You’ll Have To Pry My Ozempic Pen Out of My Cold Dead Hands

I’ve been noticing a spate of articles of late that are essentially demonizing the new GLP-1 receptor agonists weight loss drugs that have been getting such impressive results. This class of drugs is different than other types of weight loss drugs previously offered. Originally developed to control diabetes, these drugs work by stabilizing blood sugar by controlling the hormonal pathways that control satiation and by delaying stomach emptying. I’m over simplifying and I don’t understand all the science behind them and quite frankly, don’t really care; all I know is that they work. It’s the first time in my entire life that I haven’t had to obsess over every crumb put in my mouth, beating myself up over a ‘slip’ for eating one peanut too many when the scale showed an increase the next morning.

So, to the Atlantic, WAPO and all the other depeche mode-esque media outlets opportunistically pumping out articles like Chicken Little looking up at the sky by finding every adverse reaction story out there to prove there’s danger, perils and risks, oh my! with these new miracle drugs and don’t believe everything you hear because if it sounds too good to be true it probably is and there’s no such thing as a free lunch and it’s cheating!, just put a cupcake in your pie hole — here you can have mine, because I’m not hungry.

You guys are like Eyeore and instead of striking the balance of letting people do their own due diligence of risk to benefit, you’re just sensationalizing and pot stirring. Maybe Eyeore and Henny Penny can have a tea party caviling at the temerity of us former fatties finally being free from the prison of disordered eating. Kvetch until the cows come; bleat and bray all the bromides you want, it won’t change my opinion about these drugs and you’ll have to pry my ozempic pen out of my cold dead hands because I’m never going back to the way it was before that blue pen came into my life.

My weight struggle story has all the usual attributes that one expects to hear: I’ve struggled with my weight since I was a kid; my parents were neglectful, negatively affecting my mental health and self-esteem; I was frequently bullied largely because of this neglect and learned to eat my feelings of helplessness as a way to cope; I tried everything to lose weight and nothing ever sustainably worked — like I said, just your typical ‘always been fat’ back story.

I’m all for body positivity regardless of size or shape; if you’re happy then work that positivity with a fierce runway strut. I’m genuinely happy for you that you are happy and fulfilled, but I wasn’t either happy or fulfilled at 5'2" and 230 pounds. I have always intuitively understood that losing weight wouldn’t miraculously cure the pain of feeling empty or the interminable loneliness I felt either. My issues of weight and feelings were connected but had different origination paths and thus, needed different solution paths. Internally, my feelings of disquiet and sadness would swarm around like hungry bacteria in a petrie dish. This incubated pain only found release through the comfort of food.

Food didn’t yell at me, food didn’t tell me I was worthless, food didn’t ignore me, food was happy to be in my presence, food didn’t abandon me when I needed it. Food was the only time something wanted to please me instead of the customary compulsorily obligation of me always having to please others.

Being overweight is an outward manifestation, the visual from all the damage of having to shoulder alone the negative encumbrances of intergenerational trauma and abuse. It was never an accurate representation of who I am as a person but when you’re overweight, all of that is ignored and overlooked and you’re a leper without a colony. No one could see me; all they saw was the scarlet letter of a moral failing under all those fat rolls instead of understanding that what was in front of them was their handiwork. The handiwork of every unkind, dismissive, derisive comment or action that I never deserved, unfairly foisted upon me because I was an easy and convenient outlet for their moral failings of humanity and decency.

I worked with a medical doctor for two years before trying ozempic. I tried all the other drugs while religiously counting calories and exercising; nothing worked. My labs showed I had normal fasting and A1C1 numbers. An outstanding doctor, he compassionately treated the patient, not the numbers and after exhausting all non surgical interventions, strongly suspected that I was insulin resistant and most likely on the precipice of my numbers showing I was pre-diabetic. He prescribed ozempic to see what would happen.

It was like the annunciation is what happened.

For the first time in my life I was steering the brain’s hunger center. I was saying no to food. I was eating smaller portions. I didn’t find myself thinking about food all the time. It was simple: I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full. I had never been able to do that in my life. I never knew what full felt like.

Externally, I wasn’t just losing weight but internally I was changing as well. I had lost my coping mechanism but not the unvalidated negative feelings from the ghosts of past abuse and found a good therapist.

Instead of eating those feelings they were starting to come out, directed at those who deserved it. I was starting to advocate for myself. I had started saying “No”, loudly and often, strongly enforcing boundaries and I’m not done yet. I was getting stronger physically and mentally.

I suddenly found myself with time on my hands. I never realized just how much time I spent trying to cope with my feelings through food; nor how much time I squandered instead of using it for other pursuits; thinking about food, preparing it and eating it until that road was closed for repairs.

I started trying new hobbies. I taught myself how to upholster like an old master (I can tie 8 way springs old school style!), refinish furniture and focus on things I have always wanted to learn but could never muster up the energy for because I was drowning in the quagmire of maladaptive coping.

Working with my doctor was like working with Dr. House. We took it slow, very slow. It took me two years to lose 115 pounds and I am currently on a maintenance dose and will always be because my doctor’s instincts were spot on. About halfway through treatment I was diagnosed with gastroparesis. Gastroparesis is something you’re genetically predisposed to, but diabetes and/or insulin resistance give the condition the foothold it needs to take root. It went undetected for years, left to fester and create internal damage like neuropathy in my feet, the pain from which I live with daily and will have for the rest of my life.

Turns out that everything I had been told about why I was fat was a lie; a failing of societal rectitude using the precepts of ignorance, lack of critical thinking and curiosity for problem solving as justifications for gaslighting the fuck out of me. It was not my moral failing of not being able to push myself away from the table, it was a genetically predisposed hormonal pathway that was faulty and the semaglutide makes it work correctly.

I’ve wasted enough time in my life tolerating the poison of ignorance and being quarry for the untaught. One of the things I’ve started doing with my newfound freedom is saying what I want so I started writing about my feelings. Turns out I have a lot to say! Oh yeah, and also found out I love Krav Maga. So come on, just try and take my little blue pen away and see what happens. I’ll give up my blue pen when you give up your blue pills, how’s about that? Or when hell freezes over.

Never.going.back.