Stupid Brain and Massive Health[ism]
Apr 24th, 2012 by heidi
Trigger warning – self-harm discussed below.
Fat is not a mental health diagnosis, as Ragen has so eloquently explained but, certainly, some of us fats struggle with depression. My blog seems to have been nothing but grey skies for the last few months, when I’ve bothered to write at all, not generally because I’ve been having acute depressive episodes but just because that smoke cloud of chronic depression has been looming large.
I tried cutting for the first time in my life a few months ago, when an external crisis made me wonder if, when all was said and done, it was better than trying to off myself (which I won’t do.) It wasn’t and I won’t do it again (thankfully things have evened out with the issue that triggered the depressive episode anyway) but it was pretty terrifying. I’ve worked so hard, and spent so many therapy hours (and dollars) trying to deal with that pit and it’s just so hard to escape it. And so discouraging when the spiral brings me back to that place in my life.
Right now I’m desperately needing to find an internship to finish off my MSLIS (master’s in library & information science). The requirements are SO specific, and my full-time M-F job timing is such that it is going to have to be just the right internship, just the right opportunity, or it won’t work. I want to be hopeful and positive but I struggle to have the confidence that I have the skills and knowledge to do anything but what I’ve always done – more office admin. I’m grateful for my paycheck and coworkers that keep me sane even when phones are ringing off the hook and I’m deluged with Stuff [tm], but confidence is my bugbear. Believing that I have the ability to do more is my real issue, not skills, training, or actual ability.
What seems to be most prominent in my life at the moment is stupid drama. Namely, stupid Facebook drama. I’m considering doing away with it entirely. I am so, so tired of having even a respectful statement misread (I’m probably guilty of this too, mind you). The latest brouhaha was over a blog post in Massive Health, which appears to push a healthist agenda HARD HARD HARD. (Is “healthist” a word?).
Take a look at the graphics in that blog post. It begins with the assertion that “We Eat Less Healthy Than We Think”. The only definition of health they give is “fit” vs “fat” – there are no fit fat people, it would seem, and all thin people are fit. Apparently people on a diet, any diet, “eat at least 15.2% healthier than those who eat everything.” Really? 15.2% healthier? I would call the cabbage soup diet, or the lemonade diet, or any of the other diet fads out there dramatically less healthy than a balanced diet, but that’s just me.
And the final infographic, where we are informed that fat people are more likely to have fat friends, because “obesity and healthiness are contagious.”
I mentioned my issues with the infographic and was shot down by multiple people claiming that my negative interpretation (i.e, that the infographics were fat-shaming) wasn’t accurate. They were just statistics, mind you, with no anti-fat bias at all. I would argue that defining “healthiness” as not-fatness is pretty anti-fat. Finally my friend, who is an educated, intelligent person whom I respect, felt it necessary to bring it to private message to tell me that, fundamentally, if I don’t like the app, I don’t have to buy it.
Which is true. But I was respectful in all of the things I said and only pointed out the anti-fat bias of the infographics. Is that drama-worthy enough to go private with? Is it drama-worthy at all? Apparently on Facebook it is. The cutting episode crisis was also inflamed by FB drama (note: I’m not blaming the people involved in said drama for my own reaction to the emotional trauma – that’s on me – but drama seems to be characteristic of many of my interactions there, despite my best efforts to the contrary).
How to connect with the people on Facebook without actually using Facebook is the dilemma. But, and I suspect this will happen soon, not enough of a dilemma for me to keep using it.
15.2%? Out of whose ass did that statistic come? How do you even measure how much healthier someone eats than someone else? If you ate X for dinner, and I ate X plus a piece of cake, what percent healthier is your dinner than mine?
People often have friends who are similar to themselves in some characteristic. Does that mean that said characteristic is contagious?
I thought the same – 15.2%?! What a bizarre, screwy statistic.
get rid of the facebook. i did it almost a year ago and my mental health improved dramatically. the people who want to keep in touch with find a way to do so.
your mental health isn’t worth knowing how many presents your college roommate’s cousin’s son got for his birthday this year.
“How to connect with the people on Facebook without actually using Facebook is the dilemma.”
adhere to a no-reading-comments policy? so look at people’s status updates/photos/witty-offspring-moments, smile and force yourself to move on?
(i refuse to subscribe to FB, so this might not be helpful)
“Is that drama-worthy enough to go private with? Is it drama-worthy at all? Apparently on Facebook it is.”
Ugh, no, it’s not. But I think that was her stuff, not yours.
Discerning what’s my stuff and what’s not my stuff is possibly THE single biggest benefit I’ve experienced from therapy (well, with the actually good therapist I’m with now, after several unhelpful ones). It’s what allows me to live with the FB drama in ways I couldn’t before.
I’ve considered deleting FB altogether many times, but not so much recently. Since I never deleted my FB page, what I ended up doing was just hiding people from my feed whose posts bothered me. But recently, I even found myself un-hiding all those folks and I’ve been fine with that. As I make progress on my own stuff, it’s much easier for me not to be affected by other people’s stuff.
What I do still have hidden/blocked are people who are actually assholes to me. But that is easier for me too now. I used to obsess over it, wondering what if they find out? Will they be mad at me? Am I just being oversensitive? Now I just go “oh, you’re an asshole. now you’re hidden. done.”
So my wish for you is that you can eventually get to that place, but knowing from personal experience how LONG that takes (in my case, 6ish years of intentional self-care work) that in the mean time you can take whatever steps you need to do to protect your sanity!
Oh, Heidi, my heart just sank reading this so belatedly. I have been in a whirl of acute panic and depression, too and I’m feeling really awful that we haven’t been in touch. I was in a hot bath contemplating taking all my pain pills just before my surgery, and I’ve never felt so close to self harm. I’m also much heavier than I was this time last year and am visibly “fat”. My weight is bothering me, and that makes me feel like an ass. Anyway, I really miss being in better contact with you and I’ll get in touch more intimately soon. Oceans of love to you, Garden Heidi!