onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “love”

11 Aug 2012

PowerPoint presentations in Heaven and other self-inflicted Hells

This week I have been eating to be satisfied. Not to be skinny. And it has been fantastic! It has made me peaceful. And happy. Grounded. Free. And in an unexpected twist, it illuminated a tricky little bit of eating disorder thinking that had been lurking (creepily) in the dark, seedy parts of my mind. Letting go of my obsession with my appearance, and taking care of feeling nourished and physically comfortable gave me some important insight into the way I see myself and my value.

I was looking in the mirror shortly after a particularly satisfying meal. (Yes, on purpose. Why was I even doing that in the first place, you ask?  Because apparently I will go out of my way to look at my body in unflattering states. I may as well have run right out to the nearest dressing room and tried on bathing suits with horizontal stripes under fluorescent lighting.) I was scrutinizing my stomach. And I had a thought. “Well at least you’re happy. Because no man is going to want you this way. You’re not even trying to be the prettiest you can be.”

But I was fed. And calm. And my head was clear. And I could distinguish the basic premises of this thinking. And um…ewwwwww!

First, in order to be the prettiest I can be, I have to be the thinnest I can be (to within 3 lbs. I don’t know where “3 lbs” came from. It’s arbitrary. But it lives in my head like it’s based on something important.) Also, being the thinnest I can be doesn’t automatically make me the prettiest I can be. A equals B, but B does not always equal A. Second, what I look like is a major factor in whether or not I am worthy and/or enough. It’s like there is a graph or chart somewhere, (Where, I’m not sure. Heaven? Outer space? Probably wherever Plato’s Forms reside.) that has quantified my looks. And there is a line that delineates pretty from ugly. Or maybe just good enough from not good enough. Dropping below this line is an automatic fail. A deal-breaker, if you will. It automatically renders me unworthy of love.

I also want to say that the beauty line is high. Besides being thin, there is manicured, pedicured, shaved, plucked, tan (in summer), nicely dressed, in heels, with clear skin, and a cute hairstyle (up in summer, down in winter).

And then there is attitude and personality graph. Happy, grateful, nurturing, helpful, honorable, kind, generous, peaceful, loving. And always learning from my mistakes.

And here’s what makes it extra twisted. I even know that perfection is not an option. It’s like my eating disorder brain is pretending it’s giving me a break. It’s telling me it has all kinds of room for my humanity. And in a way it does. It is ok for me to fail. It’s ok for me to mess up or do something wrong. Or be mean. Or selfish. It’s ok to not look my best at all times. It is ok for me to fall below the lines on my graphs. As a person. As an individual. As a lone human being. I can clean it up and carry on. God still loves me. My family and friends still love me. I still love me and respect myself.

But if I ever want to be loved as a woman, by a man, I had better be doing every conceivable thing I can possibly do to the point of utter exhaustion to be as close to perfect as is humanly possible. I had better not let a man see me fall below. Ever. Maintaining myself above my “good enough” lines is the only way that I will ever deserve love. Or at least convince a man that I deserve it. That is how I can earn love. Through perseverance and hard work.
And wow is that exhausting. And am I ever exhausted. And does it ever make sense that I have always preferred a fortress and loneliness. Because the standard I have been holding myself to is unsustainable. At least for me. And I am trying to separate that fact from the assumption that naturally follows in my head. Therefore you will never earn love so you will never be loved.
Yes I know that love is not something you earn. That it’s something you inspire simply by being alive, and accept simply by being open to it. I guess my heart hasn’t gotten that memo yet. And my eating disorder brain doesn’t believe that could possibly be true.
But this is the other thing I know. (Are you paying attention, eating disorder brain? This is for your benefit.) I have lived a life where I did not do “the work” and i have lived a life where I have done “the work”. And I did a lot of work. Good work. Quality work. And I have yet to inspire the kind of love I am looking for. So clearly “the work” is not the answer. And what I would like to know, really know, is that I could be loved. Human. With bushy eyebrows and hairy legs. Crying. Angry. Impatient. Saying mean things. I would like to know that the same way I know that I respect myself. I would like to know that like I know that I am a woman of honor and integrity.
And also, I would like to know how to welcome it when it shows up.
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12 May 2012

Can I pick my pedestal?

There’s something that I have been thinking about regarding this blog. It has probably become clear to you if you’ve been reading a while, but it’s on my mind, none the less. My blog is called onceafatgirl, and I regularly talk about the fact that I’ve lost 165 or so lbs. And that’s important. But it’s not really the point. For me, it’s not about going from fat to thin, but more about having been fat. And why I was fat. And what being fat meant to me. And what it did to me. And what it was like. And what I had to go through to get my eating under control. And how growing up fat and with food addiction affected my head and my heart and my life. And still does.

Most people consider losing that much weight impressive. People are impressed. It’s not like I hold it against them. But from my point of view, it’s misguided. My weight loss does not particularly impress me.

I am addicted to sugar. The way crack addicts are addicted to crack. When I eat it, my body wants more. It thinks it needs more. It thinks it will die without more. And I also have eating disorders that are about my thinking. Before I got control of my eating, I was obsessed with food. And also my weight and my body. At first, my body obsession was about how horrible it was to be fat. But eventually, after I lost a lot of weight counting calories and working out (which was not control of my eating the way I refer to it now), it was about how to eat and not get fat again. How to eat so that nobody noticed. What to eat and when. And how to get the body and life I wanted without having to give up eating the way I wanted to eat. See, I have never really had a weight problem. Being morbidly obese was just a symptom. It wasn’t like I was lazy and just hadn’t gotten around to getting thin. I had a food problem. I still do. It’s just arrested.

I am very open about my eating disorders, and hence, my weight loss. Not just in this blog, but in my everyday life. I kind of have to be. It comes up a lot. And I am not ashamed of having eating disorders. It’s just the simple truth.

It may not occur to you if you don’t have food issues, but people talk about food constantly. They want to know if I’ve tried that new restaurant. They want to know why I don’t want a free sample of cake. Why I don’t want the piece of chocolate they are offering. They want to wax poetic about what they ate recently. With many adjectives and sound effects. They want to know what I’m eating. (They’re called vegetables. They are a kind of food. I’m eating food.)

Sarcasm aside, it’s really fine with me. I get it. I don’t mind people talking to me about food. I don’t worry about what anybody else is eating. I don’t get offended or upset if people eat in front of me. Or offer me foods I don’t eat. Even if they know about my food boundaries. People forget. It’s second nature for most people to be hospitable with food. I don’t need to make a big stink about saying no. “No thank you” usually suffices. (If it doesn’t, and I get harassed about it, well, yes. That annoys the hell out of me.) But I don’t crave the foods I have stopped eating. I don’t pine, or feel deprived. I have entirely altered the way I see food. It is now either mine, or not mine. If it’s not mine, it’s just not. I keep my eyes on my own plate.

But there is a thing that I’ve noticed because I am so open about my food issues. Most people don’t register that I have food issues. Even if I tell them I do. What they hear is that I overcame a weight problem. It doesn’t occur to them that I was fat because I was eating my own self-hatred. They don’t have any concept of the kind of punishment I was inflicting on myself with food. They cannot fathom that I lost weight because I made a decision to stop abusing myself. And they look at me and see a beautiful, happy woman, and they have no idea that there’s a fat girl who lives in my head who wants me to hate myself again so she can have her cake back. (I am not condemning them. How could they know?)

There is one thing in particular that I hear a lot that makes it clear to me that most people don’t understand. That they think it’s about weight. And in the past tense: “You should be really proud of yourself.”

I am not proud of myself for losing 165 lbs. I am not even proud of myself for getting control of my eating. Not that it was a breeze. Not that it didn’t suck to give up sugar. (No, seriously. It sucked. The withdrawal was excruciating. I sincerely pray that I will never have to do it again.) But being proud is the last thing I need. It implies that it’s done. Whew! Glad that’s over! (Yes. That’s more sarcasm.)

Being proud is a dangerous place for me to hang out. Pride goeth before a fall and all. I can’t afford to start believing I’m too good for my food boundaries. That I don’t need them because I’m special. That I accomplished something great, so I shouldn’t have to be so strict anymore. If I get proud, I might forget that I don’t have any willpower. (That’s not sarcasm, just so you know.) If I get too big for my britches figuratively, I will surely do so literally.

What I really do, every single solitary day, is protect my relationship with food. It is an ongoing, never-ending process. So I am not proud. I am humbled. I am grateful. I am so effing relieved that I don’t have to eat compulsively today, that I do whatever it takes. I do the work. And then I do it again. And again. It is not glamorous. But it is the most important thing I do in a day.

I didn’t get peace in my heart because I got thin. I got thin because I got peace. I didn’t start loving myself because I lost 165 lbs. I lost 165 lbs because I started loving myself. I guess my point in all of this is that if I got to choose what impressed you about me, I would not choose my weight loss. I would choose for you to be impressed by how I learned to honor myself. And how I continue to cultivate that honor every day. How I do the work even though it can be inconvenient. Even though it is not fancy or sexy. Because it gives me a joyful life. That I figured out that I deserve to have a joyful life. That I went from being a girl who was killing herself with food and self-loathing, to being a woman who celebrates herself with love and kindness. At least that is what impresses me about me.

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10 Jan 2012

Unburdened

I happen to be the product of a wildly unsuccessful marriage. Sometimes I look at each of my parents and wonder who the hell thought that union was a good idea. Of course, I didn’t know them through their youth and courtship. (They had known each other in highschool, and married in their early twenties.) But in my lifetime they have been as different as can be. My father is a Harvard Ph.D. and atheist who wears bow ties and thinks intellectual discourse and art are fun. My mom is a Catholic with a dirty sense of humor who thinks Disney World and midnight showings of blockbuster movies are fun. They were divorced, oh…about 15 minutes after I was born.

When I was 27, I had a conversation with each of them (separately) about why their marriage didn’t work out. My mother’s explanation was that my father didn’t want a family. (This is not an insight into my father, by the way. He has always been in my life. Always as a father.) This is an illustration of the context of my childhood. My father didn’t want a family meant my father didn’t want me. Of course, my mother never said this to me growing up. I certainly don’t think she ever considered his leaving my fault. Both of my parents are good people who love me. But my mother believed that he left because he didn’t want a family, and technically, I was that family. A context like that is insidious. It does not have to be distinguished to be lived. It does not have to be named and expressed to be understood. That my father didn’t want me is the water I have been swimming in my whole life. To the child in me, I chased the man away with my very existence.

34-year-old, intelligent, rational Kate knows that her parents’ marriage is between them. That their choices to communicate or stay silent, fight or make peace, stay or leave, had nothing to do with her. But baby Kate got the burden of being a burden. And she’s been carrying it dutifully her whole life.

I have never been available for love. I shut my heart down early. But the thing about a heart is that it will love if you let it. So I didn’t let it. I anesthetized it with food. I ate every feeling constantly for the majority of my life. I built myself a fortress of fat and I lived inside it.

So fast forward. I got control of the food. I got hot. I got some integrity. But I kept the fortress around my heart. And then I started dating. I mean a *lot*. I internet dated. I went out with my cab driver. With my waiter. Bankers, lawyers, architects, construction workers. Even a chef. I met men on the subway. In airports. On the street. In the park. Starbucks. (Starbucks, single ladies! You just have to go there and smile.) But it didn’t matter how many men I met or how many dates I went on. I was all surface. I was all face and body. I never let anyone into my fortress to get a glimpse of my heart.

What I am starting to see now is that cowardice begets cowardice. That grace is a muscle. I let mine atrophy for 28 years. Perhaps if I had faced my fear and shame, I would have found that it was a paper tiger. But there is no perhaps. My story is that I fed my shame with cake and I hid away from life.

About two years ago, I was seeing this guy. (Starbucks. I’m telling you!) And wow, did I like him. I had had my food under control for a few years by then. I looked great and I was at a place in my life where I genuinely respected myself. So I got up all the courage I could muster, I found a little chink in the wall of my fortress and I told him that I liked him. (Like. Not love. I have never been in love.) He didn’t feel the same.

Now most girls can figure out how to deal with this kind of rejection by the time they are 14. But I was in my fortress at 14, cowering in the corner and stuffing my face. I did not know how to deal with it. I didn’t have that muscle. So I went back into my fortress and lamented my lot as the unwanted one. This guy is not a jerk. He was not cruel to me. He and I are still in touch occasionally. We exist somewhere between friends and acquaintances. He thinks I’m “really special”. (Ugh! I hate “really special”!) He says I’m his biggest cheerleader. He loves my honesty and seeks my opinion. And of course, he would still sleep with me if I were available for that. (Which I am not.) But what I have just come to realize, is that for the past two years, I have been feeling sorry for him. Sorry for having burdened him. Sorry for wanting what I don’t deserve. Sorry for making him look at my heart.

But now it’s been a couple of years. The food is still under control. And the longer it is, the more alert my heart gets. It wants out of the fortress. It woke up, looked around, and wanted to know who left the fat girl in charge!?!? It wants me to stop locking it up every time the fat girl and the baby and the burden in me get scared. It wants to get to work on building my grace muscle.

I hope that the next time I tell a man I like him, I will remember that whenever a person shows their heart to another person, it’s a gift. Even if that person is me.

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07 Jan 2012
1 Comment

…Always a fat girl

Origionally posted to Facebook 1/2/12

So I’ve decided to take risks in 2012. Wtf am I thinking? I do not like to take risks. I like my life comfortable. Who cares if it’s small?

Right. I care. I’m lonely. If you’ve seen me, you probably think that I’m a knockout. If you’ve met me, you probably think that I’m honest, graceful, generous and loving. And I’m single. I have always been single. I have love issues. I have fear issues. I have worthiness issues. In short, I’m a fat girl.

If you’ve met me in the past 5 or so years, you might not understand. Even if you’ve known me my whole life you might not understand. Because if you look at me and see my thin body, you might think that the way you see me and the way I see myself are the same. But you would be grossly mistaken.

At 19 I weighed 300lbs. I could not stop eating. I hated myself. I hated my body. I was filled with shame. But I could not stop.

For years now, (6 years today, as a matter of fact) I have had my eating under control. At 34, I live very happily. I have a normal body. But I have certain thoughts. Irrational thoughts. They are fat girl thoughts. And I understand that they will never go away. (Even if you don’t.) Seriously. Never.

I am unworthy of love, hence no one will ever love me. I should prepare for a life alone. I should resign myself to solitude. I am fundamentally broken. Who would chose the broken woman when he could have a whole one. A bright shiny new one. With a world full of women, who would choose me?

I am not stupid. I am just emotional. It’s not that I don’t know that this is false; that this is not how love works. But it lives inside me like a truth. This is *my* fat girl curse. I don’t claim that every fat girl has the same. But I know many women like me. Fat girls (thin or not) who have something similar. That shame and disgrace. That self punishment. That belief that if only they were better and more, they could deserve. Deserve whatever it is they don’t deserve. Love. Money. Peace. Joy.

I decided years ago to make friends with my fat girl. She was good for my life in some ways. I wasn’t pretty, so I had to cultivate a personality. I had to be smart. I had to be funny. I learned to be decidedly quick and devilishly clever. That was all her doing. I am grateful to her for that. And she got me through a difficult childhood. Sure she did it by getting fucked up on sugar and just not dealing with shit. But she got me through none the less. And I’m here now in a different place and a different life. The same body, of course, but God, how miraculously different.

But she is not dead or gone. She cannot die before I do. I can usually distinguish her voice in my head. Partly because she’s a total Debbie Downer. She reminds me not to think big. Not to dream at all. She reminds me that I will only be humiliated. But I know that she just wants her cake back.

So this year, I want to take some risks. Not subway surfing or tightrope walking. But risks with my heart. Risks of rejection and humiliation. I can hear her even now. “You’ll be sorry. It can only lead to suffering. Don’t you see? Chocolate cake will never reject you.” But I know that cake will never love me either. And that it will never let me love myself.

If I spend my life without ever being loved and in love, so be it. I have spent my first 34 years that way. But living in fear is heavy. And as time passes, it seems silly to have lost 165 lbs from my body, only to carry it in my heart.

Wishing you many blessings for 2012!

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