…and then there’s the thoughts they say outloud. Do you ever just get tired of all of it? I am so tired of it.
Yesterday, hubby and I were invited to see some friends. In the time I last saw these people, I gained weight. It’s obvious. I was a little tired, so hubby went alone. I’m an early -to-bed person anyway and by the time he was leaving it was already very near my bedtime. But, the truth is that I was tired, but had I not on top of that tiredness not wanted to deal with other people’s reactions to my weight, I would’ve went. It’s that simple.
I consider myself good (sometimes painfully so) at reading other people’s faces, body language and such. I’m tired of the stolen looks, because someone wants to confirm just how much my body has changed. I’m tired of the “what happened?” questions that assume some tragedy must’ve taken place for me to have gained two sizes worth of weight. I’m tired of the advice that I DIDN’T EVEN ASK FOR. I don’t need you to tell me to exercise and eat right. *headdesk* In this culture, seriously – how could ANYONE forget that mantra of weight loss. Nevermind that there are lots of people who eat healthily and moderately and stay active and yet still manage to be fat. Nevermind that I spent years starving myself and my metabolism has issues. Nevermind the anti-depressants that are famous for causing changes in weight.
I spent a significant amount of time yesterday wondering if it is somehow wrong for me to stay home, simply cuz I don’t want to deal with the weight reactions, the unwanted advice, the weight talk and whatever. The answer became clearer, when I asked myself what advice I’d give to someone else in the same situation. Yeah, it’s perfectly okay. I’m not advocating for some kind of hermitish extreme – just the occassional staying home, cuz I don’t always have the mental and emotional energy to deal with it.
Then I think… this sucks! We need more fat people out there joyfully living life, so that people get USED to seeing us out there so that we’re not such anomalies when we leave the house being fat or having gained some weight or whatever it is that garners unwanted attention from friends and family. It sucks that there is one more obstacle (and in my case a very painful and tiring one) to us getting out and living life. Agh… it makes me so mad.
I’m an introvert anyway without putting this obstacle in my path. Even as a fairly thin person, being around people was very tiring for me. I feel overwhelmed by what I see underneath the surface of what people portray. I see their insecurities, their frustrations, their smugness, their judgements… I see good things too, but it’s not the good things that tire me. My therapist says I am very perceptive at reading body language, tone of voice, etc. Sure, it comes in handy sometimes, but a lot of the time it is just a barrage of information I don’t want or need. I’ve never learned to shut it off. I suppose it could be somehow possible to shut it off in some way other than sleep. Sleep is the only solution I have at the moment, as I’m not a fan of getting buzzed. Who am I kidding? Hah. I have to get plastered to become that dulled. With a buzz, I am as perceptive as ever… just less inhibited about telling other people what I think is going on behind their eyes. Some of my close friends in high school told me that they were sure I was somehow magical. It was never magic. I’ve just spent an inordinate amount of time in my life observing people and learning to read them. I’m sure being raised by a psychologist didn’t hurt either.
It just sucks that I wanted to see these friends and I didn’t go. I’ve been thinking about visiting them for weeks now. If it had been earlier in the day when we were invited, I would’ve had more energy to deal with all that I notice and I would’ve went. While it is nice to know that I am not a total hermit and that I can tolerate interactions with people in lots of settings, I am also angry and sad that I missed out on last night and I wonder how many other things I have missed out on due to just not wanting to deal with the looks, the unwanted advice and all those nasty bits.
Sorting through these thoughts and feelings makes me want to take advantage of the energy I do have and the periods of time I am able to get out there and have fun without feeling overwhelmed by the behavior, thoughts and feelings of others. A few ideas about how, when and where to get out and do stuff have occurred to me now that I have faced the mental block of the vague thought of “agh… I don’t even want to deal with it… meh.”
I also think that practicing some compassion in some new ways might help me as well. Like… of course these people have auto-thoughts about my weigh and weight gain. We all live in the US and we’re all drowned with weight and fat hype every day in a million different ways. Heck, I have automatic thoughts all the time. I just challenge them so that they cannot take root. Maybe feeling some compassion for these folks rather than just getting annoyed would be more helpful… 😀 Yes, I think so. I think I’ll spend some time practicing this today in visualization. I’ve found that if I visualize a certain situation and then imagine in great detail what it would be like to react differently that it can help a lot in changing my reactions. Any one else ever do that?
Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Challenges?
–AngryGrayRainbows
Angry Gray Rainbows 
All I can say is that I identify with the not wanting to face the public, but I also realize that if more fat people in public is the answer going out would be good. But, right now I’m traveling and there I days I just don’t have the energy to deal with the looks. But, when I do go out it’s usually great, so…
I would just say to keep the teaspoon thing in mind. We can choose our battles and pick those times to take on challenges and those times to stay in and give ourselves a rest, and that’s not a bad thing at all!
The other thing I’d say is that we all (even those who are good readers of body language) do a fair amount of paranoid mind-reading, which is to say that most people are so wrapped up in themselves that when they look at us and think, “Wow–she’s gotten fat,” if they’re our friends, they tend *not* to jump to thoughts about loving us less, but rather to their own bodies and insecurities. And y’know, we can’t help that.
So often, I remind myself that most women (if not all women) are just horribly insecure about their bodies, and so if I stand my ground on acceptance, it’s not even always about me or how I feel about my body, but about doing something for them–and reminding my friends that they are more than the sum of *their* parts (no matter how they feel about them).
I don’t think I have a lot of self conscious body shame, so I have no problem going out in public as a fat woman — even wearing clothes that draw attention to me. I did that this weekend — I wore a traditional slavic style outfit to a big celebration festival. I was the only non-dancing attendee wearing such an outfit — people looked at me all day. Did they have “OMG she is FAT!” thoughts? Probably. But that is their problem not mine. Don’t think I don’t have moments of wishing I wasn’t fat — I do. But most of the time, I just get on being myself. But, I also have times where I just don’t feel like dealing with people. I don’t even want to answer the phone. And i think that is okay, too. If you don’t have the “spoons” today — don’t hassle yourself over it. You’ll enjoy yourself more if you go with spoons to spare.
I’ve recently lost some weight due to stress and not being able to afford a lot of groceries. I’ve had so many of my friends say things like “OMG! You look so great, you must have lost like 30 or 40 lbs!” (my guess is around 10-15) “How did you do it?” When I tell them it’s because of stress, they say “Wow, I wish that happened when I get stressed! Whenever I get stressed out, I just eat a lot!” The thing is, no matter how much or how how little I eat, when I’m going through something extremely stressful and/or traumatic, weight just falls off of me. When I’m no longer stressed, the weight comes back on.
I get a bit frustrated because stress related weight loss sucks and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But at the same time, I feel bad for them because they’d be willing to live under extreme amounts of stress just to loose weight. I know this deals with the opposite end of what you’re experiencing, but I can kind of relate. It makes me self conscious of what I’m going to wear, if my outfit will make my weight loss more noticable. I just get frustrated when people, even well meaning friends, make comments about my weight fluctuations, so I do what I can to avoid it.
I often have these thoughts, about my weight and about other things. When I do, I try to remember the one good thing I got about being dragged to 12-step programs through my teenage years:
Their opinion of me is none of my business.
I overheard a friend of my mother’s telling a story about saying this to his ex at a party once, and it has stayed with me for the last 15-odd years; I can’t recommend saying it to anyone except in dire straits–I said it once to a very abusive customer at a store where I worked, and he didn’t talk to me for 6 months–but I’ve found it a very useful sentiment to carry around with me.
I had a bad day when I wrote this post, so it’s taken me a little while to get back to it. My bad day had nothing to do with this post. 😉 I just one some level decided to forget that day… which also somehow included forgetting this post. Hah.
I’ve been chewing on the idea that defiantcreatrix offered about other people’s opinions being none of my business. I like that idea. It still allows room for me to own my own needs, reactions, feelings and thoughts… but it helps me let go of what I see (or only just think I see even) in others.
I also got to remembering why reading people is a skill that I developed. Beyond the obvious that I was raised by a psychologist who had a favorite hobby of reading people then telling me how he did it and what he saw and why and all that…. I grew up in a sickeningly abusive home. Psychologist my step-father might have been, but he was also a complete whack-job. My mother was just as bad (and sometimes worse) in her own ways. My family didn’t talk… they yelled. Nothing was said about a problem until someone was in my face screaming and threatening to throw me out on the street for being too much like my biological father (who I didn’t even know back then!). I tried very hard to learn to read people so I could learn to anticipate my nutty parents. My parents seemed to enjoy becoming more and more unpredictable… they just became more random the more I learned. It was like they wanted to stay one step ahead of me. But, while I couldn’t always predict my parents’ behavior well, I did learn to predict the behavior of other people pretty darn well.
So technically… I can’t read peoples’ minds. I just seem to have a well developed knack for predicting what their behavior will be. People have told me before that my “insight” into what they thought was wrong… but I was right about what they did. This makes sense… I can’t read minds… I can only observe people and then see what they do…
I know the looks I get before being talked to about my weight loss or gain. I know very well that certain people I know base a lot of judgement on weight. Part of my decision not to go out was because the husband of the couple seems to be a little bit weight judgy. He’s not a troll. He’s not a jerk. But… I just didn’t want even a .0001% risk that day of hearing something about my weight or fat in general.
It is good to be reminded that most people just aren’t thinking of me. 😉 I hold that idea close to my heart when I feel the world is pointing it’s billions of fingers at me. Again, I have my own reasons for getting stuck in that way of thinking as well. Part of the child abuse was being isolated at home with two parents obsessed with messing with my head. I spent most of my life dealing with people who were obsessed with me as a screwed up way to avoid their own issues. Sometimes that old thinking comes back… Ah well… ya live you learn!
Thanks to all for your comments!!!