firecat

My answers to Mr Callahan's questions:

- I'm neither pleased nor displeased with the way I look. I don't care about it. I have clothes which fit, shoes which fit, and about the only complaint I'd make is it's harder to source either of these than it absolutely has to be. This has more to do with store stocking decisions than it does with my physicality. (But then, Australian stores have been reducing their variety of products across all ranges, not just clothing and shoes).

- I'm not overwhelmingly happy about my knees aching when I walk up (or down) long flights of stairs, no. I'm not overwhelmingly cheerful about being exhausted and puffing when I have to run for the bus either. However, I generally deal with these sorts of things by taking them slowly and shifting my weight to avoid strain, planning my day so I don't have to run for buses, and by seeking out alternative routes (ramps rather than stairs, for example, at the university where I run across most of these).

- Before I go to a lot of effort "lessening" my risk of heart disease and diabetes, let's figure out how great the risk is. I don't have diabetes running in the direct family line anywhere (the nearest connection is a great-aunt by marriage who had type II diabetes; oh, and my partner has type II diabetes as well) and of my four grandparents (3 of whom lived into their nineties) only one died from a traumatic cardiac arrest; he was in his late seventies, possibly his eighties even then. Let's also consider I'm living with chronic endogenous depression and I've been dealing with suicidal impulses since my age hit double digits (about age ten or eleven). So really, fear of an early death isn't one of my big motivators - pick a different one.

- Actually, yes, I am aware that once I gain a significant amount of weight, my chances of taking it off and keeping it off are poor. But let's be honest here, the "significant amount" involved is about two kilograms (or 4lb), and this is pretty much the case for everyone. I learned this through about ten years of weight loss dieting, and I gave dieting up after I lost the same 5kg repeatedly - it kept bringing back new friends each time it came back. By the time I'd reached double my original weight (100kg, rather than about 50kg) I had the aforementioned dodgy knees, a wrecked metabolism (hypothyroidism, so much fun - interestingly enough, I wasn't tested for this until about four or five years after I gave up dieting), and massively exacerbated depression due to the self-flagellating thought patterns strongly encouraged by the diet process and diet industry. I gave up dieting when I realised it wasn't working for me, having doubled my weight. When, in your opinion, should I have given up?

- I don't have children. Chose not to have them due to aforementioned depression, and also because as a woman, each child I have reduces my earning potential as well. Plus, of course, I don't feel I'd be a good parent. All perfectly legitimate reasons not to have kids, by the bye.

- Mr Callahan, do you really think I go through my life with my head shoved up my arse the way you do? Because I'd have to be doing so in a literal fashion to escape being aware fatness isn't socially approved of. Of course, I'm also aware being female and intelligent isn't socially approved of either, and neither is being mentally ill. So I'm shit out of luck no matter what the hells I do. By the time I was exiting my teens, I had come to the conclusion I wasn't going to win social approval unless I had major surgery, major psychotherapy and a personality transplant. Know what I decided? I decided fuck social approval, I'll just settle down to being me, and try to be as happy as I can in the process. If other people don't like the way I look, they can damn well look elsewhere. My partner, by the bye, thinks I'm gorgeous.