Please don't compare my outsides to your insides or your outsides

I am a food addict. Not too hard to figure out really since I weigh more than 450 pounds. I carry my problem around on the outside of my body for the world to see. My 39 years of life experience and my14 years of work in the human services field have convinced me that every person has their "thing". I eat. Some people use alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, shopping or a combination to cope with life.

I am not sure how old I was when someone first told me I was fat but it had to be at a very young age because I don't ever remember a time when I didn't believe I was fat. From pictures, I know that I started gaining weight around the age of five or six. When I was in the first grade my parents took me to a pediatrician who put me on a 1000 calorie a day diet and recommended that I get involved in a fitness activity. The diet, as I remember it, was really fun for a 6 year old kid. Especially when I was the only one on the diet.

My dad was a southern boy from Mississippi and he was a naturally skinny snacker. Our father daughter evening routine was to sit in his "big chair" and shell and eat peanuts and suck on hard candy. Of course when I went on THE DIET that came to a screeching halt. Picture this...a 6 year old blue eyed little girl, scrubbed up, wrinkled from the tub and decked out in her favorite flannel nightie that mom made running to the living room ready to jump up in daddy's lap. Only to be told that she can't sit with him anymore because she is on a diet. It's 33 years later and I still cry as I type this.

Needless to say I hated the word diet. To me it meant rejection, it meant that I was not good enough...there was something wrong with me. My mom was a chunky teenager in high school and she did not want me to have to go through what she went through so she wanted to catch my "problem" before it got out of hand. So she did the only thing she knew how to do...consult the medical community. Unfortunately, she and my dad had no intention of eating the same way...after all they didn't have a weight problem.

The end result for me was resentment. In our family, food is a huge deal. It is abundant at all family functions and our traditions are marked with special recipes. My weight became a full family focus. And that first diet started my 33 year journey of jumping from one diet to another and hearing phrases like "you have such a pretty face" or "you would be so cute if you lost some weight" or "if you lose weight I'll buy you all new clothes". Now, I know that my family loved me and they were just trying to do anything they could to convince me to stop eating. The problem was my perception of rejection. I kept trying because I knew if I got skinny then I would be good enough and worthy of love.

Another layer to this story is this: I'm adopted. I don't look like anyone else in my family and I am the only fat one. In both my mom's and dad's families are all naturally thin people. And my personality is also very different. I am driven, articulate and spontaneous. I love to laugh loud and long and I can yell with the best of them. I have a quick wit that can entertain or cut to the core. I value absolute truth above all else and I believe that if you just "lay the shit out there" you can deal with it. As a result I can be too honest.

When I first started FA and this blog one of my friend's said, "I am so glad you're not in denial anymore." That could not be further from the truth. I haven't been in denial for a mighty long time. I know I am an addict. I mean, seriously, I own a mirror. Knowing that I am fat and knowing what to do to stop eating are two very different issues. I have tried almost everything possible. And I have tried diligently for a time. But it just never seemed to last for the long haul.

And because I have a tendency to be too honest I have shared my short term successes and many failures very openly. This has resulted in much judgement passed on me. I had a boss who conducted a survey of my customers to measure how they felt about having a fat case manager. I had another coworker tell me that SHE needed to be honest with me and tell me that she was prejudiced against fat people and believed all fat people to be lazy and undisciplined. I had a boss tell me that many of my coworkers resented me because they felt like I was forcing them to watch me die day by day.

In all honesty, I really would like to go line by line and share the faults of the unnamed critics mentioned above and tell you what their "thing" is but I choose to offer them the courtesy not given to me and instead I hope for their health and happiness.

So I am sure by now you are asking yourself what does the title of this post have to do with anything I have written? Just this, everyone has their own "thing" that they use to cope. Mine is obvious and out there for the world to see. But just because I am fat doesn't mean that I don't feel. Mu soul bleeds from the verbal wounds of strangers and family and friends. And I am not blind. I notice when you don't look me in the eye, point, whisper and look at me with disgust.

Also know that I am really perceptive...it is a survial skill for me. It is quite likely that I see your faults but know that I am not judging you because I don't ever want to make you feel the way I have felt. Instead of judging me imagine what it must be like to walk in my shoes and most importantly pray for me. Pray that God will show Himself to me and give me the strength to overcome and be the woman He created me to be. Or come along side me and tell me that you love me just the way I am.

My motto, which I borrowed from some random email, is this: "Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."