Day eighteen of Cushing's Awareness: Words and their impact.

There are so many different aspects of my life that have been affected by Cushing's.  The biggest and most noticeable to start with was the weight gain.  You don't gain 100lbs in less than a year without people noticing.  I became so self conscious of myself and still am.  Every time I go out in public I see people look at me with that look of disgust.  I can just hear the thoughts inside their heads.  How could she let herself go like that?  Why doesn't she just change what she eats or go work out at the gym?  It happens every single place I go.  Everyone tells me that I am being absolutely ridiculous, but I know it.  I see the look on their faces.  Years ago before my husband and I got married.  Roughly a year or so after the weight gain started I was doing everything in my power to lose weight.  I was going to Jenny Craig and behaving 100%, I was riding my mountain bike all over the city and yet I still wasn't losing a darn pound.  I remember this moment where this car full of jerks yelled out at me and called me a fat ass and told me to lose some weight.  Hello?!!  Was I not on my bike trying?  I remember riding my fat ass home and just crying.  I was sick of the comments, sick of trying and sick of never seeing any positive results.

This was floating around facebook tonight.
Quite fitting for my post.

Do people have any idea how much those words have impacted my life?  How hurtful a word that can be a big joke to some can be absolutely devastating to someone else.  Do I believe there are overweight people out there who should be doing a lot more for themselves?  You betcha, but I don't think it is fair to look at someone and think it is okay to tear them down.  Everyone is fighting a battle, it may not be an invisible illness like Cushing's, but I promise there is a battle of some sort.  I often think of getting a shirt that says something along the lines of "Do my brain tumors make me look fat?"  I would of course add something about Cushing's disease on it, because I want people to be aware of what this disease is.  I want people to know that not everyone who is fat is doing nothing but shoveling food in their mouth.  I want nothing more than to be able to be active again, but my body is a mess right now.  Some days I can try and push myself for a walk around the store, but thirty minutes of walking and I am spent.  It takes me days to recover and I'm usually so weak and nauseous by the time I get home that I wonder why I ever thought it was a great idea.  I did it to feel alive again.  I miss living a life where I could just take off and do things at the drop of a hat.

I will also see people joking about having brain tumors.  I'm sure everyone at some point thinks it's absolutely funny to blame their oddities and headaches on a tumor.  Having lived through this ordeal I can tell you it's absolutely not funny.  These tumors have destroyed my life and I do not find it amusing one bit.  They have stolen at least eighteen years of my life from me.  Years that I should have been able to spend in the prime of my youth, but instead I feel 90 and I'm only 36.  It is not funny.

I guess my point in this post is mostly to just think about your words.  Think about the looks you give someone.  Try not to be so judgmental.  Those looks and words can harm someone for the rest of their lives.  Look at them and give them a smile or say something kind.  I promise those type of words and actions will also be remembered just as much as the hateful ones.

Your words have power, use them wisely.