Follow my story as I pondered a great and baffling mystery, and then solved it—and then discovered a whole new mystery.
I was having some strange, inexplicable symptoms. I was sluggish and lacked energy. I wasn’t moving well, and I had lots of reflux. But mostly, and most strangely, my pants felt a little tight. What could it all mean?
I thought about it for a while, analyzed the content of the past several weeks, assembled and studied the facts at my disposal, and after a while, I arrived at the conclusion: Me eat too much food, and so me get little bit fat.
That’s it. That’s all that was going on. I had been super busy and distracted, so I stopped paying attention to what I was eating. That’s what happened.
Perhaps you are wondering why this whole situation was in any way a puzzle me. Most people, when faced with a clue like “tight pants” would pretty quickly arrive at the answer “more belly.” Most of my life, I would have done the same thing. So why didn’t I figure it out?
Because one thing was missing: The crushing shame and self-loathing that has always come along with a little bit of weight gain, my entire life. I was just a little bit bigger, and it was because I was eating a little bit more. There wasn’t any “YOU USELESS VERMIN” about it; but without that special ingredient of self castigation, I genuinely didn’t recognise what was going on.
A similar thing happened to me a few years ago. I had to get up and do something, but there was something wrong with my arms and legs. They hurt and felt weak and sore and unready. I didn’t understand what was happening to me for several minutes, but eventually it dawned on me: I was tired.
Same story as the weight gain: I didn’t recognize what was going on, because I wasn’t dragging myself through that familiar wretched landscape of second-guessing and guilt, where I accused myself of being lazy and interrogated myself about why I was so unwilling to do such an easy thing. Without this extra burden of self-loathing, I literally could not identify what I was feeling as simple tiredness. I was very, very used to being tired; I was completely unfamiliar with being tired and just accepting that as an objective fact, without tarting it up in an ugly disguise of self-blame.
If you had asked me, “Is it the worst sin in the world to eat cookies for snacks several days in a row?” or “Should a working mother of ten feel ashamed for being tired?” I would have answered: “What? No! Goodness, of course not!”
But deep down, I believed it. I didn’t even know I believed it for years, until I suddenly stopped believing it.
I’m telling you about my particular brand of crazy because I think most of us are like this, in one way or another…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image: Mosaic of the creation of Eve, Monreale Cathedral (public domain)
That was *really* beautiful. Thank you, indeed.
I needed this one today. Thanks. 🙂