second verse, same as the first

The other day, I picked up a book by a romance writer whose work I've enjoyed in the past.

I was looking for the literary equivalent of comfort food. Something decadent, something that would just provide me with some guilty pleasure, not necessarily something that would enrich my brain or life.

About 15 pages in, I set the book down and have yet to pick it back up.

Why, you wonder?

A character in the book was described as being obese at 162 pounds and unable to snag a man because of her weight.

I currently weigh more than 162 pounds.

I have enough issues with body dismorphia that I do not need to read a fat girl redemption love story--this poor "obese" girl is either going to lose weight to snag her Prince Charming or find a Prince Charming that is man enough to overlook her obvious flaw of being overweight and lover her regardless.

This darn book might be Pulitzer Prize worthy, but I might just take it to Goodwill and donate it.

Part of it is exhaustion over these types of stories.

Part of it is feeling disgust that 162 pounds is considered obese when I would cut off my left arm someday to weigh that much.

I have a hard enough time seeing myself as I look these days. I know some people still see me as a big girl.

Seeing in writing, even in a smutty book, that 162 pounds is considered obese, set me off.

So, since that fateful read, I have been spending too much time looking in the mirror, criticizing my appearance

I want to delete all photos taken of me.

I told the man in my life he could find someone more attractive, which made him scoff, thankfully.

It has taken one line in a book to shake me.

Which frightens me

I had a fellow gastric sleeve patient tell me today that I'm too strict in following the guidelines they gave us post surgery, that I need to loosen up

I asked her how many times she's vomited post meal or what side effects she suffers, what foods she can no longer eat

She looked at me like I had a third head and told me she has no problems

So not only I do feel like I'm Moby Dick's daughter, I also feel as though I've failed at this surgery

It's exhausting to overthink this much.

It's exhausting that I am shallow enough to let this all bother me.

I do realize there's other forces at work here, not just my brain weasels firing on too many cylinders

It makes me realize that there needs to be a book written about an overweight woman whose weight isn't her Achilles' Heel, but just how she's described.

However, who wants to read that overweight/obese people can have fulfilling lives without obsessing over their weight?

I'd like to know who decided that fat is evil.

I'd like to know who decided that overweight=odious

I'd like to be able to tell every women out there who has heard that she is bad, that is defective, that she is repugnant, that she is unloveable, all because of what the scale and society says, that she is worthy

That the number or letter on the size tag of her clothing does not define her worth. That the scale does not either

However, I do know how hard it is to believe the truth when you have been force fed a diet of lies for years.

I went from feeling mostly ok about myself to seeing myself as a Golem carved out of lard due to a sentence in a romance novel.

That is how tenuous that sanity of the voices in my brain can be, because of what I was told for decades

Part of me is resigned that this may always just be part of my reality--that I will have my days where I see myself in a horrible light

This resignation is a horrible thing, one that I also feel compelled to fight against.

I just don't always know if I will continue to fight or if I'll just accept the resignation