Have you ever lost weight and become angry? I have. A couple of times. It only occurred to me yesterday that this time around I have managed to avoid that.
Jamie said to me: "You seem much happier losing weight this time", and I realized that "Angry Thin Person" hasn't surfaced.
A female friend and I used to talk about this quite a bit and I was wondering if it is more common then we think?
The scenario, at least in my situation, goes something like this:
You grow up feeling like you don't fit in. Whether you gain weight earlier or later in life doesn't really matter, but the fact that you didn't "fit" made you try that much harder to be everyone's friend. Eventually, your role in life becomes the "people pleaser".
You are happy to do it...at least you think you are. Making other people happy makes you happy right?! :-)
Then the weight loss comes and with the weight loss comes the boost in confidence.
Other people don't change. They ask you to do the same things you have always done, but with your new found confidence you start to question why you are doing everything for everyone.
As the requests for assistance keep coming in the anger levels begin to heat up, and then all of the sudden....WHAM! Angry Thin Person.
You stop doing things for people, you talk back, you get into disagreements, and you feel empowered but...well...angry.
When it happened to me the first time I kind of compared it to "Rita" in Educating Rita, or "Eliza" in My Fair Lady (they are ultimately the same story anyway). In both cases the main character wants something badly and when they find it they don't know how to handle it. They go way beyond what they want and become an unattractive person altogether. Fortunately, in both scenarios balance eventually wins out.
I am wondering now if I ever found balance back then or if I just gained weight and that resolved the issue.
Nonetheless I am really grateful that person isn't with me now. I feel great, I feel healthy, and I am happy to help people...when I WANT to help them.
Life is good :-)
Be healthy!
Alan
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2 comments:
I never thought of that before, but you put it well. It could apply to any big changes we make in our lives. We change, but our relationships don't necessarily change. The people around us don't change. We have to re-teach them how to treat us, what our new expectations are. I bet a lot of marriage crash and burn around this very thing.
On another note...When I saw your headline I took it another way. I've often been underweight, or very close to the line, due to my natural build plus a lot of running. Unless I eat frequently, the blood sugar drops and I get cranky, fast. So I also associate being thin with being angry, though for different reasons.It's one of those downsides to being skinny that people don't think about.
I think you are right Quade. Big changes are hard on our loved ones and friends no matter what they are. I am sure it has caused a lot of divorces...at one point in my journey it sure has heck played a huge role in my relationship. Fortunately we survived and all is now good :-)
I found your "other note" really interesting. As naturally heavier people we only think of things on our side of the fence but this was the second time today I encountered issues on the other side...sounds like a blog topic to me :-)
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