Diary of A Fat Girl
Carol Roach
No is a two letter word that sometimes can be so hard to say. It is hard for me as an obese person to say no to food. Medically I know that I am playing with fire, I am at risk for a heart attack or stroke. My arteries and veins can clog up with fatty deposits, (cholesterol) and obstruct the blood flow to and from the heart. The excess fat causes my heart to work harder and one day it just might give out from exhaustion.
My feet swell up sometimes so bad, that they resemble balloons, completely shapeless and unattractive. I cannot remember the last time I actually saw that I had ankles. In the winter, I cannot leave the house because I cannot walk. I cannot stand up for more than five minutes without my back hurting me. I am tired all the time. I am unable to keep a job outside the house because of it.
One thing good about my condition is that it forced me to find a new career; one that I could do from home. I went back to my passion. I now write for a living now and I can do that from home.
Nevertheless, being overweight is neither healthy nor socially acceptable. Some people look at me with disgust. This is something I have had to face all my life. Most people cannot understand how anyone can be obese.
They say “just say no to food, what is the big deal?”
Unless you walk in the shoes of an obese person, you cannot begin to understand what the big deal really is. Food becomes our life.
When I was young the pupils at school laughed at me because of my weight. They called me names and shunned me. Most of them didn’t want to play with me and so from a very young age I knew the pain of rejection. All I wanted was to have friends. I would have done just about anything to be a popular girl. Instead I learned to fit in where I could. I associated myself with other girls who were ostracized or considered weird in some way just like me.
Instead of having many friends, I had my dogs and I had my food. A chocolate bar or a piece of cake temporarily eased my pain and made me feel better.
When I was in high school I longed to have a boyfriend. The slim girls never seemed to have a problem getting one. The fat girls like me lived vicariously, listening to their adventures with their boyfriends and dreaming about what it would be like to have a boyfriend of our own.
Most of us resorted to pretending we had a boyfriend who didn’t go to our school. I went as far as carrying a picture of a boy in my school bag. The skinny girls were not stupid. They knew it was just stories we made up to feel wanted and loved just like everyone else.
Even at home the girls on the block had boyfriends and I was the only one without. Once or twice one of the guys in our gang would say to me, “you have a pretty face, too bad you are so big.” Those words cut me like a knife, the same way they did when I was a young child.
When the popular girls were out on a Saturday night with their boyfriends, I sat home with my pretty face and I watched TV; but who could watch TV without eating right?
After I married and then divorced, I once again found it hard to date. I was lonely and I wanted to have someone in my life but I became discouraged fast. I joined a single parent organization figuring I could find somebody there. But nothing much had changed since high school. The skinny girls got all the guys and the big girls sat alone.
I joined the board of directors as soon as I joined the association. I wanted and needed friends desperately; all my friends were married and no longer had time for me. So I had to create a new life for myself. I made male friendships in the association, yet I never succeeded in finding a boyfriend. Still, I was not alone, all the fat ladies were in the same position as I was.
Every Saturday night the association held dances as fund raisers for the children’s activities. I worked the dances, mainly because I was not a dancer, but also because I did not like the pain of always being judged for my weight.
If you walked into the majority of dances you would see all the normal sized women up dancing and the fat women sitting down watching. Was it really because fat women don’t like to exercise, a common feeling that many of the association members held at the time?
No, it was because they were never asked. I literally saw two men on separate occasions going up to a table of woman and asking each and every one of the ladies to have a dance with them until they reached the fat lady at the table and then rudely moved on. Was mean and nasty? Was there something wrong with her? No, she was just fat. I never liked to dance but I would not want the embarrassment and pain of that kind of rejection, and so my remedy was to work the dance.
Laura, a 32 years old pretty young divorcee with two children had a different solution. She came to the association to meet someone, but because she was 100 pounds overweight no guy gave her a second look. She served on the board of directors and she went to the activities with her kids. She was stronger than I was at the time. She went on a diet and lost the weight. Suddenly all the men took notice. She rejected them all and told them straight, “you didn’t want me when I was fat, so I don’t want you now.”
I couldn’t lose the weight, I tried diet after diet but I just could not keep to it. I got cravings so bad that I couldn’t sleep. All my emotions were tied to food, I ate when I was hungry, when I was happy, when I was bored and the more rejections I got from men the more I ate. I ate when I was stressed out and I ate when I was depressed; food had always been the silent but deadly comforter.
There were the pop psychologists in the association who felt that I was so big because subconsciously I wanted to distance myself from men. They were so wrong. I had wants and needs as a young divorcee just like anyone else. This seemed to surprise some of the men when I told them I was looking for a boyfriend. . A few of them thought that I was just a good person who devoted myself to the association to make other people happy. They didn’t realize I had needs of my own.
Once I was foolish enough to think that I had found someone. He called me every night. As needy as I was at the time, at first I didn’t realize that he was not interested in me, He was interested in my best friend. It then occurred to me that our conversations always centered on Gina. What did Gina like to do,? Did she like him; and finally would she consider going out with him? I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I realized his true intentions. He was just using me to get to her.
He was the first of several who called me to get through to Gina. At least, after that learning experience I know what the real score was. But you know it still felt good to talk to a male voice.
Just like listening to the male radio announcer felt good. I did the same as other lonely women; I got so wrapped up in the male announcer’s voice that I almost believed he is talking directly to me. The melodic voice, saying “and now I will serenade you to sounds of the righteous brothers on this hot, lazy August evening. Sit back, relax, enjoy.”
Like many other women I knew, I had an imaginary lover, I called him Rocco, and he was just perfect, he did not care about my weight, he cared about me. He was loving and affectionate and a true gentleman.
I left the association and went on to university, I made a very good male friend but I still did not find a boyfriend. It was about this time that I discovered the internet, and it was not long afterward that I discovered internet dating. It was easier to hide behind a computer screen. Even when I did send a picture, the men didn’t seem to mind. I found that American men were more tolerant of my weight than Canadian men were. However, did it really matter – I never got to meet them in real life anyway.
After about three years I got tired of trying to find men in the USA; it was just too difficult to meet. So I set my goals on men in Canada and it was back to square one. You see even though I told the men I was obese they said it didn’t matter until they saw me in person and then I never got a second date. At first I thought it was just me, and then after talking to my other overweight friends I found the same things were happening to them as well.
Pat told me that she always warned the internet or telephone dates about her weight. But when they met her they were disappointed. She told me about one experience where she got all dressed up and when the doorbell rang the date took one look at her and said, “ oh no you’re too fat for me,” and turned around and walked away. At least the guys I met were decent enough to have the one date.
After 23 years of being alone I finally met someone. Matt was different. He loved me from the minute he saw me and we have been together now eight years. He understands my struggles with my weight.
Obesity is a disease. Our emotions are connected with our food cravings. Food is the deadly comforter. If it was a matter of just saying no, pushing away the plate, controlling our eating, most people would not be obese. Food can be an addiction just like alcohol or drugs. Psychologists say food becomes the comforter for those who seek love. I know in my case it might very well be true. I have used it as my friend, and my lover all my life. Obesity is a disease and should be treated as such.
New research indicates that obese people may have a chemical imbalance in the brain. They may not have enough dopamine receptors in the brain. Dopamine is brain chemical already associated with alcoholism, drug addiction and gambling. http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1149876.stm.
In a brain imaging study, Dr. Gene Jack Wang found that the brain of an obese person was slightly different in the homunculus area of the cerebral cortex. By using a Pet Scan, he found increased activity in the sensory area of the brain responsible for making the taste of food more palatable. The theory he proposes is that food tastes much better to an obese person compared to a person with normal weight. He suggests that therapies in the future may include a substance that will make food less appealing to an obese individual. http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2002/bnlpr062002.htm
Other researchers are looking into the connection of the sugar craving with lower levels of serotonin. Perhaps one day there will be a cure for obesity that stretches beyond the yoyo effects of dieting, gaining weight and dieting again. At the moment doctors prescribe dieting in combination with exercise; neither of which work for me. What about people that are so obese like myself that we cannot exercise because we cannot even stand up without being in pain?
Although people think that fat people are jolly I can attest that most of us are not. Many fat people pretend to be happy and excessively nice just to make friends in a world that judges us severely. Others are now taking back their power saying no to the weight that other people feel is right for them. Young women are learning to love themselves no matter how big or small they are.
As for myself, I love myself, Matt loves me, my family and friends love me, but I would love to be me, only smaller. My health issues would go away, my social life would no longer be curtailed and I would be able to walk into a department store and find something to wear which would actually fit me and look good on me as well.
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Comments: 62
This is a really good article. 10 points.
you certainly prove that to be true.
a good friend of mine is also overweight, she is a primary school teacher and i can never forget how the kids run towards her on the street and hug her!
there is more to love in big girls.
I have never been overweight but god knows i like to eat and have used food instead of love i did not have at the time, so i agree there has to be a tendency as well , because i only have a few kilograms too much , love handels and all, my weight goes up and down, depending on my mood and i tend not to eat when i am very upset so maybe that is why i am not 100 or 200 kgs however i think society is obsessed with the subject of weight and definitely would prefer to be fat than anorexic , nervous and too thin just so i can squeeze into a bikini!
i may be not thin enough for some men however weight i am,. i am me and you are you , and all that counts is loving the person you are , not your weight!
I understand everything you wrote.
Obesity is the last socially acceptable form of discrimination.
Humans are shallow.
I have gone through so much in my 31 yrs of life I cannot begin to explain the hurt and the pain that people have waged against me all because I was overweight.
But the friends I have, I hang onto dearly.
I too, got married and divorced. I SETTLED.
I was so worried that no other man would want me the way that I was and am.
The older I get the more perspective I have, but the scars of the past remain.
I have lost weight recently, but I still have the mentality (and forever will) of the morbidly obese person I was.
It never goes away.
Good luck to you.
I hope you figure out how to stop existing as you are and start to live again.
I'd like to share this excerpt from my memoir: (It's my 12th birthday and I am on a boat with my dad --- a sightseeing tour on Lake Michigan -- the Chicago skyline our area of focus)
…About ten miles due west of downtown is Oak Park and birthplace of two of its famous sons, Ernest Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright. Now, Frank…
Frank Morelli, my best friend; friends since that day back in the fourth grade when he tried to steal my swing. New to the school, how dare he jump aboard the swing that I just got off, only momentarily, so that I could tie my shoes. What's wrong with you taking my swing, I ask him, fists clenched. You got off, he tells me. Yeah, but to tie my shoes. I push him and he pushes me back and I go flying.
Boy, this new guy has some strength. I tell him that he could have the swing and he thanks me and introduces himself: "My name is Frank, Frank Morelli, just moved here from Kostner and Armitage, my father bought a house just down the street, on Parkside." I apologize and we become friends.
It was hard for Frank at the new school with a lot of the other kids making fun of him, trying to start fights with him, ganging up on him. And why? Just because he was overweight? How dare these kids call him these ugly names, Sewer Rat, The Blob. How dare they, huh?
Frank and I, we became Batman and Robin, the dynamic duo and not only did I help him in a few brawls but also with his homework. I'd do his homework and he'd buy me candy and soda pops and stuff like that. Unlike me, Frank always seemed to have money. Unlike him, I loved doing schoolwork. I excelled in it. Ever since kindergarten, everything that was taught, I grasped, rather easily.
Until one day, maybe the beginning of fifth grade, I realized how foolish I had been doing my best friend's schoolwork. What was he learning? Nothing! I told him that he was learning nothing with me doing his homework and that he'd have to do it himself from now on. I told him how I appreciated the candy and stuff but my concern for his welfare was greater. "I understand," he says, "and I'll do my own homework from now on. And I'll still buy you candy and soda pop and stuff at lunchtime, okay?"
"Thanks, Frank."
"No problem, buddy."
"Frank, by the way… you look like you lost some weight, well, did you?"
"I sure did. About twenty pounds. Been laying off the candy, especially at night before bed."
"Great, Frank."
Moods Over A September Moon
"Oftentimes the treasures we seek are near enough the heart that it doesn't take more than a heartbeat to uncover the most precious gems of all."
My Quotes
I am large in size as well. I grew up being average, I didn't gain weight till I was 17ish when they put me on a medication to help with my bi-polar. It made me gain weight really fast I put on 70lbs in a mater of 2 months. I then was taken off the medication however I was never able to lose the weight I had gained. I then had 3 children and after my third child I gained more weight. I was at home with the kids and we didn't have much money to go places. I played outside with the kids and watched what I ate but still the weight didn't come off. I struggle day in and day out with weight. I watch what I eat and how much I eat. I have come to deal with the fact that I will probably never be "normal weight" again. I thought about having lap banding to lose the weight and went through a year of weight management, documenting everything I ate the calories and was told that I could go through with the lap banding. However that I would probably not lose the amount of weight that I wanted.
I don't over eat and never have. I now live on a 16-1800 calorie diet to make sure that I don't gain any more weight.
I have been made fun of poked at and told that I am fat.
I have come to the realization that I am who I am and if you don't like who I am then your not worth my time to tell you where to go.
Do I sometimes wish that I was a thinner version of me.. Yeah who wouldn't! But I also realize that there are many ways to loose weight via pills on the market but really do I want the possible side effects from them. NO.
One day I will probably go through with the Lap Banding but not while my kids are young, in case something would happen to me.
SO I sympathise with how you feel.
If someone can't love you for who you are then they aren't worth loving!
Thank you for sharing your story
I am so fortunate, that I did not settle, but it took 23 years in the coming.
I have made this a feature article in the Writing Essentials.
I know that in my younger days I was among those who would see a fat person and although I would try not to show it, I would be appalled. Over the years I have attempted to model my feelings by deliberately telling myself that this is not a choice anyone would make and that I should be more generous and kind in my thinking.
Then I had a succession of illnesses which kept me inactive for months at a time and I packed on weight I didn't want. Not only was it unsightly, it was unhealthy and I found to my dismay that it was not so easy to just cut back and get back to my former state.
You mentioned, "Food can be an addiction just like alcohol or drugs." I can certainly testify to this even when it is only 10 pounds to get to my goal. The moment I put a particular food on my 'don't eat' list it became something I craved.
I can also sympathise with your comment that [you] "cannot exercise because [you]cannot even stand up without being in pain? I can see that you are truly caught in a situation you have absolutely no control over.
I hope that the research currently being done will soon come up with something effective to help you and I thank you for showing us how truly difficult life is when you are medically obese.
Courage, Carol
I know the things you have gone through in your life and I hope you find the key to your good health and soon. Keep writing. It is good for the soul, and you do it well. Hang in there. Hugs
Do you qualify to use the Montreal handicap buses and taxis? My older daughter used to travel in one of these for a different reason.
Are the seating arrangements in restaurants, theatres and public vehicles impossible for you to use? I have often wondered what a larger person does in these situations.
Does Quebec medicare recognize obesity as a medical problem and will it cover any treatments discovered by the current research?
Are you able to use a wheelchair when you need to go outside your home? If so, do you need to have it pushed by someone or do you have the strength to wheel it yourself?
Are you able to increase your heart rate and get any benefit from arm exercises? If adding arm movements to standard exercises increases their cardio-vascular benefit then perhaps the arm movements alone would be useful.
Do you have good medical care or are you also affected by Quebec's shortage of doctors?
I am very interested in knowing about these things.
love and light
Your personal disclosure has touched my heart.
I have an adopted daughter who is in her latter 20s who is always dating. Now she has made me think at just how superifial people are. Have you ever heard a group of girls saying, "He's hot!" or maybe this one, "He's so fine!"; well she uses these very same phrases and guess what she has not found anyone with integrity.
She has had more guys than I have fingers and toes and then you could still keep counting. She often get depressed because she wants someone to take her off in the sunset. She constantly worries about her appearence, and she dresses in some of the most revealing attire. All of these relationships has not helped her self esteem.
People some how are given the wrong message. I tell my young daughter it's not the outside package that counts; its what is on the inside that counts. Divorce rates are up because too many are as the song says "Lookin for Love in all the Wrong Places". Our television ads bombard us with commericals depicting skinny people having a heck of a good time while eating/drinking at such and such. Some implying that if you eat their food you'll be happy, maybe meet someone special.
It is my belief that happiness is all in the attitude and within us. We empower others to make us happy with ourselfves or not; when people take back that power they will feel better about who they really are.
Carol I was injured some years back and have gone through surgery after surgery, I am very heavy now and pain is my constant companion. Sometimes when I get up I look for the truck that hit me.
I understand some of your pain and the swelling. You say you sit at your computer a lot. Try elevating your feet while at the computer. If that doesn't help ly down and elevate them above your heart and put ice packs on them. After awhile some if not all the swelling will go down, this is only a temporary fix but it does help me.
Thank you for sharing a very personal part of your life.
Blessings
I have friends who belong to Over EAters anonymous. I have felt gratitude for being a drunk instead. There is no way I could just drink a little. An alcoholic has to stop. Period. The steps of AA was the key for me. We all have to eat. I really believe that has to be so difficult for my friends. They find a way. I don't know how. But OA for some people works wonders. I know AA saved me. Maybe because all the drunks were just like me, and they'd heard all the cons, and identified with the pain, thus there was no judgement. Simply a desire for me to desire to stop drinking because I was dying. God Bless You Carol. I am happy you found a mate. I am small and kinda cute even. But I haven't been involved with anyone for four years. Scared maybe. I don't go out, so who would meet me? I guess they would have to skate thru the house lol. Lots of love...Peg..Ido worry about your health issues. If you haven't tried Overeaters anonymous, give it try, give yourself a chance. to live a good life. To Dance!!!
It's not easy...it's not fun...it's not nice to be overweight and to have to deal with it, along with the health problems and many nasty remarks.
I started out thin, and evidently cute right until I was married.
I had been poor and never had the money to drift from the appointed meals at home. But split by five, even those were slim in our fatherless home.
When I married,... Food was the one thing we could afford, and therefore we centered our life around entertaining ourselves, friends and family with dinner parties and daily prize winning appetizers and deserts.
My husband worked construction so kept the weight off... I became pregnant and put even more on.
I "worked out" sporadically over the years, but one bone or tendon injury after anther put me down, and always food would become my entertainment center again.
Eventually (32 years later)... My husband left. Mostly because he fell out of love with a women who gained twice the weight he had married and had become depressed and allot less fun, due to all the injuries resulting from that weight and forced exercise.
No one wants to be like this. It's a choice, but perhaps a crippling choice made from early bad decisions, childhood addictions, or forms of escape... But pleasantly plump and fat are two completely different things.
Fat will kill. Both physically then emotionally.
I can't blame my husband, because I know deep down I would not have felt toward him as I did, if he had allowed this to happen to him. I really find it hard to admit that... But it's true.
When I look at his choice at the time of our marriage and the woman he became stuck with... "They are two different women."
I don't blame him for leaving me after 32 years... I do however for his deteriorated ethics in leaving with our best friends wife (even though the other couple were not happy from the time we met them that is always wrong).
We were married with a son and three grandkids... I had been forced to consider her a friend.
With more of his involvement in OUR marriage, we may have worked out this problem to the betterment of our family. Instead.... We let time and disappointment dissolve what we had begun with.
Fear of the lack of change... Caused the change we had always feared.
Our culture has change so drastically since I was a kid. I find far too little to choose from in the "male" world now, but in truth... I can see they too, have far too little to choose from.
Weight, ethics, and commitment have deteriorated to an alarming proportion.
I have been on better diets and foods for the past 25 years now, as science has found some of the many causes to our dilemma. I have gained and lost on a regular bases, but the problem doesn't seem to be food anymore... "It's exercise."
My body has been injured so many times, I can barely stand now. A few weeks ago I was told I have diabetes. The complications of that now hang over me too.
I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I will continue to try.
Some people are just naturally funny (I'm told I am), but for fat people to be "characterized as such," comes from covering up, to hide the pain, or to stop the harassing of tauters.
This is the best century to get help in a problem as old as time and I intend to wait it out, while trying to make it better.
Don't laugh at, or feel bad for overweight people. Try to understand the pain that got them there and to help them (if that is the path they're on), to find their way to a healthier them.
Don't "lead" with encouragement... "Follow" with "encouragement.
I started out thin, and evidently cute right until I was married.
I had been poor
When I married,... Food was the one thing we could afford, and therefore we centered our life around entertaining ourselves, friends and family with dinner parties and daily prize winning appetizers and deserts.
My husband worked construction so kept the weight off... I became pregnant and put even more on.
One bone or tendon injury after anther over the years put me down, and always food would become my entertainment center again.
Eventually (32 years later)... My husband left. Mostly because he fell out of love with a women who gained twice the weight he had married and had become depressed and allot less fun, due to all the injuries resulting from that weight and forced exercise.
I can't blame my husband... I know deep down I would not have felt toward him as I did, if he had allowed this to happen to him. I really find it hard to admit that... But it's true.
When I look at his choice of wife and the woman he became stuck with... "They are two different women."
No one wants to be like this.
It's a choice... But perhaps a crippling choice made from early bad decisions, childhood addictions, or forms of mental escape... But pleasantly plump and fat are two completely different things.
No matter how you say you feel about it. "Fat will kill." Both emotionally then physically.
Weight, ethics, and commitment have deteriorated to an alarming proportion in this century, causing this situation to become yet more depressing. But Science has for the first time, given us hope.
I have been on better diets and foods for the past 25 years now, as science has found some of the many causes to our dilemma.
I have gained and lost on a regular bases, My problem seem to be "exercise" now. But my body has been injured so many times, I can barely stand now.
A few weeks ago I was told I have diabetes. The complications of that now hang over me too.
Fat people are funny they say... Some people are just naturally funny (I'm told I am), but for just being "fat people" to be "characterized as such..." Only comes from covering up to hide the pain, or to stop the harassing of tauters.
This is the best century to get help in a problem as old as time and I intend to wait it out, while trying to make it better. Don't laugh at, or feel bad for overweight people. Try to understand the pain that got them there and to help them (if that is the path they're on), to find their way to a healthier them.
Don't "lead" with encouragement... "Follow" with "encouragement.
Thank you for writing this excellent article. It is excellent because it comes from your heart.
it is now autumn so the winter is coming in and that is when every joint aches and pains so much I scream in pain.