fat and depressed? or just fat? or maybe just depressed?
I have dealt with chronic depression since I was a teenager. Maybe earlier. Without getting into a long, probably very boring, diatribe about my life I will simply say there have been events that have occurred in my 36 years that have contributed to my self perception and lack of self worth. That said, these things are NOT why I have chronic depression. How do I know that? I know it because at times when I have been extremely happy with my life and who I am, I still battle with depression. And I do battle with it. I don’t like how being depressed makes me feel and so I fight against those feelings and that mindset. Not that fighting does me a hell of a lot of good. You can only fight a chemical imbalance in your brain so far. Which is why I take medication for my depression and have done for many, many years.
I used to be reticent to admit this, almost ashamed that I was beholden to daily medication to prevent me from turning into a total basketcase. Now I don’t care what other people think about it, and believe me, people let you know what they think about it. Just like when someone is fat, people seem to think that someone on antidepressants needs to be told about every new and wonderful cure under the sun, every bizarre remedy that worked for their friend’s auntie’s mother’s boyfriend’s cousin’s daughter’s dog. Just like people do with most atypical conditions, disabilities and states of being. Maybe they are trying to be helpful but most of the time it comes across as condescending and patronising. Like just because I am have depression (even when it is under control) I need someone else to tell me what is best for me, and the fact that I am fat and depressed…well, isn’t it obvious that if I lost weight I would no longer be depressed?
No, no and NO.
As hard as it may be to believe, I haven’t always been this fat. I did have a period in my life when I was of average weight. Smack bang in the middle of the average weight range for my height. I spent a few years there. Then I spent a few years at the high end of the average range. And then moved into the overweight range and spent a few years there. And then mosey-ed on up to the obese range and sat there for a few more years until I settled into being deathfatz some 4 years ago and that is where I remain to this day. My weight has gone up and down within the obese and deathfatz range in the last 6 years or so, mainly due to pregnancy and illness. But even when I was a mere 3 BMI points above underweight, I still battled with depression. My worst times have been when I was 16, when I was 23/4, 28 and 32. That is when I was almost underweight, overweight, obese and just into deathfatz zone. And the irony of it? My depression has never had ANYTHING to do with my weight. Sure I have gone through times of not wanting to be fat and of hating my body and hating myself. But my depressive periods were never about my weight. They were either sparked by something else entirely or sparked by nothing at all (as is generally the case with chronic depression and something that people find extremely difficult to grasp).
I have had doctors and shrinks tell me to lose weight because it will help with my depression, while they sit and write out prescriptions for medications that make me stack on copious kilograms. If they had said to me it was important to remain active and eat a nutritious range of food, ok – fine. That is good advice for depression. But to tell a depressed person to lose weight is only reinforcing the sense of self hatred that is often already predominant in the psyche of that person and does absolutely nothing to cultivate a trusting and reciprocal doctor-patient relationship. Dieting only ever made me cranky, listless and unpleasant to be around. Some people might say it made me *more* unpleasant to be around than usual but hey, not everyone can be a fan. Dieting does not help my depression. Or my anxiety. In fact for me personally, dieting only makes them worse.
And then, as I mentioned, there is the meds issue. Antidepressants and other medications designed to ‘help’ with mental illness (I use the word ‘help’ rather dubiously there as often they are more hindrance than help, that is until you find the right one) are well known amongst those who actually take the meds, to have huge effects on weight (either putting on or losing weight). Most people I have talked to about the issue have put on weight but many also lose weight, which can be a bad thing also. My worst weight reaction ever was to a medication marketed here as Avanza. I put on a whopping 12 kg (about 28lb I think) in just over a month. My shrink’s response to that? Just don’t eat as much. Yeah that helps when the medication is known to stimulate the appetite. It is very hard to just not eat when some rogue chemical is telling your brain to tell your body to eat, eat, eat like there is no tomorrow. And even when I did manage to resist the chorus of ‘eat eat eat’ signals my body was giving me, I still put on weight. In the end because of the weight gain, not to mention the myriad of other side effects I was experiencing that no one seemed to care about, I refused to take Avanza anymore and was prescribed something else that actually worked more effectively for me – without the side effects. Did I lose the weight I gained while taking Avanza? No I did not. I did return to my previous, quite normal, eating habits. But I didn’t lose the weight I had gained. Just like I didn’t lose the weight I gained when I took Depo Provera for a year or so. But that is another story…
The medical profession, and often allied health professionals as well, find it difficult to believe that one can be fat and happy. This is ironic seeing as the old stereotype of the fat jolly person still exists, but underneath that jolly exterior we fatties are meant to be drowning in self loathing based purely on our weight. My weight is not why I have chronic depression. I have chronic depression because I have a chemical imbalance or some neuron somewhere in my brain misfiring or something along those lines – not because I hate being fat and not because I am fat. If that was the case, I wouldn’t have been depressed when I was slim. As a counsellor myself, I often find myself educating other counsellors and community services workers that fat does not automatically equate unhealthy or unhappy. And that fat is not something that needs to be fixed as such and therefore should not be the focus of a therapeutic relationship – particularly if the client does not bring up their feelings about being fat as a problem. My stance on this is often greeted with disbelief and I have been shouted down by some professionals who believe it is their job to ’solve’ their clients eating or emotional disorder (because every fat person has an eating or emotional disorder, they can’t just be having a rough time and need some assistance to empower themselves to get by). My reaction to that is that if you EVER go to a counsellor or therapist who thinks it is their place to solve your problems (no matter what those problems are) then get up and walk out and do not go back. Therapy is not about the therapist solving your problems, it is about them helping you to come with your own strategies to solve your own problems.
The gist of all this rambling is that fat and depression are assumed to go hand in hand, and they can but they don’t always. This is something professionals and individuals alike need to be aware of, as once again it is a case of generalisations sometimes being the exception to the rule.
I think I need to blog my story about fat and depression at some point, this post is good inspiration.
I have an awesome psychologist. But every now and then, when I have a wee slip back into a depression, she brings up the fat thing. The last time she suggested my weight is my biggest hindrance in life. I told her in no uncertain terms that other people being discriminatory and hateful towards my weight is actually more of a hindrance to my life than my weight actually is!
Since then, she’s pretty much backed off. But I wonder when she’ll probe that one again, because it is a deeply held belief for her.
I definitely attribute a lot of my weight gain in the last 20 years to depression. I have atypical depression — the kind that makes you eat and sleep constantly. It hit when I was 30 and for years I slept 18 hours a day and ate entire boxes of chocolates at a stretch. I never lost that weight, and have continued to gain slowly since finding the right medication, so there’s quite possibly an underlying genetic component as well. I know that if I lost all the weight I’ve gained since then I would be physically a lot more comfortable, but mentally, I doubt it would make much of a difference.
Early on, the psychiatrist I had said it might help to lose weight, and I said that weight loss programs have a 95% failure rate so how did he suggest I do that, and he conceded that if he knew, he’d be raking in billions as the head of Dr. R’s Weight Loss Clinic and retiring early to Bermuda.
I love your response to your shrink, Kath. It’s so weird to catch them with their own mental problems, isn’t it?
i had my parents down for the night and i know my mother is quite venemous at the best of times, but i just never realised how deeply ingrained her poison is. she commented on just about everyone i know (and some i don’t) in terms of “Oh you should see so & so, he’s put on so much weight” or “oh he’s just HUGE” and i just turned to her and said “what’s your point”. she even is going on about my dad. now. my dad is a short guy. i’m a short woman thanks to his genes. he has a massive “beer gut” but he weighs 88kgs. not bad for a 62 yo who walks every day and was a very physical farmer and footballer in his younger days, but now is broken with hip replacements, shoulder injuries. he also has massive depression which generally is never spoken about. (another joyous thing i’ve inherited at times…) so this morning, mum says to him “oh look at your gut, i don’t know why it’s so big with all your walking etc” and dad says “its just the way i am, i like my coffee and there’s no point for me to drink it without sugar” and mum says “oh you’re going to get diabetes like your mother blah blah” well… at this point i had to say something to stop the poison…. i said “dad, how was your last diabetes test?” – perfect, no sign of it “how’s your blood pressure” – perfect… and yes, his cholesterol is also fantastic.
so i say “well, sounds like dad is in great health if he’s walking every day, eating a low fat healthy diet with lots of fruit and vegies, and his bloodwork is great”… mum was huffing and puffing her bitter bile everywhere and i said “it’s not about what’s on the scales mum” and thought “fuck you, you bitter old woman”. because you see, her poison comes in the form of words, and condescending, patronising nastiness. it comes in the form of belittling with words, with attempts at guilt behaviours, conquering and dividing (i don’t have a close relationship with my siblings, but we do have a scrap of one, despite her). it comes in her lack of seeing reality and of living in some messed up version where she is right and nothing anyone ever does will be good enough. not ever.
she is a gold medal olympian at belittling and bitterness.
frankly.
i’m sort of glad on one level that i’m fat.
i know just how much it pisses her off.
and i never want to be a nasty skinny like her.
not ever.
I’ve had problems with depression since early teens, and it seems to run in my family. Just the same, I figured maybe it would be all better if I just lose weight, so I did, and it’s not. No surprise, really.
Kath: I would love to hear your story. I am always interested in other people’s experiences of similar circumstances to those which I have dealt with. Actually, I am interested in other people’s stories full stop, I guess that is part of the reason I became a counsellor : )
Trabbs Boy: I can relate to the sleeping a lot. I am constantly tired. No matter how much or how little sleep I get. No matter how much activity I do or don’t do. No matter whether I actually feel depressed or not. I have been like this since I was 16, so 20 years of being tired. It isn’t much fun is it? I am glad your psych was at least able to admit he didnt have the answers rather than trotting out the usual crap about calories in and energy out etc
NQNancyDrew: *hugs* I think it is often very very difficult for naturally thin people to have much empathy for naturally fat people and I guess your mum falls into that category. Being that she has never had to battle with her weight, she has no idea what it is like to be a fat person. I wonder if she has always smoked despite her respiratory problems because she feared getting fat? I imagine her stepmum has a few things to say about fat people too… I wish you didnt have to deal with that sort of attitude but you did a great job in the things you said re your Dad’s health. And you are right, he does have a gut but he is healthy, like my Dad. Considering the lives they have led I think they are lucky to have come out of it in the shape they have! What is your Dad’s attitude to fat people? I have heard him make comment in the past but has he mellowed some? *more hugs*
*hugs back*
i think they’re both getting worse with age tbh. i think he understands more about it, especially when i say things that are a bit supportive and eye-opening, but i suspect they’ll never really change in their attitudes and their opinions.
apparently they’ve quit smoking for a year now (or close enough).
mind you, i don’t quite know when they decided they have the right to blatantly fire their opinions (loud and ignorant that they are) randomly and at will. i just spoke to a gf of mine when i was taking the girls to ballet, and she said her parents are the same. can we make *old* the new *fat* which was the new *black*?!
I reported my pdoc for unethical conduct because he kept failing to inform me of potential side effects of anti-depressants (even the ones that I kept experiencing on each drug and specifically asked him about) but you bet that d-bag warned me about weight gain! WHAT ELSE COULD A LITTLE LADY BE WORRIED ABOUT?
(here via FWD)
I’m another person living at the intersection of “fat” and “depressed”. I have chronic endogenous depression, and have had since I was about fourteen. It runs in the family – both of my parents are chronically depressed, as were at least two out of my four grandparents (ditto about half of my cousins, and both of my mother’s siblings). I’m perfectly willing to admit a lot of my extra kilos probably come from my habit of comfort eating, and it isn’t helped by a family tendency (on both sides) toward a short and stocky build which hangs onto every last gram as though a famine were going to happen tomorrow. Fortunately I was smart enough to realise by about age twenty-one that dieting only made the depression worse, and quitting this (mentally and physically) unhealthy practice was probably the best thing I ever did for myself.
These days, I’m on medication for the depression, because despite anything I do, it appears to slowly get worse with successive years. I tend to be very strongly anti-diet with any doctor I speak to about my health, mental or physical (although most of them, to do them credit, don’t tend to raise my weight as an issue), explaining my past history with dieting and why I’m not going back there.
With regard to comfort eating, since I acknowledged to myself this was one of my core anti-depression strategies, I’m better able to provide myself with the nurturing and comfort it gives, without having the guilty backlash for eating something “sinful” or “bad”. As a result, I don’t need to comfort eat even half as much as I used to. Odd, that.
You guys are fantastic. Bri, I read everything you write. You are fabulous. Keep up the great work. I have absolutely no doubt that clinical depression and anxiety ‘runs’ in families and that it has very little to do with how fat or thin we are. People who are naturally thin often seem to be the worst at understanding anything to do with weight issues. As a matter of fact, most thin people I know are generally no where near as healthy as those I know who carry extra weight around. I have one friend in particular who seems to catch everything that’s going around and when she does the weight just drops off her and she looks terrible. Me, I’m overweight and I NEVER get sick. Everyone around me drops and I’m still standing. Go figure!
Not Quite Nancy Drew – gosh, are we sisters? My late mother was very like that, and she was thin too. My dad was fat, and guess whose genes I got. My brother took after my dad too, but he never got any trouble for it because boys were allowed to be well-built; but as a girl, I was supposed to be ‘dainty’ like her. I don’t think she ever belittled my dad for his weight, mind you (well, not in front of me, I don’t know what went on between them in private) – she couldn’t really, because when he was diagnosed with lymphoma, his doctor specifically told him it was not weight-related and not to try and lose any (and he lived with it for fifteen years, and his doctor later said that his weight had probably been one of the protective factors that kept him going so long).
I’ve had at least two and possibly three bouts of depression that I can recall, although I only got diagnosed on the most recent one because the doctor I’d had before didn’t recognize atypical depression as even being depression (he had me checked out for a ton of endocrine disorders instead). Meds helped me for a short period until I got back on my feet – thankfully I don’t seem to need them permanently. I still struggle with chronic anxiety, but I’ve found alternative therapies were more effective than the beta-blockers the doctor prescribed me. (There’s nothing actually wrong with my heart, but I get palpitations when I get really stressed.)
I don’t believe my weight – which has fluctuated slightly over the years – has ever had much, if anything, to do with the low times. There are certain situations I know can trigger it, but being fat ain’t one of them. Dieting, though, might well have that effect. The one time I seriously dieted, I wasn’t depressed but I came close to OCD-like behavior – which I’ve since discovered evidence of (undiagnosed) on my mother’s side of the family, so I figure I’m best steering clear of anything that might push me in that direction.
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I know I’m late to the party, but people have constantly told me my depression was because of my weight, too. My non-fat great-grandmother died in an institution. I’m betting her depression didn’t come from her weight. And I’m betting my genetics have something to do with my depression.
Even better, I took a medication that made me gain 100 lbs. That’s a whole pop star! It was actually a problem, because it was far more weight than my body carries naturally, and it was harder to do stuff. A nurse at my OB-GYN was weighing me, and she asked about it, so I told her medication had made me gain weight. She said, “Not that much!” I felt like crap, and, low and behold, once I stopped taking the meds, the weight began to come off like magic. Not dieting…I’m never doing that again. Just stopping the meds. 20 lbs in 3 weeks. So, yes, it did make me gain ‘that much.’ I know my own body, thx. Grrr.
It isn’t just mental illness, though, or side effects. All illness comes from fat. /sarcasm I have always had joint pain, and everyone from my mother to my doctor thought it was ‘just’ my weight. Until I started randomly dislocating joints. When I say randomly, I mean I was sitting in a hammock and scratching my head when my shoulder dislocated so forcefully it fractured my arm. Yep. No one thinks it’s the weight anymore; it turns out I have some funky connective tissue condition. Know what the big recommendation to treat it is, though? (It’s degenerative and there is no cure.) You guessed it. Lose weight, so ‘you’ll put less pressure on your joints.’ No, thanks. I’d rather use a wheelchair forever than go back to being bulemic, hands down, no question.