emily_1979

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I realized today, that 10 months post-op, I am officially half of my highest weight!  Holy Shnikes!!

WOW!  What a roller coaster of  time I have been having.  I haven't blogged in so long.  Maybe I should have been journaling all along.  Maybe I should have been keeping up with the psych at my surgeons office.  Maybe I should have not been in denial that MAJOR changes happen in your life when you lose a lot of weight.

To date, I am down 133 pounds.  I am in a size 6, and I am hearing all the time how beautiful I am.  I feel like I am the same person.  Just better.  I struggled so much with happiness and acceptance before.  And now I can't help but feel resentment every time someone treats me nicely, notices me, or even compliments me.  But at the same time my head knows that that is just the way it goes.  I am finally healthy, I have energy I didn't know existed, I have self esteem, and it feels good to catch the eyes checking me out. 

Why is it that now, all of a sudden, my life isn't good enough for me?  Or a better question would be "Why was it so easy for me to settle before?"  Things were good.  But not great.  I was taken care of, but not adored.  Security was there, but no passion.  Companionship was there, but not romance. Is it too much to ask for to have it all?  Does it exist?  Am I selfish for giving up a decent life in hopes for having an amazing one?  So far, the few people I have told about my feelings don't seem to understand.  But I want it all. 

Within the next month my husband and I will be separating and moving towards a divorce.  We don't really have ill feelings toward eachother.  We just know that a marriage has to be more than comfort, friendship, and stability.  So far the feedback I am getting from friends and family is to make it work, to try, to give it time.  But 10 years of being neglected for my weight and depression, and continually asking to be loved the way I give love to others seems like long enough to me.  I know there are others out there who understand how I feel.  I just wish I knew who they are. 

Today, I mostly feel sad and scared.  What if I am alone forever.  Or what if I never find what I al looking for.  Or what if I do find it but I can't have it.  I feel sad for the hurt that my feelings will cause and have already caused.  I am afraid of the judgement that will be placed upon me by family and friends.  I wonder if I can do an ok job at being a single working mom.

But amidst all of the change and turmoil, I feel hopeful.  There is a small amount of peace I feel at the chance to move on.  I hope that someday all of the love and kindness I have put out into the universe comes back to me.  I am beautiful, I am selfless, I am kind, I am a good friend, and I can't wait to love someone with my whole heart again.  And to have someone love me with their whole heart also.

I keep dreaming of food. I have dreams where I can smell it. I have dreams where I can taste it. I have dreams that I somehow mysteriously forget that I am not supposed to eat and then I binge and have to start my time all over again. There are other things mixed into the dreams too. Today it was my mom. Yeah, I said today. I took a nap.

I slept late today. It’s not really anything new. It is almost impossible for me to get out of the bed. It’s a huge jumbled mess of reasons why. I am just plain tired. Waking up takes forever. I hit snooze a lot. I try to force my eyes open but blinking turns into my eyes falling shut and sleep hitting me again. I can do this thirty times in the morning and not climb out of bed until noon. Or later.

Also, I don’t have the energy or motivation to do anything. People think I am lazy. This is one thing I feel really judged about. But I look at the world around me, my kids, Ryan, my dirty house, my classroom and my pools and I feel so overwhelmed. So instead of facing life and all of the normal everyday things that normal people can accomplish, I stay in bed. I knew a woman from church. Her house was being foreclosed on and her husband was in jail. Some of the women from church (myself included) volunteered to go into her home and help her pack up the things she wanted to keep to put into storage so that when they locked her house up she wouldn’t lose everything in it. It was plain disgusting. That is putting it mildly. It was probably a health hazard to enter. And the smell was so offensive we did a lot of boxing in the drive-way. There was garbage, dishes, food, and dog pee and poop everywhere. To save anything meant finding it in the piles and we did a little bit of cleaning too. I remember feeling sorry for her but I judged her. I judged her like I don’t want people to judge me. I wondered how her home could get to that point. How she could let her tiny little boy wander through the mess. But now, a few years later, I feel so sorry for her. I know how she must have felt. And if I was alone like she was, without my wonderful supportive husband, my life and my home would be so close to the same.

Sleeping is also a pastime. I get to sleep through the time that I don’t want to spend thinking about something, or waiting for an upcoming event, or to avoid being bored or feeling guilty about what I should be doing. It’s an escape from life. You can’t watch the minutes tick by when you aren’t awake. I am missing out on so many minutes though.

When I finally got out of bed today it was because I was supposed to meet with my boss to go over stuff for the upcoming swim season and to also go check on all of the pools I manage. I had set my alarm. I wanted to wake up and shower before. But I kept hitting snooze and eventually turned the alarm off. When he called to say he was on his way, which I knew he would I had to jump out of bed and straighten up the main parts of the house that he “might” go into and of course I didn’t have time to wash my hair. But I made sure to jump in the shower and wash those smelly spots. I worry so much about body odor. You can’t be fat AND stinky too. He showed up, we did what we were supposed to, and then I got back in bed.

I didn’t want to feel my hunger today. It is getting better I think. Today is only my third day without food. But the obsession is still strong. So the nap was a long one. When I finally woke enough to keep my eyes open I got out of bed and left the house. I went to spend money. I have the urge to craft and create. I want to buy things that are pretty. Here again are those little fixes I have mentioned before. But I think making things that are beautiful to share with others is healthy. So I give in. I buy. And now, while only consuming 440 calories a day, I don’t have the energy or the drive to do anything with what I have spent the money on. So… instead… I write.

I am fat. Once I wasn’t. I am crazy. Maybe I always was.

Here begins the story, of my shrink. My shrink in size. Throughout this story I will surely convey the shortage of shrink in my life as well. Shrink this time referring to Mental and Emotional health professionals.

I don’t consider myself a great writer, I don’t think I am witty or funny, my grammar and punctuation will surely suck, and this might just be a location for me to whine, but I have committed myself to doing it. No matter how my thoughts read on paper and no matter the judgement that may come along.

When you are fat like me, everyone likes to passive aggressively give you tips on how to lose weight or they just want to “help” you recognize why you are fat. And when I say everyone I really mean everyone. Friends, family, enemies and strangers all have an opinion. Emily, push away from the table. Emily, exercise more. Emily, what works for me is….. Shut up already! Especially if you have never been more than 15 pounds overweight before. And no, pregnancy doesn’t count. I actually was best in the weight control area during my pregnancies. And the worst compliment a fat person can get is “You have such a pretty face.” There is always a but trailing behind there somewhere. And no shit my face looks decent. Its all I have to work with besides my hair. I have long felt the need to have beautiful makeup and eyelashes, shiny beautiful hair, and clear skin. To make up for the fact that the rest of me is just plain ugly. I started to really recognize that I have to fix my body when I got to the point that I didn’t care what my face or my hair looked like. My uniform became black basketball shorts for their elastic waistband and length and grey t-shirts because white isn’t flattering to the figure and black is too hot for a fat sweaty chick.

With weight came insecurity and a loss of confidence. And with age came Bipolar disorder. (My doc says anyway.) Maybe I am really normal. And all of the insane mental BS that I think and feel is what everyone else feels too. More than anything I feel sadness. And the sadness is for the lack of joy I feel. Not for anything bad. But bad shit happens too. I have had my fair share and then some. But I always say “Bad shit happens and you get over it or let it ruin you. Bad experiences are not excuses for bad behavior.” So I have no excuse. And I do have bad behavior. I also feel anger. Sometimes the rage inside of me is like putting a Mento in a coke. I can’t contain it. It erupts out of me. I want to be happy. To just enjoy life. This is the only one I’ll get. So between the head issues and the fat issues, I feel pretty jacked.

And the fixes are temporary. Food. Shopping. Sex. Sleep. In no particular order. I have lived without them all and I have also enjoyed them all to the point of excess. I am getting to the point where I recognize each fix when I want it. And I also know what I want will not fix me. Maybe nothing will.

For now, weight loss will be the start. And maybe blogging my thoughts will do me some good. I am four months in to preparing for gastric bypass surgery. My weight management and nutrition appointments have been met. I didn’t really learn anything new. Knowing what you can do to lose weight and doing it are totally different things. Then throw into the mix real, physical, medical problems that make it so hard. If swimming 3 miles a day while only consuming 1200 calories isn’t going to make me lose more than 4 pounds in 2 months, then this risky, expensive surgery better do the trick. I also had my psych evaluation. I guess I am crazy enough. But not too crazy for the surgery. They took a 3 year weight history from another one of my docs and I am on the second day of my protein diet.

The diet consists of drinking 4-5 protein shakes a day. Low carb. I am drinking the EAS AdvantEDGE Carb Control shakes. They aren’t so bad. Way better than Slim Fast. Not too chalky. They taste like watered down diet hot cocoa that is cold. I can also have water. They want you to have around 64 oz a day which is near 2 liters if I am not mistaken. And that’s pretty much it. I really miss food already. They warn you not to have the last supper syndrome. I totally did. Every time I ate the thought crossed my mind, “Am I ever going to taste this again?” Talk about obsessed. My last meal, I was so lucky to have my sweet sisters bring me my favorite dinner and cake. Asian City Hibachi steak with fried rice and a salad with ginger dressing. The cake called “Dynasty” from a fabulous little bakery called Elite Treats. The cake is so to die for that I have purchased it for every special occasion for the last few years. Ever since I discovered the thing.

Two days later. After my feast. I am starving. Not really. I could survive forever on my stored fat. But I am really hungry. I just want to eat. I want to swallow something solid. I want to taste something other than chocolate. But I feel committed. And I want to feel like I am good at something. Anything. This is just another thing to try and build a little sense of confidence and accomplishment. I have a headache. And I can’t stop seeing, thinking about, or smelling food.