5/6/2017 3 Comments Grieving the GainOn any given day in 2009, I might have experienced the grieving process anew and in full. An interesting thought: 365 days of grief. Ironically, this grieving process was not in reaction to loss, but to gain. Day by day, I watched myself gain more weight, and day by day, I grieved for that extra pound. I began my day with denial, as you might expect. “I’m not fat, I’m voluptuous.” “Big is beautiful! I’ve got a rack and an ass. Skinny girls get jealous of that.” “My meals are healthy! I’m making progress. Rice is good for me.” “I think my pants feel a little looser today.” The anger was mostly directed at myself. After gorging myself with a lunch (usually consisting of a sandwich with some sort of fat-filled deli meat, cheese, and white bread, along with a poorly measured “serving” of rice, a can of Dr. Pepper, and some sort of chocolate), I generally took one of my regimented bathroom breaks. The mirror was cruel. “God, you’re such a cow.” “What a worthless human being--you should be ashamed of what you just consumed.” “Better hope you can fit comfortably in that bathroom stall today; your ass isn’t getting any smaller after that meal.” There’s a reason that bargaining comes next in this process. How could I continue my day with that mentality? I needed to justify my actions if I hoped to make it through the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the bargaining stage is where I spent most of my time. It was comfortable for me to bargain. I am generally quite good at debating, and doing so with myself just felt natural. “Your eating habits don’t affect your weight-you’ve tried to change your diet before and didn’t lose a single pound.” “You have to eat to have energy for the day.” “You are hypoglycemic! If you don’t eat, you’ll pass out!” Then the depression sunk in, and paired with it, self-deprecating thoughts that, if revealed to a mental health professional, would set their red flags at full mast. (I won’t detail those, as I’ve done in the previous sections. It is counterproductive.) Of course acceptance was the final, and most confusing, part of this process. When grieving due to a loss, acceptance can really only be defined in a singular way: acquiescing to the circumstances, realizing that nothing can be done to change said circumstances, and moving on. However, if we can first accept that the grieving process is applicable to situations outside of loss, situations over which we actually have some control, we must also recognize that what it means to accept something can shift. Now, acceptance can mean taking ownership of the situation. Now, acceptance can mean realizing that the past, though it cannot be changed, does not determine the future. Now, we can choose to change the negative paradigms that have caused us to be in this situation of grief in the first place. What a freeing realization! We have control. We can affect change. Unfortunately, this realization in and of itself is not enough. As senseless as it sounds, sometimes bridging the gap between realization and reality is the hardest task that a person can undertake. The fact of the matter is that humans are more often than not inclined to choose the more traditional path of acceptance, and I am included amongst those who do so. However, acquiescing lends itself to repeating bad behaviors. At the end of each day in 2009, I went to bed accepting that it was my fate to be overweight and unhealthy. Nothing that I did could change that. This, in turn, allowed me to repeat this grieving process over and over and over again. Think about it: I knew that choosing this form of acceptance lead to further grieving. I chose to be unhappy with myself every single day. Even after realizing that I had the control to follow a different path of acceptance. Why? It was easier. It took less time. It was cheaper. It was less stressful. I had no confidence. There were a million reasons. Singularity of vision leads to oppression in terms of government and politics, but also in terms of our own personal goals, especially if we are aware of visions that can lead us to improve ourselves. The moment that I realized that my continuum of grief about my weight was self-inflicted, I could not stand to abide by that traditional definition of acceptance any longer. I created the grief within myself. So, too, could I end it. And end it I did. It doesn’t really matter how much weight I lost or how or why. What I want people to understand is that grieving about an unhealthy lifestyle only begets more grief. Yes, you must reach acceptance to overcome grief, but not acceptance as we traditionally define it. Understand your circumstances, realize that they must change, and take the appropriate actions to make it happen.
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August 2017
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