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Hypocrisy.
Mar. 9th, 2009 01:13 amI'm watching TLC, and they're having a series of shows on super morbidly obese people. A woman, a man, and a teenager: all around or over a thousand pounds. And each one, progressively, makes me want to scream. These people have all become completely housebound, bedbound, unable to walk, unable to take care of themselves. Which means someone's there with them, feeding them. Enabling them. Killing them.
The last show, of the 800-pound 19-year-old, features a kid whose mother lost her firstborn at 19 months. This is the child she had after his death, and she's obviously overcompensating. It's obvious she equates love with food, and the more she feeds her last child, the more she loves him. She showers him with everything she thinks he could possibly want, and more, obviously, is better. She rubs his feet. She cuts his hair. She brings him videogames and food and food and food. She calls him her baby boy, her best baby, and fluffs his pillows and adjusts his blankets. She has kept him a baby-- her lost infant forever. And she knows it. She does. But I want to slap her. I want to shake her. I want to force her, somehow, to open her blinded eyes and see that she's killing her baby. Oh and there's another mother with a 570 pound sixteen-year-old, berating him. Jesus Christ, who's feeding him? And look at you-- you're, what, tipping about 300 there, yourself?
The worst part? I'm in a battle with my own weight. I've finally, finally started to lose weight myself, but I have so much further to go. I hate the way I look in photographs. I hate the way I feel after walking half a block. I hate the beating my psyche takes when I go clothes shopping. I hate it all. And I've been working so very, very hard on this-- constantly. I didn't suddenly start losing weight-- I finally started, after literally decades of screwing up. And it's not a given I'll continue to do so-- it's always a battle.
They say we hate most in others what we hate most in ourselves. I hate what I see in myself as weakness. I am unforgiving and cruel to complete strangers. Needlessly. The subject of the first show this evening, the woman, died of a heart attack after her successful surgery, leaving two beautiful little girls behind. These are not flippant situations. These are not simple stories. The reasons we overeat or sabotage other people are complex, deep-seated, and horrible. It's not simple at all.
I only wish it was.
The last show, of the 800-pound 19-year-old, features a kid whose mother lost her firstborn at 19 months. This is the child she had after his death, and she's obviously overcompensating. It's obvious she equates love with food, and the more she feeds her last child, the more she loves him. She showers him with everything she thinks he could possibly want, and more, obviously, is better. She rubs his feet. She cuts his hair. She brings him videogames and food and food and food. She calls him her baby boy, her best baby, and fluffs his pillows and adjusts his blankets. She has kept him a baby-- her lost infant forever. And she knows it. She does. But I want to slap her. I want to shake her. I want to force her, somehow, to open her blinded eyes and see that she's killing her baby. Oh and there's another mother with a 570 pound sixteen-year-old, berating him. Jesus Christ, who's feeding him? And look at you-- you're, what, tipping about 300 there, yourself?
The worst part? I'm in a battle with my own weight. I've finally, finally started to lose weight myself, but I have so much further to go. I hate the way I look in photographs. I hate the way I feel after walking half a block. I hate the beating my psyche takes when I go clothes shopping. I hate it all. And I've been working so very, very hard on this-- constantly. I didn't suddenly start losing weight-- I finally started, after literally decades of screwing up. And it's not a given I'll continue to do so-- it's always a battle.
They say we hate most in others what we hate most in ourselves. I hate what I see in myself as weakness. I am unforgiving and cruel to complete strangers. Needlessly. The subject of the first show this evening, the woman, died of a heart attack after her successful surgery, leaving two beautiful little girls behind. These are not flippant situations. These are not simple stories. The reasons we overeat or sabotage other people are complex, deep-seated, and horrible. It's not simple at all.
I only wish it was.