There are days when I am full of energy and ready to take on the world. I love those days, because I can face any problem, solve any issue, and just take apart any opponent without breaking a sweat.
And then there are days like today. Days when I read about something like what happened to Ms. Ida Davidson. You see, Ms. Davidson had started seeing a new primary care physician, and on the second visit Dr. Helen M. Carter of Worcester, Massachusetts told Ms. Davidson that at 200 pounds she is too fat to be a patient of Dr. Carter's and that she needs to look elsewhere for basic medical care.
As if this weren't heartbreaking enough, I made the mistake of reading the comments on the news story. I know, I know, I should know better but I can't help hoping that THIS time will be the time when the public steps forward and acts like decent human beings. It was foolish of me to hope, because what I got was another wave of Fat Shaming.
I am so tired of it all. I truly am. It exhausts me mentally, emotionally, and physically to constantly have to battle for my right to exist as a human being without being subjected to a constant barrage of messages about how I am worth less because I weigh more. It is like a never-ending storm of hatred and shame, battering at myself and others who are fat, and like those storms it can wear defenses down over time.
I don't understand why people feel the need to shame others for what they look like. Since when has teaching someone to hate themselves ever helped them achieve great things? Since when did shaming someone push them to aspire to wonderful heights? Grinding someone's self-worth to dust does NOT lead to glorious triumphs. All that this kind of shaming and hatred does is break people into pieces that may never get put back together again.
Is that truly what we, as humans, want to do to our fellow citizens of the world? Do we HONESTLY want to make as many as possible feel like they are worth nothing? What kind of sick pleasure can someone get from treating people that way? I don't understand it, and I hope that I never do because I don't EVER want to treat my fellow human beings like that, much less enjoy it.
I will continue to fight against Fat Hate and Body Shaming. I will continue to work toward a day when it is what we do that defines us rather than how we look. I will keep trying to teach people that everyone's life is their own business, everyone's health is their own business, and that no one has the right to tell others what to eat or how to look or even how healthy they should be. As my friend Ragen says, "Everyone is the boss of their own underpants." No one is the boss of anyone else's underpants.
I will continue to work toward the day when I can walk down the street without someone thinking that it is their right to comment on my body.
But that won't be today. Today I am tired, so I am going to curl quietly up and cry for a while and wonder what Ida Davidson and I have done to make so many people hate us.
Today I cry. Tomorrow I fight. Someday I won't have to fight any more.
Lys, your observations are very much in tune with our society. Politically correct ideals seem to have forgotten a segment of our population. Size bashing is the last bastion of insensitive people and comedians who seek the easiest laugh. Everyone has foibles. Sometimes I would like to point out the obvious faults these folks have but descending to their level would be to swim to the lower end of the gene pool. I will tread water with you, in the deeper end where kindness and thinking abounds.
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