VENT (or maybe rant) -- Friends and Angels Forum

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Date Posted: 12:49:17 12/18/02 Wed
Author: Dana Morgan
Subject: VENT (or maybe rant)

First, Gail, thanks for the invitation. :)

Hi guys ...

Truth in advertising, read the header. I've just got to let off some steam. Lots of steam. Please bear with ...

As some (most?) of you know, I had a no-good very-bad week last week. Come Monday, I felt run over by a two-ton truck and desperately in need of some kind of comfort or support or something. Maybe just a good cup of coffee. So I went to a support meeting. So far, this sounds like a good choice. Right?

I didn't realize I'd walked into Obsessive-Compulsives Anonymous. I didn't realize that in order to have been fat, I necessarily had to have OCD too. There was more screaming than a tent-revival, and absolutely less than zero of it applied to me -- no, worse than that, it was all the myths that had been held against me as a fat person for my entire life up until that point.

Of COURSE you're an overeater!! (Actually, I eat more now than I ever did.) Of COURSE you are out of control with your relationship with food! (Wanna bet?) The assumptions were so thick I could cut them with a knife, and they ALL focused against us getting healthy, unless we could walk the 12-step path to the TROOF as trumpeted by the host.

I left feeling actively depressed. Not because he was so true, or so right, or so righteous -- but because he was so wrong, and not willing to hear it or consider any other point of view. Then my car clicker wouldn't work, so it all got worse from there ... ;)

So I've just got to say it to someone. You guys get to hear it, I hope you don't mind too much.

Not all of us were ever hopelessly out of control. Some of us had metabolic issues. Some of those metabolic issues were not diagnosable -- the tests did not exist -- until the past couple years. Some of us have struggled for years and years with conditions we could not help, could not fix, could only maybe work a holding action on. And no, not all of us are obsessive-compulsive, or helpless in the face of food. Not all of us think doritos are our friends.

Thank you for allowing me to vent. I hold no personal animosity toward the host or anyone associated with the event ... but I can't afford to walk into a support group meeting and find the only topic scheduled is psychotherapy that just does not apply to me. (When you guys see me walk out of the CCBS meetings that are all-shrink, all-the-time, you'll know that's the reason too.) I'm not a perfect person, don't get me wrong -- but I know my Self well enough to know what my issues are and are not, and no amount of screaming at me will get me to claim a label that just is not mine.

Blessings all round -- :Dana
(promising to be more positive next post, ok?)

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Replies:

Welcome Dana -- Gail, 17:30:25 12/18/02 Wed