Part 2 – Why I’m a Bitch Sometimes

Overheard at the health club pool: Little girl (about 5 years old) “Mommy, why is her butt so big?” Skinny blonde mom: “Well, sweetie, that’s what happens when you eat too much junk food and don’t exercise”.

Now – the subject of that conversation was me, it happened the evening after I posted my first blog entry, and it happened in a health club. What did she think I was doing there, if I don’t exercise? I confronted the mother with that fact – her response was that she needed to teach her daughter the importance of a healthy lifestyle. I told her that the next time she wants to make me or anyone else into an object lesson, she should also consider the opportunity to teach her child not to be judgmental without the facts – and to act respectfully. As you might guess, she just snorted and turned away.

So – here’s my question – should I have confronted her, or pretended I didn’t hear the exchange? In the past, I definitely would have done the latter. It seems like I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to hide and NOT confront people – from cruel children in the schoolyard to adults on the street. Playing deaf, and crying on the inside – certainly, that wasn’t a healthy scenario for me. As I look back on those days now, I realize that it was lack of self-esteem that caused me to act that way – I thought I deserved all that ridicule. Now, of course, I don’t believe that – but it still hurts to hear it.

I used to wonder why it was that someone would say something insulting about me, but wouldn’t to someone with a different disability. For example, if that mother saw a person with only one arm, would she have said “See dear, that’s what happens when you aren’t careful with farm equipment” or something similar? Of course not. In the same situation, she would have tried to hush her child and hope the disabled person hadn’t heard. The difference is that obese people are blamed for their disability, and therefore it seems perfectly acceptable to subject them to public ridicule.

I could go on at great lengths about the causes of obesity and the failure of the medical profession to develop an effective treatment for it. However, there are plenty of resources available on the web and in your library, so I won’t. If you are really interested, all you have to do is Google “obesity” and you’ll get all you can handle. What I can tell you is that I’ve tried nearly diet I’ve ever heard of, had 2 obesity surgeries, was on several different “fat” pills, lost (and regained) literally hundreds of pounds – not much I’ve missed – and here I am, still fat. I’ve never been a “normal weight” – the least I remember weighing was 185 pounds in 7th grade. So when someone says “Wouldn’t it be nice to be thin again?” I just can’t relate AT ALL.

I think that the worst part of this experience is the scars I will carry forever – the residual sense of shame that enlightenment can’t totally banish; the years of suffering emotional abuse at the hands of other people – some well-meaning, but still wrong, and the opportunities missed because I was afraid that the theater (or airline, or stadium, etc.) seat wouldn’t be large enough. I still remember being on a flight from San Diego to Milwaukee and having the man in the seat beside me INSIST of being moved to a new seat because I was crowding him. Or the cabin attendant on another flight who moved me to a less comfortable seat from an exit row seat because “it was obvious” to her that I could not be responsible for helping others to exit in an emergency.

So – I’m a bitch sometimes because I’m tired of being judged as “less than” by people who don’t begin to understand about obesity and make a whole set of bad judgments due to that ignorance. I’m tired of being underestimated and dismissed as “not suitable” for any number of things – teams, jobs, relationships – because of my weight. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a proponent of being overweight, because it isn’t healthy. That’s why I’m working, once again, to try to conquer the problem or at least minimize it. But even if I succeed in losing weight, I’ll still be who I am today – it won’t make any difference in the core of who I am. Only to the packaging.