I read this blog post earlier today and wrote a response that I decided not to post because I needed to get a bit more clarity on my feelings about it before I posted, as I'd been kind of processing it as I was typing and it was long and rambling. It was about struggling with No6 because of shame and the prejudice shown towards severely overweight people in healthcare settings, where being severely overweight seems to get you the label of lazy and unwilling to try to help yourself, and a resentment of why should we try to help you when you won't even help yourself.
Since then though, I've found myself drawn into debates on FB, something that seems to be happening quite frequently at the moment - and I don't like it, and to be fair I don't fully understand it either. I've reflected upon it a little bit, and realised that I think it's to do with being properly in recovery again, I'm wondering whether these posts that I respond to and get drawn into debates around, are things that when I'm using ED behaviours, I just use food to numb out the feelings and desire to respond, or I'm already so numb from numbing other things out that I don't feel the need to respond when I see them.
This in turn has made me look at what it is I'm feeling the need to respond to. In general it seems to be posts that lack tolerance or are overly judgemental. (about religion, culture, picking on individuals' weaknesses etc), and it's when it's a good friend rather than an outer circle friend or acquaintance. I can just overlook it when it's someone I don't have that much interaction with.
But I'm finding that I'm really struggling to convey my point too, and that it will end up with several people challenging me. I think I'm actually being very clear in conveying my point really, and trying not to seem preachy or holier than thou, and admitting that I'm not faultless either. I think because people don't think that way, that they either don't grasp, or don't want to grasp what I'm saying. But then I'm questioning if that's the case and they are so blinkered (aswell as intolerant/judgemental of whatever it is), do I really want them as my friends?
And I can't answer that - some of the people/scenarios we can get to a point and say "okay, let's agree to disagree on this" and the debateis over, relationship in tact - everything's fine, but with some I'm not so sure. It's like should I be developing my tolerance for our differences more, or should I be accepting that the differences are too large, too conflicting? And is it right to say something that challenges or opposes their view in the first place, or should I be more mindful that most people post things on FB looking for agreement and affirmation and if I can't give them that maybe I shouldn't say anything a all (but then that kind of takes me back to asking whether they're the types of people I want as friends again).
The fact that my view is always the minority view, and rarely gets any support, really makes me feel like maybe I need a new set of friends, but I'm not sure where I get them from and don't want to be friendless in the meantime.
This is hard!
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