Tag: appearance

Speak up about the real value of women

It would be difficult for anyone to argue that women aren’t being demeaned as objects in pretty much every single corner of society. It happens so much and is such a thoroughly pervasive message in media that we’ve almost forgotten to be angry about it. We just take for granted that it’s happening.

Well, I think it’s time for women — and men — to stand up and show some anger about this phenomenon. It’s time to stop the saturation of our culture with images of sexualized women.

You can’t slap a pink ribbon on everything and say it’s “supporting” women.

I’ve been writing off and on about this topic, and I’ve nearly finished the book I’m writing, which focuses on the topic from a faith-based angle. But nearly every day, I see something else that makes me want to shake my fist and just DO something, SAY something. Yesterday it was a USA Today article about how breast cancer is being sexualized. Wha?? Yep, it’s true. I suppose I’d already kind of subconsciously noticed it myself, but the article really clarified the point. I also had just noticed a full-page ad in an in-flight magazine when I was traveling over the weekend: it showed a photo of a very trim, fairly young woman with smallish but nice breasts (a point I feel inclined to note, since most of these kinds of photos show women with larger-than-life breasts) dressed in an itty-bitty white bikini. Flat abs, no fat, no cellulite, no blemishes. And the ad had the nerve to have been run by plastic surgeons touting the message that they can do great reconstruction on women who have had breast cancer. Aaaaiiiieee!

Let’s think about this honestly. Is the average survivor of breast cancer going to look like a 20-something model? Ah, nope. She’s going to have scars, could be some pretty big and ugly ones, depending on how much surgery had to be done. She might be thin (thanks to not being able to eat much during chemo), but not necessarily in the “attractive” way. It might not even be possible for reconstructive surgery to get her back to “normal.” A friend in her 50s recently told me about her experience with breast cancer, and she said that after having a double, radical mastectomy, she was told by surgeons that the process for giving her breasts would be lengthy and, as she put it, “barbaric.” And then she wouldn’t even be able to have normal-looking breasts: they wouldn’t be able to give them nipples. She turned down the surgery; no point in going through all that to have substandard breasts.

Nope, these kinds of demonstrations of support for breast cancer aren’t help. They are simply marketing opportunities painted in pink. The article quotes Karuna Jagger, executive director of advocacy group Breast Cancer Action, as saying, “The implicit message in these campaigns is that it is breasts that are sexy; sexy is what is important; and we should care about breast cancer because it takes those lovely, sexy breasts out of the world . . . Every October, the stunts just gets more bizarre and further removed from what’s needed for this epidemic.”

Why can’t we just stand up and say, ENOUGH, ALREADY!? Sexy, young, thin, well-endowed female models are used to sell almost everything. I work out at the gym every day and can see a bank of about five TV monitors showing different networks while I exercise. I read or listen to music, but I can’t help but glance over at the monitors and see what’s going on. At any given time, I see several images of unrealistically-shaped young women, on commercials or the news or various programs. The anchors on news networks are thin and usually young (at least in comparison to the men, who can be any age). Innocuous game shows feature models showing off the prizes. Soap operas feature cute young girls and some older women who have often had various work done (at the very least, Botox and injections to plump up their lips or cheekbones). All the commercials feature women. Products for men and commercials aimed at men feature sexy models, scantily clad. Products for women and commercials selling those products for women feature women; most of them are for hair color (get rid of gray) or skin creams that aim to reduce wrinkles and make skin look younger and fresher. Car commercials even mostly feature women: young, trim models.

It’s all about sexualization. When will all women say, Enough. No more. I refuse to be sexualized, to be objectified, any more. It starts at home and with our circle of friends, even just on Facebook or Pinterest. Stop pinning the “fitspiration” pins. I don’t. I like to exercise, and it’s a vital part of my daily routine. But I refuse to put another photo in front of me that has a ridiculously skinny teen or 20-something clad in a sports bra and tight boy shorts, touting her amazing workout that will make all of us look just like her. It’s ridiculous. We should be laughing, not trying to emulate those girls! Stop posting about how you feel fat or ugly or that you look old. Don’t expect yourself to look your regular self two weeks post-baby, either. Stop focusing on how you look, period. And don’t focus on how your friends look. Support them as they do great things with their lives, as they work on being their best selves.

Women’s important body parts aren’t our breasts or backsides. They’re our hearts and hands.
Photo by Louise Docker, via Wikipedia

Focus on YOU, women. Allow the men in your life to focus on who you are inside, too. Teach your daughters to be who they are, and teach your sons positive language about women and not to focus on appearance. Yes, be healthy. Try to eat mostly well. Exercise regularly. But don’t make how you look the end-all, be-all. Don’t let yourself be objectified. Don’t let the media and the marketers and the porn producers dictate how you feel about yourself or how society views you. Gently remind friends that they are “more than eye candy,” as Beauty Redefined enshrines in billboards, or that they are more than just numbers on a scale.

We women are amazing creatures. We nurture future generations. We lead society. We do great things. Let’s show ’em what we’ve got! We’re not about our body parts, unless we talk about our brains, our hearts, or our hands. Let’s join those hands and speak up.

A sensitive topic: race and hair

Gabrielle Douglas
Photo by Los Angeles Times

My husband and I were struck particularly this week by some of the talk that swirled around the Web after the amazing Gabby Douglas won all-around gold in gymnastics. We were both dismayed to read how many of her fellow blacks commented not on her performance or her history-making status as the first black woman to win gold in the individual all-around at the Olympics, but on … her HAIR.

Yes. Her hair. Now, I have read a couple of fairly reasoned comments by blacks explaining why the intense focus on her hair and disparaging comments about it, saying that since she is “representing black people” as a whole, who have experienced a clearly bad history of injustice and who now feel they have to essentially overcompensate to be seen just as equal, that even appearance is an important facet of that sense of proving themselves. There is no question that that is sad.

It’s bad enough that women today are being pressured more than ever to look perfect according to current societal norms. These norms are admittedly different (within each community, at least, though not in our society overall) for whites and blacks. And blacks make no secret about how their hair is always a challenge. Comedian Chris Rock put together a very interesting and entertaining documentary about the topic, in fact, called “Good Hair.” It was just a glimpse for those of us who do not have that texture of hair into what it’s like to try to come to terms with it.

I’m only weighing in on this topic because it’s a personal one to me. We have three biological daughters, but we also adopted our youngest daughter, who is black. And from the second we got her (the day after she was born) and took her out in public, we started getting advice from blacks on how to take proper care of her hair. Five years later, we are no less inundated with opinions.

They haven’t been unwelcome. It’s clearly true that I have no experience styling black hair. I have dark blond, smooth, straight hair. Easy-peasy. I wash it and comb it and that’s pretty much it. I’ve got it good even for a white person. So it’s helpful to have people who have experience give me ideas. What’s been interesting, however, is just how varied and sometimes clearly opposite those tidbits of advice have been. My husband had co-workers telling him from the start to use Vaseline in our daughter’s hair. Others said absolutely categorically that Vaseline was NOT what we should use. When it came to products, then, I ended up fairly early buying and using the products made by Carol’s Daughter. I like them, they smell wonderful, and they seem to keep our daughter’s hair mostly smooth and manageable if we use them every single day. So, end of story. The product side is done.

What’s the other even bigger issue is that of STYLING. I’ve been mostly interested in just letting her have a natural style, keeping it oiled nicely and combed, but nice and curly and as-is. I’ve even been bolstered in this opinion by seeing all of the emails and information that Carol’s Daughter is sending out to customers about “transitioning” to more natural hair. I absolutely refuse to straighten her hair with strong chemicals. If she chooses to do that when she’s “of age,” she can, but I am not going to put lye on her tender scalp.

So straightening chemically is out. But what about styles? When I’ve gotten ambitious, and had some time on my hands, I’ve put her fairly short hair in little “poof-balls,” as I call them. They look super-cute. But I have never learned how to do cornrows or other similar styles. This week, however, I decided to try just braiding her hair. We sat down and spent half an hour getting this done. I put about 15 little braids in her hair, and I think it looks cute and, I think, SHOULD be approved by blacks.

Then again, I worry. With five years experience getting blacks’ advice (sought and un-sought, from friends and strangers), I know it can be contradictory, and that it is taken VERY seriously. This is why I am not surprised at how Gabby Douglas’s hair was discussed in what most whites would consider rather mean terms. Blacks are serious about their hair, and it’s a complex issue for them. Many women, thanks again to the not-helpful culture in which we all live, feel self-conscious about their textured, very curly hair. They want to have smooth, straight hair that isn’t so “ethnic.” As with all the other topics I’ve written about so far in the broader issue of beauty and contemporary culture, I find this sad and disappointing. Why in the world can’t we have a whole variety of “ideals”? And why does there have to even be an “ideal” shape or look anyway? Can’t everyone just be who they are, whatever shape, size, color or hair they have?

I suppose now I’m just being idealistic. It’s probably crazy to hope for something so drastic. But it doesn’t hurt to discuss it and remind ourselves that just being our own best selves is desirable. It’s a tough fight because we’re battling against SO MUCH societal pressure and messages, but we can still try to fight it.

I suppose also that I could have spent more time over the past five years going to special salons to get blacks to style my daughter’s hair. But, as with many issues I’m aware will crop up over the course of her life with me being white and her being black, I hope we can strike the right balance between pretending (ridiculously) there are no differences between us and making a big deal out of them (I just want to always acknowledge that, yes, she is adopted, but I am her mommy always and forever, and that, yes, she is black and I am white, and, yes, her hair is different than mine, and then just go about the business of being just who we are). I am just taking this interracial-adoption situation a day at a time, and just being her mom. (And, really, adoption and interracial adoption are just whole other big blog-able topics, aren’t they?) I’m doing the best I can to be a mother, period, and to be a mother to both biological children and an adopted child.

For now, I hope to be true to each of my children, for who they uniquely are. My youngest is black and adopted. My second-oldest has Down syndrome. The older three are half-Caucasian, half-Filipina. And each has her own amazing talents and gifts and personality traits. And each will have her own hair and appearance issues. But I hope that no matter what, each can feel good about herself and not succumb to society’s negative values, especially about image.

Yes, I might be treading on a minefield here. I’m well aware of that. I hope to be respectful but also share my own experience. My daughter’s only five. So I’m sure we have many years ahead in which we will just continue to take one day at a time in dealing with hair or anything else that becomes pertinent.

And what’s so bad about being an 80-year-old?

This past year as I’ve become more aware about the issue of self-image and how appearance dominates in our society, and as I’ve researched and discussed with other people, I have realized just how pertinent the topic of aging is to the discussion. I don’t think that this will be news to most people, but our society is very anti-aging. We don’t want to look old; ideally everyone in society should have the skin and shape of a 16-year-old. Twenty-somethings are still acceptable, but after that it’s all about thirty-somethings looking like they’re still 20 and “40 is the new 30.” Wrinkles are ugly and must be Botoxed and Juvederm-ed out of existence. Soft bellies must be sucked dry of fat. Saggy breasts must be perked up through surgery.

But it’s not just the look of aging that puts people off. It’s just being old. Our culture, unlike many other cultures, does not revere or respect the older members of our society. We are happy to shunt them off to the side and try to pretend that old age does not exist. No one likes to think about the inevitable breaking down of parts of our bodies. As long as we’re young or just somewhat young, we can eat right and exercise religiously and tell everyone (and ourselves) that since we’re doing all those things, we’ve earned our good health. Even with diseases like Alzheimer’s, which we still don’t know the causes of, there are still all kinds of “tips” out there to help us exercise our brains, too, so we can somehow fend off that kind of debilitation. Perhaps. But the fact is, we cannot fend off aging or death. They are a natural part of life. With all of the technology and resources we have today, we can put them off a little longer, but we still simply cannot make them go away.

I would love to be in a culture in which we respect and revere the elderly, in which we want to put them front and center, in which we seek their wisdom and yearn to be more like them. Rather than trying to emulate 16-year-olds, why don’t we emulate those who truly have something meaningful to impart?

After I broke my foot this week, I became pretty helpless physically. The day afterward, my husband had to help me shower. I used a walker to get into the bathroom, and I needed assistance toileting and getting in the shower, and he helped hold me steady while I shampooed and tried to soap up. Just having one foot broken threw me completely out of whack. I was unable to take care of myself, and I felt my body had completely betrayed me. Leaning over my walker and hobbling slowly down the hallway and being in need of my husband’s help in such personal ways just bothered me. I said, “I feel like an 80-year-old!”

It is very disorienting to all of a sudden not be able to do the things I usually do. It’s upsetting to have to lean on someone (literally) for so much help. It’s hard to lose freedom. And the things that happen to our bodies as they age lead to those outcomes. In our independent, “me” culture, having to be dependent on others goes against our very natures. But really, why should it bother me SO much to feel like I’m 80? It’s not a horrible thing. I know wonderful 80- and 90-year-olds.

Life is not all about youth. Life is about ages and stages. We weren’t meant to stay frozen as teenagers for our entire life spans. We were intended to become adults, to move through middle age into old age. We are built to change, in all ways. Our bodies change, and our minds change, and we learn and gain (hopefully) wisdom and knowledge. We are supposed to experience life in all of its varieties. There’s simply no reason for me at age 42 now to be wistfully thinking back on how I looked at age 16. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to relive those days, I don’t care how cute my legs looked. I love my age now. I love all the neat things I can do. And in 20 years, I expect that I will be loving the new opportunities I will be facing at that stage of my life. I will be even closer to my “golden years” (or IN them) at that point, and I will be that much further away from the fresh years of my youth when my skin was wrinkle-free and my belly flat(ish).

I have read several times about how women in their 70s or older say they just feel free and completely able to just be themselves because they just don’t worry anymore about how they look. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if ALL AGES of people could say the same thing? That we could just be who we are, the real us? Wow. That would be freedom, indeed. We expend so much energy worrying about how we look and trying to look young and thin and … whatever. I don’t mean we shouldn’t take care of ourselves, but we can stop obsessing about all the details and perfection.

I’m thinking I should embrace all the good things about being 80, or at least just appreciate where I am now. Right now, I think I should embrace my SELF, who I AM. Right now, I should enjoy just who I am and where I am in my life. My teen years are past (thank GOODNESS); my 20s are past (those lean years); my 30s are even past. Now is what matters. I am 42, by golly. Today, I have a broken foot. This year, I’ve let myself eat too much, so my body is not in its best shape. I have plans to work on that, and thanks to the foot, it might be a few more months until I can really work hard on that aspect of taking better care of myself. But I have some quality time to read and plan how I will eat better and lose some weight. My house isn’t going to be as spotlessly clean as I like, but my kids are doing the cleaning and laundry. I’m not getting to cook a whole lot of the nice things I like to make, but we’re all getting fed. I’m reading a bit more and getting a chance to watch some movies, and my girls are learning a few more skills and how to take care of their mom. I’m appreciating how nice it is to be independent. I think this time in my life is just fine.

Envying the sinners and oppressors

I was reading some scriptural passages over the weekend that really stood out to me relating to beauty and self-image. They all spoke about envy and how dangerous it is. In my church’s canon is a wonderful chapter that allows us to ask ourselves questions about how prepared we are to meet God. One poses this question: Are you “stripped of envy”? (Alma 5:29)

So I began searching for other scriptural references to envy, as it relates to individuals. At one point, a prophet told his people, “And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities.” (Mormon 8:36)

In Galatians 5:26, we are admonished: “Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” And in 1 Peter 2:1, that prophet tells us: “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings.”

What struck me particularly were these references in Proverbs about who in particular we don’t want to envy: sinners and oppressors. Proverbs 3:31 exhorts: “Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.” Proverbs 23:17 similarly says:  “Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.”

Today, we might not be oppressed by government or worldly leadership; we’re not in bondage to other people. But we can easily be oppressed by the images and messages that are constantly bombarding us. If we allow them, those who are behind these messages can oppress us in mind and in spirit. Advertisers do all they can to make us feel bad about ourselves, mainly how we look. Cosmetics companies want us to feel bad about our skin’s youthfulness, shine and clearness; clothing manufacturers want us to feel bad about how our clothes fit, how stylish they are, what fine materials they aren’t made out of. Everyone out there wants us to feel fat and ugly in some way so we will buy their products to make ourselves look better somehow, in some way. And it’s SO easy to accept and internalize those messages and to just feel bad about ourselves. And that leads us to envy. We’re envying those who oppress us. When you think about it, isn’t that crazy? Shouldn’t we be rejecting those messages and just laughing at the absurdity of it all?

At the same time, we’re also envying those in society who are sinners. So many celebrities are held up as the icons of beauty and style. But they’re also making headlines as people who are driving drunk, committing adultery, and just plain being immodest and immoral in lots of ways. I don’t think I need to give a whole lot of details to support this statement. Just pick up a magazine or glance at celebrity news on Yahoo. The next time you wish your waistline could look like that of one of the ridiculously talentless but still ubiquitous Kardashian sisters (which is easy to do while standing in a supermarket checkout line), take a second to think about them as people and what they stand for.

Peter goes on in chapter 2 to tell us who we really are: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. … Dearly beloved, I beseech you …, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”

No, we shouldn’t be like everyone else; we shouldn’t be envying our oppressors and the sinners in our society. Those of us who are faithful believers in God are a “peculiar” people, which means we’re set apart from others. We’re God’s special people, and He loves us. He doesn’t want us to envy and try to emulate those in our society who only want to hurt us and make us feel bad about ourselves. Envy starts with comparing ourselves with others, and then finding ourselves wanting, in both ways. I think the first step in stopping this cycle is not comparing. As soon as you find yourself seeing a picture (inevitably it’s some kind of image), just stop and think about where your thought processes are going. And don’t go there. Don’t compare. Don’t envy. You’ll find yourself much happier.

Divinely beautiful

I’d like to address beauty today from the standpoint of faith. I grew up in a religion that taught me that I am a daughter of God, of infinite worth, that he created me as a spirit daughter and then sent me here to this earth life, mortality, for a time to gain a body and learn faith while not in his presence. I hope to return to him someday. I am now teaching those same truths to my own four daughters, on loan to me from my Heavenly Father.

I have been struck many times by how much we as females are worth, how amazing we are, how much we can do, how strong we are. If we are truly created by God, and he loves us as children, we must be pretty wonderful and worthwhile.

But here’s the kicker: I also believe there is an adversary out there, a fallen spirit son who chose to rebel, and now this evil one is out and about trying to make us all miserable, just like he is. And he is pretty smart and very determined to bring us all down. He’s quite successful at what he does, too, sadly enough.

He knows just how amazing women are. He knows our potential, and he knows what we can do right now. He knows our power, strength, and beauty. So he is working really hard to fool us into believing that we are ugly, weak, unloved, and unimportant, that we don’t deserve all the best that God can give us. And many of us are happy to let his pernicious lies enter our ears and our thoughts and affect how we feel and how we act and live.

I think one of his tools in our society today is sending a constant message that we are not good enough unless we look good. We must have perfect bodies, perfect faces, perfect hair. We must wear the latest fashions covering (or barely covering) our perfect, thin bodies that sport flat abs and finely toned muscles and perky, full bosoms. If we have flabby arms or flat chests or a little bit of fat anywhere on our bodies, we are not good enough, not worthy of love. He whispers to us that we’re not even worthy of our own love.

In our society today, we are constantly steeped in images. Images of women who are impossibly thin, who have no flaws on their figures or skin. Images of women who wear scanty clothes that reveal every square inch of perfection. Those images shout at us from billboards, from magazine covers at the grocery store, from ads that pop up online, from movies and TV shows, from commercials. Even if we don’t watch TV or movies, we can’t avoid the onslaught.

And most of us are allowing the messages from those images to permeate our very beings, down to the very center of who we are. We are allowing those evil, twisted messages from a miserable being to convince us that we aren’t beautiful, that beauty is simply about being a size 2 and having perfect features. We are forgetting who we truly are, what our royal lineage is, and where we are bound.

In my interviews with women who have elected to have cosmetic surgeries, I have been moved by their feelings of insecurity before their surgeries. I don’t condemn them or want them to feel bad because of the message I hope to convey through this blog. I understand. I can’t look in the mirror without feeling, EVERY SINGLE TIME, that my body is ugly and fat, that it’s unacceptable. I used to be thin, and now I feel I’ve failed. I’m weak, I’m a disappointment. I do understand.

But I want to fight back. My purpose in writing this is to try to remind my fellow daughters of God who we are, and what our real worth is. It’s not about how we look. It’s about who we ARE, who we have always been, and who we are meant to be. We’re far from perfect, in looks or behavior or anything, right now. But we’re works in progress, and that’s OK. It’s more than OK. It’s exciting. We have so much ahead of us, and we’re on the path toward greatness.

We can spend a few hours a week at church, being reminded of who we truly are; we can spend half an hour a day praying and reading scripture. Those things are helpful, indeed, and crucial. But when during the rest of our days and weeks we are bombarded with messages telling us we’re not good enough, that we’re ugly and fat, and that our worth is tied up in our looks, then we must fight back. We must remind each other how important we are, how loved we are. We must take a stand against all those negative messages that are completely opposite of what the truth is: that we are truly of divine, infinite worth. We are daughters of God. Let’s do all we can to go out and spread these true, positive messages, to find ways to wallpaper our lives with them, to cover over those untrue messages.

Stand tall! Remember who you really are, and take the time every day to remind the women and girls in your life who they are, and just how precious and beautiful they are. We can make a difference.

What’s in a name?

So I’ve thought a lot about how difficult it is to just put a name on what I experience. For years, I really wasn’t sure what I had, as I mentioned before and will need to write more about. So if it was hard for me and doctors to label my condition, then explaining it to others is even more of a challenge, even now. Then, even if there is a name, communicating correctly to others so they will really understand is even more challenging.

For a comparison and introduction to my thoughts on this topic, I have a daughter who has Down syndrome. Over the years as I’ve been involved with organizations that advocate for people with disabilities and have spent time talking with other parents, I have been actually very grateful for the fact that my daughter has a very straightforward diagnosis. I’ve met people whose children obviously have cognitive challenges but who have spent hours and hours in doctors’ offices and with other specialists, trying to determine just what their child is dealing with. It’s vital to have some kind of diagnosis in hand in order to effectively move forward with some kind of treatment and/or (especially) educational plans and specialized services. It’s no doubt sometimes a challenge to have a child with a disability (again, whole other topic here), but it seems to me that it’s even more difficult when you can’t put a name to it. I’ve had 14 years of knowing I have a child who has Down syndrome. She’s received the services she’s needed, by and large, over the years, and it’s been relatively simple to make those happen.

What makes her situation simpler also is that her condition is easy to observe on the outside. The physical characteristics that are signature Down syndrome traits are literally written on her face, and pretty much everyone knows by looking at her that they should have some types of different expectations from her. I don’t want anyone to think that I want people pre-judging my daughter or having low expectations for her because that’s not at all what I’m trying to say. But when she behaves a little differently than most people and hugs everyone and talks with a bit of a speech impediment and so on, I can feel fairly comfortable knowing I don’t have to try to explain away what she’s doing because many people will already know there’s a reason to cut her some slack behavior-wise.

A similar “rule” applies to people who have physical disabilities. Many of those can easily be observed; if someone is in a wheelchair because of paralysis or uses a cane because of a limp or even has a seeing-eye dog because of blindness, that person instantly can communicate without needing to say a word that he or she has a particular challenge to which others might need to be sensitive (although they generally just want to be treated like everyone else, their situations are at least fairly clear to others, and then others can choose how to be most sensitive and kind to them). But mental health issues are completely invisible. No one can tell by looking what someone who struggles with mental illness is having to cope with.

The companion issue is that mental illness simply is not as readily understood as physical illness. Each individual in this world has a package of trials and difficulties (as well as talents and skills and interests) that is unique. Some face tremendous trials in this life. Some are open about some of the things they face, and others prefer to be quite private, sharing details or even basic information with very few others. So some people who are diagnosed with cancer will talk readily about their illness, their treatments, their prognosis, their fears and frustrations. Others will keep quiet. But those who do share more, for instance, a cancer diagnosis, will likely be quickly understood. “Cancer” is a word that is easily communicated in our society; listeners will think “chemo,” “surgery,” “radiation,” “sick,” “death” or “remission” when they hear it. They will feel compassion and a desire to help, perhaps with meals or rides to a doctor or something similar.

On the flip side, however, is mental illness. Mental illness today, with its various diagnoses like schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, and so on, is coming out of the darkness in a way; more people talk about it in society, but it’s still not as easily understood as physical illnesses. There is generally no stigma associated with illnesses like cancer (although, frankly, there can be a bit with some illnesses that can be linked in part to unhealthy habits), but there is lots of misunderstanding, confusion, and stigma associated with mental health. Either people think that mental illness really doesn’t exist and a sufferer is “making things up” or trying to get attention or something else, or they think that their mental problems are bad habits that just need to be broken. Someone with depression could be told to look on the bright side or to just force themselves to get out and about, for example. Or others may simply recoil a little bit from someone who has a mental illness; they may be seen as weak or “crazy” or “scary” or unbalanced. Mental illness can make others feel uncomfortable and nervous, rather than compassionate and eager to help and lend support.

So back to the name. When I have chosen to share with someone, briefly, that I deal with issues of mental health, first, over the years, I wasn’t sure what I did have, and now that I (basically) do, I still can’t just say, “Well, I have atypical bipolar disorder or bipolar II.” No one knows what that means. Communicating requires that both people understand the meaning of a word. Like I said before, if I say, “I have cancer,” I can pretty much leave it at that and someone else would know what I meant. But if I wanted to briefly mention, “I have bipolar disorder,” half of people wouldn’t know what I meant. Even if they did, my version of this “spectrum” is practically unique to me, so it would require several more paragraphs to get across a basic meaning that one or two words couldn’t convey, as “cancer” would for that illness.

What’s the upshot? It’s just a lot easier not to ever tell anyone what I deal with. One, I can’t say it quickly and move on to other topics. Not possible to communicate what I need to quickly. I might find someone who is very sensitive and eager to talk to me about it, but it’s going to lead to at least a 15-minute conversation, and sometimes there’s no time for that. Two, if I do say what I have, and someone else basically understands what I’m talking about, there’s always a possibility they may have a negative connotation in their minds that will lead them to make judgments about me that I’d rather them not make.

On my bad days, I’d be happy to stay at home, keep to my bed, and refrain from human interaction so as not to offend or cause any problems. But many of those days, since I do have four kids and lots of responsibilities, I still have to be out and about, getting things done. I’m then more likely to be impatient or super-irritable or sometimes just want to cry over something dumb that wouldn’t bother a normal person (or me at some other time) at all. It’s those days I wish I had a sign on my forehead that just says, “Please excuse me. I have a mental illness; I do my best to deal with it constructively; I take medication, I see a therapist regularly, I try to relax and take care of myself as much as I can given my limitations. But I have a family; I have responsibilities, and life goes on. I’m standing in this line that has taken forever and it’s making me feel completely at the end of my rope. I’m valiantly doing what I can here, but my best on this kind of day isn’t too great. Please give me some leeway and smile at me encouragingly or just try not to judge me.” But my forehead isn’t as big as a billboard (thank goodness), and this sentiment wouldn’t fit on it.

So no, there is no outward sign of my inward distress to give people around me (strangers or friends) any indication of what I deal with regularly or if I’m having a bad day in particular. (Very close friends will understand if I just say a few words because after years of talking and explaining, some shorthand will work. But this only applies to a handful of individuals in my life. You know who you are.) There are no physical indications, no typical characteristics to tip anyone off. And if I were to say something to someone else, I couldn’t really capture the essence of what I want to convey in just a few quick words. It’s frustrating. Again, this is all part of why I’m writing on this blog. I’d like to extend to others who don’t have my particular challenges the kindness of helping them to see more clearly from my viewpoint, all at their leisure whenever they’d like to read this. And for those who experience similar feelings, I hope you can feel a kindred spirit.

The complex intersection of health, fitness and self-image

I never felt particularly pretty or slim when I was growing up. I always felt like I was a little chubby. When I was about 11 or 12 I actually went on a diet, and at this point I don’t feel I can accurately recall whose idea it was: mine or my mother’s. I cut out sweets, mainly, and ate a little less. My younger sister was taller and slimmer than I and just somehow charismatic and attractive, and I always felt kind of dumpy next to her. When we went on family vacations on occasion, such as the one we made to Florida (Disney World and Daytona Beach) when I was 17, my 15-year-old sister is the one who snagged the attention and admiring looks of the guys. I was just there and along for the ride. It wasn’t until a little later that I came to feel that I was attractive.

My father also had a bad habit of commenting on people’s looks. I adored my dad, and his death in October 2009 was devastating to me, but he did have his quirks and plenty of imperfections, and this obsession with judging others’ outward appearance was one of those. I finally told him the year before he died that it was time he stopped making comments about how people looked. It surely contributed to my constant worry about my own appearance. One of Dad’s infamously terrible remarks happened when I was somewhere around 12 or 13 years old, and we were all listening to music in our living room. My mother was dancing around the room, and my dad observed that she looked like “one of the dancing hippos from ‘Fantasia.'” Silence. I knew it was a bad idea to compare my mom to a hippo, even if it was a very cute animated one, and my mom to this day will sometimes remark about how much it hurt her.

My dad had gotten overweight when he was in his mid-20s and decided to do something about it, so he went on a diet and started running. After that, he stayed super-trim and always exercised and ate healthy foods, even obsessively so. I am sure that his own experience feeling overweight contributed to how he saw things, or the other way around, or both, but it certainly affected my self-image.

We always ate fairly healthy foods when I was growing up, with my mom making homemade wheat bread and putting wheat in every baked good she made. We ate vegetables and fruits in reasonable quantities, and rarely had soda or ate out. So we took care of ourselves pretty well. I never was an athlete, but I did start running my freshman year at college because I was “forced” to in a required fitness class I took my first semester. I dedicated myself to doing it and then just never stopped. Over the past 23 years, I’ve always gone to the gym to work out or gone running or walking, and I’ve only had a hiatus of a year or so total over that time, I think. I just enjoy the feeling of having a good workout, and for a long time, it helped me stay reasonably trim.

At college, too, I didn’t have a car, and my campus was large, so I did a LOT of walking. I could eat all I wanted at my cafeteria and have ice cream galore (I am a fool for ice cream), and with all that exercise, I probably lost a few pounds when I went off to college, rather than gained any. I actually felt pretty good about how I looked, and I felt confident in my attractiveness to all the members of the opposite sex I had the opportunity to meet at that large school.

When I married, graduated college, and got a desk job, however, I quickly put on 20 to 30 pounds. I wasn’t pleased with that and I started eating lower-fat foods and lost a little of it. But I still had most of that extra weight when I got pregnant the first time. After putting on almost 40 pounds with that pregnancy, I left the hospital just under 200 pounds and was shocked at how I looked in the mirror. That was all I needed to limit my calorie intake (I started counting calories for the first time in my life, and I kept it to 1800 since I was nursing), and I managed to take off all the pregnancy pounds plus some. After my second pregnancy, during which I still put on almost 40 pounds, I took off all of that weight and got down to a good size again. I did it again after my third pregnancy, gaining the same amount but getting it all back off 6 months after. I was 32 at that point, and I looked the best I had since I was in college 10-plus years earlier. I was pleased with how I looked, with my good eating habits, with my commitment to exercise, and being able to do all that after three babies.

About five years later, however, I had some pretty stressful experiences and put on about 10 or 15 pounds because I was eating too many sweets. I have always eaten chocolate and ice cream to my heart’s content, so either I started getting a little too old to burn off those calories, or I just ate too much, more than before. I wasn’t pleased with that extra weight and thought I looked chubby in photos. But try as I might, I couldn’t get those 10 or 15 pounds off; all I was able to do was take off maybe 4 pounds and that was all. Two years later, we went through a cross-country move, couldn’t sell our first house (and had lots of financial worries), tried to settle into a new and more stressful life and get to know entirely new people (and miss the old friends where we’d lived for 10 years), lived three months in a house with family (14 of us lived there in one house for that whole time) while we tried to find and buy a new house, and life really put the screws on. I ate and ate and ate. I packed on the pounds and suddenly was 40 pounds heavier. I hadn’t been that weight except right after that first pregnancy, and this time I’d done it without being pregnant, a really embarrassing feat.

As life settled in and eventually got a bit better, and I somehow got motivated, I was able a year later to focus on “dieting,” which for me meant eating fewer calories and cutting out  sweets, a painful thing for me, and I lost 35 pounds over the course of months. I never got to where I wanted to be, but I felt much better about where I was. I tried to lose more but couldn’t, and as life became (and/or stayed) more stressful, I managed to put a few pounds back on.

About a year ago, my doctor told me my cholesterol had inched up. I told her I’d try to lose more weight and see how that affected the numbers; I really don’t want to be on medication that would need monitoring of my liver and have side effects, etc. So I worked really hard for more than a month and still didn’t manage to lose as much as I had anticipated. I was hungry all the time and super-cranky because of it and only lost something like 7 pounds. I didn’t feel I could keep going that way and lose any more, let alone maintain that kind of hungry feeling for very long. So I gave up. Then life got very stressful again in the fall (the long and the short of things is that I simply got far too heavily involved in far too many things), and I put that weight back on and more. I’m back to 10 pounds short of where I started 2 1/2 years ago.

So what is the point of all these details?

First, appearance. I’d like to be able to look in the mirror and not have my first thought be a mixture of shame, disgust, embarrassment, and self-hatred because I weigh more than I would like.

Second, health. Yes, I would like to be healthier, no question. I generally eat healthy food, but then I also eat ice cream and chocolate. I’d like to be able to eat less of the bad things, just to benefit my health and heart.

Third, fitness. I’d like to at least give myself a pat on the back that I have always worked out. I still go to the gym every day of the week except Sunday, with only occasional weeks where I miss another day or two for reasons of illness or vacations (even then, when I travel, I usually find a way to exercise). So this is my one high-five to myself that I am dedicated to fitness. I like how it feels. I like that time to myself that I have at the gym. It’s wonderful. I highly recommend it.

Fourth, mental health. This is the crucial key to my weight issues. I already mentioned how my father was obsessed with appearance. He would make remarks frequently about aging movie stars or singers (he loved Linda Ronstadt but was so disappointed she “let herself go” and got “fat” as she got older; he was sad that Julie Christie had aged when she had been so gorgeous when she was young; the list goes on and on); he would comment about complete strangers who just walked by; he would comment about friends or family members. Naturally, I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought of my heavier weight, though he never said anything to me. It was pretty likely he commented about it to someone else when I wasn’t around.

My mental health issues include my turning to food as a coping mechanism. It’s my drug, I think. My father’s family had a history of alcoholism. The men in my dad’s family drank themselves to death. Dad managed to escape that because he chose in his 20s to join our church, which discourages drinking any alcohol. So he stuck to that and never had another drink in his life, though his own father had given him a taste for beer when he was a toddler and he still missed it. I believe that there is such a thing as addictive personalities; either it is actually hard-wired in our genes or chemical makeup, or it’s a family pattern of behaving. My sister started using drugs and alcohol at a young age and was very likely self-medicating her own mental health issues. Since I also have grown up with the same faith as my father, I have never had a drink of alcohol or a puff of a cigarette, avoiding any possibility of becoming an addict. But I am quite sure I’m addicted to food. I am reasonable with my eating habits when I’m not stressed, but when the screws are on, I turn to the kitchen. Last fall, things were so hard that I literally felt I couldn’t stop eating. I wasn’t hungry; I didn’t even necessarily taste the food anymore; I just couldn’t STOP. And it scared me.

So my goals are twofold: I’d like to look in the mirror and love myself, not immediately see my physical flaws. I’d like to accept who I am, see ME, rather than a body that’s aging and not model-slim, or even slim like I was in my early 30s (I still have those size-6 super-cute dresses I wore a mere six years ago; they’re in a box). I want to love myself, whoever I am.

But I would also like to break my addiction. I would. I’d like to stop my bad habits. But the idea of stopping them scares me. It scares me to even think about not using chocolate or cookies or ice cream as a soothing mechanism. My life can often become so not-my-own (I have four daughters and plenty of other responsibilities) that the food I eat is my only easy fix. I am not proud of this, but at the same time, I am aware that this is not at all uncommon. Those who don’t have this problem think it’s easy to just substitute other soothing mechanisms for the food and those of us who do have this weakness would just be A-OK. It’s just not that simple. I have pretty good “willpower” when I’m not feeling super-stressed or tired, but when I am, I just cannot resist the food. It’s just too easy. I don’t take the easy way out in almost anything in my life. I have come to believe now, after all I’ve experienced and weathered, that I am strong, brave and resilient. I say the honest thing to people even when it’s the harder thing to do; I work hard to achieve my goals, which may sound a little extravagant. But I try. So the food weakness is one spot in which I just too often feel I don’t have the strength or will to resist, when everything else is so hard and I am not taking the easy way out.

I could probably write ad nauseam about this topic. And I will write more. But I’ll just say that weight loss and health can be very complex issues for many people, and there are no quick and easy answers. Again, those who don’t struggle with these things will THINK there are easy solutions, but there are not. I think with everything I address in this blog, this is the case. That is precisely why I’m writing in this blog. Because life can be very difficult, and every person has his or her own set of weaknesses and strengths. If one thing is a strength for one person, it’s a weakness for another, and the two will likely not understand each other’s views on that topic. I’d just like to be able to explore the complexities of life and communication and relationships here, and those who have thoughtful insights they’d like to contribute to the discussion are most welcome to do so. Sensitivity is most welcome, and thinking twice before writing a cliche or simple answer would also be a fine idea. What say all of you?