Morbid obesity and learned helplessness

[Elizabeth N.]

This will be a tough subject.

For many of us, self included, being MO was just one part of a complicated way of describing ourselves. In my case, I was MO by the time I entered first grade, so it was a part of my formative identity, with some efforts at interruption that were, in themselves, traumatic.

Others of us here got MO at other points in our lives, anywhere from birth to parenthood and beyond.

Some of us learned to be helpless victims somewhere along the line. Our weight might or might not have been part of that picture.

We all got to be here. It's time to quit pointing fingers. DO it.

Discuss.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

Okay, I'll start with one of my insane but true stories.

1981. Entering senior year of high school. 5-7, 180-ish lbs., size 16-ish in 1980 sizes (which is probably about an 8 in 2014 *snark*). 4.0 GPA. Mom died 4 years earlier after my lifetime-long of illness and increasing insanity. I had been tasked with being the replacement wife, in all aspects (is that clear enough?) to help run the ranch. I got NO instruction or training in anything from washing clothes to cleaning floors to cooking, not mention the other aspects of replacing the wife. Many other details of the crazy could be added, but I will refrain.

I acquired an enthusiastic but utterly insane sister in law, 19 years my senior, who imagined herself a replacement mommy/big sister/ranch wife/....... Oh God, the many details of HER crazy I could add. She found herself on the Montana ranch. She saw me the FAT GIRLLLL and OMFG her prejudices were running wide open....

Bitch got the bright idea of having me live on 500 calories per day in the summer between my HS graduation and my departure to Germany. I would be confined to my bedroom almost 24/7 (to include using a chamber pot) and let out for one hour to walk/exercise and to accept my 500 cals of food and my water for the day.

Bitch was offended when I refused. She made me feel so guilty and crazy that I had panic attacks and totally flipped.

Hey assholes? That's where I am right now, NORMAL WEIGHT for my size and age.

Okay, tell your story. I have lots.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

Next: What's it like to be seven years old and put on a 1,000 calorie diet?

I'll tell you. Remember, this was on a ranch where Daddy-O was the defining factor, and we won't talk about what HE ate...Well, not yet.

Breakfast: 1 poached egg. 1/2 slice toast with 1 tsp. "Oleo." 8 oz. skim milk, which on the ranch meant reconstituted powdered shit.

Lunch: 2 oz. tuna, which in 1972 was this ground shit now known as cat food, carefully rinsed because it was packed in oil, combined with 1 tsp. "diet mayonnaise" on 1 slice of bread with 1 leaf of lettuce, and 1/2 an apple and 8 oz. of that "skim milk" shit.

Snack: the school provided a carton of milk. Yippee.

Supper: 3 oz. lean meat (what did THAT mean on the ranch? Some slice of ratty venison? Some freezer burnt burger? God forbid it should be real BEEF, cuz that was our cash product.), 1 cup leafy veggies (um, in 1971 Montana? Are you fucking kidding me?), 1/2 c. veggie THING, 1/4 c. starch, 1 tsp. fat.

Snack 1/2 c. applesauce

Um, yeah. 7 years old. I was suicidal.

Next story?

 

[Charlee]

Bits & pieces... One grandmother was MO with depression. The other was bulimic and mean as a red-ass spider. My mom swore she would never be fat like her mom and was blessed with good metabolism because at 74, she has never been overweight in her life (the bitch). The bulimic grandmother did the whole huge portion thing with me and like a good girl, I ate it all. Can't tell you how many times the doc came out in the night because I had the bellyache from eating an entire recipe of french onion dip - the dried soup mix kind. My dad and his dad were total gluttons and alcoholics. Probably the only sane one out of the bunch was my maternal GF. My dad wasn't overweight until much later because he burned what he ate working in the field from daylight to past dark.

Mom served relatively well-balanced meals for the 60s & 70s. In the summer, we had fresh veg from our garden or from her parents. In winter, we had the same veg, except they had been frozen or canned. One of the damn few benefits of growing up in northeast Arkansas. My GM learned food preservation at the local home demonstration club, so the tomatoes, green beans, & corn were almost like eating fresh. All the men in the family hunted and fished, so we always had a variety of game as well as grocery-store meat.

I didn't have what the fam referred to as a "weight problem" until 19, when my paternal GF dropped dead. By the time I got married 6 months later, I was gaining weight pretty quickly. By the time my daughter was born 18 months after that, I was well on my way to MO. Fat-shaming was apparently considered motivational by everyone except my mom. Her shaming was more subtle - plausible deniability, you see. Throw in an emotionally stunted dad, a little sexual abuse (not by a family member), and a mom who has flaming cluster B traits (Google it) and you wind up with one fucked up kid who quickly learned that food will NOT hurt your feelings, make you feel inadequate or ashamed, see you as competition or reject you.

I wonder how many of us who wound up MO were abused physically or sexually. Not asking for a head count - it's just something I've always been curious about. Back in the dark ages, when I was in grad school, I did a couple of papers on the topic and the numbers didn't reflect that, BUT the studies only included anorexia & bulimia, not obesity - which I thought was just plain stupid. Damn near every obese adult female I've ever done therapy with reported a history of sexual abuse.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

Abuse seems to be SUCH a common thread for MO folks. I know I deliberately gained weight once to hide my "figure." I matured way early and could not deal with the inappropriate male attention. It was awful.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

Regarding the 1,000-calorie diet thing: I was a preemie, and my mom was told to FEED ME. So she did, force fed me, until I could do it to myself. Then she went bonkers about my being/getting fat. Food was a never ending battleground, but also the fill-in for so many other emotions. I learned some of craziest ideas about what food could/would/should do for me emotionally, all before I could put any of it into words!

 

[southernlady]

It wasn't physical or sexual in my case...but emotional abuse did play into it.

I was 12 when I started gaining weight...serious weight. I had been a fit/thin child but coming of age kicked in my PCOS. Altho I wasn't diagnosed til I was in my 40's, that was the turning point...12.

 

[Charlee]

I know I deliberately gained weight once to hide my "figure." I matured way early and could not deal with the inappropriate male attention. It was awful.

I don't think I was conscious enough of it to have put on the weight deliberately, but I'm pretty sure it was a direct result. The original abuser/rapist had a thing for my mom and when he raped me, said, "If I can't have her, I'll take you." My mom, in her boundary-less wisdom, told me when I was about 12 and was crying over my dad ignoring some event, "If he can't eat it, drink it or fuck it, it just doesn't exist for him." That's about the time the longer-term abuse began. Talk about a mind-fuck. Took me years to grok my value was NOT ensconced in my lady parts. The bigger I got, the less male attention I got = reward = misery. Sort of.

Just as an aside - I had years of therapy about all this, so 'talking' about it isn't a gut-ripping event. Or even much of any kind of event. Just some old shit that happened a long time ago. *shrug*

 

[Kimberly B]

This is tough, you are right....I grew up being the peacemaker and also the scapegoat of my family, I felt very alone and took a lot of blame on myself. So I ate. Food was no judge to me, food didn't tell me I wasn't good enough, food was a way to escape. I started weight watchers at ten, and all it did was teach me that I wasn't really good enough. I had to weigh less to be ok. So I cheated on the diet. I subconsciously knew I was ok no matter what I weighed, at least in the beginning I think, but so much pressure to be think starting when I was 5 9 and 14 years old and weighing 180, in full force, led me to eventual MO. The food was my friend. And the yo yo dieting and always trying to be finally "ok" by weighing. A normal weight made it worse.

I maintained a normal weight for 15 years. Now I'm not MO but I am overweight for me, and I know it has so much to do with the food issue again. Leaving a 23 year abusive marriage, having full custody of four kids, struggling with. Early and sudden menopause, being treated for thyroid disorder wo having it, exercising less, all these things have added to a weight gain of 50 pounds over the last two years.

But I know that even though I eat small meals and avoid eating, I'm still escaping to food. I'm alone here, and I have major GI problems, and I feel like I'm "fat kim" again. And Fat Kim the pleaser is not as good as normal weight kim that I enjoyed from the DS for 13 full years. So does that make me in the category of "learned helplessness?"

Perhaps, as a child, I was. But I know it wasn't so cognizant. Now, I think I'm trying to insulate myself, as it were. I'm still aghast that I've gained so much back so fast, I thought I was immune to that. But I did. That said, when I was trim and svelte men threw themselves at me, and people treated me so difefferently. It made me mad and still does. I am the same damned person!

And any of us that look back at the MO person we were (I was 400 pounds, now I am only 220 put feel like 400) and say that he or she is "bad" or worth less than she is now as a thinner person are dead wrong.

But I do want to weight 170 again and to feel that energy, effortlessly buy clothes, etc. That said, I do feel somewhat protected by being fat again. And I have always been body dysmorphic, when I was 150 and my bones were showing I still thought I was fat, now I feel 400 pounds again literally.

Fat is such an emotional issue. Thank you Elizabeth for bringing it up here and I'm glad I can feel safe to mention things no one else knows.

I was not sexually or physically abused but I WAS verbally abused. A lot. And ESP in my 23 year marriage I just filed to end in August. So now I'm trying to be easy on myself but feeling overweight again is something I thought I'd never feel again. And I know how to eat more protein and log food and exercise and everything else, but in some ways it was scary to be thin...though now I digress

 

[DianaCox]

Just to note that I don't think any of that is part of my history, or at least not a significant factor. Just metabolism.

I was a solid child - my mother was severely to morbidly obese and tried to do her best, but she was a little crazy about it. Adele Davis was her guru. Tons of vitamins, powdered skim milk - that's most of what I remember. I was put on thyroid meds when I was about 13 or 14. By the time I was 16, my weight varied between 142-150 - at 5'5", that was normal, but on the thick side in the Time of Twiggie. I thought I was fat, of course.

When I was 16.5, my mother decided to find a "health-food" doctor - who prescribed taking me off cold-turkey, not tapering) my thyroid meds, and replacing it with jicama (like a turnip, but without the flavor - they taste like dirt). I gained 30 lbs in a month, and that was the start of it.

I didn't become MO until I was 45, but with the exception of a few years here and there after severe dieting, which would get me down to 160 - 180, I was mostly around 205-210 much of my adult life. Fat, but healthy. By 45, I drifted up to 235. From 45-49.5, I gained >50 lbs, and I had my DS. (I barely qualified for the 5 years of being MO, and even then, just because I was measured at being 5'4.5" and my BMI was just at 40 at 235.)

I will not deny, however, that feeling fat (even if "only" severely obese and not MO) affected some of the choices I made in life, in particular my first husband (and second, since I remarried him).

 

[Kimberly B]

Diana interesting you mentioned the thyroid meds. I went cold turkey off mine about two years ago exactly when the weight gain started. Coincidence? What should I do about thst? Endocrinologist ? Geez I'm a mess. I still have the thyroxine and the cytomel but I'm not putting myself back in it again, I do way too much self medicating as it is...

Feeling fat directly influenced my choice of husband too, who I would never remarry...good for you that worked out Diana. He never asked me out formally, and married me because he was "better than me" by his own accounting, but as a fat 25 year old girl I didn't think I'd get any better offers. So sad, the toll that fat has taken in my life. And with three overweight kids I'm not sure how to address dealing with their weight eithereither

 

[DianaCox]

If your thyroid isn't functioning properly, you NEED thyroid meds. DO NOT attempt to self-medicate - get your ass to an endocrinologist.

The second marriage to the first husband didn't last either (fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me). Have been remarried to Charles for going on 16 years.

My daughter (31) has weight issues like mine - at 5'1" she weighs close to 190 I think, almost entirely below the waist ("healthy" fat). So she is obese but not MO. If she wanted to do something about it, I'd be supportive, but it's her decision of course. My son has his father's build - he's not immune from weight gain, but very very normal.

I tried very hard to keep my daughter slender as she grew up - and she was VERY slender and muscular as a small child. But when she hit puberty - boom, she had hips and thighs - and my mother had moved in with us, and was busy sabotaging my healthy eating plans behind my back (she bought chips for my daughter and told her to hide them from me under her bed). I'm not sure the outcome would have been different anyway - genes will overcome most any dietary efforts to overcome them.

 

[shann]

My dad was SMO, and he was the proverbial "jolly fat guy." He was the life of the party; everybody's friend; laughed all the time. My mom fought her weight - never MO, but up to a size 12/14 then back down to a 10. She did Weight Watchers so many times when I was growing up-- lots of meals of baked fish, baked chicken, boiled broccoli, food with no taste at all. My dad would take for only so long (usually a few nights), and then he'd load us up in the car and we'd go to some local restaurant (where he knew everyone and people stopped at our table). My mom constantly was trying to get him to diet. I also remember the cabbage soup diet (aka "soup from hell" according to my dad). Daddy had several health scares with his kidneys shutting down once and other things before he finally died of a massive coronary when I was 26. Meanwhile, my mom got up to a size 18/20 after Daddy died and then did Jenny Craig (she was very disciplined with it) and lost back down to a size 10. Then she was diagnosed with cancer and eventually lost down to a 6/8 before she died when I was 40.

I was NOT as obese as I felt when I was a teenager, but I wore a 1980s size 12 when I graduated from high school so I was definitely not a skinny mini like my friends. I did Weight Watchers the first time when I was a high school freshman. I was a size 12/14 when I met my husband and settled into a 16/18 by the time we got married. My wedding dress was a size 20- when I went to pick it out the shop owner showed me 4 choices (from the Jessica McClintock catalog) that came in my size and I picked one. (Yes, I'm VERY VERY bitter that I never got the dress trying on experience.) After we married, I cooked all the time and gained up to a size 24/26/28 and there I stayed. My husband went between saying nothing and nagging me to lose for my health. (none of which worked, as you all know.)

I've realized since my DS that I equate food with fun and party because of my dad. Health is deprivation and boredom. Also, thin doesn't equal healthy since I watched mom die. I'm the size she was at the end of her life and that image is *huge* in my mind. I keep working on seeing myself as looking good, rather than sick. I am truly psychologically fucked up.

 

[Munchkin]

My Mom had the best of intentions. She was an RN and very aware of nutrition and healthy eating. We probably ate out only 4 or 5 times a year. Our meals were always 'diet' because my sister and I were both fat. Usually meat, salad, green vegetable, and potatoes. Very controlled portions and we got seconds never. My father got almost all of the potatoes, we were only allowed a taste because they were fattening. Our after school snacks were usually veggie sticks when the other kids were eating Twinkies, ice cream, and candy. We lived in a rural Indiana and there were no stores in bike or walking distance so all we got was what we were given. I loved school lunch! Come to think of it, I didn't have my first take-out pizza till I was 13 or so! And yet we were both fat. Mom tended towards fat too but in reality she was just overweight. Desserts were for holidays or birthdays. Real burgers with buns/fries/etc happened about once a year. I can't remember my mom ever buying soda till Tab(diet) came out. If I wanted a sweet drink, we always had saccharine tablets.

Holidays taught me to either hide any 'good' food I got or eat it all as fast as possible. I remember planning my Halloween route for weeks in advance to maximize my candy collecting. And succeeding! The candy would be mine for a day or so then it would disappear, never to be seen again. Mom would finally admit she had taken it because we were too fat and didn't need candy. I was smart enough to learn from my mistakes and took two pillow cases with me the next year. One I left out with all the least desirable candy, and I hid the second one with all the good stuff in it. And I got caught. Who knew mom was checking the trash for wrappers.... Easter, same thing. The Bunny came and anything leftover disappeared. Christmas, well you had better eat it fast because you knew what would happen the day after! That Law of Unintended Consequences is a real bitch!

I got my one and only taste of thin in the 7th grade. I went on my first starvation diet the summer between 6th and 7th grade. Metrecal. I had the cookies and usually I did the shakes frozen. I remember sitting on the back porch with my frozen shake in a Tupperware container while everyone else ate dinner. I wasn't really aware of losing weight till I went for my annual school clothes shopping trip close to the end of Summer. I was able to fit into normal sizes for my age. Clothes that looked good. Cool clothes. And by the time I actually started school the clothes were almost too big. I had lost even more weight. But as soon as school started and I was eating real food, the pounds all came back.

Then we moved to a much more urban area of Massachusetts and from then on I was able to make at least some of my own food choices. And all I got was fatter. To me, healthy food and small portions equaled deprivation and I figured out much later, loss of control. I was never allowed to make any decisions of my own when it came to food, and it was the lack of control that really bugged me the most. So of course I went batshit crazy when I was finally able to make my own decisions. By golly I was never going to eat another dry salad. I learned salads actually tasted good with dressing and I learned about mayonnaise. I loved mayo because there had never been even one jar of it in my house as a a kid!

Over the years, I was fat, fatter, and fattest. And each diet I tried worked less than the one before. Starvation diets became my normal way of life. And I was still fat!

 

[Elizabeth N.]

I wonder how many of us "gave up" on anything about our weight ever improving....and to what degree we came to believe that we were powerless over other things as well. Learned helplessness.