Repost!!!! Do you have a payoff for staying fat????

From below...I loved Sherrie's point about how she did not feel she deserved to be thin!

Here's what it made me think about for me:  " I know now that being fat did have a payoff...sexual protection on one level, and truly some kind of punishment for really bad decisions that I harbored shame over. Now, when those feelings of shame creep in (when I am aware of them), I nurture that person i WAS - I am not that person any longer...at the time, I did the best I could, or knew to do.  It's time to forgive!"

Do you guys know WHY you migh tbe choosing to stay where you are at?

Yanno, Mighty Bike Woman, I never did experience any of these feelings...maybe because my obesity was caused by PCOS.  What I thought was that I didn't deserve to be obese!  I fought it tooth and nail.

So answer me this, how does one feel like they don't deserve to be thin.  This one goes over my head.

Mary

and Mary, sure, not all fat peeps have a pyschological reason! I think your input was very valuable here for that.

I'm not sure I don't feel like I don't deserve it (whoa, too many double negatives to cancel each other out there). I do think there was a reason for the self abuse, i guess, to choose negative behavior that was going to kill me. In my case, food was, is my demon.

Mary, I recently had an epiphany where I discovered that by staying fat, I ran no risk of people thinking I am perfect. It goes back to parental/familial expectations of me (I was "the perfect one"), stuff that I am still working on as a 40-year old. Add to that fact that I have always been tall and "big boned", and it resulted in not knowing/not caring what size I was. That is how it happens. My intro/bio has more info about some of the psychological issues surrounding how I became fat. I never set out to do it, but it was easy to stay there once I got there. It allowed me to hide.

I find that very interesting that your family thought you were perfect and you set out to prove them wrong.

Perfection is a pretty hard expectation to live up to even for an adult, much less a young person.  I personally thought your plan to get that expectation off of your back was brilliant!

Too bad you weren't old enough to realize the cost of eventually getting the weight off and the eating patterns that you developed would become a lifelong battle.  But now that you've had your epiphany, I pray that you can use that knowledge to let the weight go.  Shouldn't be too hard for someone who has to PRETEND not to be perfect!  

Mary 

Wow... Neec...... deep, man....  lemme tell ya...

My eldest sister used to tell me that I remained fat in order to push men away (which made no sense to me at the time...still doesn't).. and at the time I weighed no more than about 180 and my baby was only a year old and I was happy in my marriage (so I wasn't interested in running around after men anyway).  My sister would tell me that being unattractive gave me an excuse to close myself off from others... to never step out and to use it as a reason why I didn't need confidence..after all, if I'm fat and unattractive, I have no reason to be confident and no right to want it.  Does that make sense?

I do not want to be fat....   I want to be thin so badly that it's all I can think about and my size defines my very existence.  I don't feel any benefit to being big... all I feel is ugliness.  I would like to think my complacency in taking care of myself has been some sort of rebellion against my mother always making me feel like nothing I did was good enough...... so I caused her the ultimate embarassment by making myself the epitomy of what she considered disgusting.  Who knows?  It's funny though.... I didn't start losing weight until after she died.

What the hell am I paying a shrink for when we have YOU!!!

OMG, Lori....I just posted my reply to Mary and read yours....OMG!!  Sent chills down my spine.  How can we do this to ourselves just to spite our mothers?  I guess I feel a little less weird knowing there's someone else who feels the same way I do....thank you for making me feel less like a freak!!

Or maybe that makes us both freaks....LOL

I don't think "freak" is the word... maybe "enlightened" is  more like it.

Everytime I lost some weight my mother would say "you're losing that bigness in your face".   So what did I do... make my "bigness" come back.

She always talked about how big I was... and to be honest, at the time (size 8 and 10 and 12) I don't think I was all that big, but to her (a size 3) I was HUGE.  She always reminded me that I took after my father's side.. my grandmother being morbidly obese.  Me, at a size 9, was being compared to a 350 lb woman... and THAT'S how my mother saw me but that wasn't the whole deal.  I never made enough money, my hair was never done to her satisfaction, my friends were worthless (even though she never even wanted to ever meet them).  It goes on and on and on.  Even though we lived (at one time there were 8 of us) in a  3 room apartment, the house my husband had when I married him (6 bedrooms) wasn't big enough.  Even though he was good to her she still considered him her enemy and many times made me choose sides between him and her. 

I don't think we realize just how great an effect our parents have on us.. not just as children, but our entire lives!  Sometimes I swore she just hated me... and yanno.. that could be true.  Although she loved my brother even though he weighed over 500 lbs.. and proved it by altering his clothes and shopping for him and doing things for him, she showed nothing but disgust for me by the time I hit a size 14.

Sometimes no matter what we do we're just never good enough and people like me, who just HAVE to be the opposite of what someone wants me to be end up hurting ourselves in our rebellion.

No.. I'm not a freak.. I won't take on that label as well as all of the others....    I can't be that far off the mark - as I said, I didn't START losing weight and STOP getting high until she died!  Wild, huh?

You're right....freak was the wrong choice of words....wasn't insinuating you were a "freak".

I too, was never morbidly obese growing up....maybe at my highest about a size 16 when I graduated from high school.  I had a steady boyfriend and went to the proms and looking back at those pictures, would LOVE to look like that again.  I did gain about 10lb every year in college and was close to 200 and a size 18 when I got married (age 22)....would still be a desireable weight now (although my goal is onederland).

I too never felt like my mother felt like I quite measured up.  Throughout life she and my dad would brag about my younger brother's grades or accomplishments or even now in adulthood his promotions or status in the community when all along I got the better grades, graduated from a more prestigious college and have had just as many steps up the career ladder and status as he.  Again, I felt she saw my weight as a hindrance in life....she always remarked about someone overweight walking by as being "disgusting" and of course I internalized that she felt that way about me too, as I was as big or bigger than they were.

You're right Holly....not easy to just "let go" of all that, even though we are now "enlightened".

"You're right.... freak was the wrong choice of words.... wasn't insinuating you were a "freak".

Awwe, Sherrie...  I didn't mean for you to think that I was insulted or anything.  This form of communication leaves so much to be desired given the absence of voice inflection and body language.

I think what I meant to get across is that there are so many of us out there who have been affected by our parents that we're more the "norm" than the odd man out.

I'm the youngest of 6 kids and I experienced something similar.  My mother kind of rated us on how much money we made (and gave her).  I was working full time nights by the time I was 12/13 years old and that was the only time in my life that I can remember that I had her approval ****il I opened my stores and could be more generous with the cash).  Now.. at the time I was slim.....  I'll just say it.. I had the body of a 20 year old.  She still thought of me as fat THEN but it had all to do with what $ I made.  Let me explain.  One time I sprained my ankle at work and since I worked on my feet, I was out of work for a couple of weeks.  During that time she screamed at me "GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND GO TO WORK".  I was 13!  At the time I didn't stop to think "well, I'm 13 years old, you're kind of legally responsible to support me"... lol  All I thought was that I was fat and lazy with an ankle the size of a grapefruit. 

Things like this just stick with us......  and even today I do the same thing to myself.  Since I'm not working right now.. bringing in $.. I see myself as fat and lazy.  Does this make sense?

But getting back to the topic.....  the benefit I derive from being so big is CONTROL.  I've never had any "say" or "control" or "power" in anything except my weight.... no one could stop me from being fat!  As dumb as this sounds.... being fat is something that's all mine.. good for me or not.... it's the only place where it's my choice.

THANKS NEECEE... I never really could put my finger on that until now.