Shadenfreude

July 14, 2012

77.3 pounds to go

Shadenfreude (n): satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

This is another difficult subject to talk about.  I found out it existed from my German friend and at first it made no sense to me.  Why on earth would someone take pleasure in someone else's failure? 

To begin talking about how this applies to weight loss is tricky.  I feel that I have the potential to accidentally hurt a lot of feelings and it would be best to have a lawyer hovering over my shoulder editing this piece.

Mike said a pirate would make this comic funnier.

If all else fails, I plead insanity.

First of all, when I started writing this blog about a month ago, I had a lot of comments on how brave it is to write about weight loss in the midst of the struggle.  And it is brave -- sometimes when I get on the scale on Saturday morning I'm nervous that it will go up instead of down like it's supposed to.  If I'm reporting it to all of my readers, I'm going to have some serious explaining to do if that needle goes up.  Or rationalization if I don't feel like giving a real answer.  The potential for defeat and having to report why scares the shit out of me -- it made me understand why there are a lot of people who diet and don't tell a soul.

Sitting across from the table of scariness / bravery is my audience.  And who knows what they're thinking.  Are they rooting for me to win?  To lose?  Is their running mental commentary "oh, I've seen Bonnie go on a diet several times.  She's just going to gain the weight back later."  It wouldn't be an unfair statement - I have lost and gained a dramatic amount of weight several times in the past.  Taking responsibility for the food that goes in my mouth and the fat that lands on my ass is something that never goes away - whether I'm consciously dieting or not.

This is where shadenfreude comes in.  What if I do fail?  What if I'm not losing the weight at a steady clip?  Then comes the "I told you so."  The satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's (read: me) misfortune.

However, these are only the surface symptoms of what's really going on with this complicated feeling.  I know, because I've recognized it in myself, even though it's unintentional.  

Put in another way, has this ever happened to you?:

This always confuses me.

Here are the the two big things I think are going on when this happens:

1) People don't like change.

2) It's a mirror. There's something with the change that strikes at their core and it's something they don't like.

When it comes to change, I think we all struggle with it.  The skinny friend may be used to me being the fat friend.  The fat friend may be used to having someone to commiserate with.  If I'm dieting and losing weight, those relationships we're used to go away and we have to learn to cope.

The second thing is a little harder to put into perspective or even admit to.  I know, because I've noticed it in my own behavior when someone around me has lost weight.  I've caught myself shoving french fries in their face when they clearly don't want them.  Then I catch myself and ask "why the hell am I doing this? What is making me so uncomfortable?"  Inevitably, it's my own body image and reflection on my own struggles that I'm worried about and I'm trying to soothe myself.  It really has nothing to do with the other person.

In turn, the phrase "this has nothing to do with me" has been helpful for me in my weight loss journeys in the past and my journey now.  We're all human, and even if we do feel shadenfreude from time to time it doesn't make us bad people.  It just means we're learning to cope with a new behavior, and sometimes that coping process is messy.  Unintentionally messy and sometimes unintentionally hurtful, but with a little luck and patience we'll learn something along the way.