OT (a little bit) - Body Image

May 29, 2010

Hi everyone,

I wanted to mention something that happened last week. I've been dating with a

successful, much younger man(35), very attractive too. When I was 25, before I

got really sick, I was considered very pretty. However, being sick has taken

its toll on my body. The steroids have made me gain weight and my butt and

stomach, even my upper arms have flab. I have a huge scar on my abdomen and

back with what feels like a hockey puck under my skin from the morphine pump.

I'm covered in black and blue bruises, not to mention purple quarter sized dots

from every Kineret injection. I'm sure that everyone on this list can relate.

Being sick has caused many of us to lose the bodies we once had.

Add to that the fact that I grew up with parents who constantly told me that no

one would love me if I was fat. No one. And " you have such a pretty face; if

you only lost weight.... " (I weighed 125 lbs at 5'2 " back then.) We would go to

Mcs and they would not let me have French Fries, but would give them to my

brother. One night after Mcs, I got violently ill. I must have been

about 10. I threw up. Whole French fries. My rush to eat the fries unnoticed

meant that I gobbled them down for fear of getting caught. I'll never forget

seeing those whole fries and thinking about what my parents were doing to me.

As mean as it seems, my parents behavior came out of love; they had both been

obese teenagers and wanted to spare me what they had been through. It is a

wonder that I am not bulimic or anorexic, that I don't have an eating disorder.

Ironically, when i got sick, I gained weight, but my parents backed off because

they knew that my choices were to gain weight or die (without the drug). They

backed off, but the damage had already been done to my psyche.

Back to my date Thursday night: he noticed that I was very self-conscious with

my body. I admitted that he was right and told him about my upbringing. And he

said, " It's not your body that I care about. It only shows that you've lived,

it isn't WHO you are. Anyone who cares about that is stupid. " Bless his heart.

I honestly started to cry. In this area, this guy deserves a medal. I know

that some people on this list have lost loved ones while having this disease due

to the emotional and physical changes from Stills. But I just wanted to say

that there ARE men out there who are terric.

PS: yes I am seeing him again; he asked for me to pose for him so he could paint

me. And I agreed.

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