The Price of Invisibility
Today I read a twitter account of someone who shall remain nameless. There is a reason I'm not naming this person. I will not cause even one other person to suffer from what he said. I will not give this man a voice. I will not spread his lies. I will not help him spread his lies. I have suffered from others similar to him my whole life. And it must end.
I will say though, a summary of what he promoted. He was promoting a very unhealthy means of weight loss, through starvation, literally. Oh, he was so proud of himself, telling everyone everywhere that there is no purpose to any person being alive unless they fit his view of physical appearance perfection. He even bragged about how he has dated 104 women this year, and the only reason they got to date him was because they fit that mold.
I have spent my whole life trying to fit that mold. I never could achieve it. I tried dieting. I tried exercising. I tried walking. I tried medication. I tried every diet book on the shelves. I tried every diet promoted on television. Still, I ballooned. I talked to my doctors about it. They kept insisting I was lying, that I was not doing everything I claimed I was doing. My friends at college told me I should wear ragged clothing and ragged shoes and not "treat" myself to anything nice until I lost the weight as an incentive. Strangers accosted me on the streets and buses to tell me what they thought I should be doing to lose the weight. Friends at church started calling me bad names and telling me it was all my fault. High school kids driving by in cars yelled "Cow" at me. Someone referred to me as a beached whale. I cried. I starved. I exercised. I ballooned.
Another told me when I was six that I was doomed to be huge and that no man would ever want me. I was told that six year old girls are supposed to have a womanly hourglass figure and I didn't.
I complained to doctors for many years. None of them ever tried to find out if there was anything else wrong with me that would cause me to gain so much weight even with all my efforts. It wasn't until I reached near 500 lbs. that one decided to finally find out. It was shocking. Not only was my thyroid not working, but I was not breathing in my sleep.
The human body is a biological furnace, of sorts. Fire requires ignition, fuel and oxygen. You remove any one of those three, and the fire either doesn't start or it stops. The human body is supplied ignition at the time of conception. Food is fuel and oxygen is supplied by breathing. You cut off food or breathing for limited periods of time and calories no longer get burned. The body shuts down its calorie burning. You take it far enough and it dies. It's that simple. I would stop breathing in my sleep, and my body quit burning off the food and fat. But no one thought to check. No one assumed I could possibly be telling the truth about my efforts. So I ballooned, all those years. It took a toll on my health. My blood sugar rose. I developed diabetes. Along with the diabetes, I began suffering diabetic pain and numbness in my hands and feet. I began suffering muscle spasms in my waist, hips and legs. I get backaches just from standing up, along with my feet feeling like the foot bones are being crushed.
But there was another fallout from years of being ridiculed. I lost me, the inner me. I became invisible. I found that all those who only saw the outside, never saw ME! What was really sad was that I could no longer see me either. I learned through their eyes that the only self that had any value was the outside packaging. The me that was a hard worker, that laughed and cried, learned and created, sang and wrote poetry, dreamed and planned, sewed, knitted, crocheted, designed, all those things and many more had no value at all. I learned to see myself as worthless.
I was supplied with an oxygen machine and a machine that keeps me breathing when I sleep. I was given medication to improve my thyroid. I was given other medications because when your body weight gets high enough, some things simply shut down. I tried diets again. I tried exercise again. I succeeded at losing a fair portion of the weight. I think I've lost about 100 lbs. But I've hit a block. I have trouble with exercise. My knees are destroyed. (I fell down and killed the inner tissue of my knees. They don't bend far anymore.) And my feet still feel like the bones are crushed.
But with all the success I've had, I still struggle with that sense of worthlessness, that invisibility, that sense of nobody really seeing ME. This is a new year. We just rang in the new year. This is my new year's resolution. This is the year, the year I discover myself. This is the year I find Carla.
As for the man on twitter who believes that all people should be a specific size, he reminds me of a child who has just received an expensive gift that was boxed, gift-wrapped and tied with a bow. The child removes the gift and throws it away only to play with the box. All mothers have seen this. Give a toddler a box and he's a happy little camper. He has no appreciation for the treasure inside.
There's a reason why he's dated 104 women this past year. He was playing with the box. And as any toddler, he got bored. That's why he moved on to the next. He averaged 2 women each week. Sadly, they were invisible to him too.
January 6, 2011
8:54 p.m. CST
