Revelations
Two things, before I get to the heart of it:
First off, let me re-iterate what Melissia said here – the skin on my stomach is permanent. EDS has taken the collagen I have and shagged it ruthlessly. I could be wrong, but I think it’s getting worse as well – any and every knock and bump turns into a bruise, every cut turns into a scar. I do up to 100 sit-ups (Marine style) a day, and the stomach muscles under my pocket of flesh are toned, but the pocket remains.
Secondly: The completely incomparable Bou had some advice once which I thought was amazing – she said to not have fashion magazines around the house, and not praise the female form or despair physical appearances around kids because they pick that shit up fast. And I’ve done exactly that – no fashion mags. No talk of weight or beauty or anything like that, only I’ve failed because Jeff is telling me to stop dieting, and I owe him an apology, which I will offer by way of some mac and cheese that I will eat with him because it is our favorite, and because I love him very much.
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I walked to my Couch Man yesterday.
There, on his couch, on The Couch, we talked.
“I think I have a problem,” I said.
“OK,” he replied kindly.
“I am trying to lose weight again, and it’s consuming me a bit.”
He nods. “Do you know why you’re doing this?”
“I don’t like how I look. People tell me I look fine, I look good, but I don’t believe them. I think they’re just being nice. They don’t see me naked, they don’t see the parts that I’m ashamed of.”
“How do you see yourself?” he asks, looking at me.
“I’m hideous. I’m revolting. People must look at me with utter disgust. I am awful, I don’t see how anyone could want to even debate touching me,” I say softly.
“Do you think that’s true?” he asks.
“Yes. Yes, yes it’s so very true. I’m awful.”
“What would happen if you gained 20 kilos?” he asked gently.
“Everyone would leave,” I reply immediately. “I’d be all alone.”
“Do you really think that?” he asks again.
“Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“Do people leave just because people gain weight?”
“Yes. No. Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Have you seen this?”
And then I’m hit with it. I remember photos my mother had up on the fridge of her in thinner times. My mother has stuggled with her weight as long as I’ve known her, she has always been full-figured and I don’t say that to be mean, not in the slightest. My mother’s side of the family are the ones built like peasant stock, we ride the broad-shouldered yoke-bearing line, and I am included in that line. My father was cruel, I know that now and I knew it then. My father would taunt her and tell her she was fat, that no one would ever love her. I remember my mother taking aerobics, belly dancing, dieting, punishing herself, because my father found her lacking. And my father left her, for a thin woman. My mother and I may have our issues, but she never deserved that.
“I had forgotten about that,” I say to my Couch Man after telling him of my memories.
“How do you feel about your mother getting that kind of treatment from your father?”
I love my father. He’s changed so much but even today my father places a high priority on being thing, and I still get it from him even after telling him, finally, that I battled anorexia and bulemia for years. “I think it’s disgraceful. She should never have been spoken to like that. It must have been hell for her, she should have been loved and not ridiculed. He was being an asshole.”
“How do you feel about being a teenager and being told you were too fat?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“Yes you do.”
“No I don’t.”
“What do you do if your father starts in on you now?” he asks.
“I take it.”
“What happens if he starts in on Nick and Nora?”
“I will fly across the table at him and make him know that he is not ever, never going to have a go at them about their weight, not ever.” I say with a vehemence that surprises me.
My Couch Man smiles. “See? You do feel things.”
“Cycles, man. No cycles around my babies unless they’re the two-wheeled kind.”
“Will Alastair leave you if you get fat?” he asks me.
“No.”
“Do you think people who really love each other leave if the other person gains that much weight?”
“I don’t know,” I say. I feel close to something. I feel there’s something that I can nearly reach.
“Do you think overweight people deserve to be unloved?”
“No, absolutely not! God, no! I would never think that. Everyone deserves love, I don’t view weight as a weakness or a failure in anyone but myself.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” he asks me softly.
“Please.”
“I think you’re so busy trying to not be your mother that you’re letting it run your life. You hear your father tell her that no one will love her unless she’s thin so you subconsciously take it and and try to pre-empt that ever happening. But you’re not her, Shannon. You’re not your mother. You are you, and you need to know that by being aware of characteristics that she had that you don’t want that you are already making a difference.”
And I cry. Long, pathetic, hot tears that fall off my face and onto my chest.
“I can’t tell you to stop dieting and I won’t,” he says softly. “Just be sensible.”
And I am being sensible. I have help in the form of friends (now including Meg and the support of the gorgeous Stella). I do want to lose weight and I will continue with the weight loss commitment. I am eating healthily. I am exercising. But maybe I need to stop beating myself up about it. I am not perfect and I may never be, but the reasons are vast and many.
At the business dinner last night I ate some pizza. It was delicious. I did feel a bit upset about it, but I went with it. Sometimes, we just need to love ourselves in whatever way we can, even if that way includes a lot of cheese and pizza dough.
This morning I weighed myself. I’ve lost half a kilo. I smiled just a bit.
And then I had some breakfast.
-S.
Clever couch man. He knows you well.
Love broad-shouldered yoke-bearing woman of peasant stock! ;-)
This conversation is amazingly insightful… your Couch Man is amazing… and I will keep his words and yours in mind as I try not to glare at my 3-day post baby fat when I get dressed in the mornings.
Half a kilo – hooray!
I too had pizza yesterday, which completely broke my no cheese and bread rule. Someone at work ordered lunch for the office, and as I’m broke I decided to put my financial situation before my health (that was the justification anyway). I felt a little bad as well but decided that every now and then it’s ok and I’m trying so hard to not be down on myself over these things.
I love your compassionate couchman. He, and you, completely rock.
Wow, good work with the Couch Man. I’m glad you’ve gotten a bit more understanding of what’s going on under the hood.
Enjoy your mac and cheese with the awesomest stepson a person could ever imagine. That boy is such a treasure.
Getting established at the lower end of your BMI range in your 30s is smart (setting aside the other issues) – cause trying to get there in your 40s is brutal! Good luck to you. And you do look great.
You always have my full support. I am really struggling with my self image right now. There’s really nothing I can do until this baby is born. But the husband and I are planning on doing some serious dieting once that day comes. Do you guys have Weight Watchers over there? I did that a couple of years ago and easily lost 25 pounds in a few months.
Not to excuse your dad’s behavior, but do you think his actions are an Asian thing? My Filipino godmother used to hound me endlessly about my weight. It would irritate me but I chalked it up to being some kind of status thing in the Asian community.
Fabulous! Congratulations that you found out about your background motivations with the help of your fantastic couchman. By the way, my husband still loves me after 30 years, although he met a slim beauty once and sees a fat matrone by now, I’ve gained 25 Kilos in the last twenty years.
Love you; love your couch man.
This supports my comment from yesterday.
((hugs))
You are loved, Shannon. You are beautiful.
My dad’s side of the family is the short, big hipped big boobed kind, my mom’s is the apple shaped moon faced side. I never had a chance. The whole issue with your belly, aside from the EDS, is totally my situation. I can feel my stomach muscles when I move and exercise, but they are lost under a sea of saggy skin.
Bou is so spot on. It is so hard with kids and body image. With our kids we talk about health and how size does not equal healthy/unhealthy, and we don’t discuss weight in numbers in front of the kids, but we do talk about healthy habits-everything in moderation. Yet Veronica still comes home and talks about calories and carbs-things she hears from her friends. The best we can do as moms and dads is make sure our daughters and sons know where we stand on things, and teach them the lessons we feel are important, and just hold on and sit back and hope they stick. It is scary though.
I used to think people would love me more if I was thin, that I did not deserve things because I was heavy. I though I would laugh more if I was thin, and I would just float through life on a breeze. My mom has always been heavy. My dad always looked at pictures of them on their honeymoon and early years and would say “look how pretty your mom was”. Was. That makes a huge impression on a teen girl who is embarrassed and ashamed of her curves and big boobs. My mom wasn’t any better, always watching what I eat like a hawk. And all of the snide, sideway comments from both of them. Now, I don’t take any shit from any of them, and I would cut a bitch if they went after my kids. But yeah, it took years and years of being fucked up to get here, and it is still shaky ground. Your couchman is a rock star. So are you, babe-so are you.
Things I’ve learned from years of dieting:
1. No matter how hideous we feel we look, there will always be someone out there that thinks we are beautiful – just as we are. And I don’t mean a relative, or friend, or significant other. I mean a stranger. Beauty knows no shape, color, or size, and I find that comforting.
2. Sometimes, when you are stuck, you need a big, totally off-the-diet meal to shock your system back into gear.
3. When I eat “healthy,” I tend not to eat enough. When I went into maintenance recently, I gained six pounds. I finally started adding up the calories I was eating. Even though I was eating all day long, I was eating things with very low calories. I was averaging 700 calories a day, when I should have been averaging 1500.
If you are going to try to continue this diet (which, I’m sorry, but I think is ridiculous), then maybe talk to a nutritionist or a doctor to determine the best caloric intake for you to lose weight. It may be that you are eating too few, and your body is holding on to everything you take in as a result.
Thank you so much for this post. I have so many thoughts about this as your train of thought and history with this are so similar to mine. I appreciate your openness! It helps…truly…
I, too, think that your Couch Man is the greatest and hope that I did not come across as harsh yesterday. My 5ft 10in tall, 140lb athletic son has stretch marks on the skin of his arms and legs from when he started to grow quickly as a teenager, as he also has EDS.
Shannon, totally off topic but try adding 1000mg of Vitamin C to your diet, as it will reduce the bruising, look it, up on Wikipedia, of all things. Those of us with EDS need more than your average person, and my guess is than with winter, your consumption of fruits and those veggies than contain the vitamin have way gone down, plus we generally need more to help in the production of collagen.
Hope this helps.
Baby Steps, my friend. Baby Steps. :o) and ((HUGS))
Little by little. I think your Couch Man is great!
I just felt the need to add to my sentence: with winter, your consumption of fruits and those veggies that contain the vitamins may have gone way down, and once we start dieting in the spring, it seems that we don’t add them back in sufficient quantities…
This is definitely one of those times that my inability to type combined with the effects of the drug Topamax have messed up one of my comments!
I know that you do live in a different part of the world than me, but I am aware that we are still having the same seasons, sorry about the confusion.
Have you ever thought that the UK sizing chart system is doing your head in a little? I’m not going to judge, heck if I could be a size 2 and 115 lbs I would. But, I’m not. I’m 39 years old and a size 14…and that’s just the way it is.
Until you feel comfortable in your own skin, you’ll be on this mission. But I’m sure I’m one of many that thinks you’re a beautiful woman with a gorgeous figure…I just hope you don’t miss the opportunity to feel as fantastic as you look!
as I’ve said before, you have a gem in that couch-man. He has such a gift for finding the real heart of everything, no?
I’ve read here a long time & you seem like a friend…even though I know you don’t know me. It made me sad when you started talking about wanting to lose weight. To me you look great! I am overweight, but you are so hard on yourself. One thing I realized not long ago (maybe because I’m over 40 now) is that you only have this one life. I don’t want to spend it beating up on myself because of my weight! You shouldn’t either. Yes we should want to be healthy, but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it.
I was reading a Joel Olsteen story the other day and he was saying that people always wish they were super models or athletes, but we are even better. I am Me & You are You!! God made us all unique & that is a blessing & an amazing thing!! You are you & God made you perfect. (don’t mean to get all religious & everything, but I do believe it). Don’t beat yourself up over it!! You are who you are because of what is in your heart not what you look like on the outside. You are beautiful & amazing just as you are.
Thank you for this post. You inspire me to be brave and keep striving for my own insight.
And for what it’s worth, I think you look fab.
Even your weight loss buddies have pizza too, I had one in Pizza Express last night and loved every mouthful! Tonight, we are going out for a chinese meal with friends and I don’t care about that either.
Chica – For me, it’s ok to just be whatever you want to be, as long as you are happy and healthy.
A wise man your Couch Man sounds like. And it’s good to hear he’s one of those that actually listens and tries to work at your problems from within, not just pump you full of drugs and bill you. Too many of those types have given modern psychology a bad name.
And I wholeheartedly agree: your mother never deserved such treatment. Nobody does. Besides, personally I’ve always liked a little meat on the bones. More to put your arms around and more to love. But more to the point, your ideal weight is somewhere around where your body settles on it’s own and where you feel most comfortable at. Kind of a happy medium.
I’d like to reach across the continent and ocean and just give you a big hug, and then maybe share a slice of pizza with you.
Wonderful post. It is amazing to read that I am not the only person in the world that feels or thinks like this sometimes.
Aargh. Life gets in the way for a while and I miss this post until now.
I think that you look fabulous, Shannon, inside and out. Someday you’ll believe it, too.