Remembering

I’m seeing a therapist. No, it’s not a bad thing- it’s actually a very good thing! I’ve had about four sessions with the therapist and the reason I sought him out is because I’ve had ongoing problems with anxiety for the past several years. After a particularly bad panic attack about a month ago, I decided I just didn’t want to have to deal with them anymore. I get the terrible chest pains, shortness of breath, nauseous, and pains in my arms. It's just plain uncomfortable. After the attack subsides, I feel like crap and experience symptoms similar to a hang-over. I figured, I’m working really hard at becoming healthy in all the other areas of my life—I might as well conquer this one, too.
So, I thought I was seeing a therapist mainly to get over anxiety and panic attacks. In my first meeting with the therapist I told him I’ve always had body image issues, (hello?! Who WOULDN’T have body image issues when their weight has had as many peaks and plummets as mine?) and that I’d like to address these at the same time as the anxiety issues. Turns out that the therapist thinks a contributing factor to the anxiety disorder is, among other factors, my weight.
It’s not the fact that I’m physically heavy that’s contributed to developing anxiety disorder, but the emotional repercussions from the horror, anger, and pain of growing up an overweight female.
First, let me say, I did not misuse the word “horror” in this statement. It IS horrifying to be aware of being fat for as long as you can remember. At six years old, your main concern should be playing with dolls—not learning you can’t wear a two-piece bathing suit like all the other girls-- unless you lose weight-- because you’re just too big. It is horrifying to be picked on mercilessly by the other kids, in grade school, and REALLY damaging in middle and high school. And, as my therapist pointed out, the words really do hurt you—and what these people are saying really stick with you.
Not knowing what to expect each day when you go to school creates constant anxiety. 12-15 years later I’m still dealing with the repercussions of being that terribly anxious 8th grader who the boys tried to trip as she walked down the narrow aisles of desks, spit on from the balcony in the lunch room, and literally made fun of right in front of the Math teacher—who pretty much just joined in the bullying. Can you imagine, for an hour  every single day, being bulllied almost the entire class period while the teacher KNEW it was happening? A 40-something-year old teacher, with children of her own in college, accepting, allowing, condoning, even encouraging the taunts of particular popular students as they made terrible comments and actions against the unpopular me? As a teacher myself for the past seven years, I just despise that Algebra teacher. No wonder I didn’t learn anything in Algebra my 8th grade year. I was too busy trying to survive.
As I’m focusing on healing and eliminating anxiety, both generalized and attacks,  I’m finding more and more of these memories are vividly coming to the forefront of my conscious mind again. I can’t recall the last time I thought about these things. I don’t remember thinking about them when I rode the weight loss rodeo ten years ago. Perhaps that's why I was unsuccessful in keeping the weight I lost off-- the fact that I don’t think I EVER dealt with all the pain I felt from those years of kids picking on me, targeting, and making me feel inferior. I know Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” but when you are child I’m not so sure that’s true. We believe what the world around us tells us, and unfortunately it wasn’t only the kids telling me I was inferior.
My parents did the best they could do, but they worried about my growing size. As I stated earlier, I was put on a diet at six. What does that tell a six-year-old? Food is bad, you need to control your food, you’ve done something wrong. My mom was frustrated that as she tried to control my ballooning weight, I only seemed to grow larger. She didn’t want me to suffer from obesity like her mother did, but her controlling only seemed to make things worse. Plus, my parents had terrible eating habits. How can you tell a child to lose weight, but serve pasta and bread for dinner most nights? How can you have cookies and sweets in the house for a younger sibling, but deny and hide these same cookies from the older sibling? It was conundrum that I don’t feel my parents dealt with that entirely well, but I also don’t blame them for it. People do the best they can do and they were only equipped with a certain amount of knowledge and emotional maturity. Childhood obesity wasn’t the epidemic it is now and there wasn’t the information available that is out there today.
Aside from my parents, there were extended family members who always had something to say. I remember being in 3rd grade and three aunts of mine taking me on a three day trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania. One of my aunts I didn’t know very well because she’d been living overseas for years with her army-employed husband. One night, as I’m standing right there, she started speaking to the other aunt about my weight. “She really should do something about her weight! Doesn’t it bother her”—something along these lines. The other aunt replied, “umm, you do realize Jackie can hear you and is standing right there…” and pretty much changed the subject. But I heard the comments the first aunt had made, I heard the disgust in her voice. I wasn’t the “normal,” adorable eight- year-old with braids and cute little outfits—something I really didn’t need my grown aunt to point out for me. Trust me, the kids at school had already begun to make this fact evident, if I couldn’t tell by just looking at myself in comparison to the other girls my age.
Thinking about this memory today, which only surfaced again recently, makes me so angry! What did the eight-year-old girl do that was so wrong that an adult should say these things about her body with disgust? I was eight! I was a baby. My body shouldn’t have been a source of shame for me at that point—an eight-year-old doesn’t make her own choices on what she’s going to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She doesn’t drive herself to the grocery store and choose her foods for the week. At that point, she’s fat because of her genes and the eating habits her parents have taught her. I’m not saying that at 29, this is still the case, but at eight?
What if a kid had an unusually big nose? Would extended family, parents, etc, feel the need to say comments with disgust about how the eight-year-old has a terrible nose and should really fix it? Would they put the nose on a diet? Would the comments these adults make have an undertone of just disgust that would make the kid feel ashamed? What can an eight-year-old DO to "fix" what others perceive as an ugly, unusually large nose without the tools/help of these same adults? Give me a break.
Skinny people may not see where I am coming from with this, but just think about it for a moment. I’m telling you, those comments you hear at 6 and 8 and 12, they stick with you. And I never dealt with them before; I never spoke about them. I just ignored that they had even happened. I ate and stuffed away the feelings as if they never existed. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and guilty, but I am only just now remembering and realizing the full extent of these feelings.
And here’s the thing—I actually wasn’t an OBESE kid. I didn’t hit that obesity mark probably until I was a teenager, around 8th grade. Honestly, as a little kid, I was just chunky. If everyone would have left me the freak alone, would I have turned out with this huge problem? Maybe, maybe even probably, but maybe not.
Finding myself “remembering” all of these injustices that I feel I suffered as a child has been tough. It’s been tiring, and I feel on the verge of tears sometimes thinking, talking, or writing about it. In fact, being aware that I used to eat to NOT feel the pain of these things happening around me has kind of made me want to eat more—there’s comfort in your old practices. But I’m pushing through….
On a positive note, I believe I weighed 260 when I blogged last. My weight has been vacillating, mainly I think because I’ve been building muscles and toning with my workouts. I’m down to 254ish right now, so I’m proud of that. My work may not be showing on the scale as much as I think it should ,but it’s showing in my clothing. I’ve been shopping because most of the things in my closet are just falling off of me-- even after I've shrunk them! I’m fitting into size 22’s, which is progress for me! My brother-in-law is visiting and made me feel really good about my accomplishments—he said I look thinner than I’ve ever looked as long as he’s known me and he’s really made me feel good about what I’ve done!
I’m signed up for a 5K race on July 27th here in Orlando! I’m excited to start training for it and am trying to get a group of girlfriends to do either a 5k or ½ marathon with me October 31st! You know, I may not have a 100% on plan day with my eating every day—and I don’t, I still just really enjoy food--- but I think if I can balance it out with a good amount of exercise I’m okay. And you have to live life. My mom won’t ever eat real chocolate, just sugar free stuff, but I’m not doing that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a piece of chocolate every now and then. I think you just have to balance it out. And some weeks aren’t going to be good weeks, but, baby, I’m in this for life! I just can’t let a bad day turn into a bad week turn into a bad month turn into a bad year. I love myself too much for that now.