BY REASON OF INSANITY by Edward L. Woodyard

By Reason of Insanity Chapter Fourteen

I exited Chrystalis and was headed toward my car when I saw Phyllis park her gray Prius in the driveway where Willie's Willys had been.

As an obese woman, she dressed herself stylishly in an attempt to offset adverse reactions to her sheer physical size. I decided to utilize my confrontational approach when I saw her. As she stepped out of her small car, Phyllis somehow reminded me of a dreadnought in drydock.

She had been thin once but didn't want to be thin again,let alone thinner. I just wanted her to be fit. She once said, "I don't win when I become skinny. I already did that and I lost. I lost myself along with the pounds. My weight does not define me or my worth."

Life was waiting to embrace Phyllis Johnson, but she wanted life to accept her on her own terms. Regrettably for Phyllis, life accepted people on its terms.

There was an unfortunate animosity between us at that time; it hadn't always been so. A few years earlier, she had accused me of "fat shaming" her, saying of herself, "I will never be damaged by your toxic comments. I don't have to be thin in order to be beautiful and successful. You are a hater who suffers from fat phobia."

To which I commented that if she saw humor in her situation, it might reduce her anxiety about her weight. Since she refused to see anything funny about her fatness, I took it upon myself to make her aware of it in a comedic form, again for therapeutic reasons. Any such remarks about her ghoulish figure on my part weren't meant to be cruel but corrective.

We greeted each other coldly in the driveway, I professionally and she purposefully.

"Phyllis."

"Adam."

She struggled to launch herself from her car, holding onto the sides of the door frame and pushing against it to hoist herself forward. "You need a bigger vehicle. A Winnebago, perhaps."

Phyllis was never one to avoid hostility and conflict. It was one reason why I thought my therapeutic approach would prove successful. "You're too smart by half," she answered, then questioned. "Do you always use insults as a defense? Or does sarcasm merely disguise your hostility?"

I decided to help her from her car, grabbing her arm at the elbow and pulling her toward me. I braced myself as I tried to catapult her out of the car – when I realized something from what Phyllis just said.

I blurted out, "You're seeing a therapist."

I knew I was correct in my observation, but she wouldn't give me affirmation. "Do you know why God gave you two ears and one mouth? No need to answer, Adam, since I will tell you why."

"I'm sure you will."

"Case in point. It's so that you will listen twice as much as you speak."

"I do that in my office."

"You shouldn't restrict yourself just to your office."

"Outside of my office, I can speak freely and be more of myself."

"You should be less of yourself."

"Did you really just say that?"

"I am less of myself. I've lost fifteen pounds."

"Don't worry. You'll find them again."

Phyllis was not in the mood for my curative humor. "I keep asking Mara why she married you, Adam."

I answered her question with a grin and comment, "Free analysis."

But Phyllis continued to fail to see any humor as she straightened a Hermès scarf around her neck and draped it over her oversized bosom. I was thinking to myself that she should have one of those tiny escort cars with the whirling amber warning light precede when she walks, that the scarf should actually be a yellow banner across her chest proclaiming "Oversize Load."

But as Mara correctly observed, now I was being cruel to her sister, finding amusement at someone else's expense. On the other hand, it would be therapeutic if Phyllis said it about herself. Self-deprecating humor was a sign of self-awareness and self-acceptance. But Phyllis didn't see anything comic in her situation and considered herself a victim of fate and genetics. Little was funny to her about her image. To defend herself, I theorized that she could let humor put her on a physical offensive – instead of her having to defend a physically offensive self.

The scarf appeared new; it still had creases from having been folded in a box. Phyllis hadn't worked in years so I knew she was again relying on her extensive trust fund; it was guilt that let her drive a Prius Plus instead of a Q70 Infiniti, which was what her sister had parked in the garage, in majestic white. Phyllis' self-inflicted Prius penance was like her feasting at a smorgasbord and then drinking a diet soda to placate her guilt for all of that caloric intake.

I needed to stop making Phyllis such an easy target – even if in humor, there was truth.