My Second Book
Chapter One
Welcome to my world. Many of you are part of the very same existence and know what this is all about. Some of you are not yet willing to admit what’s happening and has been happening in your own lives that brought you to this point. I know I hid from my own demons for a very long time. I know if I am going to slay this beast, I need to find out what brought it to my doorstep all those years ago and how I am going to get rid of it. Even though people and circumstances brought me to where I am, they were able to because I let them. I handed over the power to them. I need to be responsible for my own actions. It was very difficult for me to see that in the beginning. Just finding the answers inside of me is a monumental task.
So much comes to mind for me. I was heavy from the start. Kids were relentless in their teasing and insults. As I’m sure you know, children can be especially cruel, but it’s because they don’t have the social skills yet to decipher what’s acceptable and what’s not. That comes from their parents, and other children that they associate with. Let’s face it; the big deal in school is being popular. And if it’s popular to pick on the “fat/different” kids, then that’s what you do in order to fit in. If you’re like I was, I was the comical one so everyone would look past my size and laugh at my jokes so I was liked. But what I didn’t realize is they weren’t liking me for me, they were liking me for what I could give them, laughter. That’s not the same thing. Because when I stopped being funny, they stopped liking me. It wasn’t until I got older and realized what was really going on with my “friends” that I got it, sad but true. In my quest to be liked and to fit in with the “in” crowd, I was willing to do whatever was necessary, not so much to fit in even, but to keep them from picking on me. That was painful, and it still is. Because like it or not, adults do the same thing, they’re just better at hiding it (those who chose to hide it) then children are. But those of you, who have experienced this, know exactly what I’m talking about.
I was very popular with the guys, but not as a potential girlfriend, just a funny friend who happens to be a girl. The difference is huge, especially when you’re in Jr. high and high school wanting desperately to be just like everyone else. And the sad fact is, we are like everyone else, we just happen to be bigger versions of human beings. I liken my existence in this way; when you have a pasture full of black horses, and then the farmer gets a white one, everyone talks about the white one, pointing fingers and whispering, but the fact remains, he’s still a horse. No matter the color, he’s still a horse.
Or when you wear white shoes with a black dress, and everyone notices the white shoes in the world of (the beautiful black dress) that get ridiculed. I’ve often looked at myself as the while shoes because the other people (acceptable shoes) are the colors to wear in the world that’s the black dresses. Everyone notices the white shoes and the black dress doesn’t like the attention that the shoes are getting so the black dress begins to try and outshine (tease and belittle) the white shoes with all it’s accessories and better choice shoes so they become the center of attention and the white shoes fade in the background and are eventually forgotten or changed because, “they don’t match.”
So I’m the white shoes in the back of the closet, getting crushed (teased) by the mountains of other matching shoes, never to be worn again, unless of course something else occurs and I happen to match an outfit. Then and only then, am I taken out from the underneath the pile (used), and dusted off so I can serve a purpose, but just for a time, until I’m not needed again, then back at the bottom of the closet I go.
Sometimes I feel like the only purpose I serve is to make others feel superior because they’re one of the normal-sized people. And when they take me out, I’m their comic relief, so to speak and I’m the thing they get to laugh at for the evening so they have yet another opportunity to look and feel superior to me, the fat one.
Just for the record, I hate the word, fat. Society has put such a stigma on that word, that it sounds only cruel to me. I hate using it, but I use it in this context to show what I’m trying to get across. Obese is another word I hate. I realize it’s only a medical term, however they are both ugly words, and I always use overweight when I refer to my size. And just for the record, I know I’m overweight, I don’t need someone to point that out to me. Have you ever come across the blatant comment, “you know, you’re fat.” Duh! Really? I hadn’t noticed.
Chapter TwoFirst there was my father, a wonderful man in his own right. He has never been demonstrative with his feelings. Of course that was because he never grew up with people telling each other they loved them. And he always worried about our weight gain. But instead of telling us he loved us and wanted us to be healthy, he felt he could shame us into losing weight so he would tell us we were fat. That in and of itself was bad enough, but couple it together with the fact that he never told us he loved us, and you have a very bad situation for building a child’s self-esteem. He says he always tried to show us, but when you’re a child, having your daddy say, “I love you,” means the world. He just never quite got the hang of doing that. I do know he loves me and I’ve never questioned it, but when you’re young, the adults in your life have great power over your thoughts and feelings. It’s very easy to break a child down. Just like it’s easy to build them up.
A parent needs to make the conscious decision everyday whether or not they will be helpful, or push the child aside because they have their own “stuff” to deal with. Hopefully the parents can find a way to deal with both while being extra sensitive to the child. Children look to their parents for love, support and acceptance of not only their actions, but of their general appearance. Who do children go to when they’re hurt or confused, a parent. So it only stands to reason that a parent could help or harm them without even thinking about it. If you are overeating and the only way you know that your parent is worried is to have them call you fat and tell you that you are killing yourself with a fork and knife, how is a child to know it’s said out of fear for their health? It is impossible for a youngster to put all that together and not think that their parent is just calling them names. That was another huge part of my problem.
My dad also told us to clean our plate. Please, if you ever have children, with the exception of what they need to eat to stay alive, do not, I beg you, do not make them eat everything on their plate. A doctor will tell you, children eat what they need. If we teach them at a young age to eat what’s on their plates, even when they’re full, we are asking for big trouble. The answer is in training the child to take smaller portions and go back for more if they want more. I realize it’s hard to know exactly how much you’re going to eat, especially when you come to the table extremely hungry. If you can set an example for your children, it will make for a lot less trouble and hurt later on in life.
He also used to buy pizza and grinders on the weekends and sometimes he’d have us go to the store and get a whole bag of candy bars. I’m talking eight or twelve of them, and of course we’d eat more than we needed. We were kids. But I now realize, that he had just as bad a problem controlling himself as we did. His lack of self-control spilled over onto us, his children. As a result all of us have had or have a weight problem now. It has been a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.
My father has since passed away. He has never seen me lose the weight he so desperately wanted me to. I pray he can see me now. He would be so proud not only of my true attempt, but my course toward helping others. When I was young, I had one grandmother that I knew. She was my maternal grandmother. She had a very hard childhood, a vicious stepmother not being the least of her crosses to bear. However, it made her a hard human being. She never had a kind word to say about anyone except her children. She never said something nice to me when we were alone. She only complimented me when my mother was around. I’m sure it was all for show, but when you’re a little girl, it never occurs to you that she had a hard life, all you know is she was mean. I had a wonderful relationship with my grandfather. He was my world when I was young. He loved me beyond reason. We were like twins whenever we were together. My grandfather left this earth just after I was fourteen years old, all too early. Devastating does not describe what it was to a little girl who just had her whole world disappear in an instant.
My grandmother and I never mixed well. My sister, when she was young, kept her mouth shut and went with the flow to keep the peace. She was the quiet one who eventually became a mother tiger. She always appeased our grandmother, or at least that’s how I felt.
From as far back as I can remember my grandmother and I butted heads. She was jealous of the relationship I had with my grandfather. She tried, many times unsuccessfully to join us. It just didn’t work. Grandpa and I were in our own little world and we had our own way of communicating, without words. He always knew me in the most special way a parent can know a child. He knew my thoughts, my fears. He used to tell me not to bite my fingernails because I was too young to worry. I’ll always remember that and when he used to say, “I can’t say mayonnaise, I have to say ammonaise,” and he’d say, “I can’t say purple, I have to say purkle.” It was always so funny. Hey, give me a break I was only little.
Grandma, whenever she came to our house, (too many times for me to enjoy), while we were eating dinner, she would call my brother Carl and I “slobs” under her breath. She would call us names like “fat” or “tub-o-lard” always under her breath. When I went to their house to stay over night she would and say nasty things about our weight because she thought I was asleep, at least that’s what I’ve believed all these years, who knows if she thought we were asleep or not? It really doesn’t matter, she said those things and it didn’t matter to her. And the funniest thing is she was overweight herself and she had absolutely no room to judge anyone. But of course, when you’re a young child, again, you don’t think of those things.
I never felt like I was good enough for her. Once in a while she would give me her costume jewelry to try on and her scarves, but she never let me be myself. When we were with her, she was a control freak. We did things the way she wanted and bowed to her or we suffered in some way. Not in a way that an adult would think of suffering, but in ways that a child would see it. Like not getting ice cream or her being mean and ignoring you for the rest of the day. Even though she wasn’t my favorite person, she was still my grandmother and loving my mom as I did, it made it that much harder because I had to pretend I loved her for my moms sake, or so I thought. It wasn’t until years later, I found out my mother knew what grandma was like and she had several discussions with her as to how she treated the children.
With each, “slob, tub-o-lard and fat” comment, my exterior became bigger and bigger and my esteem got smaller and smaller. Food was the only thing I had complete control over. Only I could decide what went in my mouth, no one else. I was the master of my food. This was only a small piece of the puzzle. It was the foundation on which I laid the groundwork for a much bigger, much more serious problem.
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ISBN#-1-4137-8184-5