Power of Words

Obese.

It's just a word.

But oh, the power of that one five-letter word.

There are a lot of words used to describe people's weight.  One might be chubby, plump, big-boned, full-figured, heavy, overweight, or even fat.  None of them carry the stigma that obese does.  I've been thin, "just right" and every shade of chubby, overweight, full-figured and fat that there is, and obesity is the most shameful of them all.  People don't generally take photos of a chubby person's backside.  Folks don't usually point and laugh at a person who's a few pounds overweight.  But somehow, for some reason that I just have never comprehended, if you're obese it's like you lose all your human-ness and your own sense of identity.  You don't have feelings or deserve the same basic respect that everyone else on the planet does.  I've seen it happen to others, and I've had it happen to me more than you might think.  I've been told, "Oh, they're not laughing at you.  You're too sensitive.  People don't look at you like that; they see your beautiful smile or your pretty face..."  Mmhm... believe what you want if it makes you feel better.  Until you walk around in public in size 5x clothes, you don't know.

I remember when I saw that word in association with my own health.  "Morbid obesity."  Not just obese- but morbidly so.  That hurt more than I can ever describe.  I felt such shame and humiliation. As I walked out of the doctor's office, my eyes glued to the ground it was all I could do to hold the tears in until I got to my car.  I never told my family- not even my best friend/husband about it.  Of course he knows that I am morbidly obese, but I never could bear to tell him what those black letters on the paper said.  I crumpled it up and hid it somewhere no one would find it.

After years and years of being a morbid person- a huge blob of lard walking around on two legs, I still feel that way when I see that word on my medical charts.  Being morbidly obese is not something that just happens to you (at least not that I'm aware), but in my case, anyway, it is something I did to myself.  I am so ashamed of that.  I am pretty damn angry with myself for doing this to my body- one that was at one time young, pretty thin, and not too bad looking.  I can never get that back.  Even if I am able to lose most or all of the weight- I'm ruined and can never get back what I had.  You just don't know how mad that makes me at myself.

Feeling that way about myself already, it only gets compounded a million times over when I go out in public and have to face the stares, the rude looks, the comments, laughter or people taking a photo of my butt like I'm some circus sideshow freak.  There was a time just a couple years ago when I realized that I was letting myself stay in the house more and more because of this.  I realized that I was not going to the grocery store or Walmart or pretty much anywhere except work and church because I was so ashamed of myself and didn't want to subject myself to ridicule or my husband and kids to the embarrassment of being seen with someone as disgusting as me.  That's when I made a decision to do something about it.  That was the beginning of my journey to lose the blob that I've become.

I've come a long way, but I still have a very long way to go.  I'm still a blob of goo- just less of one. I'm still fighting a hard fight on a daily basis.  I will never be the pretty young lady I once was, but I will live to be older.  I will be healthier.  I will not be an embarrassment to myself or those around me.  I will live to see those words-morbid obesity- taken off my medical charts. That is good enough for me.

R :)