Shaddup Already!





















2005-01-21

confronting the tormentors and crying at work

So today I had enough of the diet talk. I have been thinking about asking them to cut back on the diet talk for a while, but ahdn't decided if I should or not. Today kind of decided it for me. I snapped, in a way.

I was talking about dealing with a student and Thing 1 interrupts me to point out to the science teacher (who I will call Friend because she is my one friend on the team) that they were both being "good" today. This was because they both had salads.

Since they're both on Weight Watchers, they started talking about the dieting and I just couldn't take anymore. I've been listening to varying scripts covering the same garbage. So I interrupted them and started to ask if they couldn't talk about dieting so much.

Before I could even get my sentence out, Thing 1 interrupts with "You want us to stop talking about this, right?"

Well, that isn't the way I was going to say it and I don't care about occasional talk, it's the obsessive, daily, every single fucking time any dieters are near Thing 1 crap. However, having her interrupt me threw me off track of what I was going to say. So I just said yes.

Then I said, "I don't mean this to sound like a threat or an ultimatum, but if you don't want to change the conversation, then I will leave. I'll just eat in my portable."

To which Friend replied with something that just shocked me. She said, "You know, I learned a long time ago that it's better to stop trying to control other people."

I tried to explain that I didn't feel that I was being controlling, I felt like I was setting personal limits for myself. This goes on for a short period of time and I started crying. Thing 1 asks if we could compromise and talk about it occasionally. I said that was fine, I just didn't think Thing 1 realized exactly how much time she spends talking about this crap.

Frankly, if I had been able to say what I wanted to say without interruption, I would have asked them to not talk about it so much. I wouldn't have presumed to ask them to not talk about it at all.

Anyway, I'm craying uncontrollably now, so Friend says, "Let's change the subject."

Thing 1 comes back with, "So how's your program working?" to me. She understands that I'm trying to get away from dieting, but she doesn't take it seriously because I'm still fat.

I said I didn't want to talk about it either. I guess Thing 1 just thought I was jealous of the attention not being directed at me.

They started talking about students and such and I calmed myself down so I could go back and teach the next class. I finally calmed down enough that I could join in the conversation, but I really wasn't okay with how the situation worked out.

After school I went to talk to Friend. As much as I would like to run away, I'm just the kind of person who has to get this stuff out in the open (when it comes to people I care about). Smartass was in there, which didn't bother me. He's actually a psychologist who changed careers. Anyway, Friend shares the office with Thing 2 and Smartass, thankfully Thing 2 wasn't there or the conversation wouldn't have happened.

I told Friend I wasn't okay with how things were left. Then I started saying I didn't understand how I was being "controlling" when I was just trying to set personal boundaries.

She talked a bit and I discovered that she felt like I was running away from conversation that I just didn't want to have by saying I would eat in my portable.

I broke down crying again and finally said, "You know, I've been putting up with this for a while and trying to let it roll off my back, but it's messing me up. I have a binge eating disorder and these topics are really a trigger for me."

Friend's whole demeanor changed. She said she hadn't realized I was dealing with an eating disorder. Her perception of the situation was based on partial knowledge of the situation. She appreciated that I shared that information with her (I guess I kind of thought it was tattooed on my forehead for everyone to read--that's the way it feels, anyway) and she said she knew that Thing 1 and Thing 2 wouldn't understand what I'm going through. Then she said the nicest thing, she said, "I don't want to be anyone's trigger."

Friend is a recovering alcoholic. She was actually friends with my parents through AA and Al-anon before I ever met her. That we're working on the same team is completely coincidental, but nice. At any rate, I believe she understands a lot of what I feel.

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And here I am sobbing like a baby again. This whole situation has obviously hit a nerve, but I don't know what it is. I feel like a fucking freak. Maybe it's because I just realized completely that I'm not like everyone else. Maybe I always assumed that most other people feel the way I feel, they are just too far in denial to admit it. Maybe I'm just screwed up.

Let's add one more thing to my shopping list of freakisms. Let's see, there's clinical depression (which is not under control at this time), panic disorder (which is not under control at this time), obsessive/compulsive tendencies and binge eating. What a lovely picture that paints.

There are so many things that I like about myself and some things that I'm okay with, but my body image negates all of that. Sometimes when I'm doing something I love and am proud of, I forget I'm fat. I wish I could stay in that place, but I'm continuously jolted by the reflection in the mirror, seeing myself in the reflection of the glass doors at school, when people treat me like a fat person, when I'm standing alone in the background desperately wanting to simultaneously melt into the wall and be the center of attention.

I scare myself, sometimes, at how close I am to becoming anorexic. That primitive part of my brain sometimes pushes the other parts out of the way and says, "You could just stop eating altogether." I'm grateful that the thinking part of my brain has always taken back over, but I worry that at some point it won't be able to.

What makes me sick is I know how everyone would react. They'd congratulate me, tell me how wonderful I'm doing and that I'm a great person for losing weight. Then they would see the weight drop lower and lower and they would talk behind my back about how unhealthy I'm being. They would joke about tying me down and forcing me to eat something. I know this because I was there when they were talking about someone else that way.

Even at this time, as the words appear on the screen in time with the movement of my hands, I feel like this is written by someone else. Can I really be this tortured and screwed up?

I do have one nagging question. What would my issues be if they weren't buried under the big fat one? I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that.

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