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*Trigger warning/this may offend but I need to write this down, I just have to before I lash out at someone. Please stop reading if you're easily offended*
I get all of my motivation from negative experiences. This isn't a weightloss journey, it's a weighloss battle.
It struck me today, I never quite realised until I picked up my lunch and put it back down because a particular event flashed in my mind. It is really sad, my weightloss journey is mainly (somewhat) successful because of negative experiences that have affected me enough to not want to over-eat. It's not even about the accomplishment of having been able to break through a barrier, or learn to have a more healthy view of food and exercise, it's nothing to do with that at all, although I trick myself into believing it is.
It is because I want to be accepted. At my heaviest I was FAT, and I didn't feel like I deserved to fit into society, a society that rams 'thin is beautiful' and 'thin is happiness' down my throat every single day. I have never been "thin", I've always been a chubby child and drift between being chubby and obese (and everything in between)as an adult. I have bene on a constant 'diet' from the age of 13, when my (recovered anorexic/bulimic) mother decided it was time I tried weight watchers. From the age of 13 I have been obsessed with my body and food, because other people told me I should be.
I didn't eat my lunch today and I'm too angry to even look at it. The reason? Because I'm going out for a birthday party next weekend which is being held in what WAS my favourite nughtclub. WAS my favourite up until that glorious night, a month ago. That night where I was with my friends, minding my own business, weighing in at 165lbs and feeling ok with myself and the way I looked. I noticed a complete stranger nodding at me over a crowd of people, he signalled to his friend that he was making his way over, at which point he could only see my face over the sea of people on the dancefloor. He got to about 10ft away from me and looked me up and down and mouthed to his friend across the room "no, no, she's a no go, she's fat" and walked back. I have made every single excuse under the sun to never go back to that nightclub again because I can feel the SHAME the moment I even think about walking in there.
Every single time someone offers me a chip, or cookie, that exact moment flashes up in my mind and I say no. Chips and cookies mean that a complete stranger may walk up to me in the street and make a comment about my weight. Like that was the first incident, it was one of many that I have been subjected to in my life.
This is where the majority of people get it wrong. Unless you have been overweight and have felt the shame that comes with strangers looking at you because oh look, you're eating again, as if overweight people don't NEED to eat just like slim people need to feed themselves in order to survive, you will not understand. Until a stranger walks up to you and makes you feel like you are not even worthy of a 'hello' because of the way you look, until your mother tells you that you "probably should start eating diet meals" at the age of 13, until you are too angry to even look at the perfectly healthy lunch you made for yourself because calories make you unappealing to the eye, then no, you don't understand. I know thin people feel the same, I know they get it just as bad, but I can't relate because all I know is how being overweight feels.
This is not a journey, it isn't at all. This is a battle, a battle I have with myself every single day where I have to weigh up the pros and cons of eating a cookie because hell, I feel like one. But no wait, I'm going to have to not eat something later on in the day to make up for it, so maybe it's not worth eating the cookie at all..actually, I wonder what the person behind the counter will think of me when I go to pay for the cookie..in fact, I have that birthday party to go to, if I have this cookie I may put on a pound and give someone a perfectly good reason to walk up to my face and tell me I am fat. Do you know what, I don't even want the cookie. THIS. This is what my "weightloss journey" has been about, I'm not even proud of my accomplishments nor do I get excited when I lose a pound, because I should never have been this size anyway. What am I celebrating? The fact I managed to eat my way to being overweight and I'm now trying to rectify the mess I have made?
I'm so so tired of everyone thinking they can judge me because of the way that I look now, or have looked in the past, or because I feel like eating a cookie. I'm a good person, I'm smart, there are many things I can do but why does it feel like none of that counts for anything? Why do I feel like there are things I'm not good enough for, like wearing my tank top to the gym rather than a t-shirt because it clings to my body more? Oh no, I'll be able to do that when I'm thin. Or go to that nightclub? I will be much happier doing that once I'm thin. Or find "the one", wait, I'm sure that will happen once I'm thin. I feel like my life has been on hold for years, because I'm waiting to live my life "once I'm thin". What if I never become thin? I've never been thin, in my entire life, what if I just never make it? What then? But wait, it's okay, I was way too angry to eat so I skipped lunch, I'm on my way to being "thin". I'm not even hungry anymore. There's my accomplishment for today, a journey fuelled by negative experiences and a lifetime of shame, on my way to this 'thin fantasy' I have created for myself and all the lovely happy things I will be allowed to do once I am thin.
Thank you, society and human kind for making me believe I will not be happy until I see 125lbs on the scales, thank you for making me believe I am not worthy of happiness or love because of the way that I look, thank you for making me feel like my 36lb weight loss so far means absolutely nothing, because I am still in the 'overweight' category. Thank you for making me put that cookie down because I fear the shame that comes when people see me eat it. Thank you for making this 'weightloss journey' possible, I wouldn't have accomplished anything if shame and ridicule hadn't pushed me to this point.
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