Dark Side of the Moon

Jan 28, 2009

So, it's taken me some time to get my thoughts together on this blog.  It's a hard blog to write and what I have to admit is painful to me.  I don't think anyone I know who's also been through this surgery/transformation that I've talked to has said anything about this so I have fear that I'm the only one it's happening to.

*deep breath*  Okay here goes.

I think I'm intolerant.  I think I've become one of those people I hated before I had surgery.  I think I've become impatient and unsympathetic to extremely obese people who I come in contact with. 

I always want to run up to people I see and tell them, "look, there's hope!  There's a way out!  I did it, you can do it, too!"  But then I see the choices they make and I smell the smells that come from not being able to take care of your own body by bathing and I feel my eyebrows push together and my mouth fall open and I hear my inside voice saying, "how can you let yourself get like that?"

and the horrifying truth is, five years ago THAT WAS ME!   Not a lifetime ago, not when I was little.. FIVE YEARS AGO.  I hate this about myself.  I hate that I get angry at people I don't even know because of how they have succumbed to their disease.  I hate that it infuriates me to see entire families at walmart and either mom or dad is in a scooter and all the kids are fat and carrying some sugary drink or candy waddling along behind.  I hate knowing the life those kids are facing.  I hate knowing the hopelessness that they must feel.  I get so mad I want to shake the parents and scream that they're chipping years off their kids' lives by being lazy and not insisting that they go outside and play each day.

I know I can't make choices for other people but sometimes I wish I could. 

I have an employee right now who is in very bad shape.  He must weigh 400 to 450.  He's a smart kid and I think he can be very driven but I can see the different ways he hates himself.  He rarely bathes and smells like sour apple juice all the time.  His hair is longish and stringy/greasy.  he does his best to clean up but I know it must be hard.  He spends hours and hours playing computer games with his buddies.  he can't even get his driver's license because I think he can't fit into the seat of his truck to take the test.  He constantly wheezes.  customers complain about him in various ways -- he smells, he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's slow..  all the things the intolerant people (of which it appears I've become one) love to proclaim about fat people.  smelly.  stupid.  not good enough.  it hurts me personally to hear it but it hurts me even more to have to APOLOGIZE to these people for it -- real or imagined, i have to say, "I'm sorry my employee was ____" and then offer them some sort of compensation for their "trouble."

And you'd think I'd understand it.. I DO understand it.. but I fail more and more frequently to tolerate it.  I'm tired of having "the talk" about body odor with him.  I'm tired of apologizing for whatever real or imagined failings he's displaying to customers because of their real or imagined prejudice.

How do I justify this in my head, though?

I've been there.  I have literally been there. Those realities are clear and vivid in my mind.  I remember the pain of my struggles tangibly. I know how hard it is to change.  I know what it took to become what I am today -- and this is where "normal" becomes a bad word to me -- I'm closer to normal now than I have ever been in my entire life. 

I still struggle.  I am still fat inside and I battle every day to not fall back into my old ways.  I feel like I'm an alcoholic some days.. but my "alcohol" is necessary to continue living.  But being NORMAL also sometimes gives me a feeling of entitlement, i think.  Like, hey, I worked hard and I earned this transformation.  I've been on the dark side of the moon and I've been on light side so I know it can be done.  Stop being lazy and do something about it.  Something!  Anything!  Trade your Hawaiian Punch for a bottled water!  I know it doesn't taste as good -- change is hard sometimes and that's a small price to pay.  Trade your Snickers bar for an apple or a handful of unsalted peanuts!  Park your car 6 stalls further and walk into the store rather than drive around 15 extra minutes waiting for that front spot to free up.  Walk your cart back to the corral, instead of leaving it next to your car.  You don't have to make the extreme drastic change I did but you can do SOMETHING.  Don't just GIVE UP!!  Small change can lead to big change.  Don't think you have to take it all on at once but you can't ever justify to me not taking ANY change on.  Take responsibility and take action.

See?  Can you read the anger in my words?  I can.  I found at the end of that paragraph that I was writing in anger.  There's a ball of anger in my chest right now.  I don't understand this at all.  Maybe THIS is the "dark side" of the moon, instead?

I don't know if there's a resolution to this.. I hate admitting the way I feel now -- I feel like I'm betraying "my people" by feeling this way.  I wish I didn't have to apologize for how I feel but I still get emails from people who read my journey and look to me for guidance and support and I feel like if I don't expose this part of my journey to the harsh light of truth then I'm somehow short-changing everybody. 

I'm afraid my friends are now thinking, "wow, does she look at me that way?  Does she think about me like that?"  The God's Honest Truth is, not all the time and not all my friends.. but sometimes and some of you, yes!  Horrible!!  Hate me as much as I do, PLEASE!  I ache to see some of the choices even my friends make.. Maybe this is some sort of perversion of compassion?  I don't know.  I can't justify it.  I can't excuse it.  I can't seem to corral it, either.  it's been eating me alive.

Maybe I'm the only one who's gone through it?  Maybe not.  I halfway hope people who read this by chance will respond to me and say, "I've felt that way too.."  it's like the dirty family secret nobody talks about.  Ugh!

2 Comments