To the women Foregoing Adequate Truths
Ignorance is bliss and this is a notion which often holds true.
But ignorance is more oftentimes a luxury and not one we can all afford to have.
The luxury I’m referring to, is health.
I am 55kgs; 162.5 cm and I wear a dress size AU 6/ US 2. I run often and my friends will tell you I’m not a big eater.
Day to day, I tend to pass on the guiltier pleasures of food.
Day to day, I can almost always predict to hear:
- “You look like a flagpole in that dress.”
- “You’re running – again? Are you just not happy with the way you look?”
- “God you’re tiny, have another, you know you should probably eat like 10 of those.”
… and I’m sick of it.
Albeit, I used to brush off comments like these because to the heavier girls, I get it. The 90’s were the Heroin Chic Era where only waif-like women were celebrated and never in history, has there been an overweight Victoria’s Secret runway model. And this is a truth.
But — you cannot continue to expect sympathy for your own weight-related problems and simultaneously keep bashing us thinner women like we have none.
Here’s another truth: I live with a pre-existing chronic pain condition.
It’s debilitating and despite the best efforts of doctors to find relief, there’s been little closure. The one and only reliable constant that reduces pain for me, is staying within a weight band of 54 to 58 kgs.
I’m reminded of this every time I have a flare up, there are tears flooding my face and I knock over everything in the path between me and my pain killers because my hands are shaking so much. This February I went to hospital, collapsed on my knees outside the ER, then was administered morphine.
I didn’t write this to be a sob story but so a reader, any reader, can understand these are experiences I would give anything not to repeat.
Here’s the irony,
There are many women with pre-existing health conditions in which play a factor to them being a heavier weight.
Many of these health conditions that are harsh and require direct attention in how they are managed and won’t simply just go away.
I made a personal decision to address mine the most manageable way that works for me. And maybe that does mean I pass on the guiltier pleasures of food. And hey, maybe sometimes that makes me a bit annoying! But the last thing that makes me is less of a woman. Because admitting we’re scared and want support in harder times are things we all feel — when we stop foregoing adequate truths.
