Coffessions of my former self

My grandma, who may be the kindest woman who I have ever had the honor of knowing would never call me fat. She always told me how beautiful I was, and would complement the features she liked about me. What she did though was show me a new diet plans on a weekly basis. She would offer to pay for them if I was willing to try them. This started very early on in age….I was always the chunky kid after about 5 years of age. I knew by 9 that something was “wrong” with me. I wasn’t good enough for my family. That was when I took my first “before” picture. I think that my mom may still have the picture. I was standing in front of our sliding glass door in a pink one piece with a turquoise and purple sash just under the bust that was twisted in front. I look so young, and really nothing in comparison to what the obese kids of today look like. Just a little belly. I was put on a strict diet and to see a counselor to try to help me. It had become increasingly harder to find clothes to fit me and I was upset with shopping, I think that my parents thought they were doing what was best for me. They could see that I wasn’t happy with my size because I couldn’t buy the same things as other girls. They wanted to help me get to a place that I would be able to “fit in”. The first diet, much like the 1000 others that followed was short-lived. I would cry the entire way to the clinic, and my mom determined that they had made a BIG mistake, and were doing more harm than good. I hated everything about the diet and the counselor. I hated weighing in and having to discuss what I did and did not eat. That was when I started hiding food. Back then I didn’t make any money, so I would steal candy from our local convenient store. I had a small box in my closet that I would store it in. Soon the box began to grow. I would hide it under the bed, in a drawer and eventually as a teenager under the house in the crawl space. It became the general contraband hiding spot. The cigarettes, drugs and booze was right next to the Snickers and Coca Cola. Several of my girlfriends at school would comment on how they don’t understand why I was big because I ate better than all of them. They had no idea that I was sneaking to the bathroom to eat behind a closed stall door.

By the time I was entering high school, the world around me had grown very cruel. Kids are mean, and if you are different it’s unbearable at times. This is when I started self-deprecating. I was on the normal bus ride of ridicule and fat jabs, when I made the first “fat joke” about myself. It wasn’t much different then what had been said to me the days before, but hearing me say it to them in the reverse seemed to change the way they looked at it. Almost instantly they laughed with one of those “That is awful, don’t say that” laughs. This now became the common theme on the bus ride. As I made my way to the back of the bus (because that is where the cool kids sit) I would make ‘wide load’ jokes…make room, big girl coming thru. We would all laugh and they would tell me I am dumb and the next 20 minutes of stops would pass without me trying to fight back tears. This trick has worked thru most of my life. It’s what makes people believe that I am comfortable with myself. I do it by nature now. My partner HATES it, and I try not to do in front of him, but it is just part of my personality at this point. To put myself down, so I can beat others to the punch.

In High School is when I completely left respect for my body behind. It’s when I realized that the way boys looked at me was different and in order to get a leg up on the skinny competition I needed to utilize other means for attention. I had the big boobs, so I flaunted them and I created a reputation that no one should be proud of. I NEVER had a “real boyfriend” thru out most of high school. I wasn’t good enough to be seen with in the halls and have a public relationship with. I had MANY private relationships and was promiscuous to a level that no early teenager should be, maybe even an adult. I don’t think that my parents ever thought that I had a trouble with guys, because they were always at my house. I was very ‘popular’ in high school for all the wrong reasons. I let it be okay. I didn’t care enough about myself to realize that I deserved so much more than what I was letting happen. I put myself in terrible situations and had no leg to stand on for ‘What do you think I am’ debate, because it was me. I didn’t think I was loveable unless I was thin. So I took drastic actions to do that. I took up smoking because I read that models would smoke to suppress hunger. I watched some lifetime movie about a girl with Bulimia, and what the purpose of the show was to show you how you can kill yourself by doing that. I thought, I am big enough it would take SOOOOO long to do any real damage and began to binge and purge the items from the stash under the house. I didn’t lose weight fast enough, so that phase ended after a few months…luckily. My teeth are ruined in part because of that, and I HATE to throw up now because it makes me so sad for those days.

After high school, I had been kicked out of my house and was too proud to go back and apologize or take my mom’s help (my parents had divorced a couple of years before). I moved away and I started doing drugs more and found that if I did cocaine, I wasn’t hungry. Over the course of several months I had lost over 100 pounds and had become a hot mess of a drug addict. I lied, I stole from strangers and worse the people I cared about the most. I partook in the most regrettable moments of my life. I didn’t’ want to stop because for the first time I was being noticed by guys. I had a hot boyfriend who was PROUD to have me on his arm. I had some of the same guys from high school trying to date me PUBLICLY. I felt strong and beautiful. That was the most important thing to me at that time. I had hurt and pushed away my family. No one trusted me….but I was skinny.

I didn’t tell you these things to have you feel bad for me or pity me. I did it A) to release it and move on. This has weighed heavy on my soul and as I try to recognize the “why”, I am identifying the “how” so I can move on from those shackles of guilt. To be honest with you and myself and C) to connect. Maybe you relate to some or all of this. Heal with me.

I have never went about losing weight the right way. I set these unrealistic goals for myself and inevitable begin to slip and instead of modifications, I quit all together. There is a quote by Mark W Perrett I thought of when I started this blogging journey

“My strength comes from knowing I have the ability to do anything, my weakness comes from the desire to do it all at once”

This is absolutely me. I also tend to not go with the healthiest options. I do Atkins and completely eliminate carbs or I eat 1100 calories a day and starve myself. I take all the supplements to do the work for me. I thought about doing Gastric Bypass or the Band surgeries because I would absolutely qualify, but I want to win this battle with just me. Mind over matter. I want to heal and learn how to cope without food. Nothing against anyone that has had surgeries, but I feel as though it is just a mechanical fix. It doesn’t deal with the root of the problem, which is mental. I am sure it has helped thousands of people, and I hope that they are getting counseling simultaneously to find their answers. There will be something so powerful to me when I hit my goals, knowing that it was thru sweat and tears and the tenacity to get up each day and fight for this. I have pulled myself out of other addictions and I can beat this too!!! So I forgive you former self. You are okay. You are loved. You are beautiful and I am so sorry you had to endure that pain. It’s time to be free. It’s time to let go.

My challenge for you readers – Find one thing to forgive yourself for. It can be big or small. Think about it, write it down and let it go….trust me, it feels good (tears streaming down my face right now)

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