Who Are You Besides Fat?

  The things expected of me feel overwhelming. I'd like to get rid of that little voice in my head. I wonder if this is what happens to people who grow up hearing nothing but criticisms. Therapists would tell me to squash that little voice inside, but what happens when it is never ending on the outside? What if you get to a place where you start feeling okay and then the demands, expectations, your failures are thrown in your face every time you turn around and nothing ever changes for the better? What should a person do? Even religiously people post things like "God has big plans for you!" and I think, "what if one's life is rotten, isn't the test of faith to hold on even if your life stinks on earth?"

I feel like I am trying to hold on to WHO I AM. Yes unlike others who do not know who they are, I know what I stand for. I know what I value and care about, but why do I feel like I am being squished? There is no test like being over 500lbs for a person to face themselves and depend on God to make it. Truth-telling in American society means you are flat out hated, take my word for it.

Hey I'll admit any faults. I can't seem to manage things most people manage. I've checked out books on managing ones life, taking health classes and making health goals. I tried to follow the rules and things still go bad. I pay what bills I can on time. I do not drink, smoke or do any illegal drugs. I try to stay positive and all the other things you are told to do.  This blog yeah I know I complain, but I hold it in elsewhere. Does this make me a bad person?

Other people can eat cucumbers, vegetables, limit portions and lose weight, I do all of that and any loss is so slow, its extreme. I am hungry right now ignoring the hunger pain knowing I have to keep the calories at a certain lower point.  I can't seem to get the household in order, there is never enough money. My husband I do not think will ever have a normal job again due to medical and other factors. So what do I get for all my efforts but told how "bad" I am over and over?

Lately I feel like I am always under the gun and the lies that fat people were stupid, passive and out to please, being everyone’s buddy things made life hard enough for years. I was none of these things, which made some bigots angrier. They expected a certain personality and got me.  Would the therapists understand what 15 years at a supersized weight does to a person? Somehow I doubt it. Very few get it.

The other day I wrote this article  "Eccentric Fat Girl"

Lately I have felt kind of pressured, it has to do with trying to draw a line in terms of who I am and what kind of life I ended up with. I have realized, that for years, I felt suppressed under the judgments of others. Even today, I had one of the jerks of the Internet show up on the disability article.

#1. I will never be who they want me to be.

#2. I lack the resources and capabilities for #1.

#3. My own values and what I desire from life, are different from the society I am part of.

#4 Therefore I lack the interest in #1.

With #1, I have realized I am tired of living under a fog of being blamed, of being degraded for who I am and what my body has done. At this size it can be endless, and unlike others who can find therapists who relate, that is not a guarantee for me. It's been a tough week, of dealing with people who could only see my body and not "me" which included having a tax guy at a free low-income tax seminar tell me to budget money that does not exist to pay thousands of dollars in taxes--you do not want to know the tax rate on even very low paid self employed freelancers--my husband, with the eyes that say "Loser!", to having to make a chair request at a seminar for lip-reading.

I spent the last weeks of last month food insecure, actually going hungry. The food pantry only had some dried prunes to offer and some old bread. A kind friend bought us a couple dinners but there too you think why are we always the ones in need and never able to give. It wears you down like water upon sand. The friends who are by your side are loyal. But to be frank, the rest of the world goes on it's merry way. You do ask "What is wrong with me?"

 I was allergic to the other foods they passed out. I skipped acouple meals mostly breakfast and scrounged about most of the week. We have food now, but one thing about me and hunger, is my hunger pain doesn't lift. Once it starts, it can go for 2-3 hours or whenever I eat. I have trained myself to accept hunger pain, but there is a limit there, in terms of weight loss efforts. If anyone wants to be judgmental and say, cook frugal, I DID, that included making stuffed cabbage that lasted 4 meals and other such adventures.

Then I got a new nurse practicioner, she was nice, she meant well but then she told me, "you need to set goals!" She was informed that I had lost some weight and knew of diabetic improvements that have dropped a A1C score by almost an entire point but I find myself inside cringing, "goals?" Those usually take money and a body one can control to a certain extent. As if I can tell my body, lose 50lbs, and it will do it like magic!

What world do these people live in? It's not mine. My goal is to stay alive, an over-encompassing one, I suppose. One strange shocking item during my last medical exam, is my temperature was 95 degrees! Yes 95 and I've seen it that low during other times too. She asked me "Are you cold?" My TSH is normal so why I spent weeks freezing to death, I don't know.

I seem to have a lot of people lately tell me in different ways I am not measuring up. I am not sure emotionally how to handle it. Should I tell them all to jump in the lake?  People don't realize it but I hide a lot of pain. I've slogged on through depression and physical pain that would put down an elephant knowing there was no other choice but to carry on. No one likes a "victim". I share things on this blog far more openly then in the world outside of close friends. Being out in the world for me more and more seems to be about wearing a plastered on smile, dressing better then everyone because a fat woman doesn't make muster in sweats and ignoring the desire to just take to my bed and never get out again.  Maintaining any motivation among endless disappointments is getting harder and harder.

Maybe I am old, but since when did all the pleasure and leisure and meaning in life get wiped away for being successful? What if you want to ENJOY a few things or have a little FUN? What if you are poor and disabled, does this mean you have to be rendered a non-person?

 What am I supposed to do with all these expectations I can't meet and am failing to meet? There is a point you get to where you admit...

1. These people do not really know what you face or what your day to day life is like.

2. A person can only do what they can.

3. One can stand up for what they value and care about.

This is something hard enough to deal with. What if you live in a society where it spits on everything you care about and value, where it hates connections, hate the creative, hates emotions. Tells you in many different ways you don't matter and that your story is not to be believed? Truth tellers don't always have it so easy.

What if you don't want to, don't plan to conform and couldn't even if you wanted to?

What if you are tired of just being locked away in the big and fat box and are screaming to get out?

What if you have known for years, that something is wrong with your body that goes beyond the endocrine things they have diagnosed, and have been protesting for years to be listened to? What if you know something is more wrong then "bad eating behaviors", and have had to fight for years to be listened to. Wouldn't you get worn out after a certain point dealing with this stuff?. I even started this blog hoping a medical professional would see it and be the type to want to do some research.

What if you are tired of being told you are a nobody for being disabled, for not having children, for being broke, for feeling alone in what you believe?

What if you are tired of the constant demands and other pressures?

Do you silence your voice then, slink away and then shut up?

I can't shut up, but I am very tired.