I saw one of those Chantix ads on TV and it made me think of Gloria. Gloria took Chantix for over a week. She said it was working; it made her cigarettes taste like garbage. So, then she stopped taking it so she could smoke.
A few things about Gloria: she is in her late 30s, she weighs about 350, easily. She has beginning stages of everything you would expect and a bit more, as now she looses feelings in various parts of her body. She takes all kinds of pills to keep her from toppling over and dying. Sometimes she doesn't take the pills.
Once, with the help of other professions, we set up a diet and exercise program, based around carrots and short walks that would get longer. She took two walks. She stopped for a donut and coffee on the way back.
Here's the difference between Gloria and the Chantix commercial. In the commercial, if you listen closely, they always say that they couldn't have done it without Chantix AND a supporting family. Gloria doesn't have that. Her mother died when she was seventeen, her father is in Florida. He calls once a month to give her a list of his ailments. Her sister is somewhere in Chicago, she thinks.
She had a boyfriend, but he drifted away about eight years ago when she only weighed about 280.
Gloria is smart, funny, hip and knows a lot. She has friends who are also cool, but no one really special, and she is really special to no one. So who cares if she has that donut.
Yes, if she looses 180 pounds it might be easier for her to find someone special, maybe. But that would take two years of real discipline, and then what. Then, maybe.
Really, it's not about free will,it's not about psychiatric illness, it's almost always about relationships.
3 comments:
Amen.
Forget the t-shirt, I have a better idea. Take all the last sentences of your posts, compose a small book and send the proceeds to charity. (You may keep 98% for the overhead, like 98% of them do. ;)
While appreciating how sad this is, I had to laugh at the donut and coffee thing.
One thought did come to me --in order for us to be functional, we need to be loved. How sad for her that there's no one.
Thank you for putting up a ost that didn't deride her for being fat and smoking. Its refreshing to see a bit of understanding and compassion about these things.
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