The psychological damage of fat shaming

[Rhondajs]

So, I don't want to post personal details on the internet but I'm sure I can't be the only one with these themes running through their lives. I have been fat shamed by my immediate family my whole life. No physical abuse, no sexual abuse, just emotional and psychological damage that they disturbingly don't even realize they do it.

I had a conversation with a family member tonight that triggered these feelings of worthlessness. Even if you haven't experienced fat shaming with family members, I'm sure we have all in one form of another had hurtful words, comments or looks thrown at our direction. How did you deal with this and not let it effect you?

 

[galaxygrrl]

F*ck 'em - I've never cursed on this board. But, really get over it, you are amazing person and this is their probelm. The only thing you can do is say I'm OK, this is their problem and feel good about you. Know you are not alone.

I'm truely sorry this is happening to you.

 

[Razbry]

I've experienced this. It is very difficult, because you love these people, and they love you. The problem is that you all have fallen into "roles". They have been entrenched by time. When the shaming occurs you might try saying, "why would you say that?". It brings forward the issue at hand. Follow up by saying, I'm sure you don't realize it, but comments like that are very hurtful to me. Of course the ultimate end to this situation is to lose enough weight (via DS) to weigh less than the shamers. Social order within the family will be shaken. It's a fascinating process to watch.

 

[Rhondajs]

Thank you for your support! I'm trying to change my view of this to a more "screw then" mode. But in reality, it's adjusting family roles that have been set in stone by time. And THAT is very difficult to change, especially when I'm the only one wanting the change to occur.

 

[Rhondajs]

Hi Razbry!

I totally agree with you the shifting of the family dynamics is fascinating to watch post bariatric surgery. When I had my sleeve, I lost 100% of my excess weight and kept it off for three years. But then We all know what happened after that. I was so successful though, that my brother, my mom and my aunt all had sleeves. My mom and my aunt have eventually gained back all of there weight and my brother has maintained most of his weight loss and practices intermittent t fasting. When I gained back all of my weight, i was made by them to feel very ashamed that I failed. I was shoved right back in the same family role as I was when I was a kid. The funny fat daughter who is deeply independent and my parents say about me "we never worry about her".

For lots of reasons, including the disturbing family dynamics posted above, my family does not know about my ds. I had it eight weeks ago and have yet to lose significant weight...it will come. But I am learning the art of loving from afar.

I am working with a therapist to help me untangle my role with my family. It's be a painful process.

 

[Psychomom]

I have been the victim of fat shaming more times than I like to think about. Sometimes it's strangers, but more often than not, it's family members. One of the most hurtful came from my stepson. I have never been anything but good to him, but he thought he could say some particularly nasty things about me and my weight. My husband stepped up and set him straight. My stepson has refused to speak to us since. He claims that he did nothing wrong and that my husband took my side over his. Oh, and he claims that my husband did this because my stepson is gay. Like being ugly to your stepmother for no reason other than because you want to is acceptable behavior. It was not a joke--it was full-on nasty and mean, meant to be hurtful and particularly vicious. What's worse? He not only said this stuff to my face in front of my husband, he also put it in writing in nasty text messages so that I would relive the ugly incident. (He was mad because he wanted money we didn't have and we refused to take out a loan to give it to him.) We don't care that he's gay. We do care that his behavior is unacceptable. I've started standing up to other family members, and even strangers, that think fat shaming is OK. I point out that they would never, ever say that to a thin person and that their behavior is unacceptable. Then I walk away. More than once, I've gotten an apology. Sometimes people say stuff without thinking and once it's pointed out to them, they're ashamed of their words. Sometimes people get mad that you're pointing out their unacceptable behavior. Either way, they know that not everyone puts up with it.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

I've told these before but I'm elderly and Vit D deficient, so I can repeat myself. (And these were INTENTIONAL attempts to demean me, not some horrid incident from my formative years. As you will see, I was already fully formed.)

About 1986-87, visit to MIL in AssEndOfPlanetIndiana. I'm maybe a size 18-20.
MIL: Have you seen your SIL yet?
Me: No. Where is she?
MIL: She'll be back soon. She's probably buying more clothes. She's a size seven now.
Me: How nice.
MIL: Yea...she looks really good. A size seven! I guess you don't wear that size, but it's really small.
Me: And how's she doing on her GED prep class?
MIL walked away.

About ten years later. MiniSue and I literally took planes, trains and buses, in the dead of winter (the little waves on the Lake Michigan shore were frozen solid) to go visit the old dear after neighbors found her on the floor and she FINALLY took the 15-year-old open-wound in her breast to a doctor and was dx'd with cancer that had metastisized everywhere. Cousin Jean was dispatched to pick us up at the Greyhound station.

Visitors came and MIL told her story, to wit:
And Jean said, "How will I recognize them?" And I told Jean, "Just look for a very pretty 20-year-old with a fat Mexican woman." And then MIL laughed and laughed. Others did a nervous sound. I did not respond.

More visitors came a day later and she retold her funny story. And laughed some more. Others did a nervous sound. I did not respond.

A couple of days later, she told her story again...and I finally responded:
"What a great idea! I mean, what else could you have said, 'Look for the only college graduate in the whole family'? How would that have helped her?" And then I laughed and laughed. And she made a nervous sound.

She never again told the story...at least not in my presence.


So...try to Fat Shame me and I will probably Ignorance Shame your family to your face.

 

[Rhondajs]

psychomom- I'm so glad that you have your husband that has your back and I'm sorry your son in law treated you poorly. You're right-you don't deserve that.

 

[Rhondajs]

Spiky- I wish I could bring you home to meet my family! Sadly though, my family is far from scholarly ignorance. All members in my immediate family (except for my mom) have graduate degrees. which just makes my whole situation even more sad.

 

[KathrynK]

I internalized the criticism. I'm fat. I'm less worthy. I thought they were right that I was not beautiful. I left home at age 17 and moved across the country to avoid living with them. My parents put me on diets and I woke up at 3 am so I could eat when they were asleep. I didn't understand why, but I knew I was different somehow. I was yelled at at the dinner table and told "you've had enough" before others. My father once picked up my full plate and threw it against the wall and told me to stop eating. The criticism was hard to understand as a child. I was just doing what I needed to do, to feed the intense hunger, but somehow that was wrong. A gay friend supported me in my late teens and balanced their disdain with his support, and got me out of there. That, and a full scholarship for college, saved me.

My husband loved my curves and zaftig body and made me feel beautiful. His parents were taken aback by my weight, but giving them grandchildren helped that. I had much more to do with his family than mine as an adult. they didn't shame me the way my birth family did, even when I reached 300 lbs. I'm sorry they did not live to see me thin.

I always felt ashamed when I was with my parents, even as an adult, because they viewed my weight as a weakness, as a choice I made. Always in the back of family photos, behind others. When I couldn't buy jeans in JC Penny's in high school (before they had big girls departments), my mother made me pants and skirts. That was always a "funny" story. Visits home were the the cause of many tearful nights. My father didn't live to see me thin, but my mother did. Her praise after I lost weight hurt, because it meant I was less worthy in her eyes as fat.

I suspect we all carry the burden of feeling inferior in a society that values thinness. I tell friends I will always be a fat person "in drag" as a thin person. It doesn't feel real, even after a decade.

 

[k9ophile]

To my best of recollections, I was only fat shamed once. I was at a family reunion, and maybe was a size 18-20, when a cousin observed that I "don't miss too many meals". I don't remember any other times even at a size 36. Maybe I am or was in a state of denial at not being able to remember anything else. Ironically, when I was a teen-ager and into my mid-twenties, I was skinny shamed.

My knee surgeon told me he wouldn't do my knee replacement until I lost a massive amount of weight, yet I never took that as shaming. That, along with increasing co-morbid conditions, helped my decision to undergo WLS.

 

[Rhondajs]

Kathryn,
You're story broke my heart. I truly hope you don't believe the idea that you aren't worthy. That is just makes me want to cry for you. I am glad that you have found "your people" and that you will really start to believe that you deserve all that is great in the world!

 

[Rhondajs]

k9ophile- I'm glad to know that you haven't been subjected to a whole lot of fat shaming. Nobody deserves that!

 

[DianaCox]

I took my 16 year old son to Paris, Berlin and Warsaw the year before my DS. We walked a lot. My son accurately and factually, but not terribly emotionally intelligently, observed that I was the fattest person he had seen in Paris. His observation was mostly about that people walked a lot and seemed to be buying fresh foods for preparation of one night's meal at a time, but connecting that with the fact that it was a very different way from how we lived and shopped and cooked at home. But it stung.

 

[Jbandmmomma]

I was an athletically built teenager with killer legs and wore, at most, a size 12. My ribcage has been 38 inches around since I was 13 years old. It's just a fact, I will never wear a smaller bra 'band' size. All that to say that I was nowhere near even overweight on the BMI chart. I was very fit. I biked for miles and miles daily. I was in band from 5th grade on. Hero worshiped the band director. He was a man among men. I played the instrument they needed, not what I wanted to originally. blah blah blah. my senior year, i decided to try out for (and made) the new color guard for marching season. Halfway through band camp, I was pulled into his office and told to lose weight - I was absolutely mortified. I was by no means the largest girl and had actually spend the summer when I wasn't marching / rehearsing cleaning pools and swimming. I was in the best shape of my life. I was scarred for years. So deeply that I didn't even tell my mother until after the man died over 20 years later.

I've had more fat shaming and dismissals by medical providers than I could begin to enumerate. Most recently, I was diagnosed with severe osteroarthritis in my right knee, due to multiple injuries (i've torn the ACL 3 times and sprained it multiple times over the last 25 years). The level of severity could have been lessened had any of the orthopedists I went to in 2006 after the birth of my first kid, or in 2008 after a slip and fall sprain type injury, or in 2010 after unexplained pain bothered to do simple x-rays and pay attention. Instead, I was told "lose weight" and we will re-evaluate. Dismissed because I was not worthy of time or treatment, but please be sure to charge my insurance and collect a co-pay.

Just yesterday, a post-appendectomy surgery appointment was another instance. Even though I've lost the equivalent of an adult man, and I am now directly in the middle of "normal adult female body size", my concerns over a seroma and large hematoma at the incision site were summarily dismissed, as it was located within the pannus left after last year's hernia repair without panniculectomy. Even not SMO now, my body appearance is off-putting to skinny bitches and they dismiss my concerns because of it.