They Don't Even Remember Who I Am

I'm writing this here because no one reads this blog.  No one reads it, and therefore I can throw this out into the world, feel like I've expressed myself, yet remained safely anonymous.

My son is well into his teen years.  All his life, I've been fat.  All his life, I've beaten myself up, struggling to NOT be fat, to lose enough weight to keep my appearance from negatively affecting his social life. You see, I had a grammar school friend with a super-fat mom. She wore shapeless, brightly-colored muu-muus and yelled a lot.  Woman hated me, but that's a different story.  I didn't care about her weight, except that I deeply pitied my friend because of the endless abuse she took from other kids about her mom. Any argument, any fight she found herself in could be ended with one sharp "at least my mom's not a whale!"

Kids love their moms.  Usually, anyway.  And I told myself I would do whatever it took to NOT land my son in that same place. I was not going to put him in a spot where he had to choose between his peer group and his fat mother.  I have agonized, starved, obsessed, and self-hated.  I have crawled deeper and deeper into a hole that keeps me well-separated from the world.  And I have taken to hiding upstairs when his friends are here so I don't embarrass him.  I've only met two of them, and one seemed completely put off by my size.  Kid wouldn't even look at me.  Eyes kept darting away as though I were something dangerous looking to leap at his face.  

I've always been very conscious of my size.  I was a "normal-sized" kid until around second grade, at which time my weight ballooned in a scary fashion.  I went from 48 lbs to 98 in one year.  My parents, rather than take me to, say, an endocrinologist, decided on ridicule and loathing as tools to reverse my expansion.  My mother wasn't so bad--she mostly just groused about my size when it came to clothes shopping (an endeavor I quickly learned to hate).  She'd hold up pretty, NORMAL girl clothes and lament my size.  My father, on the other hand, went nuts with the out-and-out attacks.  While my sister and I were not permitted to choose our serving sizes (food was doled out by mom), and we were admonished to finish everything on our plates (not finishing meant no dessert, and possibly a shouting at, a grounding, or a smacking), we were held accountable for our sizes at a very early age.  I remember being eight years old and my dad shouting "How about we stick a fork in that piggy paw and drop you off at the city dump?"  Followed by pig snorts.  I sometimes agonize over the thought that maybe I have, at some point, said something hurtful enough to my son that he will remember it always.  I hope not.

By the time I hit 10th grade, I was weighing in at 235 lbs.  I know, you're so horrified!  I weigh SO much more than that now!  The social pressure was devastating--boys either laughed or ignored, while girls either pitied or pointed.  Sure, I had some friends--some thin, some about my size, a couple heavier.  I think of the popularity hit my thinner friends took, hanging out with me, and I am forever grateful.  

Middle of tenth grade, it happened.   That triggering event, the catalyst.  My friend had gotten a beautiful black '69 Camaro.  Being, as it was, the coolest car on campus, some of that cool attached itself to me, and I found myself being treated pretty well by kids who normally would have blown me off or openly ridiculed me.  Then came the day.  It was first lunch, which meant the classes in the English wing adjacent to the back parking lot were still in session.  My friend and I were standing next to her car.  Beside it was another car; a black '68 Mustang belonging to one of the football stars, a young man named Jeff.  My friend and I were laughing, talking, and, as she lounged on her own car's hood, I leaned back against the fender of Jeff's Mustang.  It was only a minute or less before he exploded out the back doors of the English wing, shouting at me to get my "fat, ugly ass" off his car.

The laughter around me was uproarious.  And I was devastated.

I left school a few minutes later, walked home.  Sat on my mom's bed for a few hours, her .38 in my hand.  And I made a deal with myself.  I had six months to stop being fat.  If I failed, I would kill myself.  

I succeeded.  I began exercising obsessively--quitting school so I could dedicate hours a day.  I stopped eating.  Period, just stopped (and my periods?  They just stopped, too).  One day a week, I was allowed solid food (and two nights a week I was allowed four "lite" beers).  I started smoking in earnest, jumping from a smoke or two, not inhaled, each afternoon to almost two packs a day.  And the weight fell off me.  Never mind the bleeding gums, the thinning hair, the constant headache, dizziness, and trembling.  I lost 100 lbs in six months, and kept losing.  By the next Christmas, I weighed 103 lbs and my size 1 jeans were too loose.  I remember victory turning to disappointment when I realized that getting my pants in the kids' section meant pants with snaps instead of buttons.

Can you guess what happened when I went back to school?  The girls who'd despised me wanted to buddy up and the boys who'd cracked mean "sex with fat chicks" jokes were suddenly asking me out.  Many of them, I suspect, having no idea I was the same girl.  One of those boys?

Mustang Jeff.  I was hanging in the parking lot, dressed so fine, spiked heels and silk shirt, and here he came.  He leaned on my car, got in real close, and smiled.  And me?  I smiled right back, and said . . . 

"Get your fat, ugly ass off my car."

No, it wasn't my car, technically, but who cares?  At first he was hurt, and then realization hit.  And that was the best, let me tell you.

I continued to be wildly unhealthy for a couple of years, with no periods, a bout with Toxic Shock Syndrome, and a scary first marriage to an abusive ass that began when I was 18 and ended in blood and tears at 19.  My shot self-esteem set me up for that marriage.  Because I may have looked fabulous, but I never stopped feeling like it was an act.  Something I was putting over on folks.  That under the pretty clothes I was a bit jiggly and stretch-marked didn't help.

I actually kept myself under 130 for almost 8 years.  But then the weight started piling back on at a breathtaking rate (think 20+ lbs a month after starting new birth control pills), and the family doctor couldn't/wouldn't do any more than ridicule me for my tight pants and jury-rigged button/zipper. Thanks, Russ.  You were a gem.  A couple of years later, he pretended to not feel a lump in my breast because he thought I was my sister.  Told me he knew I was lying, just to cause my family grief.  Told me he wished I DID have a lump because the world would be a better place without me.  And then he figured out I was ME and not my sister.  THEN he wanted to "have another look at that lump."  

Anyway, back on topic:  the weight came back, and it's been a devastating battle since.  25 years I've been battling this.  I got all the way back down to 135 lbs in 1993.  Just in time to meet my husband.  Does he love me at more than twice that? Yes.  Would he have been at all interested in me at that weight in the beginning?  I can't answer that.  

 So, how do we get from there to the fat, sociophobic mommy who hides in her room?

A bunch of reasons, but I think I can best illustrate with following three events.  I'll put them down in order.

1) Walking through Target's garden section.  Must have been around 1999.  My infant son in the cart in front of me, and I'm shopping for a rosebush for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day.  Two teenage boys, about the age of my son and his friends today, start tailing me.  Snickering.  Whispering.  And then it starts--the loud pig snorting and "soooouuuueeee!"  I stopped, steeled myself, and turned around to look at them.  They burst into laughter and scurried away.  And I stood there, struggling not to cry.  Promising myself I would stop being fat, I would stop being ugly, I would stop being ME before my son was old enough to understand.

2)  Walking through Walmart.  A couple of years later.  By now, I've learned to avoid teenage boys.  Men are bad enough, but their eyes just tend to slide sideways and avoid me entirely, and I guess a refusal to engage or acknowledge is better than flat-out abuse.  As I'm limping along, pushing my cart, my four year old on board, three teenage girls breeze by.  The brand of laughter is unmistakable, And then one casts me a disdainful look and says to her friends, "If I ever look like that, fucking shoot me.  Promise!"  And then all three collapse into giggle fits.  And I'm left standing there, once again pleading with myself to find some way to stop being what I am before my boy is old enough to remember it.

3) The final straw, really.  The one where I cracked and completely lost my grip.  I was walking through the grocery store (you'd think I'd learn to avoid such places) when two men came my way.  I saw the look pass between them and knew, instantly.  At 25 feet out I understood what was coming, but there was nowhere for me to go.  They got within a few feet of me and the games began.  

"Oooh, there's one for you, Mike!"

"Dude, she'd crush me in my sleep!"

"You'd have to chew your arm off to get away from porky there!"

And I lost all cohesion.  Perhaps telling, I didn't have my son with me this time.  This was around 2003 or so, and my boy was off in another part of the store with his daddy.  And so, with tears springing from my eyes, fists clenched and body trembling, I went completely bonkers.  Asked them where on earth they got the idea that they were, in any way, prizes?  Did they OWN mirrors?  Food slopped down the front of this one's wife beater, tweaker complexion and rotting teeth, who the fuck was HE to start on ME?  At least my clothes were clean and I didn't STINK of meth and armpits.  And what about the other one?  With his beer belly and retreating hairline, with those protuberances above that belly that most would call bitch tits, how DARE he?  At least I HAD a family, I HAD a partner, I HAD a beautiful child still young enough to not see me through their lens.  I didn't have to hang about in grocery stores with my tweaker pal, abusing women who'd done nothing at all to earn it.  And I didn't stop.  One of them muttered "Sorry" and I exploded even further.  Sorry?

SORRY?  Oh, gosh, fuck your sorry, I give zero shits about you and your half-assed apology borne of embarrassment rather than remorse.  

I stalked these guys through the store, shouting, crying, never letting up.  I trailed them to the checkout where, rather than wait in line, they left their goods and fled the store.  And I stood there, gasping and sobbing, while people I didn't know came up and patted me on the shoulder, squeezed my hand, told me I'd done a fine thing. 

But it didn't feel fine.  And I didn't feel strengthened, vindicated, or in any other way improved by the experience.  I felt devastated.  Empty.  Utterly broken.

And I still do.

I lost a gaggle of weight again a couple of years ago.  Of course, each time I lose, I gain back even more, so the 180 pound loss still had me over 200.  And I'm now back over 300.  I don't know how much over because I just can't take it any more.  I've weaned myself off my heart meds (I have an arrhythmia, unrelated to my weight) because I can't take the shaming I get at the doctor's office.  I finally wrote to her, explained why I haven't been in and what's going on, and she told me I don't have to weigh.  So I have an appointment in two days.  And I'm so pitched about it, I fear I might keel over before I ever get in.  Because she's going to ride me about my weight, even if she doesn't weigh me.  Because there's this idea that fat people are, by nature, stupid, lazy, dull, and gluttonous.  I'm not lazy.  I'm not stupid.  Clearly, I eat more than my body will accept, but I don't eat more than my not-fat husband or my not-fat son.  To be talked down to and treated like I don't understand I'm fat?  Is devastating to me.  Believe me, I am aware of my size every day.  Not a day, not an HOUR goes by when I don't find myself nearly in tears (or just flat-out sobbing).  

And the title of this blog entry?  That's easy.  Those boys in Target, those girls in Walmart?  They'd tell you they're nice people.  They're kind people.  They almost certainly have no memory of me whatsoever.  The tweaker pals might remember me solely because I went on the offensive.  Same with Jeff of the Mustang.  But I don't want to be on the offensive, because that just tears me apart and leaves others feeling I deserve the abuse because look at what a rude, loud creature I am.  Because the only thing the world hates more than a fat woman is a fat woman who sticks up for herself.  

A little note for the "how can you give those people such power over you" crowd.  It's easy--I'm broken.  If you don't understand that about me, you don't know me at all.  They didn't just hurt me, they shattered me.  And it wasn't just them, it was my family suddenly inviting me to parties and showing me off to their friends once I was thin.  It was my mom expressing her disappointment when I regained.  It was my dad and his horrified intake of breath after, during a telephone argument over whether or not heavy folks should have to pay "fatty fares" on airlines, I told him how much I weigh.  It was my nephew finding an old wedding picture and saying, with such longing, "You used to be so beautiful.  What happened?"

I'm broken.  And I'm afraid that, at nearly 50, there is no fixing me.

Rude Thin Guy Hates Stupid Fat People--boy, that's a surprise, huh?

So, let's talk about "fat shaming."  More specifically, let's talk about a man named Geoffrey Miller, who is a professor.  Mr. Miller "tweeted" that (and I'm paraphrasing) "fat people can't finish dissertations because they lack motivation or self control."

Mr. Miller is, of course, slender and really quite handsome.  I'm sorry, that's DOCTOR Miller.

Silly me.

Now, there are many calling for Dr. Miller's dismissal, but I'm not one of them.  What I WOULD like to see is Dr. Miller educated on matters of obesity, diet, and what really goes on in a person's body when they become fat as a child.  It's not opinion, it's not excuses, it's not whining--it's science, folks.  Because I abruptly piled weight on at the age of seven (and no one did a thing to figure out why, though my doctor called me a pig and my father offered to drop me off at the dump with a fork, neither response proving to be particularly helpful, strangely), my body will ALWAYS burn less, store more, and fight my efforts to keep weight off.  I will never be able to eat the way a "never-fat" person can eat.  I will always have to eat markedly less and move markedly more.  Again, that's not opinion, that's not butt-covering, that's just science.  The more Dr. Miller (a University of New Mexico professor who was doing a "visiting professor" gig at NYU) actually grasps about the human body, metabolism, and issues of weight and diet, perhaps the less he mouths off like a snotty, discriminating punk.

Speaking of discriminating, word has it this man has spent time on academic admissions committees.  Boy, if that doesn't just pierce your heart with something cold and scary, huh?  Kind of like being gay and Hispanic and having Niall Ferguson and Jason Richwine weighing your admissions application.  Not saying the man's obvious bias against folks who weigh more than he thinks they should came into play, just saying the possibility certainly leaps to mind.

Here's one of Dr. Miller's tweets:

And here is a nicely phrased blog entry about Dr. Miller, his tweets, and some of the broader issues at play here.  To put a wrap on this issue, let me just say this--I hope, with all my heart, that Dr. Miller finds a way to overcome this awful prejudice before a wife, lover, or child weighs in at more than he finds acceptable.  Personally, even at my thinnest (think a loose size one), I would never have dated a guy like this--after all, even at my thinnest, I was still ME.  And this guy?  Despises me.

This girl never would have dated Dr. Geoffrey Miller

Now, Dr. Miller would no doubt look at the above picture and say, "But see, that's the perfect example of what I mean--you DID lose the weight, and therefore YOU would be the perfect doctoral candidate!"  

My answer?

I lost that weight (135 lbs) in six months through starvation and terrifyingly obsessive exercise.  I was 15 years old, and I quit school so I could spend six-plus hours a day exercising.  When I wasn't doing aerobics at home, I was running.  And when I wasn't running?  I was at the gym lifting weights, riding stationary bikes, taking part in high energy aerobics classes, and swimming.  I ate (and this is no exaggeration) one day a week, and that meal was preceded by a large dose of laxatives.  All other days?  Four ounces of unsweetened orange juice.  My hair began thinning.  My teeth loosened.  My gums bled.  My hands trembled all the time, my head hurt all the time, my stomach BLED while my periods STOPPED for almost two years.  I'm still facing a health backlash over this, decades later--ever wonder what anorexia does to bone density? Yeah, I'll tell you all about it some time.

But gosh, at least Jeff Abbot asked me out.  Jeff Abbot, whose opinions were much like Dr. Miller's.  Jeff Abbot, who, a year earlier, had told me to get my "fat ass" off his car.  It was with a special joy that, the day he asked me out, I was able to tell him to get HIS "fat ass" off MY car.  It was only then he realized I was the same girl.  No, he didn't have the good sense to be ashamed.

Now, Dr. Miller might say, "You should have lost the weight reasonably, you should have taken it slow and made gradual lifestyle changes."  Oh, shut the hell up--like I haven't been doing that my whole stinking life?  The last time I fried a food--ANY food--was 1981.  The last time I added salt to ANYTHING was that same year.  I haven't eaten white bread in 30 years.  I haven't had a sugar-sweetened soda since that one time Don M. didn't have any diet drinks back in 1984.  My mistake, every time, has been thinking that, once I achieve a weight goal, I can start eating like a normal person, calorie-wise.  No, not like a stereotypical "fat" person, but like the lady across the table from me, like my husband, like my friends.  

And that is just not true.  And it never will be true.  And until I can find a way to reconcile what I want with the vastly reduced amount I can actually have, I will always struggle.  I challenge Geoffrey Miller to exist on markedly reduced calories a day FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE and keep blathering on about lazy people who lack willpower.  

Here's an EXCELLENT PIECE in the NY Times on the subject.

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And enough of that!  Let's move on to even more depressing things.

My teeth.

I am the dental health queen in the family.  While my husband has racked up thousands of dollars in dental care costs, I've always been Ms. Wonder-Teeth.  Yes, I'm missing all my molars on the right side, but through no fault of my own--the bottom ones never erupted (and had to be removed surgically in an in-patient procedure when I was 13 years old), and the top ones, which were perfectly healthy, had to be yanked out of my head because they kept sinking lower and lower (because of the lack of a bridge below them), until they were gouging into my lower jaw every time I chewed.  But otherwise, my teeth have always rocked.  I did have a root canal 8 years ago because a tooth broke when I chewed something that turned out to have a hard chunk of rock-like stuff in it.  That aside, I'm the girl who's always being congratulated for my dental hygiene.  I'm the "brush 2-3 times a day, floss repeatedly, rinse with an anti-cavity product every night before bed" kind of person.

So you can imagine my horror at the 600 dollar-plus dental bill I have coming up later this month.  You see, when you chew on only one side of your face, it takes a toll.  I've been chewing only on the left side since . . . well, since the baby molars fell out and nothing new came in to take their place.  And, eventually, that has a deleterious effect.  In me?

It's left one of my molars cracked.  Which is going to necessitate a build up and crown.

Damn.

In addition, I have a new problem.  See, I rinse nightly with a fluoride/anti-gingivitis rinse.  I have for years.  But recently (about a month ago), I ran out of my usual stuff (ACT).  While at Wegmans, I spied a big, purple bottle of Crest Pro-Health Complete Rinse.

It's purple.

It claims to be "no burn" and "clean mint" flavored.

Did I mention it's PURPLE?

 I'd been using it for 3+ weeks when I noticed that my teeth were looking decidedly . . . dingy.  A sort of nasty yellowish pall.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that I had definite BROWN staining starting between the teeth.  In some spots, it was pretty intense.  I was horrified.  I smoked for 26+ years, so my teeth aren't movie-star white, but they're a nice, solid, even light ivory.  For them to suddenly be yellow with brown patches between them?

What the hell?

So there it is-the brown between, the yellowish cast--that's all new.  Again, I brush, floss, and rinse daily, so this was something initially scary to me.  Being the web-junkie I am, I immediately ran out and did a websearch.  And the overwhelming answer?

Crest Pro-Health.  Not only does this stuff contain an ingredient that causes brown stains to teeth (cetylpyridnium chloride), but Crest has KNOWN that this stuff stains teeth for YEARS.  In fact, it turns out, in very fine print, that they say so on the packaging:

Now, here's the rub--they say it's not permanent, and that "adequate brushing" can prevent it.  Wellll, screw you, Proctor and Gamble!  I brush plenty adequately, and the hygienist who went nuts trying to scrape it off?  Said it won't budge.  And she really put some muscle into it.  Fact is, if I want this completely gone, I'm going to have to fork over for a professional tooth whitening gig.

Yes, I contacted Crest.  And after a few days?  Still no response.  I feel me a big, nasty Epinions product review coming on.

Now, I will say that, after a week of NOT using this crap (and it is crap--it smells and tastes like that horrid saccharine-like fake bubble gum air freshener my mom used to bring home from the hospital where she worked), the brown is not as bad.  And I suppose I should be grateful for the brown--with the number of people out there who complain that this product has robbed them of their sense of taste (believable to me--my tongue is still randomly tossing out bitter sensations, and the flavor of this stuff ten minutes after use is horrifically, deeply chemical-y), I guess a little brown and yellow is the preferable bad side-effect.

Now, I was checking in the store last night, and not all Crest Pro-Health products appear to have this ingredient.  So read your labels, and watch for the staining warning.  And remember, the FDA is not your friend here--because they consider these effects "minor" and "cosmetic" and "not damaging," they won't do anything about it.

Looks like I'll be dodging Crest products like I'll be dodging Chrysler.  Sometimes, it's not just what your product does, it's how you, as a corporate entity, respond to what your product does.

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And on a final, happy note?  I was out this morning at around six (I know, some of you are saying, "6 a.m.?  I thought you said HAPPY?"), watering the flowers, veggies, and grass (and putting fresh water in the neighbor's bird bath).  I like going out early when it's cool and green and everything still has that dewy, fresh smell to it.  It's why, when my other neighbor (the atheist-hater) offers to let me use her soaker hose, I don't actually take her up on it.  While she would never understand, fact is, I LIKE being outside with my yard.  I like watering, pruning, and just sitting there enjoying as I give my world a drink.  Anyway (see how I wandered there?), I was watering, and the birds were so loud, so . . . celebratory.  A hummingbird kept coming to the feeder, landing, and taking deep drinks.  Two mourning doves kept landing on the fence and staring, waiting for me to leave.  And the robin on the shed?  Kept coming to the ground, hunting for bugs, then flying off when I'd move, each time giving an offended chirp and casting an evil glance my way.  Obviously impatient for me to get out of HIS yard so he could get his breakfast in.  And then?

It occurred to me.  At 6 a.m., I don't have a lot of birds in my yard.  Instead, the birds have a lot of ME in their yard.  At 6 a.m., I'm the interloper.

It made me happy to see it that way.