Being an example

I'm in the full swing of vacation and am really enjoying not having to do much.  I'm keeping myself occupied for sure, but I do like the idea of not waking up at 5 a.m.  Let's face it, that pretty sucks!  My mom is with me over a few days this Christmas which is really nice in some ways and, in others, I get to see how I am too independent.  I'm really used to doing things my way, when I want to do them and in what manner.  She just wants to take care of me and I see myself standing in the way, being a bit bull-headed.  I need to let that go and let her be a mother to me.  She did share with me that she is happy for my decision in pursing the gastric bypass surgery and actually is going to talk to her doctor when she sees her next month about getting it done herself.  She really has come to recognize my reasons for pursuing this path - health.  Living healthy and feeling healthy.  I'm so astonished that she wants to do it for herself, but extremely happy at the same time.  She's 63 and I do want her around for a long time.  I don't know how  became a source of inspiration with her in this journey, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Speaking of weight, I've had a rough go of it over the last couple of days.  I have been getting really down on myself about all the weight I have gained back and how much weight I have to lose to be healthy.  It doesn't seem like any of my clothes fit me, or least hardly any fit.  Just carrying in some groceries this afternoon made me realize what kind of damage I have done after years of carrying the weight around.  Even 20 pounds on a person's frame is an extra load on the joints, back and heart.  My seat belt is getting tighter around me in the carrand I'm just a lot more aware of excess weight right now.  Instead of going out and getting a few things that fit, I continue to try to squeeze at what I have.  It makes me tug at all of my shirts and try to shimmy my way into pants.  In a sense, I think it's a way of punishing myself. By not wearing clothes that fit or make me feel comfortable, I am hurting myself, especially the emotional part of me.  Actually, I didn't realize until just now that that is what I have been doing to myself ... being passive aggressive.  After Christmas on Thursday, I promise I will go out and pick up some clothes that actually fit.  In time, I pray I'll get smaller and won't have to spend much time in those clothes.  Regardless, I feel really blessed to have the opportunity to feel better and healthier.  Good health doesn't seem like a lofty goal for many people, but it does for me, that's for sure.

Letting go

Even though I still have quite a journey ahead of me as I continue on Optifast, a lot of feelings and emotions have been coming up for me lately.  I'm doing my absolute best to not push them away, but to honor them as where I am in the present moment.  First of all, I am the smallest I have ever been in my life probably since the age of 13.  Actually, probably younger than that.  Who knows when you purposely stop looking in the mirror and try to ignore the increasing number on the tags of your clothes.  That's not to say I'm quite in the category of "small" but for me, yes, I am there.  And yet, I'm not stopping.  My body continues to get smaller as I continue on Optifast and exercising.  So, naturally, now feelings of why the weight came on in the first place are really flooding my consciousness and I am having to deal with feelings of myself and my self-worth.

I definitely am not a child any longer and have really lived a life with lots of experiences, so my image of myself today is nowhere as low as it used to be.  I wouldn't even say I think "low" of myself, but I also have challenges that I have to be honest about and work through if I ever hope of keeping the weight off in the future.  As I have shared on this blog before, I was abused and raped when I was a kid.  Those are not easy things to survive, but you live through them and just try to forget somehow.  I tried my best, but I always felt tainted somehow and even, I have to admit, like I deserved it.  I know, I know ... you're shaking your head at how ridiculous a statement that is.  No one deserves any of that, but I was convinced I did.

I would always look in the mirror and just hate myself.  I always thought of myself as ugly, from my earliest memories.  I was always tall and I never felt like I fit in, having had a Filipino mother and Caucasian father.  I mean, what group could I really identify with?  My look, while some people classified it as "exotic," to me was just plain ugly.  My last boyfriend always told me how beautiful he thought I was and I just never believed him, couldn't believe him, didn't want to believe him.  He had to work overtime to convince me that I was wonderful, worthy and lovely... things I would never believe.  I wanted to, but I just couldn't.  As I was judging myself, I ate to cover up the feelings and always put on a jovial smile for the world to see, not only when I was in the relationship with him but, really, for my entire life.  So when I was teased for being fat, I wasn't surprised and fed into that, resigned to the fact that I would feel that way forever.  I felt people were embarrassed to be seen with me and, hey, I didn't blame them one iota.  The sadness that I felt about myself inside was also showing on the outside.  If you look at some of my "before" pictures on my Pics of Progress page, you can see that sadness on my face, even when I was smiling and trying to cover it up.

So, now that the food has been put down and I'm losing a truckload of weight, here I am, back with those dreaded feelings.  But they're different now.  I have people calling me beautiful all the time, which is a different dynamic for me. I'm not saying that because of vanity, but really it is because I am not fighting with them, trying to convince them that they're wrong about me, that they must have me mixed up with some other person.  As I look in the mirror now, I don't look away or even avoid looking in the mirror in the first place.  I don't regard my reflection with hidden shame.  I am facing the image that stares back at me, realizing that I am exuding something altogether different these days.  I am not punishing myself for being abused and raped.  Those are horrible things to live through, but I did live through them.  I am here, alive, thank you God for getting me through.  Time to let go of the past.  I don't need to repeat patterns that were self-destructive for me and my well-being.

There is so much wonderful healing that has happened.  Maybe that beauty is shining through because I finally get the fact that love includes loving ourselves just as much as loving other people.  I can think of hardly any other more loving act towards myself than that of taking care of my health ... physically as well as emotionally and spiritually.  There is power that comes from self-care.  I am not abusing my body in self-destructive ways any longer.  In the process, I am finding joy and happiness.  Those are things I do not need to fear, as if they are going to be taken away from me at any moment.  If I am smiling, maybe, just maybe it is because that is what I am feeling inside.  I do not need to revert to old defense mechanisms, which were standard things I did when I was treated less than I should be.

Those that claim losing weight through Optifast is taking the easy way out frankly just don't have a clue.  When you don't have the food to give you a sense of ease and comfort, it's as if you are left out in the cold, feeling naked and incredibly vulnerable.  I would submit that, actually, a weight loss program involving food is actually the easier route.  This is damn hard!  Yet, I know in my situation, I had gotten to a place that nothing other than some sort of drastic program was going to help me get healthier.  As I continue in my work of letting go, I also get to embrace the beauty of life and all the possibilities that are laid out before me.  Gone are the days where I convince myself I am unworthy of anything good.  I deserve so much better than that, we all do. 

Heartbreak for her

A story has come out about a bus monitor in New York who was bullied by middle school children while she was working.  They relentlessly teased her about being overweight, "calling her fat and at one point suggesting that her children commit suicide."  When I heard about this story, my heart just broke for this woman.  Sometimes children just don't have a filter (as well as some clueless adults), but to treat another human being like that is not only disrespectful, but just downright deplorable.  I couldn't watch the actual video they took of the incident, but I knew from the clips I saw on the news that she was taking the teasing because she just didn't want to make it worse and probably wanted to have it end as soon as possible.  It brought back painful memories for me.

I have always been overweight, never had those "thin" years and I, too, was relentlessly teased at different points in my life.  Her bus ride brought back an incident that I had on a bus when I was in middle school.  For a solid week, a girl-bully would tease me on the bus ride to school.  She would get in the seat behind me and say just awful things to me about how fat she thought I was, how much of a loser I was, how she said I smelled and all kinds of other awful things to make me feel as big as an ant.  She got off on it and made sure other kids around me would hear her taunting.  Nobody stopped her and I was afraid to do so because she got in fights with people all the time.  Yet, every single day, she was on me.  Finally, that Friday, I calmly got up, turned around in my seat ... and punched her face with all the might I had in my arm.  Boom!  She hit the floor, was bleeding and in pure agony.  The force in my arm was not just for her, but for every other time I had been teased and made fun of, as if I wasn't worthy of being a human being and that it was okay to treat me like that.  Then, I turned around and sat back down, like nothing had ever happened.  I got in serious trouble, but I didn't even care.  The pain she caused me inside was like something I could never describe, but I think people reading this probably understand.

It pains me that people in society think it's okay to hurt someone because they are not the same size and shape as they are.  We all have things that bring us to becoming overweight and it's not a simple put-down-the-fork-and-push-away-from-the-table solution.  Oh, how I wish it was!  I ache for the woman in this story and the indignity she suffered at the hands of bullies, even if they were children.  This is another reminder that losing weight is not an easy feat.  There are emotional issues behind carrying extra weight and, often times, a lot of pain.  Yet, I know, I must work through that pain and any issues that come up so that I don't have to live in a body that keeps me in an unhealthy space any longer.