EmergentGrace
Week 4 update - mental breakdown and dumping
Sep 29, 2011
Technically I am 4 weeks and 3 days, but this is the only time I have had to blog about it.Weight loss- If my bathroom scale is accurate, I am at around 240 pounds. I go to the doctor today, so I will officially log whatever her scale says when I get home, but if that is accurate, I have lost around 34 pounds. Not bad. Even if I was at my last weigh in on the wii, I am still down a total of 30 pounds in one month. I was feeling kind of down about how slow the weight loss seems right now, but honestly, stepping back and realizing I lost that in only 1 month instead of three, I think I am ok. I am a little nervous I will only drop about 10 pounds a month from here on out, but whatever, I am physically healthier every day.
Mental Breakdown- That caught your eye did it? Well, it has now become abundantly clear to me how much I use food to cope with stress. I have a psych appointment next week. Lets just say that I had an incident (where no one was hurt) that ended up in me acting in a crazy out of character way that had to eventually involve the police. It was at the tail end of a terrible stress-induced day after the first week of a new job with a long commute (2 hours each way) and horrible hours that has left me pretty sleep deprived. I am now in the process of adjusting my medication for depression because it is not working the way it used to and meeting back with my psychologist that I saw preop to figure out what the hell happened in my brain to make me insane. I realize that I probably would have drugged myself with food before, and that just isn't an option right now.
Dumping-So while dealing with the repercussions of my horrible weekend, I started craving fast food, pretty bad. I tried to ignore it for about an hour, and finally I pulled over at Jack-in-the-Box. They have grilled chicken strips there which I thought I should be able to tolerate just fine. WRONG. To be fair I dipped it in the red hot sauce and ranch (which I love the flavor of and pre-surgery could eat all day), and when I say "it" I mean the one tiny piece of chicken I ate. Thank goodness I had an hour till I had to be at work, because the next 30 minutes I spent puking. My stomach burned like I was on fire, I had an uncomfortable feeling sort of like pressure prior to throwing up, and my hands were shaking for the rest of the day. I was able to hold down yogurt about 6 hours later just fine, but when I came home another six hours later, I felt like I needed to eat, so I opted for a hard boiled egg, which I have held down before. Unfortunatley for me, my stomach didn't care that I had one before, and I proceeded to barf it up until all I had left was foam. Word to the wise, do not drink anything when you get that feeling, it just makes it worse. I seriously have looked around at food a few times and don't dare eat anything without being sure that it won't cause that reaction.
So, not my best week. I am getting the help I need to get it back under balance, and emotionally I am pretty exhausted, but ok. I just need some better coping skills. Obviously eating worked even though it was making me miserable and unhappy, it was keeping me from boarding the crazytown bus. It is so hard to admit I am broken this way. I have always been known as the sane stable one and right now I can't vouch for my behaviour under stress. I recognize though, that this has always been an issue, just one I dealt with in a way that I can't any longer. This is why they do the evaluations. It's a good thing that I don't drink. I'd be drunk right now.
