YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I am five foot tall without shoes and weigh about 80 pounds I am tiny. I do not look sickly and i do not look annorexic. I despise being called that. I really despise it if i have ate dinners with you lots of times and then you accuse me of being that way. I am like any other woman I gain and lose the same ten pounds. the only problem is i dont have the ten pounds to lose, nor do i mean to lose those ten pounds. When i am depressed I have no appetite. So i dont eat and i work my ass off at work and I lose weight quickly. And I cant gain it back very easily at all. For me to gain five pounds I have to eat every two hours and I will only gain that in three months. its sad.
If you are fat you are discrimnated against or if you are skinny you are discrimnated against. Im not sure where that happy medium is. I hate my body I hate most everything about my body. I know its partly because I have always been made fun of my size, and thrown and tossed around cause people can do that. I envy the bigger set people cause they didnt get tossed into boys bathrooms or they werent thrown in dumpsters. I really dont know if larger people get asked stupid questions. Im sure you do at least get asked god do you really need to eat that candy bar? I get asked do you ever eat? What do you eat how much do you eat? My favorite one I have ever heard is are you diseased? I hate when people rush up to me grab my wrists and say omg do you ever eat look how tiny you are!!!
I love the ones that tell me i looked just like you when i was your age. I love telling them i hope i dont grow up to look like you... Shuts them up...
I dont like all the hype everywhere and on everything about weight loss i hate that all the stars are these stick boney people they dont even look natural. I get people are overwieght but do we need to hear about it 24 hours a day? What about the people that need to gain? im not talking ensure age group either. Im sure the ones who need to lose weight know it already do we really need to hear about everything that you can do for it. I hate the shallowness of this world where we have to have perfectly srtaight white out teeth perfectly blonde hair. Looking back at old movies old models and oldie rock groups they all had scraggly hair and teeth at times. i love how "real" they were.. hell elvis got fat but he was still a legend. When did we become so shallow? And could this be why girls as young as 8 are being diagnosed with eating disorders? For me i dont care if you got meth mouth i dont care if your hairs a mess I surely dont care if your in a size 0 or a size 14. As long as your nice and not superficial like the perfectly white out teeth people are.
Now im just rambling but I want to know which is better bigger or skinny what is your experiences each way?

Healthy is better. Not skinny, not fat, but healthy.

When I was obese I was physically and verbally assaulted quite often.

When I was a healthy weight, I got a lot of very positive attention for my looks.

When I wasn't at a healthy weight, people would stare. People who hadn't seen me in awhile would just....again, just stare. Ask me if I had a bad night of sleep, tell me I looked tired, offered to take me out for lunch.


And, as for comments, I would just straight up ignore them. Of course, it was hard to ignore when I got hit by some asshole young man because I was fat and "he didn't want me to be around," but when I'm not at my healthy weight, I'd ignore any comment, period. After awhile they stopped. I mean I ignored any word that came out of their mouths regarding weight or food - I would start with "It's not your business" and walk away.

I also have an eating disorder, so I'm a little more sensitive to comments...if that's possible. Of all weight spectrums, my healthy weight got me the most positive attention. At that weight range I have a rosy glow and enjoy a bit of a taboo - a white girl with a booty! lol
I loved it. Of course, that's the curse - the disorder doesn't let me stay there.

Anyway, the social stigma is ridiculous. I found it best to just cut out pop media (no magazines, no cable) and I watch tv through Netflix and Hulu. Less media exposure. I get news through Google and Yahoo. I find that I'm more attuned to the "real" world than pop culture, which allows you a bit of a less polluted perspective when you're hit with something particularly stupid through the media.

By the way, if you want to gain weight, maybe opt for high calorie foods to keep in your home and supplement with some protein shakes. In treatment I had to drink Ensure. It doesn't taste good, but luckily there are some better options out there!

Try things like nuts, peanut butter, avocado, protein bars, etc. If you're not eating enough calories, this could help boost your caloric intake without much effort on your part. It might give you more energy as well, which is always a plus

It's all a crock of crap. I am a 38 year old man with a gut. I think more men exist out there that have body issues than let on. I'm about 50 or so pounds overweight but I "carry it well." The only thing going for me is that I am burly and intimidating so I don't have to put up with any guff. But, trust me, I'm as hard on myself as anyone. Throw depression, anxiety and other mental stuff into the blender with the food side of things... Well, I digress. Surround yourself with people who care about YOU, in totality, people who care about the important stuff and not necessarily the vessel you happen to inhabit!!!

Unfortunately the majority of people, of which is an actual small percentage of, agree upon a set of beliefs of what is "it." And any deviation of that is up for being discriminated against. And the more the deviation of "it", the greater the discrimination. I just wish that I had had the wisdom & knowledge of how fake the images, tv shows, and movies portrayed the ideal, achievable "it" if I only followed all the advise in Cosmo. I wish I hadn't believed the idea that we can all have the ideal body, hair, home, etc. if we just do what they tell us. Don't get me wrong, cause I will have body issues till the day I die...but I don't beat myself up about it like I used to. I don't really believe that my life would be perfect if only I had the body of a Victoria Secret model.

Hi Cherry,
Increase the number of meals and eat more snacks. Increase caloric intake and include smarter food more in your daily meals. Drink energy fluids, increase workouts, lift weights and take supplements.

Evaner wrote:Hi Cherry,
Increase the number of meals and eat more snacks. Increase caloric intake and include smarter food more in your daily meals. Drink energy fluids, increase workouts, lift weights and take supplements.

I don't think she was asking for this kind of advice. She wants to be accepted as is and not have to change her body to do so.

I am a big advocate for being happy at whatever size YOUR body wants to be at. Everyone is different. If you eat healthy, and you are active, and you are a tiny person.. maybe that is just how you are naturally. That is okay! it is so hard to shut out the voices regarding your body. I am fat and it took me a long time to realize that not everyone was sitting there thinking about my body.. and if someone made a comment about my body it was because they were insecure about their own body.

Everyone has body issues, and we are being bombarded on a daily basis on what we should look like.

Fat, skinny, lean, muscular everyone is dealing with it.

So, pretty much ditto to what fifthsonata said.

amycoffeeface wrote:I am a big advocate for being happy at whatever size YOUR body wants to be at. Everyone is different. If you eat healthy, and you are active

That may actually be a big part of why I have so much body hatred. I'm a 39 year old woman who knows how to cook, yet I eat like a (stereotypical) bachelor. I wonder if I did eat healthy and exercize more, and I still looked like this, if it'd be easier to accept and even love.