A message about hurt feelings on another thread reminded me of one of those moments when a zinger hits you without warning. I thought that probably everyone has had one of those moments and venting it here may help remove some of the punch. After all, it's not the sort of stuff you can vent in normal conversation.

One of my moments happened when we were on a four hour hike through the mammoth cave in kentucky. At mid point through the cave the guide is supposed to tell interesting stories and facts about the cave. He asked if anyone had any questions, so since we were two hours hike in both directions from the exit, I asked what they would do if someone had a heart attack there in the cave. WELL, He said, "they would die. AND ma'm I don't want to hurt your feelings but obesity is the main cause for that." :embarassed: The group was about 120 people, all of whom became quiet and wanted to see what obese person had asked that question. I was mortified. I hadn't been feeling all that "fat" that day (you all know that "fat" is a feeling like sadness), and as I always notice whether or not I am the largest person in the room (that day I wasn't), I suddenly became so huge that any interest in the rest of the tour was impossible.

If you are ever in mammoth caves, avoid the skinny old man tour guide who brags about his 28 inch waist. He is a jerk.

~sirena~

I knew I was overweight when the Dr wrote that I was obese. However, having it in writing in front of my face was probably the biggest eye opener for me. Yes, It hurt but I had never thought of myself as obese. At that time I was determined to change that. It's taken a lot of years to finally get to this point but I don't think I would have been as determined if the Dr had just written that I was overweight.

One more thing, You know how it feels to be treated poorly because of obesity. You will have the tact and love and concern for this woman that it will take to handle the situation. Plus you already said it yourself you have started making progress.

I know you wouldn't purposely try to offend her. She might initially take offense. But, that is her choice. She will be able to see the progress you have made and that you care about her well-being, therefore making a positive impact on her life. Sometimes we need to take offense to something someone has said to us to put us into action. I know you will do great!! Good luck to you!!

thanks cjulzgo

I actually look forward to seeing this patient and hope I can help her with her problems.

I've had a few nasty things said to me, one was from my aunt..

"My you've gotten big, oh I mean taller" I could tell she meant I had gotten heavier.

The second was in a nail salon this girl I was sitting next to said to me, "I would love to have weight loss surgery and ya know lose that big gut and all that weight" and she was like a size 2, she was saying it to be a bitch and I wanted to just be like F--- off.

People are just so nasty sometimes.

I've had a few humdingers, but the ones that really stick with me came from the woman I now lovingly refer to as my husband's ex-mother. She never liked me for reasons I never understood. The only thing I can think of is that I have never been rail thin. I'm 5'8ish" and currently 228 lbs. This is the largest I've been without being pregnant in my life...usually I would peak at 190 in my non-pregnant fat days. Anyway...it all began when my husband and I had been dating about 2 years. She came for the holidays and my husband picked her up at the airport. He had put on some weight, and she was riding him about it. A day or two later, I was wearing a pair of my husbands old jeans that he could no longer wear (mind you, his old jeans were a 32 waist, 34 inseam). She looked at me and said, oh I like your jeans! I laughed and said "they're your son's jeans." She shrieked and squealed "You mean to tell me he's gotten THAT FAT????" I was stunned! Especially since he wore these jeans BEFORE he gained weight! All I could do was laugh, pretending to be light hearted about it. I weighed about 165 lbs. then.

It got worse though, she came to live with us when my oldest child was a year old and I was expecting my 2nd child. She just had such inexplicable derision for me. It came to a head after my daughter was born--I was still breastfeeding at the time and she started screaming about how I was a fat, f*cking C-U-next tuesday...and how she didn't understand why my husband cared more about me than her. I finally confronted her and said, what if I am fat? Big deal. I just gave birth to your GRANDCHILDREN, for god's sake. You're not exactly thin yourself. She lifted up her shirt and pointed to her abdomen and said see this? Those are my ribs. I bet you've never seen yours. It was funny because you couldn't see her ribs, but I played along and said, Are you sure? They look like wrinkles to me. I then said, it's not as if you being thin makes you a better person. She said "Yes it does!" So I told her the gap in her nasty teeth and her wrinkles, and shitty personally made us even. Not my most graceful or proud moment, but damn, it felt good. Oh, and I weighed 190 when the last incident occurred.

I don't know what's worse--having complete strangers come up to you unsolicited and say horrible things to you, or to have people who know you intimately say stupid things.

WOW Heather, for me, that one takes the cake! OMG.

I look over medical records from time to time too. Like if seeing a new doc i bring relevant ones, etc. What I hate is when I doc blames all my problems on my weight. That happens sometimes. I explain to them, "No I didn't gain the last 60 pounds until after I got sick. I used to be active until then." And you would think they would get it. But then they say stupid things like "well it takes a while for weight related problems to show up" Well duh, so how it can it be a weight related problem if it happened before I gained the weight? I'm perfectly happy to discuss my weight with them nicely and intelligently and reasonably but if they are going to say thats why I have all my problems and then tell me that I need to eat less and exercise I just sort of want to spit at them. And I've seen charts that reflect that before too- patient is obese and unhappy. Well maybe if you acted like you weren't an idiot I'd be a little happier... When instead a doc says you need to lose weight because of concerns about x,y, and z. What have you tried? I'm fine with that. Of course worst of all is when doctors refuse to discuss weight when you bring it up. Or if it is an issue for fear of negative reactions. I remember when I gained weight my freshman year and I was worried that maybe it wasn't healthy- gaining so much-- I asked my doctor about that and losing it. He said not to worry about it. I was about 2 fourty something when i asked! I had to insist that he refer to a weight loss class thing. And why hadn't anyone brought it up before when I was packing on the pounds? At that age I didn't know that my current weight was unhealthy really. I was just concerned about how I looked-- I thought I should weigh 120 pounds which of course would be very underweight for me so I always got so depressed about how much weight I would have to lose because I had no idea... Then I took the class about healthy weight and I learned and lost thirty pounds and kept it off for about a year.

I guess I opened a pandora's box starting this thread! I hope that all of you have gotten a bit relief sharing your hurts, (as opposed to not being able to say anything to anyone...).

After reading your posts I am convinced that I have not heard as many rude comments as I have received. (I am used to being isolated, so when I go out in public, I am in my own world.) The reason that I know people have been thinking ill of me is that many of the rude comments I DO remember, in retrospect, were when I was at a more or less normal weight for my height!

For example, a medical student I dated in college said after I banged my hip on a doorway, "well, if you weren't so fat that wouldn't happen". The same jerk used to call the heavy folks in his clinic "Pacaderms" (ie, in the elephant and rhino catagory). BTW, his favorite joke was, "what do you call the guy who graduates last in his medical school class? DOCTOR! I am so tempted to give his name, but I wouldn't want to be responsible for a linching! I'm the nice one.

Also, when i had starved myself down to what i thought was my nearly ideal weight, ( 131,at 17), my mother gave me the one and only complement i ever had about my appearance. Only it didn't feel like a complement when she was seemingly shocked to be giving it.

I think the most damaging one around that age, when i went back up to 151, was being a guest at my sisters health club. They offered a free analysis of your level of fitness and they determined that my ideal weight was 126. My sister said "oh -my - god" when she found out how much i weighed. I thought to myself how impossible it was to diet yet again...

When i had three children under a year (one, then twins) and i was at 161 and racing around trying to do everything, my father said, "why aren't you skinny"?

Now, any of those numbers that are in my brain, marking my diet history, would be desirable. I'm glad that i didn't hear any of the comments that were giggled behind my back, because i would undoubtably remember them.

I swear, when i am in the thin minority, i will never ever be rude to someone because of their weight.

This totally reminds me of that song that was popular about 6 years or so ago, where it was this guy reading an essay set to music--I think it was 'Always Wear Sunscreen' or something like that. It said something about remember the compliments you're given and forget the insults. It's so true how the things we hold on to are the things that hurt us.

This thread has also made me think about the things we say and think to ourselves, about ourselves. In my experience, I am so much worse to myself than any of the people who said these things to us--and that's just woefully sad. It makes me wonder if any of those mindless a**holes out there (the ones who think they are duty bound to tell us that we are fat and disgusting) have any clue how it is to be in the head of a person with a weight problem? Would it make any difference, since they clearly have some mis-wiring in their sensitivity chips?

OMG you guys, I cried reading all of these. I think one of the worst things I have ever experienced is when the SuperBowl was in town in Houston and I went to the "street party" with my mom and sister downtown. My mom and sister are both very thin and beautiful. My mom was walking a little ways ahead of my sister and I, and we were trying not to lose her in the crowd and both started shouting "Mom Mom!!". Well a guy right behind us said to his buddy "can you beleive something that big came out of her?" Referring to my little tiny mom giving birth to my fat behind. I was mortified, and my sister turned around and called him an A-Hole. I cried the rest of the night.

Brandyk, that guy was such an ass. I'm sorry that happened to you. What a jerk.

I have spent most of the day reading this thread. I LOVED IT! I am so happy to be a part of this great group of people. CYBER HUG EVERYONE! :success1: What I loved the most about how I've spent my day was that I have never told ANYONE what I am about to type for you. I would venture to guess that many of you have never shared what you shared on this thread w/ anyone else too. It warms my heart to know that we have each other.

My first "stingger" was when I first started teaching. I was talking w/ an ex about the school I was assigned to being in "not the nicest neighborhood". We joked about getting a bullet-proof- vest to wear to work, one in each color. Then he said, "Do they make them that big?" I softly laughed and quickly got off the phone.

My second "stingger" was just last year. My partner (who is a size 10, extremely fit) said, "That shirt you were wearing last night made you look 8 months pregnant." I got up and took a shower and cried for what seemed like forever. We talked about that one a lot. She said she didn't mean to hurt me, and she really felt like she was insulting the shirt (yeah right). I explained to her that my weight was my problem and if she didn't like it (I was the same size when we met) she could "hit the bricks". I accepted her apology and now she is excited and a bit nervous about my surgery. She is worried that I will 'change' who I am when I lose weight.

What is common in this thread is that we are sensitive about our weight. It is important to focus on that we are all here at LBT to better ourselves as we go through our band journey. We are all beautiful inside and out regardless of our size, and most importantly...the negative people in our lives don't need to validate us. I don't need anyone to tell me that I am pretty, or fat. Guess what...I AM BOTH!

I could tell a million stories, I've been overweight my whole life. I do have a hero story though. Some kids called me Diesel at school, as in a mac truck I guess?? (I didn't know what it meant exactly, I Just knew it was to say I was a big girl).Anyway, I would come home crying to my mom about it, and she was always there to support me. One day at the mall, the girls who called me that were there.. they said it to me.. my mom was with me.. My mom is a skinny beautiful woman, who looks in her 20's.. and this was at least 10 years ago.. She goes up to the girls (one of which actually wasn't skinny anyway), and my mom calls them out on it. She told them how ugly they were, inside and out (and frankly, they were ugly inside and out!!) and told the one girl she wasn't even skinny, so what the hell did she think she had to make fun of someone else.. anyway.. the girls cried.. and my mom's my hero for that. We still talk about that sometimes. At some point I got enough self-confidence that school bullies didn't bother me anymore.. I guess I found a group that accepted me and I didn't care about the people who didn't like me. I have great self-esteem now, but now I want to be skinny for my health. I hate my back problems

On another note, things that have stuck out beyond that that affected me, my fiance said once (on one of the many times I've dieted), it would be nice if I ever lost weight and we could have kinkier sex because I'd be more flexible. I felt bad, like I let him down.. and that he thinks about things like that.

Also, my younger sister, who is just as overweight as me, had done her yo-yoing dieting, and had lost a signifcant amount of weight.. and I figured she understood how it feels, she was picked on in school etc.. and when I came home to visit the family she makes some comment about how fat I was.. in a 'make fun of' way, not just in talking. It hurt really bad that in my family's home and by my own sister she would do something like that. She has since ballooned back up, but I'd never make fun of someone for how they look :/

Kity~

I agree this is such a great group. I am fairly new on here but I have shared things that normally I wouldn't have. It is nice to be able to relate with other people who have gone through similar situations.

One thing I have noticed is that even overweight people are rude to someone else who is overweight. I was called a Fat Bitch one time by a guy who made me look like a twig.

I think that we can help each other so much on here. It is a positive place to be. A good place to hug each other, pat each other on the back, and tell each other good job....well done (and I'm not talking steak here either) LMAO!!!!

I think this thread is a way to let go of those things that have hurt us. In life, you don't want to spend time focusing on these things or giving it any power. But a lot of times the imprint of comments lingers on long after the comment has been made. For me, reading these things has allowed me to take back my power and let go of the negativity. Thank you all for sharing.

I guess the worst think someone has said to me was the lady in the public library. It was one of the days that I did not look my best... Well I ask for help with a reference book that they kept in the back and she told me that people like me should not be in the library.

WTF? What was going through this woman's brain? I can't even imagine what made her say such a rediculous thing! Seriously- this one is going to be with me for a while! On the bright side for you, she was obviously compeltely idiotic!

As for me, I have a few. My last boss knew that I had been trying to have a baby for many years (I was far from my heaviest at this time) and just point-blank asked me, in front of my coworkers, if losing weigh would help me get pregnant. I coudln't believe she said it. I explained that I had been trying for years, even at a healthy weight, and that it was not related. She proceeded to tell me about 10 people that she knew that just lost maybe 20 pounds each and, bam!, they all got pregnant.... blah blah blah.

In high school on day, I was sick of my boyfriend acting like an immature jerk to one of my friends, and he snapped back at me- "jeez- someone forgot her Slimfast shake this morning!". Do you think I had the courage to break up? Of course not.