I’ve never thought of myself as “fat.” I’ve always quite liked quite a few things about me. But, how would I describe me if asked? Do I see the same person in the mirror that others do? How do I perceive myself?
I’ve been struggling intensely over the last 6 months with a battle of projecting my leftover “fat girl mentality” onto others, by assuming their perception and potential reactions towards me are ones that only I have toward myself. I’m consistently a bit baffled by all of the ways my weight affected me, and I really had no idea just how much it had influenced my mind.
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| That's me there, on the far right... Cowardly Lion at your service. |
For years, I was literally an obstruction. I was well over 320lbs at some point, and there’s just no getting around it – I was an obstacle at times, both physically and mentally. I’ve had people in my life who’ve rolled with it the best they could and never made me feel as though I was a burden. But some part in the back of my mind was and still is perpetually in this mode of constant apology, always feeling and assuming that I am an imposition.
Something as simple as wanting to text a friend to hang out with her:
Well, I don’t want to bother them…
I see people I know and I want to walk up to them:
Should I? Shouldn’t I? I don’t want to bother them… Will they think it’s weird I’m just out and about by myself? Will they mind if I join them? I dunno…
“Sorry to bother you guys… Do you mind if…”
If I want to talk about anything personal with a friend, or, God-forbid, maybe show that I’m not 120% happy and ruling the world all the time, I’m petrified and just know it’s a bother, so I don’t. I keep it in, or as you've heard me mention before, I "pull an ostrich."
Why would they be bothered? They are my friends. If they were to walk up to me, I would most likely be overly giddy and delighted that they were there and wanted to join me. Why do I assume people have such negative reactions to me?
It is because it is not nearly as much about perception for me as it is projection: a projection of this bizarre, intense fear of vulnerability, rejection and failure. At some point along the line, I allowed myself to be a defeatist. I’ve come leaps and bounds since beginning this process, and sharing with all of you, in realizing that I have such a propensity to sell myself grossly short and prematurely fail.
Premature failure: the tendency to over-analyze things to an excruciating extent before actually taking action because, despite all potentially good outcomes, the result is nothing short of impending doom, hurt, and/or humiliation.
Problem sorted. Crisis averted. Humiliation avoided. Progress: none.
When it boils down to it, the problem is fear.
Fear can be a crippling, stifling, cruel beast if you give it too much power. I have no idea why my tendency is to submit to it, but I’ve reached my limit.
It has been really, really tough.
Here is what I am going to do about it.
I’m going to talk about it. Both to you all, because you deserve to know about all the mind-bending wonder you might encounter through the weight-loss process, and to someone who’s a pro. I think it would be good for me, especially if I can find someone who's talked to people going through the weight loss process. I’m going to make a conscious decision to do the opposite of what my fear is saying in hopes that, eventually, I’ll have ignored it enough to have overcome it. I’m going to create a structure for better managing my time, my budget, and my work. I’m going to track my food more meticulously for the time being. I’m going to create a new list of goals and desires to strive towards.
As someone said to me recently before I set off on a cold walk alone in the rain, “Everybody’s gotta be a big girl sometime…” And it’s about that time.
