Archive for January 7th, 2010
Have you ever had a problem and not known you’ve had a problem until someone mentions it? Maybe you’re always tapping your pencil when you think. Or pacing the room when you’re nervous. Or randomly stealing silverware from fancy restaurants. Whatever your vice, when it’s brought up, brought out into the open, it’s almost see it as a problem at first. After all, this is how I behave. It happens for some subconscious reason to keep me safe (even the kleptomania). And it’s very hard to change.
I know you’re thinking that I steal things for fun. Not true. My problem is that I have been, for much of my natural-born life, unable to accept personal compliments. There are very, very few things that, when commented upon by an outside person in a positive manner, I am able to take at face value. My writing skills and creativity are the only things I can accept. (why? Because I’m a creative genius and I’m underappreciated).
Retrieving my mail Tuesday after school, the secretary commented on how I look like I’m ‘thinning in the middle’. She’s shorter than me, so I didn’t assume I had a growing bald spot. She made curvy motions down the length of her torso, so common sense led me to deduce she meant my lump of clay was being shaped into something slightly human.
“Are you sure you don’t need new glasses?”
She giggled. “I’m sure. I actually noticed it earlier today but was too busy to say anything.”
“I’m not sure what there is to notice.”
She punched my arm. You’re looking thinner through the middle. Like something’s going on.”
“Something’s going on for sure,” I said. “Trying not to buy a bigger pant size after the holidays is what’s going on.”
She shook her head at me. “No, I mean it. You’re looking good. Whatever you’re doing is working.”
I’d just spent two weeks scarfing too much food and doing zero exercise. True, I’d walked twice since Monday, but doubted it had anything to do with her perception.
“Great! I’ll keep eating junk food in front of the tv! I’m so glad you gave me the go-ahead!”
She leveled a serious stare at me. “Hey. Just say ‘thank you’ and get it over with, ok? You look good. Stop trying to convince me to change my mind.”
Her words were painfully familiar. I’d heard them from a friend once, years ago, when I lost forty pounds through hard work. He’d complimented me, I’d trashed myself in some form and he’d chastised me for not accepting the compliment. “Just say ‘thank you,’” he’d said. “If you make a smart-ass compliment, it’s like you don’t trust my judgment to notice things.”
I didn’t want to second-guess his observation, so I’d quietly thanked him and moved on with my day. Likewise, I thanked the secretary and headed back to my room, deep in thought why I can’t take compliments. I came up with a two-fold reason: one, if I don’t feel the compliment is true, I can’t agree with it. I generally don’t go along with things in general that I don’t agree with without some type of feedback, so why would I agree that I look thinner if I feel like a beached whale? And the second reason, I think, goes way back: protection. Mean girls in school gave compliments only to have them twisted when you accepted them. If they said your hair looked nice today, they’d follow it with “nice for a rat’s nest, that is.” Or if they mentioned your eyeshadow color, you immediately ran to the bathroom and scrubbed it off with those lovely sandpaper-based paper towels. The worst were weight comments: love those pants! (they make them in your size?). Love that sweater! (look what the thrift store has now!). Pretty prom dress! (I know it’s a hand-me-down, I’ve seen it before.) Your cookies are delicious! (and you shouldn’t be eating them.)
The smarminess of their tone still echoes in my head. When anyone–even an honestly nice adult person far removed from my growing-up days makes a positive comment, I hold my breath and wait for the punch line, expecting a rim shot and howling laughter from the other mean girls in a pack (ever notice they can’t travel alone?). It’s easier for me to hate on myself and control the situation than it is for me to allow their compliment to glimmer, even if for a second, with the potential for belief only to have it snapped away by their slobbery jaws.
If I’d only have lost a fraction of a pound or not have felt I was bursting at the seams I might have smiled and agreed, if only half. But there’s more to being a fat girl than just the weight. There’s all kinds of mental baggage, ingrained habits, ways of thinking and behaving that come from years of protecting ourselves from bullies that takes just as long to undo as it takes to take off the weight. One without the other will never lead to success, so not only do I need to start acting and eating like a healthy person, I need to start thinking like one. Far easier said than done.
As for the kleptomania…