I often wonder what I look like to other people. How they perceive me. My physical and emotional changes. My struggle with me and those changes.
I asked a bunch of friends to complete this on-line quiz about me. Unscientific. Filtered.
I got an email from a work aquaintance who wrote: I honestly see you as being this "cool chick" at work. You're fun, trendy and always look cute, cool and confident. I know I started working at XXXXXX about the time of your surgery, and while I vaguely remember "the other you", it's weird to think about you as that person. So I know we've only barely gotten to know one another while I've been at XXXXXX, but I feel so happy and proud of you. I know that sounds silly, but I am. I look forward to following your blog and honestly getting to know you better. That totally made my day. Surprised and pleased me. Intrigued me.
My partner tells me she's proud of me and what I've achieved. She tells me I'm hot. I know she believes it and sees it in me. My mom tells me, too, that she's proud of me. She celebrates this change.
But I've never, until this morning, thought about how my struggles with eating, weight and self-acceptance--the struggle part, not the triumph part--have really affected people around me. What got me thinking was when I stumbled across this blog written by a man whose wife is fighting an eating disorder.
Did I cause angst with my binging, gorging, stuffing, hiding, denying, obsession? Were people struggling alongside me and I didn't know it? Was I so self-absorbed that I only thought I was alone...or was I? (I know for a fact that I wasn't really all alone. Point in case: my friend WW. But with her own issues, and recollections of the times that we just couldn't "be together" emotionally or physically because of our separate eating disorders, I also know that I was alone.)
Did anyone--other than WW--see that what I was dealing with...am dealing with...is an eating disorder? And how did that make them feel?
I don't know if I'm ready to ask that question of my friends and family and then be strong enough to hear the answer. Because if my eating affected them negatively, then it would be impossible for me to deny that I am/was/may-always-be disordered in my eating and thinking. And if it didn't phase them...would that mean that I'm totally superficial and self-absorbed and simply looking for an excuse for why I was a lazy, flat slob for 38 years of my life?
I don't know which would be worse. I need validation. I don't much find it within myself and I often hunger for it from other people. What would be preferable? "You fucked up my life with your screwy-assed eating and self-destructive behavior"..."Hey, I hardly noticed your screwy-assed eating and self-destructive behavaior."
After reading that blog, I also can't help but wonder how much I'm like an anorexic person or morbidly obese person. A binger, bulimic. I just happen to be in what a lot of people consider a normal body for an American woman. Maybe we're all trapped.
Having had RNY weight loss surgery, acted on the obesity, stuck to a diet (or tried to) for a couple years, it seems like I've been healing. Or have I? Am I simply following the motions? Have I achieved real, permanent, INTERNAL change? And how the hell will I ever know? Will I ever stop asking these questions? Stop writing this blog?
Am I trying to feed my ego when I should be feeding my soul...and in the process over-feeding or under-feeding a body ravaged by the cross-fire of the two? And does anyone but me really give a shit about this drama I call and I claim for my life?
I CHOOSE
...to love myself.
...to treat myself gently, with patience and respect.
...to accept responsibility for every aspect of my life.
...to be present, awake, aware.
...to be open to possibility.
...to leap with the intention of landing.
...to do amazing things.
...to treat myself gently, with patience and respect.
...to accept responsibility for every aspect of my life.
...to be present, awake, aware.
...to be open to possibility.
...to leap with the intention of landing.
...to do amazing things.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
The same. But different. But exactly the same.
Posted by JUST JEN at 5:20 AM
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6 comments:
I can really identify with this post. I'm still pre-op, but I have been dealing with my eating disorder issues as I've tried to begin losing weight before surgery. It's strange... the more weight I lose, the more obsessive I become about losing weight, and the more I see my old disordered behaviors creeping up. I went to my first counseling appointment last Friday, but the outcome was simply: we can't help you, your issue is too complex for our session limit.
Oh well, I guess I'll do what most people have done... deal with the physical first, the emotional later.
I wish you the best as you sort through this issue!
I think people do care, and that's what's so great about your blog. Not everyone can express themselves so openly and honestly. You help say things that other people wish they could say. Or you help say things that make people realize, "Wow...I am so glad I'm not the only one."
In my opinion, everyone has some kind of crazy behavior.
For example, you have bizarre moms who latch on to their children's lives and try to relive the glory through them.
Then there are people with social issues.
You even have extremes like a person who gets to be obsessed with exercise, running, bodybuilding, etc.
Finally, my favorite example...people who are extreme in their "love life," which dozens of episodes of CSI has shown. (Do you remember the weird one with the people who only "interacted" in costume.)
So blog on girl!
:)
The fact that you ask these questions and are willing to seek the answers for the truth is proof of how you've changed. It proves you're willing to take up the challenge of change. You've tested yourself mightily in the past couple of years and you keep coming back to take another step. I know you will keep going because I don't think you'll stop asking yourself the tough questions and looking for the answers.
Dagny
I don't have anything fancy to add, except, I understood every inch of this post. *sigh*
Meghan, I think they handed you a line of bullshit about not being able to deal with your issue because of a session limit. I didn't want to spend years in therapy for what I knew could take years to deal with, so I went for ways to deal with the here and now. Ways to cope with the changes I was going through without eating my way through them too. Believe me, it's better to do as much headwork in advance as possible. Because once you're post-op, the changes slap you up alongside the head and send you spinning before you know it.
"Why isn't there awareness about it like anorexia?"
Because it's easier for the multitudes of people in this society to point their fingers and think that someone being obese is less a result of disordered eating, and more about gluttony and laziness.
I have been heavy, and I have been average size, and in my experience, I have been treated MUCH more kindly as an average size person.
Additionally, despite the fact that obesity is a very serious condition, and is life threatening to many, I think people are just so wrapped up in someone's physical appearance that they don't see past the facade to the real pain that caused many to get there.
Just my $.02.
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