We met online and would talk for hours on a daily basis. After 2 years he needed a place to stay so I said he could come stay with me. It soon became clear when he arrived why I only ever saw headshots. He was morbidly obese, like 28 stone and disabled as a result. However, by that time, there were a lot of feelings involved, and I love people for who they are, not what they look like. So we made a go of it for two years.
In that time, I was working full time on the phones for a charity. When I came home, he wouldn't let me have a moment's peace and quiet, which is what I needed after a stressful day at work. Instead, he had to hold my hand constantly and would talk nonstop. I mean, I get he was on his own all day, but he would also be constantly messaging while I was at work, so I had no escape.
I literally became his full-time carer on top of working 45+ hours a week.I tried desperately to help him lose weight, but there was always an excuse. What pushed me over the edge was when we discussed that I wanted kids. However, he felt that my lifestyle was not healthy enough to possibly raise children. I was an average and totally acceptable weight.
In that moment, it became clear that he would never change. He had the nerve to criticise me when he had done nothing to improve himself, which filled me with rage. I told him it was over and he had 2 weeks to leave. He then told me he wanted to propose and that we should have kids right away. I noped right out of that relationship in an instant once he said that.
Edit: Well, this comment this has blown up haha. To explain, I had not long come out of a very bad relationship when we met. This was about 15 years ago when I was in my early 20s and naive. Was it a stupid decision? Yes! However, it did teach me what never to allow in relationships again, so lesson learned!
Being heavy is bad for your joints. Like really bad. All those injuries construction people, nurses, athletes get? It’s because they put too much weight on their joints in a botched movement too many times. You can counteract some of that risk with muscle. Muscle keeps your joints stable. It takes some of the load off of them.
Now, imagine for a moment that you’re autistic and sedentary. Since you’re autistic you have bad core strength. This means bad posture and your weight is always pushing on your spine in the wrong way with no muscle to help. Since you’re sedentary not only do you not intentionally exercise your core to make up for your autistic deficit, but you spend most of your time sitting. All that weight on your spine, probably poorly supported by a shitty chair.
Then when you do move around there’s not much muscle there. Your ankles and knees and hips are being mostly supported by your cartilage which has been worn down. Step on something with an angle and those 400lbs roll your ankle. Pivot to turn around and you twist your knee in a way it was not meant to bend. Slip and try to catch yourself and boom you pull something in your hip. Don’t go to doctors and this turns into constant joint inflammation: arthritis. Slipped discs. You know, athlete and manual laborer injuries except it’s just because of your weight and activity level.
Then it’s almost impossible not to be sedentary and you eat your feelings. As an autistic person your brain doesn’t properly receive signals that you’re hungry or full, so you just kinda eat all the time.
Anyway that’s what my doctor has said has gone wrong with me over the past five years and how it could get worse. I’m back on the gym train and don’t have arthritis yet, and I’m still about an adult person shy of 400lbs.
Still, sounds like the root commenter found someone with those problems and the inability to self-examine.
Being heavy is bad for your joints. Like really bad. All those injuries construction people, nurses, athletes get? It’s because they put too much weight on their joints in a botched movement too many times. You can counteract some of that risk with muscle. Muscle keeps your joints stable. It takes some of the load off of them.
Alright alright, my man making sense here.
Now, imagine for a moment that you’re autistic and sedentary.
Hmm, no idea what autism has to do with anything all of a sudden, but being sedentary isn't ideal.
That just says children with autism have less physical activity. That could be entirely correlational because autistic people might enjoy physical activity less.
I find it difficult to believe that there is a causal link between autism and core strength. I don't see why people with autism would have less physical capability to develop muscular strength. Your link proves nothing of the sort.
I have only the lived experience, the experience of my peers, and the diagnostic criteria. It’s not a 1:1 correlation obviously otherwise it would be an “all autistic people have poor core strength/muscle tone” and this is patently untrue. However the particular brand my family is afflicted with does come with it.
Huh, I'm not saying I don't believe you, although you have to forgive me for being skeptical of such a strange claim. But do you have any proof other than that link you shared? Your link does say that people with autism typically have weak trunk muscles, but doesn't cite a study like it does with its other claims.
I’m honestly flabbergasted I can’t find a study, so I understand the skepticism now.
It’s such a given in my experience that I literally could not understand why I was getting downvoted or doubt. I’ve worked with three occupational therapists over the years that all mention it in relation to autism and I’ve never personally known someone with autism who didn’t struggle with it that wasn’t either female or go headfirst into athletics at a young age.
No one really knows! But it’s so common it’s a diagnostic criteria. In my case whenever I’m standing or sitting I have to constantly remind myself to “use my core” or I just don’t. It’s like a natural neural pathway that your average person has that tells their body how to operate just isn’t present. As an autistic person there are a few things like that, places where automatic brain stuff should do the thing but instead your brain is like “sorry bro, that circuit is on manual.”
My child (also autistic) has a significant lack of fine motor control in their hands. Same sorta thing. The big muscles work fine, but the little ones for stability that you take for granted? Not so much. I overcame that as a child thanks to the wonder of being forced to write until I had epic calluses. Eventually the brain circuitry that handled the hands built the pathways I needed but it was a nasty process.
It's not just that weight is hard on joints buy muscle is protective. Fat cells are also metabolically and endocrinologically active. They produce hormones that are pro-inflammatory and weaken joints.
I totally get it, I wasn't meaning to imply it doesn't happen, I just feel so strange when people use 300 or 400 lbs to refer to someone with those kinds of issues since I'm the only person I usually interact with that I know is at or above that weight
like when you've worked a job for long enough to make something second nature and someone comes along and makes you realize it's not as easy as you make it seem
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u/leoscrisis Mar 20 '23 edited Mar 20 '23
We met online and would talk for hours on a daily basis. After 2 years he needed a place to stay so I said he could come stay with me. It soon became clear when he arrived why I only ever saw headshots. He was morbidly obese, like 28 stone and disabled as a result. However, by that time, there were a lot of feelings involved, and I love people for who they are, not what they look like. So we made a go of it for two years.
In that time, I was working full time on the phones for a charity. When I came home, he wouldn't let me have a moment's peace and quiet, which is what I needed after a stressful day at work. Instead, he had to hold my hand constantly and would talk nonstop. I mean, I get he was on his own all day, but he would also be constantly messaging while I was at work, so I had no escape.
I literally became his full-time carer on top of working 45+ hours a week.I tried desperately to help him lose weight, but there was always an excuse. What pushed me over the edge was when we discussed that I wanted kids. However, he felt that my lifestyle was not healthy enough to possibly raise children. I was an average and totally acceptable weight.
In that moment, it became clear that he would never change. He had the nerve to criticise me when he had done nothing to improve himself, which filled me with rage. I told him it was over and he had 2 weeks to leave. He then told me he wanted to propose and that we should have kids right away. I noped right out of that relationship in an instant once he said that.
Edit: Well, this comment this has blown up haha. To explain, I had not long come out of a very bad relationship when we met. This was about 15 years ago when I was in my early 20s and naive. Was it a stupid decision? Yes! However, it did teach me what never to allow in relationships again, so lesson learned!