DISCLAIMER: The following is written in generalities and is in no way meant to suggest that I do not have the most amazing parents and family. The lack of positive to counter the negative has nothing to do them and please do not take it that way. My parents and family were not the source of the negativity that plagued my adolescence and young adulthood. I am speaking mainly about my so-called peers and the people that, at the time, I felt like I needed to impress.
I grew up a fat kid. Plain and simple. I was never any good at sports (except for soccer because defender was MADE for me). I was a proud band nerd (yes I was the fat tuba player). I had a group of friends that I did not always feel like were really my friends. I was not popular. I never really got the girl. I was about as text book high school social leper as it gets. I grew up hearing horrible things. I was called names like Crisco (cause my name is Chris and I was fat. It was not very clever), and that was about the nicest thing people had to say about me. I was living (at least in my mind) in the shadow of my smarter, prettier, more well-adjusted sister. I had extremely low self esteem so I did what any other fat kid who really hates their life: I developed a sense of humor. A lot of this sense of humor was, and still is, self-deprecating. It takes away the power if you are making fun of yourself. That is why big people are funny. It is a defense mechanism. If we can make you laugh then maybe you will not mind being seen with us and for a brief moment you will not make us feel worthless. The problem was my self esteem was so low and I spent so much time hearing these horrible things about myself, with very few positive things to counter the argument, I began to believe those things about myself. It didn't help that my (now)ex-wife contributed to my negative self image. Years and years of this have made me a very cynical adult. Things rarely went my way. I have more or less adopted a life view of expecting everything to go wrong. That way nothing surprises me anymore and when good things happen, it is a pleasant surprise. That may be a pessimistic way of looking at the world, but it really keeps me from losing my cool as often. When bad things happen or the universe craps on me for umpteenth time, my reaction is closer to "Well sure.." that anger.
I have said all of this to say this... Recently I have experienced something I have not experienced very often in my 31 years on this planet. I am getting positive comments about my weight. I am getting daily compliments and encouragements from co-workers, friends, and social network acquaintances. It is very odd feeling to have people say positive things about you when most of your life has been spent hearing almost nothing but negative. People are actually telling me that I look good. They say things like "you are going to wither away soon" and they call me positive names like Slim and Skinny... and not ironically. The last time I had comments like this was right after my divorce. I lost a LOT of weight REALLY fast. The initial comments were more of concern, then one particular co-worker kept calling me Ally McBeal. Yeah, that's how long ago that was. I progressively put the weight lost on "the divorce diet" back on as I got my life back together. I decided a few years ago that I would never break 300 lbs. again after topping out right before the divorce at 320 lbs. I did things off and on just trying to stay under that 300 lbs. mark. I would flux up and down the same 5-10 lbs. You can read why I decided to get things going hard core back in January on an earlier post.
I have been working on this post for over a week now and it just keeps getting longer. I am going to post this section now and keep working on the next one to be posted soon. As usual I will shameless self-promote myself on every social network I am on so if you are not subscribed to this blog you will know there is a new post. Thanks and I will see you soon.
\m/ IS NOT TRY \m/
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