Good morning, world!
Yesterday marked the start of my birthday week...yay! My parents come up and had an early birthday lunch with us since I'm being whisked away to Chicago for the weekend! (Yay!) One of the first things that my mom said to me was that she could tell that I've lost weight. It had only been three weeks since I'd seen my parents so I'm amazed she could tell. It was certainly nice to hear considering I had changed clothes four or five times that morning. It's been one of THOSE weeks.
Right now seems like a good time to bring out on of the posts from the old blog. This one was titled "What's in a number..."
"Pride. Shame. Sadness. Anger. Resentment. Fear. Frustration.
All of those emotions can be stirred up from a number.
After hitting the 100 pound mark, I was on a high for a few days and then I didn't just come down from it, I slid down at about 200mph it seems. Within the last couple of weeks, an acquaintance and I exchanged a series of messages concerning both of our weight-loss accomplishments. She told me that after gaining those 5 pesky pounds over the holidays that everyone gains, she went right back to having that "fat girl" mentality of yore. Amazingly enough, after that she told me that reading my postings inspired her to believe she could lose those 5 pounds. Even more amazing was that shortly after that was when the roller coaster of emotions stated above began to happen.
In the past month, I feel like my mind and my heart have both been pulled in a thousand different directions. I've had some things thrown my direction, both good and bad, and I feel like I don't know how I am supposed to feel, or what I am supposed to think about ANY of it. I haven't been sleeping well in part because of all of those things, I've been skipping tons of meals, and just not feeling motivated at all.
This week it hit my like a huge bag of bricks-- I'm stuck in fat girl mentality. Yes, I have lost 100 pounds...(yay me!) but I haven't lost something that for more than a decade now I've associated with my weight. It may sound incredibly stupid to sit here and say that at 27 years old, something that happened to me thirteen years ago can still have such a hold over me, but it does. When I was in 8th grade, on top of dealing with becoming horrifically sick and having my life stripped away from me, slowly and painfully before my eyes, unable to stop it, I also dealt with bullying. Again, you're probably thinking "O M G, get over it. You are 27." When you are 14, are sick, have gained easily 50 pounds almost over night, and you go to school every single day (and struggle to do that because you are so sick) and are tormented daily, it sticks with you. By tormented daily, I mean I was harassed in pretty cruel ways, sold out by so called friends to these creeps who were mentally, emotionally, verbally and one day physically abusive to me. No school officials would do anything about it. Everyone knew it was going on and never tried to actually stop the ring leader. My parents and I eventually talked to police.
By the time 9th grade started, most of it had subsided, but you can't imagine how it felt walking down those halls waiting to hear the things I had heard for most of the previous year, not to mention by that point I weighed even more. At one point during 8th grade, I looked at a knife and honestly thought to myself "that would be better than this every day." Soon after that, I began therapy that lasted through all of high school and part of college.
What is the point of everything I just said? Even after losing 100 pounds, I still weigh more than I did when my Hell began. Parts of my body are still bigger than I was back then. In my mind I guess I still feel like a nickname that I will never actually ever utter out loud because I am still that size. Hello, fat girl mentality. I've been having breakdowns daily, which I know seems ludicrous. I seem to be having more issues with my weight and my size now than I have in a decade. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
I don't know if anyone else will ever understand how much my weight to me it isn't just a number. I've carried the fat girl mentality with me for more than a decade. I think that until I am below the weight and size that I was that year, all of those emotions will always be in the back of my mind and my heart. I've said this whole time that I don't have a weight goal in mind--that I just want to be as healthy as I can possibly be. After this week, I do have a number in mind, and while it is secondary to simply being as healthy as I can be and feeling good, it's something I have to reach.
I've come a very long way-- a distance I don't think I ever actually thought I would reach.
I'm not finished."
That was written a year and a half ago. Those of you who have been following this new little blog know that I did gain weight since that post. From late last year until mid-summer I gained back 37 pounds. I was really upset at myself for it for a while. I told myself it was life and for me there would probably always be ups and downs but that any potential downs in the future would never be as bad as what I went through.
A few weeks ago I went home for my 10 year class reunion. I was REALLY leery and anxious about going for several reasons. I was worried about how I might feel if I saw certain people. A very wise person told me that none of those people mattered and that I had already won. He was right. That trip home was full of a lot of emotional healing. In the week after, I did a lot of soul searching and had closure on several things that had plagued me for years. I also realized that I have nothing to prove to anyone other than myself.
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