Disabled People and No Pity (A Documentary by Drew Morton Goldsmith)

This film made by an autistic man explores the Disability Right's Movement and how people with autism and others are standing up today against discriminatory advertising by charity organizations.  The 1970s to me almost seem halcyon as I remember that was a time when the disabled were more welcomed into the job fields and there was some progress made. I do think there has been some regression since then. One thing that worries me is people judge the disabled very harshly and there is a stigma. The work world and other areas of society, have become less inclusive of the disabled though many within the disabled rights movement are working hard to change this.

 While some are kind if you have visible disabilities in American society it can be hard. Especially with the human potential/positive thinking movement, New Age thoughts and beliefs and consumerist society saying that you can "think" or "buy" your way into a more perfect way of being. Many Aspies know about the controversies with Austim Speaks. Most disabled people just want to be able to live life doing the best they can, and not having to overcompensate to keep people happy. It can be a hard balance. Many people with disabilities or severe chronic illnesses know they have to be "more together" to be deemed acceptable. We can't cry or have an off day. The judgments are far more severe.

One thing if someone is viewed via the lens of pity, pity wears out, you are not seen as an "equal" person worthy in your own human dignity. It is not having an equal relationship with people. You are seen as an "inferior". Remember pity is different from sympathy. It puts you in the place of begging for your inclusion. Here too people can fool you, you think you are accepted as a regular human being but you learn quite differently. Your differences remain central in their vision.  You are an object of pathos where they can kick you around. Having to try so hard all the time to make up for these things wears the disabled out. For an Aspie, it can be a nightmare. 

There are a lot of societal pressures on the disabled where they are viewed as "burdens" and for those of us too sick to make a living as "mooches". Many of us suffer greatly under these judgments. I think about those who are so much in a hurry to condemn me as a "slave" to the social security system and who said so openly.  This happened with the one friendship that recently ended. These people must want us to live in the gutter.

I get tired. You ask yourself, "Are you doing enough?". No one cares if you do art work or have volunteered or write blogs and try to remain active as possible, what you DO for a living matters most in this world. My husband the other day says he gets tired of people who only identify people by what they do for a living.  I worsened things trying to explain my life to people, telling them yes I have to take to my bed some days and about being housebound from the breathing issues whenever the weather was too hot or cold. I know now, most didn't get it. It was a waste of my breathe.

 I had the family call me a loser and a mooch, the Republican party joins in on that fray. I know these things have greatly hurt me badly but I will tell you this many of us disabled are getting frightened and privately talk about how society is changing and how we are hated.  If you are sick it is your fault. I have socially withdrawn some lately, I got very worn out. If I don't crack up from my 20 years of being an Aspie circus fat lady, it will be a miracle. The lines of chattering middle class types who don't even understand 1 percent of my reality have fatigued me. Society seems more and more conformist then ever, this is making things rougher on the disabled and those with any differences.

What gets me though, is no one ever speaks of making changes to the job system to make it more inclusive to the disabled. The growing narcissism in the work world is working against this. Today if you have minor health problems or are aging, many of the narcissistic employers don't want to bother with you. So what happens to the fully disabled? I really am in no shape to work but when I was fighting off going on disability, cloaking like mad too in the work world to hide the Aspergers, I went to Vocational Rehabs, and basically was just tossed out into the regular workaday world, there was no extra help. Most of them prior to my lipedema diagnosis just yelled at me to lose weight. I basically learned to stay off the streets taking jobs no one else wanted working with violent youth. That is how I formed an extraordinarily different career before the illnesses took over.

There are no job programs that are real for the disabled except some developmentally delayed job centers anymore. Non-profits are usually more open to the disabled who are healthy enough for work, but it's far harder in the private sector. I used to see more disabled employees there, 20 years ago.

One burden on the disabled is that you have to be "extra-special" or "talented" to be worthwhile, have you noticed in the media extremely talented and accomplished disabled people are marched out before the world? Sure heroes are a good thing to motivate, but we rarely see normal everyday disabled people in the media. To me that is a glaring omission. Why don't we see people of various disabilities presented beyond a person in a wheelchair that may pop up on Sesame Street every now and then?

Things need to change for the disabled more. Many are speaking up.

A Not To Do List for Chronic Illness

My list for this week:

1. Go Mellow out!

2. "It is not your fault, you have tried your best!"

3.  Distract myself. One hobby I have that actually is kind of a weird one lately, is taking online psychological surveys. I hope my big fat Aspie self is not skewing tests. LOL I got to share my opinions about feminism on one and write about the emotions of music on another.

4. "Do what you can and let the chips fall where they may." A philosophy I had to embrace some years ago to avoid the psych ward.

5. Rest when you want. Sleep as much as you feel like sleeping. If you feel depressed go find something fun to do like read a comic.

I am giving myself pep talks today to avoid despair nipping at my heels:

1. You can make it through. They will get your sugars down.  {I've had my diet regulated for many months-I have to even to keep from gaining weight and the small loss}

2. Stop worrying about cancer, it could just be a cyst!

3. No more guilt for being sick! 

4. Remember all the people who love you like your husband and friends!

"Too Fat To Work" Anti-Fat People Propaganda

In the USA, you can't just be fat to get disability, but often over a certain size the co-morbidities are disabling enough. It looks like England is fattening up as much as America, though our problem here is worse. I do believe they are fattening up the populations worldwide, the so called obesity conspiracy and it goes far beyond just people becoming lazy sloths.

With the fat people healthy enough to work, most of them simply cannot be hired. I remember the hell I went through trying to get jobs when I was merely in the 200s and very active, this during the time when I walked three miles for FUN. I still was gaining weight though.

I do wish the show had some captions, I have a hard time hearing accents, but did the best I could, there are some ad interruptions.

I have noticed with this show new fat hatred growing in England where they produced this show and smug announcers express an less than under-stated disgust for the obese who are on the dole or the English version of disability. I fear a growing movement in America and Europe to throw the disabled in the gutter. Obviously it is horrifying to note that they see all obesity by choice. Sadly these opinions are growing here too.

The powers that be are increasing the BLAME THE POOR AND DISABLED rhetoric, and it is worsening. Sadly most normal people are buying the propaganda. This show I believe was produced to increase this in England and around the world. As more countries head into banker and politician caused economic troubles, the disabled and poor will be the first on the chopping block. It will happen here too.

I swelled up A LOT yesterday, I went to the eye doctor and then shopping at a Mexican market buying real food for 50 bucks that would last for some days and walking through a Lowe's to find something to unplug the drains. I cooked when I was home too. I can walk more then I used to be able to but it swells me up like a giant balloon. This is the hell I live, desiring activity but the body rebelling against it.  I am in pain today from the swelling, my legs were wrapped and Flexitouched so they are holding out but I will have to lay down more of the day to "recover". No one could even imagine. I am still coping with the fact that this is "forever" for me and this disease is not curable. I am constantly frustrated with hunger pain and trying to balance activity levels with a body that can't take much.

Being fat and disabled can be a scary world. The condemnation is severe. "Why don't you just lose weight fatty?" I realized after going no contact that one of my mother's smear campaigns was telling people I was a disability malingerer and if I was really "disabled" instead of fat and lazy, that I'd already be dead. I realized to my horror, given even words of other relatives, this is how they have seen me for years. As a lazy "fat bum" who won't help herself. They didn't give a crap about me having severe PCOS or thyroid conditions or COPD or even the later lipedema diagnosis. Hey my mother pointed to my swelling legs circa 1998 and said, "You should do something about that!" as if I sat around and willed my legs to grow bigger. This is why that one cousin used my being disabled to attack me. I have no worries, my medical documentation is high and doctors support my disability but it shows the depth of the hatred I faced. I do fear it from strangers too. While I have lived in mostly polite small towns the last 15 years of my life, I know this growing hatred against the disabled, is something people in my position have to be mindful of.

While we had tens of thousands of centers for the drug addicts and alcoholics, there's only 5-6 rehabs in the entire nation for the severely obese and some of those are more nursing homes then rehabilitative. This tells me they know their treatment of obesity fails far more then it does for the drug addicts. Does this mean only a few of the fat are food addicts and something more is going on? Otherwise why 10s of thousands of centers for the addicts to controlled substances and so few for the obese? I almost put myself in a center in 2008, but realized one was more nursing home and also was told because I could still "walk", I'd be long down the waiting list.

That's an admission of some sort isn't it?

Some of the fat people want to work on the video and are healthy enough to do so.

On the video above, they show a woman with pet rats [6:15] that is more midsized obese where she admits that she has applied for more then 100 jobs. It bothers me that this is not questioned, as I wrote on another article, our jobs system is broken here and it looks like there too as anyone with a small difference now is thrown out of the running in the never ending "weed out" process. I was saddened to see someone who is less then 100lbs overweight seeing dangerous WLS as her only option.

Notice something about Amy the 18 year old? [8:00] She's taking the dog for walk. I walked all over until the weight stopped me and bet she does too. I tend to think while they mention eating some snack foods she has some neglected medical problem. Her breathing sounds horrible for someone for her age and even her size. I have terrible lung problems so not judging her but when she climbed the stairs, [19:48]I know something is wrong. I think she needs tested for sleep apnea. [21:10]

One thing I was thinking of this morning, is, in the old days did people gain weight so easily? Did it take so much time and effort not to be fat? People just lived and their bodies didn't turn on them the extent they do today. People's bodies didn't swell like they do now. Remember the thin people eat too. They don't have their bodies do that.

We see the engaged couple going to a weight loss meeting. We know how that goes. Weight Watchers massively failed me. I followed it and went out of my mind with cabbage soup. As I have talked about before I have so much INVOLUNTARY food reduction as of late with tons of accompanying painful hunger pain, why isn't it working to take weight off?  I ate an apple for breakfast and its 10:10 am and hunger pain may force me to add some oatmeal to the apple.

Later I ate some cooked oatmeal--half a cup while writing this.  I plan to eat a falafel sandwich with tomato and onion for lunch midafternoon. I seriously worrying about gaining weight when our food is too low which I know is irony of ironies, but when you are poor, and know food has to last a certain period of time, there is little for snacks or any free eating. You have to measure every bit of food. You have to plan. One chicken piece has to be used for vegetable and hominy soup on Saturday.  I made burritos for dinner with black beans from scratch with cilantro and some avocado and took meat off a chicken leg and thigh to share between our burritos saving the other chicken piece for tonight. I saved rice for another meal. It takes a lot of energy.

While they make a big deal of the fat couple [Steve and Michelle] eating the gyro take away, one of the things I think about is how for the poor especially the limited income poor, meals out really is the only avenue of recreation open to them. Maybe I will post on this about how obesity is worsened by lack of recreational activities, because it does impact my life greatly.  That said the judgments in Britain especially for fat people eating out is usually beyond the pale. How dare they! Sorry but thin people are eating gyros too. I think gyros are to be avoided. It is a food I had to give up, I used to allow myself a sandwich-gyro once every two months but it's kidney stone territory for me. Skinny people are eating them too and not dying of an occasional gyro.

I supposed if you are disabled and fat, you are not allowed to eat out.

The woman at the 14:16 mark, is the lady getting a gastric bypass's daughter but she is already worried about her weight. Remember thin is far thinner in Europe. Sadly both believe the false promises about weight loss surgery

Do you notice something about Michelle? She has to walk quiet extensively even to shop for one meal. All that exercise and she is still overweight? This reminds me when I was in Chicago still having my weight gain walking, walking between endless bus stops and just trying to shop. While I understand how this happened with lipedema today back then it brought me endless confusion. I had no car and literally had to move around all the time even just to survive. Even to just use a phone, since we didn't have one, I had to walk at least a quarter of a block. Back then I had to walk a whole Save-A Lot at near 700lbs. I like when Steve talks about how hard it is to afford clothes [26:56]. In Britain this would be even more difficult.

I notice with the lady getting the gastric bypass her fridge is nearly empty. It makes me wonder if her obesity was impacted with food insecurity as well. I am worried for her, the special foods and pureed stuff for weight loss surgery is expensive. I knew when I was investigating weight loss surgery I could not afford or manage all that. With Rutabaga, pumpkin, and chicken breasts in her fridge, she looks like she already eats healthy.

One stat stands out to me, they say 1 in 5 people in Scotland are unemployed. Think something may be wrong with the jobs system? I sure do. Not just there but here. Soon good jobs will become a thing for the upper classes while the lower live in one room flats or tiny-houses in America and Europe on the dole or welfare or low wage work. The suburbs will be the ghettos of tomorrow. What is 32 stone? 600lbs? Oh a stone is 14lbs. Amy is 448lbs.

When they show Steve walking downtown, [31:40] it shows the breathlessness that can happen to fat people when trying to do all that exercise we are told to do. Many thin people if they had to breathe that hard and have all the pain would be crying their eyes out. Steve does seem to have very affected stamina and other health conditions as well since earlier in the video they said he had a stroke.

Mrs. Johnson is right about benefits being too small to put the right food on the table. [34:21] Amy is very fat but eating what appears to be a normal portioned lunch of ONE sandwich and some chips. Her mother talks about having toast and a cheese sandwich. I often believe that obesity is a disease of malnutrition more and more. Our food has less nutrients in it. There were days I was eating a cheese sandwich--not grilled in my case and vegan cheese slices at 40 calories for meals because there was nothing else to eat.

Why is everyone sitting in the back at the wedding at Steve and Michelle's wedding? The relatives all look thin, angry and annoyed, one flashes daggers out of her eyes. [40:41]. I had relatives get snotty about me daring to marry at an advanced weight.  Sadly as I watch Steve wheeze and get sick at his own wedding, I think of my ER visit on the night of my own for a leg infection which put me in the hospital for two weeks. I am beyond irritated by the relative who goes on about him losing weight. Look the man gets sicker as he pushes himself, how is weight loss supposed to come so naturally when to even to try and burn it off you'd be on the floor? He has other issues, he ended up with a blood clot on his lung and hospitalized for 9 days. I hope they can enjoy their marriage despite these challenges.

As I watched this show, I thought, WE ARE IN THE DARK AGES WHEN IT COMES TO OBESITY. They push weight loss that doesn't work. They don't assess different levels of hunger. They ignore the fact that exercise too affects overweight people differently. They ignore serious health problems such as respiratory disorders, blood clots and people who exercise and still do not lose weight.  They see obesity as a CHOICE and it's that fact alone, that STUPIDITY REIGNS and people who are disabled and fat are even more oppressed.

They Want to Cut Disability!

Are they insane? The disabled are already struggling. We have had cost of living cuts for years. My check seems so small compared to the bills, if I could go get a job tomorrow, I would. For all the Republicans who whine about people bilking the system, no one is getting rich on social security. Most people's rent is more then a disability check!

People on disability do not live high on the hog. Are there a few cheaters? Maybe so, but they have this propaganda out there where they act like people can just walk into a disability office and say, "My back hurts" and go home and get a check for years and years. They even still review me every three years and I have multiple illnesses that ONE ALONE such as my cardiomyopathy or COPD could be enough to qualify.  Many people do get turned down, if not most.

I do know more people then ever are applying for disability, the whole program is getting a bum rap. I am not healthy enough to work but I worry about how our employment system is openly discriminating against anyone with any minor health problem, difference or even age. They are discriminating openly. They have no mercy for a short term illness. Have any of you noticed this? It is worsening. To get a decent job, you have to be thin and more and more young. Some with an extreme computer or other skill can do better, but not all people are so blessed. I wasn't.

 I  firmly believe the job system needs a massive rehaul, where "at-will" employment would become a thing of the past and where people would not be thrown away for being over 50, or being a little bit fat, or Aspie, or different. I am seeing too many decent people being thrown into permanent poverty because they are not a lithe shark. Bosses should not be able to destroy lives at a flick of a wrist. I believe that firing someone should only be allowed if they cannot do a job--incompetence, or they are willfully breaking the rules or the company is running out of money or going bankrupt. People should not be forced into poverty because they are "not a good fit" and someone "doesn't like someone" or the office backstabbing reaches a narc zenith.

One thing I have learned more about the healthy enough to work disabled, is there are no more job programs for them save for workplaces usually doing simple factory tasks reserved for the developmentally disabled. There is no more job placement. How on earth did that happen? We found this out exploring options for my husband a few years ago.

They also need to realize Globalism is destroying our country and switch to America First policies. Get this, the other day, I was trying to get an Obama phone because I will need one to safely use the bus, and all the people working for them were in the Philippines, so think about that one, for a second, and how these phone programs get government money but that money is going to people overseas instead of Americans! That one made me want to puke! I told the guy, "Everyone in America needs a welfare phone because all the jobs went to your country! Our economy here is really bad." Hey some of them should know the truth.

No one is living it up on disability. It is barely enough to survive on. If I was not married, I would have to live in a subsidized apartment and even now, we may need to move into one as a married couple eventually.  It makes me sick how they have brainwashed this country to hate the disabled and see them as the go-to guys to scrape back money. Maybe because the disabled are the most vulnerable population with little resources to fight back? Hmm that must be it.

We are low on money this month again. Our shared flu early last month had a lot to do with it, since husband's work got reduced.

 I had to cook a bunch of things from scratch and even yesterday recycled 2 cups of left over cabbage soup that had been made with some smoked turkey necks the day before, for lunch. I saved half of the cabbage and some more turkey necks for another meal.

I added some left over frozen vegetables to the mix to make a new vegetable soup. I can cook anything and made biscuits too. I am craving yogurt, some grape leaves, and a good salad right now. I can't afford any of it now. I will be making chicken and rice as a midday meal, with left over celery, some peas, and onions I got last month from a food pantry. So no one is starving in here....YET.

Very little goes to waste in here.

We will be going to the once a month soup kitchen this one church holds. It's supposed to be warmer so I won't be housebound. I sometimes discuss going to the regular daily soup kitchen but it's in a very dangerous neighborhood. My husband told me a friend who volunteered there warned him it's a very sketchy place but if we got hungry enough, we would have to. We will be going to a food pantry on Saturday morning.

I haven't bought stamps, clothes, a magazine--I read those all used and from magazine bins, or anything one would consider luxurious or frivolous in MONTHS. For clothes I have personally bought,  make that one literally YEARS. I don't celebrate Christmas. All the cards I sent everyone was recycled from old cards. I try to live as frugal as possible. The bills still crush us anyway.

If healthy, I would pack up tomorrow, and go join a non-Agenda 21 intentional community or commune or Christian community but none of these places are scrambling to get a member that would come with a hospital bed, a wheelchair, nebulizer and a walker.  Modern American life to me continues to suck. I feel like I am in the bus station of life with only a few close friends sticking around as people come and go. I don't need to be rich, I can have fun without money but you know, some us just get wore down. I and my husband have even asked ourselves if a decent life could be found overseas, but with my disabilities, joint medical needs and our age, this is less possible. I hate this feeling of being "stuck". It's funny me and him are smart people but can't figure out this making money thing or basic survival. That may be the worse thing about Aspergers in my case.

 One thing in the works via Congress and the evil party this time [good cop, bad cop games] is they want to cut disability by 20%.  Will they cut the bills by 20 percent? I doubt it.

Please don't cut my disability check, I am barely making it now! They always GO after the disabled first, have you noticed that?

If they cut disability our pressures will grow even more intense. I have to pray, that sanity will prevail in one of our most insane institutions called Congress.  Caretaking is a hard enough pressure without poverty added to the menu from his side of things. Today, he has been working for hours on his freelance. We struggle even with shared income. What will happen to the disabled people who live alone!? They may be eating a can of dog food for dinner.

I do have nightmares of one day of being behind a shopping cart, in front of my narcissistic mother's 3,000+ square foot house with her two new cars in the drive way, begging for food or a place to sleep. She loves the Tea Party politicians that yell about the disabled and malign them.

I hope they do not cut disability for the disabled or the elderly.  It would impact my life very negatively.

Inspiration porn and the objectification of disability

Are You Fat Because You Don't Do Enough Housework?

Study links obesity in women to not doing enough house chores 

The obesity study examined what women were doing 50 years ago; managing their homes. 

The New York Times recently came under fire for reporting on a controversial study published in the journal PLoS One, which linked a decline in time spent doing house chores to obesity in women. Because the research focused on house work and females only, women around the country decried it as sexist, tweeting their outrage at the New York Times for publishing the article. 

“WOMEN: You’re fat because you don’t do housework anymore. (Nice double whammy.) #whywasthisevenastudy,” tweeted Sarah B, reported by Yahoo! Shine. But what critics failed to note was the research was a follow-up to a 2011 report on physical activity in the workplace.

I am BAD at housework, so this article made me worry a little bit. I think there are good fat housekeepers as well as bad ones but sadly I fit in the bad category. Some is not my fault, my body can't do some of what is mandated but as you will see cleaning never came easy to me.

The picture above is NOT of my kitchen, but how would you cook in a kitchen like the one above? That would take literally HOURS to clean! I keep my own kitchen counters as bare as possible. Those are probably the barest table-tops in the whole apartment!

My theory about this, the thin people are doing more housework, since it's easier to move at least when it comes to those who are supersized. The tyranny of housework continues for women. I can't imagine life for women with children where life is nothing but housework and cleaning up after them. I and the husband can eat dinner at 10pm at night [yeah I know not recommended] because I put it off, but if you have kids to cook for, that isn't going to fly.

Fortunately I have a husband who does my laundry for me and dishes but there is some care-taking involved in our situation. I do the cooking and to save money do cook things from scratch, like stuffed cabbage with rice and ground turkey, which I plan to make tonight. But I am so terrible at housework. I hate it!  Housework did not come easily to me even when I was smaller and could move, because of the organizational skills involved. Get up and try and clean the sink, realize you are out of sink scrubber! Get up and try to dust the furniture, oh I need a rag and what do I clean it with? Where do I put these things? That question comes up all the time to the point in frustration I have gotten a giant plastic bin, tossed things into it, but then that usually ends up sitting around for a couple weeks until I figure out what to do with everything in it.

There is always more interesting things to do or look at even when I am housebound that range from writing on these blogs to messing around with my stamp collection or reading.  Cleaning is dull, and when you are poor, and live in apartments furnished in garage sale/estate sale a la mode, you are not going to get the shiny results you see on TV, your old stuff may be less dusty, and dirty but it will be still old  when you are through. It makes motivation hard for cleaning, the results just aren't going to be the same.

My husband tells me he doesn't want me to watch Hoarders anymore but I still do. He says I get too weird about how I am going to turn into one, and too antsy about cleaning and housework. Why? I relate to those people. They are bad at cleaning and organizing too like me. I notice a lot of them are overweight, and some seem to have severe illnesses where they can barely move around and I wonder if some just got too sick to clean. Of course that worry is on the back of my mind. During my worse kidney stone week, I would drag myself out of bed to shower, and toss a few dishes in the dishwasher but I was not getting much else done, my husband had to do it all!

 While I can easily throw away and give away things and the thrift store gets to do a pick-up at least twice a year here, it seems one could become a Hoarder easily. I know Hoarders have more going on regarding severe depression and feeling like they have to keep every item due to a mental disorder, but you wonder why is this growing more common?

My saving grace against outright Hoarderdom, is a snippet of germphobia, where I have to wipe down the kitchen in watered down bleach at least every couple weeks imagining the growing germs and bacteria that could take over and an asthmatic oversensitivity to smells. The bleach isn't easy on the breathing either as last week, I cleaned out the bathtub standing above it with a scrubber I got with a rug cleaner pouring some bleach into it and overdid it and made myself cough and wheeze. Cleaning stinks for me because the only things I can handle at all are watered down bleach, dishsoap and murphy's oil soap, everything else makes me wheeze like crazy, the bleach, I have to use in small amounts. Ammonia, that stuff is so horrid, I'd be on the floor. We take out the trash everyday because I can't stand the stink, that means if I throw away some old chicken, it is removed right away.

However while I'm desperate to keep the germs, outraged landlords and health department--[just kidding] at bay, I could see me slipping into a major housework fail. Lack of money does influence having to stick with broken down furniture and not being able to "decorate" the way I'd like to.  Right now only best friends would be allowed in this place. My housecleaning standards do not meet many people's, sometimes I ask how do they do it? Their houses look like museums! Many of these people have more money then me, but I think of the sheer exhaustion involved. One thing, cheap apartment rugs are the bane of my existence, if I could have smooth wood floors to clean instead of this stubborn dirt magnet called an old apt rug, I would be very happy. Please landlords no more crummy cheap apt rugs! People living in apartments even with expensive rents, to stay out of bad neighborhoods, don't have an extra 100 a month to clean the stupid things. My friend's Bissell, which I used over a course of a week--a normal person could have done it in acouple hours, cleaned a lot of the dirt up but the rug is still far from great-looking.

My body often does not want to do it. It tires me out. I am not good at it, even on a good day. The mountain of stuff seems to pile up. I have spent too much of my life in places where there is simply not enough room or places to put anything. Things are better then the single rooms I was forced to live in earlier in life but it's just too little. This apt has no mud room, no storage unit, and while it has a few closets, I have 20 something plastic bins full of art projects, materials, stamp collection stuff, card making supplies, papers, writing, piled up all around here. Add in 3,000 books, that is a low estimate, and you can just imagine what my apartment looks like.  I don't know what to do with it, frankly.

What my bedroom would look like if I never threw anything away since I love to read everything I can get my hands on.What is that dried up scary looking iguana thing, an old pet?

 

Due to the health reasons, I tried to get a home health aide, but being married and already having a husband that does my laundry, errands and trash carry-outs, I am not considered eligible. Yes I've checked. I also had the thought, well I have to try and do as much as I can as well, to keep mobile, but I am SO BAD at it. I find cleaning so mind-numbingly dull. Even as I sit here, I think I have to go shower, and do something about the tub again, and boil rice for dinner later, and clean up some of these dirty clothes and take my pills, and wipe down the counters. Even on my computer table which has one broken off leg which is propped up by more plastic bins of stuff, I look at 3 pill bottles, our digital camera, an Old Harper's magazine, an used up Energizer battery, my diabetes tester, a neglected bottle of glass cleaner, some postcards, a disc a friend sent me and an old jewelry box, along with the computer and it's necessary parts. When I clean I just don't know where to put anything anymore.

I grew up with a mother who kept her house like a museum, you could eat off the floor, everything was put in it's place. This is how my sister and mother live today but their houses look easy to keep clean with smooth polished floors and shelving and cabinets and SPACE for everything. My family growing up lived in 2-4,000 square foot homes, I have 800 square feet to work with and far fewer resources in terms of buying organizational helps and actual cleaning supplies. I also do have relatives who BECAME hoarders, which include two aunts. Both were very poor at the time as well. Both allowed their trailers to become filled with trash. With that kind of family history don't you think I have a reason for some of my worries? So I've seen hoarding first hand and what it does to people's lives and I am determined not have it happen to me, poor or not. I'm one of those type people where stuff sometimes feels more like a burden more then a blessing. What is scary is we sold off a lot of our possessions for years on ebay to make ends meet so I guess things could be worse.

I have read the helpful websites like Flylady, but then what happens if you go bleach and clean the kitchen down, and then end up so exhausted, that's all you get done for the day? You end up in spot clean mode where the WHOLE is never cleaned. Once I hired a housekeeper for 10 dollars an hour, to clean out my bathroom but then I couldnt afford her for more then a few and I probably needed her to work 20 hours to clean this place out the way I wanted it. Call for volunteers? Impossible, I tried. Professional organizers you have to be wealthy to afford. I make myself to do lists and bumble through the best I can, my husband helps too as much as he can inbetween his own work.

I don't want to be the stereoptypical "messy" fat woman, so this stuff drives me crazy. If I won the Lotto, I know I would get rid of everything that was old and this old rug, and would spruce up everything far more. If anyone has any advice, I am welcome to it. Are people fat because they don't do enough housework? I don't think so, all I know is that I am BAD at it!

An Interview with a Friend About Life, Fat, and Supersized People.

INTERVIEW WITH PAM

Pam was a friend of mine now deceased. I miss her very much. She did endure a lot of what I have and at one point was near 700lbs as well. She knew what it was to face severe weight issues into her 60s. She was a very funny, kind and loving woman. We shared many struggles and she was a life line to me for very years. It was a blessing to know her.  I remembered I was interviewing her in future hope of writing about weight, which I obviously did on this blog. :) I still own the tape and transcript typed out back then, and decided I'd share it here. At the time she gave me permission to use this for any writing. I am happy to share her words here. The conversation brings back fond memories for me not for what we went through but that that we were there to support one another. Of course since 2004, some of my views have changed which is the year this interview was done.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: How old are you?

PAM: How old, or how moldy?

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: [laughing] No, how old?

PAM: Old enough to know better, but too young to resist.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP [laughs]: That’s funny. What’s the highest weight you’ve ever been?

PAM: Boy, this is a personal interview – is this gonna be on “20/20”?


FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: No.

PAM: My highest weight was 600-plus in 1980, but they weren’t sure…one doctor said, as far as an actual weight, closer to 700 [pounds], and congestive heart failure, and they’d mainline Lacix – which drew a lot of water off of me in one week’s period of time.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: OK – yeah, you said you got lots of water taken off of you.

PAM: Uh-huh. I didn’t know I had congeestive heart failure. I was 33, at that time.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: OK. OK. And what’s the lowest weight you’ve ever been?

PAM: You mean, birth weight, or adult weight?

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP:  I was two pounds in the womb! I was born weighing 200 pounds [laughs] – that’s what I’d tell people!

PAM: As an adult – I think when I was 19, 18 ½, I was going to a doctor that was giving everybody all these – you know, it was like a diet clinic, and I got down to 123 pounds.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Wow, you’ve been smaller than I ever have…

PAM: Very, very…I was skinny, but I got pregnant, and I gained 60 pounds with the pregnancy…that was with my son, and, after that, I just kept going up. I was at Weight Watchers, and Overeaters Anonymous, to try to – you know, stay around 250 [pounds], because I was selling ads, and you have to make a fairly decent appearance, plus, you’re on the go all the time.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, that makes sense…what have been some of the challenges to you, in terms of being overweight?

PAM: Well, employment, housing – now, because I’m in a wheelchair. I don’t have to be in it all the time, but – getting older, disabilities are harder to deal with, as you age.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s true.

PAM: That’s a big challenge, aging; I’m facing that now – I’ve outlived a lot of people that are in a similar situation, that I knew. I’ve watched people just dwindle down, you know, under a system that’s not too kind. There’s not a lot of help for women in my age group, in the 50s – you know, if you’re disabled, if you don’t have a spouse with a good job, or a family that can help…and a lot of people don’t…or they have ‘em, but they’re not willing to get involved…so that can be quite a challenge to be in this age group, before retirement age.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Kind of like, you fall through the cracks, right?

PAM: Right, and fall through the cracks of what’s happening now…I just read an article about a county out here in rural [state] – the waiting list for people that are of retirement age, that are on Social Security, and not because of disability, but need services because they’re aging…they have medical needs…the waiting lists are getting longer and longer, because of the aging population. So, by the time I get into the next age group, if I live that long, I’ll be just one of those people on the waiting list [laughs] – so, I don’t know what it [the solution] is.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Let me ask this question – what would you say are the special challenges of the supersized, the 200- to 300-pound person? {I consider supersized to be 350lbs and above today}

PAM: That’s supersized?

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, the supersized, the people who are on the upper end of the scale, like me?

PAM: You mean, 200 to 300 pounds?

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, people who aren’t 200 to 300 [pounds]?

PAM: People that have lived at 600, 700, 800 pounds? I don’t weigh that now, but that could happen again in five minutes – you know, once you’ve been that big, you could go back there, because of medical conditions, food-related things, whatever…I’m not real clear on that question. Do that one more time.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: OK. What would you say are the special challenges that the supersized fat people have to deal with…

PAM: That the moderately overweight don’t have to deal with?

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, that the moderately overweight don’t have to deal with. PAM: Well, I mean, like we’ve talked about – personal things, personal hygiene. It’s amazingly hard for moderate overweight people to realize that people, once they get up over 400, 500, 600 pounds, that there are landlords – if they see the person, they’re gonna assume that they’re not gonna pay their rent, that they probably don’t keep their apartments clean, because they’re too big to run a vacuum, or whatever…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s true; they won’t rent to you. {I was refused an apartment once due to weight}

PAM: There’s rental discrimination…there’s people that are supersized, and they keep their apartments immaculate. You know, I’m not supersized – well, I’m borderline supersized – I consider anybody over 200 pounds to be supersized. But, super-super-sized people…it was a struggle to do some of the things thin people take for granted, when they clean, or bathe, or have a bowel movement. You know, we talked about the toilet paper sponges, for the reach, and the bidets, for the overweight – even umbrellas. An umbrella for an average person won’t keep a supersized person dry.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP [laughs]: Yeah, you’re right, I was thinking about that – you’re right, it won’t.

PAM: Yeah, when it rains, and you use a regular umbrella, all it does is bring the rain down on your shoulders, and it drips down on your body.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s true. That’s actually something that frustrated me. I didn’t know anybody else that noticed that.

PAM: There’s all kinds of different things…thank God that people challenged it, and there’s more big people now – there’s money to be made off of us, so the fashion industry opened up, but it still has a long way to go -- there’s things that I need, that I can’t from Roman’s, and Lane Bryant’s. They don’t seem to carry pantyhose, and brassieres, and girdles that’ll fit real big women -- or women, even my size, with the loose skin. I still need a gigantic girdle, if it’s gonna be on me, and support me, but you can’t buy them.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know, they just don’t have them – I had to give up wearing bras long ago. Do you think discrimination against overweight people is getting worse?

PAM: I think, because there’s so many overweight kids and adults – you would think it would be getting better, but I think it’s an unpopular group to be associated with. People, even if they are heavy, or supersized – they may find friends in that weight range, they can relate – but I think the discrimination is still there. You know, if we walked in on an interview, and had degrees, and a thin woman that had the experience, and [only] some degrees, based on appearance, they’d pick the thin one. I mean, it’s been proven.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, they have done studies on that – they have done studies on that, and they’ve definitely have always picked the thin one.

PAM: Well, they did a study, too, with little children – five-year-olds – and they used dolls. One doll was disfigured facially, like a burn patient; the other one was without limbs. I forget the others. You know, there’s different disabilities that can come upon a human being…and then one was just huge, just a big fat doll baby. Of all these disfigured dolls, even though the obese wasn’t burned, or limbless – the one that none of ‘em wanted to be was the obese doll.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Oh, wow…

PAM: They would rather be without arms and legs, facially disfigured, whatever, than to be obese.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Hm – that’s probably because of some of the messages they hear about how bad fat people are, over and over…

PAM: Oh, sure. And then, all this stuff about the restaurants downsizing food portions – I don’t see any of that stuff happening. I don’t know what the answer is.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Actually, it’s not happening – did you know Hardee’s actually released a 1,400-calorie burger?

PAM: Oh, mercy!

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s pretty bad, isn’t it?

PAM: Especially when they’re hyping all this, “Oh, we’re gonna try to help,” you know, especially with the next generation – which I do see some improvement. But there again, there’s gonna have to be more support groups – and God forbid, maybe even the only way that people would ever cut back, if all this stuff is gonna continue to be available, and so many people are insulin resistant from eating this way for so many generations – that it might take, whether it’d be a famine or something, for a couple generations to get back to where they’d have to plant, and harvest. Like the Bible says: “You work by the sweat of your brow.” I mean, people don’t have to do anything!

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know, that’s kind of why we’re all getting messed up…’cause, then, you burned it all off.

PAM: Everybody’s at the TV, or computer…yeah, you see some people jogging, and walking, but – you know, once you get to a certain point – whether it’s just the natural aging process, or you’re obese along with it…I mean, you’re limited how much of that you can do safely.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I actually have the belief that if you don’t exercise enough as a kid, and your life’s sedentary, you never can get to the good part. Does that make sense?

PAM: Yeah. Well, and I think, too, some people are heavy because of illness, even, from birth on – they don’t ever feel well enough to exercise. And there’s the other side, too – the other side of the coin with people – where getting that habit ingrained in your mind [is difficult]. Once you feel better, I think if you can keep with it, maybe get some support, get involved in a sport, or something – if that’s even possible – it’s just not even possible for a segment of this society. They’re not mobile enough to do it. But there’s decent exercises – there’s depression in there, too, people are battling that. A lot of times, obese people are isolated, alone in apartments, where even the most optimistic person – over the long haul, day in and day out – would be wore down.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Well, here’s the thing, too – I almost think, when there were more people around, they were a more closer-knit society. That actually gives you a chance for more movement. Does that make sense? ‘Cause you’re moving around…

PAM: Before the automobile? You know, I mean, it’s not been that long ago, maybe there weren’t even bicycles…I don’t know what the history is on bikes, or things with wheels, but you know – basically speaking, it was the only wealthy that had things like this. Your feet got you there, and maybe somebody might have an old wheel, but I don’t think they really rode ‘em – they used ‘em for farming, or transporting goods.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I think they walked.

PAM: They walked! And women lived and died within a mile of their house – I’ve read that over and over. People were born in a village, and if they maybe went to town once a year, there’d be a homecoming, or something – that was as far as most women went. A lot of ‘em didn’t know how to read, a lot of people didn’t know how to read. Maybe the priest, or the pastor, or a lawyer in town would do all the documents – poor people, especially, just the average man on the street was not that educated.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s true. You’re right. OK, let me ask you a new question…there’s some good stuff. Let me – I was gonna ask you about size acceptance. What do you think of the size acceptance movement?

PAM: Over the last 30 or 40 years, whenever it started – I think it’s probably getting close to 40 now, but…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Wait a minute, just a second, whoops…my microphone fell off, just a minute.

[FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEPstops to get another piece of tape to hold her microphone in place.] [break and off subject conversation]

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I always wonder, though, if both of us worked – all these errands, and crap, and cooking, and stuff –

PAM: Well, what happens if people don’t work on their marriage, and take time for themselves? That’s what it becomes.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know – I don’t know how these people have any time.

PAM: They don’t.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP [laughs]:’Cause, I’ll tell you what, Pam – during the day, paying the bills, making the food, making sure there’s groceries, laundry, all the medical stuff, that takes up enough time, where I’m like: “What if I had a job? We’d never see each other.”

PAM: Yeah, you know, you have to be real mobile to do that, and some people do get way behind. Their kids suffer. A lot of women that are out there working are not making any money, if they’re paying babysitters…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know – I actually think they should be allowed at home. You know what I've said about the two for one deal the corporations got, when one income used to support a family.

PAM: There are ways to have what you need, and still stay home, and be a mom to your kids – and it’s too much, ‘cause it’s the woman that ends up paying ‘em [babysitters, daycare, etc.].

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know. I think feminism screwed us [laughs], I do!

PAM: OK – you take a situation, if a woman can handle all that – of course, if you wanna get yourself into that, a person should be allowed. I don’t think there should be any restrictions set on it. But I just think a lot of women didn’t realize what they were getting into, and once they got into it…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: They can’t get out.

PAM: Yeah, it’s like an addiction – it can be more fun to go to work, than taking care of two- and three-year-olds – preschoolers, you know? It’s hard work. [(337 feet): Discussion turns to difference between modern life, and level of activity in older, agrarian-based society.]

PAM: Today, if you use a towel, then it goes in the laundry, instead of hanging it up, and using it for a week – because it was clean when you use it. Unless it’s like a hand towel…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know – I do too much laundry, ‘cause I always have to wear different clothes – I smell really easily, so I can’t even repeat a wearing of anything.

PAM: They say it’s the foods we eat, and if you take medicine, and have illness, you’ll have a body odor difference, sometimes.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Actually, I believe PCOS makes you stink, especially if it’s uncontrolled. It makes you smell lot. It really does.

PAM: Huh! I don’t perspire, or anything – sometimes, because you’re round yourself… [Of subject conversation PAM says. “Some of these people are so competitive, even if it’s to advance the cause…”

PAM is more enthusiastic about nominating MICHAEL MOORE: “He’s a tub! He’s one of our brothers in fat. I tell you what – that man could help us.” PAM and FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP then briefly talk about merits/demerits of weight loss surgery, before going back to list of interviewees.] PAM [after suggesting Ricki Lake, who’s gotten heavy again:] There are people, believe it or not – I know a couple of ‘em – they’ve finally got a handle on it, finally got some kind of exercise in their life…


FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I think if people have an eating disorder, and just eat too much, and they don’t have the metabolic issues – if they get treatment and are able to quit eating too much, and they exercise, they can get at least some of the weight off. But if it's metabolic it's far far harder.

PAM: Yeah, I think so, but if there’s a lot of medical history – and also, if you get to a certain point where you lose mobility, it’s hard to ever get it back, or keep it.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know. Look at me, with all the breathing problems, and stuff – how am I gonna go burn it all off?

PAM: Yeah, if you don’t move around – I mean, can you imagine how many calories you burn, just walking to get out of your apartment?

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Probably a lot.

PAM: Yeah, you do. My doctor told me, just to be alive – when you’re over a certain amount of weight, the tremendous amount of calories [needed] just to keep this machinery going – the breathing, the digesting of the food, all of it, any movement at all…like, say, when a thin person gets up off of a chair, it’s nothing.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I know – I do move around a lot for someone [my size]. I’ve been told that by people at offices. I’m kind of a fidgety person – like, even now, I got my leg hanging over the end of the bed, going back and forth.

PAM: Yeah, well, you probably have a lot of energy trapped inside of you, you know, where…

"We Who Are Not As Others"

A family member was watching this movie, it is not my usual fare of choice but I watched it curious, about how they showed people in the 1930's with severe disabilities. Some of the movie is sympathetic to their plight such as when one of the Little People affected with dwarfism points out how they are made fun of, and he is made a mockery of, instead of being treated like the man he is.
Boy I could relate to that and said, yes, the world sees you as just your "body", too many times. The smiling mocking grinning faces surrounding him during a few scenes, reminded me of a few times I faced especially as my weight gain came on and I became a "joke" to some wicked people around me.

For us super-fat people there can be those who do mock you and or infantilize you. One thing I always faced was the assumption by the outside world, that I was "slow" and "mentally deficient" based on my body weight. Even in the size acceptance world, those of us who have breached a line are not taken seriously, ignored and dismissed as if we know nothing even though we have lived the most severe form of the condition, that the so called experts and pundits think they know so much about. Marilyn Wann, that comment includes YOU.

The villains in the movie are also shown as hateful and dismissive of those with differences and disabilities. There are horrible things said about those with disabilities, where some of the villains call them "monsters".  This movie was very controversial even at it's time, other parts were very gross and evil, and I would not recommend this movie unless you were watching it for other reasons besides entertainment.

Obviously this being the 1930's, there was less education and people who faced severe differences and disabilities were not treated the same they are today. There was endless abuses and horrors visited upon those facing rare conditions. There was no fat characters in this particular film, the "freaks" ranged from people with no arms or legs, or missing their legs,various forms of dwarfism-Little people, a "bearded-lady",and a "thin man", thrown together for the sake of working for a "circus".

Why do I bring up "Freaks"? I was thinking about what people like this have faced in history, and how many were not taken seriously and their very humanity was denied as shown in this movie. While in the age of TLC shows, and such, there is more acceptance for those who are very different,  and more education, after all Abby and Brittany now work as math teachers,  there does remain a bit of the "side-show" with all this....



 When I had my 400lb plus weight gain within 2 and half years, I know I crossed the status from "normal" status to what could have been considered "freak" status. Today I gather the occasional glimpse and stare, but near 700lbs and since I was still able to walk out in public, the googley eyed stares stay with me to this day. Psychologically all I can tell you is the effect was overwhelming, in my case, things made far harder from the fact I was normal or near normal until my mid-20s. Even trying to explain this to counselors and in other formats, I definitely entered territory, that most normal people could not even understand.

Years ago, even 400lb people were deemed rare enough to be put on the stage, which should tell you something about how we have been fattened up for multiple reasons. The man below was a professional "circus fat man". Today we would see at least 10 near his size in your average mega-store.

[source for pic, warning anti-fat people]

These feelings of being "not physically normal" and realizing I did not fit into the normal web of society in many facets, let to an interest I developed into other people who did not fit the mainstream due to whatever medical malady. In those early years as my body went mad, the emotional hits were as hard as the physical ones, sometimes I do not know how I got through it. Perhaps knowing that others faced even worse and more severe emotional and physical challenges gave me the courage to march on.

While probably 99% of the world brought books like this to GAWK, I bought them to ask, how did these other people handle things? How did they manage to face the world and what could I learn from them? While I of course have personally known those facing everything from severe disfiguring facial maladies to dwarfism, I wanted to especially know what those who dealt with being superfat had to say and what they faced.

In fact most books detailing the lives of "freaks" [an unfortunate title] that, did speak of the lives of the severely overweight. One thing I noticed in these books for the super-fat people who predate the 1970s and 80s, glandular conditions and malfunctioning metabolisms are pointed out as a serious problem for the rare person. Seems to me there was far more wisdom back then at least on that score.

What does it mean to have become one of the world's heaviest people? It definitely does not bring a life that is easy. One common thread I noticed that helped people survive, was finding support within either family or a network of friends or a kind partner. For me I know having my husband stick by my side, helped my life immensely. This is a life where one either forms a strong will, or one doesn't make it.

In days past, many did take to the sideshow circuit, which was a very sad statement of those times.
Thank God, those days are over. There is a reason I put no pictures up on this website of myself because I do not want to be made into a "sideshow" but to have my thoughts held to the forefront.  Very super fat people who do put their pictures online outside of a controlled setting such as a social website with privacy settings are taking a chance of having those photos used for nefarious purposes and by the fat haters of the world.

I am fascinated looking at the pictures of the very fat people of the past, I have even used some of these pictures in a respectful fashion. To me their humanity is what matters, and it is interesting to find a selection of pictures where people actually look like me. I often wonder what their lives were like? Were they loved? Were they treated kindly? Did they live in towns where they were treated with respect? I would move from a place that treated fat people horribly to a very small town where I was treated well by the locals, here where I live now, people are respectful and kind as well too.

Did they have some of the same thoughts, that I have faced? About how they feel so "different", and feeling the effects of never looking like anyone else, feeling so different and out of the mainstream? Was their emotional life like my own? Add a swollen leg, bigger feet and a hearing aid, and the picture below could have been one of me.

Disability rights would bring a end to people being treated like side show "freaks", and education including more knowledge about science and medicine would help those facing a myriad of health conditions, though sadly when it comes to fat people, the old attitudes seem harder to get rid of. 

How many of us now are dismissed and our humanity denied? There definitely needs to be far more understanding out there.

See: "Your Future as a Circus Fat Lady"

South Park and Super Fat People on Scooters

I saw part of this show the other day when channel surfing but did not watch the whole thing. I consider South Park a raunchy show but catching a glance of this show mocking fat people on scooters was troubling. I often have thought about how superfat people are viewed in our culture and the blame and more is always there, as if someone would chose to be in a scooter and fat.

Who would choose not being able to walk? I found this article too commenting on the superfat in scooters:

 DECLINE, DECAY, DENIAL, DELUSION & DESPAIR

"If I wanted to be politically correct, I’d call the fat asses cruising on their “free” rascal scooters, the weight challenged disabled on their powered mobility enhancement vehicles. You know a trend has become a massive scam, when South Park dedicates an entire show to the shame of obesity and the scooter brigade. The majority of the scooter squad jamming up the boardwalk was less than 50 years old. They weren’t disabled. They were just too obese and lazy to wobble down the boardwalk to the next junk food joint. They were certainly in the right place. The Wildwood boardwalk is home to pizza topped with cheese fries, chocolate covered bacon, fried Oreos, funnel cake topped with powdered sugar, and 64 ounce sugar laced lemonade. The place would make Nanny Bloomberg’s head explode." 

This author is right about many aspects of our declining society, but sadly he goes along with the "lazy" fat people meme eating everything in sight. You know the one the diet industrial complex shoves down our throats every minute? Aren't the thin people too eating while on vacation at the board walk? At least he admits given America's obesity rates that something SINISTER is going on, and I left a comment and agreed I know using a scooter myself, only in large grocery stores in my case which provide them since both husband and I are too weak to lift a over 100lb scooter into the back of our van now and cannot afford a lift, that having shows like this only make my life more difficult where judgments abound. If only that "lazy" fat person would walk, people think. When I was even heavier and used my scooter, the scooter meant MORE ACTIVITY then sitting at home but such a thing is lost on most. I also got off my scooter using it to go from POINT A and B, to walk around shorter distances. If I tried to walk in a store the size of Wal-mart, I'd collapse, I could not buy things. At least now I know I could walk slowly from the back and not die, if the scooter broke down which has happened before. I use a walker, in my case making up for vertigo and balance issues that are Meniere's related. It looks like this but wider.  

The sad thing even with this mobility device, one where I still have to walk and burn up all the calories these people think I should be burning, I can see some of these guardians of what is proper snarkily wondering why someone my age is using a device usually used by the advanced geriactric set.

The world already makes fun of those who have to use scooters. Check this site out "Fat People Riding Scooters" Here they especially focus on fat people getting fast food in drive-throughs. Don't they realize most of these people aren't driving and the scooter is serving as their "car"? I would say stay as far as possible from the poison called fast food but why is it a crime for fat person to eat lunch? What about all the thin people eating there?

What do these shows say about fat people? Fat people are presented as lazy blobs who eat everything in sight. To be frank with my readership, there is nothing more frightening then losing the ability to walk. One's heavy body then is source of untold suffering. When I hurt my leg some months ago, my immobility frightened me, after being fat this long, I've learned to take pain dragging myself along. Who would choose being chained to a scooter just to make it across a store? Most places too, are NOT scooter accessible either. The fat people stuck on the scooters, most wish they could walk like the thin people. I walked for fun for miles before my weight gain. I miss it.

Anyhow sad to say TV land just added to the burden of us all.

The Scary Country

Support for GOP debate for letting the uninsured die.

I'll be frank, I am neither Democrat or Republican, the sooner Americans figure out both these parties are betraying this country, the better off we will all be. But it seems the party of 1984 and war with Oceania {cough the Middle East} is at it again, doing more brainwashing to get Americans to embrace letting the poor and uninsured die.

Of course they use the proverbial healthy 30 year old who had the CHOICE for health insurance, here is the facts, MOST people aren't being given a choice, or the spend downs are so high they are basically uninsured. The weasels were masterful with that one.

“Last night we got a disturbing view into the tea party’s extreme right-wing position on healthcare when members of the audience clapped and cheered the idea of letting someone without health insurance die,” Eddie Vale, communications director for the group Protect Your Care said in an e-mail. “Even worse, none of the Republican candidates on stage expressed a word of disapproval as the tea party audience literally clapped for blood. This was a spectacle one would have expected back in the gladiatorial combat of ancient Rome, not at a presidential debate.”

I went years without medical insurance, it did not do me any favors, in my case it was not a choice, none of my jobs offered it. Even with a full-time job later, the spend down was a $1,000 dollars meaning I had to pay the first $1,000 of ANY medical costs so the insurance was nearly useless. In fact one heart problem I now have is due to having my thyroid tests delayed, I still remember the day, a doctor refused me thyroid testing because I did not have the $500.00 up front this was before I found the pro-bono endocrinologist. If these leaders are so successful at getting people to blame the young, down and out and poor instead of those who have greedily outsourced all the jobs and taken billions in bail-outs, that's scary.

America used to be different in that it took care of it's own. It didn't believe in starving urchins in the street anymore. Well it seems to be different. Both sides are working against the little guy. I'll never forget they put ending disability on the table just a couple months ago, and that time it was OBAMA.

"Doesn't Anyone Care"?

"Obama Doesn't Care If The Disabled [Fat or Not] and Old Die in The Gutter"

If anyone is putting their finger in the air, to sniff which way the wind is going in America, it's looking very scary and especially for those with disabilities and health problems. Think they'll care about some 500lb woman? I know what it is like to be sick with no medicine and treatment, those days stayed with me. For those who love these politicians any of them, ask yourself why?, and stop being brainwashed by them!

Cleaning and Hiring A Housekeeper

I'm poor but I have decided to hire someone to help me clean up my apt, and found someone via personal references who has extremely decent rates. I do not need someone weekly and cannot afford that, just someone to do heavy cleaning, I think upgrading my surroundings will help my mood. After all, I am housebound a lot [the next three days, hot and humid weather is keeping me indoors] and want to enjoy life while inside. For me my surroundings ARE important. The water heater leaked all over the place, one day when we were out, and thankfully I live in a place where they do repairs well, and they sent a clean up company to dry up all the water. I've lived in some doozy places before where they would not have cleaned the mess up, so was very relived

One friend said to me, you do not have to beat yourself up, just hire someone to do the deep heavy cleaning and then do some maintenance, and you will feel a lot better, so I am going to do this. Some of us cannot afford nor are eligible for a weekly home health aide. I want to do what I can get done, really I wouldn't have enough for them to do at this present point but we need a deep clean around here. My husband is good at laundry and taking out trash on regular basis, but scrubbing floors, not so much.

I can still vacuum, cook the meals, do the dishes and things like that but I need someone to who can get down on the floor and scrub them, and do baseboards which now are covered in dust, and get this place really actually clean. At least now I can reach my apt trashcan, and went off to hurl a trash bag into it, from cleaning out the fridge. Cleaning is not easy for the very fat, though I try my best. I've gotten help before when it's grown beyond me, trying to clean with when you are allergic to every cleaning product out there outside of watered down bleach, dish soap and Murphy's oil soap isn't easy. At least if I get someone in here, to do a full clean, I won't be doing the asthma attack thing, coughing and wheezing at every strong cleaner smell.

Thankfully my friends understand they know I try my best. The time to work on decluttering my apt is also here, so I do not have it turn into a hoarder's paradise, so will be working on that as well before the big clean out. Always I give stuff away and shopping is not much of a hobby for me, so sometimes I wonder how "stuff" just literally piles up in here. LOL Well I will look forward to getting this place in better shape over all.

From another blog: "Swept Under the Rug of Size Acceptance"

Here is an article from the FatPinkMonkey blog, "Swept Under The Rug of Size Acceptance". She addresses many of the issues I had previously with HAES, which now I am discussing different issues, per this article. One thing right now I am discussing some of these issues with a leader in HAES who I am having a very good discussion with but it continues my theme, that what applies to more moderately fat and functional people may not apply to the super sized. She does point out something I experienced in size acceptance, the fact that when you get "too big" you are seen as NOT belonging. I heard the but "there is a limit" line too.

Feeding into the isolation I felt in such a large body were the comments of "oh, yeah I like big girls, but there IS a limit", "We don't want to hear about the problems of fat people not being able to wipe their a**" ect. It's actually very common! Fat people hate fatter people. If you have ever seen a fat person and thought to yourself, or actually asked someone else, "I'm not THAT fat, am I?" Then you are guilty of this.

One thing I never have talked about on this blog, is that in the world, the people I fear the most ire and judgement from isn't always the thin but the midsized, who sometimes will run from the super sized and ostracize them, fearing that one day they could be us. She is right there are those fat people who do hate fatter people. This isn't everyone of course, but it is really a problem out there.

I have my own beliefs about weight loss surgery, but totally understand why people make this decision, being super sized is very difficult. You become more immobile, you lose semblance of a normal life, people are going to grab on to any rope that has the possibility to save them.

The Betrayal of Christina Corrigan: Thirteen Years Later

I've had a lot of time to think about this case. The year I went on disability [1997] and other health problems from a massive weight gain, is the year this case broke. Fat girl is is found dead on the floor next to some food containers, covered in waste and her mother is arrested and charged with neglect. In size acceptance news, it is the top story for months. It hits me in the gut, because I weigh about the same that VERY year and knew I was dying, and did not know why. For those who are new to this blog, see this entry.

Christina Corrigan was a young girl of thirteen who weighed 680lbs at the time of her death. Her mother later was arrested and charged with child abuse pending accounts that Christina had been found covered in bed sores and in feces. Marlene her mother was later convicted of misdemeanor child abuse.

Marlene took her daughter to doctor after doctor over 90 times, to deal with her mounting weight. Christina weighed over 200lbs by age 7, she was to gain more then 500lbs the next 6 years. In regards to the trial, one fat activist talked about it on CNN:

HULLINGER: Judy, as you sat and watched this trial, why have you come to the conclusion that obesity is the central issue of this?

FREESPIRIT: Because the mother was not neglectful of this child. The child was definitely fat. She definitely had the bed sores that they claim she had. The problem was that the mother was never able to get any help from the medical establishment.

She took the child to the doctor 90 times between the age of birth and eight. All that she ever got was low calorie diets and told to exercise her. She never got any kind of medical help. After you've gone 90 times to the doctor and gotten no help, why go again?

The problem is that we assume that there was something there for her. There may have been, but she wasn't getting it where she was going, and she was a member of an HMO.

The people that failed Christina was not only her mother but the medical establishment, she had been taken to doctors with no help, and only blame. It is interesting to note that her mother received blame to the criminal end, unlike the sympathy a woman would received for a child disabled by another condition. One thing, the claims about the urine and feces are a joke, everyone who dies, loosens their bowels.

The pure neglect of health problems of the severely obese and the myths that surround them grow worse and worse. No normal 13 year old girl would have been able to eat her way up to this weight. It is interesting to note that this girl up to age 3 was on a medication known for weight gain for the treatment of grand mal seizures that can bring in pituitary involvement. My conjecture today is either this medicine affected Christina's metabolism or Christina had undiagnosed Prader Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects hunger and metabolism and can lead to severe weight gains in children. It is obvious too, that Christina Corrigan lacking mobility and worse, her mother was struggling to care for her.

Cardoza, the lawyer in the case admitted that medical problems not mere overeating probably contributed to Christina's weight. Her former doctor as Cardoza attested on a talk show I watched {Leeza}, said "Lady, there's nothing wrong with your kid, quit feeding her."
Sadly Christina's doctor blamed a genetic predisposition to gain weight, overeating and lack of exercise. He did some basic tests but ended it after that. His prejudices leading to bad science and what happened to this girl: Lowest common denominator medicine with a giant dash of laziness included! Even a sane person would ask..."What could a thirteen year old eat to weight 700lbs, and would a normal thirteen year old even have that type of appetite? The answer to these questions are in the negative, but when it comes to fat people, hatred overrides common sense.

Marlene attested to going to doctor after to doctor until giving up. If she is guilty of anything perhaps that is it, but the doctors are just as guilty then.

What gets me, is if the doctors didn't play the game of moral judgements of refusing to find a cause of obesity based on prejudice and the claims of immoral behavior and gluttony, what is ironic is at least some supersized people if treated with the correct medical insight could avoid the special challenges of being super sized to begin with.

Christina Corrigan for her weight alone was denied access to a normal education. From the facts of the case, one could deduce, that money was tight in the household. Her school which was placed at the top of a hill required students to walk up several flights of stairs, that Christina was incapable of surmounting. [Wonder how many disabled or older folks, can't go up them either?] NO special education or other arrangements were made. She dropped out and had to be home-tutored.

The possibility of Prader-Willi syndrome was immense. I found it odd, how no samples had been saved at her so called autopsy to do a DNA test. In Prader-Willi syndrome there is high tolerance to pain and often times skin-picking which could have accounted for all the bedsores all over Christina. The defense also pursued the avenue of brain damage from her treatment with Phenobarbital.

Only a cursory examination was done at the autopsy of Christina. The coronor looked no further then for outward visual clues denying the opportunity to find out the actual malady that affected Christina. No samples of her tissue were taken.

Christina was treated in life as she had been in death. After failing to find the reason for her extreme weight, her main pediatrician referred her to a nutritionist. Cardoza, the attorney said Dr. Ray should have realized something more needed to be done after she saw Christina's weight ballooning for six years. "My God!", he said outside the courtroom, "If that wasn't a pattern, what is a pattern?"
While her mother perhaps failed her in some ways , many other people were just as culpable, the school in failing to provide an accessible school or classroom, social services for not providing home health care, the nutritionist in not realizing this was a problem that no diet counseling in the world could solve,the doctors in not adequately diagnosing the disorder or providing other case management or help.

Today I ask, has anything changed? Are there going to be new Christina Corrigan's? Will a new young woman watch the weight go up up up, only to be blamed and vilified and not believed? The sad thing I think is probably so.

Update to this article: 2018. I was diagnosed with Lipedema stage IV in 2014, so I was correct that something more was wrong, when I started this blog in searching for what my true medical issues were. I survived the fat bigotry, just barely, Christine did not.

Younger Disabled People Ending Up in Nursing Homes

A New Nursing Home Population: The Young It's cheaper to keep someone at home with aides, but now the trend has been to institutionalize people in nursing homes. This articles says a full 14% are ending up in nursing homes. With so many cuts being made to programs that help the disabled [while they still pour trillions into useless Middle Eastern wars], many people are finding making it on their own to harder and harder. It's not just the wheelchair bound but those struggling with severe obesity too. I had a close friend, who ended up in the nursing home, so I know what those places are like, especially if you are poor and destitute, it is not a pretty picture. The wealthy can afford apartments where the nurses and aides come in--assisted living, but the poor end up in an 8x10 room with a roommate included. My friend told me, that much of the population of her nursing home were younger severely obese people who could not take care of themselves out in the world. The nursing home associations themselves are discussing this issue. The disability advocacy organizations are warning about the new trend towards shoving people into nursing homes, some young people given the right supports are able to live independently. Every severely obese person does worry about the nursing home, one broken leg, any condition that precludes walking, the nursing home can be a fate worse then prison. If I was not married, I could easily be in a nursing home right now and two years ago, I was in even poorer health. It is a somewhat frightening thought. Some of the homes are run nicer then others, the small town non-profit ones are usually nicer then ones ran as holding tanks for some corporation to make money.