Tonight I want to write a little about my reasons for
creating this blog and writing about things that to me really have been too personal
to share or even talk about. And I never thought I would do something like it
really. Still I have come to the point I am doing it. Why?
It is hard to write short about my reasons. When I was young
and living in Norway and going to school, there was not much care or talk about
harassment of any kind. Where I grew up kids were cruelly harassed for many
reasons, and I was one of the targeted one´s. The things I was harassed about no
one minded and I believed it was the way things had to be, so I never told anyone
even.
However there was one thing I can remember that was talked
about and considered to be harassment and that grown up´s might mention and
tell kid´s not to say. And this was that you didn´t call anyone anything that
would refer to their looks when it came to weight. There were many harassing
words for this that could really hurt a person and the self- esteem.
For me I was never overweight and I was not the target of
such harassment directly but a lot of other things. And it has affected me
throughout life in many ways. I could
even feel like it handicapped me throughout life in many aspects. And it is
something I have realized with older age that it has also done. It had an
effect on how I felt about myself from the start and how I looked at myself and
how I accepted to be treated as life continued.
I did feel in so many ways that I was not acceptable at all
in human´s eyes. Still I was also very resourceful so I believe no one understood
my struggles or how I felt inside ever. However I also grew up hearing that God
loved me and had created me special and unique and I believed he loved me just
the way I was. And I grew up with the belief that his love had nothing to do
with looks or outward appearance. So I never built my life around it.
I never myself saw or judged others from outward appearance,
but tried to see people´s personality and character and to understand who they
were and what special personality an talents each rather had.
Still the fact that it was seen as harassment to call
someone fat, that is part of my being and I can never to this day accept it to
be ok. For me it doesn´t have to do with being slim or overweight or the “right”
weight according to some standard. It has to do with accepting the diversity of
humans. We are all different and one of a kind. We are not molded in one mold
and supposed to be the same. We should learn to appreciate our differences and
explore it and enjoy it and see how we complement each other, rather than how
we compete in any way whether it is talents or looks or whatever. We should try
to see how we best develop our own potentials and be our own best.
There are so many things in life that has made me come to
the point of bringing this issue publicly. The last years I have been really
overweight but I did not have any health problems and still don’t´ due to this.
And some might say I am lucky. I also
can say I didn´t eat unhealthy according to Scandinavian cuisine. I just ate
normal food that we eat. I have lived with so many other problems and tried to
survive those year after year. And my weight I would say is a result of the sum
of all. And my last concern really was my weight or my looks even. It seemed it
was rather others around that had problems with it, but I really felt
overwhelmed with what I faced in life in all other areas and this was the last
priority on my list. Other problems were quite severe year after year. I just
struggled to survive and not give up really, that is how reality was from my
angle.
Still my weight became more severe. I have a daughter I have
taken care of alone for so many years who is an elite soccer player, so I
really felt we had to eat healthy every day. And healthy was what was healthy
for her first of all. Also we have all the time struggled to make ends meet
each and every day so with very little money I could not afford much. So what
was healthy and good for her with all her practice I welcomed since it was also
cheap really. For instance, for her it was great and needed to eat a lot of
pasta, carbs! And pasta was all we could afford many times.
If ever I thought about the need of losing weight I would
feel very helpless even to how to be able to. There was no time for me to
exercise, no money to go to a gym and these things many around did. It was just
not possible for me even if I had been able to find time. Still I tried to do
what I could like walking when she was practicing and I was waiting for her. As
an example for several years I did walk and even swim four times a week for one
and a half hours each time waiting for her. Still I did not lose weight but I
did not gain either. But it was good for my health anyways. I really felt it a
hopeless case to loose what I had gained. Also I had no motivation to do it. To strive
for looks didn´t motivate me, not either long life or health, since life was
simply too tough and unbearable, and there was nothing wrong with me physically.
That is how I felt.
So why do I want to share this? One reason why I write about
this is this: One day some years ago it was like I woke up in a new world and a
new reality and I could not understand what had happened in the meantime. What
had gone crazy in the world? That is how I felt really. To me it was like it
suddenly happened and I wondered when it happened. So what had changed?
Suddenly it seemed ok to call people fat, to look at people
as fat, and to refer to people as fat. It was ok to not accept people like they
are. To hear news reporters talk about people as fat and to see TV shows where
this was and is the norm to show and talk about this as something terribly
wrong. To hear people talk down on people and the way people look and so on.
Suddenly (it seemed to me), it was ok and expected even, to
do surgeries to fix your appearance, whether it was weight or wrinkles or
breast size or anything. And I am not talking due to health risks here, but
pure outward appearance and looks. God´s creation was not acceptable anymore.
That is how it seemed. It was like the
whole world had changed and I had been sleeping, waking up to a totally new
reality, impossible for me to understand.
Even the reasoning around looks when it comes to getting
jobs and these things I could not understand. What does looks or weight have to
do with your qualifications or your ability to perform most jobs.
Suddenly it
was not ok to grow old anymore and get wrinkles! I could go on. And for me,
this was and still is not possible to accept or understand even that it has
been a normal and accepted way to look at and value people.
My own struggles in life had led me so deep in the valley of
death that I had one message to myself and the world, and this was: You are
valuable, you are loved, just the way you are! Even if no one sees you,
acknowledge you or value you, you are still like the most precious treasure,
just because you exist and because you are a human being. You are a unique
creation and should be just the way you are. This is what I told every child
that came to me during the days in my exhibition children of the same earth,
but most of all I told it to myself.
I felt my heart breaking every time I saw and heard young
girls for instance talking about doing surgeries to fix their looks and as the
most normal thing, and spending fortunes on it.
I was just not able at all to understand this development
and my heart really broke when I thought about this way of viewing people and
our worth.
I also felt at the same time that the more severe my own
problems became, the less I cared about my weight. The reason was: I didn´t see
any correlation between my weight and the problems I had to face. And there was
none. And if someone would even say anything in that direction I would feel
very upset, since it had nothing to do with reality, at least not my reality. No
matter how I had looked throughout my life, no matter what I had weighed, I had
not been treated better. I had experienced problems of various kinds all along that
became more and more overwhelming. The truth is all I could feel was that I was
despised. And it was how I saw myself even, like it was part of every cell of
my body. Still I tried to tell myself I was valuable.
I was overweight for many years now and had experienced some
of what it means in our society today. So for instance I dreaded to go to the
swimming hall to swim. The reason was because small kids go with their mothers
in the locker rooms and they would point and talk and comment. So this didn´t
feel good of course. But what pained me more was the fact that very small kids
would even think about weight and looks this way. I was thinking about what it
reflects of the values in our society.
Also on the bus or trains or on the street small kids in
strollers even would point and tell me I was fat. And I was really bothered
about it. Not for my own sake, but for the sake of what this tells about our
society and the values that exist. Even to be told I will never get a job due
to my looks has upset me a lot. And even though I know it is a fact that this
is a factor in many places, I can never find it acceptable or right.
Don´t think I am ignorant of the health risks that could
come with too much weight. But I still want to raise these other issues. Also
since I have experienced the prejudice that comes with overweight I feel I can speak
about what I have experienced. And since
I have been overweight and I know what has happened in my life, I really recent
all the theories people have about this and all the prejudice about what could
be the cause. And I just want to say: We should never judge another fellow
human being, because we don´t know what this person has faced in life. The
important thing is to remember and respect each and everybody´s value.
So what happened that caused me to make a change for myself?
What happened to one day give me motivation?
Actually my life crashed in all ways and I was at a point
where I could not solve one problem I faced no matter how hard I tried. And I
had tried for so long. At this point something happened that was like a message
from God himself that he saw me and appreciated me the way I was. I got a
message from a person I knew when I was 15 and had not seen or heard from
since. And it was through an email. And this person wrote about how happy this
person was to find me after all these years. Also telling me how happy this
person was to see I had not changed at all! And that was like the biggest joke really,
since at 15 I was really this small, slim girl and when this person found my
webpage and my email and wrote to me I was really, really a very overweight
older woman. It was not possible to see any similarity at all. But this person
looked at what I had done in life since then and remembered something about me
and who I was as a person, what values I held back than and could see I had
lived according to those throughout my life.
And this message opened up something in my heart. I started
to look at who I had been back than and over the years. I started to look at
pictures and I saw a girl and a woman that I didn´t have in my mind. In my mind
I had always been bad looking, due to how I had been met or treated or told.
But when I looked at these pictures over the years I saw something different.
And I was shocked to see and realize for real that I had always believed I was
ugly, that I had always believed I was too heavy. But in these pictures I saw a
slim and good looking girl and woman. And I was starting to see how I had been affected
in my own thinking and view about myself by what I had experienced. And I
started to feel, I don’t have to be this way. I want to find that person again,
the person I see in those pictures. I know who I am inside, since I always had
as a goal to not lose that person no matter what I faced. But for years I had
felt that this person I see in the mirror every day I don´t recognize. I don´t
like even to look at that person, I don´t like to be in a picture. It was like
it was never me. Still I felt it impossible to get “myself” back. Like an
impossible task.
I looked at pictures when the kids where small and I was
thinking, how will it be if they get kids. I would be afraid to look after them
because I felt it would be dangerous. Small kids run fast and I was thinking, I
was too heavy to run and catch them. There were no kids on the way as I was
thinking about these things. I looked at some pictures when I was wearing my
Ghanaian outfits that I loved to wear, sewed by seamstresses especially for me.
But now I could not wear anything but wide garments with no shape at all. And I
looked at pictures when I was hiking in the mountains and I could not do it
anymore. I remembered the feeling of being on the top of a mountain and how it
lifts and carries your spirit above all the troubles down in the valley, and
how I could draw strength from that for months and months in my younger days.
And I had been thinking I will never be able to get to a mountain top again.
Also I found the roots to some of my pains inside. And these
things altogether just made me decide one night to change the course of my
development. And I didn´t know what to expect. I just decided I will start and
do something different each day from that day. And since I started it has not
even been hard. I have this picture inside where I want to end up. I don’t know
when, just that someday I want to be there. It is about how I want to see
myself even on the outside, and about what I would like to be able to do no matter if I live long or short. This is something no one of us know anything about. And I don´t know how long it will take me to get to where I see in my mind. But that is not important really. I will just keep this course each day and if it also helps to improve my health towards old age I can only be thankful.
Personally I feel shocked though that I have come so far in 12 ½ months.
And also with what I have done really. Also I feel I have learned so much. So I do feel an urge even to share to
give inspiration and help even to others that might need it for whatever
reason.
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