Very Interesting

So I've been reading all your responses to my last posts, and I've got to say, this is one heck of an intersting conversation for me.

Am I seeing a counselor? Yes. She's one of the main singers in the "have the surgery!" chorus; she's convinced that I'd be much less-depressed if I lost weight and thus, liked myself better. The problem with that, though, is what seems to be my underlying "logic": if I lose weight, others will find me more attractive, and therefore I will like myself better. That's a perfectly accurate statement of my thought processes, and it overlooks the elephant in the room:

Why, exactly, do I base my opinion of myself on what others think of me? Particularly potential partners? Why the hell does that even MATTER??

But it does. That's the bitch of it; since I have been able to remember, the opinion of potential love interests has absolutely superseded my own opinions in nearly every way. I'm talking five, six, ten years old: my self-esteem was absolutely entangled with whatever my latest crush thought of me, or if he thought of me at all.

First of all: Yes, I know that's sick. Well-aware of that, thanks. :)

Secondly--and much more interesting to me--WHERE DID THAT COME FROM??? (There are times I feel like, if I could answer that question, I would be able to understand every stupid decision I've made in my entire life--especially the financial ones, but there have been plenty of others as well.) What, exactly, happened in the first four or five or six years of my life that taught me:

--it is more important what some little boy thinks of you, than what you think/know about yourself
--your accomplishments are only valid if some male thinks they are valid
--anything you can do, or be, or think, unless it is given the proper degree of recognition and approval by a male, is invisible and beneath even your own notice?

And it can't even be just some random guy, or even a guy in a position of authority: even a teacher or a boss or a supervisor, people whose judgement of me should have an effect on how I perceive myself and my accomplishments, even THEY don't matter in this Bizarro Gladys World. Only the opinions of potential Princes Charming; only the judgements of men in whom I feel a romantic/sexual interest--those are the only ones that count. Average Joe need not apply.

The intelligent, logical, rational, well-read and well-educated feminist Gladys knows that every single one of those beliefs I've listed above is bubbling, festering, noisome, malodorous bovine excreta of the purest form...

...but it's clear from situations past and present that intelligent, logical, rational, well-read well-educated feminist Gladys is NOT ruling the emotional roost here.

And yes, it would be VERY much worth my while to get rid of that ridiculous backwards belief system...and I would, too, if I had the slightest notion how to go about it. I think it may be the root of much of my unhappiness, my apathy, my inactivity...nearly everything. If a woman succeeds in the forest, and there's no man there to hear her, does she make a sound?

So: apparently I am carrying around some bad mental wiring, some old misconnection that tells me if no man wants me, I am worth nothing; if no man wants me, my accomplishments may as well not exist, and even if there IS a man who wants me, if he does not recognize those accomplishments as worthwhile, then they lose their worth to me as well.

What a fucked-up world-view. And I haven't the slightest notion of how to un-fuck it. If my mind was a computer, I would recommend a total rebuild--wipe the hard drive, reinstall a clean OS, andadd back all the data piece by piece, without the bad files. Unfortunately, that's not an option here... as this makes quite clear, science doesn't fix everything. Instead I'm left with the disquieting knowledge that I may actually be one of the most screwed-up people I know, and not in that cool, interesting screwed-up sense--I mean, in the sense of "Wow, that's seriously, seriously lame."

Lameness aside, though, it's easy to follow the rest of the road all the way straight down: if the only view that matters is the view of the guy who's interested, and there's no guy who's interested, then I am basically invisible and in order to be a useful contributing member of society, I must attract a male. Barring a fluke like JP, that will be impossible given my current appearance and weight; ergo, a)my current physical attributes render me worthless; b)I will only become worthwhile again once I lose some weight.

Again: what a fucked-up world view. I'm gonna call it a night. Thank you, all, for helping me think this whole thing through.

Continuation

So: back to my rant.

The story thus far: When I was young, all I heard about from my mom was how I needed to watch my weight. How I was already too heavy. How I shouldn't eat X, Y, or Z--regardless of the fact that those were foods she had chosen, portioned, and prepared. Vegetables--in fact, anything vaguely wholesome--were a source of battle--and anyone who's read my writing for very long knows what happens when I'm faced with a battle! And yet despite all this, I didn't really GET fat til I was 22. But all my life--and my friends can tell you this--I always believed I was fat. ("We kept trying to tell you different," Firefly said one time, "but you didn't believe us." But how could I? Mothers don't lie, do they? And they're not....you know, WRONG...)

An aside: how is it that I can reject NEARLY EVERY OTHER THING MY MOM BELIEVES, yet the one thing I can't toss out is the one that affects me most profoundly? Because it plays into my fears, that's why. I can reject, say, her brand of religion because I have never thought I believed the things she does; but because I have always been afraid of being thought of as ugly, I can easily accept the thought that it might be true.

Anyway. From the time I was 22, my weight has fluctuated pretty widely. I was in the low 140's when JP died; however, the minute I quit heroin the weight started coming back. I was a solid size 12 in November of 1995; by the time I came back from Charlotte I was a size 18. (Right now I am a 24; the lowest I've been in the last 6 years was a brief stay at 20 before settling in for a long back-and-forth between 22 and 24.) Part of the reason I got back on heroin was that I wanted to be a size 12 again, so I could be pretty. It didn't work; apparently the weight-loss is specific to the first experiences with the drug, and in the end I found that it was actually stimulating my appetite. Just my luck.

That was when my sweet tooth took off, as well. I could drink vast expanses of Pepsi, shovel down anything sugary-sweet--candy, ice cream, cake and cookies; and I DID, because there was no one there to stop me. This went on for quite a few years...and slowly, slowly, my weight climbed.

Which brings me to the here and now. I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see. With very few exceptions I don't even ENJOY food anymore; what I eat is often based on what's quickest to make, cheapest to buy, and easiest to clean up. Much of the time it's noodle-based, sometimes just exactly that: plain noodles, with a bit of butter and parmesan. And sugar, of course (no, not on the noodles--ewwwww!--but after food, there's always something sweet.)

I talked to Debbi today--having sent her the link I'd discovered to our old mutual friend--and she said the following: "I hope he DOES e-mail you back, and you can tell him I said hello and to e-mail me so I can send him a picture. Because you know what? I want ALL those fools to know what I look like now. I'm 163 pounds, I'm damn cute, and my ass looks FABULOUS in a pair of jeans." (As you may have guessed, I hadn't said anything to her about my current emotional state; all the same, that was not an enjoyable piece of the conversation for me.) I can see her point, I guess; however, I also happen to know that she's only switched addictions, and though I'm surely not enough of a hypocrite to judge her for that, it does kinda give the lie to her whole "I'm skinny now, happily-ever-after" story. During our talk on the way back from NASCAR, she said something to the effect of "What they don't tell you, when you have the surgery, is that they're taking your crutch away. You literally CAN'T use food as a crutch anymore, because it will make you sick, and they're not taking away the problems you were using food to escape from--so you just find something else to use instead."

I've been encouraged to have the surgery, at least the lap-band kind (though Debbi says "if you're gonna do it, you might as well do the whole damn thing--the complication risks are pretty much the same and the band has a few other dangers as well.") After seeing what she went through, though, I have steadfastly stood against it. She had complications, a second surgery, weeks of healing time, oozing surgical sites, infections; she lived on fluids for weeks, semi-solids for more weeks, and at one point she was malnourished enough to be experiencing hair loss. And this surgery has been done for such a short time, scientifically speaking, that no one can say for sure whether or not there are any long-term dangers, 20 or 30 or 50 years later. It would suck to have the surgery, be thin enough and pretty enough to actually attract someone, put together this awesome perfect life, and then--20 years from now, as I'm approaching my "golden years"--die from some long-term side effect nobody knew about at the time the surgery was done. That would suck.

And furthermore--#2 on the list of "Why I Don't Want Gastric Bypass Surgery" (#1 being "because I really fear pain")--I don't want to do it because--to me, at least--it seems like cheating, somehow. I'm not saying that I think the people who DO have the surgery are making the wrong choice, or judging them for how they chose to do things--but if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it with consciousness of the process. If I'm going to do something that requires hard work, then, so be it.

If you sense, reading this, that I'm forming some sort of resolve here, you're not far from the truth. I don't plan to make it a big dramatic crusade, announcing some grand majestic goal and then subjecting everyone to the endless minutiae of food diaries, calorie counts, and the rest. For one--BO-ring!--and further, I don't operate well under such circumstances. The fewer people I tell about a goal, the more likely I am to actually achieve it. (I've been told that's not how most people succeed, but that's just how I work best.) So, without turning it into a big announcement, I will only say: Yes, I am forming some sort of resolve here.

I sort of HAVE to, really, because otherwise I'm going to hate myself into an early grave.

Follow-up

So on the bus on the way home from downtown, I was thinking (or trying to--there was this trio of friends, two girls and a guy, and the girls had two of the WORST laughs I've ever heard in my life, and they were having one of those nights where EVERYTHING is funny)...Anyway, I was trying to figure out what, exactly, I think is wrong with me. I don't mean little details, like "I'm disorganized" or whatever; I mean the fundamental thing that makes me dislike myself so damn much.

You know what I came up with?
I dislike myself because I'm fat and ugly.

(Spins, stop snarling. I can hear you all the way in Chicago. I'll explain it.)

If I take a reasonably-realistic look at my inner self, I come out better than average. I'm intelligent, I'm creative, I'm funny, I care about other people, I'm not mean-spirited (much), I'm reasonably moral...Yeah, I have some flaws, but for the most part they're outweighed by the good qualities.

If I look in the mirror, though, everything goes directly to shit.

To begin with: There are large-sized women who still look good. They take the time and make an effort to look good, and many of them have a sense of style that enables them to do that. (Then there are the ones who wear super-tight t-shirts that don't all-the-way cover the belly...but I digress. Man, the things you see on the CTA--seriously. When you can see three inches of flesh between the bottom of the shirt and the waistband? You need to go a size up. Sorry....) Anyway. There are larger women who look good.

I am not one of these.

I have never, NEVER had a sense of style. When I was young, we had school uniforms, which choked out any sense of individuality (we weren't even allowed to wear striped socks.) Other than uniforms and jeans, though, my mom made many of my clothes, and bought the rest. And of course, she made, and bought, the clothes SHE wanted me to wear. They were sensible and serviceable; they were not attractive, by any means. As I got older, I would go shopping with my friends, but I always felt uncomfortable in wearing anything attention-getting. (We'll get to the "why" of that in just a moment.) On the rare occasions that I did want to buy something trendy, for the most part it was shot down by the clothing-buyer: Mom. I tried to balance what I liked with what was in style and with what my mom was willing to pay for; most of the time I came out looking like a damn train-wreck. And being an only child, with no older cousins or anyone else in my life to point me in a different direction, I had only my own likes and dislikes to follow--and again, I was always uncomfortable in clothes.

And why was that, you ask?

From the time I was three, I have fought against my weight.

Wait: no. There's more to that sentence.

From the time I was three, I have been urged by my mother to fight against my weight.

That's far more accurate. From my earliest days, I can remember being cautioned against taking second helpings, or eating anything I enjoyed. If I ignored her exhortations, I would be likely to hear the following: "Well, go ahead, but when you get older and you're fat, don't blame me!" (Would it be ridiculous to bring up the fact that SHE COOKED THE FOOD? She chose the menus; she chose how much to cook. But if I ate it, that was MY fault.)

But here's the thing, see--She talked about "when you get older" but it was very clear she thought I was too heavy from my very earliest days. And as I have said before--I have pictures of myself throughout my childhood. I had a little tummy, like many children do, but in no way could I have been considered "overweight", "obese", or even "chunky". I was at the high end of normal. I don't recall ever hearing a doctor say anything about losing weight, when I was a child.

And yet it was a constant theme. She bought me diet books when I was nine; took me to a dietician when I was 15. Hearing over and over and over that you have a weight problem--what do you think that's going to do to a child's mind?

I have a witness to all this, see. Debbi's family had the same issue, only worse; her little sister was the cutesy little skinny thing, and Debbi was the normal-sized child. And like me, all Debbi ever heard about was "fat fat fat". I have pictures of Debbi from this era as well; if I didn't care about my anonymity, in fact, I'd post one of them, a picture of the two of us standing together, taken when I was eleven and she was ten. We look like normal little girls.

Flash forward twenty-five years. Before her gastric bypass, Debbi weighed over 300 pounds. I currently weigh 260. That doesn't JUST HAPPEN. That's not just "the American diet". That, my friends, is the product of hearing the same drumbeat, pounded into your head, over and over and over. "You're fat," "you're fat," "you're fat," becomes, after the five-millionth repetition, a perfectly good justification for that second donut, or the fettucine Alfredo, or the pint of Heath Bar Crunch after a bad day. "What does it matter? I'm already fat." And eventually--eventually, yeah, you are. (Both Debbi and I have agreed that, especially beginning in about junior high, food became a rebellion for both of us. I remember sneaking off to the 7-Eleven and buying tons of candy, then going back to my room and snorking it all down while listening to the radio. Neither of us had a weight problem then, though; there are other pictures of us, at 16 and 17, and we still look perfectly normal.)

There's more to this--lots more--but I'm stopping here for now.