Spotlight on Stigma... Welcomed but Not Accepted

 ... and he was adorable and cute and cuddly and flirted with me. Nothing unusual about any of that. It was what I realized about myself that was somewhat unusual. I haven't held a baby in at least 15 years. Now... some of that is just because I'm not around them very often. My adult daughter isn't planning to have kids; none of my nieces or nephews have gone that route just yet; and I recently moved and so I don't have any friends nearby who have grandchildren. The church I attend is made up of mostly older adults and we rarely have babies there. So I'm just not exposed to them very much. But even if I did have them around, I know I wouldn't be holding them unless necessary (like someone just handing me their baby so that they can do something).  You might think this is because I don't like children. However, it's the exact opposite. Until recently, my life centered around children - my daughter, her friends, and those I babysat, nannied, or taught. I p...

I am overweight... very overweight. The medical term is "morbidly obese" (which I hate) and the standard term is fat (which I'm trying to accept as an accurate description while ignoring all the emotional pain that word brings up).  From the time I was young, it seems that everything that was wrong with me was because of my weight. I remember going to a doctor one time as a young adult because I had an ear infection and before the doctor even looked at my ears, I got a long lecture about the need to lose weight.  For the longest time, more doctor's appointments than not included a lecture about my weight. It was like they assumed I had never heard that same lecture before, that I didn't even realize I was overweight, or that I hadn't ever tried anything to fix it. Doctors have gotten more understanding over the years but I still walk out of every appointment with a new doctor amazed when I wasn't lectured about my weight - it is so ingrained in me to expec...