The Emotional Trauma of Being Obese or Overweight
Posted on | February 17, 2008 | No Comments
Photography: T S Carlisle
You may be or know someone who is obese; it could be your friend, mother, father, sister, brother and or neighbour. But what do we really know about this condition – and it is a condition. I know from personal experience that sometimes it is an emotional crisis in your life that compels you to eat, and eat, and eat, ’til one day you wake up and you are 25 years old and wonder what the hell happened to you.
My story is this. When I was a small child at age seven I was diagnosed with a hernia. Up until this time I used to run around like a maniac. This all stopped when I had to go for surgery. When you are 7 years old you are still a baby and don’t understand what is happening to you. The specialist told my mother that the anaesthetic would make me put weight on. He asked my mother to watch what I was eating to prevent this.
That was the start, I stopped being active and I started eating more. Now if you are from a European background you will soon understand the idea that if you as a child are eating – parents would think this was great and let you go ahead doing this.
And so my mother let me eat, told me off when I started to gain weight. By this time it was too late. My eating all the time was a symptom of what was really going on in my head. In my family my Grandparents were a part of our lives – they lived with us whilst growing up. My emotional trauma started because at the time my Grandmother would single me out, scold me, tell me things like why aren’t you more like your older sister. And, why can’t you do that as well as your sister. The list went on.
My parents were working a lot and didn’t really realise what was happening at home, or were just too tired to want to know. When someone tells you often enough that you are no good or that you don’t measure up (not in those words), it was never in those words exactly, but you knew that is what they were saying. You started to believe what they said and started to feel inadequate and unworthy.
My eating really started to take shape at Primary level (Australian) school. The kids didn’t like me and I was constantly picked on. It was the weight jokes, and the ethnic remarks. Then to come home and cop it again from a relative it was all too much to bear.
And so I ate, and ate to oblivion. The result 36 years later is that I weight around 150 odd kilograms, my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, I can’t run to save my life, I don’t swim or wear shorts in public. And the worst thing of all is the looks I still get from people I work with, people I see down the street, in a restaurant or a shopping mall. It doesn’t end.
I know all of the above sounds really bad, and it is. I can assure you that everything I have gone through, the constant fat jokes and ridicule, losing my parents to cancer, and losing my Grandparents; even my Grandmother I have somehow managed to direct all the anger and all the hurt into something positive – my website. This may sound really stupid and you may think what is she talking about.
What I am talking about is that I acknowledge that obese people are affected mentally, and what people out there don’t realise is that when you are emotionally that low, it doesn’t take much to push you over the edge. I guess what I am trying to say to you all is that it is okay to cry about it, and it is okay to be hurt and angry. I still am all of those things. The only thing I don’t do anymore is cry about it.
The reason I don’t cry anymore is that I am much older now, much stronger and more accepting of myself. Yes I would love to wake up like so many of you, and see a size 12. That would be fantastic, but it doesn’t work like that and we all know this. Like most of you I have also gone on every diet imaginable, and obviously it didn’t last and all the weight came back on. This is where the emotional part comes into it.
You can say to yourself, right, I am going to start tomorrow and eat healthier, and start to exercise. And you will mean that with all your heart. Some will actually start and some won’t. The outcome is that you can do this diet thing for so long before you quit. You will quit because it is not realistic or feasible. It is not something that normal life allows you to do for the next two years.
You may have kids, or a husband that you need to cook for, and then there is work and work functions. There is so much food thrown in your face all the time that bar from being locked up in a padded cell and being fed what you need for the next two years before you lose the weight, our lives make it virtually impossible to do. To those of us that actually did it I truly congratulate them and applaud their strength and determination. And for those of you like myself who have tried and tried and failed. It is okay you know. It is a very hard thing to do, and like I said if you are already low and weak it won’t take much to make you fumble.
The bad news is that there is no quick fix to our problem, we basically need to have a diet set out for us that we shall eat for the rest of our lives, regular exercise and activity and that my friends is the TRUTH.
The good news is that my website will allow us big girls and boys to buy clothes and accessories that will accentuate our curves and give us colour and vibrancy to make us feel good about our selves again.
This my friends is called acceptance and the road to having a healthier mind and hopefully body one day. If you feel good you tend to make better choices in food and even put you in a good enough mood to exercise. We have hope and together we will give each other the positive support we really need. I hope you all enjoy the stores I bring to you, I know I love them and look fabulous.
Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy being here.
E-mail me if you have any questions, or just leave a comment below. I promise I’ll reply!
Kat
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