Weight

I was a chubby baby apparently, according to my mother.  A very health 8lbs something.  I was never a skinny or slender child, I was always a bit chubby or chunky.  I was also one of the tallest girls in my class, and one of the strongest.  I was never fast, but I could out-throw anyone else my age (girls, of course, not boys).  I was a tom-boy.  I'd rather knock a wall down than play with dolls - though I did play with dolls when it was raining.  Children were nasty, as children are, and I was called ten-tonne tessy and various other nasty nicknames.  I didn't actually understand why I was being called these things.  OK, so I wasn't fast, but I had reasonable endurance and my upper body strength was not at all bad.  But call someone nasty names for long enough & the message spills through into the subconscious & you'll not even realise it's happening until you look back years/decades later and by then the reprogramming is so terribly hard.

At High School we had our "medical".  I was one of 3 people in my year who was overweight, according to those stupid tables.  So I went on a diet.  I lost weight, I also (because of the diet & my over reliance on ski yogurt) developed migraines related to milk.  It took a year of visits to doctors and opticians etc before my sis said, one day, maybe it's milk.  I stopped all milk related products and, within two weeks, was headache free.  I was 14, I was supposed to be sitting the first of the important scholastic exams and I had to do it with a migraine every single hour of every single day.  Somehow, I managed to acquit myself beyond the expectations of my teachers.

I didn't put much weight on, but I was never skinny, I was never my "ideal" weight.  Once, at a local weight watchers meeting I was criticised for "only" having lost 2 lbs that week.  And it was quite the nasty dig, it wasn't just a passing comment.  I was confused.  I thought the loss of 2lbs in a week was quite the respectable weight loss - but not according to the bitch who ran the club.  I never went back.

My first job out of school, after 9 long months of unemployment, was as a filing clerk in the local tax office.  It was not at all what I had hoped for as a job.  It was incredibly demeaning and I ended up with a boss who felt I never worked fast enough.  I never did it quite as well as he wanted.  The file room was never as orderly or as tidy as it should have been for his tastes.  I remember once he came in and one of the filing cubby holes for one of the inspectors was still full (and this was after lunch).  I got a tongue lashing for not having done my job.  I pointed out that this particular inspector had asked me to keep his files back and deliver them mid-afternoon.  Another tongue lashing & I was sent to deliver the files.  The inspector gave me a tongue lashing because I hadn't done what he wanted.  I was caught in a territorial war between 2 men and I couldn't escape.  I ended up unable to eat more than a mouthful or two of food at any sitting, regardless of how hungry I was.  I ended up skinny, weak and ill.  No one could find a reason.

So I tried changing careers.  I tried to join the Navy but, guess what, despite being the lightest weight I had ever been, I was still too heavy for the Navy.  That plus being shown a film where it was obvious I would be expected to run after officers . . .  well.  I've never been the subservient type.

Depression followed, not that it was recognised or diagnosed or treated.

I did eventually find another job.  It was a pointless typist post (before the days of computers).  It was full of incredibly vain people and I was told I needed to go back to school to get my Higher English because I couldn't spell a word that wasn't even English!  Higher English has nothing to do with spelling - but they just wanted an excuse, I didn't give them one, I just left.  I eventually found myself temping for a holiday cottage company. A small outfit, one where I actually got to do a whole range of things, instead of being tied to just typing or just filing.  My weight stabilised.  I found a company, in 1987, which offered diet sheets.  I paid the fee, studied the notes and got stuck in.  I lost weight.  I felt not bad about myself and my situation.  I could wear size 16 jeans AND get my hands down between my skin and the waistband!!!!  I was so proud of myself.  I still wasn't skinny, but my size was extremely comfy.

Then that job went pear-shaped, I put a wee bit of weight on as I retrained in massage therapy, reflexology and aromatherapy.  But, after finding that men wanted sex with their massage, after nearly being raped by an obnoxious business owner, my dream went south and I went back to a 9 - 5 typing job.

That lasted 9 months (being a maternity cover post).  And I went back to holiday cottage rentals - a massive mistake.  The biggest mistake I ever made in my work career, aside from not taking the opportunity to go to university in Aberdeen and train to be a physio-therapist.  I got fired to make way for the business owner's obnoxious, stuck up daughter.  I was not unduly upset to hear the business subsequently went bust a few months after I'd been fired.

Then came 19 years of being trapped in one large organisation.  2 more serious bouts of depression followed.  I was caged, trapped, a tiny little wheel in a massive behemouth which did not value intelligence or capabaility.  In the entire time I was in that organisation I only ever had 2 bosses who gave a shit about me as a person and actually treated me in a reasonable manner and allowed me to stretch and develop.

The weight piled on.

My personal life was crap too.

Debt issues followed.

More weight went on.  More depression.

Dad tried various emotional blackmail techniques - nice one dad.

I couldn't see a way out and no one seemed to want to help me.  They all just wanted to tell me I was worthless because I was overweight.  I needed to lose weight - how I would ask, but I got no helpful answers.  How do I deal with all this shit?  How do I cope with it and find ways to keep the right mindset to loose weight?

7 years ago I got sick.  My body refused to function properly.  As I grew slower and slower, more and more weight piled on.  Yet another bully appeared in my professional life.  He had friends in the management structure so there was no support for me.  Eventually I went to HR who went to management and the ONLY solution was the  bully was told to stay away from me.  I survived his jibes and taunts for 4 years before management changed and, suddenly, he was being held to account.  But, by then, I was incapable of enjoying the victory - I just needed rest, peace and quiet.  Not that I ever got it.

In January  2013 I broke my heel. Fragments of the bone lodged at the base of my Achilles tendon.   That kind of pain doesn't help mobility either.  The summer of 2013 I finally got to see a surgeon - the forms I had been sent suggested a surgical procedure to correct the issue was imminent.  I knew that my weight would count against me.  So I hunted high & low for the diet sheets I'd used when I was 20/21.  I found them!!  much to my utter astonishment.  I embarked upon the diet.  The first week is so incredibly hard, the 2nd week very hard, the 3rd week hard and then it gets a bit easier.  I lost 3 stone in weight.  I went to see the surgeon and I was met with such an arrogant dismissive attitude that I just said "fuck it".  No medical intervention was forth coming, I was stuck.  I dropped the diet, why stress myself even more?

I eventually got a "boot" to wear & it did help but the tightness of it, the damage it did to the tissues of my leg, brought me my first brush with cellulitis.  I was on antibiotics for 6 weeks the first time.  I was lucky, I didn't end up in hospital on a drip!  I can't wear the boot any more.

I grew impervious to the constant "obese" comments.  I was coping with chronic pain, chronic illness, a malfunctioning gut, a broken heel, a lack of a paying job, and caring for elderly parents who were (are) going down hill steadily.  I stopped looking at myself in any mirror, aside from face washing and hair brushing.

Folic acid helps - I still get down, but I haven't been clinically depressed since I started taking extra folic acid about 2 years ago.

So, why am I back on a diet now, 2 years after the last attempt?  To be honest, I don't know.  The trigger is not something which has a conscious flag to it.  How long will it last? I have no idea.  I'd like to think that I'll get down to a size 20/22, a realistic notion.  I'd still be overweight but I'd be about 75 kg better than I am at the moment & that's scary.

Threatening dire health warnings about weight related issues don't really wash - potential future issues are very dim compared to problems right now.  No, weighing less won't solve my money issues, my stress over caring issues, my stress over professionals being less than ideal.  No, weighing less won't cure my fibro or my pernicious anaemia or anything else I have health wise.  BUT I might just not mind looking at myself in a mirror.

So, if you see someone who's over weight, don't just think they're lazy or gluttons - there might well be a long & convoluted tale behind why they are the way they are.