Well That Sucks

I love having a Vanderbilt doctor. It’s the best patient care I’ve ever gotten from anyone. They call me within 2 hours if I ever have a question and I can email them 24 hours a day.

I can also now view my records online thanks to MyHealthAtVanderbilt Dot Com.

Since I went to the doctor this week I went online to check my Immunoassay and Liver Function tests. I clicked over to the Vital Signs page. I should never have done that.

Because, on the vital signs page you can see the steady weight loss I’ve had in the year and a half I’ve been under their care. (The 25lbs I lost before going to them aren’t on there, obviously.)

And here’s where I admit that I’m all messed up. Because I’m glad that I’m losing weight even though I’m not glad. The part of me that is so conditioned by society is like “cool, maybe now I’ll finally be Acceptable.” The part of me that is a free-thinking feminist-of-sorts is very aware of how completely screwed up that is. Because it means that I am embracing a destructive disease where my body LITERALLY EATS ITSELF TO DEATH and the toxic agents I take to halt that disease. I’d rather be skinny and dying. Which is absurd.

But then as I looked at the downward progression of the numbers–I now weigh the least I’ve ever weighed in 18 years–I clicked on the little “I” for info, which then brought up the BMI table. I’m still Obese.

And I know that in my head. I knew it before I clicked on the little “I”. But it still upsets me. And then I’m upset that I’m upset.
Because I know all those things I’m supposed to think–that I’m not a number, that people love me no matter what.

But I have to admit that the little perfectionist voice inside me that screamed whenever I got a bad grade is shouting at me now.