More Than You Wanted To Know About Me

I find myself more and more irritated, as time goes by, at people who make assumptions about fat people. Yes, I do eat too much. No, I do not exercise enough. Yes, I could change both of these things. But there’s more to it than so many people want to see. As I can only speak for myself, I will.

1. It’s all a matter of willpower. Uh, not exactly. Partially, for sure. I have both bipolar and severe anxiety disorder. I have panic attacks so severe that I can find myself in another room on the floor in the fetal position and not remember how I got there. The majority of people with bipolar disorder self-medicate. Some use street drugs; some use alcohol. I use food. It is not a choice I made deliberately, and it is something I’m working on overcoming. But it’s more than a matter of just sucking it up and doing it, and it doesn’t just happen.
2. I laugh when I see fat people going through the drive-thru when they could just go inside and get their food faster. I use the drive-thru because when I go inside, I have to face an entire room full of people I don’t know, and it scares the hell out of me. If walking somewhere were the way to avoid that, I’d walk.
3. All you have to do is eat right and exercise. True. And there have never been studies that show that it’s much cheaper to eat high-fat, high-carb foods. And I’ve never been run off a trail by a truck while walking because the men driving were under the impression that I need to “run off that ass.” I’ve also never had food thrown at me while I was walking because I “must be hungry after not eating for five minutes.” I’ve never had a complete stranger in Wal-Mart tell me that I should stick to low-fat ice cream when I had a pair of socks in my hand and wasn’t looking at ice cream. And none of these things caused me such distress that I felt I could only be comforted by ice cream or pizza or nachos.
4. It’s just willpower; it has nothing to do with a slow metabolism or any other illness. Wrong again. First, check out these articles: http://tinyurl.com/6j4vyq and http://tinyurl.com/6perzt. Secondly, several months ago I went to the doctor for extreme exhaustion and major weight gain, even for me. I told him that it was more than just “fat woman” exhaustion, and since my doctor is not a judgemental asshole, he ran some tests. Turns out, I have an extremely underactive thyroid. If my levels had been the slightest bit lower, he would have had to hospitalize me. Hypothyroidism can cause dry skin, exhaustion, depression, and–read carefully now–drastic weight gain.
5. Gluttony is a sin. So is lusting after someone to whom you are not married. So is lying. So is making fun of people. So is storing up treasure on earth. So is judging others. So is–wait a minute. I don’t give a fuck. I’m not a Christian.

And now I’m tired of defending myself against stereotypes, even though I doubt I changed anyone’s mind because people who think that way can’t ever be changed, and even though there are about a zillion more stereotypes out there.  I just wanted to vent, and as I have put it so eloquently before: It’s my blog and I want to so nyah!