The Australian Healthcare Association is having a conference titled “Obesity: Should There Be A Law Against It?“.

Words defy me.

I am a proud member of the fashion police, so I found this article and the discussion on Feministe very interesting, especially given that one of my pet peeves is when people go around wearing ill-fitting clothing. There are few valid excuses for that kind of crap. Quadruple-boobs ’cause your bra is too small, wearing white underwear under white pants, that whole leggings-under-the-cheap-80’s-knockoff-stonewashed-denim-miniskirt thing, and, of course, muffin-top.

So. Low-rise jeans are the style now, and for some reason, women are wearing these jeans too tight, causing muffin-top. It’s highly unattractive, and wholly unnecessary. Buy jeans in the proper size, and you won’t get muffin-top, no matter what your size*. I see women around here committing this fashion faux pas all the time. Women of all sizes with beautiful bodies. Why do you want to do that to yourself? Go up one size, and you’ll be a do instead of a don’t. It’s that simple.

Something to think about: is this merely a fashion issue or does it say something about the way women are viewed in our society? After reading the discussion, I think it’s mostly the latter. When I walk down the street and judge people on their fashion choices, it’s almost always women who catch my eye. One poster suggested that this is because men don’t give us much to work with. I’m not sure that’s actually the case–maybe we just don’t notice the variety of men’s fashion choices because men’s fashion choices aren’t seen as important. Alternatively, maybe there is less variety in the way men dress, and again, we don’t notice it because what mean wear is not important to our society. In any case, yes, it’s mostly women who are judged by the fashion police, so yes, we need to analyze the issue politically, although not solely so. Women may be unwittingly bowing to the patriarchy when they stuff themselves into clothes that are too small for them, and we may be unwittingly bowing to the patriarchy when we judge the result, but that doesn’t change the fact that muffin-top is uuuu-glay.

Now that I have a cameraphone I’m going to go around taking pictures of fashion crimes. I am bad.

* I, unfortunately, have permanent muffin-top because of the way my fat is distributed. My body creases at the belly-button, so even when I’m not wearing any clothes at all I’ve got the whole two-roll thing going on. There’s nothing I can do about it, and it vexes me to no end because, yeah, it looks like I don’t know enough to buy clothes that fit. Very few people have this body type, however, so I’m not moderating my position here.

The Hindu : Sci Tech : Living on a vegetable-free diet

A national diet and nutrition survey was conducted by the U.K.’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. According to the survey, it was that found that most British children eat less than half the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.

About 20 per cent of them did not eat any fruit at all in the week in which the study was carried out, apart from some of those foamy banana-shaped sweets and a packet of Jaffa Cakes (biscuits).

Indeed, in these heady days of obesity and overprocessing, children are so removed from the agricultural lineage of their diets that many now believe carrots come from sheep, and stories about youngsters having survived on nothing but jam sandwiches and Coco Pops for the first seven years of their lives are not uncommon.

And yet the little tykes miraculously continue to thrive. No one appears to have a good explanation for this.

I’m just catching up on my blogroll now, and I noticed that Feministe has an interesting post discussing fat acceptance that touches on a lot of the issues I’ve been mulling over here on my blog lately. I disagree with many of the points Zuzu makes in the original post, but I find many of the commenters’ sentiments to be validating of my own points. It’s so sad to see that people who agree with most of the tenets of the fat acceptance movement refuse to consider themselves members of the movement. These are people who would in any case be our allies, and should be our constituents, but look upon our movement as a joke, a counterproductive joke. Why? For all the reasons I’ve outlined in my past couple of posts on this subject.

Well, I guess it’s high time for me to write a post about my weight. I’ve been putting this off since October, but the recent discussion I’ve been participating in on BFB and Michelle’s blog makes me feel like I’m failing to address the elephant in the living room (so to speak). To make a long story short, I’m taking Meridia.

As for the long story: Back in the spring of 2003 or so, I started sliding into a depression again. It was pretty mild for a while, but I did start to gain some weight since I was eating mostly crap and was completely overcome by inertia. Around the end of 2004, the depression started getting really nasty, and I wasn’t able to seek help ’til around April. When I did, the psychiatrist I saw put me on a drug called Remeron–a drug known for causing weight gain and massive carb cravings.

Now, due to the fact that it seems like all of my previous weight gain was due to antidepressants, I’d vowed to never again take any drug listing weight gain as a side effect. It seems like any time a drug has weight gain as a side effect, I gain massive amounts of weight. Like 50 pounds. I felt so desperate, however, and since I’d already exhausted all of my other options for antidepressants, I felt like I had no choice but to try the Remeron. So I did. It helped me sleep wonderfully, but it didn’t help my depression much, and it caused me to gain enough weight–about 30 pounds–to where I was over 300 pounds. My clothes didn’t fit me anymore, and I hated the way I looked. I didn’t feel right in my body. I was just as healthy and mobile as ever–the weight didn’t seem to affect me physically at all (with the exception of the extra strain on my knees and the annoyance of having more skin folds and hanging fat)–but I was miserable. The weight gain was more than canceling out any benefit I was receiving from the Remeron. I made some behavioral changes (mostly eating less sugar in the form of Coke and other sweets) but my weight just continued rising. I felt disgusting. I wanted the weight off. So I decided to go off the Remeron and start Meridia.

Why is my decision anything to write home about? Because I’m a rabid advocate for size acceptance. I’ve read near to every book on the subject that’s been written, I’ve volunteered my time to fat acceptance organizations, I’ve subscribed to every fat acceptance periodical that exists, I’ve participated in several fat acceptance forums online, I preach the fat acceptance gospel to anyone who will listen and many who won’t, I go to various fat acceptance conventions–the works. And I believe the message, or at least the vast majority of it. I believe that being fat doesn’t have to mean that you’re unhealthy. I believe that being fat doesn’t have to mean that you’re unattractive. I believe that fat people are just as good as everybody else. I vehemently believe that no-one should put off her life until she loses weight. And I know that diets, weight loss surgery, and diet drugs do not work. Since I found the fat acceptance movement, I’ve tried to be a role model, demonstrating that being fat doesn’t have to keep you from living the life you want. So I felt like a traitor to the movement when I decided to take Meridia.

My reasoning went like this: my weight gain was caused by drugs, so why should I feel so guilty about using a drug to try to lose weight? The drugs that made me gain so much weight have generally listed statistical weight gain in the realm of 5-10 pounds, which is about the same Meridia has statistically been shown to help people lose. I always gained way more than the listed statistics, so perhaps I’d lose more than the statistical probability. Obviously my weight is majorly reactive to drugs that tamper with my brain chemicals. I also figured that since Meridia was originally tested as an antidepressant, it might give me a boost in my mood, too, especially since it’s an activating drug and those are the kinds of drugs I’ve had the most luck with. I figured that since my cardiovascular health is just fine, I would be unlikely to experience any of the side effects people wig out about so much. I figured my aunt wouldn’t prescribe it for me if it were really dangerous. I figured that if my appetite did get suppressed, I’d use that as a tool to help me make better food choices. I would not use it “together with a reduced-calorie diet” as recommended. I would absolutely not make any effort to eat less; I’d eat whatever I wanted just as I usually do. I figured that I’d just use it as crank, basically. And lastly, I figured it was worth a try. That if it didn’t work, fine–I would just stop taking it.

My gut feelings, however, went something like this: I’m quite cavalier about my long-term health because I’ve got a mental illness that makes living not so much fun, so I didn’t really care about any potential side effects. I hated the way I looked. I was so miserable that I felt that anything was worth a try. I hated being that fat.

Here’s the kicker–the drug worked. I dropped 40 pounds in six months with no effort or side effects whatsoever. The only thing I sacrificed was some cash. My weight has stabilized now at about the level it was when I was last mentally stable. My clothes fit again, and I once again like how I feel in my body and like how I look in the mirror. That was the most I realistically hoped for, and I’m incredibly pleased with the way things have worked out. Losing weight has not cured all my ills, and I never expected it to. I expected it would make me feel better about how I looked, and it has. But I’m still fat, I’ve always been fat, and I’ll always be fat.

Of course, we all know that the real test of a weight loss method is how it performs in the long run. Will I be able to keep the weight off? I think so, for several reasons: I’ve never dieted, and did not lose this weight due to any calorie restriction. I have a really healthy relationship to food. I think the weight I gained on the Remeron was completely unnatural, so I don’t see any reason why my body would want to return to that weight if I’m not on that drug. I was stable for a few years at this weight, so I figure it’s more or less my set point. The only difference between the way I’m eating now and the way I was eating 40 pounds ago is that I eat a little more fruit and veggies now. I do not restrict my eating in any way. Also, I get 6-8 hours of exercise a week. It does not seem to me that I’ve set my body up for rebound weight-gain due to re-feeding. I think and hope that the Meridia has just corrected whatever the Remeron did to my system that caused me to gain so much weight. Only time will tell.

So, how has this experience changed my views on size acceptance? What have I learned? I think that size acceptance advocates often don’t take fat people’s personal feelings and experience into consideration nearly enough. I think smaller fat acceptance advocates don’t understand what it can be like to live in a supersized body, so the rhetoric they spout can often sound like ignorant bullshit to bigger people. I know that exercise and healthy eating do not always result in a weight that feels healthy for an individual, and that any given individual’s experience will not necessarily reflect the fat acecptance doctrine. I know that there are some things about being fat that suck in and of themselves, and have nothing to do with self-esteem or societal discrimination. I know that just because you’ve accepted yourself at one weight doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to accept yourself at another, or at least not as easily. There will almost certainly be more work to be done. And most likely acceptance will take more work the bigger you are.

So, I’ve learned a lot, and it has given me a different perspective on the fat acceptance movement. Most importantly, this experience has helped me understand that many of the tenets of size acceptance don’t reflect reality. I believe that the fact that the SA movement doesn’t speak to many fat people’s experiences is one of the major factors preventing the movement from both growth and being taken seriously. I used to be one of the mid-sized people who doggedly touted the HAES philosophy as the solution to all fat people’s problems, regardless of their size (the people or the problems). I understand now, though, that sometimes being fat just sucks–because of problems inherent in the at itself, and not problems with society, self-care, or self-esteem–and there’s not necessarily anything you can do about that. I hope this experience can help me convince other SA advocates that the movement will be much more effective if we acknowledge these facts.

Michelle Murphy, who’s currently guest blogging at Big Fat Blog, recently wrote a post there discussing a survey which demonstrates that even fat people are biased against fat people. In the survey, fat people were asked what they’d be willing to sacrifice in order not to be fat. Quoting the article, “Nearly half said they would swap one year of life rather than be fat, while 15 percent reported that they’d give up 10 years or more. About a third of respondents said they’d rather get divorced than be obese. One in five said they’d prefer to be childless; 15 percent said they’d pick severe depression over obesity and 14 percent chose alcoholism over girth.”

Personally, I wasn’t surprised at all. While some of us may accept being fat, and even like some of the things that go along with being fat (being massive rocks!), very few of us like being fat. Those of us in the fat acceptance movement included. While we may not be willing to diet, get WLS, or go on some strange pill–we know those things don’t work, after all, and will make us worse off in the end–I strongly believe that the vast majority of us would make the sacrifice of at least a year of life if we were guaranteed thinness.

Interestingly, however, BFB’ers resoundingly disagreed with my beliefs in their comments on the article, even going so far as to imply that no reasonable person would make this kind of sacrifice. Many commented that such a sacrifice can only be the result of self-hate, that the negative aspects of being fat that would cause people to make such sacrifices can be ameliorated with a good dose of self-love. While this may be true for some people, including most of the people at the lower end of the BMI scale, it by no means addresses the realities many of us fat people face on a daily basis. My position is that until the SA movement accepts the fact that being fat has disadvantages in and of it self, disadvantages unrelated to self-love and society’s attitudes–we’re never going to be taken seriously by the majority of the population. Especially fat people, since our statements aren’t grounded in their personal realities.

Many BFB’ers remain stubborn idealists, however. The whole idealism/pragmatism dichotomy in general is a major hot-button of mine, as is the SA movement’s lack of acceptance of the fact that sometimes being fat sucks because of physical problems inherent in the fat itself. Add into that my strong views about people who believe they can judge the worth of other people’s lives…well, suffice to say, few discussions could get me more riled up than this one.

Michelle often argues that if we could only convince the world, and particularly the health establishment, that being fat isn’t unhealthy, we’d make major strides toward achieving our goal of fat acceptance. I generally concur with Michelle’s views on SA, but this subject is one on which my views greatly diverge from hers. I think she’s totally barking up the wrong tree. I think most people dislike being fat because of vanity and inconvenience. Therefore, convincing fat people that they don’t need to lose weight to be healthy is not going to keep people from trying to lose weight.

I subscribe to Michelle’s LiveJournal, so I noticed that she’s posted her thoughts about the BFB discussion there. Riled up as I am, I wrote a tome of a response–so much of a tome that LJ wouldn’t let me post it as a comment there, so I’m posting it here instead. I’d love to hear your comments on this debate.

—

There’s an extremely important part of my argument that you’ve misunderstood. Just because making a big sacrifice in order to not be fat can be a reasonable choice doesn’t mean that refusing said sacrifice is not a reasonable choice. I strongly believe that this is not the kind of question the SA movement can purport to answer for all of its members. This is a personal calculation in a way that e.g. “you can improve your health without losing weight” isn’t.

I’m a good utilitarian, so I see this problem through the lens of that philosophy: minimizing overall suffering. Were you in reality given the choice between being fat and giving up a year of your life (which year?), you’d have to find the balance between the amount you suffer from being fat vs. the value of one of your years. From your comments here and at BFB, I understand that such a sacrifice is not one you’d make, and that may very well be a reasonable decision for you. For you, one of your years is too high of a price to pay to buy off the amount of suffering you’d experience for the rest of your life as a result of being fat, and that’s wonderful! You love your life enough to want to live as much of it as possible, and your weight doesn’t hinder you from doing so to any meaningful extent.

The calculation doesn’t work out the same way for everyone, however. The way I see it, there are three different spheres where we can suffer from being fat: the physical, the societal, and the personal.

• Physical issues are objective facts about how being fat can affect the body. For many fat people, physical issues seriously lower their quality of life, causing a major amount of suffering. Many of these are issues that no amount of societal acceptance or self-love will change, contrary to the popular beliefs of many in the SA movement. Examples of physical problems include cellulitis, major joint problems, and mobility issues. Luckily I don’t suffer much at all from the physical problems caused by my fat; the knee and skin problems I mentioned on BFB are pretty much it.
• Societal issues are the attitudes most people in our culture hold that lead them to behave in ways that cause fat people suffering. These include lack of access to inexpensive, quality, stylish clothing, lack of respect, fit problems, job discrimination…the list here goes on and on. Unfortunately, society cannot practically accommodate each and every one of its members. Not all of our societally-caused problems are practically fixable. I suffer from only a few (and non-major, at that) societally-caused problems, e.g. my lack of attractiveness to other people, my lack of ability to find clothing I like in my size, and my lack of ability to physically fit in some places.
• Personal issues involve the way our self-esteem affects the way we treat ourselves; this is the sphere over which we can exert the most control. IMO, personal issues are where the rubber really hits the road of fat acceptance. Improving your self-esteem can help you take better care of your health, do the things you want to do regardless of your weight, dress in flattering clothing, demand respect, etc. When it comes to personal issues, I suffer very little because of my weight. I don’t hate myself and I don’t hate the way I look (I’m actually pretty conceited when it comes to those things–just ask anyone who knows me!). I don’t keep myself from doing things because I’m “too fat”. There are very few things I would be doing differently with my life if I were thinner. Increasing self-love can work wonders for those of us lucky enough to be primarily hindered by a lack of this valuable commodity, but it’s hardly a panacea for others who are mostly hindered by the other two spheres of difficulty.

So why would I be willing to sacrifice x number of years of my life to be thin, when it seems that I suffer so little from my weight? Mostly because of the other half of the equation. My years aren’t worth much to me. I’ve got a form of bipolar disorder that’s primarily characterized by depression, and depression, by definition, means that I’m not enjoying life. For me, sacrificing a year of my life to be not fat is a win-win situation. Granted, though, I’m not the best illustration of a person who might reasonably choose to sacrifice a year to be thin. Ever been to a NAAFA convention? My first NAAFA convention really opened my eyes. There you’ll come into contact with many people who have major problems caused by their weight. People who cannot walk, people who are in a great deal of pain all the time, people with major breathing problems, people who cannot go out of their homes without being stared at or harassed. These people can love themselves all they want and treat themselves and their bodies with utmost respect–and many do–but that’s not going to magically help them be able to walk or allow them to get on an airplane and travel cross-country to see their family. Luckily, many of these people have a constitution that allows them to love life irrespective of any problems their physical embodiment brings them.

But some people suffer from their fat an incredible amount. Who are you to tell them they’re unreasonable for being willing to make the transaction under discussion? Who are you to judge the amount they suffer, how easily that suffering can be remedied, or how valuable their lives are to them? No-one can judge another person’s suffering, no-one can know whether or not any remedies touted to cure another’s ills or those remedies’ benefits are realizable for that person, and no-one can judge the value of another person’s life. Period.

As for the Krishnamurti quote, I think it’s total bullshit. (And before I rip it to shreds, I should clarify that I understand the term well-adjusted to mean accepting/acknowledging reality). To begin with, in a healthy society, no-one would need to be well-adjusted. A healthy society, as I understand it, would itself by definition be adjusted its members, so its members would not have to adjust to it. Not to mention that a healthy society cannot practically exist, and probably not logically, either, so those who refuse to adjust to a sick society are basically condemning themselves to being poorly-adjusted for the rest of their lives. I can hardly comprehend how it’s preferable to be poorly-adjusted to our sick society–the society that exists, and only society we have–than to be well-adjusted. Being poorly-adjusted implies increased suffering for you, and as a result, others around you. Most importantly, however, it’s difficult to effect positive change in society if you’re poorly-adjusted to it. And I’m assuming, with all the judgmental terms here, that there’s an ideal, non-sick society that we want to work towards. Seems to me that in order to begin to mould society into your ideal, you have to first become well-adjusted to society as it currently exists.

This whole discussion reminds me a lot of the issue of abstinence-only education. Some people think a sick society is a society in which people have sex before marriage. They are poorly-adjusted to the realities of what they see as a sick society–that people do have sex, regardless of whether or not they’re married. In order to work toward their ideal of no-one having sex until marriage, they want to teach kids that sex before marriage is a sin, that condoms don’t work, that sex before marriage will end up killing you, etc. They propagate demonstrable lies in order to further their agenda of creating an ideal world where no-one has sex before marriage. The result of their lack of acceptance of reality–the result of their poor adjustment to our supposedly sick society–is that teen pregnancy and STD rates are higher than ever. How is it that singlemindedly pursuing their ideal of a non-sick society while failing to accept reality is healthy?

I do most definitely not see acceptance–well-adjustedness–as defeat. I see it as a prerequisite to positive change. Is this not one of the defining tenets of the SA movement? Therefore it’s my goal to be well-adjusted to our sick society. I actively work to change society to be more in line with my ideal world, but at the same time I have to relate to society as it is now. I don’t have a choice–none of us does, unless we want to go all Unabomber. I believe that I will not be able to affect positive change in the world unless I use reality as my starting point. Just like I accept the fact that I’m fat, I accept the fact that society makes things difficult for fat people. I also accept the fact that being fat is sometimes difficult in and of itself. Because of these facts, most fat people don’t want to be fat. If I don’t accept these facts–if SA doesn’t accept these facts–no-one will take us seriously because we’re not demonstrating that our ideas have a base in reality. It’s logic, you know? You can have a valid formula, but if you plug junk into it, you’ll only get junk out.

Speaking of “health nazism”, I’m noticing lately that health standards here in Norway are considerably more strict than they are in the US. Health standards–not weight standards. I had an appointment with a nutritionist the other day to discuss my high cholesterol and B12 deficiency. I went in prepared to be recommended a weight-loss diet, but it turned out that the nutritionist was happy to hear me say that I’m only interested in making changes to affect my health and not my weight, and that I do not have weight loss as a goal (the truth of that statement can be debated!). She had a strong HAES stance, something which I find is pretty common here. When she asked me about my exercise, I told her that I walk about three hours a week and do yoga twice a week. She said this was fine, but later in the conversation she said something like “Since you exercise so little…” I found that amusing, and a little frustrating, too. In the US, the amount of exercise I do would be considered pretty good, at least amongst my socioeconomic class. Here, I’m a lazy bum. It seems like here you’re expected to do a few hours of strenuous exercise a week to be considered fit. Health profiles ask how many hours a week you spend on exercise where you get out of breath and sweaty. That’s the standard here. When we went on a hike on summer vacation, my MIL explained to me that she’d chosen that particular hike for me because her friend with MS could do it–nice! I can walk all day, I’m strong as an ox, and I can do a backbend, but I’m not considered fit by a long shot.

These high health standards aren’t limited to exercise, either. After I went to the nutritionist, I decided to quit drinking so much coke because she suggested that my high sugar intake was the source of my high cholesterol, since nothing else in my diet could be causing it. I told my shrink about my decision to quit, and she praised me in a very patronizing way. She repeated “there are 25 sugar cubes in a glass of coke”–after all, stupid fat me, I thought it was health food! Good thing she enlightened me, otherwise I’d be brushing my teeth with the stuff! She expressed concern about my health, and fear that I’d get diabetes (science lesson, y’all: it’s a genetic disorder, and if you don’t have the gene, you won’t “get” it!). I reassured her, and mentioned that I’m drinking juice instead sometimes. She didn’t think that was any better. She seemed to think that juice is actually bad. Well, fuck that shit! People in this country have been majorly brainwashed by the Atkins empire. Juice is not bad. Juice does not have the same kind of “bad” sugar as coke. Juice has lots of nutritional value. No one, at least no one who’s not diabetic, needs to fear juice. Juice is healthy. People really need to chill out about sugar. I’m so sick of the catastrophizing associated with it!

The thing that makes me most angry is that none of these fearmongers seem to grasp the importance of depression when it comes to health. It’s not sugar that’s going to kill me. I’ll probably die from cardiovascular disease brought on from the stress that depression causes my body. When I’m depressed, I have almost no chance of doing things that are healthy for my body. It seems rational to me to get rid of the depression so I can do healthy things instead of harping at me for not doing the healthy things when my depression makes them nigh on impossible. My depression is going to kill me way before anything else does, not to mention that it completely destroys my quality of life here and now. IMO, stressing out about sugar or my activity level is asinine. Stress is the last thing I need. I wish I could make the people close to me understand this issue.

OK, I’m feeling pretty pissed off, frustrated, and hopeless right now. Today I had another appointment with my pdoc. I have regular appointments now, because she wants me to do that whole traditional “analysis” thing: lying on a couch, dream interpretation, unconscious motivation, free association, etc. I was skeptical at first, but decided that I may as well give it a go, since I’ve never tried this kind of therapy before. I have read before that the best predictor of a good outcome in therapy is whether or not the patient trusts and respects the therapist. I figured that since I trust my pdoc and have felt that she’s doing a better job than most other therapists I’ve seen, her methodologies would be of only secondary importance, so I should just go with the flow.

Today I wanted to talk to the pdoc about my sleep. Since I’ve been on the Lamictal, my sleep quality has been terrible. I’m still taking 15 mg Remeron for sleep, because it had been helping marvelously with my sleep. Not anymore, though. The pdoc wants me to regulate my schedule, come hell or high water. I haven’t been able to do this this past week because my sleep is so bad. I told her that I wouldn’t be able to regulate my sleep until my sleep quality improved, either by my getting used to the Lamictal or by using some other med for sleep.

She said that I have to do it anyway, just make myself do it. She gave me another benzo, Sobril (Serax in the US), to take as needed for helping me get to sleep, but she wasn’t happy about it. She says she doesn’t believe that we’ll get anywhere with this therapy unless I force myself to regulate my sleep. Now, bear in mind, this is something I’ve never been able to do successfully. Never. My moods go haywire when I’ve done it in the past–extreme anxiety and extreme depression. Very ugly. My life was barely able to withstand it then; now things are even shakier.

The major problem with my sleep is dreams. The Lamictal is giving me extremely vivid dreams. I mentioned this to the pdoc, and she asked what I’d been dreaming about. I did remember a dream from the other night, so I told her. She began to dissect the dream. What might I have in common with the people in the dream? Because all dreams are about us, she said. How did I feel about what happened in the dream? She suggested that I think about my dreams and maybe keep a notebook by the bed to record keywords to help me remember them. They are the best gateway to the unconscious, she says.

*sigh* Now my skepticism returns. I’ve been reading a lot lately about depression. Currently I’m reading Peter Kramer’s latest book, Against Depression, and I highly recommend it. Based on what I’ve read in this book and elsewhere, depression is considerably more biological than we previously thought. Modern neuroscience has gone beyond the whole neurotransmitter theory of depression; the theory now in vogue has a lot to do with genetic susceptibility and life stressors. It appears that a depressive’s genetic inheritance makes her brain particularly susceptible to damage by stress. When stress occurs, the brain is less able to protect itself from damage, and less able to repair the damage that occurs. This leaves the depressive even more vulnerable to damage from stress in the future. So depressive episodes cause brain damage that make more depressive episodes likely to occur in the future. Because of this, it’s extremely important to nip depressive episodes in the bud with effective treatment. The longer and more severe an episode, the worse the brain damage. And actual, physical brain damage, both at the cellular and structural level, as verifiable with MRI’s and microscopes, is occurring.

These theories mesh very well with my experience of my depression. My biological mother and her mother have depression. So do my biological half-siblings; they have circadian issues, too, just like me. My depression does not seem to be related to external events; it doesn’t even seem to be caused by my thought processes. Then there are those times when I can be depressed and crying, while at the same time laughing because the rational part of me is observing this physical breakdown and can see that it’s not attached to anything. Aside from the depression, I’ve had a good life. No trauma, a close, loving family, plenty of opportunities that I’ve taken, etc. I seemingly have no reason to be depressed.

So needless to say, I’m concerned. I’m concerned that I’m not being medicated properly, and I’m concerned that this therapy is barking up the wrong tree. I’m concerned because my pdoc says that I might get worse before I get better. I’m concerned because she’s instructed me to do something that has previously set off major anxiety and depressive episodes. She says that it won’t be so bad this time, because the Lamictal will help stabilize my mood–but I’m not on a high enough dose of Lamictal for it to be having that effect yet. I’m concerned because I know that being on hormonal birth control makes Lamictal 40% less effective, and my pdoc has never asked about whether or not I’m on hormonal birth control (which is, as a matter of fact, another potential cause of depression).

I decided to read online about psychoanalysis. Here’s a statement from CBS Cares that’s representative of what I’ve found:

It used to be believed that the roots of depression were in childhood experiences. According to this belief, medication could serve only as a band-aid, and it was necessary to undergo extensive psychotherapy to correct the underlying causes of depression. Depressed mood and anxiety were also considered to be the results of intra-psychic conflict, and therefore it was seen as necessary to resolve the conflict in order to truly treat the depression and anxiety.

Much of this thinking has been revised over the past 20 years…

…psychoanalysis is a multi-year, in-depth exploration of how a person experiences themselves and other people, relying on detailed understanding of early life experiences and examination of unconscious thoughts and feelings as revealed in free association, dreams, and other avenues. While it can be effective in helping people develop stronger and more mature personalities and making better decisions in life, it is not a treatment for depression.

Most statements about psychoanalysis aren’t even so generous as to allow that it might help patients develop as a person. In any case, from my research, not to mention my experiences with therapy in the US, it seems like the majority of Norwegian therapy, including that which I’m undergoing now, is based on pseudoscientific theories that are at least 20 years out of date. So, I’m concerned. I’m depressed now, and not getting better. I’m afraid for my brain, not to mention my body. So many of the symptoms of my depression are somatic: poor memory, problems concentrating, messed-up sleep cycles… You should read Kramer’s book; what he has to say about depression as a somatic illness is just terrifying. Well, for a depressive. I’m concerned that my therapy now is little more than medical malpractice, and that there’s nothing I can do because this entire fucking continent is 20 years behind the times.

I want a second opinion. I want to talk to a fucking scientist. A neurologist, or a psychopharmacologist. I just cannot help but think I’m being forced to wander down the garden path here, and I fear I simply haven’t got time for that kind of bullshit.

Because of my recent weight gain, I’ve been forced (forced, I tell you) to order some new clothing that actually fits me. Trying to force myself into too-tight clothes that I’d been able to wear comfortably just a few months ago was getting to be a real drag, and would often ruin an outing for me before it even started. Because there are a few plus-sized ladies reading this blog, I figure I’ll give a review of what I learned.

Zaftique is a store I’d never ordered from before. Previousl I remember their clothing being frumpy and poorly organized on the site, so I’d never bothered with them. They seem to have revamped their information architecture as well as their target demographic, so I figured I’d give them a try. I ordered a total of six items from them, all tops–I went a little crazy because their stuff is relatively cheap. I was unfortunately disappointed with every single item that arrived, however. When synthetic material was used, the material felt cheap, sort of like a slightly-heavier version of a wal-mart half-slip. One top consisted of a synthetic plus synthetic lace, but the lace somehow seemed to pull at the rest of the material, ruining the line of the garment. The more natural fabrics all had some synthetic in them; they felt nice to the touch, but I always fear pilling with fabrics that contain a mix of synthetics and natural fibers. Otherwise, my biggest beef with all the items was the proportioning. The armholes on the garments extend below my bra-band! This is not so much of a problem for non-armless shirts, except it ruins the entire line of the shirt when you raise your arms. Plus it’s always nice to have well-fitting armholes to prevent as much skin-to-skin contact as possible, especially on parts of the body that tend to sweat a lot. In addition, shoulder-lines were designed for male linebackers. The tank-top straps were entirely too widely sdpaced, as were the shoulders of a top with a wide v-neck. My conclusion is that in general Zaftique has some nice design ideas for cheap, but they’re poorly executed.

I’ve ordered from JJill before several times, and while I’ve not always been pleased with the fit and proportion of their garments, I’ve always been very happy with the style, fabrics, and quality. This is the first time I’ve ordered pants from them, and since pants are my hardest-to-fit item, I was nervous about ordering from overseas. Thankfully, though, it seems that their proportion and fit have improved. The sleeves on the structured jacket I ordered from them were long enough, and the two pairs of structured pants I ordered from them fit like a dream. The sweater I ordered, like many of the sweaters I’ve gotten from them, was a little boxy, however. Overall I was very satisfied, and am looking forward to ordering more pants from them in the future.

I’d love to hear from other about experiences they’ve had with these retailers or others.

If you read any blogs that discuss feminism or body work, you’re surely aware of the controversy around Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Just to summarize what this controversy is about, for those of you not in the know, this ad campaign (for products intended to minimize the appearance of “cellulite”) features “real” sized women who are not professional models. There is controversy surrounding the question of whether or not the women are fat; there is controversy surrounding the question of whether or not an advertising campaign using images of “real” women is a step in the right direction for feminism.

I’m not going to address the controversy surrounding the campaign. I think the discussion surrounding the campaign, while interesting, is a distraction. The question shouldn’t be whether the women are beautiful or whether “real” women used in advertising advances the feminist agenda by sanctioning a more “realistic” notion of beauty. The question should be whether or not beauty is something to strive for in the first place. I say it’s not.

Although I’m not a Buddhist, one idea from Buddhism that I’ve incorporated into my personal philosophy is that desire is the root of unhappiness. If you can extinguish desire, you can extinguish suffering (I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet, unfortunately!). Just like getting a new, coveted Jaguar isn’t going to make a rich person happy, achieving beauty isn’t going to make a woman happy. Just like there’s always going to be some new, expensive trinket to be bought, there’ll always be some new physical imperfection to be dealt with. The only way to win at the beauty game is not to play. A woman isn’t going to be happy until it no longer matters to her whether or not she’s considered beautiful–by others or herself.

Or herself: this last part is particularly important. I previously thought that I’d made a lot of progress in my life, that I’d achieved something, because I generally found myself attractive, despite my “flaws”. I felt really good for a while–I did truly find myself beautiful, a lot of the time. Now that I’ve gained weight from this newest antidepressant, however, I find myself beautiful a lot less often. Even my own sense of my beauty is contingent upon external factors! How could it not be? That’s the definition of beauty as we’re talking about it here: pleasure in external appearance.

Women will suffer as long as they desire beauty, regardless of what the current beauty standard may be. And given that beauty is usually defined by what is rare, a lot of women will suffer. Even women who have deprogrammed themselves from desiring the current beauty standard and seek only to please themselves with their appearance will suffer. The secret is to quash the desire. I wish I knew how to do so. It’s at least a consolation that I now realize what my goal should be.

What does this mean in practice? Wear clothes because you like the fabric and color, and because they’re physically comfortable. Wear jewelry because it pleases you to look at it. Paint your nails because the color draws you. Pull your hair back to keep it from getting in your face, or let it down because you like the way it feels when it blows in the wind. Take pleasure in things, including your body, for their inherent qualities, not not because of how they measure up to any standard, external or internal.

What do you think? Am I totally off my rocker?