August
27, 2013
Cigarette addiction makes no sense
to me. I must admit addiction of any
kind makes no sense to me, but even I cannot deny being addicted to food. Aren’t we all addicted to food? Isn’t addiction a physical need?
The Goat Man is dealing with his
addiction to cigarettes, but his failure to afford them. Smokers by nature are generous and
understanding when it comes to addiction.
They often share their cigarettes freely, but the same is over staying
your welcome it is possible to bum too many.
When money is an issue addiction
becomes a problem and it hazes the lines between need and want. The Goat Man says he needs a cigarette, but
he will not die without it.
I use food in excess or at least the
average layman would say so because I am overweight. The problem with food addiction is simply
that we have no choice but to eat. A
drug addict, alcoholic, or smoker has a choice.
Any amount of drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes is in excess; however, food
is in a category of it’s own.
I am reminded of a book I wrote
several years ago. It is not an
autobiography, but it is soaked with my reality. I want to share a piece of it with you. Please tell me what you think and if I should
seek publication for the entire book.
This is the second chapter of the
book I call Invisible:
“She stood in the hallway of the nursing home examining
Cindy. She was the only person who ever
tried to see her. She had allowed Cindy
to read her diary, and at that moment she was witnessing Cindy’s concern. Cindy was near the age of her mother, but she
did not look more than eight to ten years older than her.
There were small crows feet in Cindy’s eyes that
were noticed only if one looked close and studied her. Cindy looked through copper brown eyes. They were the same copper eyes of Conrad, her
husband. Cindy and Conrad also shared
the same bronze skin. Cindy had long
dark hair that hung down her back. She
wondered if the copper eyes were Indian traits.
Conrad’s great grandmother was full-blooded
Navajo, and his father had placed Cherokee in Conrad’s gene pool. She had remembered hearing Cindy talk of
Indian in her blood, but she wasn’t sure how much Indian Cindy had.
She loved the copper eyes and the bronze skin
that felt as smooth as a baby’s bottom.
Cindy was absolutely gorgeous, and her body language spoke respect.
It was the end of the day and she was
already over an hour late getting home from work. She went out to speak with Cindy in order to
finish her work and go home. Her feet
were already swollen and hurting, and a small headache was forming.
It was Friday and she wanted to go home and
recuperate for the next week that she knew she would barely make it
through. When Cindy saw her she had
grabbed her arm and ran her down the hall.
She stood in the hallway listening. “If you don’t stop this self destructive
behavior you are going to die.” A split
second of glitter size gleam flashed in her head. That was the point she thought. She was happy to have finally reached
somebody. She shifted her weight from
left to right. Her back was starting to
mention its pain. Her stomach growled.
She had been eating five to six small meals
each day since she visited the wish center a month ago. She had to admit she felt better. The tiredness was still there, but it did not
come in big overwhelming waves like before.
She thought her blood sugars were in better control. She had consumed
less than one twenty-ounce soda the entire month and the bonfire in her chest was
more like hot coals now.
She listened to Cindy as she fought back
the tears. She had given those same
fifteen pages of her dairy to six people before Cindy. Only one other person bothered to even read
it.
Her husband, Conrad, stood in the middle of
their living room as she watched him stare at each page for long moments at a
time. Then Conrad would put the thoroughly
stared at page behind the others. It
took what seemed like forever for him to read her heartfelt words.
Moments before handing it to him she had
tried to read it to him as he played his game on the computer, but she couldn’t
read it through her tears. She had never
before had trouble keeping the tears at bay.
She could always feel them, but she could always control them.
When he finished she looked up at him, now
in control of her tears, and waited for a response. It took him three long seconds to hand the
fifteen pages back to her expressionless.
“Are you going to get my cigarettes now?” She realized at that moment that she meant
nothing at all to him. She had just
given him her suicide note to read, and he had no reaction.
It was not that he had a reaction she did
not understand. One of those things she
could chalk up as a man thing and blame the Y chromosome. But he had absolutely no reaction at
all. She did not have any trouble
controlling her tears this time, because she did not have any to control.
For several years there had been little
moments where Conrad had left doubt in her mind about his love. It was very clear to her that unconditional
love was out of Conrad’s realm of understanding.
In the hallway, Cindy spoke about what She
should eat as if she knew nothing of nutrition, and sat around eating chocolate
ice cream, Twinkies, and ho ho’s all day. She listened anyway in case Cindy said
something she didn’t know. After all
Cindy was a very smart lady. But it was
becoming quite clear Cindy did not understand a few very simply truths about
fat people.
She had watched fat and thin people for
years now and was able to decipher that like a man and a woman’s brain are different;
there are thin perspectives and fat perspectives.
The thought process’s and perspectives of
thin and fat people were definitely different.
She created a hunger pain theory that states; a thin persons perspective
is simply forgetting to eat, or to actually understand the feeling of being
stuffed. Where as, jokingly told, fat
people simply don’t forget to eat. Just
do not call them late for dinner.
The medical profession measures pain on a
scale of one to ten. One is no pain at
all, and ten is described as the worst pain one can imagine. She based her
hunger pain theory on this premise for the measurement of hunger.
She always associated hunger with two things
the pain in her stomach, and/or the shaky feeling of her sugar dropping. The shaky feeling usually came with a
headache she was able to rate the pain on.
She would rate her hunger pain as an eight to a ten almost all of the
time. Previously interviewed Thin people
rated their pain between one and three unless they were in a state they called
starving.
She daily ignored a pain of three and would
be able to forget to eat as well if three was her hunger level. However, she could not ignore a hot poker
turning and twisting in her gut at a scale of eight to ten. She believed a thin person would not be able
to ignore it either. Is hunger pain that
high starving?
With the knowledge that when the poker
arrived if she did not eat the poker would be joined by a headache, shaky
hands, spaghetti legs, sweaty body, uncontrollable heartburn and nausea, and
loss of energy and strength to even continue threw the day she had no choice
but to feed her addiction. Anyone in
that much distress would do whatever it took to make things feel right.
Was the state of starving a different
story? Or do thin people just not
understand the literal pain their counter parts are dealing with. When a thin person is starving the rules
change. They are no longer required to
wait for dinner to be cooked, or sit down politely with others. In the state of starving one has resorted to
Maslow’s heirchy of needs and the top thought in the brain is food. The starving person cares about nothing but
getting food, any food, as quickly as possible.
But when a fat person is starving and dares to eat it is simply
considered a loss of will power.
We are very fortunate as a country because
food is always readily available. It is
the readily available food that is killing our young with obesity, and
diabetes. It is a lot more satisfying to
stop the pain instantly at a drive through or out of the microwave then it is
to take the time to cut up fresh vegetables and dig out the steamer and prepare
a healthy meal.
Eating well becomes even more difficult if
you are poverty ridden, or already late for wherever you are suppose to be
next, or simply unaware of what is healthy and how to prepare it.
The second question of the hunger pain theory
is what is food? To so many people there
is not a black and white answer. The
response hangs in the grey areas of fast food, and microwaveable meals. Our society has lost touch of a family home
cooked meal. We have changed the food
pyramid, but we still have not updated our definition of a vegetable or a fruit.
Children grow up eating what they are given,
and their comfort foods come from childhood memories. Therefore, if they are not given a vegetable
they will not instinctively eat vegetables later in their lives. Society has
made it a waste to put anything but the pickle on a fast food burger in the vegetable
spot on the food pyramid.
Another basic truth she knew was that after
years of this catch .22 she lost her feeling of satisfaction. She could not remember what full felt like or
the last time she felt full.
She had heard Conrad say numerous times when
she commented on the last bite of food he always left on the plate. He could
not eat another bite he would be too full.
He could remember how sick he was one Thanksgiving several years ago and
he did not want to be in that much pain again.
It all came down to the simple act of
avoiding the pain and sickness of the eating ritual. Thin people avoid pain by not eating and fat
people avoid the pain by eating.
Different perspectives are why, as she stood
in the hallway with Cindy, they drifted apart.
She had been fat for years and it was not a new diagnosis or
revelation. Although Cindy treated it
like the news was just found out yesterday.
Obesity comes down to simple truths, but the
road to the truth is very complex. She
had eaten the wrong food, too much of the food, or something to get this
fat. It no longer mattered if it was a
health problem, genetic predisposition, a learned behavior, a consequence of
poverty, or simply an avoidance of pain.
It no longer mattered because she was aware of her obesity, and she had
already made changes.
She stood in the hallway holding back her
words. She probably ate a better well
balanced diet than Cindy. She was very
conscious of every bite that went into her mouth. She had completely stopped drinking for no
other reason than the calories and carbs.
Not because she was older and it didn’t fit her lifestyle, not because
it caused her blood pressure to rise, and not because her husband was an
alcoholic and it killed her to watch him slowly kill himself. No, she stopped drinking because it used up
too many weight watchers points. Did Cindy even know about weight watcher’s
points?
Her problem was no longer getting obese, but
losing the tub of lard she now possessed.
But she knew to Cindy this was a new problem to deal with. Therefore, she disregarded the sentences that
hit the raw nerve of fat people.
Cindy was not aware all fat people have the
nerve. It is the nerve that picks up on
all of societies misconceptions about how we got fat and why we are still fat.
It is a highly sensitive nerve. It is the painful reality that only the
person with the nerve understands.
Touching the nerve elicits a person to feel condemned or less because of
the stupid things those that do not understand say and do. It is in every aspect of life and almost
impossible to avoid. It affects every
thought and action until the beliefs become transparent and even those holding
the nerve begin to believe. It is a
constant fight to maintain self.
People are very selfish and centered in only
their little world of reality and not aware that something has been said or
done that hit the nerve inside the other person. However, when it comes to the nerve the owner
takes their perception of the events personally.
She believes the fat nerve runs next to
several other nerves that only society and ridicule can turn on. All she knew for sure was that these nerves
were very sensitive and that they can run very deep. She was always conscious of the nerve, and
tried very hard not to get on anybody’s nerve.
Although she was sure as opinionated as she was there had to be some
nerves she stomped on, but she tried desperately not to.
She stood in the hallway shifting her weight
again because now her back was screaming.
She was thanking God that Cindy did read the pages. Cindy wrote down her phone number telling her
to call if she ever felt she needed to.
Cindy meant if she felt like suicide, but that word was never said. She wanted to say right then that she would
never call, but it would not be that she did not want to She feels that way
everyday. Every God blessed day!
The infamous “They” say that how important a
person is to you depends on how much you reveal to them. She stood in the hallway very aware that all
of the secrets she carried inside herself Cindy read in those fifteen pages and
she knew almost nothing about Cindy. How
sincere could Cindy be?
Is she now trapped in another situation where
she gets hurt? She stood in the hallway
shifting her weight back and forth very conscious of everyone passing by. Her back was screaming and she could feel the
beads of sweat in her hairline. Even as Cindy
tried to help her and was all consumed in telling her what she needed to do,
Cindy had forgotten what she wrote the fifteen pages about.
It was all about her pain. Her constant pain. The pains in her feet, knees, hips, and back. The heartburn. It was also about her fear of a stroke or
heart attack, and the constant feeling of needing to take deeper breaths. As Cindy spoke she realized Cindy had made
the same mistake of most people.
She spoke only of physical pain, literal
pain. Emotionally she was okay. But she was in physical pain. Pain that eating did not take away. She was overwhelmed by her inability to
breath, move, and the one hundred and forty extra pounds she carried
around. But nothing else overwhelmed
her. There was nothing she could not
over come, except this pain.
The science of it was very simple. Her bones and joints could not hold up her
two hundred and seventy pound frame, but they were not quitters either. They were giving it all they had, and would
continue until one day they reached the inevitable collapse.
Cindy almost understood her, and the fact
that she read the fifteen pages is what made her want to spend days thanking
her.
She learned a long time ago that she thought
on a different level than the average person.
She knew that they were just as consumed with their lives as she was
with her thoughts and feelings. She knew
it was a great compliment if somebody came out of their own reality to see her,
and even more profound for them to attempt to deal with her private realities
problem. However, Cindy was trying to
fix things that were not broken, and She still stood invisible.
Then as quickly as the conversation started,
it ended, and she went back to work. She
was so very thankful to sit down at her desk and wait for the pain in her back
to melt away to only the normal ache of existence. It had reached the point where she hurt just
to exist.
She awoke at a two or a three on an average
morning. By the time she was up and
dressed she was living at a pain level of five.
There was no longer a time where she was comfortable, and she was
acutely aware that if her waist grew just two more inches she would no longer
be able to drive her truck, until she learned how to make her legs longer. If she did anything during the day that
caused her to stand more than literally five minutes, or walk more than
literally twenty feet then her pain went up.
After an average day at work not only is she moving excessively heavy
tired limbs, but her pain is an eight to a ten.
But if she works the floor for even part of the day her pain is eleven
plus, and her activity tolerance is to put some quick easy food in her mouth
and fall asleep exhausted by five p.m.
Most of her waking hours are at work, and she
would love to have at least one nap (two would be better) in the middle of the
day just to make it threw.
However, she continues threw the exhaustion
because she needs the job and the money to feed her children. And, like Conrad pointed out to her, she was
brought up that naps are a sign of being lazy, and being lazy is a sin.
She did not understand. If she was a cancer patient and she was in
this kind of pain no body would hesitate to help her. Nobody would mistake it for mental anguish,
and nobody would expect anything less than depression, the feeling of
powerlessness, overwhelmed, and fear of what was to come, and what capabilities
were going to go. If only she was a
cancer patient.
If she was a patient with a recent amputation
everyone would help with her concept of self and appearance alteration. If she had been hideously deformed in a fire
nobody would say to her that she was too depressed to deal with the inevitable
changes that were about to take place after her plastic surgery. If she wanted her breast augmented or a face-lift
the only question would be do you have the money?
If she were a drug addict “they” would whisk
her away cloth her, feed her, and shelter her.
They would help her beat her addiction every way possible.
But she was just an average mother with no
health insurance plagued with the two things worse than leprosy. She was poor and she was obese. When she had insurance and traveled eleven
hundred miles to the doctor to relieve her physical pain, and as an added perk
improve her appearance they told her she was too depressed for the surgery. But if she wanted to improve her breast size
mental depression doesn’t matter. The
wish center did not offer her anything to take away the pain. But she spent all of her money asking for
help and the insurance is now gone. And
she was still invisible.”
Exhausted, after my interview The
Goat Man and I curled up on the couch together and took an hour-ish nap. The key here is the –ish because the nap
lasted four hours. I rarely nap, but
when I do it is always enjoyable. We
were both so stressed.
