Christina H.

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Ok..here is a long one...

I have been thinking long and hard about this.....because I want to give this surgery the best chance to work. Trying to figure out my
"emotional eating" demons. It feels pretty cheesy just
typing that.

I am pretty private....I will not
ever let anyone in my family...even my husband see this....but words are power...and I need as much strength I can muster before the 24th.

I have abandonment issues.

Nothing too complex there...pretty boring actually.

My real dad felt no affection or attachment...he left before I was born....I thought I didn't care....maybe I don't
or maybe I do more than even I can understand.

I am just trying to piece together this big fat puzzle inside my head. No pun intended.

For years my step-dad would abandon us every friday night ...aka..payday. He would leave us for beer/whiskey...
not sure what his drink of choice was. And as if it weren't bad enough that he left us high and dry to just sit and wait as the night grew later...knowing he wasn't coming home...but allowing every car that passed by to propel us to the door to see if it was him. He left us with our mom....who...to put it kindly had her own demons.

I guess my mom had abandonment issues too. Because every time he did this, she went a little crazier. She would sit by the window...watching. Far after the sun had gone down and lunch was a distant memory we would tell her we
were hungry....she would say..blame your daddy...he didn't bring his paycheck home again. After we persisted for several hours about being hungry...she would look at me and and finally
give up the pretense that there was no food and say..
go find you something to eat! So I would go
to the kitchen...find something to eat....syrup and bread...eggs..oatmeal...I was only 7 but I would find something to cook for my brothers and myself and we would
go to bed temporarily until my mother would pull us out in the middle of the night to go driving around, searching the bars
for my dad. The entire time telling us how he didn't love us...or her....or anything but beer.

When my mom finally got a job...when I was about 12....it wasn't long until she quit coming home after work too. Once again I became the mom. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of
the boys. My dad would have the audacity to criticize my cleaning. I was only 12. I didn't want to be the mom. But I felt sorry for him.

So after I cooked...and cleaned the kitchen ..... I would sit with him
and listen while he railed on and on about her. I didn't know until years later' that she was having an affair. Of some kind at least.

After I became an adult with my own children....she divorced my dad and went to "live with people who really understand her"...she moved to Ohio and for 3 years..we didn't hear from her......Abandonment still hurts even if you
are an adult...........

The only really good friend I ever had was Angie. She was the only person I ever really opened up to and shared some of this with. Her family moved to El Paso when we were14. It wasn't her fault...but once again I was alone.

Those are the big ones. There are a million little ones.

For some reason I am afraid of the dark. I have been since I was old enough to remember. When I was about 5-6 I remember lying in my bed...my head covered and barely able to breath under the stuffy blanket. I don't know what I was scared of. I just remember being terrified. My parents weren't really
the understanding type....if you went to them they would yell at you to get "your ass back in that bed". I remember contemplating the whipping just to avoid the dark.

I specifically remember one night, when the terror became too much. I went to my parents room with the full understanding that I was going to bring down their wrath bywaking them up with my silly fears. I sat on the end of the bed. Then I lay across the end of their bed. Suddenly I felt secure....and very sleepy.
That is where I was when my dad was awakened by his alarm clock.

I am not sure what about a little 5 year old girl lying on the end of his bed made him so angry....but this huge hand whacking my butt and yelling at me to get in my own bed was my alarm clock. I limped to my bed, holding my butt and crying. But
I learned a valuable lesson that morning. Never trust them when you are scared....because they ARE the scary ones.

In that same house...about a year later my dad built a small room adjacent to the kitchen. It was to be my room. It was unfinished...the walls were still sheetrock. There was no door...just an opening into the kitchen. Somehow birds
were able to get into the outside wall...at least it sounded like birds to me.

I hate birds. I would lie awake all night, afraid to go to sleep for fear the bird would get into the inside of the room. But the night on the end of the bed had taught me my lesson and I never went to them. I just remained sleep deprived.

I started getting up in the middle of the night....sleeping in my brother's bed untilI heard my dad's alarm and I would run to my bed. The couple of times I wasn't fast enough to avoid my dad.....were let's just say not pleasant.

I finally got smart.

When the dark was too much....and I couldn't be strong anymore...I would get up and get one of my brothers to come sleep in my bed with me. So when my parents
got up....it appeared that my brother was the one breaking the rules.

Funny..I dont' remember him getting slapped awake.

Soon they were too old for that....they wouldn't come to my bed. So..by the age of 12....I hadnoone to turn to and noone to trust. It was just me.

I remember being afraid that since my dad was not my real dad....that if I made him too mad...he would kick me out. I had no doubt that my mother would not go with me.

And here is the real point to this diatribe....that I have been avoiding..

(deep breath)...........I think I was molested.

I just don't know.

And it hurts to type it.....no way I can say it out loud.

But I do know a few things.....

I had no hymen the first time I had sex. There was no pain...there was no bleeding. What happened to it? Was I an anomoly born without a hymen? My husband is the only man I have ever been with. But I am not sure he believes this.....and I have no explanation.

And then there's the dream....a very vivid dream....almost too vivid.
I am very small....and someone very large easing onto my bed on top of me....I remember the smell..
it was manly and distinctive.... I remember a thought...one single thought...
not terror...not pain....but sympathy for this man....the thought was "she is so mean to him"....as if what he was doing was okay...because she was so mean to him

I don't know who "he" is....I don't know who "she" is.....I pray everyday that memory invades my concious thought that "he" is not my dad....and "she" is not my mom.

Does that explain my fear of the dark. I was never afraid of monsters...like most kids who are afraid of the dark. In my mind....the thing lurking in my closet...under my bed....waiting for me was a person. A faceless man. But it
was definately a man. I always assumed it was fear
of burgulars. But my home has never been burglarized.

My only weapon was not to fall asleep or not be alone?
As long as I was awake or with someone......he wouldn't
get me.

I can't remember when the food obsession started. But I do remember when I was about 9 my mom would yell at me for spooning left over mashed potatoes into my
mouth as I was supposed to be clearing the table and washing the dishes.

I heard somewhere that you should chew your food 20 times. I tried that.

When I went to my mom proud that I was on a self-imposed
diet....she was shocked...because as far as she was concerned...I was pig because I was still at the table stuffing my face long after everyone had gotten up. I was too embarassed to tell her that it just takes a really long time to chew everything 20 times. I just let her assume I was being a pig.

Is it a combination of being afraid there would be no food on fridays when my dad wouldn't come home...the hope that if I were big and fat no big man would come get in my bed after I fell asleep because I would be ugly and he wouldn't
want a fat ugly girl and he would leave me alone?

More than anything I want this surgery to work. But I know it's not going to if I don't face the demons that make me gorge myself on food until I am the size of the fat lady in the circus.

These are some of the things that are screaming in my head...but I just can't say them.....I know they want out...they want to be heard....but they get stuck in my throat...and my throat muscles physically ache with holding them down...pushing them back into my stomach where I pile food on top of them to keep them there.

I guess Wally Lamb was right.....maybe we really do eat our secrets.....

 

August 1, 2006

Can we say O - B - S - S - E - S - S - E - D??? (hmm..hope i spelled that correctly).

Everything in my life is WLS related. I am like a freudian fiend. I find WLS links to everything thing in my life. I would like to just get one with it!

Did I mention that patience is NOT one of my virtues?

July 15, 2006

I have all of pre-requisites for surgery out of the way...except the support meeting. The psych eval was kind of ..um....useless as far as I could tell. I took a test with about 1000 questions...some of them as harmless as:

Agree or disagree: my dad was a good man

Some of them as scary as:

Agree or disagree: I hear voices and they tell me to do bad things.

Talked to the doc for about 15 minutes....I was more interested in being in a psych's office for the first time. I told him I thought it would have a couch and a waterfall like on Monk...he thought that was funny.

We talked about some of his other patients...what their issues were and all in all I seemed well adjusted....

Maybe that test should have had a few more questions......