you know....saying something snarky and totally off the wall may be what that person needs at that moment...a laugh goes a long way to putting one in a better state of mind...

After reading all of this I'm beginning to feel like I can't express just how sad I may be on any given day, about how I let myelf get like I am - because there may be someone else that has more weight to lose and they will think that I am bashing them :(

The last thing that I would want to do is to make somebody feel worse :(

No, I think there's a big difference between saying "I'm having a fat day" or "I feel fat today" over "I am so huge and disgusting."

It's hard to hear people put themselves down anyway, but to hear someone 100+ pounds lighter than you complain about what a hideous, lazy slug they are is really hard to hear.

I'm always hyper aware of what I'm saying when I complain about feeling fat. There's a big difference between feeling fat at my current size and feeling fat where I started. I'm glad to have had the experience I had so that I may be more sensitive now.

You have every right to express your feelings! They are valid. That's why I wrote what you quoted...
The OP on this thread is processing some feelings, and well... it's valid for her and there it is on her thread. But her thread isn't about YOU. It's about her process. You can write about your process in your thread, and if she reacts... she too can remember "This thread is not about ME. That's this person's process they are trying to work out."

People just have to have safe spaces to let it all hang out, and because it IS a safe space to let it hang out... we can't be getting all caught up in each others hang ups, can we? ;)

A.

There's a big difference between someone who's here for others when they need her (or him, I don't want to leave our roosters out!) and who occasionally needs support in turn and someone whose every utterance is "Oh help me help me, ME ME ME, my life is over because I'm fat and fat people make me throw up in my mouth a little!"

Please don't think for a moment that there isn't a lot of support to be had here from people of all sizes; there is, and I've seen amazing outpourings of support for people here. Really, my post was one vent about one kind of thoughtless neediness, not about the give-and-take that 99.8% of the forum is all about.

Remember the woman in Kaplods' post? If she'd walked into the meeting and participated--even if it was to talk about how she felt down--she probably would've been welcomed, I believe. I suspect it was the "I'm going to come in and make it All. About. Me!" and the judgmental behavior that made her as welcome as a fart in a phone booth.

The root of my post wasn't the "ooh, I feel so fat" talk as much as it was the lack of empathy that I saw in one series of posts (I'm not sure if I recognized that when I first wrote that post.) I mainly wanted to vent and to maybe find a non-confrontational way to encourage people to consider their words--not the emotion behind the words, which anyone should feel free to express here.

I just got a case of crab-*** when I read an older post basically saying, "Geez, how can people stand to go places where people can see them when they're as big and gross as I am?" It just rubbed me the wrong way. Personal pain isn't an excuse to lose all sense of how you sound to other people and insult them so, at least not unless your pain is akin to losing a limb.

Edited to add: Eliana and Astrophe hit two nails squarely on their heads. :) There IS a big difference between "I feel fat" and "fat is disgusting." And yes, I am indeed still working out why that post griped me so much. I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from posting. It's the last thing I would want to do here.

For the record, I love this thread. I think it's a great, respectful discussion that is challenging all of us to think of things from perspectives different from our own. Threads like this are another reason I really love 3FC.

If a poster says she feels like a beached whale and hates being a fat blob at whatever weight. It is NOT about you . These are her feelings, she is entitled to them and that is why she has come to 3fc so she can get help and be rid of her feelings. I didn't feel good about myself, either and it had nothing to do with how anyone else weighed or how they looked.

I agree that she is entitled to her feelings. Never claimed otherwise, and in fact I've tried very hard to make it clear that I never meant people should refrain from posting their true feelings. All of us have felt very ugly things, either about ourselves or about others, weight-related or otherwise, at some point in our lives. It's an invaluable resource to have somewhere fairly nonjudgmental where we can show those feelings. It helps to drag them out in the light, and we all need help at some time.

At what point, though, does needing help excuse expressing oneself in a way that seems almost calculated to make others feel low? Is it okay to come here and say, essentially, "I feel self-loathing because fat people disgust me and I do not want to be one of your hideous kind?" Is it acceptable to ask other people how they muster the courage to leave their homes during broad daylight? Does emotional pain completely preclude being sensitive to the feelings of people who read these posts?

I don't know...I really do thoroughly Get It that this is a safe place to express one's feelings. Lord knows I've done it. But it should be possible for someone to express her feelings completely, honestly, and deeply without asking other people how they dare to show their faces in public. "Wow, you're brave to feel good about yourself when you're such a beast; I know I couldn't!" I mean, that's just a jaw-droppingly rude sentiment however you slice it.

Maybe I should've just posted, "Hey, that's jaw-droppingly rude!" to that thread instead of creating this thread. :?:

:rofl::rofl::rofl: Aaaaahhhahahahahaha! Funny...really funny!:D

Ok...I get what the OP is sayin. "Tact" goes along way. We should ALL learn to use it...especially in "written word" which easily can be taken out of context.

That said, I do also think there's a bit of "hypersensitivity" going on around here at times, but hey..nobody's perfect! Obesity is NOT the only problems people here at 3FC suffer with. There are a GROWING number of "down low" teens with eating disorders on these boards which explain the comments such as the OP mentioned. As adults, we must also learn to use a bit of "discernment" to recognize the immaturity and self-loathing underlying connotations of these type, "fat makes me wanna die" type posts.

In any event...this thread has been a perfect example of exchange of opinions by mature adult individuals. :bravo:

I think that people who write these comments ARE the oversensitive ones. They are the ones creating these negative words and images and attribute these words to themselves. Think of the "half full" or "half empty" glass. You can focus on the negative (self-loathing thoughts) or the positive (I'm still hot and sexy thoughts). The people writing this are not directing their rant to others, but to themselves. I feel bad at the harsh critisism they aim at themselves. I don't take it as critisism to others - I just don't think they can reach past their depression to think of others. It's kind of sad.

Like has already been said, a person posting that they feel like a beached whale is all about them, not about the person reading the post. That person could really be ashamed of themselves, and might truly not understand how other people aren't. They may be frustrated, they may be having a bad day, they may need to learn how to express themselves better, any number of things. They may be young, they may be terrified, they may be frustrated. But, bottom line is they are expressing something about themselves.

I have to be honest, your post tweaked me as much as the post that prompted it tweaked you. I participate on another board that is trying to start a maintainer's forum. I have been asked by people on the board to post about my experience. I often post about my weight going up and frustrations that I feel about that. Some days I feel terrible about myself, to the point of ED level frustration. I don't often express that either here or there because I've had people say to me on both boards 'what are you complaining about at your weight?' and 'I only wish I had that problem', etc. I feel like I obviously don't have the right to post since I'm not bigger than I am, and that makes me sad.

But, your post wasn't about me. It was about you and your response to something, and you are just sharing that so I'm not letting it bother me and I'm moving on. :)

And I agree with other posters as well - you are sexy and brave and all of those things. Don't let other people expressing their own anxiety make you feel less than you are.

The only way you can completely prevent others from feeling worse is by never speaking. Communication always carries a risk of hurting or offending others (unless you never discuss anything important).


You CAN express yourself any way you want and need to (within the website guidelines or your post could be removed or edited), but everyone else gets to do the same thing.


I think this thread has been quite sensitive on the topic. No one said "people don't have a right to say things that hurt me." They've just talked about what has hurt them. That's an important discussion, because one of the frequent contributors to weight gain is people-pleasing behavior. Always putting everyone else's needs before our own, to the point that eating is the only way we've gifted ourselves (a pretty ****ty gift).

I think as women we're often taught "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, and when in doubt keep your mouth shut."

We've assigned ourselves the task of making life easier for everyone but ourselves.

It's one thing to be a bit careful with your words, and it's another to feel you can't speak because it might hurt someone else.

You can't protect everyone - not even yourself. If you need to prevent hurting or offending absolutely anyone then you can't say or write anything important. If you need to prevent being hurt or offended, then you can't listen or read anything important.

I think (because it's so rare on the topic of weight loss), honesty even when it's ugly is important. It may be important for someone with 5 lbs to lose, to talk about how disgusting they feel, and even how disgusted they are by women who look like me.

I'm ok with that. I don't like it. It offends me, especially if there was a way to express the same feelings more diplomatically, but I'm a big girl and I can take it. I don't have to listen (read) it if I don't want to. I can walk away (here of course I mean, metaphorically) or I can choose to say "Hey Princess, you offend me, and here's why."

I expect people who post to be strong enough to handle disagreeing and even offensive topics and viewpoints. I have to expect it. Because if I thought most people couldn't handle it, there are a lot of things I couldn't have said here. That doesn't mean I don't expect and even value hearing from people I may offend or hurt. I think it's part of the dialogue that's very important.

I don't want to hurt any of you. I don't want to be hurt, but sometimes the risks to both are worth it in order to discuss painful but important topics.

One other point, I think is important is context. Who is saying what, where.

I don't visit the featherweight forum, because I know I'm going to hear a perspective I don't relate well to. In fact, I avoid it because I know I would be likely to think "that's a problem?"

It would be inappropriate for me to make a "you think you've got problems" post in the featherweight forum.


It would be inappropriate for someone who's never had more than 20 lbs to lose, to post an "I hate myself, fat people are disgusting" post in the 100 lb club or the 300+

It would be inappropriate to bash low-carb in the low-carb forums, or to bash calorie counting in the calorie counting forums.

It would be inappropriate to argue that a person MUST eat only organic produce and grass-fed meats in the shoestring meals forum (unless you've found some magic way to make those foods affordable to someone on a $100 a month food budget).


There's nothing wrong with talking about feelings - even ones that are offensive (not only to others, but to ourselves). Tact makes it a better conversations (and a longer one, because otherwise the mods may have to come in and shut it down), but I think it's better to overdiscuss than not (obviously because I do a lot of overdiscussing to judge by the length of my posts).


Seriously though, I do think that one of the serious contributors to weight problems is the secrecy. In the offline world, it sometimes seems like no one is willing to even talk about the subject of weight loss, let alone the deep and dirty thoughts that make it a prison of our own making. We're so afraid of hurting or offending others that we don't talk about it at all, and with obesity as with other social problems, you can't fix it very easily, if you can't talk about it.

Kaplods - your posts always speak to me, I wish I could be half as well spoken as you are. Your point about context is spot on.