More on the medical industry.

Open letter to all doctors everywhere

Dear Doctors everywhere,

First off, I'd like to remind you that everyone is different.  I'd like to ask you not to judge a book by its cover.  If you saw my test results and then came in to talk to a skinny person, the conversation would have gone much differently.  You would have asked questions and let that person be a part of their health plan.

I have never been afforded such dignity.

It is my feeling that at least half of what comes out of your mouth should be questions.  The other half can be advice, but the questions should come first and if the advice discounts the questions, then let me remind you to always listen to your patient's answers!

Do not assume. It makes an ass of only YOU in this situation.

Also, the BMI has been discounted as an acceptable gauge to determine healthy weight in adults by nearly the entire scientific community EXCEPT DOCTORS.  Maybe you should go back to test results.  I'll grant you that my weight is a problem, but my friend is barely above the anorexic looking weight she used to be and was told she is obese at her last appointment.  She looks good, she's healthy, and she's super active.  My brother in law runs every day, looks super healthy, and everyone assumes he is, but his BAD Cholesterol is through the roof AND his GOOD Cholesterol is extremely low.  His doctor does not make him feel ashamed.

Consider that for a moment.  Are you shaming your patients?  Then stop it.

Now I'd like to point out that if an anorexic or bulimic person walks into your office and says he/she is depressed, you are likely to suggest therapy and sympathetic intervention.  You don't just say "Eat more" or "binge less" and send them on their way, do you?  No.  It's well proven to be about mental health (control issues ARE mental health problems, people!)

So why are fat people not considered as possibly having a root cause?  No.  It's just lack of will power.  That's dismissive.  I think anorexic people lack will power to look in the mirror and be okay with themselves.  (Whether I really believe that or not is beside the point.  You see where I'm going with that argument, right?)

And when I mentioned in my appointment that I lost a bunch of weight, got depressed, and gave up, why did that not alarm you?  Frankly, it should have.  Frankly, I've considered suicide at least a dozen times in the last two years.  Frankly, I don't know how to ask for help because when I do, people tell me losing weight is the answer.

But it wasn't the fucking answer.

Sincerely,
Patients everywhere (especially the overweight, chubby, fat, and obese ones)

A few words about depression.

About 5 years ago when I joined Curves, they gave me a book.  I brought it home and it sat around for a couple of months before I read it and when I finally did, I found a lot of information I had heard before.  After years of being overweight, you become an arm chair expert on losing weight whether you like it or not.  Everyone has advice.  Pretty soon you start sorting out the information based on source and practicality.  The rest of it gets filed away and dismissed because it's a bunch of hooey.  Still, you hear it all.  The book had very little "new" information to share, but it did start out by offending me with its chapter about how eating is immature because it is giving in.  Whatever!  It's called survival instinct whether a person overeats or not.  It's about limits.  Calling eaters immature is a rude, bullying tactic - something I recognize quickly after years of school bullying.

Anyway, at the end of the book, it claimed to be reporting a series of studies showing how exercise affected depression.  The source they used had three groups; one that was on anti-depressant medication, one which combined medication and exercise, and the third used exercise alone to control depression.  According to them, of course, because we must sell, sell, sell the gym, they reported that the third group had the most success.

I've dealt with depression, too, and have gotten pretty damn good at hiding it.  I've heard eating right and exercise is all a person needs to get over it.  I've heard many things relating the two, actually.  Reading it in that book gave me so much hope - I pinned everything on it.

Today I would like to say to all those people who say exercise will help with depression: You are all liars.  LIARS.  After a number of months at  Curves, the depression started to settle in.  I tried doing things for other people.  I tried eating better.  I tried exercising even more.  I feel sure it wasn't related to my weight or weight loss because it wasn't something that came up when I felt bad, nor did thinking about those things make me feel worse.  I just felt blue, then down, then worse and nothing helped.  Nothing in my life gave cause for this (just to dispell people who think only when bad things happen to a person do they have the right to be depressed) it was just there like a dark shadow.

Well, maybe I have reason now, but my life is pretty good.  I have kept exercising great.  Yeah, I haven't been perfect on my diet, but I'm not eating a ton of bad stuff (except when I'm at parties.  I don't know what it is, but I'm allowing myself to indulge when I'm in a party setting more than I had been).  At home and most of the time, I eat within my calories and even when I go over, there are quite a few great things I'm eating so the bad isn't a bunch of Twinkies or potato chips.  Still, it's been bad.  Bad enough that I look back at that time at Curves and look at things now and have two cases where I can confirm YOU ARE ALL LIARS.  It is ridiculous to think a fat person is depressed because of how they eat or how much they exercise.  No one would accuse a skinny person of the same thing.

I don't want to talk about it too much, really, but trying to claw my way out is just as exhausting as being depressed in the first place.  Still, I think I've pretty well established my reluctance for medical help no matter how bad things get.  Hey, next time I almost bleed to death, I promise to go to a hospital.