Saw this on another board...insight! What do you think?
Subject: I am a horrible person
Anyone who wants to jump on me for this post, please do. With both feet. I have never been so ashamed of myself in my life. I am back at my "low" weight; about 150 lbs dressed. I wear a 10-12 top, size 8 dress slacks and size 4 Levi's. (Gotta love vanity sizing. 150 pounds is a size 4?) Anyway, I digress. Lately every time I see a MO person, I feel completely - unbelievable under the cir****tances of my pre-op life - judgmental! What a b*tch! My husband and I work a part-time job at night since he lost his well-paying programmer job last fall. Last week two of our ass't supervisors left to go on to other jobs. One of the replacements is a gal who could be anywhere from 20 - 25, is about 5'8" and weighs about 300+ pounds. I find myself going to the other assistant, a 20 yr old guy, when I need something. This girl has never done anything to me, said anything mean, nothing. She seems kind, and seems to be doing her job well. But when I look at her I feel something indescribable. I can't even put words to it. Almost repulsed. I should be stoned to death or something. S l o w l y. I had health insurance that paid for a $250,000 (yeah, that's the right number of zeros) surgery, hospitalization due to several complications including a 13-hour surgery that probably should've killed me, and god knows what in after care - for the rest of my life! (They stopped paying for it the next year, so I was extra-blessed.) The next summer my insurance paid for a breast reduction and abdominoplasty so I no longer have a huge flap of flab-lined skin hanging down to my privates, and breasts that practically touch the waistband of my slacks. Who in the h*** am I to judge someone based on weight???? What the h*** is wrong with me???? But for the grace of God.... I would've kept climbing from my high of 240, and Lord knows where I would've stopped. I gained 30 pounds last year drinking regular pop and eating candy bars. I lost it in less than three months time. Yes, I am grateful, but god... Has anyone else felt this way?? I just can't believe it. I thought I was a nice, decent person. Who better than I to be empathetic to someone like this gal, or the girls like her. And yet.... Disgusting. I am disgusting.
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My completely uneducated diagnosis: displaced fear and loathing. Subconsciously, you don't want to get into "contact" (physical or emotional) with that which reminds you of your former self, whom you may not have yet forgiven. Or, you're just a horrible person. (JUST KIDDING, OF COURSE!!) (Or, the 20 year old male assistant is just HAWT!)
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I think you're on to something with the first point, although I don't think it is mutually exclusive with the second. (And no, he's a geeky-looking kid who needs a hair cut and a shave. My 53 year-old hubby looks better.)
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i haven't had the surgery yet...but i find myself being judgemental sometimes. everytime i think about it, i think that i am going to be Lucky to get rid of that part of me that i've come to just loath...and then i find that i want to talk to that person about weight loss surgery, and tell them about the DS. relate on diets, make a few jokes, and then just bring it up! maybe that's my way of trying to deal with the issues i have...oh and i know i have them. i used to be pretty comfortable with who i was..but at this point in my life, i just grab my tummy and folds and just imagine sloughing them right off! i just want it OFF! so, i totally totally see how that part of someone can be hard for you to deal with, and that a perfectly normal reaction would be disgust or just irritation with that person and what they represent. but, you can turn it around and be brave and face it in different ways. you can! you were able to help yourself...be a model for others, and help them, if you can. and if not, or they won't listen, who cares? you were totally awesome enough to face your issues, and try to bring to light something that could really help someone else, you know? you can find your own little ways to face things, and i do think it's important that you do. it's facing your old self too, and despite things you went through in life, it was still YOU and you cared about yourself enough to DO something. well, do something now! you can do it!! *adam sandler reference* *lol*
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I have to agree with Diana on this one. I have had similar feelings a few times, and I feel like that is where it comes from - at least for me. I so despise my former self, and my lack of "willpower" or "discipline" (even though I know better intellectually that willpower and discipline are not what I really lacked), that I find myself a bit critical of people that look like I used to. Am I seeing myself through others' eyes when I look at them? I know it's painful to look at old pictures of myself. I'm only 9 months out, but down 135 lbs., (about 70 more to go) so the difference is pretty substantial. I look at pictures and can't believe that was me! What was I thinking?!? Mostly what I feel is the urge to tell them about the surgery. Of course, I don't - I can only imagine how I would have felt if a stranger came up to me and told me I should have weight-loss surgery. You are not a horrible person - you are a human being. Maybe if you know where it comes from, it will get better.
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Ok, let me "weigh" in on this one. I am about to undergo DS surgery in 10 days. One of the many things I am praying for is that I never, ever, EVER hate my fat self. This is easy to say now, because I am still morbidly obese. But all I ever want to feel for people my size, after I have lost 150 pounds with DS surgery, is compassion and admiration. Yes, admiration. Only we who are morbidly obese know how it feels. Many of us do not understand how we got this way. We only know that we find it impossible to shed the weight for a variety of reasons. I can assure you that it takes this 55-year-old, 300-pound woman a tremendous amount of courage and energy to get up every day and face life; to go to work at a very public job, to work hard at it and to excel at it; to manage a house and family and pets and everything else. I have told friends in my WLS support group that I want them to stop me short if I ever say that I hate myself as I am now, or that I am disgusting or anything else. What I am right now, just over a week before surgery, is a frightened woman who is taking a major step in her life so she can live a happier life. I am not disgusting, ugly, lazy or stupid. My problem is that I eat emotionally. We all have a crutch, only many of them are not visible from the outside. I don't ever want to forget who I am (was?) or the pain that got me here. I want only to feel love and compassion for myself and anyone else like me.
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I confess! I feel that way sometimes too. My son's GF's mother is over 300 lbs. I know just how you feel, not ugly to her but avoidant of her. I wonder if I'm running from my former self. Like I just want to distance myself from - what the fat? It's not her -- it's me I'm avoiding. It's what she represents to me , unresolved guilt, shame, etc?? Yeah, I think shame is it. And there's a part of me that's angry at that shamed part - Oh, boy-- we could get into a deep discussion of internal family therapy stuff here, but it'd cost you $100 an hour!
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After losing 178 pounds, I find myself staring at MO people. Just staring. All I can think about is, oh god, that used to be me. Then all of the sudden it brings me back to how tired I was all the time, how my entire body just hurt from carrying around all the fat, how I used to sweat constantly if it got about 45 degrees. I did not detest myself as a person, but I detested those feelings and living that miserable life. Maybe those people don't feel the same way I did. They may not feel as if they are living a miserable life. I still cannot keep myself from staring at them as if they are some kind of exotic critter in a zoo. It's not good. You are not a horrible person. You're very self aware of what you're doing and it will give you lots of insight into yourself.
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[quote]Ok, let me "weigh" in on this one. I am about to undergo DS surgery in 10 days. One of the many things I am praying for is that I never, ever, EVER hate my fat self. This is easy to say now, because I am still morbidly obese. But all I ever want to feel for people my size, after I have lost 150 pounds with DS surgery, is compassion and admiration. Yes, admiration. Only we who are morbidly obese know how it feels. Many of us do not understand how we got this way. We only know that we find it impossible to shed the weight for a variety of reasons. [quote] I have to say, as much as i blathered on in response already...i do fear that i will be the same way. I don't WANT to, though. i don't want to look back at all the photos and things i've done in my life and hate what i see there, because i was overweight. i was so accepting of myself for most of my life! I feel like i could easily betray that the moment i get skinny. I feel like the minute i "belong" with everyone else who's thin in this world, that secret part of me that always wanted to be thin will win over and i'll feel the same 'bad' way about other overweight people. I don't know though, hopefully what carrie_m says will hold true...it really IS only those of us who have been there who truly know what others struggle though. Hopefully, since we're all strong enough to make such a dramatic change in our lives and get surgery, we can be strong enough to face our issues with the "us" that we see in other obese people.
Others have expressed the same feelings - of wanting to avoid MO people or feeling disgusted or otherwise repelled by MO people either pre-op or post-op. They are brave to admit it as this woman was and the original poster is definately not an evil person because she has some bad instincts about morbidly obese people. At least she recognized what was going on and hopefully she (and others who feel the same way) can work to correct their impulse to avoid. I'm absolutely positive that the fear or whatever you want to call it has something to do with hating what you were and never wanting to go back - being AFRAID of going back and sick at yourself for ever having been there to begin with. It isn't about the other people - it is an internal problem with the people making the judgement (intentionally or not) - whether they realize it or not) and it just happens to get drudged up when they are reminded about their own fight with obesity. Personally, I have lived my life in a morbidly obese family. For as long as I can remember my mom has been 200+ pounds (and she's only 5' 1" tall) and my grandparents even more obese - and they are some of the hardest workers and most respectable people I know. So I have never associated obesity with sloth or lack of will power or as a personality flaw. It isn't good or desired because it hurts health and keeps people from being able to do what they want to do in life, but I don't blame people for them being big (other than blaming myself - but that's a different can of worms). Maybe it would be different if everyone who was big grew up like I did - in a world where the biggest people were also the people who loved me and took the best care of me. It seemed to be a friendly exchange and it is something many of us are going to have to deal with because everyone who is obese is not going to have WLS and we more than anyone else should be the most understanding and most sympathetic to people who are physically what we used to be and have the struggles we used to have. It is important to recognize that is NOT OKAY to feel afraid or want to avoid morbidly obese people - that is something that needs to be dealt with. Anyway, that's what I think.
Amy 293/140 - AT GOAL! 
