And You? Who Are You?

Kim, one of my favorite bloggers, whose blog I renamed (my addition in red -- hope she doesn't mind) Tales of the (No Longer) Morbidly Obese for accuracy sake, asked some questions today about self-perceptions post weight loss.   Here goes my attempt to answer. 

You're of course welcome to play along from home or work as the case may be.

UPDATE: This has also been answered now by: PastaQueen, Sharon, Alison, Suburban Wonder, Melting Mama and Marybeth.  It was originally asked by Isha on the ObesityHelp Duodenal Switch message board.  If you blog a response, let me know and I'll add your link!

1.)  Do you feel that you (the person, soul, who you are) has changed since you have lost weight?

I'm the same.  I've felt the same since childhood.  Same thoughts, moods, dreams.  Losing weight HAS changed some things in my life, but it hasn't changed who I am. 

I still live the bulk of my life in my head and books.  I still have a weird and kind of sick sense of humor.  My politics are still left of left.  I'm still wildly shy and introverted -- some days so much so that just bringing myself to leave the house knowing I'll have to be in contact with other people is painful.  I still struggle to be the kind of person I want to be -- struggle to be kind rather than mean.  Want to be thoughtful and live with grace and a generosity of spirit.

I'm still very flawed. 

2.)  Have others said you have?

Some, but not the people who I think actually know me well, which admittedly would be a very small number.   My husband, who knows me better than anyone, says I'm still the same.  My mom says I remind her now more of what I was like in high school than I did before surgery, but that could be the short hair talking.

I also don't have food to take the edge off life anymore.  I think that's made me feel very fragile sometimes and caused me to retreat into my own head and books more even than before.   I'm still learning how to live without my sugar crutch drug of choice.  I think that's going to take some time.

3.)  How do you feel about that?

Sometimes it's okay.  Because I probably do seem different.  I dress better -- it's a lot easier when your clothing choices are actually choices.  I don't flinch mentally quite so much when I have to meet people for the first time.  I have a lot more energy and rarely worry that I won't be able to keep up with someone so that makes me more active.  My body's needs make me more assertive in saying what I need / want.

Losing so much weight has frequently made me a social center of attention.  This is understandable, but also kind of freaky for me.  It's made me even more likely to avoid large social situations.

As I said above, I also don't have food to take the edge off life anymore and that's made me retreat into my own head / books more even than before.   This behavior has always been read by some people as snobbish or cold and I suspect it still is.

When it makes me angry is when it's clear that I'm being taken more seriously as an intellectual or worker now than I was when I was overweight.  Ironically, I think I worked harder then because I was so afraid of being seen as lazy and dumb.  People who looked right past me 190 pounds ago now want to sit near me and chat.  That's creepy.  Even creepier than not being recognized. 

This has been an amazing two years, don't get me wrong.  But it isn't the most important or best thing I've ever done.  I wasn't a failure before I lost weight and only in the deepest bouts of depression did I ever think I was.  And I'd had a good life pre-op, so much that I wanted more of it and thus very much wanted to lose weight.  I'd finished 2 undergraduate majors, graduated magna cum laude, gotten my masters, gotten into a good PhD program, won a fellowship from the National Research Council / Ford Foundation, passed my PhD qualifying exams, supported myself financially, got myself out of a bad marriage, paid off $10,000 in credit card debt from my ex, met my soul mate, negotiated a 6 year long distance (like 6000 mile) relationship and married him.  I'd been a mostly good daughter and granddaughter.  I'd performed CPR on an 18 year-old boy with alcohol poisoning for 10 minutes while the paramedics were in route and he survived.  l talked college freshmen down from suicides.  All this while carrying 150-200 extra pounds. 

A difference that is real though is that I finally don't feel defined by my biggest failure for the past 20 years, the failure to lose weight, the shame of the scale's constant movement upward as my body kept being more and more damaged.  Being able to let go of that sense of failure is, if you'll pardon the pun, a huge weight off my personal self-image.

4.)  If you don't feel that the person you are has changed, why do you think others are saying that you have?

Because my fat was a visual part of me that they saw and knew.  And now it's gone.  I weigh almost 200 pounds less than I did two years ago making me literally half my former self.   How do you cope with that sort of change in someone?  I study and work on a university campus and have for the past 10 years.  I know a lot of people there.  Yet 90% of them would walk right by me tomorrow if we crossed paths because they wouldn't recognize me.   

Them thinking my personality has changed is because I do seem so different to them.

There's another factor at work here too.  Being 200 pounds overweight opened me up to a lot of abuse.  I never knew when suddenly someone was going to randomly attack me based on my weight.   It happened often enough that I started being scared of it.  I'm not scared of that now.  My ability to not stand out in a crowd makes me different than I was. 

It reminds me a bit of the way gays and lesbians were classified as mentally ill until it was understood that what was being defined as group pathology was actually a reaction to the abuse and discrimination they were experiencing. 

As Kim so eloquently wrote "I think life is so much easier to survive as a thin/normal sized person that you do not have to contend with daily assaults on your psyche.  Maybe I am different because my world is a softer place now."

Comments

[Vic]

Well, this is interesting. If you asked me, I'd have said that I didn't think you've changed much (or at all) - but then, most of our communication happens online or on the phone...

[Sharon]

You are pretty eloquent yourself, my friend. Loved to read this - so much so that I stole it!

Sharon

[Kelli]

I cannot tell you the number of people (friends, family and acquaintances) who say they have seen a big change in me and not just physically. The biggest change I notice is that I no longer even think about standing up for myself. The weight should have never kept me from doing it before but obviously it did. Thanks for sharing so much of your life!

[Marybeth]

I added this to my blog too - I think everyone needs to!

[Melting Mama]

When I opened up this page, I immediately pictured the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. "Who Arrrre You?"

[Melting Mama]

I added the questions to my page - I'm interested in seeing any responses. http://meltingmama.typepad.com/wls/2007/01/and_you_who_are.html

[Bronwen]

I did a variation on these four questions on my blog.