Pet Peeves!

As you all may know one of my pet peeves is rude people in line...already discussed that. One of the other things that drives (no pun intended) me crazy is when people follow behind you sooooo close! Do they actually think that I'm going to go faster for them? In fact when someone does that too me I go slower, slowly a little bit at a time until I'm 10miles UNDER the speed limit! LOL they hate it, but Hell that's what they get for riding my ass! I was going the speed limit to begin with! So if you are following me and I'm going the SPEED LIMIT and you don't like it, well go around me! don't ride my butt! Cause if you do I'll probably make you even madder!!!

Does this blog make me look fat?

Funny we see these phrases all the time and get a little chuckle out of them. I know I do. But what I want to talk to you today about is my life as a "Morbidly Obese" Woman. This is not a fun subject to talk about and I'm sure alot of you have someone in your life who is like me. I'm going to explain to you what we (the obese) feel every living moment of every living day. First of all the definition of Morbid ( realating to, or characteristic of disease, morbid condition, abnormally susceptible or characterized by gloomy or unwholesome feelings, grisly, and or gruesom.) Do I look like that to you? am I so grisly and gruesom that you turn away? Some people do do that to us "Fat" people and when they do a little piece of us dies with it. Obesity (a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of FAT in the body) Boy do I sound pretty now huh? Well let me tell you that I don't and haven't for a very very long time. I'm a really good faker as most of us "fat" people are. We act as though nothing is bothering us, but in reality we are seething with self hate. Anyone who knows me with the exception of a handful of people see me as Happy go lucky, not a care in the world, life it great blah blah blah. Well that is not the case. I struggle everyday with my self hate. I have tried every diet in the book, spent thousands of dollars on programs, starved myself to the point of putting myself in the hospital, if any of you remember when I was in High School and had Mono it was also for an undiagnosed eating disorder too. My parents didn't even know I wasn't eating, I was starving myself because I was not as thin or thinner then everyone else. So I guess I was unhappy with myself even then. But then things changed I got married and had children. As in the case of mine they would be called stair steps, one right after another and with each one I put on more weight. I tried and tried to take it off but as many of you know with having little kids in the house it is difficult to handle the stress. I don't think I over ate, or at least I told myself I did not. You couldn't say I wasn't moving around cause with 4 children you cannot just sit on the couch and eat bon bons! I was active but the weight kept creeping up! I have been to nutritionists, mental health counselors you name it I have tried it! Some might think that it's a mind over matter thing, Oh just stop eating bread, sugar, etc...and it will come off. Not for me. And now at the age of almost 46 I live with a multitude of physical and mental problems. How could this have happened? I don't even remember not being this size! I have been this size since my second child was born, My kids have only known me as fat, squishy etc...Where do I go from here?
Well my first step was figuring out why I ate when I was not hungry. I have learned that I would not open myself up to emotions. If it was an emotion that was going to make me feel unsure of myself well I just had to push it back down inside of me with some food, didn't matter what it was as long as that feeling went away. If I was bored, I know hard to believe, but if I was bored I would eat, if I felt lonely, which I do alot of the time, I would eat. Push those feelings as far down as I could. I didnt' want to deal with them, I didn't want to think about them let alone talk about them. I was supposed to be "Perfect Mom" only I was the Huge Mom! I bet none of you have ever thought about what you are eating in a resturant, wondering if someone is looking at you and saying, wow she really shouldn't be eating that. I don't go to the gym anymore because I was so self concious of walking past everyone and in my head everyone was thinking, "oh here comes that fat girl again". If you haven't lived the life of a fat, chubby, obese person you have to understand we play these scenerios in our heads over and over and over again. It may not even be happening but in our heads it is. So we stay inside and we tell ourselves we will do better today and we try, we don't over eat, we eat healthy we might even eventually buy a new outfit cause we start liking ourselves again. But then we look at ourselves in the mirror or weigh ourselves because we feel like we have been good and it should be showing right? This morning I got on the scale, thinking I did good over the weekend, I didn't over eat, I didn't over drink, I did alot of walking etc... and so I get on the scale and Voila! I have GAINED weight! ever have weight put on your shoulders? try looking at the scale when it tells you that you weigh 255lbs! I tried, I did good, I hurt!
the self esteem plummets, but I'm not going to go down the usual path. I ate my breakfast of bran flakes, I'll have an apple on the way to work, I'll drink my gallons of water. I'll be good I tell myself. My family eats more than I do and yet I can't lose the weight. I have tried to have my insurance company approve the Lap Band for me. Last year I was denied! I'm 255 and I was denied! go on a diet they say, exercise they say. How can you exercise when you can't walk because of the osteoarthritis you have in both knees, and the neuropathy in your arms and legs (by the way some are caused by being over weight but some are not, the knee problems I have had since birth) So I try again with the insurance company, send more letters and wait. The point I was trying to get across is that even though you see a fat person on the outside, sometimes there are more reasons than food that make that person overweight. Don't judge them, talk to them and understand.

Family

This past weekend I was able to spend the most wonderful time with my husbands, Mothers side of the family. I don't think I have Ever met such a kind and wonderful bunch of people who actually "Enjoy" being around each other. Yes, we all have wonderful people in our families and I have to admit I think I have some pretty wonderful ones in my family also. And for this I feel very blessed. I often wonder if my parents who have been gone (dead) for 20 plus years now would be part of a fun and loving family who gathers once a year and thrives on each others company? My honest answer is um....No! I didn't have the warm an fuzzy family, that Bradey Dream family! I had the family that had the stay at home mom who hated every moment of it, with nine kids on top of it. I had the family that you could hear the yelling coming from the house a couple of houses down! I had the family that would fight with each other to really cause physical harm to each other, for example running after each other with hammers and such!!! yes, bizarre as it may sound that was my family up until I was about 13 years old! And then we moved to Florida! oh did I mention that I grew up on Leominster, Massachusetts? It's funny cause when I moved to Sebring, FL then, everyone thought if you came from Massachusetts you lived in Boston, obviously no other town was ever discussed in school. Ha Ha so everyone who lived in Massachusetts came from Boston period! So to get back to my point. My family really did put the funk in disfunctional! So my parents thought it would be good to move us (myself, my sister and my younger brother) the three little kids as we were referred to and still are! to a small town in central Florida. Sebring. I felt like I was Dorothy picked up by the twister and set down in some strange and different place! I didn't understand a word anyone said when they were talking because of the strong accents. And I'm sure they thought mine was the same. And truth be told I really could not understand the African American kids because thier accents were even worse and I had only seen on Black person my whole life when I lived in Leominster! I tell no lie I only speak the truth here. So back to the story of family, I had a crazy disfunctional family, my parents tried to take us away from it, some of the family followed and the rest stayed in New England. Just because we moved away didn't solve the problems! It seemed not so much fighting between silblings but now it was the parents turn! Augh! I swear my Dad was bipolar and was never diagnosed! He suffered from depression and was never diagnosed! He suffered from Anxiety and finally was diagnosed! So the long and short of it was I never grew up in a family that ENJOYED being around each other as much as the Cummings/Shaw families do. Once you married into this family you were there for life. They care with real feelings, not fake and then talk behind your back, they are happy, genuinely, to see you each time and saddened when they have to say goodbye. Although some might see you within the next year the real love for you is felt. I think that is the soul purpose of family, Love, plain and simple. No dressing it up, no hiding bedind something else, just genuine Love. And that is what I experienced this past weekend and what makes me joyously happy when I see all those smiling faces again. Till Next Time Cummings/Shaw Family! I'm feeling the Love!

Why?

This is my first time blogging and am very eager to get started. I have found that the general people around me in my city, neighborhood and area have increasingly declined in social skills! For example last night I was in a Major Dept Store in our area exchaning an item. Simple task, should only take a few minutes. Well as I stand there at the sign that says "please form line here" I notice a young couple of mixed races standing over to the side but at the same distance from the counters as I. the cashier walks up, obviously sees me standing there but asks who is next in line...Well in a perfect world it should have been me. If this inter racial couple had any manners they would have said "oh she was standing here first" but alas they did not and went right in front of me. I tried to contain my unbelief that this had just happened but made a small comment to two young men standing behind them that "I must be invisible today". Now you would generally think that ok now I have to go to the end of the line cause obviously no one can read a sign anymore and have formed a line on the other side of counter. So as I turn to go to the end, the two young white men say" please go in front of us, you were obviously here first"! So my question of today is Why? Why do some people, not all, but the majority of people think it is there priviledge to step in front of other people in store lines? Are they any better than me? I'm not saying I'm any better then them. I just want to play fairly, be honest, have manners. the two younger men behind me had the manners and allowed me to go in front of them. Why didn't the inter racial couple feel they were allowed to go in front of me? Upbrining? Social Status? Lack of Manners? Why?