I am a person with chronic pain who is significantly overweight. As anyone with chronic pain knows, it’s HARD to exercise when you’re in pain….and unless you have chronic pain, I don’t think you have any idea of what is being asked when you’re in pain and told to exercise. Even if you can do some form of exercise, you pay for it afterwards. When I walk too much, (and I am never clear of where “too much” is), the pain after is crazy. After I sit and rest I can barely get out of my chair or take a step because the pain is excruciating. It’s very hard to feel like anything is worth that much pain…I guess I could do it and then comfort myself by eating ice cream…that has been known to happen, even though it’s super unhelpful.
Recently I was listening to Billie Eillish sing, “Idontwanttobeyouanymore” (great song by the way)…anyway that song really resonates with me. Here are the words to some of the song…
“Hands getting cold
Losing feeling is getting old
Was I made from a broken mold?
Hurt, I can’t shake
We’ve made every mistake
Only you know the way that I break
If ‘I love you’ was a promise
Would you break it, if you’re honest?
Tell the mirror what you know she’s heard before
I don’t want to be you, anymore.”
I don’t know if this song is about her or not…I hope not. I would hate for a successful 18 year old to look in the mirror and think she doesn’t want to be who she is anymore.
I have felt, on more than one occasion, that maybe I was made from a broken mold. All the pain, my bones wearing away, tendons and ligaments tearing while doing nothing, all the surgeries…people have actually laughed when I’ve told them I was going to have surgery again! I get that I have had a lot of surgery but laughing is not a good response…regardless of what you intend.
The pain so severe that it hurts to be touched if it isn’t soft and gentle. When my grandkids were little they would climb on me and I would be in such pain as their little elbows and knees dug into my body…but I didn’t stop them because I love them so much…if an adult did that I would push them away…and probably be angry.
“Tell the mirror what you know she’s heard before”…How many times has our own mirror heard us say something unkind about ourselves? Heard us wish we were someone else? On more than one occasion, I have looked in the mirror and thought that I didn’t want to be me anymore. All the pain and then all the weight gain…I try and lose it and I do and then I gain back more. It’s a frustrating cycle that makes me want to scream. It’s hard not to look in the mirror and see ourselves as broken or damaged…and to wish we were different…smarter, thinner, stronger, faster, taller…or whatever other “er” we might feel about ourselves.
“If ‘I love you’ was a promise, would you break it if you’re honest?” Do you ever say “I love you” to yourself in the mirror? If you cringe or laugh at the idea, then I’m gonna say the answer is a big “HELL NO!” I had started a practice or ritual a few years back where after a shower I would put lotion on my body, gently, and tell myself “I love you” as I was doing it. It was a powerful practice acknowledging all my body has been through and it keeps on going…but I stopped doing it. I stopped because…I’m not sure why…in a hurry after a shower…not wanting to take the time…not feeling I deserved the time…not loving myself so I avoided it. Pretty sure that’s the one.
How often would we say that we act, or speak, in an unkind or unloving way toward ourselves? How often do we break a promise to love ourselves? I recently had an experience where I said “hi” to someone I knew and they returned the salutation but quickly looked away. Do people really think that I can’t tell that you don’t want to look at me…that the fact that I am overweight makes you conclude that i am lazy and undisciplined? I can see the judgement in your eyes. That look…that look…I don’t wanna be you anymore.
I am not writing this to depress anyone…it is meant to put out there honestly what it feels like to be in pain all the time and to be overweight. I don’t think that my experience is unusual at all. I think that many of us find ourselves in the same boat. And I think we might like to change things, but we may not be able to. And before anyone thinks they have the answer for me…I can lose all the weight I need to and it may help my pain some but it won’t cure it because there is no way to cure it. I have been at a “ideal” weight and I still was in pain….the underlying conditions are not eliminated by weight loss.
I am not saying that you or me or anyone else needs to be fixed…or that any “other” has the right to push or pull us to change to be what they think we should be. We each deal with our own body in our own way…others can judge all they want but the decisions are our own to make.
So here’s the thing…I am not trying to change anyone, including myself, to fit into someone else’s idea of what or who or how I should be or look or act. I am not saying that I need fixing or that anyone else does…because we are not broken. Just because I have chronic pain and am overweight, I am not broken. You are not broken. I see you and you are not broken. Different does not mean broken…different, even if you don’t understand it, does not need to be fixed. We are all different…we just accept some “different” better than others.
What I am advocating is loving and accepting ourselves. Being able to look in the mirror and say, “I love you” and actually mean it. This blog is about learning to befriend ourselves…all of ourselves, even what we don’t like. We have to be able to love and accept ourselves before we can love and accept other people. Now you may be thinking, as I once did, that you are perfectly able to love other people regardless of how you feel about yourself…but here’s another thing…we love ourselves conditionally…if we lose weight, get a better job, find a partner, be the smartest, the fastest, etc.then we love ourselves…and that then is how we love others. I love you if you love me…I do this and I expect you to do that…whether spoken or unspoken it’s there…we put conditions on others just like we do to ourselves.
That is what this blog is about…learning about ourselves and becoming our truest selves…becoming who we really are…the fullest, best, most amazing version of ourselves, so we can bring all of that into our relationships and into the world.
And remember compassion first…I am enough…you are enough…just as we are.
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Kai Raines 