the whole truth

i'm ready to be honest with myself, my blog readers, & the whole world wide web (aka universe). so today, on the life of my ferrets, i swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. so help me god(s). amen.

i've let a lot of stuff slide as of late, one of the main ones has been my blog. not that i don't love my writing, my blog, or my readers (if any are still left as of this date). i've been absent because i've been healing. i'm finally at a good place, a great place, a place of peace. some place that intellectually i knew existed, but some place that i was never quite sure i would see in this life time.

today i find myself firmly in recovery. & yet, i'm not quite sure yet if recovery is a forever road, or if i will one day find myself totally recovered from the evil demon that is my eating disorder. i eat now. i get my three meals & my three snacks. it's not what the peeps at HCMC would prefer since i'm a post gastric bypass patient, they'd prefer the three meals, but my body just doesn't work that way. & for my physical, mental, & emotional health i need to make sure i'm eating every couple of hours.

for the most part i'm not restricting (starving myself) & for the most part i'm not binging. once in a while i will have a day where for whatever reason i think it's a good idea to push my body & i wait much too late to have breakfast. or i'll skip lunch or under eat at dinner. on the flip side of that coin when i'm stressed i some times find myself reaching to munch on something. the old habit of using food as an emotional band-aid. the difference now is that i recognize myself doing these things & i stop myself. i stop myself because i know that i'm worth fighting for. that it's just food. it's fuel. & if i want to accomplish all the AMAZING things i have planned for myself i need to treat my body as a machine. ya know, rotate the tires, get the oil changed, fill the gas tank, get the engine detailed....oh wait, that's the list of maintenance for my saturn.

what has happened thus far in 2011? so many things! the year is almost 25% done and already i'm on cloud nineteen (yes, i'm still a drama queen with a flair for melodrama after all this time). just on friday i had my defense for my MFA thesis. &{drum roll please}: i passed with no revisions required! which means i need to just get the final copies of my thesis to the office and then i graduate. it's been 9 years that i've been in the MFA program & i'm finally graduating. when i think on it i'm so happy that i literally want to cry.

cry? why for you ask. thanks for asking. {hint: here's where the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth part comes in} i cry because i realize how terribly close i came to not making it to this day. back in 2009 when my uncle joe died i missed his funeral because of how sick i was with my eating disorder. & while i was honest about this on my blog i wasn't brutally honest. the brutal honesty is something that i've come face to face with in the past month as i finished my thesis & really done some hard core introspection on my time in the MFA program. there was something about facing the end of the student era of my life & preparing to move onto the next, as of yet unnamed, phase that has made me rewind time and re-watch my life.

my plan is to use my poetry to change the world. i want to take my message about living with & recovering from an eating disorder to help keep other girls from going through the same hell. & as i prepare to do that i've realized that even though i'm in recovery i have not been completely honest with the people i care most about. my eating disorder nearly killed me. i'm not being melodramatic. i'm not asking for sympathy, for pity, or for tears. i just need to be transparent about what really happened.

2009 was a total craptastic year in so very many ways. but it was a year that i needed. that year tested me. when i was at the sickest & allowing my eating disorder demon to control me i was so weak that each day i was in pain. this is not a metaphor. yes i was in emotional & mental pain. but i was in physical pain. my back hurt, my tail bone hurt, my chest hurt. every day it hurt to breathe. i'm not even talking deep breaths, i'm talking regular breathing made my chest hurt. but i was scared to say anything because i did not want to be hospitalized.

when my therapist told me that she thought i needed to be hospitalized i balked. i know if i would have told her about the chest pains i probably would have been committed against my will {which was the only way, i told her, i would be hospitalized} at one point she said that i was so malnourished & dehydrated that if i did not start eating i would probably be placed on a feeding tube. i was in such a dark place that secretly i wanted that to happen. because if i had a feeding tube then i wouldn't have to deal with food. as i type this & remember sitting in her office with that reality it does make me sad. she was trying to use it as a threat & the me at that time saw it as a golden ticket.

the thing that i have not confessed to anyone until recently is how close i really came to death. i'm convinced now as i look back at that time that i was much closer to dying than i realized. every week i thought about dying at least three or four times. sometimes it was multiple times a day. it was not that i wanted to kill myself. to me that was selfish to slice my wrists open or over dose on pills. but i was slowly killing myself. every day it hurt to open my eyes, i drank a gallon of coffee a day just to get myself enough energy to drive the 3.3 miles to work & hunch over my desk. i put a smile on my face when people were looking, a grimace when no one was looking.

at least twice a week i would tally the people in my life. my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, my grandma, each of my friends. & as i thought of each one i would tell myself they would be okay if i didn't wake up the next day. if my heart just stopped beating from the strain, the stress, not enough food, not enough water. & as i thought of each of them i did feel a bit of guilt, what would happen if i did die. but i also told myself they would be okay. i told myself that then my parents wouldn't need to worry anymore. that my dad wouldn't tell my sister that because we work at the same place it's her responsibility to go to my desk each day & make sure i'm eating.

even my ferrets. i thought of them & what would happen to them. i knew my family would make sure they were taken care of until they crossed the rainbow bridge. cassie & sunny d, my first two boys. they'd be sad, but they would get over it. podo & doodle are strong & would carry on. marley, linus & lucy were young & resilient. they'd all be okay. except for my nyddah. my little rescue from the humane society. i knew that if i died nyddah would not be okay. she would not be okay just living with my parents.

she crawled into a deep crevice in my heart when she reached up & licked my chin at the shelter on august 16, 2008. i've heard people say soul mates are not always human. in a way i feel nyddah is my soul mate. i love that little furkid more than i ever thought i could love another soul. just as she crawled into my heart i know i crawled into hers. it was miss nyddah & the thought that my death would kill her that kept me getting up day after day. it kept me fighting. i know that it will probably hurt those that i love when they realize that what kept me going was nyddah instead of one of the humans in my life.

but as i type this i don't hang my head in shame. {statistics are slippery things & i try not to use them, especially in my blog, however....} about 20% of people with eating disorders will die without treatment. even receiving treatment 2-3% of people with an eating disorder will die as a result of their disease. sure, that's a low statistic. however. i tend to defy the odds. there was a minuscule chance, less than 1%, of the type of complications i had post gastric bypass, & yet i had surgery again four months & three days after my bypass because of complications. my tonsils were removed twice because they grew back. i was born with only three wisdom teeth. i tend to be an odd conglomeration of weird medical issues.

& the point of all of this? honesty. i want to change the world with my poetry. i want to stand in front of millions of people & read my poems & change their lives. i will open people's hearts & minds & change the way people with eating disorders are viewed. i will open the dialogue so that there is no more shame. it's a disease just like breast cancer or seizure disorders or alzheimers. no one blames someone for getting cancer or having seizures or alzheimers, why attach shame to an eating disorder. & to be the role model i know i can be, to revolutionize the way people see this disease, i need to make sure i'm honest with myself, with those around me.

to thank nyddah for saving my life i've dedicated my poetry book to her. i realize she's a ferret and {probably} can't read. but, for me, i needed to acknowledge how close i came to dying & who saved my life. so, miss nyddah: i love you, always. thank you for saving me.

getting ready to meet emily

yesterday morning i wasn't feeling well when i woke up, so i emailed my team at work & told them i'd be a bit late & then let the kids run while i tried to get control of my nausea & start feeling well enough to actually get on the road & get to work. i hate getting to work late. i really like getting in by 7am so that i can get my evaluations done early when the call center is still quiet. i'm not typically someone that needs silence to work. all through high school & college i needed some music on, or the tv in the background, to work. i couldn't have dead silence. & even when i'm working on my novel i'll put movies in my dvd player & let them run, but when working on call evaluations i need less distractions. i will put my ipod in my player & have it going on low, but there's something about the buzz of the call center that just drives me crazy when i'm trying to do evals, which isn't fair to the reps.

anyway. so i was sitting on my couch chatting on ichat with my friend jonathan & contemplating dry heaving when my phone rang. it was the emily program. so while i hate going in late because then i stay late & i feel like i'm letting someone down (even though my work is really understanding about my health issues & required dr appointments) it was sorta divine providence that i was at home. as soon as i saw the number show on my phone i knew it was the emily program. i'm not sure how i knew that, but i did. if i was at work i would've probably ignored the call. that is NOT a call i wanted to take at work, even if i would've been able to pop into an enclave (we have all these small rooms that can be used for impromptu small meetings or if you need to make a personal call).

because i was sick i was able to talk to a very nice lady from the emily program, i *think* her name was jesse, or lesley, or something like that. i didn't write it down & i forgot to ask. but she did kind of an informal intake over the phone to find out which location i wanted to go to & what some of my specific needs may be so they could match me with the right person. luckily there's a location in st. louis park which isn't too far from my work or my apartment, & they do have someone there that specializes in bariatric patients. they also are contracted with my mental health vendor, which is nice.

my appointment is in a week & a half. in the mean time i'm going to do my best every day to handle things. i was texting steph tonight & telling her that i'm working on taking better care of myself. jenn busted me out earlier this week on the fact that now that i'm able to drink bubbles all she ever sees me with is a bottle of coke zero, which is true. she also asked me how often i'm eating out. & i knew i was eating out a lot, but it's one thing to know it & it's another to have someone else point it out to you. jenn has known quite a few people who have had bariatric surgery & she's also holding me accountable to the fact that i swore, & i mean by god SWORE i would not allow myself to gain the weight back....which does involve behavior changes. & i've been slipping on those. & as an aside, no wonder i've been so fucking nauseous, i haven't been getting enough water. hello mcfly? is anybody in there. think mcfly. THINK.

it all seems a bit like a dream kind of. it's unreal in a way. to think that i'm now, after having gastric bypass & losing this much weight, seeking treatment for an issue with food. although, to be completely honest with myself this is something i should've done ten years ago, or fifteen or more years ago. my problems with food started when i was very young. i was seven & i started secret eating. i would take the things that no one would miss. the things without wrappers. i'd make myself peanut butter & jelly sandwiches just coating the bread with much more of each than i needed.

seven is so young. i have a friend who has a daughter that is that age & i look at her & i can't believe that when i was that young i was starting down a very bad path. i know the question comes up, how can a seven year old steal food & eat it behind her parents' back? how is that possible? i can't speak to every child with a binge disorder, or every adult who previously suffered from one, but for me it was very easy. too fucking easy. my dad has always worked evenings mondays through wednesdays ever since i can remember & then during the day on the weekends. & my mom was in college & since my brother & sister & i were well behaved we were often left alone to play. my mom was always home, so we weren't neglected, but she would study upstairs & it was easy to get into the kitchen & take what i wanted without being observed.

things got even easier once we moved to our new house. i was in middle school & got home earlier than everyone, so i was left alone in the house. then when i was 15 or 16 i moved to the basement which was basically like giving a drug addict the keys to the narcotics cupboard. my parents have a shelf in the basement that holds the "extra" food. things like jam, jelly, crackers, frosting, soup, basically all of those non perishables. & because i lived down there i was often in charge of bringing the extras upstairs. i routinely kept food squirrelled away in the basement that no one knew about. my drug of choice for a while was jars of frosting & graham crackers. i don't think my parents ever realized how much of that food i personally consumed. & i lied to everyone.

when i was a teenager my doctor made me go to a program at the como health partners (group health at the time). it was a "comprehensive" program to help teens lose weight. i had to see a physical therapist, dietitian, & a psychologist. at the time i was very depressed, almost to the point of wanting to kill myself. i'd actually tried once before that & was considering a second attempt. but when they came on strong & tried to scare me into losing weight, i lied. i told the physical therapist i was doing more activity than i was. i told the dietitian what she wanted to hear. & the psychologist gave me some kind of assessment that was so easy to read through that i lied completely & no one ever challenged me on it.

there is a part of me that wishes my parents would have been more observant when i was young. i mean. for christ's sake, i was seven & i was binge eating. what the fuck?! all of this has been on my mind lately after looking at the emily program website. there's a link about identifying eating disorders; the list of things to look for if you suspect a loved one has a problem. & basically every single thing listed under binge disorder fit me to a T until i was in my early to mid 20's. after that i stopped binging. i never officially dealt with my issues, i just stopped binging.

where does that leave me? not a clue. i recognize i had a binging problem for many many years. & now, it's nearly the opposite. i'm not starving myself. but i really honestly would prefer to not deal with food. someone compared this to breaking up with someone i've been dating for 31 years. food used to be my friend, my comfort,the thing that gave me solace. & now it doesn't. i have difficulty eating. some things make me sick, or uncomfortable. things don't taste the same. it's like the betrayal of a long time lover.

but this time, when i'm asked. i will tell the truth. maybe part of growing up is allowing yourself to be vulnerable? i also have something now that i didn't have when i was 15 & going through all this. i have confidence in myself, i love myself now, i know that i have people that love me (i HAD people that loved me when i was 15, but i didn't believe it). i have a very strong support system right now, which is going to be invaluable to me as i deal with this.

i've also decided that i refuse to be ashamed or secretive about this (pretty sure i said this last time i blogged about this). so here it is, on my blog. i'm going to tell my mom this weekend. & my dad too....well, i think i am. it's hard to tell my parents my problems. i won't be using my blog to unload emotional baggage, but i'm going to be as upfront & honest about this as i have about every other thing in my life when putting it on my blog.

saying good bye to old friends

i was just looking through pasta queen's archives & i came across a very apropo posting: good-bye to soda. even though christmas beat my ass like i was stealing its tv, i learned some very important lessons, the largest of which is: don't binge, food makes me feel bad, not good. i know, a very obvious thing, but in the life of a fat girl, it's not such an easy concept to embrace because, well, for many years i've been that fat girl stereo type. eating to make myself feel better. comforting myself with rich, sweet, tasty foods. anything with a complex texture & taste that made me forget whatever it was that inspired the binge. in high school, it was mostly feeling alone. food really was my best friend. i didn't have to worry about being judged, abandoned, made fun of, or harmed. it was there, no questions, no strings, just there. & i was a secret eater. it was my guilty pleasure. my addiction. it was my shame to conceal.

& when you start making food your friend at seven, it's hard to give it up, even if you know that it's slowly killing you. but lately, since christmas i'd say, or maybe more accurately, since the end of the canukian porn trip, i haven't felt that same urge. the longing & the desire to gorge myself is dissipating. i do definitely have my slips, like the 3 brownies at the post-funeral luncheon on tuesday, but i'm showing great restraint over all. i did not stuff myself at little oven tuesday evening, even though their garlic butter is so good i'd fight my mom for the last piece of bread. & yesterday i passed by the two cakes (one chocolate & one white with raspberry filling) that were sitting in the breakroom in the afternoon. i actually passed by them several times, without so much as the teensiest tiniest morsel touching my lips. i didn't even have a post workout evening snack when i got home. i was hungry, but drank some water, played some wow, & pushed on through it. & that felt good.

sometimes, the things we love the most are the things that are the most detrimental to our well being. case in point: tssob (the southern son of a bitch). while in the relationship i loved him, er, thought i did. & i was so wrapped up in that dysfunctional relationship that i was literally blinded by the truth. it really was like i was seeing my life through a tunnel. & all around me my parents, tina, rachel, all my friends, even my coworkers saw the truth as plain as a billboard on 94, flashing red & orange, danger ahead. but all i saw was the road straight ahead of me, nothing else. & then one day, i woke up, realized i'd been wasting my time, money, my life, on someone who was completely unworthy of any of my attention, much less the degree of caring that i invested in that relationship. & FINALLY, then, it was ok for me to simply say good bye & walk away. ((OK, i do still have some anger issues over the fact that the lying cheating mother fucker never sent me back my stuff which he said SEVERAL times he'd do & then the bastard kept calling me for a year after i broke up with him trying to insinuate himself back into my life. & luckily for me, he's a closet racist & stopped calling me when i told him i had a temporary booty call in the form of a yummy indian boy. yo.))

& with food it's kind of the same way right now. the things that used to be my biggest vices no longer hold the same appeal to me. for instance, the brownies at the luncheon were just OK, nothing fantastic. & i think i had them out of boredom. hoping that they would taste better. we can always chalk it up to grief too, if we want. but i'm not even trying to make any excuses for the brownies because, it happened, i felt like shyte afterwards, & i'm over it now. & even with the slip up for the luncheon, i don't feel the same way towards food anymore. just like with tssob, one day i opened my eyes & was able to see a huge world beyond the tunnel vision of the routine of eating.

i know that it's not going to change how i feel except for possibly giving me a gut ache & making me feel guilty for putting such horrible things in my body. neither of those is a very appealing option for me at this time. i like feeling strong & healthy. with my tummy satisfied from good food, but not overly stuffed & miserable. & looking back over the years i know that i've said this kind of thing before, but i think that i've finally reached my limit with junk food. i've been living that old tired saying of "living to eat instead of eating to live." & like any addict, i've let my addiction control me, warp my everyday actions. while i'm not knocking over a liquor store or purse snatching from old ladies, it was controlling my life. it's not like i sit at my desk fidgeting until i can get that next twinkie fix, but it was getting to the point where all my socializing was done over food. i was going out to dinner several times a week, sometimes twice a day. so it really is time for me to cut the ties, say good bye to all of those bad food fetishes, & look into the future & find a life for me outside of being just the fat girl. part of it is growing up, part of it is just living life & taking in the little experiences to compile them into something larger, & a large part of it is having faith in yourself & your abilities.

& it feels damn good to have that faith. that strength. to break away from familiarity. from the ties. from the safety of routine. & find a new way in the world.

standing at the crossroads

once upon a time, there was a fat girl. & while her body carried more weight than it really should, she was still very pretty. but the extra flesh caused her to shy away from certain activities for much of her life for fear that she would be rejected simply because she was the fat girl. & while for many years she did find solace, comfort, & friendship in sweets & comfort foods. hiding behind her food fetishes, swallowing her hurt bite by bite, squeezing her eyes tight to stop the flow of the tears. it became a weary habit. the sweets turning to saw dust in her mouth as another day slipped into another & she was in her teens, & then out of highschool, into her twenties & her life was falling by her like sand through open fingers.

every new year she promised herself it would be the last year she'd be fat. every year since she was eleven, or maybe even ten. & then finally one day in the middle of the nevada desert she was sick of her life running, wasted, like the sand, & decided to change. & it was as easy as that, as deciding that not only would she change, but she could, & she did, for a while.

for the first time it was the fat girl's turn to shine in the spot light. & she had confidence, & grace& sensuality oozing from every pore of her body. & the boys flocked. & she glowed. & somehow, in the new found self hidden within the fat cells she found an identity behind the secret eating, avoided eye contact, & super sized clothing. she found out who she was. & she liked it & liked herself.

& then she fell. in love. perhaps. & gained again. fifty pounds in what seemed like over night, but was more like a couple months. & the years of work & struggle, which didn't seem like struggle at the time, but in retrospect were struggle & sacrifice, were for nothing. & the cute size 16 jeans still hung on her wall. the tags still attached. never worn.

one day, our girl woke up, without the boy, & it was ok. cause it really was more about the journey, not the destination. or rather, not a set destination. & it was about the person she became in the time, & the fat girl realized that to be happy she had to be selfish. had to put herself first. meditate. serach her heart. stare directly into her future. her mortality. beyond her mortality. to define her life.

somewhere in the middle of all of that, she found herself going down a path she swore she'd never follow, the road that would take her to surgically altering her body for good. for weight loss. for her health? & so now the fat girl stands at the crossroads. still struggling to become thin & healthy on her own. but with the allure of surgery glowing in the near distance, two thirds through the approval process, onto the last leg of the journey.

she knows thin does not equal happiness. or perfection. or peace. but she feels deep inside it does equal a better quality of life. more opportunities. the chance to do - & she feels that her fat is holding her back. & yeah, she'll go from being the fat girl, to just the girl. & that's ok too. but she stands now, the fork in the road now clearly visible in front of her. the two paths still one, but now wider. she can continue on as she has been, struggling on her own, seeming to continually fail, or she can ask for help & hope, feverently hope, that help combined with will power & sheer determination will pull her through in the end.

& as the path widens she zig-zags between the two choices. knowing her will power is strong, but weak as well. her determination is there. her vision is there. but not yet believing she can do it on her own. & not wanting to admit that she's weak & can't do it on her own. & trying to see herself twenty years in the future, looking back on this moment, being proud of the choice she made, but not knowing which it will be in the end.

the crossroads are visible ahead, just like the fables say, & the devil's there with his deal. but she doesn't know who's the devil, who's her savior, & which choice will redeem her soul.

scone me baby, one more time

today was not such a great day. i won't go into the nitty gritty details, but suffice to say, i'm not doing terribly fabulous right now. & to soothe my emotions i ate. &ate. & ate. & none of it was at all good for me. tasted fabulous, but not in any way healthy. today was the end of our employee recognition week & they catered in lunch for us. sandwiches, pickles, chips, & pop. it was SO yummy! & then this morning they had sweet martha's cookies to celebrate the upcoming state fair. & then there were the treats from treat day, cookies & mini scones, oh my!

& can anyone predict how i'm feeling now? yup, miserable! one thousand brownie points to the person behind computer number seven. my tummy is all full, i have a head ache, i'm sleepy & over stuffed & i really just want to go home & go to bed. i don't want to pass go, but i would like to collect the 200 hundred bucks, i could really use it right now. & i did over eat today with full knowledge that i was doing it. i knew it when i loaded my plate with chips to go with my sandwich, when i grabbed the cookies, & the scones, & the hershey kisses, i didn't mention those before, did i? well i had those too! completely out of control day. & i know this isn't the behavior that i need to be cultivating. & to top things off i didn't get in my work out this morning either. double strike. & i've had a whole whopping two ounces of water thus far, & it's half past seven at night. that's it, three strikes, i'm out for the night. stick a fork in me 'cause i'm done.

yes, i do read my own previous blogs. & yup, every minute is another chance to change it all. so maybe this could be the minute. when i'm stuffed & feeling fat & gross & like a huge ass failure. maybe i'll pick this moment as the fulcrum on which to turn my attitudes around. not exactly the hollywood moment that would win me the acclaim of the academy & the adoration of a million fans, but i'm not in this show for that, *thinking* nope, definitely not in it for that. when i get home i'm going to take a good long look in my mirror. & then go to sleep. tomorrow i should be able to sleep in & finally get a decent amount of sleep. maybe even get something done around my house. oh, maybe i can be super-duper ambitious & get my independent study typed up so i can drop that at school on monday. that'd be super keen.

then again, a nice dark cocoon made of my comforters & snuggling up with my teddy bear sounds really tempting. no, that's not a euphemism. it's literal. me & my teddy bear pookie & about half a foot of blankets curled in the middle of my queen size bed. sounds like a great idea to me.

at any rate, i'm in need of some good vibes, so if you have extra, please send it my way.

a vanilla sky & star-spangled brownies

i was watching vanilla sky on bravo yesterday & i happened upon a pearl of wisdom "every second is another moment to turn it all around." now this may or may not be an exact quote from the movie, i don't travel with a steno pad, but it's a very close approximation. this came to me at a very opportune moment in that i had been scarfing brownies with chocolate frosting & patriotic stars ever since they had cooled & been frosted.

while i don't typically take advice from movies, this was a particularly good turn of phrase. & it's also very true. why wait until the next morning, next week, next month until you change your habits to make your life what you dream that it could be. sometimes the cliche is the most true: there's no time like the present, seize the day, tomorrow is today, [insert tired cliche here], . . . .

while it shames me to say, i will readily admit that my compulsive eating has gotten way out of control lately. my depression is a daily struggle. as is my home environment. & i really feel that so much of what's going on around me is completely & totally out of my control. BUT, i can control what i eat. & instead of becoming anorexic & not eating anything i binge & indulge myself because i can. yes, i do realize the behavior is just as destructive. & i know it's a good thing that i realize it. but i still feel like i'm light years away of getting a handle on it. how can i know, i mean really by-god fucking know that i'm killing myself with these actions & yet i feel unable to do anything about it? it just doesn't make sense.

it doesn't even follow the chewbacca defense. that's how seriously messed up it is. i'm a sad panda.

& i don't have an answer. a year & some change ago i was doing fabulous. i moved back into my parents house & that seemed to be the beginning of this awful down slide. i hesitate to blame it on them, but the environment that i live in is extremely dysfunctional & less than healthy. if i had the money i'd move out, right now, this minute. well, maybe not this minute 'cause i'm at work, but asap most definitely.

anyone out there want to hire me starting at $65,000/year minimum? come on, you know you want to : ) maybe not the best job hunting tactic, my comments may be quite interesting over the next few days.

i guess i'll just have to work to change what i can & not fight what's out of my control. no, not in AA, never been, but it seems to be the mantra to a lot of twelve-step programs which seem to be all over. i've also watched lots & lots of nypd blue which often featured the end of AA meetings. it also falls into the above mentioned category of cliche, but also just into plain old common sense.

perception vs reality

childhood self-image
my perception of myself as a child is that i was huge. not just pudgy & squishy, but by god a fat f*cking piece of humanity that should be hidden away from the universe. yeah, maybe my adult self is exaggerating a bit on behalf of my childhood self, except, except there's all those strong memories of self loathing & wishing that i could just-wake up thin-go to sleep forever-be normal-& all the other variations that have crossed my mind since i was about seven.

childhood reality
i was flipping through pictures yesterday ranging from my wee young toddler years all the way up to around when i was 13-14. & for the first time i really saw, i mean actually saw that i wasn't really a fat kid, not until junior high. granted i was pudgy, like the pillsbury dough boy with pigtails & glasses, but in an endearing sort of way. yeah, i could've definitely lost a few pounds & been a-ok, but i wasn't that obsese, not like some of the kids that are profiled on the talk shows "my toddler weighs 100lbs & i'll keep feeding him pizza anyway" it really wasn't until that dreadful transition from elementary to junior high that i actually blew up. & while looking at the pictures i cried. the tears actually streaming so fast down my face i could barely see.

as a kid i looked in the mirror & i really did see someone who was so huge that there was almost no hope. granted, it probably didn't help anything that my best friend was the skinniest girl in our grade, & a gymnast, & a dancer to boot. all of that aside, it didn't change the way i felt, waking up each morning, getting on the bus, & going to school. being out of breath in gym class, feeling squished & uncomfortable in my desk. all of that along with some not so encouraging messages from a few family members made me see someone with four chins who was five feet wide whenever i looked at my reflection.

no, it's not another episode of "let's blame all our problems on our rotten childhood." i am old enough to know better. & i realize that by the time i was 14-15 the decisions i was making were completely my own. i was well on my way to being an adult & i could have changed things if i had really really wanted to do so. except for, i did want to change, but i felt that i didn't deserve change.

when i was in my early teens my pediatrician made me go to a weight loss clinic. while at the clinic i saw a dietician, a physical therapist, & a psychologist. now that i work in health insurance i realize that i had a pretty sweet deal, especially since my parents didn't have to really pay anything for the appointments other than their regular premiums. but at the time i wasn't ready, i was being forced to be there. so i politely listened to what they said, then went home & did what ever i wanted. when the psychologist gave me a test to see if i was depressed i lied. the test was so see-through that i just answered it the way they wanted me to answer it, no way was i about to admit that i was so depressed that suicide was always on my mind. & that sums up the whole experience. i told them what they wanted so they'd leave me alone. & i don't think i lost a single pound. a part of me really wanted to try, to get in shape, but a larger portion of me was in such a dark place that it seemed as impossible to me as waking up one day on the moon.

i'm not sure how much it really helps me to analyze, or over analyze, my early years. except that, it may help me to figure out how to change some of these behaviors. i do know that i'm a self sabotoger. it almost seems that i have no control as i munch the reese's miniatures or drive myself through taco bell to grab a snack when i'm on my way home to have dinner. now i'm not trying to live up to the fat person cliche here, but i do know i do these things. when i'm doing well on exercising & eating right there's something in me that suddenly decides that i will simply die if i don't immediately get a king size whatchamacallit. mmmm....whatchamacallit. sounds kind of good right now.....

the sad part in all of this? right now i know that i'm sabotaging myself with my behavior. i'm very aware that what i'm doing is derailing all the hard work that i'm putting into my life. & a part of me could really give a rat's ass on the whole thing. & another part of me is so upset that diving under my down comforter & crying myself to sleep sounds like a wonderful idea. i won't even try to pretend that i have all of my shit together because that is such a bald faced lie. at one point i really thought i had all my shit together. but here's the thing, while i was working out & losing weight i didn't really figure out what caused me to sabotage myself. i never found out why i feel that i can't help myself when i'm faced with temptations. there are some days where i am SO unbelievably good at resisting whatever the nearest kryptonite is, & other days i dive head first & do the backstroke.