I’ve had to have a conversation with my dad about this. He would regularly point out that I’m putting on weight or could really stand to lose weight. I’ve always struggled with maintaining a healthy weight, my metabolism isn’t my friend, so to speak. I exercised four times a week and watched my intake precisely. But I had to stop exercising due to severe fibromyalgia and at the same time my doctor started me on a heavy dose of antipsychotics, which further messed up my metabolism and made me extremely lethargic. I gained 30 kg of weight within a year and he kept commenting on it, telling me to get on a diet and move more.
I told him that I am very aware of the weight gain and I am miserable because I hate the sight of my body (with hideous stretch marks due to the weight gain). I told him his comments only make me more miserable and asked him to stop doing it. He told me he just worries about the health risks of my weight gain. My dad is a very lean and athletic man with monster metabolism, he couldn’t put on weight if he wanted to. He doesn’t understand my struggle and tells me that if I gain weight I should just eat less and burn more. As if I didn’t try that, but losing weight on Seroquel when you’re unable to exercise because of pain and too tired to get out of bed is kind of an uphill struggle. As a side note, I strongly suspect my dad is on the spectrum as well. In his mind he’s just stating facts and he doesn’t understand why facts can be hurtful.
Anyway, since I sat him down and explained how much his comments hurt me, he has stopped saying these things, even if he doesn’t understand why it’s hurtful. It’s a huge win in my book.
