Okay, I have to vent about something.
There are a lot of people who read these boards. Some are way smaller than others. Some are way bigger than others. Mostly we all cohabit pretty nicely, but every once in a while, there are posts about how disgusting and vile and insupportably ugly the poster feels at X00 or X50 pounds, how the original poster can't even bear to leave the house or look down at herself while bathing or whatever because she's just so torn up about how hideous an X00-pound body is.
When I see these posts and realize that the person posting them is my size or smaller, I kind of want to pull someone's hair out (mine or the poster's, I don't know which). Even when the person posting is larger than me, I think about all the beautiful, lively, happy women who are the poster's size who've just been insulted by proxy and indirectly told that they should feel too ashamed to leave home.
I feel hot--yes, at my current weight--and get a little peevish at reading about someone's horrible fate for being trapped in a body as small or smaller than mine. If you are describing yourself as a whale at X00 or X50 pounds, what have you just said about the person who is Y00 or Y50? Am I delusional for feeling sexy as **** in my current incarnation? Is my husband blind?
On the other hand, I know we're all different. Someone who's comfortable at X50 might feel great at X00 while another might have to shed more before she feels okay about herself. It's good that people can come here and express their thoughts freely and without censure. Maybe I'm just being hypersensitive to that kind of thing.
And of course I don't have to read or respond to posts I dislike. I don't like to pass up the "Help me!" type posts, but when I open one and it's a litany of how disgusting and miserable the poster is at half my weight, well...I can't really help with that, considering the poster apparently feels that I should be pelted with rotten vegetables until I drag my vast bulk back into the house and away from decent people's view. Yeesh, sorry I even tried to help. :P
Whew, I feel better just for venting a little. Like a lot of us, I'm guilty of negative self-talk occasionally, but sometimes it gets under my skin a little to see the same phrases written out on these boards, y'know? I think that's my problem and not other posters' problems, maybe, but it wouldn't hurt to be cognizant of how that stuff affects others, too.