Thoughts from inside the barbed wire wall

For a long, long time I was a very bitter, hateful person. There were reasons for it, reasons that I consider to be valid in terms of understanding why my reactions to the world became what they were. I never really grasped the concept that I could be anything else because every time I had tried I ended up getting hurt. When you get hurt enough you create ways to deal with it and to prevent it from happening again. Those ways become habit, and those habits become ingrained so deeply that changing them...changing who we are and the face that we present to the world is a long, arduous process that will be filled with setbacks and reversions to "safe" behaviours under stress.

Over the past several years I have made a decided effort to change who I am and the face that I present to the world. I have tried very hard to alter the path that my thoughts automatically take when things happen, and to create different outcomes to situations that are triggering.

I have not always been successful.

I do, however, believe that I have made progress on this goal. I believe that I have become more willing to actually believe that people can be true friends, and that not everyone is out to use me until it suits them to forget about me or to actively throw me aside. I still have times when I doubt even my closest friends, but those times are getting shorter and less severe. I believe that this is good and that it means that in time I actually will wholeheartedly believe that there are people who love me without reservation. The barbed wire battlements are slowly being taken down.

Someone recently said to me that they were tired of walking on eggshells around me all of the time, and that I am just too negative a person. I have to admit that my first reaction was anger and hurt. My second reaction was also hurt, but of a different kind. I went from "How dare you say that to me??" to "Is that really the face that I'm still presenting to the world?" and it has led to another round of self-examination.

Yes, I am still quick to assume that someone is doing something to hurt me on purpose. While I would like for that thought process to finally go away forever, there is still work to be done to shake off the lessons that were taught to me by my peers as I grew up. (You would think that at 46 years old I would be free of what happened to me in my school years, wouldn't you?) But as I re-assess where I am and how I got here, I find that I think I've become a much more positive person in the past few years. It has taken a lot of hard work, and has involved the suppression of a lot of knee-jerk responses (again, not ALWAYS successfully, but better!).

I also admit that there are a select few who see more of the negativity than most, because they are (or in this case, were) people that I feel safe about venting to in order to get the feelings out of my system rather than letting them remain in place where they can poison future thoughts / emotions. That can't be easy for those folks, and I appreciate those who understand and support my need to have safe places to vent my spleen, so to speak, without holding it against me.

In the end, if that is still the face that I actually present to the world, then I have a lot more work to do. But if it isn't, and if it is just that others are still seeing the "old me" out of habit reinforced by my weak moments of relapse, then there is little that I can do to change their perceptions. I can only continue trying to become a better me and hope that someday perception and reality join in letting the world see the positive me that has hidden inside these barbed wire walls for so long.

I don't really know. All that I know is that right now I think I'm a better me than I used to be and that there is still work to be done.

I'm a better me, but still not the best me. Always a work in progress I guess.

Hidden Strength

I was reading today's Dances With Fat blog, and she said something that really resonated with me.

"I think that fat people, whether or not they consider themselves fat activists, are truly underestimated.  In the face of a tremendous amount of bullying and stigma, in the face of the government recruiting our friends, families, and employers to fight a war against us, in spite of the intense oppression that tries its best to crush us, that we keep living our lives is a testament to our incredible strength."

That says a lot, and it hit home for me.  You see, Dear Readers, I have finally started to realize just how strong I am.  I have been taught all of my life that my weight is a sign of weakness.  The world has told me repeatedly that I am weak-willed because I allow myself to eat food.  Never mind that I would starve to death if I didn't, that doesn't matter.  What matters is that it is visibly obvious that I not only eat too much but I make "bad" food choices.  If that weren't the case, the thinking goes, then I wouldn't be fat.  (I actually love fruits and vegetables to the point where The Husbeast complains about how many I make at mealtimes, but even if I didn't that doesn't give anyone the right to judge me or my eating habits.)

The world has told me for all of my life that I should be ashamed of myself, ashamed of my body, ashamed of the "mental failings" that allowed me to become this way.  I'm told on a regular basis that I should have enough willpower to force my body into the mold that the world would prefer to see, even if that forcing causes me physical, mental and emotional damage.

The world has said, "We don't want to see your weakness.  We want you to hide it, like we all hide ours."

But I'm not weak.  I'm incredibly strong when you think about it.  Every day... every day...I have hundreds of messages thrown at me about how I am sub-human, not worthy of sharing space with the "normal" people of the world.  Every day I am told that I am less of a human being because my body takes up more space.  EVERY DAY.

Yet despite that repeated bludgeoning, I live my life.  I go to the store, I hang out with my friends, I dare to be seen.  I have even had the temerity to perform at Renaissance Faires and in theatrical productions!  I interact with people as though I have the right to exist! *gasp*

In the face of constantly being told that it would be best for the world in general if I were either to disappear, hide in my house until I lose weight, or just go away altogether, I dare to exist and to enjoy my existence!  What a travesty!

The real travesty is that it has taken me 46 years to learn that the fact that I do these things, the fact that I not only exist but allow myself to experience all that life offers to the best of my ability DESPITE being fat, that fact is NOT weakness.  That is strength.

I am strong.

Every fat person who goes about their lives in the manner that they prefer is strong.

Every fat person who gets out of bed in the morning and doesn't allow the constant deluge of negative messages to force them to cease to be is strong.

Like Pat Benetar says, "We are strong." and for us, it isn't love, but life that is the battlefield, folks, and it is about time that we realize that and use that strength to tell the world exactly where it can go.  It is time that we yoke that strength and live the lives that we make for ourselves, no matter what other people think about it.  In the end, we can win this battle and this war and win the right to exist without the constant judgment.

We're not weak, we are strong, our strength is just hidden.  It is time for it to come out of hiding. 

The Trials and Tribulations of Travel

It isn't easy to live a life of Health at Every Size in our world.  Loving your body as it is and appreciating all that it does for you is a never-ending process made harder by the constant barrage of messages from the outside that you're not good enough, that you're less of a human being because you have more body than others.  It is made harder when you face life events that would be enjoyable to most people but turn out to be filled with stress and apprehension.

We are hoping to go to Disney World this Fall.  My parents live in the area and both work for The Mouse.  Friends of ours are going, and have been wanting us to join them on one of their trips for the past three or four years.  Normally we wouldn't think of planning something like this due to my lack of employment for the past 15 months, but my parents have offered to assist because they want to see us too.  So we're figuring out PTO for the Husbeast and so on. 

All of this should be filled with joyful anticipation, right?  We're going to see my parents!  We're going to the Happiest Place on Earth with good friends who are major Disneyphiles, just like we are!  These are good things!

And then it comes time to start planning flights.

*sigh*

When you're fat there are a lot of added stressors when you're figuring out trips that involve flying.

• Will we be able to get seats that are on the side of the aisle that only has two seats instead of three so that we don't end up squishing someone else?  Because my hips are big and the Husbeast has very wide shoulders.
• If not, should we go ahead and just buy that 3rd seat?  Yeah, that gets expensive and will add to the costs of the trip, but at least we won't spend the entire trip feeling guilty that we're accidently in someone else's space.
• Is buying that 3rd seat less expensive than just upgrading to Business / First Class?
• WHY is Business / First Class so freaking expensive?  They don't get there any sooner than the rest of us!!!

 I find myself looking at other options. 

• Can we drive?  No, that takes much too long and puts too much wear and tear on things like the car and our relationship (believe me, we've driven long trips before and the two of us crammed into the car for three days without breaks other than sleeping is a BAD idea!).  
• Can we take a train?  Again, that takes nearly as much time as driving, and it costs as much as flying Business / First Class.  I wish that it were an option, because I would dearly love to travel by train just for the experience of it, but so far it isn't economically feasible.  Then there's the fact that in order to get from Dallas to Orlando we have to take a train to Chicago, then another train to Washington DC and THEN a train to Orlando.
• Can we take a bus?  You would be surprised at just how much bus tickets cost, and yet again it takes more time than the Husbeast can spare from work.

This is all for a relatively short trip within the borders of our own country.  If we think about traveling outside of the United States, then even MORE issues come into play, like how long we'll be sitting in one place and how comfortable the seats are for an 8+ hour flight.  I can manage to live with the bruises on my hips from a two or three hour flight, but if I had to try and squeeze into a Coach-class seat for eight or more hours, I would be in severe pain and probably not be able to walk very well once we landed.

It is at moments like these when I am at my weakest.  I find myself struggling to maintain my love of my body, and TLV (The Little Voice) inside my head starts whispering all of those negative things about being fat. 

"If you weren't fat, then you could travel wherever and whenever you liked without worrying about these kinds of things."

"If you weren't fat, then you wouldn't see people get that panicked look on their face when you board a plane and they realize there's an empty seat next to them, nor the relieved looks when you sit down somewhere away from them."

"If you weren't fat, you could travel more.  You've always dreamed of traveling more, to places like Australia and Great Britain and Japan.  But even if you flew there without dying from being squished into those little airplane seats, most of those countries don't have furniture that accomodates people as fat as you."

And then it morphs into things like:

"You should just stay at home and hide in your house.  No one wants to put up with your Fatty McFatness anyway." and other thoughts that society has thrown at me for my entire life.  All of which can spin me deep into a downward spiral that it takes days to fight my way back out of and into a healthy state of mind again.

I find myself thinking about trying to lose weight, knowing how unsuccessful I've been at it in the past, knowing how the statistics show that it is about as likely for me to lose weight and keep it off as it is for me to be elected President of the United States.  But still, TLV whispers that maybe the statistics are wrong in MY case, and maybe I'll be the exception, and don't I owe it to myself to try again?

In the end it comes down to the fact that in order to go and enjoy the company of our friends and family in a place that we love to visit, I'm going to have to book those airplane seats, and deal with the horrid anxiety that goes along with airplane travel.  I'll have to deal with the looks, and the comments, and the potential semi-hidden sneers when I ask for a seat-belt extender.  It will temporarily take away from the joy of my trip.  I know this because I've lived through it many times before.  All that I can do is get through those moments and make sure to enjoy the positive things that much more, and to do so while trying to shut down the tapes in my head that repeat society's messages to my fat self.

I have to admit, though, it would be nice to take a trip for once and just enjoy it all of the way from planning to the return home.  It makes me sad that I will never experience that carefree kind of travel, and that others will never have that either.  It makes me sad that this particular blog won't have my usual happy, positive ending.  I wish that it would, but right now I can't find it.

Why?  Because we're fat and traveling while fat is almost a crime.  We aren't allowed to have lives, to have fun, to enjoy life.  We should be hiding in our homes until we're slender enough for public acceptance.

I guess I'll start looking at flights now.  There's no time like the present to ratchet up the battle against self-hatred.

So, I have a question for you...

Dear Faithful Readers, I have a question that I would like to put out there for everyone to stop and seriously think about.  It is a question that, at first glance, seems to be easily answered.  However, if we stop and really ponder it, I find that the answer is not so easy for me to come up with after all.

"Lys?  You have intrigued us." I hear you say (I hope! *grin*), "Whatever is this question that you have to ask?"

Well, Dear Readers, the question is thus:

"Do we, as members of society, have a responsibility to those around us to choose healthy behaviours?"

As I said, at first glance the answer seems easy.  Yes!  Right?  I will bet that your first response was to instinctually say "yes" to the question.  You probably flashed through thoughts of friends and family who want us all to stay around as long as possible.  Then you may have had thoughts of the high cost of health care, and how being as healthy as possible supposedly cuts those, aiding the economy and our own personal finances. 

It is understandable that all of these things would pass through your minds, because these are the messages that we get pushed on our consciousness and subconscious every day.  We are told that we have a responsibility to eat "right", to exercise, to look young, to look slender, to be beautiful / handsome, to have no belly except for a six-pack.  We're told we should smell nice, have beautifully styled hair, wear fashionable clothes, and moisturize our skin into softness.  Wear sunscreen!  Avoid sweets!  Brush your teeth!  We have to have minty fresh, blindingly white smiles!

Over and over these thoughts are crammed down our throats.  Over and over the drumbeat sounds.  But I would ask that you take a moment and shut out the pounding of societal pressures and really THINK about what I am asking.

Are we responsible to anyone other than ourselves when it comes to making choices about our health?

My answer is "No.  We are not."

Hang on!  Hang on!  I hear the protests from here.  Let me give you my reasoning, and explain my position.  I hope that you will give it a fair hearing and perhaps even allow it to give you an alternative way of looking at health and responsibility.

I have thought long and hard about this after having similar questions posed to me by other bloggers in their writings, and it was a struggle.  First I had to get past the automatic response that I was so used to, and had even used to try and get The Husbeast to adopt healthier behaviours. 

"I want you around for a long time.  If you love me and want to spend your life with me, why not eat better / exercise / insert other "healthy" behaviours here so that we will have more of that time together?"

You would think that it would be incumbent upon a partner or loved one to want to have the "best" life possible, right?  But who is to define what a "best" life is?  To someone who absolutely detests exercise or vegetables, is it their obligation to routinely do something that they hate just because someone else wants them to?  Do I have the right to demand that of someone else?  The reasons for the demand don't really matter, what matters is that I am trying to impose my will, my belief in the PROPER way to live on someone else.  How is that any different than telling someone else that their religion is wrong or that their choice of life partner is wrong?

Telling someone that they should not eat that piece of cake, or that they shouldn't smoke that cigarette, or that they shouldn't have that beer because those behaviours aren't healthy is not my right nor my responsibility.  It is their right and their responsibility to decide for themselves whether those behaviours are something that they wish to pursue or not.  (And before we get dragged off-course, there is a difference between these examples and things such as driving while intoxicated, in which there is actually a chance that someone other than the person in question will be physically harmed by the responsible person's actions.)

Does the Mayor of New York actually have the right to tell people that they cannot buy a soda larger than 16 ounces?  Who is he to decide what "healthy" behaviours to legislate and which ones to leave alone?  Is that any different than requiring, by law, that every citizen run at least 2 miles per day?

If The Husbeast decides that it is important to him to make himself eat vegetables more often in an attempt to have a healthier diet, then it is awesome that he is willing to make that sacrifice in order to spend more time with me, but if he just doesn't want to what good does it do for me to nag him and do my best to make him feel guilty over it?  Then he either gives in just to shut me up, and resents me the entire time...or he goes all stubborn and decides to avoid vegetables even more than before just to prove his point that he won't be pushed around.

Then there's the "cost to society" argument.  Do I owe it to society to adopt as many healthy behaviours as possible?  Why?  Does that mean that equal pressure should be put on people who are fat, people who smoke, people who drink, people who don't exercise (no matter WHAT size they are), people who engage in dangerous sports, people who drive cars, people who ride motorcycles, people who drink sodas, people who enjoy a doughnut now and then, people who go paleo, people who go vegetarian, people who only eat raw foods?   Every one of those things has been shown to have drawbacks in some way or another.  How do we, as a society, decide which so-called "healthy" behaviours are the right ones?

When do we start regulating every aspect of our lives?  Do we send someone to Sleep Prison if they get less than the recommended 8 hours per night?

As I thought more and more about it, I came to realize that I owe no one and no one owes me.  It is completely my decision whether I sit in my recliner or go walk around the block.  It is completely my decision whether I monitor my blood sugars or ignore them.  It is completely my decision whether I eat a salad or a steak.  I resent anyone who tries to tell me otherwise.  So what right have I to tell them otherwise?  Even The Husbeast has the right to decide for himself what he eats and whether he exercises or not.  (Don't let him know I said that. *snerk*  JUST KIDDING! It really is his decision!)

We have so many societal pressures put on us every day.  So many times we're told directly or indirectly that we're just not good enough.  How often do we put that pressure on others without realizing it?  How often do we say things like, "You should eat this food instead of that one because it is healthier for you." or "You should work out more, it would make you feel better."  We do so out of concern most of the time, out of honest caring for the wellbeing of our friends and loved ones, and that is an admirable motive.  But the next time you find yourself about to make one of those remarks, stop and think first.  Is what you're going to say really any of your business?  Or are you doing what is known in a lot of circles as "concern trolling"?  Is it really any different than walking up to someone's grocery cart and pulling food out of it while saying, "You don't need to eat that."?

Not really.  You may think that it is, but the only difference is in degree of intrusiveness.  It isn't that different at all.

Another thought that I will leave you with is this:  For some of us, that kind of comment only serves to kick in our stubborn streak.  The more someone tells me that I should eat a certain way, do a certain exercise, even read a certain book or see a certain movie, the more likely that I will refuse to do so because I absolutely detest being told what to do.  I'm a semi-mature adult, and can make my own decisions and live with my own consequences just fine, thank you.

And when it comes down to consequences, the only person who really has to live with the consequences of my health decisions is myself.  No one else HAS to do so.  The Husbeast may choose to do so, because he loves me, but he has the option and right to choose to leave at any time.  I have the same option and right in regards to him and his choices.  Neither of us OWES anything to anyone or society at large.

Those are my thoughts.  You, as always, have the option to think about them or not, to consider them or to walk away.  That's the beauty of self-determination.  I hope, however, that you will at least consider them a bit and that they will give you something to think about.  It never hurts to re-assess our assumptions, and the assumption that we owe "good health habits" to society is a very pervasive one.

Thank you for reading. I hope that it was enjoyable and that maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere got something out of it. :)

Sleep is overrated, right?

Have you ever had one of those nights where you know that you should go to bed but you find yourself still awake hours after the first time you tell yourself "I should go to bed."?

Yeah, this is one of those.

Somehow when it comes to getting enough sleep I turn into a stubborn two year old who protests going to bed even as their eyes droop and they fight back yawns.  The difference is that at my age I should really know better.

Logically I know that I have to be awake and functioning in approximately 4.5 hours and on the road in 5 hours, but even knowing this information hasn't gotten me to bed yet.

Part of it, I think, is the fact that when I'm left alone and have no obligations I am quite naturally a night owl.  I am totally at my best when I go to bed around 5 a.m. and wake up around noon.  I need less sleep, and the sleep that I get is more refreshing than when I make myself go to bed at 10 or 11 at night and get up at 6 or 7 a.m.

Why?  I have no idea.  I just know that my body thinks that sunrise is a wonderful thing as long as you haven't been to bed yet, and that morning was made to be slept through.  Breakfast should be lunch, and lunch should be dinner, and dinner should be eaten around 10 p.m. or so.  Or later.

Unfortunately the rest of the world does not seem to share my body's beliefs, and so I am forced to regularly make myself go against my nature and go to bed at what other people consider a "reasonable" time, and get up at oh-god-thirty.  The only thing worse than that is when you have to do it and then deal with the dreaded Morning Person on top of it all.

You know the type, right?  They bounce out of bed as soon as the merest hint of light appears on the horizon, and cheerfully start chattering away at you like they don't have a care in the world.  They ENJOY morning!  I will admit that I have had fantasies of what I would like to do to them as I burrowed deeper under my blankets and pulled my pillow over my head, determinedly ignoring them for as long as possible.  Luckily for the Morning People of the world, I have not given in to those impulses.  Yet.  There was one time, however, when a full 64 ounce Gatorade bottle was only kept from being launched at someone because there was an innocent bystander who was ALSO trying to ignore the Morning Person and the bystander was between us.  I didn't want to miss (my aim is bad at that time of day) and hit her by accident.  If I had been more sure of my aim, though, it would have been a different story.

Take my warning, Morning People.  Be aware that the Night Owl that you are insisting on talking to brightly to is probably envisioning you with a gag in your mouth or some other alternative.  Don't push it.  Just back away slowly and stay away until they have either taken in enough caffeine or Vitamin B Complex to put on a facade of social normalcy, or until it is 11 a.m. at the earliest.  Noon would be even better.  Why take chances?

As for me, right now I am going to head to bed.  I don't want to go to bed.  I'm working really hard to ignore the book sitting next to my computer because I would love to stay up longer and read some more of it.  If I did that, though, I would end up not going to bed at all, and that would make life really difficult later in the day.

So sleep well when you can, and if you can, and if you can't just remember that you are NOT alone.  There are other Night Owls out there, and we empathize!!!

The Purpose of Life

I passed a sign today that said, "The purpose of life is to have a life of purpose." and while it sounds good to begin with, the more I examined that statement, the less I find that I agree with it.

Don't get me wrong, I think that having purpose in your life is an important thing, and that humanity loses its center when there is no purpose, both on an individual basis and a group basis.  There is a reason that the World War II generation is so often held up to us as a positive example, because they had purpose as individuals and as a society.  They used that purpose to forge themselves into an amazing force for great (and mostly good, with some glaring exceptions) changes in the world.

But overall, do I think that having a life of purpose is THE reason we are alive?  I'm not so sure of that.

You see, as I think about it more and more, I find that I believe our purpose in life is to live..  Not just to exist, or to go about our day to day routine in monotonous regularity without thinking about it, but to really and truly LIVE.  I think that we have a responsibility to ourselves to truly do our best to be fully in each moment.  I believe that we do ourselves a disfavour by letting so many moments pass without investing ourselves in them. 

It isn't easy to fully experience every moment.  Goodness knows I'm no expert at it.  I have way too many moments in my life that slip past me without me realizing it.  Time goes on its wibbly wobbly, timey wimey way and before I know it the day has passed and evening has come and I have let hours slip away without giving them the attention that they deserve.

How many times have you driven home from work, your mind on things like what you have to get done the next day and what you are going to make for dinner, only to find that you are pulling into the garage with little to no recollection of the actual drive there?  Have you ever looked up and realized that you were halfway to where you wanted to go, but had no recollection of driving the first half of the route?  I have done that often, and it startles me every time.

As a result of my realization I have been making a concerted effort to be more present in my life.  I try not to wish that time would pass more quickly so that I can get to some special moment because I honestly feel that every moment has its own glimmer of special if we can find it.  That is not to say that it is wrong to look forward to things, or to remember other things fondly, but rather that I want to experience each moment that I have, and to experience it fully and completely.  I may still look forward to a special moment, or even dread a moment that is coming up, but I do not want that anticipation to drown out the experiences that I have before the anticipated time arrives.

I wonder how it would change our lives and our worlds if we all spent more time in The Now, really letting each moment shine on its own, than we currently do.  I think about how perhaps there would be fewer accidents, fewer misunderstandings, and fewer hurt feelings or mis-spoken words.  I can't be sure, but I would like to think so, anyway.

For now, I encourage you to allow yourself to live in the moment more often.  Be aware of the future and of what has gone past, but give the weight of your attention to the moment and all that it encompassees.  I think that you will find it interesting, and that you will find that it gets easier as you go and hopefully, sometime soon, we will start to see the positive results of that effort.

Contentment Times Three

Some people are cat people and some people are dog people, and then there are those of us who are both.  Now, currently I fall into the cat people category because we haven't got a dog.  At first we were reluctant to get one because we were away so much between Faire and Screams and work and everything else.  When I started having more time at home we decided that it would be best to wait because Jasmine, our 13 year old cat, has been tolerant of us bringing home other kitties, but we think that a puppy would push her past her limits.  So no doggies for now.  But there will be a dog or dogs in our future, as well as cats.  I'm a firm believer in cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!

Cats are amazing.  They really are.  There's just something about them that can make your day instantly better when they curl up next to you (or on you) and start purring.

I am currently in a state of Kitty Contentment Times Three.  I have one cat in my lap, one curled up in Shado's recliner near me, and one curled up in the office chair across the room.  They're all happily napping, occasionally stretching and mrrrring, and just sharing space with me.

Triple Kitty Contentment is a happy state of mind.  I woke up this morning with The Destructor curled up between my knees, Cobweb The Magnificent against my side, and Her Imperial Majesty Jasmine The Southern Belle curled up against Cobweb and my hip.  Do you know how hard it is to get up out of bed when you have three cats comfortably nestled against you?

I know that there are those of you wondering why I'm maundering on about cats without any sort of point.  It is hard to explain, really.  All that I can tell you is that my life is made easier by my four-footed little furballs.  Yes, they add chores in terms of things like scooping kitty litter, washing and filling food and water dishes, extra cleaning to get the stray fur off furniture and carpets.  And they add extra expenses for food, litter, vet visits and the like.  I know.  But they also add some undefined, unexplainable wonderfulness.  It is like their contentment is contagious, and when they're feeling it, they radiate it outwards into the world and make life just a little mellower.

Everyone needs something in their life that makes them pause and take a deep breath and just enjoy life now and then.  Right now for me that something is my cats.  I'm so very lucky that they have consented to live here and be spoiled rotten.  I honestly can't imagine my life without them.  I just know that having them around makes me ...yup...content. :)