After reading the newest study on obesity—that the risk for obesity increased 171 percent (that wasn’t a typo!) among persons with obese friends—I realized the wisdom of my moms words when she told my sisters and me in high school to “stick with the winners” (so that we wouldn’t end up with body piercings and tattoos, not that there’s anything wrong with them). I’m still a little shocked at that three-digit number, because the risk only increased 37 percent for persons with an obese spouse, and 40 percent for folks with obese siblings. (The story is fascinating. To read “Obesity Spreads In Social Circles As Trends Do, Study Indicates,” by Rob Stein of the Washington Post click here.)
“Stick with the winners,” is a piece of advice I’ve had to adhere to religiously in my recovery from depression, because I can’t afford to get sucked into negative thinking. It can be fatal for me. It starts the snowball that ultimately makes me into Frosty, with some dead branches for my arms and a carrot for my nose.

I called my mom scared one night from the hospital because, while most of the group therapy sessions were beneficial, there were those that scared the bejeezus out of me—that I was headed down the same track as Fred, the 65-year-old who had been hospitalized for a year (this time), had been on every medication manufactured by Lilly and Bayer, had been in therapy for 10 years, and had been through ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) countless times, which only helped temporarily.
“I’m so depressed after hearing the stories of some of these people, Mom,” I explained. “Maybe there is no treatment that will work for me. Maybe I’ll never be able to function again like I did. Maybe living a normal, productive life is out of reach for me.”
“Stick with the winners,” she said.
And so I tried to find those in the hospital group who were trying like hell to whack the black dog of depression between the eyes, that wouldn’t succumb to language that could hurt their recovery (“I’m never going to get well”), who cried with me but also tried their hardest to laugh and see the lesson in all of this.
Even after I was discharged, I continued to be extremely picky in my friendships. Because I don’t have the luxury of being able to fool around with a poisonous crowd. Negative energy is, quite literally, toxic to my health. The wrong people can kill me. Because my depression is waiting for the chance to ensnare me with darkness and take me to that lonely and harrowing place where I no longer want to be alive, where I’m ever so tempted to take my life. It only takes a small seed of fatalism to grow the forbidden tree (yes I’m Catholic, the one with the apple) that comes between me and sanity.
So, as I described in my “People-Pleasing: Today Is Not Your Day” post, I’m trying, ever so diligently (not always so gracefully), to erect the proper boundaries in order to protect my health.
I’m trying to do what my mom said and “stick with the winners.”
Postscript: It was brought to my attention that “stick with the winners” could be understood as “everyone else is a loser.” And I do not mean this in any way. “Stick with the winners,” to me, is a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy and DOES NOT IMPLY that everyone else is a loser.