Intervention Leads to Insult
My mom calls me up and tells me to tune into TLC (The Learning Channel). As I am searching through my Dish TV menu guide she is telling me how awesome this show she is watching is. I was extremely eager to find out what it was, until I saw what it was. It was Inside the Brook Haven Obesity Clinic.
While I do have the show DVRed (or Tivo-ed to you Tivo folks), I wasn’t expecting to hear what my mom was just about to say. She had the nerve to compare me to the people on that show. I am fat and I accept that fact, but I ain’t on the level of the people on the show. I weigh over 300 lbs but she some how forgot that I am not the normal 300 pounder. The patients on the show are morbidly obese and most require some kind of surgery in order to lose the weight. Many of them can’t even perform normal, every day activities without some assistance.
So when my mom calls me up and thinks that I should check myself in to the clinic or get gastric bypass surgery, it pisses me off. I know that she is just trying to care for me, but I don’t like being compared to those folks on the show. I feel like I have been progressing nicely with my weight loss and overall health, but this just makes me feel as though I haven’t.
It’s like I have been delusional or something. As if all my progress is just a figment of my imagination. This is definitely a set back in the morale column. Thanks mom! Now I need to go get angry on my treadmill. Yes, that should work nicely.
Parents, don’t you just love them? Since you are aware of your health issues already, there is no reason you need to step into somebody else’s choices for what you should do about it. Keep doing what you are doing, it appears to be working. Build up your thickest skin for comments like that and keep going!
i try. but it gets to me. working hard and then having someone do this isnt easy.
Even though her comments go to you, she probably didn’t intend for them to be hurtful. That’s the most important thing to remember. You’ll feel better next time you step on the scale and see how much you’ve shed.
yeh, i doubt she was trying to hurt. she meant it to help me.
Some of the most cutting comments can come from our parents. It’s sad, but it’s been true from my perspective. My mother in law hurts my husband all the time, when he graduated from college with his BS and his teaching certificate she said that she was surprised that he could even still think at his age (35). Backhanded compliments, meant to hurt. Some parents use them as weapons. You are NOT in that category of the people at that clinic because if you are, I was. Sure, we’re dealing with some obesity, and we know it, but man, we’re working on it!!
Don’t let these things derail you, keep on and remember, success is the best revenge!
Thanks for the uplifting comment. I dont really like when people, especially loved ones, take dirty hits at the people they love.
As with most things in life, there will be people that will try to get you off your path to your goal (whether intentional or not) and part of your success will be to either ignore them or turn what they say into more motivation…
just stick to your workout, then go and show her that it doesnt always take surgery to lose weight. keep it up man.
Thanks for the advice.