Crab People and Cheering Change

Look! Mermaids have crabs!

Yesterday when we were driving out to dinner, there were two overweight people walking the sidewalk, and I just wanted to cheer, "YOU GO!" That impulse to cheer them, brought on by just a general happiness to see people, especially those close to me, making good decisions and doing something good for them, whether getting a good job, finding love, using their talent, or any change for the better really.  Then I realized that this is not always the first reaction from others and memories of my own life flooded back.

One of the things I've been cursed with is good hearing.  Well, not necessarily good when it's probably nerve damage.  The conversation at the table behind me, might be more clear than the person across from me, because background noise can be overwhelming, which means that I can overhear lots of stuff that I don't want to hear.  Such occasion was at my old LA Fitness location (not the present one) where I overheard the employees critiquing overweight people at the gym, including me.  They would stand there, making fun of other people's bodies and it brought them joy.  I suppose it was because it made them feel better about themselves to do so, but you would think that someone who worked at a gym, would have better sense than that.

Even from when I was younger and was in good shape, it bothered me when a companion (usually male) would say something like "She shouldn't be wearing those shorts" or some other comment involving another's flesh, and most of the time, they were not people overweight.  The girl might just have some cellulite, and have 3 kids with her that earned her stretch marks.  It seemed most prevalent when many pounds ago, someone made fun of me in a corset at Dragon Con, and I stopped dressing up or even attempting to cosplay. Those comments made me look at myself and worry more about my physique, made me shy and want to hide my body, even when the source might have been a much heavier and out of shape gamer geek.  I still usually wear pants even when it's blistering, hot because I was always teased about the size of my legs, legs I would kill to have today.

In some ways it's a comfort to be older and heavier, because the scrutiny is lessened, the unwanted and uncomfortable attention isn't there, but what you do receive is a sort of back handed judgement.  Some people (usually men) tend to treat you as if you did something wrong by gaining weight.  This is really rough when like in my case, I had my thyroid removed and gained 40 lbs in a very short amount of time, regardless of diet and exercise.  The only time I've lost real weight since its removal was when I threw up every day for nine months, when I was very sickly pregnant.  I've noticed guys who I thought were friends, sort of disappeared with each pound, but then the good ones always stuck around.  So for that, I am thankful.  It's better to lose a false friend and reveal a true one.

But you can imagine, already burdened with a thyroid problem, being made fun of at the gym was crushing.  Here I was trying to do something about my weight, and they were just loading up my wagon.  My solution was basically to put on headphones and over ride hearing other people talk.  Goodness I've overheard enough bile, and it wasn't intended for me to know how fake people are and what they really think of me... not in the South anyway.  Still, I'm sure that I'm not the only one that has overheard these cutting remarks and felt discouraged. 

First of all, change is hard.  Choosing to make a change, acknowledging that there needs to be one is rough in the first place, but actually making those first steps toward real change, like going for a walk, going to the gym, or anything like that which requires being exposed to such criticism, and makes it all the more difficult. Anything someone else has to say, cannot be as harsh as one's own inner voice critiquing themselves to make a change.  So when someone needs encouragement the most, others out of their own shallow self importance feel the need to criticize.  This can whither all the strength one mustered to try and make that change, especially in someone rebuilding.  You never know why someone has gained weight.  It could be a medical thing like with my thyroid.  They could have been laid up with a broken leg.  Many woman unconsciously gain weight after sexual abuse.  Or it could be as simple as having a desk job and a busy life that makes it hard to cut out time to be active.  Regardless, someone else's flesh is nobody else's business.  Not everybody's body is the same, and unless you have lived in that skin, felt what they feel every day, no one has the right to make judgments on them.

There are so very many things in life, where the moment someone starts to make headway, others will drag them down. Whether it's depression that they are overcoming, a mistake in the past, a bad habit being overcome, or really anything, there's always going to be someone fearing change who enjoyed looking down on you and will try to pull you back down to where they think you belong.  Hopefully it's obvious that it's due to their own shortcomings more than your own.  Personally I think that presented with the prospect that change is possible, makes them uncomfortable, because they like being the way they are and don't want to change.  Who knows, but them, all I can do is hope they change.

So I want to end this with a real life illustration on how pulling other people down can doom everyone including the people pulling.  That's where the crabs come in from the title.  

It used to be that people who dealt in catching crabs from the sea would store the live crabs in a barrel. Crabs are efficient at climbing, and therefore, they could easily escape from any barrel, but the fishermen didn't have to worry about that, because the crabs stayed.  Why is this, you may ask.  The reason is that every time one of the crabs would start to climb out of the barrel, the other crabs would pull it down to keep it with them, at their level.  Ultimately because of this all the crabs would be later served up as a meal.  It gives a whole new definition to being "crabby", and is why I've termed those that like to pull others down as crab people.

So next time you see someone out there making a change, which are you?  Are you ready to cheer them to success or are you wanting to criticize them for who they were?