Saturday, October 30, 2021

Come As You Are Party + Charity Sunday: Association for Size Diversity and Health

 

Free-use image from Pixabay

Content warning for brief mention of self-harm and suicide ideation

What if neither of the bodies depicted in the image above is "bad" or "wrong?"

What if they are both just bodies?

This is the concept promoted by the Association for Size Diversity and Health.


The Association for Size Diversity and Health adheres to the principals created by Dr. Lindo Bacon in their book, Health at Every Size. 


A full explanation of the HAES approach can be found here.


The Health At Every Size® (HAES®) approach is a continuously evolving alternative to the weight-centered approach to treating clients and patients of all sizes. It is also a movement working to promote size-acceptance, to end weight discrimination, and to lessen the cultural obsession with weight loss and thinness. The HAES approach promotes balanced eating, life-enhancing physical activity, and respect for the diversity of body shapes and sizes.

Speaking as someone who tried to hate myself thin for 33 years to no avail, the diet approach did me more harm than good. My thyroid fried itself as I entered my teens and I developed PCOS. I have been treated shabbily for my size not only by the general public but by those who are supposed to "do no harm." 

When I was in nursing school, size-shaming was not just overlooked, it was actively encouraged. 

Even my current GP, who does not harp on weight loss and generally treats me with respect, honed in on weight as the focus for why I should increase my dosage of thyroid medication, which I am reluctant to do because too much thyroid medication causes my blood pressure to rise and my pulse to race. 

She suggested adding in another blood pressure medication, an idea which I gave a hard pass. I am already at the maximum dosage of two blood pressure medications, Irbesartan and Amlodipine. I can't take ACE inhibitors, which make me cough, or beta blockers, which exacerbate my asthma. I refuse to take a diuretic because I already have to pee all the time thanks to diabetes, another gift from my trash fire endocrine system.

Whenever the focus is placed on my weight as opposed to my overall health, I go into a shame spiral. I starve myself. I don't want to go out in public. All the hard work I've done to accept myself goes to shit as I once again start imagining cutting the adipose tissue away from my body, calling myself a worthless, fat piece of shit, and thinking that the world would be a better place if I killed myself.

I wrote about how it feels to be a large person in a world that loathes large people in the following poem, which you can read if you care to.


Ragen Chastain, creator of the Dances With Fat blog, wisely observes that people don't take care of the things that they hate, and that includes their bodies. Teaching people to hate their bodies is emotional abuse, not "tough love." If shame worked, there would be no addicts, no alcoholics, no fat people, nobody with mental illness, and no smokers.

A person's size is more complex than the "calories in, calories out" model proposes. One can't determine anything about a fat person's food intake, level of physical activity, medications, or medical conditions by their size. The only thing one can determine is that the person is that size.

Even medical professionals who agree that many larger people have endocrine problems still deem it acceptable to shame these same people for their size. I can't wrap my head around that.

I told my PA that the numbers I care about are my blood pressure and my labs, including my blood glucose. I said that discussions of my size or weight are off the table. 

I am more likely to comply with treatment protocols if I'm not mired in self hate.

Emotional abuse doesn't work to mold people into what others think they ought to be.

Imagine that.

I will be donating a dollar to ASDAH for every comment on this post. 

As this post discusses a sensitive topic, I would appreciate that comments be respectful or not made at all. As someone's mother once said, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything.

My share for today is my entry for Day 25 in my perilous diary, Breaking Free from My Addiction to Validation. This journey has not been without it's setbacks. I am obviously still fighting my demons, and they win more often than I would like them to. 

Day 25

October 29, 2021

Spirit of the Universe, please set aside everything I think I know about myself, about my story, about my need for validation, and especially about you, Universe, so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with myself, with my story, with my need for validation, and with you, Universe. Please help me to see the truth. Amen.

I’m going to say something shocking.

You don’t need to “love yourself.”

If you’re like me, self-loathing is behind many of the difficulties in your life. I have trouble asserting myself and standing up for myself. It is very difficult for me to form bonds that go deeper than the superficial. I don’t trust other people and I tend to put myself last. The problem with the median nerve in my left arm stems from the fact that I kept pushing myself well beyond the warning signs that something was going wrong until one day I was in excruciating pain and could no longer work.

If you don’t stand up for yourself, people will walk all over you.

However, if you’re like me, you just can’t hang with the idea that you need to “love yourself.”

When people tell me that, it makes me cringe.

The only person who can say that without it making me cringe is Ru Paul.

Therefore, I advise you not to focus on “loving” yourself.

Accept yourself. Respect yourself.

You are as good as anyone else. Nobody deserves to be taken advantage of or treated like crap.

You don’t need to believe that you’re beautiful. I’ll never be able to think that I’m beautiful. Honestly, the idea feels kind of creepy to me. “Beautiful” has never done me any favors. It’s a lie that guys who want to get laid without caring about who they’re hurting tell.

I once saw a post on Tumblr that said something along the lines of “I don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. They aren’t ‘tiger stripes.’ But they are human and deserve to be treated with respect.”

That is what I’m talking about.

I will never think that my too-small eyes with their skimpy eyelashes are beautiful, although I’ve always liked the color even though it’s a moss-green rather than a scintillating emerald green.

I will never think that my chipmunk-cheeked face is beautiful.

I can’t see my double chin as beautiful.

I don’t think that my gray hair is beautiful although I’ve always liked the thick texture (except that it’s a real pain in the ass to take care of) and I do like the way it looks right after I’ve applied the silver dye that I use to give it a bit of pop.

I don’t think that my big ass, chunky legs, jelly belly, or saggy boobs are beautiful.

And no, I don’t think that my stretch marks are “beautiful” or “tiger stripes.”

What I do think is that people don’t need to be “beautiful” or “fuckable” to deserve to be treated with common decency.

This old, fat broad deserves to be treated with the same levels of common decency as someone half her age and/or half her size.

You don’t need to think I’m beautiful and fuck off with “seeing the potential” in me. That shit is just creepy. Honestly, nobody wants to be made into someone’s project.

You don’t need to “love yourself” or think that you’re “beautiful” to be worthy of respect and dignity, and that includes from yourself.

I have a graphic that I use in blog posts with reasonable frequency. It says: “the pressure to be perfect is purely for profit.”

Who is benefiting from convincing people (women in particular) that they need to be a certain size or look a certain way, or they are worthless?

The beauty and diet industries have perpetuated this trash for years. They benefit from our self-loathing. They encourage it. It’s time to hit back and knock these multi-billion-dollar bullies on their asses.

Two of the items in my son’s and my recent food bank allotment were Smart Ones turkey dinners. These things were awful. There were four tiny morsels of turkey in a weird-tasting runny gravy with watery garlic-flavored mashed potatoes on the side. Aside from the fact that this isn’t enough food for an adult, it was entirely unpalatable.

I used to sink a lot of money into diet frozen dinners and shakes that left me ravenously hungry an hour later. This crap prompted binge eating because starvation does that.

The only diet you need is the Fuck It Diet.

https://bit.ly/FIDCIE

I eat many more healthy foods and binge a lot less since I stopped dieting.

This doesn’t mean that my story has a Goldilocks ending where I magically become the “just right” weight and the handsome prince comes and swoops me off my now-svelte feet and we live happily ever after. I’m still fat and there is no prince, not that I even want one. But I am healthier and feel better at the size I am. Not that this is a measure of my moral worth. As Ragen Chastain says, nobody owes it to anybody else to be what they consider “healthy.”

Spirit of the Universe, please help me to accept myself at whatever size I am and wherever I am in life. Help me to discern what I really want to focus on in life and to follow my dreams.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~


Fat and Ornery
Free-use image from Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)


Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This work is the intellectual property of Naughty Netherworld Press/Poetry of the Netherworld.

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it. Odysee’s reblog function is called repost, which makes things confusing since reposting is considered a no-no on most platforms. It’s fine to share the post using the repost function on Odysee. It is not okay to copy-paste the material into a new post.

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Quoting portions of the post for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

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Friday, October 29, 2021

Fat Friday: Health and Other Crap

 


It's never about "health." Trust me.

The following is a response to this post:

https://selmamartin.com/ode-to-my-oracle-my-first-love

I'm 56 years old and have several chronic health problems that I take care of as well as I'm able considering that I have a high degree of distrust for medical people.

My paternal grandfather was 64 years old when he passed away from cardiac arrest.

My father had a major hemorrhagic stroke at 68 and died at 74. He developed vascular dementia and congestive heart failure.

My mother's in decent health for someone in her 80s. 

I'd prefer to take after my mother health-wise but I've tried not to emulate the way she treats her family members. She isn't exactly abusive, but she's very judgmental and doesn't hesitate to make her unsolicited opinions known.

Continuing beyond my response to the post:

My son and I are going to the doctor tomorrow. Our PA does not make a "thing" about my weight, but my blood sugar has been high and my thyroid has been wonky (again) and I feel like I'm being sent to the principal's office. This tends to make me defensive AF. 

I'd probably cancel the appointment, but we need our flu shots.

Fucking hell.

Because I'm better in writing, I'm going to print up a list of the things I want to discuss so my defensiveness doesn't get in the way.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~



Fat and Ornery
Free-use image from Open Clipart Vectors


Sunday, October 24, 2021

Come As You Are Party: We Grieve in our Own Way

 

Image by Jeremy Kyejo from Pixabay

A response to a poem by Paens Unplugged.

https://paeansunpluggedblog.wordpress.com/2021/10/23/in-rememberance-octpowrimo

I didn't cry when my father died. He had been sick for a long time. He died on November 28, 2010, and I described the holiday season that year as "painfully beautiful." The holiday lights were more vividly beautiful than they had ever been and they stabbed at my heart. It's a strange sensation that I can't accurately put into words.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Blow Your Stack Saturday: Con Men

 

Image by simona molino from Pixabay

A response to a smart bit of prose:

https://rugby843.blog/2021/10/18/mlmm-wordle-262

Peter is more clever than the would-be con man who tried to take advantage of my "desperation" back in 2006. The thing he didn't anticipate was the fact that my being middle-aged and fat didn't make me desperate. Having to deal with guys like him made me grouchy. Hopefully, everyone he targeted gave him a similarly cool reception.

Seriously, this guy was as stupid as a box of rocks. He was obviously looking for a green card and he thought referring to me using terms such as "sexy angel" and telling me that he fell in love with me on first sight would do it. Who could have anticipated me telling him to go fuck himself when he also inquired if I was "lazy" because I bemoaned not enjoying housework. 

Even if he hadn't added the "lazy" bit, I still would have blocked him. He was a nuisance.

~Old Fat Ornery Owl Has Spoken~


Free Use Image from Open Clipart Vectors


Friday, October 22, 2021

Worditude: PASSION'S NOT FOREVER

Worditude: PASSION'S NOT FOREVER: THURSDAY POETICS, and the challenge is to write a compound word poem with set rhyme and meter given as aab and 883 in each of 5 3-line stanz...

Been there done that. Too many times. That's why I don't play the game anymore.
An impressive poem. It told a tale that I think many of us are familiar with.

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Surrealistic Pillow (24K Gold Collector's Edition) Full HQ


When I listen to this music, I become young again for a little while. 

For a short time, I'm not the handicapped woman who has to use a very visible mobility device to walk more than short distances--a device that is the only thing that people seem to notice about me, because it's sure as fuck the only thing they can talk about. Either that or they think my memory is shot to fuck and they need to remind me about it every time they see me because I'm going to forget I have it otherwise? Hell, I don't know. 

I feel like I need to put a bumper sticker on the walker. Something with an arrow pointing up that says "I'm up here." Or maybe "the walker's fine. How are you?" Or maybe "not dead yet, merely pining for the fjords." Maybe I need to make a series of snarky, interchangeable signs.

I can't understand why people are so interested in my fucking walker. Have you never seen a person using a mobility device before? Has your life really been that sheltered? Did you fancy that everyone was able-bodied before this weirdo with her fancy wheeled frame thingy came to town?

I haven't been able to muster the wherewithal to go for a stroll again since the last fiasco when one person saw fit to stop and ask me in very concerned tones if I was all right because I had my fat ass parked on the seat of the walker and was looking at the sky and contemplating whether I wanted to make penne or lasagna for dinner.

I was prepared to let that slide. But then the fellow who always thinks I need a pep talk came out of the place he's fixing up and asked how I was. Not content to let it go at "I'm okay," he went on with his usual schpiel with a bit of unwanted icing on the cake about how I have beautiful hair and if we could just get my body to match my hair, I'd be a real doll.

I'm never comfortable with people talking about my appearance, so I said "well, I don't really care what I look like," which apparently startled this gent, as he said in a startled voice "why not?"

"I just don't," said I, tapping my forehead. "I'm this. I'm not my body."

"Oh, Honey, you need to believe in yourself!"

I wasn't up to explaining that I'm a realist and I don't think that the problems I have with my body can be resolved. So I said "okey-dokey" and went on my way.

You might think that's the end of this stupid story, but you would be badly mistaken. As I was passing the general store, a fellow was coming out and, of all things, asked me if I needed a ride.

I said, "no, I'm just walking." I tried to make a joke of it and said "if I don't, nobody else will."

"Are you sure you don't need a ride?"

Fuck's sake. Do I really look that decrepit?

"No thanks."

I really just cannot.

I like walking to the edge of town and sitting by the tree for a spell, contemplating lasagna or how I made the entire house smell like cabbage when I cooked The Italian Windbreaker (which contains a hearty helping of cabbage), or why Costco doesn't sell Tater Tots. 

I think I need a big, obvious set of headphones to wear as I gimp along. Then I can ignore everyone and listen to audiobooks.

In case anyone needs instruction on how to talk to them crippled-up disabled-like retreads, here's the highly classified, secret method.

Talk to us like you'd talk to anyone else.

Seriously.

I've never heard one single disabled person say that they want constant pep talks or to constantly answer questions about their mobility devices. 

I just want to take a fucking walk in peace.

Maybe my sign needs to simply say "my back is jacked up so I use this thing. No, it's not likely to improve. Can we please talk about something else?"

I know people "mean well," but it gets really boring always having to have the same conversation. To be honest, I don't give a fuck if they mean well. This shit is still invasive and offensive.

Ornery Owl is still pissed off


Free-use image from Pixabay




Wednesday, October 6, 2021

WTF Wednesday: A Fearful Fall

 

Image by Mark Payton

A response to this post:

https://pipersadventures.blog/2021/10/05/facing-a-fearful-fall

I love this rhyming anecdote and the perspective of meeting the end with humor. I have to say that I didn't react with humor either time that I was looking the grim reaper in the eye. On one occasion, I was angry and swore to come back and haunt the driver coming up my tail way too fast for me to react. (These thoughts occurred in the space of about 3 seconds.) Obviously, the jackass swerved at the last minute or I wouldn't be here to say this.

When a wave of water slammed into my car during a flood, I felt one moment of abject terror, and then I went into shock. I managed to brazen my way through, but I had PTSD following the event.

If you'd like to see my response to the above photo, sashay on over here.

https://poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com/2021/10/helloween-2021-day-666-two-perspectives.html

In other thoughts, if any of you have ever wondered why disabled people tend to shut themselves off from the world, wonder no longer. I can't speak for anyone else, but I am certainly tired of being treated like a retarded child, getting pep talks, having people ask me if I'm okay when I'm just fucking sitting there looking at the sky and trying to figure out what to make for dinner, having people offer me rides when I'm just trying to take the fucking walk that I'm told I should take more and longer of because I'm too fat (probably according to the same people), and having people talk about nothing but my fucking disability or my fucking mobility aid. It makes me really fucking grouchy.

"But how should I talk to disabled people, Ornery? I mean, they're special and handicapable and all that!"

If I am special (an idea that I find questionable) it certainly isn't because my back and endocrine system are fucked beyond repair. And if anybody ever uses the term "handicapable" in my presence, I will hulk out and drop a car on them. I much prefer the term "disabled, not incapable." 

I'm thinking about having a snarky bumper sticker made to put on my walker. Something like "I'm just taking a walk," or "not dead yet," or "disabled, not incapable." What I'd really like is a bumper sticker that says "fuck off," but I think that's probably a bit confrontational.

Ornery Owl is...


(Free-use image from Pixabay)

with everyone's patronizing shyyyyt

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)


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This work is the intellectual property of Naughty Netherworld Press/Poetry of the Netherworld.

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it. Odysee’s reblog function is called repost, which makes things confusing since reposting is considered a no-no on most platforms. It’s fine to share the post using the repost function on Odysee. It is not okay to copy-paste the material into a new post.

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Monday, October 4, 2021

About Me Monday: Dis-Ability

 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

A response to the following post:

It may appear that I'm scolding the author for their thoughts. That honestly is not my intent. If I were still fully able-bodied, it is likely that I wouldn't have thought about the fact that being physically incapable of performing certain activities does not only affect the elderly. People can become disabled at any stage of their lives. There are elderly people who are more physically able than I am and young people who are less so.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the high side of 56 years old at the time of this writing.

Sometimes it isn't age hindering a person but physical disability. If my body had allowed me to, I would have been one of those people that participated in "youthful" activities at an advanced age. Unfortunately, by the time I hit 50, my crap endocrine system plus all the injuries over the years of working physically demanding jobs caught up with me and ran me over. At not even 60, I require a walker to ambulate more than very short distances.

This is something that I didn't mention in the original comment. There's a fellow in town who always takes it upon himself to give me pep talks whenever he sees me. "You're doing great, Honey, keep up the good work!" When I try to tell him that I'm just taking a walk and I don't expect any significant physical improvement, he tells me "you've gotta believe in yourself, Honey!" 

Sigh.

There's another fellow who always asks if I want help bringing my walker up the stairs. Unfortunately, we don't have the money to have a ramp put up. The walker isn't that heavy. It doesn't weigh more than 10 pounds on the outside, and I don't think it weighs that much. I leverage it so that "walking" it up the stairs doesn't hurt my lower back. 

I always tell this chap that if I can't do it myself, I can't do it, so thanks but no thanks.

It's one thing to offer help to a disabled person--or anybody--who is really struggling, i.e. with multiple parcels or such. I can't speak for everybody, but I've heard other disabled people say the same thing. We don't want pity, pep talks, or offers of help for things that we can do for ourselves.

If you really want to help me, you can come to clean my house. Housekeeping is something that I royally suck at. I sucked at it when I was able-bodied too.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Tanuj Handa from Pixabay
Ornery Owl has had enough of your shyyyyt. And by shyyyyt, I mean unsolicited pep talks.

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)


Creative Commons License


This work is the intellectual property of Naughty Netherworld Press/Poetry of the Netherworld.

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it. Odysee’s reblog function is called repost, which makes things confusing since reposting is considered a no-no on most platforms. It’s fine to share the post using the repost function on Odysee. It is not okay to copy-paste the material into a new post.

Sharing a link to the post is acceptable.

Quoting portions of the post for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

Want some poetry?
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Sunday, October 3, 2021

Come As You Are Party: Still Learning to Be Me

 

Image by Hieu Van from Pixabay

This is a response to a Haibun written by Donna, who expresses being in a post-trip funk.

https://www.djranch.org/2021/09/30/haibun-a-foggy-morning

I lost my main source of income in 2017 after my health became too compromised and it's taken me that long to finally stop browbeating myself for not being able to be all things to everyone. I was something of a workaholic. I was my job. I worked 12-16 hour days, often 60 hour weeks. I understand the feeling of wanting to do something but being unmotivated to do anything.

I would also like to share my thoughts on a wonderful poem about an owl.

https://wordshophop.wordpress.com/2021/10/01/owl-at-the-pond

I used to work this dreadful job overnight in a rechargeable battery factory. There were two things I liked about that job. There was a guy there who was a recovering gambling addict, and I enjoyed talking to him. Then there was an owl that I would see in a tree outside on my breaks. 

When I look back on things, it wasn't the worst job I've had, it was just tremendously repetitive.

I love owls, which is one of the reasons why I came up with my handle, Ornery Owl.