Overcoming Stereotypes

Do you know what a stereotype really is?

The word has come to mean something different with time, but it originally was used in printing.  In the beginning of the printing process a person has to set every letter in place.  Then they would print the page and move on, but if they wanted that page printed again, someone would have to set all the letters again.  Someone figured out how to streamline the effort by making a papier-mâché mold over the finished page and then making a metal stereotype plate from the paper mold.  That is a stereotype.  A piece of metal that holds a copy of a page, so everything printed from that plate would be exactly the same.

That word has come to mean something else for us and I find it is flung about in our society quite a bit.  It has now become the simplify and standardize concepts that we use to judge people.  In many ways using stereotypes is fine.  In movies we know who the hero and the Villain is by the color of their hats.  We have attached positives and negative traits to our social groups.  I do not know what it is like to battle over the color of my skin.  I do not know what it is like to battle over my culture.  I have not had to deal with that awful clash of being stuck between two worlds.

But I have had to deal with the stereotype of being fat.  What do we attach to that way off being.  I can't think of very many positive traits, but I have a whole list of negitive. Do you think that person has no will power?  Do you think of them as slothful?  Or Do you think they are disgusting?  Isn't gluttony one of the 7 deadly sins?  Well, you know what?  I think the same thing.  I have never thought of myself as a fat person.  Is that how other chubby people feel in their bodies? I do know other "fuffly" people who understood that their eating was out of control, but they just couldn't stop eating because food had become an addition for them.

I never felt like I fit in with the overeater thinking.  As I wrote in a prior post I have been apart of some kind of support group since I was about 8 years old.  It started with "Diet Center".  I did the eating plan with my mother, she had lost over 40 pounds at the time.  I remember crying when I was put on the scale and I didn't lose anything.  Now do you think at 8 years of age that I cheated?  Do you think I lied or made up excuses?  I was 8 and I was not sophisticated enough to sabotage myself and yet I did not lose a single pound after a month on their food plan.

I continued to gain weight.  It became so embarrassing to go to the doctor because the regular scale didn't go high enough for me.  I had to walk to the "special" scale.  I was over 300 pounds, but I really do not remember eating to get that size.  I watched a documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" recently.  He had a gut on him and he was chronicling his choice to juice to lose weight.  What was interesting to me was the beginning when he talked about eating whole pizza's and binging on hotdog after hotdog.  He talked about all the foods he would miss eating.  I became quite sad and angry when he explained his eating habits because I have never eaten like that in all my life.  How come I am so fat?  The frustration is beyond belief.

As I ballooned in size my parents wished to help.  My mother had success with a support group called "Over-eaters Anonymous".  It works under the same principles as "Alcoholics Anonymous".  OA uses the same blue book as a guide with the 12 step program.  You would go to a meeting and try to find a sponsor and work the different steps to overcome your addiction.  OA recommends(at the time, things could have changed) eating only three meals a day.  I agreed with that, but again it did not make a difference.  After some years trying OA my Mother then tried a stricter group call C-How.  The have a diet plan that forbades sugar, white flour and carbohydrates of ny kind for the first 30 days, it is a very strict eating plan for the first month.  I followed that plan and again lost nothing, while everyone around me were getting results.  The thing was even as a teenager, I did not feel I belonged with the think of the people in the group.  I do not feel like I am addicted to food.  I like good, well prepared food, but I do not feel that I use food to help with my emotions.  The people in OA were talking about eating a whole pie when they were depressed or eating a whole cake when they were happy.  That behaviour has never been apart of my life.  So why am I so fat?

I have stopped trying to fight the stereotype of an overweight person.  When I say I do not eat uncontrollably people (and Doctors) think I am in denial.  One Doctor had me write a journal of everything I ate in a month.  I felt like it was proof of my eating habits, but it was never looked at by the Doctor who asked for it.  I enter a Doctors office and the stereotype cloak is heavy.

I walked into one Doctors office and before he even talked to me or examined me he blurted out I needed a gastric by-pass from just looking at me when he walked in the room..  Now that may have been true, but the audacity of assuming that surgery was the best thing for me on a look, got me so angry I actually yelled at the Doctor.  I was furious that he did not look past the stereotype and see what I needed.  I stomped out of his office shaking from another injustice.   I have been unable to break the view others have of me and I am suffering because I do not fit in the stereotype.  The thing is I know that a stereotype is there for a reason.  It is just those of us who don't fit in the common groups get the shaft.  I would love to be a stereotype.  I would love for the euphony to hit and for me to change my behaviour and the results happen.  I would love to turn to salads, fresh fruits and vegetable and the pounds shed from my body.(Which I have by the way, but no sheding of lbs.)  I wish so badly that giving up food would make a difference.  Unfortunately, that has not been the case for me.

In many ways I like stereotypes.  I like having a bases to shift through people.  It maybe unfair.  I try not to do it based on skin color or cultural background.  I use other factors like the persons attitude and yes, I have to admit a big factor is income.  I tend to like people in my social class, just because we have stuff to talk about.   But I try very hard to be welcoming to anyone wanting to take my class in quilting.  I try very hard to look past the stereotype and see the person in front of me when I am dealing with an individual.  That is what we need to do as humans because when we judge an individual based on a stereotype that is when things go wrong.  Because we are not exact copies.

And that is something that I feel is sorely lacking, looking past the stereotype you see that comes with my fat body and find the person underneath.  I fought so hard for that recognition in my youth.  I had an unwavering belief that when others got to know me that I would be loved.  I labored under that belief and I was quite surprised when it did not seem to work.  I recoiled.  I believed that other were cruel.  With age I don't know if people were that bad, but it doesn't matter the scars were left behind.  It has affected everything for me.  And with age and experience I have learned to not care what others think.  It doesn't matter to me, but that attitude has hindered my working life.  I have not really been able to get a steady job that I love.

I guess my point is for you to try and look beyond your preconceived idea of a person and try to see the real person underneath.  That is what I try to do.  I understand that there are some people we click with and there are some we can't stand.  It is just the nature of life, but it is the discounting that has made it very hard for me to trust anyone.  I think. "Why would they care about what I am doing or What I have to say?", so I don't talk.  This blog has been the most anyone has heard from me.  I'm not sure if it is a bad or good thing yet.  I guess we will see.