Tara H.
Invisibility
May 05, 2011
(This is from my blog, which you can see in it's entirety at www.hulsgirls.blogspot.com)Have you ever felt invisible? I don't mean like with the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter where you can sneak around without anyone noticing you're there.
I mean, invisible, like you blend in with the background. People can see you but they don't SEE you, don't include you, don't notice you. Very monochromatic (black is what fat people usually wear), very non descript, very marginalized.
Sometimes, it is desirable to blend in. You don't want people to notice you're fat. You don't want to be called out, made fun of, or talked about because of how you look. Let's admit it, if you see someone strung out on drugs, you're going to do a double take. If you see a raging alcoholic stumbling through your job, people will take notice. BUT, if you're overweight, you can do your best to blend in. People will notice, but it's not the same. It's a different type of addiction. You need to eat (you don't NEED to drink or take drugs to survive), but the problem is that something normal like eating is taken to extremes in terms or portions, frequency, or quality of food eaten.
It's easy to say, it's easy for you...you had surgery, so no wonder it's easy for you to say all of this. Well, even in the few days before surgery, I thought, I don't look so bad. I'm not really THAT big (268) compared to some people. I carry it well. I thought that the changes I'd have to make afterwards would be too much to get through. The stages of food, the vitamins, the water.....focus, focus, focus.
Actually, those first few weeks was a learning curve, but it's very manageable, and it has been SO worth it! Like a normal person who is trying to lose weight, you have to take extreme care about the quality (nutrients, vitamins, protein) of what you eat, the quantity of what you eat (and drink), and you have to exercise. For me, gastric bypass made me "normal"-- this is something that I can actually accomplish now. It truly is a tool. I want this to be successful long term, so I have commited my life to me.
To anyone who comments on how great I look, I say, I FEEL SO good! because it's not really about how I look (though that is a nice bonus), but I FEEL SO GOOD!! I think that because the surgery causes the weight to drop so fast, you notice it more, at least I do. It's like night and day.
I remember this story of a frog in a pot. If you turn up the temperature on the stove little by little, the frog will eventually die, because the heat is too much, but if you dropped the frog into boiling water, he would fight like crazy to get out of there.
I think that weight gain is like that. It happens over time, little by little, and while you notice the gain over time, it's gradual and you adjust. If today I went from my current weight of 189.8 back to 268 (day of surgery), I would freak out! The change would be so in your face, that you'd have to address it.
My little one comments weekly that I'm "losing all my fatness" (with interesting hand motions to express this). It's a darn nice compliment :-)
Back to this invisibility thing.....I've really noticed how people treat me now all of the sudden. I am taken more seriously, people are friendlier, there is much more eye contact by others, and I get many more looks from guys.
So, I will end with a neat quote I collected recently.....
