When you are in the crazy house, all the crazy people know when you are one of them. When you start to get normal again, they leave you alone.

I’ve noticed that dysfunctional people tend to hang out with each other. Birds of a feather, you know. They don’t want to hang out with people who have gotten better. They don’t want to get better. Misery loves company, you know.

People say that they want to get healthy, they want to get well, but they don’t really. They want to talk about it and complain about it and whine about it, but they don’t want to do anything about it. And people who have been in that pit don’t want to listen to them whine and complain. They want them to walk with them or write or eat the same things they are eating.

They don’t want to get dragged back into that pit.

I spent so much time trying to come up with workarounds for the people at work. They would notice that I’d lost weight and they’d say that they wish they could. They can. They won’t.

Come walk at lunch, I said. “But I like to read at lunch” they said.
Get an audiobook, I said. “I can’t do that” they said.

It is only 20 minutes for walking, that isn’t a lot of time to miss the book. “It is too much.”

Round and round it goes.

Their choice.

I wish they would just be honest and say that they want to be healthy, but they don’t want to do the work. Who does, really? It isn’t easy. It isn’t fun. But nothing worth having is easily obtained.

I have a coworker who says that she needs to get exercise, but everything makes her hot and her knees hurt.

Go to water aerobics, I said. That is the perfect answer. Her responses started with “I can’t find a swimsuit my size” (I found a website that has all ranges of sizes). Then “I would be embarrassed to wear a swimsuit” “Everybody at the gym is in shape, I’ll stick out.”

None of that is true. People go to the gym to get healthy. They aren’t in shape. There are plenty of people who are huge who are there.

Then she came up with the “fact” that she has to cover for us at work. She doesn’t. We’ve got it. The schedule is fine. And ultimately, what is more important, work or life? If you have to sacrifice your health for your work, you are giving up the wrong thing. The job doesn’t care if you kill yourself at it. We aren’t saving the world here. We are running a library.

Use the recumbent bike at home, I said. It doesn’t need special clothes, it is easy on the knees. Her husband bought it for himself. She doesn’t have to worry about other people seeing her. It can be used any time.

Finally she admitted that she just doesn’t want to. That would have been so much easier if she had started with that.

I don’t have time for them anymore. I don’t cheer them on. If they want to come walk with me, great. If they want to see how I eat, great. But I’m not coaching, I’m not cheering, I don’t care. Not anymore.

Nobody holds me accountable. Nobody found workarounds for me. Nobody cheers me on to exercise every day.

I can’t be the reason they take care of themselves. They have to want to. They have to care about themselves.

This has to be a lot like what it is to be part of a relationship with an alcoholic. They have to want to get better. You can’t do it for them. You just have to make sure their madness doesn’t get you down.