on empowerment

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time now, but it’s extremely personal, and I’ve had some second thoughts. On the other hand, I figure there are a lot of people who’ve had similar experiences, and this may give some people hope, or courage, or validation, or something.

There are a number of reasons people get as large as I do. Sure, there are biological factors (when I first met my biological mother, I recognized her from behind) and there are all sorts of medical disorders that contribute to obesity. Every single fat person either believes that one of those is the reason they are fat, or have gone through a period of believing it, yet only a small portion of the obese are obese to the degree they are because of heredity or illness. I have a hereditary predisposition towards being heavy, but that explains why my low weight is between 159 and 179 lbs, NOT how I got to be 371 lbs.

So let me go back a bit, to my childhood.

I was a sexually abused child. My abuser loved my little-ness, and when my rear and breasts started rounding out at an early age, he was pretty unhappy and told me I was “fat”. I learned that “fat” kept bad people away. I didn’t consciously go about eating to get fat, I just felt more comfortable when I was fat, and I knew men weren’t looking at me “that way” and I didn’t have anything to be afraid of. Fat was a shield.

As I grew older, most of my relationships were bad ones. Yes, I’d carried out the abuse I lived as a child by choosing the men who seemed to need me, but were often jealous, angry, and emotionally unstable. My husband used to greet me each morning with “you’re fat, ugly and stupid, and no other man would ever want you, so don’t even THINK about leaving me today”

Now, even though I was college educated, had a high IQ, and never had a problem attracting men at any weight (whether I wanted to or not) That sunk in after a while. I married at 198 lbs, and left him over 250 lbs.

There was a point after that when I lost a considerable amount of weight. When my abusive husband beat the living daylights out of me, and my hands were too damaged to do the fine technical work I’d been doing, and I walked out and never came back, with no way to earn a living until my hands healed, and no way to get a job after that since I was homeless and on the street. It took 9 months on a waiting list to get into a shelter for women, then within a month I was employed and got my own apartment. But my weight had dropped to 159 lbs. You could see my hip bones, but my butt and chest still went on forever. I would never be “skinny”in the classical- Twiggy sense that I’d grown up with.

Then I met someone… another bad someone, who needed me, was terribly unreliable, and because of all that I was able to love him, thinking that someone who was like that would appreciate a woman who made sacrifices.

and of course, that wasn’t the case, although I had another child, gained more weight. It became a cycle, where I’d think (now almost consciously) I’d be safe from “bad men” and that I wouldn’t have to use common sense and judgement if I only weighed more. It seemed to me that a fat woman would have to be loved more for the inside than the outside, something that I wanted. I wanted NOT to be objectified, NOT be someone’s sex toy, NOT to be used.

and of course, that wasn’t the way to go about it.

Oh, years and years ago (about 20) I faced my abuser and, I thought, my abuse. I was sure that just the cognitive part: being aware of the abuse, would make all the bad things go away. It doesn’t. Knowing something in your head and feeling it in your heart are two different things.

I had to come to realize that I was NO LONGER a victim. That I had to let go of that little girl who was mistreated so horribly over a number of years… to see myself as an adult, as in control, and able to make and enforce my own choices. That came hard, but it came. I made a number of changes in my life: Quit smoking, went back to school, changed relationships with my family. But still the weight didn’t come off.

and finally I realized, Only I could empower myself with the ability to change. I DON’T need the fat to keep “bad men” away (and then bemoan the fact that I couldn’t find “good men”) I HAD the tools to do that. I could say NO. I could leave. I had a number of tools at my disposal that didn’t involve 200 lbs of excess weight… weight that never truly protected me, only hurt me.

And as shamed as I felt as a child, I don’t need to hurt myself, don’t need to punish myself, with my weight.

Once I sincerely WANTED to loose weight, in my heart instead of my head, then it became a burning fire inside me. I knew what I had to do: I had to change my eating patterns. I had to stop rewarding myself with food (something learned from my mother) I had to dedicate myself to an exercise regime. Most of all, I had to stop myself from stinkin’ thinkin’ I had to remind myself that I was a grown, powerful woman, and that my destiny and relationships were within my power to control. That even if things were bad, I had the power to change it, that I was not helpless in the face of my weight, my relationships, my life. That the only person I could truly depend on was myself, and that I was a strong, dependable person.

Now, for those who were not abused, and who are food addicts, clinically depressed, suffer low self esteem, or for any other reason eat more calories than they burn, the whole idea is the same. In order to lose weight you have to understand that you are a strong, dependable and worthy person, and you DESERVE to be fit and healthy, no matter what weight that occurs at.

I’ve learned that changing your mind is the first step in changing your body.