jennifer_2005
My story begins with an attempt to make sense out of emptiness and confusion. Food filled unstructured time with a sense of structured fullness. The emptiness would return, but the cycle of eating came to be a means around it, because finding my way through it was something I could not do in enough time to keep food from becoming an addiction. It is important for all people to be truthful, for us to understand one another face to face with who we really are. I started as a child growing up with alcohol and drug addicted parents. In school, the other kids teased and tormented me, bullying me and I was taught no emotional way to protect myself. Nothing made sense and by the time I was a teenager, I was ready to leave life altogether. Instead, I got away, and spent my teenage years in foster care, living in group homes and learning the struggle that would lead to a better life. At eighteen, I left with nothing but my new sense of dignity and integrity and hope. Decidedly, if it was not going to be death, then it would be life. I was lucky to meet friends and their families who made a lasting impression that stays with me until today and for all time. In my 20's, I started community college and part time jobs. To give a sense of the struggle, I had no car and took the bus or a bike for many years. Sometimes it would rain waiting out for those busses or riding the bike home from school or work. The warm tears would blend into the cold rain, creating a sensation where one could not be distinguised from the other. I had no high school diploma. I just took entrance tests and moved forward. Five years later, I had graduated and was a social worker, set to make a difference in the world. I worked and volunteered, and gave all that I could. But my own world was still so much of a struggle. I had only a few close friends, and money was always an issue. It's easier to understand my addiction to food looking at life from a macro environmental perspective. Living a dignified life of integrity requires a certain level of strength and resources that must be built over time. They are impossible to have at once. Only time, effort, and distance from the past provide these qualities. At the same time, there is an expectation for people to give life all they have in workplace environments, in social environments, and just in general. Being cheerful and upbeat presupposes a range of various factors. Think about what represents fullness: family, friends, places to go for the holidays, people who call you and you call them regularly, being loved and loving in return, having a decent job that pays a living wage, and a strong spiritual foundation. Without those factors readily in place, how can a person ever have a feeling of "fullness"? My answer was to look for fullness in food, and I slipped into this habit more and more before I even had a chance to work through building my environment throught the years. Coming from the background that I came from, life has been carefully orchestrated and artfully designed into what it is now. Any grace, comfort, and calm peaceful confidence that you see now came only from the healing power of time. I knew that I started from a humbler, more modest place than many people around me had. I knew that my life was different, and made no comparisons because of that. I was always proud of any progress, and still feel that way about life. The stress of being a social worker and working long hours with very little pay and practically nothing to show for it finally just got to be too much to manage. I would just throw myself at the work, believing that somehow watching the improvement in the lives of others would help create fullness for me too. It did to some extent, but was inadequate to fill all of the empty spaces. At 27, I had moved on to an uncertain future, scared because I had no backup plan for my first career idea. I had no illusions that finding a man would solve life's problems, even though I wanted to meet one so much. I wanted to learn and grow first so that I could find the right man, and have a meaningful experience, whenever that opportunity would come. Today, I work in customer service for a medical device manufacturer. I am close to getting a master's degree in business and hope to make use of it in some capacity for marketing medical devices. At 32, I live alone in a beautiful apartment that has been cared for and loved. I always have flowers on my table, and as a friend of mine says, you could eat off of my floor, it is so clean! Of the various changes I've made in life, the single most important element that has made the difference for me is structuring my time and learning discipline. Does that sound curious to you? I used to think that the single most important factor was being surrounded by loving people. Maybe there is still truth to that. Look at Maslow's heirarchy of needs, for example and see it has a basic need. However, a habit of creating and pursuing structured goals has gone a very long way in getting me to where I can make sense out of life. It makes me less dependent on people and fate, and puts me squarely in charge of asserting my own goals and future. These days, I am dating and meeting many kind men, each with unique qualities and each special in some way. I have a lot to learn about that, and it is all so new to me! I feel like a 32 year old teenager sometimes when it comes to dating, but I am learning! I had gastric bypass in August 2005. The gastric bypass surgery worked to give me back what my fix for emptiness had taken away, and gave me a chance to learn to fill the emptiness with real reciprocal connection to life and people. You can wish me luck, but the miracle is in the small things. The change is in the daily effort and the hope. I am thankful for every day of life. I promise to keep completing this story as time goes on. I have a lot more to say. If my story inspired you in any way, please share your story with me and add me to your friends list. Thank you so very much.
