So the other day I went off on a bit of a ramble about how being overweight can almost lead you to setting yourself up when it comes to relationships, leave you looking for attention in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. When you’ve been falling in to such a pattern for years… even decades… it’s not something that’s easily changed. But it can. It just takes a lot of work, and sometimes maybe even some therapy of some sort.
But I think there’s another way we set ourselves up when it comes to dealing with the stigma of obesity… and not just deal with, but also perpetuate it. I’m talking about self-deprication.
It is like a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing – we know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the “fat jokes” and such, but sometimes, as some sort of defense mechanism or something, we become the first one to throw such jokes out there. Usually at our own expense.
We all know how fat people are generally viewed as slobs, as lazy. We hear the jokes and comments that are made (sometimes about us, sometimes about others) when others didn’t know we were within earshot. So by being the one to crack the joke, to insult ourselves we accomplish a few things. It’s like a preemptive strike, we let others know that we know we’re fat… we let others know that we know they’re disgusted by us… but by golly, we’re going to do our darndest to be entertaining, to try and fit in, even for a few moments so that maybe you won’t rip on us too much once this (often awkward) social situation is over with.
And we laugh at the jokes others tell, the comments they make… because of course when they do so there’s that unspoken “truth” that “I don’t mean you”. No, cause we’re the friend. The sidekick. The confidant. The one that’s there to listen intently when they need someone to dump on…but are kinda busy when we’re are having a bad day.
I get it… I’ve done it myself. Like I said, it can be a defense mechanism. You’re laughing on the outside so nobody can see how you’re hurting on the inside. You tell the joke, you get people to laugh and you can almost convince yourself they’re laughing with you… not at you. And while I can say I am truly blessed to have friends that I believe … no, that I know… accepted me even at my heaviest… there are others… Well. Let’s just say there were others.
I’m pretty sure we all know how it feels to be around someone; a friend, maybe a family member, someone we trust, when they’ve made a snide comment or cracked a crude joke. Sometimes they’ll say it, but often they assume we know that “I don’t mean you”. Problem is, you do mean me. Maybe it’s not on a conscious level, but it’s there.
So it’s even worse when we crack such jokes about ourselves. It’s like we’re giving others permission to keep doing things we know hurt us… and others.
I wish I could give you an easy way to make this stop. To help you stop doing it yourself. But I can’t. I don’t know. Maybe just be losing the weight I’ve been able to start shifting away from this sort of thing. I say mostly… cause I know I still make the occasional self-deprecating remark, even if it’s not so much about weight anymore. Beyond that, maybe this is one of those things that the first step it just being aware of it… and that in itself can make it easier to start changing?
