There Is No Such Thing As Mental Healthcare For Fat People
There is no such thing as a fat-friendly therapist
At least, I haven’t met one
In real life or on the internet—
As a fat person I struggle with
Discrimination on a constant basis
And if I seek therapy
To try and heal, or work through it—
I am told I must lose it.
Either the weight
Or the attitude —
No one understands or respects obesity
As anything other than something
They don’t want to have, and oftentimes
Well-meaning individuals
Will insist you are near death because of it.
The times I’ve tried to talk
To anyone about these issues
I have been mocked, chided and ridiculed
But chief and most common of all
Are the so-called
“Harsh truthers”
The ones, who
Sometimes therapists, often just
Folks I ended up talking with
Will tell me
That losing weight is
1. Simple
2. Easy
3. Their friend did it this way and
4. Have you considered surgery if you’re really that serious?
The most important thing
Is that they’ve never been fat, they’ve never been
Sick with cushings, they’ve never
Lived with me they’ve never
Seen me eat they’ve never met me
More than a few minutes
And yet
All of my issues
That I’ve been struggling with
For decades are simply
Trivial bits of nonsense— I mean
If you just dream yourself thin
Or tap your wrists
Or cut most of your stomach out —
The solution is so simple—
Just change absolutely everything about yourself
For your whole life, forever
Dedicate all of yourself to being
Not fat— so that you can finally live
As not fat. What we’ve all always wanted
All along.
The most important thing for anyone to be—
Not fat.
Not fat at all.
Sometimes I think about
The irony
That over the course of a decade
Over 50% of bariatric surgery patients gain weight.
They often have repeat surgeries
With many failures.
None of this matters
To the doctors
Because 50% is still better
Than no one, in their eyes
Besides !
If the patient gains weight
It’s their own fault—
It’s never the doctors
Or the procedures fault —
Always. Always always the fat cow’s
They say things like
“Psychological factors and addiction habits are often at fault—“
Which brings me back
To where I started the poem—
There is no such thing
As therapy for fat people—
Only nutritionists, life coaches,
Trainers, surgeons, and
Shame, eternal.
If you dare ask for anything
Besides a healthy recipe
You’re “digging your own grave”
—
Oh and my favorite part —
Suicide, and suicidal ideation
Are only taken seriously
When the person
“Has something to live for”
Often the very thing
Fat people are unable to achieve.
At least for me.