800-pound-man-kicked-out-of-hospital-for-ordering-pizza
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GaleHawkins wrote: »Just a snap thought without knowing the full story I think the guy was not taught the meaning of NO as a child.
Our kids just turned 18. No was not a hard concept to teach our son because he seemed to take the meaning of words literally when he was young.
We still have an old Blazer with a broken powered seat recline feature of the driver's seat because our daughter pounded both feet into it for 10 minutes with me driving down the road when she learned we were not going where she wanted to go. She stopped kicking at the half way point because she knew I was not going to turn around at that point. I guess she was about 9 or 10 at that time. She still wants her way but she knows today the world does not revolve around her.
Parents want to make kids happy but being an older parent I was aware that I might not be there long term so I could not permit myself to abuse her for the long term by letting her rule her Mom and Dad as a child on all matters of interest to her. When kids are permitted to take the role of parent and the parent the role of the child 10,20, or 30 years down the road it can turn out badly.
Both are awesome kids functioning well today at work outside of the home but the daughter took more effort to teach the world did not revolve around her.
The 33 year old guy sounded spoiled base on one posted story. Perhaps he associated being given food with being loved?
The fact that you let her kick that long, to the point that she actually destroyed the seat, is still a problem. Even though you didn't go where she wanted to go, she still got to abuse you and your property physically. That's not okay.0 -
Here's an article taken from Slate.com. The author mentions MyFitnessPal several times.
I Once Was Obese And now I’m not. Please don’t applaud me for losing the weight.
By Shannon Chamberlain
I am a veteran of weight-loss support groups and 12-step programs, in-person and online. So I know well that the only acceptable way to do this is to make my confession up front: Only by admitting our problems do we have any hope of overcoming them. And when it comes to obesity, there’s only one confession that anyone has any interest in hearing.
I once weighed 352 pounds.
Or 356. The trouble is I don’t really know my starting weight. When you cross over from merely obese to morbidly obese, it’s hard to find a scale in the bath part of Bed Bath & Beyond to accommodate your girth. Even many doctors’ offices don’t carry a scale large enough for the truly fat. This usually ends in a nurse whispering, “Well, how much do you think you weigh?” as if you, the nonmedical professional, were a better judge of this than anyone else—despite the fact that according to many medical professionals, you are lazy, unattractive, stupid, and stubbornly unwilling to comply with treatment.
One thing about not knowing your starting weight: In those early days of weight loss, when you can reasonably expect the numbers to diminish rapidly, you may not have any accurate way of accounting for them. So you miss out on that Pavlovian spur to greater feats of diet and exercise when you need it the most.
Now that I’m merely on the chubby side of normal (size 12) and weight loss is considerably more difficult—an hour-by-hour grind of Zumba and deprivation, of parceling out each ounce and calorie on my constant companion, a chrome Cuisinart kitchen scale—the fact that I don’t get to put an accurate starting number on my MyFitnessPal weight-loss ticker prevents me from presenting my numerical value and virtue to the world.
“Virtue” may seem like an odd word here, but only because I haven’t quite reached my goal weight. When I do, I can imagine the praise that will come in. In MyFitnessPal Internet speak, “WTG!!!!11!!” In co-worker speak: “OMG, what’s your secret?” or “Congratulations on your achievement,” like I’ve just delivered a really superb Nobel laureate address. A quick scan of Amazon or the international reach of The Biggest Loser tells us that we revere people who manage to drop obscene amounts of weight, and the more housebound and disgusting to begin with, the better. These are tales of midnight binges and food combinations (Twinkies wrapped in bacon and dipped in guacamole) to make even the strongest stomach twist, and the grosser they are, the greater the moral redemption at the end.
Harmless encouragement, perhaps, but there’s a darker underside. If obese people who drop their excess poundage are to be commended and given book deals, those who can’t manage it—well, let’s regard them as the child rapists and five-pack-a-day self-destructive hedonists that they are. We need someone to hate, and smokers are a dying breed. Obesity, as every reputable news source has been reminding us for the last 25 years, is the new normal. Except that it’s still OK to hate the obese. In a perverse way, people like me make it harder for every fat person out there. If Formerly Fat X can do it, why can’t my morbidly obese sister-in-law?
This despite the fact that every shred of evidence available to medical science indicates that it’s nearly impossible to take off large amounts of weight and keep it off. That was largely the point of Tara Parker-Pope’s New York Times Magazine article from earlier this year, from which the main takeaway was that even a more than typically well-informed healthy eater and marathoner like Parker-Pope is 60 pounds overweight. And her experience is not unusual. Of the statistically minuscule number of people who ever manage to take off serious poundage in the first place, an even tinier number manage to keep it off in the long term. The article describes the complexity of metabolic changes that occur in dieting obese patients that seem to effectively convince their bodies that they are perpetually starving and should conserve every calorie consumed and burn fewer calories than most people would easily shed through normal activity or exercise. “A sobering reality,” writes Parker-Pope, “[is that] once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will remain fat.”
Parker-Pope personalizes that point through the story of Janice Bridge, one of the statistically small number of people qualified to join the National Weight Loss Registry, which tracks 10,000 people who have permanently lost a lot of weight. Bridge weighs her lettuce, eats 500 fewer calories per day than every means of medical measurement says she should be able to eat, and burns off another 500 calories in exercise. Medically speaking, she is nearly starving to death. In reality, she’s maintaining at a number that indicates that she is still overweight.
This is the story of my adult life. Bridge initially lost most of her weight by following what is technically termed a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD), or fewer than 800 calories per day, usually in liquid form. These diets are poorly studied beyond their implications for patients, say, with diabetes (the diabetes usually goes away), but anecdotally, they seem to work for a lot of obese patients who haven’t seen weight loss with other eating plans.
The blandness of that pronouncement can’t possibly describe the reality of actually being on a VLCD. Mine wasn’t medically supervised or liquid, and perhaps this made it harder than usual. Every morning I ate a packet of raspberries—an officially low-glycemic, low-calorie food—and drank three cups of coffee, because caffeine staves off my appetite. Then I’d go home at the end of the workday and eat exactly half of my dinner so that my husband wouldn’t realize what I was doing to myself and intervene. I knew that if anyone told me it was a bad idea, I would stop. Eating 800 calories a day and burning up about 400 of them on the treadmill at lunch doesn’t leave you with much will to resist. Brain function slows. Your entire life becomes about a set of numbers on a page. Was it only 758 today? Excellent work, but you’re still a fat pig. 811? You fat loser, you.
The desperation that drove me to such an extreme diet was a long time coming. Like Dara-Lynn Weiss’s daughter in the now infamous Vogue article, I was a tween dieter. I went on my first diet at 8 or 9: 1,500 calories and 20 fat grams and a lot of Healthy Choice hot dogs, which are truly and technically the worst food on the planet. When I was in middle school, my mother and I went on Jenny Craig together. She quickly got to her goal weight; I languished after about 6 pounds, lied to her about how much I was losing, and was eventually caught and ended up even more humiliated than if I’d just admitted the truth in the first place. No matter how long or faithfully I ate Jenny Craig food, I couldn’t lose the weight, and I was distractingly hungry every minute.
Weight Watchers was next because my mother thought it might offer more flexibility, but I clashed with our local strip-mall location’s staff, who found me to be belligerent and ill-suited to a group weight-loss support environment. I was 14, and I questioned everything. Why points? Why not just calories? Why calories instead of carbs? Why carbs instead of protein? Above all, why—despite playing organized sports and walking the dog 2 miles every morning before school and consuming my exact point tally—could I not lose weight? Why didn’t I get to bask in the warm collective and reinforcing praise of the Monday night meeting?
Throughout college, I tried all of the trendy plans to little or no avail. My bookshelves are littered with South Beach, Atkins, and Zone manuals, Protein Power handbooks, and every form of the lie that the sensation of hunger is really just dehydration. (One month, I drank 5 liters of water every day. This must go on the record as my least favorite of any of the diet plans I tried.) Every time, the same pattern: about 10 pounds of initial loss, very quickly, great joy throughout the land, and then … nothing. Although I’d made no changes to my eating plan or introduced any new food, I would stagnate. I followed every rule to the letter but always got stuck.
And then, slowly, the pounds would begin to creep back on.
When I finally turned to the raspberries and coffee diet, I did it for less-than-stellar reasons. I was trying to flee a job I disliked for a competitive graduate school program just as it was becoming clear that a recession was a’coming. I felt out of control, and, like other anorexics, sought complete dominion over something clear and measurable. Five months later, I was still obese, but I wasn’t seriously worrying about fitting in an airplane seat anymore.
I (mostly) kept it off by staying on what other people would call a “diet” but what is just maintenance for me (1,500 calories per day, at least five days per week of heart-rate-raising exercise). But my ridiculous low-calorie diet had made some of my hair fall out, turned my skin dull, and rendered my life miserable. And, predictably, my weight plateaued again. So I tried vegetarianism for a year. Then I tried low-carb. Three years later, I finally began to consider surgery.
My beloved aunt, my father’s last living sibling, had just died far too young of obesity-related causes, the cascade of diabetes, high blood pressure, and congestive heart failure that seems to kill everyone in my family. My future at my current weight looked bleak. Complicating matters, the present was pretty good. Continuous activity had kept my sugar levels decent, my cholesterol excellent, and my blood pressure on the low side of normal. I had none of the usual obesity-related complications to make surgery recovery difficult. In fact, I was at the perfect weight for surgery: fat enough that the insurance company wouldn’t deny the claim but not so fat that I had to lose massive amounts of weight even to fit on an operating table. Most of all, I was in my 20s. “You carry your weight well,” said my bariatric surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, noting the difference between my (relatively) toned appearance and the actual numbers. He saw mostly older patients, and I could tell that he was looking forward to my surgery because it would be easy. “Are you ready to do this?” he asked. Without hesitation: “Yes.”
Bariatric surgery effectively puts one on a 600-800 calorie per day diet, at least to begin with, but supplements with vitamins and cuts away the hunger hormones that make this all but impossible for people with normal stomachs, let alone the enlarged ones of the obese. Naturally, I’ve lost a lot of weight. Fifteen months out, it’s starting to become harder. Most days, I engage in 90 minutes of exercise and eat 1,000-1,200 calories. Everything in my life is parceled out into packets, and I know the precise value of it all. An ounce of goat cheese has fewer calories than an ounce of Gruyère. My grandmother’s cookies have 114 calories each and must be a rare treat. Protein, protein, protein. Protein before everything else. Protein über alles or my hair falls out in chunks in the shower and my nails peel off the tips of my fingers.
I’m now at a weight where my daily life in the world has changed. When I was in my middle state of moderate obesity, I rarely got a nasty comment on my appearance. I used to think it was because I wasn’t all that fat. Now I know that, as with other bright, round objects, nobody wanted to stare directly at me. Men now feel comfortable approaching me in coffee shops to suggest that if I only lost 20, I’d be hot. Drivers who cut me off when I’m riding my bike shout “fat *kitten*” with some regularity. I hate it and find it encouraging at the same time. Finally, my fat doesn’t make me invisible. It just makes me fat.
And, naturally, I’m starting to get solicited for weight-loss advice, but I refuse to provide it. Nothing about the way that I’ve lost weight was in the short term safe or healthy, if you define health as the pursuit of overall system happiness. Bariatric surgery was about the safest thing I’ve ever done for myself, in the sense that it was medically supervised and I got a special 24-hour-advice nurse number to call—and it involved five hours of getting cut open to have my intestines rerouted. Also, on this great wide Internet of ours, surgery is cheating. On a MyFitnessPal forum I follow, someone who was recently denied for weight-loss surgery because she’d been asked to lose 50 pounds before the surgery and managed it was now congratulated because now she’d have the satisfaction of “doing it on her own,” the virtuous way. As I stare down my post-surgery 90 minutes of aerobics and bike riding and my 178-calorie lunch ahead, I beg to differ.
The fact of the matter is: I don’t know anything about weight loss. Neither does anyone else. What is emerging from the best research is that the old nutritional mantra—burn fewer calories than you consume—is correct in the thermodynamic sense but useless on the individual level. You and I don’t have a clear idea of how many calories we’re actually burning up. Gary Taubes tells us that some calories count more than others. Michael Pollan says mostly vegetables. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks that putting our soda in two cups instead of one is the magic ticket. The federal government is so swollen with corn-industry money that I can’t even look at the food pyramid—old or new—without laughing. Absent these precise measurements or solutions, how can you look at someone who is obese and hold them personally responsible for each pound? Or personally virtuous for each pound lost?
Let’s say you had to starve yourself daily for bare maintenance of your health and physical appearance. Could you do it? Forever? And would you be happy? I doubt very much that you would. But still, it’s what I have to do.
Shannon Chamberlain is a graduate student at University of California-Berkeley and blogs at dofatpeoplehavesouls.tumblr.com.
Too bad so much about this is wrong. We do know quite about weight loss. And burning fewer calories than you consume is quite useful on the individual level - this poor girl obviously either isn't asking the right questions on the forums, or she isn't listening to the answers. She says she doesn't have a clear idea of how many calories she's burning up - but there are several solutions for her to calculate that. She also never mentions knowing exactly how many calories she's taking in. One wonders if she's weighing her food.
another thing - she's too preoccupied with the idea of 'starving' herself for weight loss. It's not the numbers - the amount of calories taken in - it's the satiety provided by those calories. If she feels like she's starving, she's not eating the right foods for her. It's quite possible to eat the number of calories she's allowed and feel satisfied, if she's willing to do the work and find the right combination of foods that will satiate her.0 -
She did mention an eating disorder. The article almost reads like she used both MyFitnessPal and bariatric surgery to support her unhealthy eating habits. And since she doesn't know about weight loss, well. No one else must0
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She did mention an eating disorder. The article almost reads like she used both MyFitnessPal and bariatric surgery to support her unhealthy eating habits. And since she doesn't know about weight loss, well. No one else must
One positive note, I no longer feel too silly to apply to graduate school!0 -
While I am not a Dr. Phil fan, the man from the OP has clearly been struggling for some time, and seems to either walk away from help, or burn the bridges with people who have offered help. I was curious, so went digging around and found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASGkG7mdIs4
There comes a time when the individual must make the choice to take the help that is being offered and work with the professionals, or face the consequences. I don't know anything about the hospital program, but I would hope that the hospital offers counselling for underlying psychiatric/emotional issues that would contribute to his condition. As others have said, given the slow rate of loss, I would also suspect that this has not been the first time he has broken the care plan laid out by the program.
For those who are saying he needs help now, he was getting help. By the looks of it, he has been offered help on multiple occasions. Short of forced confinement into a program, I am unclear of what additional help he could be given.
ETA: I have not gone digging to see what happened with the support offered by the Dr. Phil show, and to be honest, I sometimes wonder if there is much help beyond what is said on camera. So there could be much more or less to this story.0 -
He was actually mobile in that video0
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Assanti's father says taking his son home will be a death sentence, because he'll just fall back into the habits of lying in bed and eating.
Read more: http://www.wfsb.com/story/30210822/800-pound-man-kicked-out-of-hospital-for-ordering-pizza#ixzz3oCjH6700
Who, pray tell, is the one preparing and bringing him the food that got him up to 800 pounds?
Hint: it's not the 800 lb man.0 -
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nutmegoreo wrote: »I am unclear of what additional help he could be given.
Yep. I work with the super morbidly obese in a clinical residential setting. I have never met a single one who is compliant with the suggestions and/or care plans offered to them and I've never seen one recover. I really understand eating too much and gaining lots of weight so I feel for them. But there seems to be a point of no return that people get to with this curse. Even if the hundreds of pounds of weight were to be taken off, there would be so much damage done internally and externally with the skin stretching and hanging. The entire body from the outside would basically have to be sewn back together to keep from dragging on the floor. I don't think the cardio vascular damage is reversible either.
That's so bleak. I've watched every weight loss surgery program I could find. I'm trying to imagine people who are physically worse off than some of the people I've seen on these programs, especially Patrick Deuel. He was inpatient and his family was frisked and his con jobs on staff were stopped to keep him on the program. I don't know if he ever tried to assert any legal rights during that time, perhaps he didn't push the issue so far as to be thrown out by the doctor in charge. He was very close to death when he was admitted.
The My 600 Pound Life people sometimes comply, sometimes don't, I think every one of them went off program at least once. Surprise surprise, they stopped losing weight when they didn't follow Doctor's orders to a T. When I do something stupid, when I go off my own program (and I do, sadly) I often hear snippets of these shows in my head to at least remind me, "Don't justify it, girl, you're screwing up, you know what the outcome will be, don't lie to yourself."
I can't judge these people, though. It's all an escape. Food, drugs, maybe sometimes even giving in to full blown delusions instead of fighting it. This world is nasty and cruel and full of carnage without rhyme or reason. Maybe some of us just break easier under it.0 -
Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
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Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
Heh. But they do get something out of it - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Can you say that for yourself? I can't.
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Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
Heh. But they do get something out of it - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Can you say that for yourself? I can't.
Short term, long term it ends in early death. I guess I should have defined 'enhance your life'. Some of the addicts and bed ridden have a lifespan of months or at most a handful of years.
As far as doing what we want? Well, there are two sides to that. Selfish dbag and doormat. Neither is good. Neither is good at all.0 -
Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
Heh. But they do get something out of it - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Can you say that for yourself? I can't.
Short term, long term it ends in early death. I guess I should have defined 'enhance your life'. Some of the addicts and bed ridden have a lifespan of months or at most a handful of years.
As far as doing what we want? Well, there are two sides to that. Selfish dbag and doormat. Neither is good. Neither is good at all.
Yeah but as covered earlier in the topic (or maybe another one), a smoker though potentially shortening their life span isn't necessarily mentally ill
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Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
Heh. But they do get something out of it - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Can you say that for yourself? I can't.
He gets to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants? He has to sleep in the back of a SUV. I'm gonna confront that statement just a wee bit.
Eat ridiculous quantities of food? Check
Speak to whomever, however? Add to the list
Be paraded around town because he won't figure out his life himself? Yup
Be waited on hand and foot for the same reason? Oh yeah
Heck, that seems like more luxury than some people who break their backs for a living everyday could hope to enjoy!
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Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
Heh. But they do get something out of it - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Can you say that for yourself? I can't.
He gets to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants? He has to sleep in the back of a SUV. I'm gonna confront that statement just a wee bit.
Eat ridiculous quantities of food? Check
Speak to whomever, however? Add to the list
Be paraded around town because he won't figure out his life himself? Yup
Be waited on hand and foot for the same reason? Oh yeah
Heck, that seems like more luxury than some people who break their backs for a living everyday could hope to enjoy!
Exactly the type of doormat we should all stop being.
But yeah, you're right in your other post just the same. Instant gratification can take precedence over a long, healthy life. Nevertheless, I'm having a hard time imagining happiness in his situation. Momentary relief from reality through scarfing down food that makes his situation worse, yes, but he knows what he's doing to himself.
Then again, terrifying, cold, cruel, nasty world. Maybe he feels like he should take all the momentary pleasure he can get because the future holds nothing good. I've been there. I've felt like that. Sometimes I still wonder if I was right. So if that's why he does it, I get it. Hopelessness isn't a mental illness, because we're all hopeless in the end, at the mercy and whim of forces we simply can't control. But hopelessness can be crippling just the same as any delusion of grandeur or false reality ever was or could be.0 -
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Watching some of his videos now. I believe I see what he is and what he wants out of life. And it's breaking my heart. Let's all face it. This world has very limited room for a very limited number of creative people. There just aren't that many slots to fill. And if you ain't got it (or you ain't got enough of it), forget about it.
For everyone else (including me) there's McWages. A lifetime of miserable, boring, you're nobody and nothing, modern day slavery, with all the creativity and originality crushed out of you, year after year, shift after shift. Doing jobs a machine can do. For less.
Eff it, I want to eat myself to death just thinking about it. Except maybe we don't have to put up with this nonsense. Maybe things don't have to be this way. So I'll keep on with what I'm doing and live long enough to find out.
Oh yeah, one more thing: Bukowski!
That is all.0 -
Oh wow, a really cynical answer just popped into my head: It's douche baggery when your douchey actions at least have a chance to gain something out of it that will enhance your life. It's mental illness when your douche baggery directly and inevitably hurts you as well as everyone around you.
Heh. But they do get something out of it - they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Can you say that for yourself? I can't.
He gets to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants? He has to sleep in the back of a SUV. I'm gonna confront that statement just a wee bit.
Eat ridiculous quantities of food? Check
Speak to whomever, however? Add to the list
Be paraded around town because he won't figure out his life himself? Yup
Be waited on hand and foot for the same reason? Oh yeah
Heck, that seems like more luxury than some people who break their backs for a living everyday could hope to enjoy!
In the last day or so, I have watched a good number of his youtube videos. It's clear that he doesn't consider his life to be luxurious. He seems desperate to change it, but unwilling to do what is necessary to do it.
Nope be able to bathe oneself? Check.
Have to beg people to come and do basic life skills? Check.
Have to live out of the back of a car because he can not move himself? Check.
I'd say his life is a living hell, so perspective is also something that is in play here.
The way I see it, he probably can have the ability to do all those things. He just chooses temporary comforts and desires and obscene behavior over what it would take to get there. I didn't watch but three or four videos so maybe here's content out there that points to an obvious mental disability. I've just seen a DB so far
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Nope be able to bathe oneself? Check.
The Dr. Phil clip included Dr. Phil reminding him that he refused to "clean himself". When he was mobile and able to clean an entire house by himself, he was not willing to bathe himself.
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/dependent-personality-disorder-symptoms/
Let's not jump to diagnosing people from our armchairs.
Now, now. Don't be snotty. I'm just putting it out there for reading enjoyment considering the topic at large, not for purposes of diagnosis.
True though. He's reached the consequence stage which isn't luxurious at all. I don't know if there'll be a Plan B for him at this point.
And I suppose "mentally sick" is just a comment about his overall state, not a diagnosis
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Nope be able to bathe oneself? Check.
The Dr. Phil clip included Dr. Phil reminding him that he refused to "clean himself". When he was mobile and able to clean an entire house by himself, he was not willing to bathe himself.
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/dependent-personality-disorder-symptoms/
Let's not jump to diagnosing people from our armchairs.
Now, now. Don't be snotty. I'm just putting it out there for reading enjoyment considering the topic at large, not for purposes of diagnosis.
True though. He's reached the consequence stage which isn't luxurious at all. I don't know if there'll be a Plan B for him at this point.
And I suppose "mentally sick" is just a comment about his overall state, not a diagnosis
I swear to all that's holy I never said that. But, yeah, I think somebody did...
Sorry for the confusion, I knew you didn't say that
As for the "luxury" stage being over, I would still tend to disagree. He still gets to eat whatever whenever, and still gets to behave however he wants to anyone. That portion of his life continues, and hasn't stopped delivering that particular benefit. To me it just seems like he's still getting some reward from his actions. My perspective here is from being around people who get to say and do whatever they want all the time. Are there a handful of consequences here and there? Yep. Do they get to say and do things every single day that the rest of us sometimes wish we could? Abso-freakin-lutely
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I know you knew. I was just funnin' ya.Sorry for the confusion, I knew you didn't say thatAs for the "luxury" stage being over, I would still tend to disagree. He still gets to eat whatever whenever, and still gets to behave however he wants to anyone. That portion of his life continues, and hasn't stopped delivering that particular benefit. To me it just seems like he's still getting some reward from his actions. My perspective here is from being around people who get to say and do whatever they want all the time. Are there a handful of consequences here and there? Yep. Do they get to say and do things every single day that the rest of us sometimes wish we could? Abso-freakin-lutely
Sounds mysterious but fascinating. If it isn't too personal and you wouldn't mind divulging - what general environment is this that offers these perks?
I've always worked in front line, service related industries and notice that the higher the clientele is up on the socio economic ladder, the more leeway they have in, ah, expressing themselves.
As far as this guy goes and his habit of doing what he does, there would have to be some perceived benefit or he wouldn't keep going this way. I'd wonder if the perception corresponds with the reality, or if both are a subjective experience. If he were homeless on the street, he'd attract a lot of attention. I don't know if there would be any shelters that could accommodate him at his size. He'd probably agree to be hospitalized, evaluated, and then maybe placed in long term care if no family members would take him in. He'd have to consent though, to either scenario. I suppose if he has other options available to him, he'd go for those.
Oh I don't know, I suppose you can huddle on a sidewalk and freeze and say what you want. If you don't say it loud enough to draw police attention, that is.
Although food stamps and food banks likely won't keep him at the weight he's at now. He'd still be fat (lots of fat, undernourished homeless people out there) but he wouldn't be that fat.
I doubt he'd survive more than a week or two, but hey, he could really express himself for those remaining hours.
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I know you knew. I was just funnin' ya.Sorry for the confusion, I knew you didn't say thatAs for the "luxury" stage being over, I would still tend to disagree. He still gets to eat whatever whenever, and still gets to behave however he wants to anyone. That portion of his life continues, and hasn't stopped delivering that particular benefit. To me it just seems like he's still getting some reward from his actions. My perspective here is from being around people who get to say and do whatever they want all the time. Are there a handful of consequences here and there? Yep. Do they get to say and do things every single day that the rest of us sometimes wish we could? Abso-freakin-lutely
Sounds mysterious but fascinating. If it isn't too personal and you wouldn't mind divulging - what general environment is this that offers these perks?
I've always worked in front line, service related industries and notice that the higher the clientele is up on the socio economic ladder, the more leeway they have in, ah, expressing themselves.
As far as this guy goes and his habit of doing what he does, there would have to be some perceived benefit or he wouldn't keep going this way. I'd wonder if the perception corresponds with the reality, or if both are a subjective experience. If he were homeless on the street, he'd attract a lot of attention. I don't know if there would be any shelters that could accommodate him at his size. He'd probably agree to be hospitalized, evaluated, and then maybe placed in long term care if no family members would take him in. He'd have to consent though, to either scenario. I suppose if he has other options available to him, he'd go for those.
Oh I don't know, I suppose you can huddle on a sidewalk and freeze and say what you want. If you don't say it loud enough to draw police attention, that is.
Although food stamps and food banks likely won't keep him at the weight he's at now. He'd still be fat (lots of fat, undernourished homeless people out there) but he wouldn't be that fat.
I doubt he'd survive more than a week or two, but hey, he could really express himself for those remaining hours.
I think his father is acting as caretaker and still looking for facilities that will take him in. Depending on his documented behavioral history at other facilities, that may or may not be possible. But once he's admitted somewhere, he'll be free to speak his mind to each and all with little to no restriction and regardless of socio-economic status. Also he'll be free to order out for pizza and eggrolls, depending on facility rules and whether they're enforced by contract.
Yes, I think you're right. And I pity his father, because what is the alternative? A week or two on the streets for his son, and then he's dead? That's a bit of a pickle to be in.
And even if his son bucks up, loses the weight, and gets a 'life' (i.e. some crap minimum wage job) and his dad can stop worrying day to day about him ending up on the street and can worry about him paycheck to paycheck instead, what 'life' can his son really expect to have long-term? How many people with serious mental health issues (such as the ones many suspect underlies this guy's food issues) end up with decent lives in our society? My guess? Not many.0 -
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I know you knew. I was just funnin' ya.Sorry for the confusion, I knew you didn't say thatAs for the "luxury" stage being over, I would still tend to disagree. He still gets to eat whatever whenever, and still gets to behave however he wants to anyone. That portion of his life continues, and hasn't stopped delivering that particular benefit. To me it just seems like he's still getting some reward from his actions. My perspective here is from being around people who get to say and do whatever they want all the time. Are there a handful of consequences here and there? Yep. Do they get to say and do things every single day that the rest of us sometimes wish we could? Abso-freakin-lutely
Sounds mysterious but fascinating. If it isn't too personal and you wouldn't mind divulging - what general environment is this that offers these perks?
I've always worked in front line, service related industries and notice that the higher the clientele is up on the socio economic ladder, the more leeway they have in, ah, expressing themselves.
As far as this guy goes and his habit of doing what he does, there would have to be some perceived benefit or he wouldn't keep going this way. I'd wonder if the perception corresponds with the reality, or if both are a subjective experience. If he were homeless on the street, he'd attract a lot of attention. I don't know if there would be any shelters that could accommodate him at his size. He'd probably agree to be hospitalized, evaluated, and then maybe placed in long term care if no family members would take him in. He'd have to consent though, to either scenario. I suppose if he has other options available to him, he'd go for those.
Oh I don't know, I suppose you can huddle on a sidewalk and freeze and say what you want. If you don't say it loud enough to draw police attention, that is.
Although food stamps and food banks likely won't keep him at the weight he's at now. He'd still be fat (lots of fat, undernourished homeless people out there) but he wouldn't be that fat.
I doubt he'd survive more than a week or two, but hey, he could really express himself for those remaining hours.
I think his father is acting as caretaker and still looking for facilities that will take him in. Depending on his documented behavioral history at other facilities, that may or may not be possible. But once he's admitted somewhere, he'll be free to speak his mind to each and all with little to no restriction and regardless of socio-economic status. Also he'll be free to order out for pizza and eggrolls, depending on facility rules and whether they're enforced by contract.
Yes, I think you're right. And I pity his father, because what is the alternative? A week or two on the streets for his son, and then he's dead? That's a bit of a pickle to be in.
And even if his son bucks up, loses the weight, and gets a 'life' (i.e. some crap minimum wage job) and his dad can stop worrying day to day about him ending up on the street and can worry about him paycheck to paycheck instead, what 'life' can his son really expect to have long-term? How many people with serious mental health issues (such as the ones many suspect underlies this guy's food issues) end up with decent lives in our society? My guess? Not many.
Anyone with serious mental health issues probably won't end up well. In any society, not just well-to-do societies. The wealthy can be kept at home and cared for by round the clock servants. Even in those cases, if a mentally ill individual from a comfortable and wealthy environment decides to hit the road and go it alone (which they often do), they'll end up the same way as someone who comes from nothing. Facilities are there for those who give their consent to use them. If someone is admitted against their will, that's usually only temporary until the crisis has passed.
Which has been my point all along. We can do better for each other. And ourselves. Our society, not just many of our people, is very sick.
End rant, my last post in this thread (at least for tonight!) I promise.
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I doubt he was able to adequately 'clean himself' on his own. Considering when we had patients who weighed much, much less in the hospital, we had to have people come in and physical hold parts of the patient up and back so that the CNAs and nurses could get underneath those parts to clean where cleaning had not been done for a long time, and skin breakdown had started to occur. There's no way the patient him- or herself can hold their own flesh out of the way in the bath or shower to get beneath it to clean it properly, and then dry it adequately either.Nope be able to bathe oneself? Check.
The Dr. Phil clip included Dr. Phil reminding him that he refused to "clean himself". When he was mobile and able to clean an entire house by himself, he was not willing to bathe himself.
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/dependent-personality-disorder-symptoms/
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I doubt he was able to adequately 'clean himself' on his own. Considering when we had patients who weighed much, much less in the hospital, we had to have people come in and physical hold parts of the patient up and back so that the CNAs and nurses could get underneath those parts to clean where cleaning had not been done for a long time, and skin breakdown had started to occur. There's no way the patient him- or herself can hold their own flesh out of the way in the bath or shower to get beneath it to clean it properly, and then dry it adequately either.Nope be able to bathe oneself? Check.
The Dr. Phil clip included Dr. Phil reminding him that he refused to "clean himself". When he was mobile and able to clean an entire house by himself, he was not willing to bathe himself.
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/dependent-personality-disorder-symptoms/
I disagree. And he was not a hospitalized patient in that video clip. I watched him do heavy housecleaning. He was on his feet the whole time. He was bending, lifting and getting the job done.
At his size then, he would have taken a wet soapy towel and held it at both ends while using back and forth friction to clean his peri areas. He would have used similar technique and equipment for his folds. Health care professionals routinely teach young, mobile, morbidly obese to clean themselves this way and it's doable for those who want to do it. Most of them actually figure it out for themselves without medical intervention.
I'm sure, for liability reasons alone, he was meticulously assessed in regards to his ability to care for himself while appearing on that particular in-house Dr. Phil show. He may not have been capable of giving himself a professional grade pedicure, but he was able to meet basic hygiene requirements independently or he would not have been given clearance to appear on the show for safety reasons.
He refused to bathe, said Dr. Phil. I know Dr. Phil's no saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think he would have publicly called him out on it if the guy wasn't capable of some modicum of bathing. He was making a point.
He might have been mobile, but that doesn't mean able to clean. And because he obviously has mental issues, he's going to have problems with self-care, since he's got issues with overeating. 'Dr.' Phil isn't even a doctor, and calling the guy out on television isn't standard protocol for curative therapy.0
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