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ysobelContent warning: body image, weight, weight vs health, internalized body-shaming.
So it's been a while since I've been properly weighed -- almost all weighing apparatus things, in doctor's offices or wherever, require you to be able to stand unassisted. I can't stand; I can't transfer. I *can* in some cases weigh myself-plus-chair, but since I only have an approximate idea of what the chair weighs, that isn't very useful. For years whenever I get asked (at doctor's offices or wherever) what my height and weight are, I laugh and explain that I have no idea but maybe approximately 5'5" and 250.
Tuesday for the dental surgery, the lift they used to transfer me from chair to bed/gurney/whateveritwas had a weighing thing built in, and I have official weight: 215
and I have a weird maelstrom of mixed feelings
because on the one hand, that's not a horrible number, and hey, lower than my previous estimate
but on the other, it's not "ideal". Especially where societal weight attitudes are concerned. And I had a kneejerk reaction of "okay but surely you can lose 16 pounds to get under 200" and a secondary reaction later of "look up what is a "healthy" weight and aim for that".
Now, mind you, I know these things as facts:
a) BMI calculators and the like are horrible shitty tools to use on individuals
b) my body has a shitton of extra bone, which adds, guess what, *weight*
c) it's not like I can really exercise
[c') even if I could I would have to be careful because a lot of muscle-building-type exercise has a risk of triggering FOP because it is basically minor trauma to muscles]
But I just have ... issues with my body. Like the width of my hips and thighs (I have a body type that tends towards broadness in those areas, plus bone buildup, plus the fact that sitting kind of splooshes thighs out so it's not fair to compare how I look sitting to how other people look standing). Like the fact that maybe I could have continued stand-transfers longer if I hadn't been carrying around so much extra weight (never mind that the position I was standing in was awkward and unsafe; it was also hard on my aides, but that goes into the weight thing again). Like the way I sort of look like I have no neck (never mind that my head is frozen in a slightly tucked-down position, which amplifies double-chin-ness and whatever). Like the way my stomach slouches out, which is partly the position I'm fixed in and partly the ovarian cysts and whatever and partly generic female-body-stomach but partly also just being "out of shape".
And I think I would have those issues regardless of what the numbers say. Like, if the scale had said 130 ... well, I would have suspected it was broken, but it wouldn't change how I look, or how I think about how I look. And my weight ... doesn't really affect me a whole lot? I mean, it would be nice to weigh less so my aides could lift and/or adjust me more easily. (It would be nice to have a freely-working house elf too.) It *wouldn't* be that nice to be so thin that the random oddments of bone cause discomfort (more than I already have) or skin issues; some people with fop do have those issues, and so I guess that makes me lucky idk. It would be nice if I could exercise, but more for the feel-good-ness that I have heard about (hi there endorphins) than anything else.
...Really I am just a tangled ball of feels, and I don't know how to untangle it.
(Relatedly, my sister is getting frustrated with the fact that my mom -- who has a shitton of weight and food issues, way more than I do, except I don't think she's as aware of them -- keeps calling niecelet "fat". Said niecelet is baby-shaped, but nowhere near overweight, and is also a BABY, and both my sister and I will be extremely cranky if my mom manages to give her body image issues.)
So it's been a while since I've been properly weighed -- almost all weighing apparatus things, in doctor's offices or wherever, require you to be able to stand unassisted. I can't stand; I can't transfer. I *can* in some cases weigh myself-plus-chair, but since I only have an approximate idea of what the chair weighs, that isn't very useful. For years whenever I get asked (at doctor's offices or wherever) what my height and weight are, I laugh and explain that I have no idea but maybe approximately 5'5" and 250.
Tuesday for the dental surgery, the lift they used to transfer me from chair to bed/gurney/whateveritwas had a weighing thing built in, and I have official weight: 215
and I have a weird maelstrom of mixed feelings
because on the one hand, that's not a horrible number, and hey, lower than my previous estimate
but on the other, it's not "ideal". Especially where societal weight attitudes are concerned. And I had a kneejerk reaction of "okay but surely you can lose 16 pounds to get under 200" and a secondary reaction later of "look up what is a "healthy" weight and aim for that".
Now, mind you, I know these things as facts:
a) BMI calculators and the like are horrible shitty tools to use on individuals
b) my body has a shitton of extra bone, which adds, guess what, *weight*
c) it's not like I can really exercise
[c') even if I could I would have to be careful because a lot of muscle-building-type exercise has a risk of triggering FOP because it is basically minor trauma to muscles]
But I just have ... issues with my body. Like the width of my hips and thighs (I have a body type that tends towards broadness in those areas, plus bone buildup, plus the fact that sitting kind of splooshes thighs out so it's not fair to compare how I look sitting to how other people look standing). Like the fact that maybe I could have continued stand-transfers longer if I hadn't been carrying around so much extra weight (never mind that the position I was standing in was awkward and unsafe; it was also hard on my aides, but that goes into the weight thing again). Like the way I sort of look like I have no neck (never mind that my head is frozen in a slightly tucked-down position, which amplifies double-chin-ness and whatever). Like the way my stomach slouches out, which is partly the position I'm fixed in and partly the ovarian cysts and whatever and partly generic female-body-stomach but partly also just being "out of shape".
And I think I would have those issues regardless of what the numbers say. Like, if the scale had said 130 ... well, I would have suspected it was broken, but it wouldn't change how I look, or how I think about how I look. And my weight ... doesn't really affect me a whole lot? I mean, it would be nice to weigh less so my aides could lift and/or adjust me more easily. (It would be nice to have a freely-working house elf too.) It *wouldn't* be that nice to be so thin that the random oddments of bone cause discomfort (more than I already have) or skin issues; some people with fop do have those issues, and so I guess that makes me lucky idk. It would be nice if I could exercise, but more for the feel-good-ness that I have heard about (hi there endorphins) than anything else.
...Really I am just a tangled ball of feels, and I don't know how to untangle it.
(Relatedly, my sister is getting frustrated with the fact that my mom -- who has a shitton of weight and food issues, way more than I do, except I don't think she's as aware of them -- keeps calling niecelet "fat". Said niecelet is baby-shaped, but nowhere near overweight, and is also a BABY, and both my sister and I will be extremely cranky if my mom manages to give her body image issues.)
