How I see others seeing me

When you weigh over 400 lbs you feel like a walking freak show. I always felt like EVERY SINGLE PERSON was looking at me and thinking or saying something about me. That is a horrible way to live. I am sure its not the same for every overweight person, but I imagine I am not alone. I never felt OK in my own skin when I was around the public. Luckily I didn’t let it turn myself into a recluse, but I sure wanted to some days. It’s hard feeling like people are looking at you and thinking hurtful things. Sad thing is I think that way because of how I see people treat overweight people on social media and in my own life. People are mean. Not everyone, but a lot. Even if a person isn’t mean spirited, they can still be quite judgemental.

Losing the weight has put me into another unique situation of how others treat me and how I still perceive what people are saying about me. One crazy thing I have been doing when I am out and about is having this running thought in my head. If I see a stranger that I have never met I feel this disappointment that they are judging me because they don’t know where I have come from. If they only knew I used to be over 400 lbs then they wouldn’t judge me. It’s like I feel compelled to tell people that I have lost over 100 lbs when I have no reason to justify anything to a stranger. I hate that I am like this. I hate that I can’t stop thinking about what others think. I guess the good thing is that I didn’t let it physically alter my life. I still go out, I still go places, but its just annoying that I can’t stop the craziness in my head.

Another one of the crazy things that I am dealing with in my head is how I feel about how people in my circles think about me and treat me. Let me preface by saying that not any of my friends, co workers, or family have done anything, these are merely the thoughts in my head. I stress over how people treat me because I was fat. As I am losing weight I feel like I perceive that people are treating me better and it makes me kinda mad. I am mad because I feel like people treat me better now that I am losing weight. Again, this is all very much in my head. If I truly sit down and think about it, no one is treating me any different. I have the same friends, the same family, the same co workers (even though a certain someone moved away from the Finance department to go work with Operations….You know who you are LB! LOL) It’s just another one of my unflattering problems that I think too much! I perceived things through a clouded lens that was driven by my low self esteem, depression, and anxiety.

“I can see clearly now the rain is gone” is definitely a song floating around in my head. I wish I wouldn’t have spent so much time in my own head and just lived my life. Coulda, woulda, shoulda! Live moves on. I am in the here and now finally and living my life the way I want to live it and quite frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about me or my weight. My happiness comes from me and Heavenly Father. I am sorry I didn’t see that earlier.