onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “shame”

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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08 Jul 2012

If you take your toys and go home, there is nobody to play with

In my last post I went on and on about how I have all of this self-confidence and self-assurance. So obviously this week life slapped me in the face and reminded me that I’m an insecure fat girl. You saw that coming, right? (I didn’t. Could you give a girl a heads up next time? ‘Preciate ya…)

I have mentioned before that for most of my life, I shut my heart down. Even with my food under control, I didn’t let anyone into my fortress. When I lost my fortress of fat, I still maintained a fortress of bitch. Over the years, I have mostly given that up. (Mostly.) It makes me feel bad to treat others badly. Protecting myself at the expense of someone else’s feelings makes me want to eat a chocolate cake. So I try to be gentle. To have room for other people’s humanity. To remember that they are just people in the world doing the best they can. Same as me.

But I also have another fortress.  This one is hard to let go of. Because it works so well. It keeps me so safe. It is a fortress of indifference. Of untouchability. It is an amazing ability I have to stop caring. Really. If I feel like you are going to hurt me, I can stop caring about you in an instant. I can turn it off and shut it down and put you away like an old shirt I don’t wear anymore. I call it “taking my toys and going home”. And I have a promise with God that I won’t do it anymore. Especially with men.

There’s this man that I like. We’re not seeing each other. You know, it’s complicated. It’s totally impractical. So technically, we’re friends. (I think.) But I have been thinking that maybe eventually we might be more than friends. Because as impractical as it is, I think he may be worth navigating the complications and the trouble. And I thought he was interested in me too. Which is hard for me to admit to you right now because I have Carrie’s mom doing that kaleidoscope thing in my head. The one right before Carrie goes all telekinetic. They’re all gonna laugh at you. They’re all gonna laugh at you. Especially because of the next part of the story.

I was on Facebook the other day. And there was a conversation between him and a friend of his. Was it any of my business? No. But it was out in the open on a social networking site. And I read it. And it made me feel awful. At first I didn’t register why. All I knew was that I wanted to go smoke a cigarette. More than that, for the first time in almost a month, I actually considered smoking a cigarette. But I don’t do that anymore. (Stupid promise with God…) So I had to look at the awful feeling. And I realized that it hurt because it sounded like the way he saw it, there was no room for me in his life. It made me feel invisible. Unseen. Like he didn’t even know that I existed. So I wanted to shut off my heart. I wanted to stop caring. I wanted to take my toys and go home. But I don’t do that anymore either. (More stupid promises with stupid God…) So I had to ask him about it. And in asking, I had to admit that I thought that he was interested in me. That I had entertained the notion that I might be good enough for another human being. One that I think has a lot to offer. And that was hard to do. That was frankly terrifying. But I did it. (Stupid God.)

The truth is, I still don’t know where I stand with him. And I don’t love that, but I can be with it. That’s between him and me. (And it is, by the way, between him and me. The purpose of this post is not to solicit love and/or dating advice. Especially from “the internet”. I have friends for that.) And what I decide to do about my relationship with him, for myself and my own life, is between God and me. The purpose of this post is to talk about the part that’s between me and me.

I was not wrong about my self-assurance in my last post. I was not exaggerating about my confidence level. When it comes to my integrity, I’m confident. When I ask myself if I’m the kind of person I want to be, the answer is definitely yes. If I ask myself if I like and respect myself, there is not a doubt in my mind that I do. I even think that I would make somebody a good companion and partner.

The insecurity that this brought up is about the belief that I have that I am fundamentally unlovable. Fundamentally. Like I’m broken. Damaged. Faulty.  And not that something happened to make me unlovable. But that I was made that way. Born that way. That never being loved is my inescapable destiny. I have held this belief for as long as I can remember.  It is not rational, of course. But is not meant to be. It does not even masquerade as rational. It lives in me like survival instinct.

To dare to like someone is shameful. To expect, or really even to hope, that someone would be interested in me feels unforgivable. But to have someone find out that I was so presumptuous as to believe that they would think I was worthy of being loved sets off warning signals in my brain. Danger! Retreat!

But here’s what else I know. Until recently, I never let any relationship with a man come to its natural conclusion. Until recently I never just went along and let myself feel about someone the way I felt about them. Or let someone feel about me the way they felt about me. I never just let myself be hurt if I was going to be hurt. I never risked the humiliation. At the first sign of trouble, I always took my toys and went home. I never stopped to face the danger.

When I was the one who walked away, I took the power away from any other person to hurt me. But I took the power away from them to love me too. So I didn’t get love. And I didn’t get companionship. And I didn’t stop being lonely. Instead of getting hurt by someone else, I suffered at my own hand. I fed that thought that says I’m broken. I fed that belief that says that I will be alone. Forever. That it is my destiny. (Yes. It’s totally in The Emperor’s voice, in case you were thinking that.)

See, I have all of these promises with God. No sugar. No cigarettes. No drama. No lying. No taking my toys and going home. No trying to escape life. No trying to escape being present. No trying to escape personal relationships. I have all of these promises with God that I will actually be in my life. But God has made me a promise too. A promise that’s scary to admit to you. Because what if I’m wrong. And what if I really am broken. But He promises that if I show up for love, that he’ll send me love. So here I am. And here are my toys. And I’m ready to play.

 

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09 Feb 2012

I am my own best frienemy

So after my last blog post, my friend recommended I have a sit down talk with fat Kate. Not the fat girl who lives inside me (I already know about her. She still wants her cake back), but with the Kate who had to live in a fat body. Ask her what she wanted and needed. Apologize to her. Ask her how I wronged her and make amends.

I learned a long time ago, that when we wrong others, we have to diminish them in our minds in order to live with our own cruelty. We have to be able to justify it. And we will go to great lengths to justify it. Unless we clean it up. That’s part of the human condition. Sometimes…ok, often…hell, usually, the people we have wronged have, indeed, done something wrong to us as well. Something that hurts us. Maybe they wronged us first. Maybe even maliciously and intentionally.

But there is a person I want to be. It is the kind of person whose highest priority is peace. And peace does not come from revenge or blame. Peace comes from doing what you think is right. Peace comes from being able to look God in the eye and say that you did your best for love and from a place of love for the whole world. (This is not the Good Girl talking, by the way. She didn’t have peace. This is not about being a doormat. This is about being responsible for the ways that I do wrong, regardless of how I have been treated. Boundaries are important. They should be tended to. But the way I treat others and the way I am treated are not connected! I only have control over my own actions.)

So I want to clean up the messes I make. Even if it’s with someone who made a mess all over me.

And that includes fat Kate. She had to live in a shameful body too. And I have wronged her. I’ve been Peter at the crucifixion. Who her? She’s nobody. She’s just this girl I used to know. Don’t mind her. Let’s just go over here and you can check out how fabulous I am now…

But hating her was starting to hold me back and pull me down. Hating her was hurting me and stealing my peace. And not knowing why I hated her so much made it scary and murky and painful. So I took my friend’s advice and stopped to listen to fat Kate.

I didn’t know how! Really! You have to believe me! I was doing the best I could! I always did the best I could! And you became the woman I always wanted to be. I didn’t like me, but you are amazing and fabulous, and I honor you! I gave up sugar and eating and I felt all of that pain, was willing to feel all of that pain, because I wanted to be you. I wanted to do whatever it took to be someone I respected. So I did the work as much as you did. I did it because I didn’t like the life I was living. I got clean around the food and around life. But you pretended that you got a new life. You did not get a new life! We are still the same person. It’s just that I am eternally stuck with the body and the pain, and you get to move on. But you won’t fucking move on! You keep looking at me like I’m the definition of Kate. Like no matter what we’ve managed to do together I am Kate, and you are something else. Something not real. But we are both Kate. And I would appreciate it if you would feel about you the way I feel about you instead of feeling about you the way you feel about me. If I had looked and spoken and acted like you, I would never have considered myself unworthy. So stop living like you are unworthy now.

My life has been built around “begging the question”. It’s a logical fallacy. I have been surmising that nobody will value my love because my love has no value. The answer is the question. The question is the answer. This is little kid logic. But then, I have been using this logic since I was a little kid. My body looks different, but it is the same body. And in that body is the same brain. And my brain has been thinking these same thoughts about the worthlessness of my love for as long as I can remember.

I have been thinking these thoughts so long that I know them without putting words to them. But that’s the key. To name them. To distinguish them in words. See, I’m basically an avoider. Oh no! There’s something scary! Don’t look! So I don’t look. And it stays scary. And unknown. And undistinguished.

But when I distinguish it, I get information. Quality information. Information I can use to find a solution.

I wronged the girl I was by refusing to see that she was doing the best she could. And I refused to see it because I was using her as a scapegoat. I saddled her with all of my self-hatred and left her in the past, so I wouldn’t have to look at why I hated myself. Because it’s scary. Because I have been afraid that the things that caused me to eat myself to morbid obesity were not in my past, but a living part of my soul. And I wanted to hide them. I wanted to con the world into thinking that I am worthy and honorable. It doesn’t matter that this life I live now is not a lie. I have been living as if it is a lie. And that has the same psychological effect on me as if it were. It leads to the same kind of worry and hiding and shame.

What’s funny is that fat Kate could see it all along. Stuck there in a 300 pound body. Still hating herself. Still in immense pain. Eternally. Perhaps that is why she could see it. Because she looks at her and then at me and says “Hot damn! I turned out great!!!” But I didn’t want to listen to her. I didn’t want to look. Because it was scary. Because what if I looked, and I saw that I have an ugly heart and a broken soul? What if I found out that this life really is a lie?

Losing a lot of weight takes a lot of time. And the changes may be drastic, but they come slowly and subtly. Actions and behaviors can be changed. But that happens slowly too. It happened so slowly for me that I never had to stop hating the person I was. Until life held it up to my face and refused to put it down.

No, I will not stop thinking of my love as worthless by tomorrow. It will take time, and more importantly, practice to change my thinking about myself. But in listening to fat Kate, I got information that I can use.

So this is what fat Kate wants me to understand: I am my words and actions. By being a woman who tells the truth, honors her word, and works for peace, I am being a good person. Being a good person means I am a good person. That the circular reasoning going on in my head leaves no room for value. The question and the answer both rely on my lack there of. And that she did not go through hell so that the world would think I was beautiful. She did it so that we, she and I, would think I was beautiful. Inside and out. She wants me to stop trying to bamboozle the world into thinking there is nothing wrong with me. She wants me to start seeing that there truly is nothing wrong with my heart and soul. That there was never anything wrong with hers. She just wasn’t good at life.

She really was doing her best all those years. She really didn’t know how to do any better. I know that. I was there. And when the opportunity presented itself, she really did do whatever it took to get her shit together. I know. I was there for that too. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was too afraid to look and listen. I’m sorry I was too selfish to honor her. I’m sorry I treated her like an obstacle I overcame, instead of a sad and scared little girl. I’m sorry I looked at her like she had an ugly heart and a broken soul. And I am grateful that she could see me when I could not. Thank you, Kate. You did a really great job.

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04 Feb 2012
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Telling the ugly truth and letting the chips fall where they may

This blog has surfaced an inner conflict in me. It’s hard to put words to. It has me confused and hurt and ashamed. It is about how I see obesity in general, and the way I was treated when I was fat, the way I saw being fat when I was fat, and the way I see it from this body. They are all jumbled and mashed together. I am full of fear and anger. And I am sad.

Being fat in America is not fun. It is associated with being lazy and a slob. It is associated with not caring about yourself. With a total lack of will power. With being pathetic. It is associated with many things that are not true. Some of the go-gettiest go-getters I know are overweight. Some of the most meticulous house-keepers. Some of the best dressed/coiffed people I’ve ever met.

But living in a 300 pound body was a horrible experience for me. It was exhausting. And shameful. To huff and pant my way up a flight of stairs. To dread the thought of tying my shoes. To live in abject terror of having to hurry, God forbid, run anywhere. And most especially, to have to do any of those things in front of other people.

Because I also remember the looks, and the comments and the cruel ways that I was treated by others. And it hurt. I was so sensitive. I was fair game. Except it was not fair. Everyone was allowed to express an opinion about my body. Everyone! Heroin addicts living in boxes on the street were allowed to comment on my size. Society told them so. Too much cake, it seemed, was my waiver of any claim on common courtesy.

But I hated being fat too! I thought it was shameful too! How could I disagree? How could I stand up for myself? How could I separate being treated disrespectfully from the reason it was happening? I couldn’t then. And I am not sure I can right now. I know that belittling and shaming me was gross behavior, but who punished me more than me!?

I do not lack willpower. I can be the most stubborn mule on the planet. But I was never ever ever able to control my eating with willpower. Because my eating disorders are bigger than will. I’m sick. I treat them now, but they are chronic. They will never go away. I will never be able to eat sugar again. At least not if I want to be happy and peaceful. Not if I don’t want to kill myself with diabetes or other obesity related illnesses. Not if I want to like myself and my body. Not if I don’t want to be fat. And I don’t.

For the first 25ish years of my life, I thought there was something wrong with my body. That it was fat. That it was broken. That by the luck of the draw, I got a bad one. And then somebody said to me. “Sweetie, there’s nothing wrong with you! Calories in calories out. Do the math.” And I was skeptical. But it turned out she was mostly right. There is, actually, something wrong with my body. It can’t handle sugar. When I eat it, I can’t stop eating it. But my body is not naturally fat, as I believed for so many years. The problem I had/have has a solution. There was and is something to do about it. And doing something about it was literally the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. If that woman hadn’t said that to me, “Do the math, Kate”, I may have gone through my whole life hating myself because God cursed me with a fat body. But I’m not cursed. I’m blessed! I’m so incredibly grateful!

So here’s where is starts to get sticky and muddled and painful. I promised myself (and you) that I would be honest in this blog. And I am afraid of the things I am about to write. They are not what is known as “tactful”. And I am afraid of hurting people. People I genuinely like and love.

But I hate seeing fat people. It hurts my heart. It makes me feel ashamed. It brings up a lot of guilt and bad feelings I don’t even know how to name at this moment. And that is confusing in this body. Because even at 5′ 6 1/2″, 134 pounds, I see me in them. I am them. And I hated myself in a big body. I felt ugly and grotesque. I felt less than. Totally unworthy. And when I look back at her/me, I still feel like she/I was totally unworthy. Seeing another person living in a fat body brings up my own self hatred. It makes me look at the person that I was, whom I don’t like. Whom I’ve never liked. I did not like her then. I do not like her now. She is the part of me that I wish I could wish away.

It’s funny. I learned to reconcile with the liar in me, and the drama queen, and the good girl. I learned to reconcile by stopping those behaviors. But now it seems I have to reconcile with the body itself. And right now I don’t know how to do that. It is not enough to just not be fat anymore. I am not fat. I have not been for years. But that has not eliminated the icky feelings I have around obesity.

So the honest-to-God truth is, I do not know how to honor another person’s choice to be fat. I can live and let live. I can be respectful. But I do not know how to not care. I do not know how to see someone live in a fat body and not relive my own pain and self-loathing. I do not know how to reconcile the body I have with the body I had. I never want that life again. But, good Lord, I never want that body again.

And it’s fucking possible! It will always be possible. Like I said, my condition is chronic. The possibility of a fat body lives inside this little body. It wouldn’t take long for me to reach 300 pounds (and then some) if I lost control of the food. Seriously. A year. Maybe less. So how do I honor someone’s choice to live in a body that I fear?

Of course I have fat people in my life. Yes I love them. Yes I do understand intellectually that not everybody who is overweight has eating disorders. But when I hear overweight people say that they are comfortable with themselves, I cannot imagine it. I have a fantastic imagination. I can grasp many foreign concepts. But I have lived this “concept” of being fat, and it was nothing but torment. So in all honesty, I do not know how to not judge it. It’s personal. It’s raw. It is not fair, but it is what is so. And I am ashamed of my own judgment.

I don’t know how to wrap this up. I don’t know how to give you the moral of the story and an eloquently executed insight to take with you for the day. I do not know what to do except tell you, and pray to God for a solution to my own judgment. So now I have told you and I am praying about it. And it’s time to let the chips fall where they may.

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