Home » Mind & Soul » Agoraphobia » Getting to Know Madeleine, Agoraphobia and Obesity, Part 2

Getting to Know Madeleine, Agoraphobia and Obesity, Part 2

© Katherine E. Rabenau

Well, I don't know what I was thinking when I tagged that "Part 1" onto the title of last week's article, because now I have to write about this difficult subject again. And I don't want to. It's hard. Obesity stinks. There. That's it. I've said what I have to say. Obesity stinks. You don't get to enjoy your food. Everyone thinks you do nothing but eat, which isn't the least bit true. You don't get to wear pretty clothes. Even though the selection of clothing for the size-ually challenged has improved, it still isn't very good and of course the way things look on the skinny models in the catalogue has nothing to do with the reality of what they look like on an actual fat person. Adding insult to injury, the darned things cost more than the pretty clothes that skinny people wear. Grrr. There are a lot of things about the big outside world that are not friendly to the morbidly obese. Bus seats are designed for space conservation and normal bodies, not outsized ones. Movie seats, airline seats, restaurant booths can be difficult, uncomfortable, or for the very obese, even impossible to manage. No wonder we stay home. We are not welcome out there.

I've been pretty lucky (except for my family) in terms of people being overtly unkind to me about my weight, but many people aren't so lucky. I am so shy and anxious when I am out in the world that the cruelty may just pass me by. And anyway, there's nobody out there who can be more unkind to me than I am, which has just reminded me of an exercise I did in therapy a number of years ago. I think I will share it here because while it is my personal inner dialogue, I don't think that my self-hate falls far from the norm. We each brew our pain out of the cauldron of our unique life experiences, but in the end, by and large it is the subtleties that are different, while the core of self hate remains constant. Dr. Jim* as I called my awesome therapist, assigned me a series of writing assignments at one point in our work together. It was some of the most profound work we did together and since I like to write, it was also fun. I don't remember exactly what the assignment which brought her to life was, but one of the voices born of these assignments belong to someone named "Madeleine." I have to say that I kind of love this dark, cruel, Madeleine side of myself. She's so incredibly mean that it's hard to understand why, but I think what I love about her is her certainty. SHE has no self doubt. Madeleine is pure in the truth and depth of her cruelty and hate. I think I admire that certainty. I think that loving her, finding her amusing, is also a way of protecting myself from how annihilating her hatred of me is. But enough introduction, Madeleine speaks quite eloquently for herself:

The copyright of the article Getting to Know Madeleine, Agoraphobia and Obesity, Part 2 in Agoraphobia is owned by . Permission to republish Getting to Know Madeleine, Agoraphobia and Obesity, Part 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.