The Gift of Tiny Rage.
What’s been missing these last few weeks (months?) from my body-acceptance journey is my righteous anger.
Initially in my post-diet fervor, as more and more information about the failure rates of diets and the oppression of self-hatred and the, well, bullshit of The Obesity Crisis! washed over me like waves from the Sea of Sanity, I got really, really mad.
Really, really mad that I’d bought into the idea that my healthy, functioning body was failing when it resisted my efforts to starve it. Really, really mad that I’d been led to believe that a size 12 was somehow not as good as a size 4. Really, really mad that I was expected to live a life defined by persistent hunger and joint-crushing hours of exercise because that was the only way I could achieve a socially-acceptable body. Really, really made that anyone anywhere believed they could dictate my worth by my weight.
That anger was powerful stuff. It carried me over the fear of eating and not exercising hours a day, carried me through the shock of gaining weight as I got healthier. Most importantly, it shifted the blame away from me. It turns out I wasn’t unhappy because I was fat or fat-inclined; I was unhappy because I was failing to reach expectations that were expressly designed to be unreachable.
That anger gave me permission to take my ball and go home; I just didn’t have to play a game with cheater rules that I had no chance of winning; the only way I win is by not playing, right?
Getting to stop playing made me feel better. Feeling better made me less mad. But after the anger went away, well…I lost my gatekeeper. I lost my absolute certainty that I’d been lied to about my value as a woman being determined by my body. And then I started to let the lies back in.
Little Dog, the keeper of my heart, the joy of my days, is a miniature dachshund. He is imperious and independent and Knows His Own Mind; you will never convince Little Dog he is anything less than 18 kinds of awesome. Question that awesomeness and he’ll unleash what we call Tiny Teckel* Rage. It’s not violent, it’s not aggressive, but it’s entirely self-protecting; Little Dog knows he must always look out for Nr. Eine.
I want my Tiny Teckel Rage back. I know what I’m worth; I don’t want to keep believing I have to doubt it.
*It’s a dachshund thing. We dig the word, but it’s completely inaccurate in terms of Little Dog. Don’t tell him that, though; he will cut you.
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I think I’m going through a similar need to rediscover my anger. “They” are no less cheaters now than they were then, even if my moments of weakness made me a little more likely to believe their lies.
Also, I love dachshunds to death. I can’t wait till I live in a real house and can finally get my own little doggy.
I’ve searched for an email address so that I could tell you privately how much your words mean to me… so I could tell you that every time I look in the mirror and fight back the hatred I feel for my weight gain I think of you. You come to mind every time I have to “fake it ’til [I] make it”. Unfortunately either I haven’t looked in the right places or your email isn’t on this blog but either way I’m here to tell you that you are my inspiration. Every time I remind myself that I’m wonderful just the way I am, that I’m beautiful just the way I am… I hear your “voice”. Thank you.
The way I tend to think of it, we can either be at war with ourselves (and our bodies) or we can fight the world. And we need to keep that anger if we’re going to keep fighting the good fight.
I think that women, especially, are conditioned to feel like we’re supposed to let go of anger (or turn it inward, into self-loathing). But I think we need to turn it outward where it bloody well belongs.
I think that anger, for me at least, replaces the diet fantasy that would keep me going on with a diet. Once I lost the sexiness of that fantasy, the diet would soon be out the window.
I think I need a bit of that anger but also the crazy fun feeling of freedom when I think of never dieting again. That’s probably the feeling that will help me keep plugging on in the lovely world of IE.
you definitely just inspired a wicked post.
Wow. What a great post, and a great blog.
I’ve just sort of discovered your blog, and in reading this post and some of your previous ones - I REALLY feel for you and I think I understand what you’re going through. A lot of us out here are going through similar things.
I wish you all the best and thank you for sharing.
i completely identify with this. i discovered FA blogs around the new year, and suddenly my whole world view changed, flipped, like that. i was furious for a week and a half, and then yesterday it kind of faded and the adrenaline has leveled out. not in a giving-up kind of way, though. i’m never going back to dieting.
the thing that changed yesterday was i realized that i’d been doing things i didn’t actually like to do (overeating on junkfood, not exercising) as kind of a test to myself, to see if i really meant it when i said “sure, self, go ahead and eat whatever you want.” kind of like chaining up a tiny dog and then letting her free. after a while of running around in the bushes, she comes back to sit on your lap.
the thing is, i do like to sweat and eat a balanced diet (i mean “diet” as a habit of eating … you know, the dictionary definition). i’m going to continue doing things that make me feel healthy instead of doing a happy dance on top of a cheesecake while stuffing my face with bon-bons and giving the finger to society. i don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating healthy and exercising if that’s your cup of tea. but this time around, i’m eating to satisfy my hunger, not to keep it at bay, and i will have a piece of that cheesecake when the mood strikes, thanks. whether this winds up with me being a size 4 or a size 12 doesn’t matter to me anymore.
anyway, like everyone else said here, thank you. this blog is wonderful.
PS: i hope no one thinks i am saying it’s bad to dance on desserts and inhale chocolates. i’m just saying that it’s not an either-or thing with eating vegetables and eating cheesecake. that was something i missed in the first week or so that i jumped into FA thinking.
Sophia, I get what you’re saying. It’s all about doing what feels good and right for your own body. If you’re eating lots and lots of food that was previously forbidden less because you want it then because you can, well, that’s not listening to your body any more than dieting is.
But I think dancing on desserts (which I’m totally going to steal, by the way!) is a necessary step (with me, it was Whoppers by the truckload); you’ve got to really embrace the idea that no food is forbidden to get past the whole food-is-morality thing.
I agree - Dancing on Desserts (aka, letting your hair down) is just what I did this past fall. It does a mind good.
I’ve just noticed how this aspect of my IE journey has started to slow down. I’m actually eating more veggies and starting to move my body. In September, I didn’t even know if I would even get to this point.
Can I just tell you how much I love it when you’ve got your groove on?!?! Go SuperCheese Go!!
I find that this sort of anger is necessarry to get through all aspects of life. Last month, one of my best friends and I had an arguement that boiled down to the same things all our arguements boil down to: I am in some way lacking and I need to change. In the past, I’ve always sort of accepted the fluff of the arguement that hid this truth, but this time it really hit me what she was saying. I fought back, demanded this treatment stop…and she told me she hates the person I have become, when really all I have become is a person who doesn’t want to play our screwed up game anymore.
Reading this post made me realize how valuable that anger can be, when it comes to our bodies and our souls, because if we don’t have it someone or something else might eat us alive.
Hey Cheese!
Love your blog, read the whole thing this weekend, and I know what you mean about the rage. I think that sometimes the anger halps us get through difficult things or past points in our life that are not healthy. Or just to, like you said, know that we are worth protecting and taking care of.
I think that the freedom to eat whatever one wants whenever one wants eventually leads to the understanding that deprivation and over- indulgence are two sides of the same coin…it’s like a pendulum that must swing to the other side and eventually come to rest in the middle - eating in a way that feels good in your body, but isn’t used to fill that hole inside that we used to try to fill by starving or binging (or, dieting or overeating).
Balance is great and really freeing when you realize that you have the power to feed yourself,take care of yourself, and love yourself, but I completely recommend going on those sprees of eating whoppers and cheesecake. Number one, you realize that the world doesn’t come to an end if you indulge yourself, and number two, you realize that the heretofore forbidden whopper doesn’t fill the hole any more than carrot sticks do.
Also, from an evolutionary perspective, it makes total sense that the body would call for whoppers after a prolonged period of controlled starvation.
And, the anger that comes after a prolonged period of deprivation strikes me as healthy and energizing. Eventually, our emotions will regulate much as our eating does, but we need to hold on to a bit of that righteous anger to wield whenever we fall back into that miserable state of hating ourselves because we don’t fit a ridiculous society-imposed standard (oh, I know it well!!).
“But I think dancing on desserts (which I’m totally going to steal, by the way!) is a necessary step (with me, it was Whoppers by the truckload); you’ve got to really embrace the idea that no food is forbidden to get past the whole food-is-morality thing.”
i *completely* agree. i hope you don’t think i was saying otherwise. check the bottoms of my feet and you’ll see the telltale signs : )
what i was trying to say was what denise above said much more eloquently — that once the feeling of morality goes away, we realize that overeating doesn’t fill the hole any more than self-starvation does.
PS: i bought some whoppers today because i haven’t had them since i was a kid and you put the idea in my head. they’re tasty, but sorry, i’m a peanut M&M girl all the way : )
I know that rage. It gives certain strenght. But the most important thing is to find some sort of balance with it and using it to substain you. Not sure exactly what I’m saying, just that you can’t go around angry at society all the time.
Oh this is lovely. Its so cool to find places that people can say the things which are impossible to voice anywhere else. Thank you