WHY ARE THE FAT STILL RIDICULED TODAY?

Months ago, I cannot remember when exactly, the Lord put it on my heart that making fun of fat people was just about the only thing left that was still accepted in our society.  Making fun of ANYONE that is different than yourself is ungodly and wrong.  I think everyone knows that.  But certain things that were once widely accepted are now taboo in today’s society.  No longer can you make fun of gays, people of color, the handicapped, etc.  (And why would you want to?!)  Even those with addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, work are on the taboo list.  So you say you’re an addict?  No problem!  The medical community now says it’s “not your fault” because those are “diseases.”  BUT wait a second!  If you say you’re addicted to food?  Well, screw you for eating too much and not exercising!  Ya, that’s it in a nutshell.  But the bigger question is WHY?  FAT-BASHING or FAT-SHAMING are still okay?  HOW IS THAT SO?

 

Many years ago, I worked for a company that employed Psychiatric doctors and nurses.  After that, I worked in a non-profit center that helped people with mental illnesses.  Needless to say, I learned a lot about Psychiatry and people needing the help of Psychiatrists because I had to read patient charts all day.  I quickly learned that addiction is a coping mechanism for stress.  Sometimes it’s referred to as “self-medicating.”  When something traumatic happens to a person, it causes an immense amount of stress on the human mind and body.  If you are not able to get past or overcome that stress, then the person will do whatever it takes to alleviate the stress and make themselves feel better.  This where alcohol, drugs, etc. come in.  An addiction comes about from something that “feels good” and the person repeats the behavior every time they feel stress.  If the stress is on-going in their lives, the person’s need to self-medicate can become a full-blown addiction.  I learned that if or until the person overcomes the stress, it is nearly impossible to break the addiction.  This is why therapy is often needed.  Because often a person won’t even know WHY they are addicted.  Once they “face their demons” so to speak, the addiction can be broken easier.  Case in point: Tom Arnold.  He came out years ago and said that during the time he was addicted to drugs and alcohol, he didn’t really know why.  It was during therapy that he started to remember the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.   He has also been overweight.  Is it too much of a stretch to think that food was also part of his addiction?  And if you accept that, then making fun of him being fat would, in fact, be making fun of his sexual abuse.

 

Okay, so the reason I wrote this article is because I have fought being overweight all my life.  As I am writing this, I am fat.  I have spent probably 20 years of my life actively ON a diet.  Trust me when I say that it is a horrible way to live, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.  I was of normal weight until puberty, age 11 or 12.  That was also the same time in my life I started Junior High School, and the bullying began in my life.  I didn’t find out until I was 40 years old that I had Asperger’s Syndrome, so during this time I was “weird” to the other kids and didn’t have many friends.  I was also verbally bullied at home by my mother and then by my little sister who just copied my mother’s language and behavior.  The doctors told my mother that there was nothing wrong me and that I just had an attitude problem (they didn’t know about Asperger’s back then.)  My mother sticks by that story to this day. It’s her go-to excuse explanation as to why she treated me so bad.  The doctor’s said it was okay.  A few years ago she even said to my face, “you made me treat you that way.”  Yup she was the victim, not me.  I was quite literally shocked when she said that.  She immediately played “victim” as if I did something to her.  I was 42 years old and didn’t think she could hurt me anymore and yet, she still found something to say that crushed my soul.  And I cried like a baby that day.  Her inability to admit what she did, own up to it and apologize to me, which is all I wanted, was heart-wrenching and the reason why I cannot have a relationship with her ever again.  That is the very last day I ever spoke to my mother.  She and my sister treated me terrible but only outsiders saw it.  Other family members were so used to it, they thought it was “normal”.  A friend of mine once saw my sister and I talking and after my sister left she said, “why does she treat you so mean?”  My eyes immediately welled up with tears and I said, “you saw that?!  No one has ever seen that before.”  It was the defining moment when I realized I was not crazy… I was not the bad guy.  The awful truth is that my mother and sister do not like me, treat me like garbage,  and they blame me for it.  Is it any wonder, then, why I have self-medicated with food all my life?

 

It’s no surprise that growing up, we didn’t have any Christianity in our home.  We celebrated Christmas and Easter, and my family told people that we were Christian.  But we were NOT Christians.  My mother lied to make herself look good.  She hated God and even frowned upon us going to church with friends.  It’s no wonder that she found Catholicism when I was a teen.  Catholicism fits her own screwed up view of Christianity.  She had all these books she read about the saints and about Catholicism in general, yet I never saw her reading an actual Bible.  But I digress…  It was during all this strife at school AND at home, that I self-medicated with food.  My mother was also overweight so we had lots of sweets in the house, and we had the run of the kitchen.  We ate whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.  And when the kitchen was bare because it was almost grocery shopping day, I remember eating uncooked pasta out of the box and eating uncooked corn meal out of the bag.  That certainly sounds like an addiction to me!  Then, I lost 60 pounds during the summer between 10th and 11th grade.  That was my very first diet.  I have been gaining and losing weight ever since.  There was a point during my 20s that I was normal weight but I drank alcohol…. a lot of it.  Ya, I was substituting alcohol for food.  And when I stopped drinking?  You guessed it…I gained weight again.

 

Matthew 6:15 KJV – But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

 

Now, I didn’t start out to make this a bash-my-mom blog.  I have told the Lord that I FORGIVE my mother and sister.  I even told the Lord I forgave my father for going along with them and not sticking up for me.  I gave up carrying around the baggage of the hatred I felt for them.  I FORGAVE.  But the words “forgive and forget” and NOT IN THE BIBLE.  Forgetting what someone did to you and forgiving are very different.  I cannot forget because neither of them have admitted what they did nor apologized for it.  I HAVE to forgive them… FOR MYSELF.  But I cannot forget and move past it because they would still continue to treat me the same as they always have.  Each time in my life when I have “let it go”, I “forgot” and went on as if nothing happened, and it resulted in me being treated horrible again.  My spirit just can’t take it anymore.

 

Getting back to the topic at hand;  WHY then is it still okay to be mean to fat people?  WHY do I still see troll-posts on Facebook telling a fat girl she is “unhealthy”, “obese”, “UGLY?”  WHY?  WHY are life-long skinny people telling fat people to do….anything?  A life-long skinny person couldn’t possibly understand the challenges we face… what we go through.  Would those same people just tell a drug addict to stop taking drugs!  “Oh it’s so simple… just stop taking drugs!”   “Oh it’s so simple… just stop eating bon-bons and go exercise!”  Wow!  I should just STOP because it’s soooooo easy!  Why didn’t I think of that?!  And some of the same people addicted to alcohol, shopping, gambling, etc. are telling fat people to STOP.  The hypocrisy is never-ending.

 

John 13:34-35 KJV- “ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another;  as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

 

In retrospect, I see that if my family had simply had JESUS in our home, my childhood would have been much happier.  My mother would have been understanding, caring, loving and in turn, my sister would have learned that from her.  We would have been a loving family.  JESUS really IS the answer for everything.

 

If you judge others, without knowing everything they have been through, and I mean EVERYTHING, then you are WRONG.  That is why the Bible says not to judge others.

 

Luke 6:37 – “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

 

1 Corinthians 4:5 NIV – “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.”

 

FEAR OF COMMUNICATION AND STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF

The Lord has put it on my heart to write a new blog.  He has asked me to write about COMMUNICATION.  And I know a lot on this subject, believe me.  I am the QUEEN OF COMMUNICATION!

Now, to be fair, I don’t always communicate properly.  My Aspergers makes it difficult and I speak bluntly, to a fault.  I’ve been told that my bluntness and tone of voice make the communication lost on people.  I am working to do better with that.  I will also point out that a lot of times people want to DISMISS the message simply because they didn’t like the tone I used.   One could say that was my fault, but I think it’s a two-way street and the person receiving the message is also at fault to a degree.  They simply had a convenient excuse to not receive the message!  I will say that if I see someone doing something that is just plain WRONG, it is extremely difficult for anyone, especially myself, to speak to them in a ‘nice, quiet’ voice.  I mean, there really ARE circumstances where directness and an angry tone just can’t be helped.

The first group of people I’d like to address are the quiet ones that can never say a negative or hurtful thing to anyone, regardless of the reason.  I can’t tell you how many people I know that would rather glue their mouths shut than risk offending someone.  They believe they will hurt their feelings or destroy their relationship, if they tell them the truth.  To get to the root of this problem…. it is very simply FEAR.  They cannot tell the truth because the person will get angry or will cry or *gasp*;  they may never want to talk to them again… FOREVER!   That is nothing but blind FEAR and has ZERO basis in reality.  These are ALL lies and deceptions from the devil, plain and simple.  The demon of FEAR has these type of people wrapped around his little finger and is laughing at them day after day that they remain in bondage to him.

Years ago, before I was a born-again Christian, I used to tell a friend of mine in an abusive relationship that she didn’t have to answer to anyone but God.  I didn’t know just how right I was in saying that!  Too many people FEAR MEN instead of fearing the Lord!

Maybe they have tried to talk to someone and got a less than favorable response, and now fear ever saying anything that will offend them again!  A recent newsletter from Andrew Wommack Ministries recently talked about this issue, and opened my eyes even further to the truth of this.   Paraphrasing a bit from Andrew’s January 2012 newsletter, he says that the Lord spoke to him and told him, “You do not have the right to reject the Truth for another person.”   What that meant is exactly what I’m blogging about today.  If you know the truth, but do not tell someone for fear of offending them, then you in reality, are rejecting that truth for them!  The Lord told him that he did not have that right.  This is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell people for years.

“Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.”  ~LEVITICUS 19:17 (NIV)

The Bible is VERY clear on this…. if you see someone do something wrong and do not speak up against it, YOU TOO ARE GUILTY of the sin.  That is a BOLD statement!  And as clearly stated in Leviticus 19:17, if you LOVE your brother (and this really means anyone!), you will rebuke him.  You do not have the right to keep the TRUTH from him.  The Lord WANTS you to give the truth to those who need it.  It will then be up to them to either accept it or reject it, but either way, you did your job.  If you don’t do this, then what would be the reason?  And here we are back to FEAR.  Fear of rejection, fear of offending someone, fear of losing them as a friend.  If you are so busy FEARING OTHERS, then how do you expect to follow God’s Word?  And a better question would be, if someone  would reject you so quickly just because you told them the truth, then how good of a relationship do you have with that person in the first place?!

A couple more examples of the Lord wanting us to speak up and tell the truth are:

“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”  ~James  4:17 (NIV)

“If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.”  ~Leviticus 5:1  (NIV)

I have another example of this that I’d like to address;  the WORKPLACE.  How many of you have been asked to do something at work that you didn’t agree with because it conflicted with your morals?  What if your boss asked you to lie to a customer or another employee?  What if you were told to falsify records?  Most people I know would go along with it and try to pawn off the sin on the employer.  But how many of you would stand up to your boss and tell him/her that you cannot do what they have asked?  If you are too busy FEARING PEOPLE and NOT doing what the LORD WANTS YOU TO DO, then how can you call yourself a Christian?  Yes, I know.  You might lose your job.  If you lost a job like that, all you need do is TRUST IN THE LORD and He will bring you an even better job!  The Lord will not abandon someone who did the right thing!  FAITH is required in that situation as well.

This brings me to my next point….STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF.  I have several close people in my life that let others walk all over them.  My husband is actually getting better at not doing that, and I take full responsibility for his change because he’s learning from me.  lol  People always tell me that I am intimidating.  But it’s not that purposeful intimidation that some use to have power over others.  My intimidation stems from my self-confidence.  I can talk to anyone about anything, with no fear… I can state my case about anything with conviction… and that is what others apparently find intimidating.  They don’t have that self-confidence and are intimidated that I do.  Just like many others, I lacked self-confidence early in life.  But I GOT OVER IT.  I realized that the low self-esteem I had was burdened onto me by others… so-called ‘loved ones’ in my life, kids at school… others with low self-esteem.  Once I got over their bullshit, I pulled myself up and have never lacked self-confidence again!

STAND UP FOR YOURSELF.  That’s ALL you have to do.  I used to challenge myself by trying to figure out what was ‘the worst thing that could happen.’  I would say to myself, ‘I deserve more money for all the extra work the boss has given me over the last few months.  So if I go in and ask for a raise, what’s the worst that could happen?’  He could say No.  Then I’m back exactly where I am now… no loss.  He could say Yes and then I am ahead!  But he’s not going to fire me, and no true professional would blow up in anger or demote me for just for asking.  I would go over these things in mind again and again with each new situation.  I would stand up for myself, and what I found time and time again, was that MY FEAR WAS OVERBLOWN.  There was nothing to be afraid of at all!  The devil had blown it out of proportion in my mind to keep me in bondage.

And remember, the war we fight IS IN OUR MINDS.  The devil has no body… he uses our minds against us!  So tell that demon of FEAR to GO IN JESUS’ NAME!  You don’t want him, you don’t need him, and he will no longer mess with your mind.  Today starts a NEW YOU!  Now get out there and do what the Lord wants you to do, and worry not about others being offended!

Blame, Aspergers, Bullying and Being a Messenger…

Another blog recently talked about blame and it inspired me to write about it too. I understand always being the one accused and the one blamed. This was a common theme during my childhood. But I knew in my spirit I was not to blame, or at the very least, not ALL the blame. The first defense mechanism MOST people employ when faced with trouble is ‘it’s not my fault’. The second defense is to look for a scapegoat, someone they can force blame on. My mother laid ALL blame for everything on me, and still does to this day. She treated me bad as a child because she said “I made her angry, and I made her act like that” so it was my fault. She accepts NO blame whatsoever, and after four decades of strife with her, I am finally happy with her gone from my life. And if you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that I’ve tried many times to talk with her, but then she employs defense mechanism number three… continue to deny, while playing the victim. But I digress…

I found out when I was 40 years old that I have Asperger Syndrome. When I realized it to be true, I cried like a baby. It explained EVERYTHING about my childhood… all my awkwardness, why I was bullied and socially inept. My husband and one of his children both have it too. I think another Asperger is the only one that could really live with me the rest of my life. During my first marriage, I didn’t know about it so I’m sure my x-husband thought me insane. He used to call me ‘weird’ (not in a nice way, one reason we are divorced) and that about sums me up… weird. When I was bullied as a kid, I had no one to talk to. I was afraid to tell my mom for fear that she would blame me for the bullying. So at age 12, I started standing up to the bullies and they backed down. I was prepared for a fight to the death! I was so afraid and truly believed these kids wanted me dead. When I saw them all run away and just stop all of it, as soon as I stood up for myself, it opened my eyes to the truth. They were bluffing! I was the strong one, I was the smart one and they were weak and pathetic. No one ever bullied me again after that.

This experience did other things for me. For example: it gave me profound COURAGE. I literally could do anything I set my mind to after that, and still can to this day. I can say anything to anyone, without any care how they will react. As an adult, my bosses have always hated this about me. LOL I will, respectfully and professionally, ask questions no one else dare ask. Some find it refreshing and others have hated it. Another thing the bullying experience did was leave me not caring what people think of me. The bullies said all kinds of things about me that weren’t true and hated me for ridiculous reasons. Some things they said were out and out lies. I tried to reason with them by attempting to prove what they said was wrong. I soon realized they didn’t care… they were going to bully me regardless. They simply HATED me and that was that. It was then that I grew to not care what others thought of me. They could say anything to me and I would dismiss them. When they saw they couldn’t get to me with words anymore, they tried hitting me. When I started hitting back, they gave up altogether.

The point is that to this very day, I could care less what anyone thinks of me. No ones approval is desired nor required of me. I find it wonderfully refreshing when someone likes me for me. When I cannot be myself with them, or have to ‘keep up appearances’ by acting one way, while actually feeling another, I have no respect for them and they won’t last long in my life. If I cannot be truly 100% honest with someone, I can’t have them in my life. One note here… I’m not talking about being MEAN to people. I’m talking about telling the truth ALL the time. I’m talking about standing up for injustices, standing up for those who cannot defend themselves, and if a friend is out of line, be able to tell them that without them acting all offended, and saying I’m mean, I’m wrong and must apologize. If you need me to be someone who keeps your dirty, ungodly secrets.. someone who acts like your ungodly behavior is okay and/or participate in it with you, that’s NOT a true friend and I won’t have you in my life. My husband often says that my words are mean. The truth is hurtful to MOST people, so I don’t doubt that. And YES, MOST people are not used to anyone being truthful with them, so they feel like they’ve been slapped in the face. The important thing to point out here is that ‘keeping up appearances’, not being truthful with people, being phony… these are ALL lies and manipulations… EVIL behavior. BLAMING others for your own shortcomings is EVIL behavior as well. The devil would have you believe that everyone is supposed to be ‘nice’ to you. That is a lie and deceit of the devil to keep you in the dark to the TRUTH. The sooner people start seeing that, the sooner they will accept truth above all else.

That all brings me to another reason how the bullying experience changed me for the better: confidence and self-esteem. People have told me OFTEN all my adult life, that I am intimidating. Now the definition of intimidating would lead one to believe that it is intentional. But my intimidation is not. They are intimidated by my strong self-esteem and confidence. I didn’t know anyone felt this way about me, until a friend pointed it out in my 30s! Some people won’t question a doctor or lawyer because of their knowledge or power or wealth.. whatever the reason, they are intimidated by them. But I see all people on the same level. I look at a lawyer as being just like me, so I can be comfortable and ask questions without feeling intimidated. As I write this, I realize that I can’t think of one person that intimidates ME. Wow! Because I have ZERO FEAR about what people will think of my words and actions, I am actually FREE to say the things others won’t say and do the things no one else will do.

The title of this blog appears as though each thing is unrelated, however, they are all connected. Aspergers doesn’t go away. It is the base of my personality. Through having Aspergers, I have grown into the woman I am today. Without Aspergers, I may never have been bullied. And that would be a shame since the bullies actually got me to emerge from my shell to grow further into the person I am today. My loved ones and bullies blaming me all my life for THEIR bad behavior taught me that MOST people commit evil acts every day and blame others for it. All of these things have had a profound effect on me and brings me to my next point: being a ‘messenger’.

When I finally got fed up with people acting bad, doing bad things, I learned to stand up for myself. Now at age 43, I’m known as the ‘bitch’ because I don’t let people get away with anything. They make a nasty remark, I call them on it… they try to blame others for their own shortcomings, I call them on it. A friend said this to me recently, and I actually agreed with him… “you’re not A bitch.. you’re THE bitch.” I say the things that nobody else will say, and I am enemy No. 1 when I do. People do not like to be told that their bad behavior is WRONG or EVIL. They also turn that around on me. I’m a nag or bitch, they say, or they play the victim, again putting blame on me for ‘saying something hurtful to them’. I feel that God’s destiny for me involves being a messenger. He has chosen me because I don’t care what people think. God knows I can say anything and get the job done regardless of their response.

Just in case I lost anyone, let’s put that in perspective first. In the Old Testament of the Bible, God used Angels as messengers. When God needed to send a message and help someone, he sent an angel. After Jesus’ death, a new covenant began and it doesn’t work that way any longer. God uses people now. If you pray for money to pay bills, an angel doesn’t appear and point you to the help or drop money in your lap. Instead, God sends a person to help you. And if God wanted to get a message to you, he would send a person to do that too. I feel in my spirit that all these events in my life have come together to teach me to be a good messenger. I’m still working on it. I still, sometimes, don’t use words that people like or my tone will be wrong (especially when I see something appalling.. my tone can be quite bad lol). That’s when people tend to ‘shoot the messenger’. But, other things are happening too. I’m starting to discern more than I ever have. I can actually feel God preparing me for what’s next. The changes inside me are so profound that it’s really that clear what is happening. I’ve always been ‘intuitive’ and just knew things about people from just shaking their hand or even just standing next to them. But God is taking this to a whole new level. The things I’m feeling are beyond words… wonderful. I can’t wait to see where God takes me now.

When I call someone on their bad behavior, they can dismiss me all they want. Because, there is one thing I know in my heart to be true; In the still moments of the day, the Holy Spirit will reach out to them and put what I said on their hearts, in the hopes that they will SEE the truth and want to do better. They can continue to dismiss and turn that away, or they will SEE and reach out to God for help. But someone had to first deliver the message to get that ball rolling. It just might have been me.

Iniquities, Forgiveness and Punishment…

I’ve wanted to blog about iniquities for some time. I’ve seen them in my family members and, unfortunately, I recognize them in myself having been handed down from my parents. The Bible is very clear that iniquities (sins) are passed down to your children, going even in the third and fourth generations.

“Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (EXODUS 34:7)

My mother’s father was a very mean man, according to her and her siblings. It was as though he blamed the children for the reason he had to go off to work every morning. He didn’t act as though he wanted the children around. My mother says that he came home from the war a changed man. He was in Normandy on D-Day, although the beach was firmly secured by the time he arrived, I’m certain he witnessed enough to impact him greatly. However, I don’t agree that his treatment of family was related to being ‘changed by the war’. I believe that was an iniquity my grandfather received from his parents. Your views of children come DIRECTLY from your parents and how they treated you.

Both my parents are prone to quick anger, and I strive to keep that in check in myself. It is clear I have that iniquity from them. My mother never bonded with me. I was an Asperger child and didn’t like to be held much. My mother took that as an insult, as if a 1 or 2 year could insult anyone! And of course, Asperger’s was not officially accepted until the 1990s so no one knew when I was kid. The doctors told my mother I was healthy and just had a discipline problem. She then proceeded to treat me just like her father had treated her… as if I were a bad kid. Everything I did, whether good or bad, I got yelled at or worse, ignored. She still denies that to this day. She has never apologized once for anything she’s done wrong.. ever. Not to anyone in the family. My sister has even said that before. And I have tried to talk with my mother on several occasions about it. Instead of listening to what I say, she turns the entire conversation around so that she is the victim. She says, ‘how dare you say these things to me!’ and how I ‘hurt her by saying those things.’ She never actually addresses what I said, she just avoids, plays the victim, and then I am the bad guy. She then pulls my father into it and looks at him and says, ‘did you hear what she said to me?!’ Now Dad is caught between us and ends up backing up my mother, who should have never pulled him into it to begin with. I am sad to say that I have had to eliminate both of them from my life altogether. I cannot get past the hurt and the fact that they refuse to listen. I have forgiven them as the Lord wants me to. I still miss my father a lot, but I can no longer let them into my life to continue to hurt me over and over again. I have forgiven them, but I will never forget.

So the subject of iniquities now brings me to punishment. Even if you ask for forgiveness from God, you will still be punished. You are still guilty as stated in Exodus 34:7. Much like how children screw up and whether intentional or not, we still punish them. God works in that way too! This is even a common theme in the Bible. Let’s take Jonah as an example. He defied God by not going to Ninevah and then later found himself stuck in the stomach of a huge fish! He finally realizes the error of his ways but still had to spend 3 days in that fish, until he was turned white from the stomach acid and very, extremely fishy-stinky! Then that nasty fish vomited him up on shore. Now, God forgave him as soon as he realized he was wrong, but He did not rescue him from the fish! Jonah’s punishment, I believe, was to be stuck in that nasty fish and then vomited up later. A pretty bad punishment, in my opinion, for disobeying God! But the point is very clear. God forgives but the punishment still stands.

I am having some trouble on finishing up this blog! But I will end by saying that you CAN ask God for forgiveness of your sins, bear in mind that you will still have to pay for them. But repentance is important! Be sure to pray that the iniquities you inherited from family also be forgiven! Pray to have your children forgiven from them as well. I believe that God can remove the iniquities from your heart, but you do have to look to him to do it!