Body Clutter Diaries

A while back, I mentioned that I was re-reading Body Clutter: Love Your Body, Love Yourself by Marla Cilley and Leanne Ely. They ask you to keep a journal while you read, and there are questions at the end of each chapter that help you to reflect on what you have just read and apply it to yourself. It's really gotten me to dig deep and think a lot about why I am the way I am. Here are a few entries I thought I'd share. I made it out like it was an interview of myself. I learned a LOT, and plan to keep learning! And, I have to celebrate having a great night last night and plans for another great day today! Yesterday I got in exercise twice (just walking, but I did it TWICE) and manage a night out without blowing my points!

Do you feel pretty?
Sometimes. Until I got to 200 pounds, I pretty much always felt pretty. Then I would be surprised when I saw pictures of myself and realized that I was actually fatter than I thought I was! This always threw me for a loop. I specifically remember one time when I visited a friend in Atlanta and we went to some club that was supposedly owned by P.Diddy. I remember going straight there after I’d hopped off the plane. I wasn’t spectacularly dressed- I had a knee-length denim skirt on with a slit up the middle and a pink, hippie-style shirt that was probably only semi-flattering now that I think about it. I was going through a weird “growing out” phase of my hair, but don’t remember feeling bad about myself. That is, until I drunkenly went the wrong way trying to find the exit to the club and accidentally tried to walk into the “VIP area”. I had a bouncer say to me, “Uh-uh. No big girls. No big girls.”
This really floored me. I mean, I know I didn’t look spectacular, and wasn’t super comfortable with going to this place not having time to go somewhere and change, but I didn’t ever think that I couldn’t go there because I looked fat. I have a similar story too, but this one from junior high. I wore “daisy dukes” (really they weren’t , they were just shorter than my normal shorts) with flowers and a cute top on one of the first days of school. I thought I looked amazing. In art class, we were mixed up with both 7th and 8th graders. There was this one guy, Rodney, who was a friend of the boy I had a crush on. I’m pretty sure the entire school knew I had a crush on this kid. Then his friend got seated at my table with another one of his friends. He started cracking jokes and saying something along the lines of, “Oh, have you visited the Piggly Wiggly lately?” He said this to me. Piggly Wiggly is/was a grocery store chain in the South, with a little piggy mascot. Again, I never left the house feeling fat.
I was always conscious of being overweight, but never thought that people wouldn’t still see me as pretty. That is, until I topped the scale at over 200. I’ve been over 200 pounds for close to 4 years now. Wow, I didn’t realize it’d been that long until I did the math just now. At that is pretty much how long it’s been since I felt truly pretty. It’s weird. I have days where I feel good, attractive even. But I haven’t felt pretty in a LONG time. This makes me really sad.

How many years’ worth of clothes do you have in your closet?
You know, I just recently did one of the biggest closet purges of my life. Mainly this was out of necessity. But prior to this, I had clothes dating back to the summer before my senior year of high school. That was 11 years ago. Specifically, I remember hanging onto a khaki skirt from Abercrombie and Fitch. Now, it’s probably also been AT LEAST since college since I’ve even walked into that store. The skirt size was Large. I looked at it a few weeks ago before tossing it out and it COULD NOT have been more than a size 6-8 by today’s standards. But, when I was in high school, maybe 10 pounds overweight at the most, I saw myself as morbidly obese. I would have died if someone would have told me I’d be 29 and sitting at around 212 pounds. I am proud to say that about 85% of my clothes currently fit my body. I did hang onto a few pieces that I’d love to wear again once I lose weight. But now that I’ve realized that I’ve been over 200 pounds for almost 4 years, I feel kind of silly. That stuff I’m hanging onto probably won’t even be in style once I drop the weight, especially at the rate I’ve been going. I feel bad saying that, because it seems like I’m giving up, when that’s actually the last thing that I want to do.

Do you get dressed to shoes first thing in the morning?
I can’t say that I do. I work night shift three days a week for 12 hour shifts. On those days, I work and sleep, and that’s about all. On my off days, I usually lounge around in my PJ’s- even do a little housework so long as I’m wearing a bra, and then getting dressed seems like a chore. There are often days where I throw on workout clothes and wear that with absolutely no makeup all day long. On those days, when I have to go out, I feel terrible about myself. I find myself looking around to make sure I don’t run into anyone that I know. That can sometimes make me feel bad about myself all day long. I definitely see the benefit of getting dressed to shoes each morning, err afternoon- whatever time it is when I wake up.

Have you ever felt embarrassed about your weight?
Oh yes. I feel embarrassed when I have to talk to my patients about a healthy weight and lifestyle because I know they are thinking, “Who is she kidding lecturing me?” And they are right! Who AM I to tell someone they need to change their ways and shape up? It’s like the reverse of preaching to the choir. I’m embarrassed of my weight every time I see a picture of myself lately. I’m the biggest I’ve ever been in my life, and when I see photographic evidence, or look at myself in the mirror, it makes me feel like a failure. It makes me ashamed of myself, and whereas when in the past I was just a little overweight, I felt as if I had other qualities to get by on, I don’t feel that way anymore. I just feel ashamed.
Have you used your Body Clutter as a shield?
Definitely. I’m not sure why. I think when I lost a lot of weight in college, I had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to the attention that I received because I had gotten used to going to parties and bars and basically being ignored. While I loved the newfound attention, I also never really got used to it. Then I had a bad breakup, went back to nursing school, and I think it was easier to gain weight and block out any attention from males that I didn’t necessarily have time for, nor did I want to expose myself to getting hurt again. Sure, I wanted to be in a relationship, but I didn’t really have the time to put myself out there. Or, at least that’s what I told myself.
Now I’m in a different place. I am in a relationship with someone who finds me beautiful just as I am. While this is great, I don’t know that I love who I am right now. I also feel that my relationship with Dave would grow if I felt attractive and was in better shape. I just think I could be a better person in my half of the relationship if I was happy with my body. The clutter doesn’t need to exist anymore to act as a shield in my relationships.
I see overweight nurses though. There is one in particular that I work with. She is an excellent nurse, but I can’t help but wonder if she doesn’t weigh 400 pounds (I’m not kidding) because of the way our work makes us feel. It’s very easy to come home from work, tired, thinking about one of your sweetest patients who is dying and doesn’t deserve it, all the while reflecting on some jerk of a patient who is younger than you are who thinks he can get what he wants by treating you like a maid instead of the intelligent, scientific intellectual that you actually are. I don’t know any other profession besides nursing where you can be highly educated, yet not treated with any level of respect. Not from doctors, not from patients, not from their family and friends, not from the IT guy on the phone who assumes that you don’t know anything about computers- I could go on. I think people are honestly shocked when they encounter a smart nurse. Perhaps this is because our profession does include those who either play dumb and use their looks to get respect and attention from doctors, or they just became a nurse because some man told them that’s what they should do, and they were able to get a certificate and be on the job in a year. It’s weird to work with people who are classified on the same level as you when you have a 4-year (or more) degree and others went to school for 9 months back in 1965. It’s surreal. It’s weird. I don’t know of many other jobs where there is such a range of education and such an assumption that you don’t know your head from your ass. I often feel like a waitress, all the while double-checking doctors orders for life-saving chemotherapy or being the first to detect symptoms of life-threatening emergencies, all the while gathering sodas for the 14 visitors who are partying it up in some other patient’s room. My job is such a weird dichotomy. Sometimes the extreme stress and lack of respect causes me to disrespect myself by stress eating. I want to eat to stuff away the rollercoaster of emotions that I’ve felt the entire 12 hours at work. I often look at my morbidly obese coworker and fear that this is how I’ll end up if I don’t get a grip on things now.