'I'm listening' turned me into 'I'm thinking' - he's a MOB

So... 'I'm listening' over at Married to the Band (who has an spectacular new blog look thanks to the amazing Jenny) asked a question that I found very intersting and really tough too...

He was talking about how Tessie Rose blogged about being so much happier now than she was in a picture from a year ago.  He questioned that as they’d been just as happily married then as they are now.  And …“She explained that the unhappiness was with herself and for the longest time it caused her to question most of the affection and love I had for her. Looking back....that really made sense...pretty enlightening information for me. Theresa can get up in front of a room and do a standup routine but wasn't self confident enough to truly accept things in a normal relationship as they were. Those days are gone. But what if you gained all the weight back now but the relationship didn't change? Would you revert back?“

That gave me pause

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(that was me pausing)

I can only answer that as me – the person not quite half way to my weight goal.  The me who’s been overweight forever.  And I say – yes, I’d revert right back.  I’ve lost weight before, felt good about myself and confident about my place in the world (hoooo now – let’s not get carried away!)  Okay, more confident about my worth (that’s better).  But if I lose all the weight I want to and blossom even more fully into the person I know I am underneath all this stuff – and work out all my issues with all my relationships and am good and confident and happy about it all.  (understanding the normal ups and downs of life still fully exist.)  And then…. I gain it all back. Well, after I’d kill myself.  I’d hate myself.  I just would.  Not only would I have the comfortable hate (or at least dislike and strongly disapprove) of myself I’ve known and loved (or rather loathed) all these many years – but I’d have the added pure fires of hell hatred at what a spectacular failure I am.  I’m smart and if I know I’m a failure and I know I’m unworthy of this or that, and I know you’re smart – well of course I’d believe that you’d know I was a failure and unworthy too.  I could easily see myself believing those around me were just staying with me cuz they felt stuck or maybe just felt a profound sense of pity and didn't want to hit a girl when she was already so obviously down or however unworthy or icky I was didn’t outweigh every one of the feelings they might have.  It was close, sure, but maybe the scale tipped a little bit to my side (all puns intended).  But then I’d feel badly that they had to settle for something so unworthy… yadda yadda yadda.

So… my question is… Will that thinking ever change?

I’m not planning on gaining the weight back.  Of course I wasn’t planning on it before either.  But I have this thing now and I truly believe it’s gonna help me maintain whatever weight I lose.  So… Once I’m in a truly comfortable place – and in all honesty I’m not that far right now mentally – will I get to a place where I’m so confident that I’m insulated from those kinds of thoughts?  I just don’t know.  I’ve heard many of you talk about having to get your mind to catch up with your body – I wonder if it happens?  Or happens all the way?

I’ve talked about how my marriage is not completely smooth right now but these next comments don’t have a single thing to do with that…

My husband has a huge ego.  I don’t know if it’s a male thing or just a Brad thing, but it’s hilarious.  He’s the first to admit it - and quite proudly too.  He will say, quite often.. I’m the best fucking AE in the world.  That’s his title and when he’s had a particularly good conversation with a customer, there’s no doubt that’s the first thing he’ll say.  We all roll our eyes.  Yes dear, we know.  But he could gain 300 lbs and while he’d be mad at himself, it would just not affect how worthy or loveable he believed himself to be.  Maybe there is a number over which that’s not true, but you get my point.  What I’m trying to say is – I don’t think he’d ever have the feelings I described above.  Ever.  No matter what he saw in the mirror. 

He’s put on weight in the last decade or so, but maybe it’s because he didn’t grow up that way?  Or is it a societal man/woman thing where the value on appearance is so much higher for women than men?

I realize I’m rambling a bit here – but… what do you think about this stuff??

What purpose does being fat serve?

I think in addition to this desire I have to want to be healthy, this little band I got, and even this wonderful support I’m finding online – I think to be successful long term, there are some things I need to figure out – or at least have some sort of handle on….

Weight loss is 99.92% mental – at least for me.  Surely we’re all smart enough to know how to lose weight.  Take in less calories than you burn.  It’s just math.  It’s really, really not rocket science.  How hard can this be, right?

As Drazil’s recent post so powerfully put it, I passionately believe there is a reason for everything.  So, I have always believed that being fat is serving a purpose for me.  It’s giving me something, serving some need.  And this need it’s serving must be pretty damn powerful for it to continue to overwhelm my pure desire to be healthier.  To more easily run with my kids.  To not be the fattest mom in the room.  Etc, etc. 

I got my first clue as to what it was about a million years ago (okay, maybe closer to 20) when I lost a bunch of weight and was working downtown Baltimore and people started talking to me.  Now, I’m known or certainly was back then as a pretty loud person, very outgoing, knows everyone, but the truth was – it was completely about control.  If I walked into the room and immediately made my presence known in some loud way – all the attention went to me because I told it to and then the attention was free to move back to the rest of the world and leave me the hell alone.  And everyone there would remember me as having been there and amusing and loud or whatever I wanted them to remember, without anyone ever really seeing me or paying actual attention to me, which is what I thought I wanted.

But this summer, way back when – people through no design of my own started talking to me.  I wasn’t invisible any longer.  It was startling.  And uncomfortable.  I was no longer in control of when people looked at me or noticed me – it was happening all on its own.  It frightened me, though I couldn’t have possibly identified that way back then.

Flash forward to about 4 years ago when I lost about 75 lbs with the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center.  I went from 251 to 174.  I still had more to go, but looked pretty good if I do say so myself.  My next-door neighbor made a pass at me – the kind of pass that involved his lips on mine and his hand on my chest and my hand (held by his free one) on his quite hard… willie mcgee.

I pushed him out of my house and hid from him for a couple of weeks before I got over myself and told him that whatever signals he thought he was getting from me were unintentional and that I had no intention of cheating on my husband.  But… it frightened me.  It was startling and uncomfortable.  I thought long and hard (all puns intended) about it then and decided I truly didn’t know or understand the generic, normal mating rituals out there – or maybe even the generic, normal social rituals of the world.  The neighbor incident was in no way responsible for why I stopped losing weight and started gaining again.  But it didn’t help. 

So I think the thing being fat gives me (or one of the things) is invisibility.  When I’m fat – no one pays any attention to me.  Not in any real way.  Only in ways I control.  Each time I’ve lost weight in the past it has been relatively easy for me.  I like healthy food.  I like to exercise.  But there has always come a point – when it seeps into my mind that “hey look, I’m doing great.  I like what I see in the mirror, this is great.”  And it’s at that moment that it all starts to go to shit for me.  As soon as I realize I’m truly getting somewhere I immediately find a way to stop that nonsense!  

So there it is – I have a real fear of being successful.  Maybe it’s because I’m afraid then people will actually find out I’m a fraud.  Or it’s because I’m afraid people will pay attention to me in a real way and I feel out of my element about that – I truly think there is a ‘rules of social norms and behavior’ book that everyone got, but I had skipped school that day, so I never got one.  Now I need to figure out whether I really want that invisibility (No I don't think so) and/or how to replace any other things being fat is giving me.

What did being fat used to give to you?  And how have you replaced it?