This is for Ornery_Durian_6454. I get you, honey! Hang in there!

This is to the condescending, know it all, unsympathetic people who don’t seem to understand why some of are so upset about the possibility of not getting our meds during this shortage.

This is a short version of my lifetime of struggling with my weight…..

I literally struggled my entire life with weight problems. My mother had me on a DIET AT AGE 5, and she herself had a horrible relationship with food and greatly exacerbated the weight issues me and my sibling struggled with.

I long believed I had a thyroid problem (family history of that & other endocrine problems), and I worked really hard at maintaining healthy habits from the time I was old enough (teens) to do so. I kept asking doctors for help, but they were dismissive and treated me like I was a liar regarding my eating & lifestyle choices. Just to add to the struggle, I also had genetic joint abnormalities that greatly limited my physical activity throughout childhood into early adulthood and still does to an extent. Starvation was all that worked, and it became much worse after the birth of our second child.

Finally, at age 36, I went to my gynecologist who I had already begged for help for years. I had been bleeding for two full weeks and had every possible symptom of severe hypothyroidism.

She got really snarky with me and informed me I was having those problems BECAUSE I WAS FAT. In that moment I did something I rarely did in those days. I lost my temper, slammed my hand down on the table and told her I was acutely aware that I was fat but that it was a symptom of a problem, not the root of it and if she didn’t help me that by God I was going to find someone who would. She snapped at me that she would check my thyroid AGAIN. A few days later, she was eating a lot of crow, because the labs were bad, really bad, and I desperately needed treatment for hypothyroidism.

Fast forward a few years and two endocrinologists and two excruciating biopsies later, and I had a thyroidectomy where they found cancer on both lobes. That was the turning point when diet & exercise actually started helping, but it has remained an uphill battle every single day. I later had a highly respected surgeon tell me that my sassy attitude and standing up for myself probably saved my life.

So people don’t need to come at me with any of that condescending BS about “just sticking to healthy changes” if I can’t get the medication that has, for the first time in my life, made my body function normally and has allowed me not to continuously obsess and feel guilty over literally every morsel or sip of sustenance that goes into my body and has allowed me to not feel as though I am starving. If you have never walked a mile in another’s shoes, the very least you can do is to be kind and respectful and supportive without coming off as a jerk.

Climbing down off my soapbox now. Hope you all have a marvelous Zepbound filled weekend!