How I Feel About My Weight (homework)
It is always there, I cannot escape it, I cannot avoid it, I cannot hide it. I have on a suit that weighs as much as my husband. It has no zipper. I know there’s a way out of it but I can’t see it, or I can’t reach it.
It slows me down. It keeps me from doing things I’d like to do. Yes, sometimes it’s a convenient excuse but most of the time it’s annoying. I want to learn to scuba dive, but I won’t be able to rent gear in my size, so every time I go I’ll have to bring all my own gear, and if I lose weight that will be money lost.
And it would be its own trap, “I just spent all this money on gear and if I lose weight it won’t fit anymore.”
People look at me when I go out in public. I know others reassure me and say it isn’t so, but I look at people so I know others are looking at me. Children say rude things to me and their parents don’t apologize or correct them.
Doctors blame things on my weight. When I fell down (there was a hole in the parking lot), the doctor said, “If you weren’t so fat you wouldn’t have fallen down.”
But on the other hand, I am clearly not fat enough to get the bariatic surgery, or I wouldn’t be going through all this bullshit with the shrink.
I hate going into new restaurants and looking to see if I will fit in the booths or if they have chairs and tables instead. I hate taking the long way in the parking lot because I might not fit between the parked cars. I hate it when I have to ask my husband to move the car because I can’t get out/in because the other car is too close.
I hate having to be obsessed with food. I can’t just eat, oh no, because mindless eating is bad. So instead I focus on eating, pay attention to it. Is that really where I want my intention to be? It’s a mixed message.
I feel like I’m living in a hole, which isn’t in the ground, but is buried in adipose tissue. I can’t climb out. I am too tired and too weak. I can only exert myself for a few minutes at a time and that doesn’t seem to increase. I met a person online who is “so fat” (needs to lose 25 lbs) and she couldn’t understand when I said “I can’t exercise” –yeah I can walk to the end of the street and back and then I
practically have to take a nap. Other people around me mean well but they just don’t get it. They offer to walk with me, not understanding that it takes longer to put on shoes and mittens and get ready to walk than it does for me to get tired and have to turn around. A yoga instructor I know says she can modify postures for any level of fitness.
Does she not understand that there’s some ways an overweight body cannot bend? When I bend over, I am stopped by the extra flesh around my waist and hips from bending anymore. It’s in the way. There are places I can’t reach. My body is shaped differently. Because my butt sticks out so far, I can’t lay flat on my back. My spine is forced into an unnatural curve which causes low-level lower back pain (2-3 on a scale of 1-10) and any pain slows me down and impedes me even more. Because my stomach & breasts are so large, I can’t lay flat on my belly either. My poor spine is forced into an even bigger arc. And of course, if you lay on your right side after eating, you get acid reflux—if you lay on your left side the acid
can’t drain back into your esophagus. But if you’re overweight, lying on your left side puts pressure on your heart—all that body weight pressing down on it. So I can’t lie on my front, back or either side. I roll from one posture to another, waking up every time, trying to maximize sleep time and minimize pain.
I’m not sure this sums up how I feel about my weight. I feel constrained. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. I don’t want it around. I want to be free.
I want to be able to move and breathe freely. I feel punished and smothered and unhappy.