It's odd how little we can be our true selves when we don't feel comfortable in our own skin. I'm not talking about the way we look to others, but the way we look at our self. I don't think many people understand the difference between a genuine smile and forcing your face to do that thing it used to do before that neon signed obscured your vision ( more on that in a bit). The guilt, shame, and disappointment we feel inwardly undoubtedly taints our perceptive. I was convinced that I was less than, simply because my vice of choice happened to be the one that is most visible to the public. I always think about all the abusers out there. The people who, as opposed to being overly intrigued with culinary cousine creations, deal in abuse and terror. Beating a spouse, abusing children, stealing, etc. Are not visible to the world when someone who commits such atrocities enters the mall food court.
To those of us who struggle with food over consumption, the world sees it when we enter the room. To those that struggle with being decent human beings, the world sees it only we they leave a path of destruction too visible to be overlooked. And even then, absolute strangers are none the wiser. The most horrible villians can maneuver through the movie theater undetected, yet my mere presence at the end of a row of seats can elicit a look of fear resembling that of someone realizing the petting zoo animal they were attempting to feed, has a name that rhymes with stunk.
I spent the majority of my life hauling around a metaphorical neon sign that said THIS DUDE STRUGGLES! It's not fair, but it wouldn't have taken me so long to realize that it's not made better by obsessing over it. I can't improve my circumstances through my unique observations of life being unfair. I can't sit an complain that some weaknesses are invisible and some are litterally the definition of a first impression. I wish I could have realized how much I was feeding my insecurities every time I fed myself another piece of cake thinking about this stuff. I wish I could have acknowledged that I so often wasn't remotely hungry, but felt so empty inside that I needed to litterally try to fill the void with food.
Look, I lost two hundred pounds of fat while dealing with the recent passing of my mom, death of friends, family, the onset amd continuation of a pandemic, moving with mybwife and kids 2000 miles away from everyone I know and love, and more. Still, losing weight during all of that was easier than losing weight with nothing going wrong when the mirror showed me some jeep holding a giant neon sign instead of wearing an actual smile. So next time you look in that mirror look past your sign, and smile back.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/k7o4ht/lost_some_weight_found_some_me/
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