Went to Visit a Lego's Display

This Lego's display was entertaining with a toy train set going around too. This had to be hard to build. It would be great to see a full-sized Lego village too one day. I used to like building with Legos when I was a kid, wasn't very good at it, but enjoyed it.

Loving Vincent Van Gogh

The False Shame of Fat Women Affects Lipedema

                                    a picture of my leg wrappings after I took them off.

I  recently got in trouble for "fat shaming" someone on a Lipedema health support board I won't mention the name of here.

Funny thing judging by this someone's wall on Facebook, they looked like they were a size 10-12 with no health problems and these were pictures over a series of YEARS.  Every other post on their very public wall, was an advertisement for the organization they did sales for, and I asked people several times to go look at these public photos but I guess no one did because they did not believe me. The diet they were bringing up was actually one sponsored by the organization they did sales for.

 I don't think I understand all the rules of political correctness. I thought they were a sales-person coming on a health support board and warned people. Aspie honesty got me  hated by some in a group of neurotypicals.  Later I was banned. Well I was made out to be the "bad" person, even though this new poster included "selling a diet" that had Beach Bodies in the name, and I thought some people believed the same way I did about diets, espousing basic size acceptance principles but I guess not. I was the "meanie" for trying to warn of someone I thought was an imposter. They called me a "fat-shamer".

It's weird to be 500lbs and told I am a "fat-shamer" for someone far smaller and functional then me. Can someone explain that one to me? The liberal world bugs me too just as much as the conservative world and all their "go die in the ditch", "pick a job off a tree" Tea Partiers. The speech controls and endless impossible rules are too much.

Yes I'm a big meanie. The Lipedema world has gotten to be a tough one or me. Some still believe in diets and the fantasy of weight loss. It's weird since all the medical literature rightly says this is not weight that can NOT be taken off by dieting. If anything dieting messes up Lipedema more and sinks your metabolism. Many severe Lippys like me have nutritional deficients. Dieting is a joke to me. I got doctors to finally believe me and got diagnosed. Yesterday I had eggs for breakfast, sandwich, and some broccoli slaw for lunch, and rice and chicken with broccoli for dinner. I am not eating that bad. My blood sugar was 122 this morning. So to be told, that I can fix my body with the "perfect diet" is a dream. Yes I have to watch WHAT I eat, but the dream world of  having a body that functions like everyone else died long ago for me. Thinking a diet will fix this is the definition of insanity.

My own body is full of Lipomas and fluid. I see constant weight changes now dependent on how active I've been and how much I've peed off and every night shrink a bit from Flexitouch treatments.  The hormonal crap foisted on me by Lipedema has affected my life far more. In fact I believe much of the research for Lipedema is being ruined because the focus is on weight loss, diets and liposuctions and not the internal health, and endocrine realities of this disease. Because it is a WOMAN'S disease primarily all it seems is cared about is LOOKS, LOOKS, LOOKS. 

Google Plastic Surgery and Lipedema, or Lipedema and Beauty and you will get a look-see at what I am talking about.

Even the liposuction stuff seems unproven to me. What's going to keep the fat in the legs from coming back? The plastic surgeons are setting up for a new market, and on Lipedema boards for early stage women, one can see the model thin, on there who seem to care most about having sculpted legs showing up who complain of having Lipedema and it makes one wonder. Their reality bears no resemblance to my own hell of Lipo-Lymphedema. I believe that the "worried well" market is the focus in the Lipedema world, where the plastic surgeons are diagnosing otherwise thin and healthy woman with Lipedema to do leg sculpting. There are some who seek out the liposuction who are higher stage and who do truly have the condition and some sincere doctors like one in Germany who see it as a break-through but I remain concerned about how so many of the  main treatments for Lipedema all focus on the removal of fat and "being made thin" instead of the root endocrine and lymphatic causes.

In my case,  I renounced the beauty prison and yes this has been mentioned on this blog but the "beauty prison" seems to be running a lot of the Lipedema world. In a disease that has hurt me, brought me endless pain and destroyed my life on a multiple levels including almost dying of sepsis [leg infections that poisoned my blood] how do you think I feel about this development that the main focus for Lipedemics is to be BEAUTY and LOOKS and doing away with the FAT, and becoming THIN?

I have to admit I was disappointed by the people touting size acceptance beliefs contradicting themselves allowing the discussion of another failed diet to be sold to wealthier women who can afford trips to a giant theme park. It was unjust and unfair for "Beach Bodies" to be advanced among many women who have weighed 400lbs-700lbs from a disease we had no control over. Haven't we suffered enough? This was a contradiction to the max. It felt like a middle finger in my face. Of course I was the one being "too sensitive" for refusing the mainstream cultural mandates.

 I believe one neglected avenue of Lipedema is the psychological and emotional. We are being hurt, by the constant diet talk and the non-answers being sold us. We are told that the shape of our body is the thing most wrong with us and that must be corrected no matter what. While there are good medical professionals dealing with the lymphatic system and MLDs and others out there to help us, the beauty imperatives and prejudice against fat is influencing treatment of a disease in a very negative fashion. Many Lipedema women are reporting that some doctors are pushing weight loss surgery and weight loss as the first thing they "must do" instead of dealing with their failed lymphatic systems. There is a weird focus on "non Lipedema fat". How do they know what's fluid or fat or not?

We are shamed for our bodies constantly and some eat the shame, still acting like it is their fault, and they must all conform to societies impossible demands and still "live in the dream" of thinness one day being theirs. I suppose this is why I got banned from the health board. I am too radical for them and a "trouble-maker" because I got a big mouth and I have written against the diet industrial complex for 5 years on this blog. I have pissed off the size acceptance side out there by exposing their "normalization of obesity" and  health "denials" about severe obesity and I have pissed off others by calling out the "diet industry" as completely harmful to our health. My life values are in opposition to those who want perfect clone bodies among humanity, and who sell conformist "beauty" as the highest ideal above all.

 I threatened the "dream" and even some of the denizens of size acceptance will show their true colors when pressed. They don't want to give the "thin dreams" up and no matter their size support the cultural imperatives, that put thinness and the status of the thin above real treatment and research for a severe medical condition. Maybe if they got to the root of the problem, there'd be far less people struggling with severe obesity.

It reminded me of the Lipedema spokes person who got honored by a top obesity organization with several weight loss surgeons on the board that I wrote about before without naming names.

All the focus is still on the fat and the looks of a body and the SYMPTOMS of a disease instead of the inherent disease process within. Cultural mandates of shame among the fat, affecting treatment of Lipedema. The diet industry is a negative influence on Lipedema and Lipedema treatment. I stand by this belief whether they like it or not.

Platonic Catfishing?

"Just when i thought everything was good
My friend i guess misunderstood
thought we had mutual respect
Now i see the times that we get
So becareful who u choose as a friends
For they might let u down in the end...
Just when i thought a real good friend i found they pic you up u to let down


them let u down down down
them let you down down down,
down down down down


So my son always bear in mind
A faithful friend is hardest thing to find,
it is better an open enemy
A false friend is hardest thing to see cause,
when times are good, well a friends are plenty
In times of trouble, well not one in twenty,
Just when i thought a real good friend I've found
pick you up and let you down, eh

The other day I was channel surfing and saw the show on MTV called Catfishing for the first time. I don't always trust reality TV and am sure that some of it is scripted, but some poor shy 20 something year old kid was meeting the woman he thought he had fallen in love with online and who he wanted to marry and she was a fake.  He got suspicious however when none of the promised meetings ever happened, and so he brought MTV with him to confront the woman who was something like 20 years older and lied about who she really was to him. Catfishing is usually seem in the romantic context, where someone dallies with the affairs of the heart, but it can be liars that also scam for money and present themselves as false platonic online friends too.

If you write anything online, that has elements of whistle-blowing or where you share controversial opinions about size acceptance or other matters that upset people,  you can get yourself some enemies, who want you to shut up and want the goods on you at the very least. Whoever this person was, they seemed to want to clean out my brain and then walk away. Well there isn't much dirt to know.  Come on, I lay out almost my entire life on this blog and if I tell someone about it's existence, they are getting a front row seat.  Your blog may be small potatoes but maybe it's gotten some unwanted attention.

My opinions about obesity and size acceptance ARE CONTROVERSIAL. Whistleblowers and those commenting on society aren't always the most welcome at the party. I had a few try to love-bomb me and become instant friends, one blogger whose blog turned into the Heal Narcissists blog,  who seemed to worshipped at the altar of the expert on narcs who is a self avowed psychopath, tried to buddy up with me via email and failed. Well someone did wiggle in recently who I wrote about here.

I have wondered recently if they were a "Catfisher" of sorts. They showed me a few pictures, but then they were very extremely limited, maybe it was pictures of someone else? On their Facebook wall there was no picture after 1988. I was friendly and showed them tons of photos hoping they would open up or maybe give me a pic from the year 2000. Here was a place where I just wasn't careful enough.

My husband has told me he wants me to be careful who I befriend online. I have met VERY good friends online, include one  friend I have known for 12 years, another friend I met on Facebook two years ago, my one deceased friend of 17 years, my Aspie circle of friends which includes several people and who I have known 10-15 years and they are all good friends who have been there for me in all ways that count even if we all live far away from another. I also as well have my ACON contacts and friends and others through this blog. This time I got so badly burned, I'm retreating, knowing I am too vulnerable. While this blog is anonymous on line, I need to be more careful who I share it with. The trusted friends I never got burned, but with others, you will.

The internet can be wild and wooly place and remember we are the first generation dealing with the social ins and outs of internet socialization. We can have things go bad. I believe with the TV shows detailing Catfishing that is just the tip of the ice berg of what is happening out there. It doesn't have to be someone who wants money or is part of some bigger agenda. It can just be someone who enjoys screwing with people and messing with their minds.

I realized someone "mirrored" me to the extreme. What do I mean by "mirroring" where someone acts like they are just like you, where you think "Oh I have found one of my tribe?"  They told me they shared a lot of problems with me. I thought and this is very dangerous, "Now this is someone who will understand". That is one major red flag. Another is love bombing. I wonder how I fell for things but at least it was only some months wasted instead of longer. No money was involved only, just a false friend I bared my soul too and then I realized was telling me things that did not add up. I had to learn even if someone shares deep and personal things with you, it doesn't mean you are safe to do likewise.

Some may ask "Why do you think they were a catfisher?" instead of a sincere person you simply were not compatible with? The instant bonding, the deep desire to influence me on everything from obesity topics to religious ones, like they were wiggling into my mind trying to change it on everything.  It also  included seeking out close bonding to get me to open up and to share very personal things--here is where mirroring took it's greatest toll, and then the absolute silence when I asked them to explain some stories and medical claims that didn't make any sense and didn't add up. I felt like someone played me and played me big. I'm done with them now.

 Be careful who you open yourself up to online. With many friends, it worked out great for me, but with this one, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth and realizing some depths of human deception, I couldn't even fathom and you all know how much I have seen.

For My Husband

Consumers

If no one can afford to buy anything, how do they expect their businesses to succeed? Some even undermine themselves and cut off their noses to spite their face in their own greed.

Escaping the Forever Scapegoat Role

[some language warnings on this one, I am not perfect]

From a support board, I frequent:

"There are a few different things you might do.
You could show up at the memorial service with a short, blunt speech on a card and read it aloud. Name, blame, and shame. Be prepared for retribution, then and later.
You could show up at the memorial service, speak briefly to your brother, and leave.
You could skip the memorial service--if there even is one--and hold one on your own, calling the saints to witness, praying, lighting candles, and so forth.
You could make a memorial page for her, speaking the truth of her life and death
You could--and frankly I really, really think you should--cut all contact with these poisonous creeps."

I've written about my Aunt Scapegoat dying, and I am on fence about going to memorial service and wrote about that since several narcs would be there, I have been NC with for three years.

 One thing I noticed with this aunt is she was squeezed into labels and molds given to her by narcs years and years ago. She was a woman on dialysis with severe disabilities but was seen as the this life long "rebel" and "black sheep" because she smoked some pot and drank a bit in the early 1970s which was what all her peers were doing at that time. It occurred to me even though she was 60 years old she was never allowed to escape the bad labels put on her and never able to live down how she lived 25-40 years ago. She died at the age of 60 and they twittered on about crap from 40 years ago. They treated her like she wasn't even a human being outside of a couple cousins, with her own dreams, aspirations and more. This is a fate I feared and was one of my main motivations to cut contact and walk.

For example one cousin posted on his Facebook that she was a "rebel". IMO she did not rebel enough and tell the narcs to take a flying leap which is one reason she never left home and ended up under my mother's guardianship. She never ran away. There are times I wish I could just disappear, me and husband and go poof! I hate the narcissists knowing where I live.

My brother told me the day she died that she was a "black sheep". I got mad and cussed him out as I admitted and said, "The entire family treated her like sh**, all you did was buy all the lies."

I actually cussed him out some more, "The family are never going to own or control me like she was"
I feel they are trying to do the same thing to me. They did everything in their power to cut contact between us for years and the depth of their lies have come to full fruition to me. The other day I was crying my eyes out about this but then it should be no surprise to me. The depth of their evil has been fully exposed to me. When they lied to me, about her hating me and probably vice versa, this showed what absolute snakes they are. Maybe the mail was intercepted. Did she ever see my holiday cards with full letters in them during the early 2010s?

I feel like they are trying to shove me into the SAME life-long box, and I realize they SHARE the SAME OPINIONS about ME. She died never breaking away. I broke away but NC has been hard for me. I LOST just about everyone, and now I have on my conscience never seeing or talking to this aunt again but had no other choice for my own sanity and well-being. Even worries about my brother dying before I see him, have cropped up for more feelings of lost and guilt, but then where was he this last 7 years? He was more busy spending thousands on Christmas gifts, then driving up here. He told me on the phone, he was going to see me FIRST for once, but then he got sick. There was plenty of years before that when I asked. Has he ever worried about me dying before seeing me again? Remember how bad my health is.

I'm 40 something years old and they still want to put me in the same damn box, they put her in for 60 years. When I saw the way they talked about her even after she DIED it made me ANGRY. This was on Facebook and on phone with my brother. "Rebel", "black sheep". The same labels foisted on me. My no contact was about walking away from their labels and becoming someone else.

Oh and by the way, she is the first one the rich family are not burying with a full coffin funeral [Catholics against cremation] with a tombstone in the family plot next to her mother, a sister and two brothers, but cremating with no funeral and a nebulous promise of a "memorial service" THREE MONTHS after the fact. My brother claimed to me my mother said, it's because she didn't go to Mass and was an atheist.  I left the Catholic church in 1987, with one and half years back in leaving again.  My grandmother quit going to church in 1987 and was buried in the church graveyard in 2007.

So that crap I noticed.

Outside of one cousin with a conscience and his brother and their children, just about all of them make me sick. With my brother, I told him it's time to piss or get off the pot, either you start seeing what my mother really is and stop being a mind slave to her money or I'm done.

I have realized with horror, my own situation is FAR MORE PRECARIOUS NOW. I hope this makes sense. The family fed off her like vampires. Do you all think I am paranoid to have those thoughts or do you understand.? When one feels "afraid" to be in the same room with people, the book The Gift of Fear would tell you to say the hell away.

It is occurring to me outside of two cousins with consciences and their kids where I have distant Facebook contact, that with the rest they have no interest in any real relationships one on one outside of the family system. I tried to form one on one relationships with others since I went NC with the main narcs, and it has failed.

I hate this feeling of helplessness, and like no matter what I do, it's a lose/lose situation. I realize having feelings is a detriment in being treated like a human being in our sick society and sick families like this.

The sad ending when it comes to my aunt will always stay with me. The spiritual struggle of dealing with evil winning at least in this world, brings me a feeling of inner sadness I'm not sure will ever go away. I'm "losing" too even though I've broken away. I'll be the one sitting alone but then I was always alone when it came to this faux family anyway. I have mourned for years even long ago when I was young, seeing what was happening to her.