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Through Thick & Thin #49 (September 24, 2004) My Weight Stays Stable, But My Shame Keeps Resurfacing Today, as I write, I am celebrating my 23 month anniversary of my Weight Loss Surgery. The good news is that I’m at my ideal weight, and I continue to be able to make sufficient minor adjustments in my caloric intake and caloric burn to maintain my weight stability. I just wish that I could find some magical way to exorcise the sense of shame that continues to resurface every time I experience any kind of health-related problem or crisis. Seven months ago I became faint while walking, and my subsequent medical exam found that I needed a pacemaker to maintain my heartbeat at a healthy minimum of 60 beats per minute. It was clear, then and now, that this medical condition was genetic in origin and had absolutely nothing to do with either my prior morbid obesity or my Weight Loss Surgery. I’m almost 57, and at this age people often develop problems or irregularities in the electrical center that controls heart rhythms and functioning. My pacemaker was inserted and continues to do its job. Then three months ago, again while walking, I started feeling dizzy and light-headed. I almost fainted, as the world whirled around me in a maddening state of vertigo. I immediately checked my pacemaker functioning, but it was fine. I was tested for inner ear and hearing problems, but the tests revealed no problems. Then I was referred to a neurologist, and in preparation for our appointment had a brain CAT scan. It revealed some calcification in my carotid arteries, and next I may have a test to see if the same obstructions are building in my other arteries. This could account for my symptoms. Again, this condition is common in people my age, regardless of their weight or weight loss, and will hopefully be soon treated and resolved so that I can resume the vigorous daily exercise that has become a treasured and very special aspect of my inner and outer life. Since my surgery, my cholesterol has been at levels I used to dream of and my heart remains strong and undamaged. What was so interesting – and disturbing – about both incidents was that the very first place my mind and emotions went was to my shame. You know the shame I’m talking about: the shame that burdened my spirit every day I walked this earth as a fat man. I did a great deal of therapeutic work about my feelings of unworthiness before my surgery, and I continued this healing work post-op. In my naiveté, however, I made the dangerous assumption that now that I was a man of “normal” size and weight, I had finally and successfully completed my lifelong struggles with both obesity and the accompanying feelings of shame, humiliation, disgrace and personal dishonor. I’ve written at length about this issue in both my prior newsletters and one of my articles in Weight Loss Surgery Lifestyles magazine. I was mistaken. It appears that I have internalized my sense of shame so deeply and profoundly that whenever something goes wrong with my body I immediately accept that the cause is my years of gluttony and obesity. I take total responsibility and feel completely accountable for causing my corporal calamity. I don’t question, I blame myself. I don’t seek other explanations, I punish myself harshly. These feelings have nothing to do with physical reality, but they have unfortunately become an ingrained part of my interior emotional landscape. This is a pattern I want to break, but I now suspect it will take much longer to lose the shame than it did to lose the excess weight. I do reasonably well in both my professional and social domains when my words or actions are questioned, challenged or attacked. I take a quick, searching and fearless moral inventory of my attitudes, actions, choices and behaviors. If I did something wrong or unkind, I take responsibility for my misconduct, make amends and do my best to clean up my mess – and to learn from it. At the same time, if I become clear that the conflict is all about the other person (or the situation), and not at all about me, then I let go of anxiety, guilt and bad feelings and move on, clean and confident. It doesn’t work as simply or well with respect to my physical problems. I continue to drag around the terrible weight of unjustified personal dishonor until my wife talks me through my delusions. I’m sharing this cautionary tale to underscore my new understanding and belief that Fat Shame can be a self-sabotaging adversary that may relentlessly try to undermine your confidence and successes long after you feel that you’ve finally managed your “weight issues”. This is one vicious circle I am aching to break. Apparently some of my psychic wounds – originally, but no longer, linked to my weight -- lie so deep and hidden that they still resist and defy detection and remedy. I’ve admitted to myself, reluctantly, that I have more interior work still to do… Glenn Goldberg, VBG 10.24.02, 360/180 
Click here if you have a ”fruit and vegetable problem” to see if my solution (see Through Thick and Thin #19) will work for you. Copyright, © 2003, Glenn Goldberg. All rights reserved.
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Through Thick
