Starting from the Beginning

My name is Kathy, and I'm going to start writing a blog about my experience with growing up and living for the majority of my life as a morbidly obese person, and the path I'm taking to change that.  I know that there are certainly LOTS of people who have varying opinions about people who have problems with their weight.  I've certainly been on the receiving end of numerous "stare downs", nasty looks, and outright giggles from well meaning people who didn't know any better to just down right mean people who can kiss my ever shrinking A$$.  I'm just saying.  I have surviving this experience with a growing belief in a Power Greater than myself, a HUGE SUPPORT network and a not so small sense of humor.  If you can relate to ANYTHING I am sharing, great.  If not, check out the other blogs out there.  You will certainly find someone sharing an experience that resonates with you.  This is just MY STORY.  Take what you like and leave the rest.

So I was born and raised in an upper middle class suburb of Sacramento, California.  I grew up in a two parent household, both my parents were very well educated and taught at the local university.  I have a vivid memory of rollerskating around the 2nd floor of the Business Building at CSUS as a child.  I was the lucky recipient of a private school education, including 4 years at an all girls school which I was quite grateful for my freshman year in college.  I had NO problem going head to head in intellectual combat with my male students, and I thank the nuns and teachers at my high school for that.

Growing up in my home we had plenty of the material comforts that make life easier and CERTAINLY plenty of food.  Both my parents were born either during or right at the end of the Great Depression and I think those feelings of scarcity were always in their minds.  We ate dinner together and it always meant two things, huge portions and clean plates.  I was chubby but not obese in 2nd grade.  My First Communion picture bears the evidence of that truth.  It was all downhill from there.

By 5th grade I think I'd officially crossed over into the clinically obese territory.  I don't remember hearing at the doctor's office that I was obese, and it wasn't mentioned to me directly.  Because I went to private school I did get teased a fair amount of the time by the kids in my class, with whom I spend 8 years with from first thru eighth grade.  I also think this was the time when I truly started using food as a tool of comfort, not just because of the teasing at school but also because of chaos that happened at home.  My parents did a great deal of their "conflict resolution" later at night and at high volumes of yelling.  To this day, at the age of 37 years old I have a pathological aversion to verbal confrontation.  So when my parents would go at it with the arguing and fighting and general drama making, I would often sneak food after they'd gone to bed in an attempt to comfort myself.  This was a short term solution to a long term problem.  By 8th grade I remember having to shop for my Confirmation dress in the Macy's Woman Section (aka, PLUS SIZE CLOTHING) at Macy's because by 8th grade I was a size 24W.  Trust me when I say that the clothing options for a 13 year old young lady in the Macy's Woman section were somewhat limiting but you just have to do the best you can.  And I did.

I'll begin my next post with my recollections of high school and having to have a uniform custom made for me in San Francisco.