much less drastic, that seems to be working (I’m intending to start a thread when I have lost 150 pounds, look for that in the spring).

I’m still bone lazy, but at least now I know what it will take to keep on this path and be successful in keeping the weight off. But while I was fat I was hopeless and in denial, and I think that is a lot of what happens to people who let themselves go. (I never dressed badly, but I always hated the way I looked anyway.)

And lissener, I was very moved by your story. I used to think my parents were so bad because they were emotionally distant and unavailable. My hat off and my heart out to anyone who survives even mostly intact a situation such as you describe. My boundless presumption leads me to ask if you have tried counseling (it took me 4 times to find one who was any good, and it takes a long time and possibly a lot of money, but I highly recommend it).

28

Get dumped, get depressed, stop caring.

Rinse and repeat.

29

I find lissener’s salmon analogy quite resonant…I often feel like I’m swimming and swimming and swimming just to stay in one place, while all the “normal” people are just cruising right by me. I marvel at how easy it seems to be for the normal people to manage to keep that adult social facade in place when every couple of years, like clockwork, I start to feel like I’m trying to lift freight trains just to keep getting up on time for work in the morning.

30

Because at that moment, the costs of the alternative vastly outweigh the benefits of the alternative.
I’ve spent my entire life slipping into the sedentary lifestyle/junkfood thing and then climbing back out. Then slipping farther, and climbing back out.
I know, technically that according to my doctors, I am probably healthier during those times when I’m working out 4-6 days/week and eating foods that are good for me. I may live longer. But personally, I’m still ugly - nothing’s going to change that. And even if I stick with it, I’ll still be fat for several more months. Plus, I’ve been doing unpleasant things and eating foods I hate.
It’s very hard to see the benefit.

Again. I could spend a lot of time and money finding the correct makeup and applying it every morning. I could then spend tons more money shopping, finding clothes, making sure that I have the perfect outfit, whatever.
And when all is done - I’ll still look like crap. At best, a slightly more dressed up version of crap, at worst, hopelessly deluded crap - but either way? Crap. So, why bother? what’s the benefit for me in doing those things, when I can skip them and sleep (read, hang out on the SDMB, knit, whatever I actually enjoy doing) for an extra thirty minutes every morning (which has a readily apparent benefit)?

31

  1. I’ve never been an active person. This has gotten worse since I developed Fibromyalgia in my late teens. Exercise was pretty much out of the question for a long time because it simply set off a chain reaction that made me sicker. Now that my fibromyalgia has improved to the point that I am able to do more, I am so unfit that it’s very, very hard to get started. I have been making an effort, but if/when I get discouraged or depressed (and that happens from time to time), exercise is the first thing I drop. Why do I get depressed? Try spending a decade suffering chronic pain and exhaustion and see how you feel.

  2. I have never been skinny in my entire life, but my weight maintained at a point that was above ideal but below obese for years without any effort on my part, and I was if not happy, at least content to continue like that. When I returned to the workforce, I found I was a lot hungrier (duh) so I ate more and that caused me to put on a little weight. Already predisposed to PCOS (a condition that makes it easy to gain weight, hard to lose it and is made more severe by excess body fat), the small amount I gained was enough to tip the balance and cause my weight to blow out significantly. My PCOS wasn’t a problem until I gained a little weight, but then it made me gain a lot of weight. I am now 40 pounds over what is ideal, which puts me in the bottom of the obese range

  3. I do love junk food and so does my husband. We both enjoy sweets and fast food. These things do not make up the bulk of our diet, and we have been cutting them back for a long time in an effort to reduce our weight, as well as continually improving our diet. We still love junk food, and have a hard time turning it down when it’s offered, but it’s not like we live on McDonalds.

  4. I don’t know what you think I look like, but I assure you I am not a slovenly, unwashed beast dressed all in rags. I try to dress nicely and present myself well. Here’s a recent photo of myself - actually, it’s about 10 minutes old, and is what I was wearing when I got home from Mum’s house earlier. I resisted the temptation to add makeup or brush my hair (it’s not normally this scruffy, I left in somewhat of a rush this morning and it was still wet) - so this is me on an ordinary day (well, mostly ordinary aside from the hair). In comparison, here are before (bottom row in blue sweater) and after (leftmost, grey sweater) photos of my weight gain in a period of less than twelve months. This was after I started working again.

I do not “revel” in my weight problem and I think you’re reading something into that phrase that wasn’t intended. I was trying to be realistic about indisputable facts - I’m lazy, I’m overweight and I still eat more junk than is ideal. That doesn’t mean I glory in those things or think they’re something to be proud of. I need to lose 40 points to get back to my ideal weight and I’m making an effort to do it. Before now, I gave into the temptation to eat sweet and tasty things because I enjoy them, and I didn’t exercise because I don’t enjoy it AT ALL. The fact that I was overweight bugged me but not enough to make a change. The pleasure I got from my lifestyle outweighed the negative of my appearance. Now I have different motivations and I’m working towards a goal. Even so, I’m realistic about the fact that I’m never going to be super thin - my doctor warned me that I will always be big, I will just be less big if I take my tablets and stick to my diet. I have a large frame and I’m built to gain easy, I can’t imagine I’ll ever enjoy exercising and will do only what I need to to get by, and I’m not hung up on being a size 6 and could live with being just a few sizes smaller to get into a healthy weight range.

32

I’ve been big all my life - the older you get the harder it is to not put on weight. I eat healthy and junk food is a treat about once a month. Excersise is a constant battle for me, even when I have been very fit, I have never found it easy to leap out of bed and do some.
Because it feels like I am always “battling” to stay fit and not balloon out even more, sometimes it would be nice to let everything go and not bother for awhile. I went to the gym religiously for a year, but I couldnt force myself to keep going, the effort was too much.
However, I love buying clothes and dressing up for work and on dates - sometimes I throw together the look, usually on a Monday morning, but that’s when I’m low on energy and can’t be bothered as much. The weekend is for track pants and t-shirts unless going out somewhere special.

33

lissener I have been thinking about you a lot. You didn’t deserve what happened to you and I hope one day you will actively seek the life that will make you happy. I wish there was something I could say that could make you feel valued. Because you are.

34

My situation is a little different than some of the ones you see listed here. My problem is that my self esteem is too high…I know that sounds crazy, so I will explain. I have always been happy with myself, always felt that I was a sexy person who is fun to be around. I have also always been a little heavy. Not obese, but kind of chubby. Then in my senior year in high school, I got a job working for a major pizza chain. Free pizza on your break and every pizza that got messed up we got to eat. In 2 years I gained 70 lbs and I did not see it. My clothing size went up, but I didn’t really notice because I was still sexy, I had a fiance (we eventually broke up, but it had nothing to do with my weight…mostly because of his excessive drinking), and I had plenty of energy. Then I went off to college and delt with the “freshman 15”, but for me it was the freshman 30. They force you to buy a meal plan because they don’t want you to starve or get scurvy from a diet of beer and gummy bears, but they don’t really serve healthy food-it is all pizza, ice cream, chicken fried steak, etc. So in 3 years I gained 100 lbs and I hadn’t even noticed. As far as I was aware I was doing everything everyone else was doing so I wasn’t bothered, and when I looked in the mirror I really didn’t see the weight. I knew I was fat, but I did not see just how grossly fat I was. Now I have started trying to lose weight, but it is a long process that takes a lot more effort than it did to gain this much weight. Sometimes people have no clue that their outsides don’t match their insides.

35

Not everyone can afford to dress nice - I’m kinda surprised this hasn’t been brought up already.

My collection of “nice” clothes is pretty limited. Not too long ago I was having a lot of trouble making ends meet, and I had to resort to asking friends if they had clothes that didn’t fit anymore that they could donate to me. At that time I had two pairs of pants. I had to put up with people at work saying, “You’re wearing that again??” Yeah, I am. Wanna buy some new clothes for me? New clothes - any clothes at that time - were a luxury to me. I couldn’t even afford something from Wal-Mart. I needed every cent just to pay the rent and bills. I had to go without meals sometimes too, because being hungry was preferable to being homeless.

So when you see someone dressed in a way you consider “sloppy”, try to remember that not everyone can afford to dress well, and have to make do with what they have.

36

I think there’s a big difference between loving someone and being attracted to them.
I love my SO all the time (well, ok 90% of the time anyway) but I’m not necessarily attracted to him all that much when he hasn’t shaved in three days and is badly in need of a shower and covered in dirt.
And although I don’t spend much money on clothes or take more than 10 minutes in the morning primping and preening, I do want to look attractive-partially for him but mostly for me.
It’s a matter of self respect as far as I’m concerned.
I think that both men and women tend to become complacent in a relationship and that can be a dangerous thing.
I once read a post on a message board that stated: “I remember marrying her, I don’t remember marrying the extra 60 pounds or the ratty nightgown she wears every night.”
If I could make the effort to take care of myself before getting married, I don’t see why that should change.
I’m not talking about being obsessive about my appearance or wearing tons of make-up or stressing over what I look like when I’ve been working in the garden all day but it’s not hard to wear jeans and T-shirts that fit properly and are flattering or to take the five extra minutes to brush my hair and put on a tiny bit of blush.

37

Some people are very happy/content/comfortable with the lifestyle that they have chosen and aren’t too willing to change for anything(except maybe to thwart death or ill health) or anyone. That would be me. :smiley: And yes, I’m fat. I don’t like to excersize, but I eat more than just junkfood and if I were to lose weight, then pills would be the way to go.

As for sloppiness. Well, for me, it always depends on where I’m going. If I’m “only” going to the Post Office or the store for a short amount of time, then I don’t think I have the need to look my best. If I go to a resteraunt(like Ruby Tuesday’s) or a movie theater or any special occassion, then I tend to look a whole lot better. For me, it’s just courtesy to do that as I think it’s disrespectful to look like ass in a resteraunt, but that’s just me.

38

I am in the depressed and just don’t care fraction.

I have been overweight since I was in the last couple years of high school . It wasn’t because I was not active , because I was. Showing dogs , riding my horse, cleaning stalls… I had a very active lifestyle. I eat no more, and usually less than ‘normal’ people.

All my life , I was told by my mother how useless I was. I was never good enough , never measured up to her hopes and expectations. I was mentally abused my entire life, kept under her thumb and so afraid of her it wasn’t even funny. I wanted to go to college, but my parents thought that was a frivolous waste of money, and pushed me into a factory job straight out of high school. I hated it , just HATED it , but I was making a car payment , paying board on my horse , board at home , a loan payment , insurance , and God-knows-what else, so I allowed them to continue to run my life.

In this tme, my mother became ill and was not able to care for herself, so that duty fell to me , as well as taking over ALL the housework , taking care of my father, etc. I became financially unable to care for my beloved horse and was forced to sell him. I fell behind even farther financially , and was still brow-beaten by my parents, telling me over and over that I could not make it without them.

I got fatter.

I have been on very few dates in my life since the early 80’s. I have had male friends I was attracted to , and have even asked some out. One I even asked to go away for the weekend. I was always turned politely down. The one I asked to go away for the weekend , that act ruined our friendship. I have reached a point in my life that I quite simply don’t care. It doesn’t matter if I am wearing my best clothes, in make up and hair done perfectly, or if I am in my sloppiest sweats. Men are not attracted to me.

I have been searching for a job for months, and cannt find one. I even have my application in at WalMart, and even THEY have not called me. I do wear nice clothes , make up , etc when putting applications in , but I suppose my poor self esteem comes through. I am down to my last couple thousand dollars in my savings , and when it’s gone, I have no idea what I am going to do.

I have tried dieting and exercising , which is very painful due to arthritis. I simply can’t lose weight, and that in itself is discouraging beyond belief. My self esteem was destroyed from childhood by my parents. I feel like the only creature on earth that care a whit about me are my dogs and cats, and they don’t care what I look like.

I don’t know if this answers your question or not, but it is a round-about way of telling you why I have left myself go. I just feel there is no reason to care anymore.

39

PapSett we care about you too.

My mom has 2 different kinds of arthritis and several herniated discs in her back. She’s in pain all the time. She said the best thing she ever did was start going to water aerobics classes. The buoyancy of the water saves a lot of stress on the joints, yet the water offers enough resistance to build muscle and get the heart and lungs in shape. She said at first, it hurt a lot after the workout, but over time the pain got less and less. She still has pain, but nothing like she used to. Why not give it a try?

40

Depression is part of it.

A far larger part is that for me, to maintain a healthy weight and active lifestyle is a Hell of a lot of work, with no benefit.

Unlike many people whom I’ve spoken with, I’ve never gotten a runner’s high. I’ve never viewed exercise for the sake of exercise to be anything other than a chore. I’ve done active things that I enjoyed: biking, canoeing, and even skiing, and enjoyed them, but never enough to count as exercise, really. When I was relatively thin I was starving myself, and running more than four miles a day four days a week.

Even at my most healthy my self image never changed, though. And it’s a Hell of a lot of work for me to keep in that kind of shape. I even maxed out the military’s PRT, and still felt that, at 5’9.5" and 190 lbs, I was still too damned fat to pick up women or even have a chance with them.

So what’s the frigging point? It’s not like I really care about life. If I weren’t Catholic, I’d probably have blown myself to bits by now.

I’m now working on losing weight, but mostly that’s for myself, because I’m sick of intermittent gout attacks. I don’t expect anything else to change.

Mind you - I don’t go out wearing three-day old clothes and I shower at least every other day. But I’m not dressing well, either: t-shirt and chinos or sweats are fine. And shaving is very much a sometime thing.

Mind you, I’ve got bad eating habits, too - but not junk food. I just like too much food. Good food, but more than I should eat. So I’ve been cutting back on that. I’ve also started losing weight - working on a plan that I hope will have me down to 250 in a year or so. And one I can live with. We’ll see what happens. But none of this has to do with looking good. In a large part because I don’t believe I ever will look good. I’ve tried that before - it doesn’t work.