Fat is Fat...And I'm Reminded of It

If you follow my stories you probably know that as part of my surgery requirements the insurance company required visits to a psychiatrist. I recently had an appointment that got me to thinking about the state of being "fat".

See, he asked how the weight loss has been going. I told him that I was a little frustrated because for the past four or five days or so I've been plateaued at 232 pounds. He asked how much I lost so far. I told him that I lost about 135 pounds since January, with maybe 50 pounds or so of that since the surgery. My wife said that I was focusing all the time on the plateauing and not considering that I lost 50 pounds in two months or that I've lost 135 pounds since January, which they say is really quite a bit.

I think it goes back to the idea that you have no idea what it's like until you've been there. My entire life has been focused on weight in some way.

I've spent my life worrying about things that normals take for granted. Will this chair hold me? Can I fit in the arms of this chair? Is that creaking of the floor more than just a creak? Seatbelts? You have no idea how annoying modern cars are with that now that there are sensors in the seats to determine and adjust for your weight. Toilet seats are a challenge...will it break? Beds? Staying at other people's homes, riding in their car and staying in hotels can be stressful for these reasons and others that normals just don't have occur to them. Even wondering about clothes...going on a short trip? Better make sure you have all you're going to need, since you can't just run to Walmart to get replacement pants if you stain them over dinner.

And other people know. This was always in the back of my mind...they're thinking rude things but are polite enough not to say it. But you seem almost paranoid knowing that they're thinking these things. My parents bought a furniture set for their dining room not too long ago. Mom found that one of the parts of the wooden chair was loose, then it broke. They took the chair back since it was brand new...the sales guy asked if her son had sat in the chair because they may not cover that. They were angry enough to say that they're never going back to that place again...but this was a sales guy asking this. I would have been shocked if I was actually present when this was said, but I know that if I was there this probably wouldn't have come to light. But it confirms that this is what people are thinking.

But Barry, you've lost all this weight since then!

First, that doesn't make it right. But dealing with issues like anger at how fat people are treated by society is a different topic.

Second...yeah, by the numbers I guess I've lost a significant amount of weight. What I haven't mentioned was that the day my son broke his arm falling off his bike, my wife related a story to me. I was riding my bike around the building. We had gone over in a minivan, and there were other people around, mostly taking advantage of the parking lot and playground for some recreation. My wife wasn't riding bike. At the time she was watching my son on the playground.

I headed out on the bike, riding away from the minivan. She said some young girl...not really a young kid but not an adult either...said out of the blue to my wife that someone at school told her that fat guys always drove minivans.

She said she just sort of nodded her head in a disbelieving, "Um...okay..." gesture. I hadn't known about it at the time. In retrospect it makes me think that while I was enjoying the day (before my son's fall, of course) I was just looking like a fat ignorant fool; as if I have no business being around in public.

This is what the public thinks.

I had lost 100+ pounds. But to people who know absolutely nothing about me, I'm judged anew each time as a lazy, ignorat fatass, the same as I'd be with the extra weight.

These thoughts stay with me constantly. I constantly worry about how much I'm eating now...too much for the pouch? Too many calories? Exercising enough? These clothes seem to fit but the number seems way too low for me...I should be in 58, not 48 pants. Chairs can't possibly fit me or they'll break, despite the fact that I'm having this thought while I'm sitting in the chair in question.

It's hard. It's hard sometimes to convince myself to get out of bed, to leave the house, to face these issues all over again another day. Then I shift from my personal demons to knowing, and in some cases despising, the public because of the way they look at me and I just know what they're thinking, why they're glancing back at me or watching from the corner of their eyes.

So yes, I do focus on the short term. I grow more and more frustrated at my plateaus as I have them. I worry about the surgery failing, that I've screwed it up again, that I've failed again. I can't even think of the significance of what I've supposedly achieved because before all the health concerns I think I was a non-advocate but still follower of the Fat Acceptance movement; I accepted myself just as I was, probably because I didn't see why I should worry about something that at the time looked like I couldn't be successful in fixing.

Part of living nearly a short lifetime with this mindset is that I can't tell weight on myself or other people. I can't estimate other people's weight...I hope that I never witness a crime and have to estimate the perpetrator's stats. I told the therapist that I don't know if he's 70 pounds or 140 pounds. Normals seem to find this surprising. Don't be. I've actively not cared about people's weight because it would be another source of depression or fixation on my own problem with weight. Nowadays I've noticed when other people lose or gain a significant amount of weight, but I don't know how much or even what they currently weigh. That's about it.

Somewhere in me there will always be a fatty. I'll be overweight the way alcoholics are always alcoholics, even if they're sober for years. And part of that is accepting the fact that the fat voice will always be in my mind, will always be urging me to fix a cheese sandwich as a snack or saying that one little brownie probably won't hurt me, and I'm always struggling to make sure that I don't slip from trying to lose weight and keep it off, and there will always be that voice telling me that I can't do it.

And I'm coming to the realization that no one else really understands my particular situation.

It's very lonely. In college we had a saying...college is where you discover that even when surrounded by people you can be totally alone.