At an early age I retreated to the confines of my room and feeling safe in its loneliness. My peers, family and classmates suddenly rejected me as the fat monster. I was no longer the cute chubby Rocky but this fat, ugly kid that was embarrassing and not cool to be seen with.  At 11 years old I couldn’t comprehend or understand the bullying, teasing, rejection and constrain of realizing your not liked or wanted anymore because of how you look.  For years I’ve hid in my room watching and observing with admiration and envy “social life” shows on television, dreaming one day it will be dancing a night club being hugged by everyone. I studied interpersonal communication and relationship dynamic in preparation for being accepted and loved again.

Sadly food was my only love for many years and it made me feel good. I could always rely on the familiar taste and feeling to comfort me in a world that often felt unknown and senseless. Food didn’t tease me, reject me, judge me or treat me differently. Cakes, candy and Ice cream became a very familiar thing in my school bag, under my bed, and the hidden spaces of my room. Unsurprisingly my weight eventually sky rocked to 560 pounds. In the midst of that I was offered an opportunity that changed my life. I was asked to tell my story with the world on radio and soon television. For me it was a chance to finally talk to an actual human, even if it was a television or radio producer, I was suddenly confessing all my pain. Suddenly there was this person who wanted to hear it all. I was allowed to talk for hours about my pain, finally letting it all out and seek the love that felt like a faint after-taste from people. These devices that captured my thoughts, tears and feelings became my best friend.

Then came the realization that all this recorded and documented emotions, journeys and struggles were going to become public for the world to hear and see. The idea of my story being public weirdly was a subconscious thought I drowned in my mind with the relief I got from confessing my hurt and pain. I was scared, thinking listeners and viewers were going to mimic my skinny twin sister and think of me as a fat-sad-complainer who really didn’t want to lose weight. But I was embraced, understood and loved by strangers across the world.

     The microphone made me an award-winning radio producer nationally and internationally. The camera finally visualized and gave face to my struggles, rejected body, deforming appearance and my story resonated with many, breaking record-ratings for many networks. MTV was very unique in that it gave me a platform to address the young demographic that made growing up as the “fat kid,” a living hell.

     In the isles of hit reality and radio shows, I need you to find my story somewhere on the bottom shelf, decipher everything it’s made of and take it for what it is: a chance to change our generation, inspiring compassion, tolerance and understanding for everyone who feels different, rejected and struggles to be accepted.

]]> http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/2012/05/11/my-reality-on-reality-televsion/feed/ 17 http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/2012/05/03/truelifes-rocky-is-getting-a-second-chance/ http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/2012/05/03/truelifes-rocky-is-getting-a-second-chance/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 09:08:57 +0000 Rocky http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/?p=59 MTV & BANDITO FILMS

PRESENT

“I’M GETTING A SECOND CHANCE”

Filming MTV's Truelife's Premier Special:"I'm Getting a Second Chance"

     My Journey captured on this show was two years in the making, 400 pounds lighter, 40 pounds of excess skin removed, two major operations later and finally being able to look in the mirror and see success with the help of AMAZING experts*! Watch hardships, emotions, confrontations, and a chance to finally “live life” unfold: candid, raw, “bleeps” and VERY real, on MTV.

     While watching the show recently at a private screening with a very small crowd of familiar faces, I cried two minutes into it and stormed out the room. I ran out watching myself on television in denial and being defeated by reality and what is now my past. I luckily returned with the help of friends, to witness myself slowly become triumphant, although the road was BUMPY! My family and I all cried, we all grew and we all healed together during this process, including EVERYONE involved in the production of this show.

*BIG THANKS TO THE EXPERTS:

     The pro’s are in, the fight starts and my team is strong thanks to the help of an extraordinary “Life Coach” Laurie Gerber (of the Handel Group). The advance skills and innovation of “miracle worker” Dr.Dennis Hurwitz (of Pittsburgh) my plastic surgeon. Only two of many amazingly extraordinary people who helped make this dream an actualization. “Bandito” for you!

     At 15 Rocky produced a personal radio documentary titled “My Struggle with Obesity.” The story won national and international accolades, becoming one of the first substantially informative documentaries on a now growing and deadly epidemic. Rocky’s radio stories are used in classroom curriculums across the United States and abroad. Rocky is an Award-Winning journalist for WNYC/NPR and television personality (NBC,PBS,Food Network,FOX,CW11,MTV,etc.)

PRESS CLIP

“TRUE LIFE PRESENTS: I’M GETTING A SECOND CHANCE”

“What if you were given a second chance to get your life on track? Two years ago in True Life: I’m Uncomfortable With My New Body told the story of Rocky, an overweight teen who had recently lost over 300 pounds. Unhappy with the excess skin left by his rapid weight loss, Rocky continued to hate his appearance, obsess about food and isolate himself from others. Now, the song remains the same — Rocky is still living with his parents, prone to wild eating binges, and fearful of social interactions. In this special, Rocky is about to get a chance to change that tune — because we’re setting him up with a life coach who will try to help Rocky conquer the problems that he hasn’t been able to solve on his own. True Life Presents: I’m Getting a Second Chance.

Executive Produced by Josh Haygood (Bandito Films), Dave Sirulnick, Marshall Eisen, Betsy Forhan and Jim Fraenkel of MTV.

Watch the Full episode here

]]> http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/2012/05/03/truelifes-rocky-is-getting-a-second-chance/feed/ 2 http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/2011/09/05/second-major-plastic-surgery-completed/ http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/2011/09/05/second-major-plastic-surgery-completed/#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:47:11 +0000 Rocky http://samrrockytayeh.com/blog/?p=53 One year later I returned to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to complete my plastic surgery operations with a full Lower Body Lift. This was the second major surgery that removed a combined, 40 pounds of excess skin from a total weight loss of 400 pounds. At 23 years I am trying to still create a normal looking body from what was once a huge, ugly person weighing over 560 pounds. With each major plastic surgery operation I am getting closer and closer to appearance I can accept. I have given up on an appearance society can accept, because no matter how hard I try they are always displeased. They stared and laughed at me for being fat, they stared and laughed at me for having excess skin and they look shocked and puzzled at me now for my scars. It’s easy to fall back into a negative cycle of thinking and living alone in my room again. I can look at my scars in two ways, disgust and fear people will freak out when they see it, or as if I am a survivor given a second chance to live. This is my second chance at life, and I am going to live it! We have to help ourselves, kids especially (that’s when my ideal of comfort, living and beauty was distorted) realize that society’s ideal of beauty is unattainable and once a person realizes that beauty truly is how you feel about yourself, the quest will end. Second major surgery a success, excess skin from my chest, arms, back, stomach, inner thighs and rear have been removed. I have a normal looking body now, toned, defined and I have abs on the way. It’s often so unreal for me to comprehend. But the body is a reward for living at peace with my mind. Because when I tried to chase the “beauty” every single diet failed. However when I started living at peace with my mind, the “beauty” came.  On the road to recovery now and thinking about life and our purpose as humans to love and respect each other blind from religion, skin color, race, ethnicity, orientation etc. Love you all, and hope we continue to inspire each other to want to live a happy life with one another.

My Upper Body surgery went well. I am still getting use to the scars. I have a flat stomach, amazing chest, back and arms. I have been exercising and I can see abs forming! This is very crazy!

Sending Love To All of You! Thanks for the Support!

-Rocky

Muslims see Jews as the enemy and Jews see Muslims as the enemy. From Junior high school to High school, I watched my religion (Muslim) go from a get out of jail free card to an airport strip and search cause. It’s still confusing to me.

I’m the youngest of eight siblings from a Middle Eastern family, in Brooklyn New York. My closest relationships have been and are with Jewish people. I have spent my teenage life befriending Jewish families and friends. My mom runs a daycare with all Jewish parents; she is Middle Eastern, as she would like to say Palestinian. The whispers and rumors, you hear on BET, Al-Jazera, cheap ignorant mediums, etc. about Jews and Muslims are not true. They are not crazy, greedy, evil, cult-monsters that hide and want to take over the world. Muslims are not terrorist, women oppressors who use archaic policies to enforce religion.

Jewish people are just like us and in some cases better. I didn’t realize many of my friends were Jewish until I asked them. It’s so funny but my best friends in high school were all Jewish. The girls shared the same life challenges my Muslim relatives face, cultural marriage, religious observance, family pressure and all the challenges of living a religious life in a party hosted by the devil, New York. When my friends and I discovered our religions (Muslim and Jewish) we joked that normally Jews and Muslims should be killing each other. It’s funny to say that in New York, where that sounds extreme. However across the globe hundreds of people are being killed, shot to death, houses misled bombed, stone murdering because of religion. Really? The verses that tell you to love one another and live in harmony cause the deaths of innocent women, men and children.

It’s really sad that on the most holiest land on earth, where all our bibles share a communality, is the most bloodshed and death. We are using religion as a weapon to concur and destroy and it’s disgusting. It’s even more ugly when I hear relatives use ignorant blind hatred to label people as the enemy. I realize the higher education people have the more intellectual and understanding they are. Religion should not determine your friends from enemies. Our time on life is short. We should not spend it fighting and hating each other.  Please make an effort to talk to people outside your religion, I’m telling you; you would find so much communality and maybe family.

(So I am working with a Life Coach for an MTV show; that is teaching me to turn my compulsive, emotional eating into something creative. Writing this and getting it off my chest sure does feel better than a pint of ice-cream.)

Again Love you all!

If you don’t know how much this skin bothers me watch the first MTV Truelife Show

Lastly the MTV show was amazing. I felt really comfortable with the producers Elyse, Kelley, Mark and Brian. When being filming and interviewed I always feel like I’m making a friend and finding someone who really cares. It breaks my heart when the show ends, because they are gone. Now 23, I understand how that works. The show was still a blast and it felt like a big therapy session to spill my guts out. Finally, here is the MTV show (Link below) it was about me losing over 380 pounds with the help of the Lap Band Surgery and exercise. It focused on my excess skin after massive weight-loss. I still haven’t had the two operations needed to remove all the excess skin. I am planning to have it this summer. Please be nice and don’t say hurtful things. A lot of people are facing post weight loss issues and this is something I am still going through.

Rocky MTV True Life I\'m Uncomfortable with My New Body