would you rather be Mentally Normal or fat?

[Mitchy1nge]

oi

That's quite a question...

Both? (I take it they are both supposed to be equally horrific fates?)

Don't you mean mentally abnormal?

Because I'd be happy to be skinny and mentally healthy..

I'm super clever and chubby as it is.

Oh hang on, is this a meds question?

Screw some extra poundage. Get well

I'm super clever and chubby as it is.

I thought I was too Aus

(It's too early here for my poor brain)

Are you ok Mitchy? Decisions to be made?

To respond though:

On good days, I consider "mental normality" (and mental abnormality, and mental illness) a mere sociocultural construction of dubious scientific rigour and therefore Not Something To Which I aspire.

On bad days, I curl up in dark corners and sob silently and self-pityingly about the wasted life chances, career failures and isolation which my lack of alleged mental normality have caused - on those days, I just want to feel the same as "everyone else", even though it's about 20 years too late for it to make any difference to my life.

In the same way that I've never been mentally normal, I've never been fat - not by BMI criteria nor by social consensus. But I have lived in countries within which the culture values and reveres fatness in the same way that Western societies clamour for mental normality. Whether one then draws parallels would therefore depend upon whether one accepts the dualist stance of body and mind as separate entities. I'm never quite sure.

You OK??

Morning ;)
To answer your rhetorical? question, I'd also like to be mentally normal and skinny, or mentally abnormal and skinny. Skinny would be preferable to fat..,.

that was not even partially thought out 'would you rather be mentally normal or fat' was it thank you for being so nice and engaging with it anyway everyone

I was just starting a new thread before I fell asleep

morning Millie!

I always think I would rather be slim and unwell, until I actually am unwell and realise being suicidal is quite shit.

It is possible, usually, to find a decent combination of meds which won't make one extraordinarily fat. It's a hard slog though.

Contributing to a lot of the problem, I think anyway, is that there are so often comorbidities between 'other' mental illnesses, and eating disorders. Disordered eating behaviours can be part of the symptoms of other illnesses, like for me, I know I am manic when I don't have to eat for six months and lose a shit ton of weight. Equally I know I'm depressed when I start bingeing and feeling deprived.

Bleugh. It's complicated, and hard.

I was just starting a new thread before I fell asleep

Ha, is that the explanation of the 'oi' ? I thought it was a jaunty greeting

heh, it can be a jaunty greeting :) I love it

my days of fattening meds combos are far behind me, I just take lithium, it probably needs to be increased but if I get fat it wouldn't be fair to accuse the lithium

I think the ideal of mentally normal means not worrying about being fat

unless you are fat

yeah no

that is sort of what I mean too, I think

(there was never a real point to the thread though!)

New thread, yes?

Morning.
So part of my dream involved knowing that Gary Barlow was coming round to the massive house I lived in with 100s of other people but not knowing when.
That my friends, is a dream with suspense.

but if I get fat it wouldn't be fair to accuse the lithium

It's as good an excuse as any. I definitely eat more cheesecake when my thyroid level drops

Wouldn't GB just blend in to 100s of people Caulk?

No because I kept seeing them in different places. Some in the house, so in the school I owned, some in the small room in the garden.

So you're offering us now the chance to be mentall normal but fat?

Dunno, I think my point (or lack thereof) still stands.

your point does stand

if your point was there is no universal consensus on these things and insofar as they can be attained at all it is only within an ever shifting cultural context

all I know is it is much easier to think about Being Fat than to face up to anything else at all

That was my point, exactly.

You understand me.

Being fat or not being fat is easier to do something about rather than try and make myself mentally normal.