Yay for Happiness!

Something about the back pain I’ve had for years coming to a head in January triggered a change in the weird “I must be the perfect weight or I can’t be happy” train of thought. This will come as a relief for a lot of the people in my life. Whether it’s the loss of the pain, or the drug itself (arthritis drug), I don’t know. Last week, I talked to my dad about the back pain-I had it for so damn long I didn’t really talk about it to anyone but Ken-no one likes a whiner, not that I’m NOT a whiner-anyway, my dad informed me that he had back pain all his life, the worst was in his 30s, and that there is only one thing that caused it: STRESS. And of course my mom had lupus, also triggered by stress…it’s not so unbelievable that I might have some type of arthritis. I just wish I knew when I was 20, so I didn’t spend over half my life in pain.

I’ve been beating myself up about my weight since I was 20. Obviously I have body image issues, because I was actually thin most of those years. I remember being upset because I was 125 pounds when I got married, because I felt fat. It’s a common problem among women, I know. Someone (male) told me I was eating “too many chicken sandwiches” and pinched my waist once. That was when I was 23 and 115 pounds. I think the person really just wanted a SlimFast buddy, but it was a crappy thing to say. Obviously I have never forgotten it. The worst thing about this asinine obsession is that I’m sure it has affected my kids, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop myself.  Even when I could feel others’ irritation. Even when my feet were so painful I felt them every single second of my workouts. I didn’t care if I no one wanted to be around me or if I wrecked my feet, back or knees. I worked through the pain because I needed to lose weight.  There was not one day when I did not wake up, look in the mirror, and berate myself for being “too fat”….usually in the form of “You’re so fucking fat” or “fucking fat-ass” or something similar. I believe in my case, it has mostly to do with mental illness. My brain just pounced on something it was easy to obsess about and was also impossible to control… nothing more. And many mentally ill women also have these weight-obsession problems..I’m not alone. A good share of us gained weight through one thing…meds…and just can’t accept that it has to be sanity over vanity. Period.

Really, being a fattie (200 pounds, I’m not ashamed anymore) has, in a way, made me a better person. One thing I had never given myself, that I did give others, was the right to any characteristic other than “thin” or “fat”. I have overweight friends and relatives and I love them. I don’t think of them as “fat” or “thin”. I think of them as THEM, people with these wonderful personalities that I love to be around. But I refused to do that for myself, and like so many, I didn’t believe I was worthy of being loved unless I was thin.  But now. since this trigger, now I’m not just “a fat person”. I’m a mother, creative writer, gardener, musician, occasional funny lady. Some of these are characteristics other people have given me that I refused to believe or embrace. I love to be amused. I love to laugh. I’m pretty partial to crying, too, whether sad or happy. I do like some of my bipolar side, though not the extremes. Plus, I’m happy. Happier than I’ve probably ever been.

The worst time of my life was when I had lost 50 pounds and looked fit. I was 37 and had gone off my meds… why? To lose weight and have the almighty “correct” reading on the scale . My mom got sick and died, my husband had a nervous breakdown and we were near separation, my father got together with a woman that we all hated (short-lived relationship, thankfully), I picked fights continually (because MANIC). I was abusive to everyone around me because I was not on medication. I cringe at how I treated everyone during those 18 months. I am not a nice person off meds. Not at all. I was an unfeeling, crazily manic cow to everyone, including my dying mother. “Thin” means NOTHING if I have to be a person like that in order to achieve it. I will never go off medication again. Not an option.

I have not added anyone back to my Facebook who is judgmental about overweight people (along with other people who pretty much use their page as a personal pulpit in which to judge everyone else). And so now I don’t see crappy memes about how it’s all our fault we’re fat, and if we’d just get off our dead lazy asses…because those affected me….they REALLY affected me. ‘I’m a super-sensitive person. I’d see those cruel memes and cry and beat myself up for only working out 5 days that week or eating a cookie. Then I’d overexercise and hurt myself, my knee or my feet or whatever, or drink slimfast shakes for the next few days (those are nothing but pure sugar, BTW). And I wouldn’t drop a pound. I’d still gain. I stopped posting pictures of myself. That’s how ashamed I was. I didn’t just let it affect me in real life, but online as well. But finally it occurred to me that those guilty of posting fat-shaming memes can’t be happy people, if they feel the need to slap something on Facebook designed to hurt the feelings of the majority of their audience. I don’t need them on my page, and I probably don’t need them in real life either. I am also happy for people who run marathons and such, those are a real good thing to feel good about, but I don’t need to see it and feel like crap about myself because I cannot do the same.

I’m not going to lie, I still worry about diabetes, heart problems blocked arteries. I would still like to lose weight.  I just don’t expect to be perfect anymore, and I am not obsessing like I did. I will never set a weight goal ever again. Ever. For the past three years I’ve said I’ll lose 60 pounds by May. I gained instead. But for right now, I’m good. I’m not exercising other than gardening and the occasional walk for now until my back fully heals and if I gain a little more weight, tough shit. I do miss the gym, and I’ll eventually go back. I can’t even promise I won’t get obsessed all over again…it depends on what is going on with my brain and if I change meds, it could come back. I still try to make the better choices. Today I got Ken and I salads from McDonald’s for lunch. But I had a small coke with it, a regular coke, which I would never have done in the past couple decades. I ate a huge bowl of cookie dough yesterday and did not feel a shred of guilt. Right now I feel like I’m going to enjoy life and be okay with looking in the mirror and not being disgusted with myself. I’m going to start getting out more, because truth be told, I isolate myself due to my eccentricities, my head shakes and noises can be embarrassing, but I also isolated due to my weight. After 20+ years of beating myself to a pulp, it will be nice to take a break from the self-hate.

I purposely took a photo from sideways and when I haven’t showered…if I’m going to stop being ashamed, I’m going to do it all the way. It was not easy taking a photo with my tablet, hence the pissy look on my face!