Stupid Knee, Always Jerking
So I wandered into the break room for my afternoon cup of tea.
Some kind soul had left the remains of a very tasty looking chocolate cake on the counter.
I saw this, and I thought to myself. “Cake! I LOVE CAKE!”
So I set my tea to brewing, and got a knife and carved off a bit of the cake.
I took a bite. It turns out it wasn’t as tasty as it looked. The bottom half was dry, but the top - well - I guess I would call it the “muffin top” even though it’s a cake, not a muffin, but hey, you get the idea - the part that DOESN’T touch the pan… anyway, that part was pretty good, so I broke it off, tossed the rest and was eating it.
So while I am having this perfectly reasonable snack of some cake… someone walks in the break room.
My IMMEDIATE knee-jerk reaction is shame. Crap. I’ve been caught eating cake. Here’s a person - and they have SEEN ME EATING CAKE. The evidence was right there in my hand… CAKE. OMG!
I hate this. I hate it a lot. Hate with a capitol H.
But I still get it - every time.
I fight it now.
I stood there, and just looked at the person who entered the break room. I had cake in my hand. I took a bite. I ate the cake as though it was a perfectly normal thing to do. (Which intellectually, come on, I recognize that it IS a perfectly normal thing to do, and there’s NOTHING wrong with it).
And I am sure the person who entered the break room a) thought absolutely nothing of me and my cake, if he even noticed I was there and b) probably took some of it himself after I left and c) had no business having any opinion about my cake even if he DID think about it at all.
But this is where all the fat shaming and guilt and OBESEPANIC have gotten me. I’m just standing there in the break room trying to enjoy a little chocolate cake, and random joe enters the room and panic/shame spike in my gut is the first reaction I have.
It’s something I’m working on. There was a point in my life that I would have tried to hide the cake, or throw it away. So I have gotten to the point where I WILL stand there and finish my snack. But it’s not easy.
And I have it easy… because I am no longer of a size where people feel like they are freely allowed to comment on my eating habits. But the twinge of fear doesn’t go away.
Awesome share! I think this is true for most of us, that there are some things that are so ingrained that its a process to work through them. But the fact that your still fighting is an accomplishment.
You should be proud of yourself for being at this point. Acknowledging the feeling and then still eating the cake is impressive in my book. And, if it helps, I’m proud of you.
blush …
First off let’s just all agree that cake is awesome.
Second, I had a weird visual of a robotic hand appearing from the ceiling of your break room, ripping your cake from your hands, smacking you on your left cheek and then retreating back into it’s box.
I’m not sure what this means except that I probably need meds.
It’s got to be next to impossible to stop feeling like people are judging you for what you put in your mouth.
I see people watching others food choices constantly. Last week when I took the kids to McDonalds a woman came in and ordered a simple hamburger and an iced tea. Perfectly reasonable right? No.
Because she wasn’t one of the wafer thin ladies in tennis whites people immediately started whispering.
I actually heard someone say “I think she’s already had enough McDonalds”
Nice.
So to sum up.
You should have your cake and eat it too. Plus ENJOY.
I am so glad that I don’t really pay attention to people in public places. Because if I heard some shit like that, I would so have to stage whisper “I think she’s already had enough of being a judgmental bitch” and then that might make the original lady feel bad if she hadn’t heard it.
It’s probably best that I avoid these scenes.
Hmmm… I wonder why a perfectly rational person would have such an adverse reaction to the completely ordinary act of eating a treat. Hmmmmmmm…
Oh yeah, here’s one reason: people completely fucking overreact when it comes to other people’s food!
I wonder if part of your reaction is due to the fact that having been fat, you never really leave that fat shame behind, even if you’re thin. It’s always a part of you.
Peace,
Shannon
The question of how to shed deeply embedded socially-imposed reactions is a good one, and something I am working on. Oddly, I think getting tattooed helps. (me, at least) because with each one, I feel more like “F You, Society!”
I think that’s a great point, Shannon. Once the mindset is there, no matter how we might change, grow, lose/gain weight, age, whatever, that way of thinking is in. It’s been wired into us from a very early age and something like that is so so so difficult to ditch. Thankfully we’ve learned, most of us, some of us? to recognize it for the bullshit it is.
Recognizing the bullshit is easier than calling it on it’s bullshittery….
Ugh, I have had this feeling over and over again at work. To the point where if I have a snack in the break room, I make sure no one else is there to see me because I feel like I’ll be judged.
Maybe I’ll start eating my snack’s proudly.
Dude, it would be awesome to come out with a line of snacks that had the tag-line “snack proudly”!
My husband has been a big help with things like this. Every time I used to say I didn’t want to go swimming because I looked like a beached whale in a swimsuit, he’d say “Who cares what anyone thinks? I like you the way you are.” When I used to eat tiny amounts at buffets and go home hungry because I didn’t want to be judged as one of those fatties who pigs out, he’d say “Are you going to see those assholes ever again? Eat what you want, eat until you’re not hungry and then quit. Who cares what they think?” He’d tell me the same thing about my clothes choices - if I like it and he likes it, who cares if anyone else likes it. After almost 4 years of that kind of positive reinforcement, most of the time, I really don’t care what anyone else thinks of me, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. I figure if they don’t like it/me, they don’t have to look.
This all started when I came home from a physical, crying, because I thought I weighed 350 lbs but I had found out I actually weighed 395 lbs (at the time, that was just too close to 4o0 lbs, don’t ask me why that 400 lbs was such a trigger, but it was). DH hugged me, and told me he’d love me if I weighed 600 lbs. So he knows how I felt about my size and he’s really good about giving me the positive reinforcement I need, which helped me give it to myself, and has made it so much easier for me to accept myself as I am.
I am currently in a situation where someone in my workplace, who is technically one of my bosses, has a very screwed up attitude about food and weight (she’s on one of those powdery shake diets and takes some Chinese herbal weight loss “supplement”, as well as obsesses over food) has fixated on me and monitors every single item of food that I even think about eating. She follows me to lunch, and comments on what I am eating and how many calories are in it… every damn day.
This is causing both my knees to jerk more than they normally would. I need to undo this shit before it breaks me!
Does she have a boss? Can you go to her boss or to HR and talk to them about this? She’s creating a hostile work environment for you, and that should be something they’re willing to take care of by having a talk with her and telling her to leave you, and anyone else, alone about their food choices.
If you’ve ever had an eating disorder, you can bring that up and tell them that her harassment is triggering and send you back into those disordered eating habits and the ill health that went along with them.
sorry, meant to say “is triggering and could send you back into those disordered eating habits…………….
Thanks Vesta (I love the name Vesta). Oh she’s triggering me, big time. I’m getting very self conscious about food lately, and it’s driving me nuts. I am able to recognise it a lot better these days (yay for years and years of therapy!) but it still really wears on me.
I am planning to say something to her first (Probably just “I need to ask you to please stop commenting on my food in front of me, it makes me very uncomfortable and undoes years of hard work to overcome eating disorders”) but if that doesn’t achieve the desired result, my current direct boss (we have had a lot of changes) is interested in fat acceptance, so I think she’ll be the lady to talk to.
But yeah, it really does wear on me!