Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 3 Comments

Fat Eyes



NOTE: This post deals with fat, food, eating, and body image. This is about me and it’s personal. This is not a political page. Be advised that any political proselytising will be immediately deleted.

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I’m struggling with body image, food, weight… All of it. I’m worried about every bite. I feel like i’m eating too much. My body looks fat to me. I don’t feel comfortable in my skin. I’m back outside walking regularly, but the weather has turned chilly and i’m already in a chronic pain flareup. So, yeah… Suckville. I’m doing all the things that have worked before, but i’m not seeing any weight loss. In fact, i think i’ve gained.

My clothes say i haven’t. My doctor says i’m on track. My loved ones say i look as if i’m continuing to lose.

That means i have fat eyes again.

Fat eyes is the name i give the tricks my mind plays on me when i’m in a tough spot mentally/emotionally. The stuff i’m dealing with in therapy has me as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Seriously. Everything is triggering memories. This guy looks like… This song was playing when… This smell brings me back to… I’m constantly on edge and it’s exhausting. Every little noise startles me. I wake up shaking. Random, banal things scare me.

And maybe because i’m dealing with the sexual abuse more directly than i have before, my body feels disgusting. I look at myself and think i’m dirty and gross. I’m even less inclined to have sex than i was before — and that’s saying something. The closest i can get to sex is wanting to want it. Between my dead marriage and working on accessing the split off parts of me that were raped as a child, i’m having trouble envisioning a future where i’m having sex.

Where does food end and sex begin? In my story, it’s hard to unravel. Food probably came first because my mom starved me off and on as long as i can remember. Maybe she fed me well when i was a baby/toddler, but i doubt it. Rewards and punishments were mostly food-centric. And let’s not even get into what school, bullies, peers, tv/movies, and fashion did to my self-image.

Warped, indeed.

Suffice to say i’m drowning in self-loathing at the moment. I can suss it all out intellectually, but it isn’t helping me as far as what i see when i look in the mirror.

Fat eyes.

I know what to do:

– maintain soft calorie deficit eating;
– keep walking to no more than 15,000 steps or 10km;
– listen to body pain and adjust eating/exercise when necessary;
– THERAPY

There’s nothin’ to it but to do it.

Y’all hang in there, and remember, sometimes, the brain lies.
If my brain wore pants they’d be on fire right now.



IMAGE: Pexels, uncredited

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 5 Comments

Dear Diary: Biting the Bullet

Truth can come from anywhere, so i keep my ears open. I picked up a bit of truth from an old vulture of a source some years ago. He said: You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. I can easily tear that apart, but sometimes it starts like this. There’s some truth in there that i can apply.
I’ve been out of sorts lately, and i thought i knew why. I was right, but addressing the issue didn’t help. Or rather, didn’t help enough.
There was more.

Starting the blog on the other platform is what i needed to do. Yes, i use the other site for less bloggish writings. I know that’s what i said, and it’s true. But i’d always intended it for something else, and the longer i’ve procrastinated getting it started, the heavier a burden it’s been. Sometimes, the only way i can get a thing done is by backing myself into a corner. The new diagnosis, plus the constant inner urging to start the new blog, was causing stress. Stress that amped up a little every day. Stress that twisted my guts and squeezed that muscle that pulses inside my skull.
I started eating my stress – and i’ve gained weight.

It’s not a lot, probably somewhere between 5-10lbs, but that hits me where i live. I’ve struggled with my weight since i was 8yrs old, and it’s taken me a lifetime to figure out the whole jumbled mess of abuse and disordered eating. I was as close to my goals as i’d ever been, when life came and life’d all over me. It only took a couple of weeks for me to notice, which is good. I practise mindfulness to help me curb dissociative behaviours, so one day i noticed my clothes were fitting me differently. I prefer tighter fitting clothing, so it doesn’t take much for my yoga pants to show me there’s a problem. If i’m jumping up and down and getting sweaty to put them on – i’ve got a problem.

So i was stuck in this corner, with weight gain on one side, and being a grouch with my housemates on the other.

I know what to do, and i’m doing it. I’m not freaked out or devastated. This is how i work. I’m always making small course adjustments to keep me on track, heading in the right direction. Getting this new diagnosis hasn’t changed me, it’s new information that shines a brighter light on who i am and why i do the things i do. It can help me make better decisions on how to continue forward. It has answered some questions that i’d been puzzling over for some time.

I haven’t told my family. I’m not sure why.
For one thing, i’m not completely convinced. I don’t think i will be until i go for the more intensive testing that was recommended. It was hard for me, as a multiple, to figure out who i really am. I put on all sorts of masks to survive my childhood, and the masks aren’t me, yet they are. It’s taking time and intention to suss out the “real” me. As my personality has streamlined and become more cohesive, i have a better understanding. In some areas i have a confidence that i am “x,” and i am not “y.”

For instance, i now know that i’m an introvert. That’s only become clear in the last few years. Prior to that, i’d have sworn up and down that i was an extrovert. But i’m so much quiter than i’d have thought, and being around people tires me out. Like, exhausts me. And now that i’m meeting my own needs, i’m not seeking attention and acceptance from every human with whom i have contact. I’m not as obsessive. Things like rejection and conflict don’t wield the power to destroy me as they once did.

So, there might well be other things about me that i’d not known before, things that were hidden by my system coming in to fill the gaps. Aspects of my personality and psychological makeup that my ability to cope had camouflaged. The diagnosis fits in some ways, but i’m not sure it does in others. I guess that might be the “spectrum” part of it. Heh.

What i know is, i’m snippy with my family and i’ve put on weight. These things tell me there’s something i need to handle. I know that it’s ASD and the other blog. I can hurt my loved ones, including myself, or i can bite the bullet and do the work.

I’ve got the blog started, and i’m eating healthier and exercising more.
I also understand though, that the other blog is going to trigger all kinds of crap.
The subject matter is difficult, and the path through it ain’t gonna be easy.
If you’re interested in checking out my other platform, leave me a comment and i’ll send you a link.

I’ll check in again soon. Couple days, tops.

IMAGE: Jay Rembert

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

The Tortoise* in Cute Jeans Eating Cake

Mild Content Warning: This post is about weight and weight loss, and food, eating and body image as it pertains to such.

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The other day i met a personal goal that’s been 15yrs coming. In the early aughts i had weight loss surgery and went from 465lbs (losing 100lbs on my own to qualify for surgery) to 155lbs. Unfortunately, i quickly spiralled into years of bipolar mania. Between practising addictive behaviours and trying to find medications that worked, i managed to regain over 100lbs.

I’ve been struggling ever since to take it off again, consistently yoyoing the same 20-40lbs. In 2015 i was back up around 250-60lbs and in another mania, when i broke my leg in 3 places. Once the surgery was over and the smoke had cleared, i was ready to pay more attention to my weight and get down to the size i wanted. I made a decision to adopt a better eating and more active lifestyle.

If you could look back at my pictures over the last 5 years, it might not appear as if much has changed. To be fair, being Amazon-sized means i can carry a lot of weight without anyone knowing how much. Plus, being pear-shaped means i don’t show the extra weight if you only see me from the waist up. I wasn’t much into showing any pics of my legs for a long time.

Weight, food, eating, exercising, body image, and all its itinerant baggage, are incredibly complicated and personal issues. I’ve been asked a number of times how i’m doing what i’m doing, and i’m going to tell you. I’m going to tell you NOT because you should do it the way i have, but to see that it’s possible to do in a healthy and sustainable way. You’ll have your own ways of eating and moving that work effectively. What follows is very general stuff; there’s no step-by-step here. There is simply no one-size-fits-all weight loss plan.

First thing i did is stop “dieting,” per se. I know how to pick up a diet and use it to quickly drop weight, but that doesn’t work for me long term. One, losing weight fast can trigger a mania, and 2, once i stop using the diet i’ve regained the weight. That might well throw me into a depression (3). Once i decided i wanted to change the way i lived, i wasn’t in so much of a rush. I’ve been struggling with food and weight most of my life, so i’ve amassed a fair bit of information over the years. I also know a great deal when it comes to who i am and how i function. And i have years of experience handling mental illness and knowing how neuroatypicality affects my life and informs my lifestyle. From all that i was able to start making significant changes, striving for better health and more happiness.

It’s proven relatively simple, but it’s taken a long-ass time. I make one small change to how i eat, and then i do it until it’s a part of my life that i don’t even think about anymore. For instance, i’ve stopped eating after 8pm. I grew up eating in front of the television, and i learned early on in my dieting history that i could consume thousands of calories without even realising it. I wasn’t paying attention to eating – i was watching my shows. I’d sit down with a full bag or bowl of something, and at some point i’d hit bottom and be surprised. I wouldn’t remember the experience of eating all that food and i’d feel cheated out of the enjoyment. All too often it caused me to head back into the kitchen for more.

I still regularly eat in front of the television or computer, as it’s part of our family’s lifestyle, but i don’t eat after supper. I try to eat at 6, 12, and 6, but because my husband often works late i can push supper to 8pm. If i really want something after that, i’ve discovered the joy of Smart Pop popcorn, and i’ll happily scarf that down while slugging back a diet soda. I don’t drink a lot of soda, but that’s only because i have a very small, surgically altered stomach pouch. I don’t ascribe to the belief that artificially sweetened sodas are bad. I’m a calories in/calories out kinda girl. Something sweet and satisfying with zero calories? Sign me up!

I also unabashedly use every single mental dieting trick that works for me. I use small dishes so it looks like i have more to eat. And if i’m not hungry enough to eat a boring old apple, i’m not that hungry and can wait. I also won’t eat when i’m hangry – you know, so hungry you’re mad about it? I’ll either wait 20mins, or have that boring old apple and wait 20mins. Some of what i do is because of the surgery. For instance, i don’t fill myself up with water so i eat less. My stoma is small, so that’s not helpful. I only take a couple of sips of liquid while eating if necessary.

One of the final keys to changing how i eat came after reading a book called Lose It Right, by James Fell. He writes at length about satiety, and how the processed and prepared foods we eat today are low satiety, yet packed with as much salt, sugar, and fat as the producer can get in there. It’s all designed to get us to eat (buy) MORE. It resonated very strongly with me, and i changed some of my habits accordingly.

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First though, a brief aside:

If my mental health becomes a bigger issue at any time, my focus immediately shifts in that direction. As much energy as it requires to manage, it gets. So, if i need to let go of some of the stricter aspects of how i’m eating, i do it. It doesn’t fill me with fear, or guilt, or even trouble me much any more. I’ll eat what i’m able to eat, when i’m able to eat it. During times like this my weight will plateau, or i might even gain a pound or 2. I know it will be okay, because these are lifestyle changes, not quick fixes. I’ll eventually get where i want to go. Rushing to get there and pushing myself to my limits is not good for how my brain works or my mood. Trying to do all the things when i have limited inner resources only risks me levelling up into superhero mode, or drains me so quickly i fall flat on my keister. I can go back to a more regimented way of eating when i have the time and resolve.

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Back to the issue of high and low satiety foods.
What i realised was, as someone who loves to cook, tries new recipes 2 and 3X/wk, is subscribed to 20+ food and cooking channels on YouTube, and is addicted to Pinterest, i’ve picked up a lot of tips and suggestions on how to increase the taste and enjoyment of my food. Things like, cooking my pasta in broth instead of water, more butter on everything, and a secret pinch or 5 of sugar. I learned to do these things because, as someone who partakes of fast food and highly processed foods, i began to expect that much flavour in my cooking at home.

Zhuzhing my food was racking up my daily caloric intake – substantially. But i’d caught myself in a trap because the food i was making didn’t seem as palatable anymore without the extras. Even after i cut back on most of the unnecessary additions, i still faced times when i was eating calorie dense, low satiety foods due to needing to be more focused on my mental health. So, i found a thing to do that, when i’m ready and able, i can get “back on track” with the way i want to be eating. I go on a bland diet for a while. I still eat tasty foods, but i eat basically the same thing for a week or 2. It cleanses my palate in a way, and lowers my expectations for how the food should taste when i return to eating my regular wide variety of foods. It also makes the less zhuzhed stuff taste better, just because i’m happy not to be eating the same thing every day. I pick one or 2 proteins, usually fish, and tofu or yogourt (i make my own), cauliflower, and i make a big batch of homemade vegetable soup. I pick cauliflower because, thanks to the keto craze, i can buy it readily fresh, frozen, or already “riced” for me. My soup has lots of leafy greens and a few starchy veg. Water not broth. As much sodium as i want. It’s low carb yes, but i’m not a keto person. Carbs happen in my life; there’s fruit in my homemade yogourt, and i will eat that apple when i’m hangry.

Once i feel the resolve and the focus settle in, i slowly reintroduce other foods, still eating at a caloric deficit with weight loss in mind. I lose weight very slowly. If i’ve had to cut down or cut out my exercise routine, i start back at that too – starting slow, and carefully building back up to where i was. I’ve yo-yoed those initial 20-40lbs for many years now. Until about 2yrs ago that is, when i finally arrived at 50lbs lost. At last i’d gotten past that difficult zone, and it was the knowledge that came from the Fell book, from talking with registered dietitians, and from understanding myself well enough to know what probably would and wouldn’t work for me. Armed with that, plus my far more relaxed approach to how much time it would take to reach my ultimate weight loss goals, i find myself at a place where i only have around 30lbs left to go.

It’s taken me 2yrs to get these last 20lbs off and get to this milestone. And the goal wasn’t even a number. I’ve stated this many times, but it will always bear repeating – i cannot weigh myself (my doctor knows the numbers, for the sake of my health). It’s a massive trigger for my bipolar issues, so i use clothes as a good gauge, as well as a lot of looking at myself in the mirror. Looking in mirrors is a triggery area too, as my tendency is to dissociate when i look into my own eyes, but these last couple of years have been spent working hard on NOT dissociating, so it’s excellent practise. I haven’t pushed to lose the weight. Most of the focus has been on my mental health, but i kept making little tweaks here and there when i was able. My approach shifted from trying to win, to determined to finish. I dropped the frenetic and speedy, (falsely)confident facade of the Hare, and adopted a more Tortoise like attitude, like, I’m gonna just do me and keep on truckin’ until i get there. Lo and behold! just like in the old child’s morality tale, the low key approach has gotten me to my goal. That objective was to fit into a certain pair of pants that are very cute and looked impossibly tiny to me when i’d regained around a third of what i’d initially lost on my WLS journey.
And i look very cute in them, i must say.

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Another important aside here (this one’s not so brief):

This post is intended as a light response to questions about how i’ve accomplished long term weight loss and the pursuit of a healthier lifestyle. The reason why i’ve struggled with food and weight for the entirety of my life is due to a childhood filled with abuse and neglect. It’s heavier in tone than i want for this piece. However, i would be remiss if i didn’t mention another reason that i make these changes slowly. As a person who has endured sexual abuse, my self-image as a person, a female, and a sexual being were all twisted from early on. Food was weaponised against me, used to control and groom and reward me. Sex, sexuality, food, eating, and body image all got jumbled up together. It mutated and fused into this lumpy mass that made me sick and small inside and oh so tired.

I became morbidly obese for many reasons: starvation, lack of education, poor modelling, unhealthy habits, and my unmet need for comfort and connection. I also packed on the pounds because i needed protection – i needed to put something between me and what was being done to me. And later, once the worst of it was over, i kept the wall up because i never wanted it to happen again. The fat on my body was a manifestation of everything wrong in my life and all my attempts to fix it. It was padding to absorb life’s blows. It made me bigger on the outside when inside i felt small and powerless. All the weight i lost after surgery pulled down my unconsciously built fat fence, and everything that i had been eating to keep inside, came flooding out. I felt incredibly vulnerable, and i was frightened every waking moment. When some of that weight came back on, it wasn’t all bad. One good thing that came from it was i felt safer and less vulnerable.

Knowing that, i knew why i’d freak out every time the pounds started coming off again. Being noticed, receiving attention, some of that of a sexual nature, all triggered fear, and the need for protection. It scared me to be getting smaller. It scared me to be the focus of the male gaze. I must be conscious and mindful of this happening, and i need to hold my own hand through the process. I need to acknowledge those feelings and allow myself to feel them, and tell myself –often right out loud– that it’s okay. I’m not being hurt anymore, it’s not happening, and i’m safe. I also tell myself that if something terrible were to happen, that i would handle it. I would do whatever i had to do to get through it. I am capable and i have tons of tools and heaps of coping skills, and i would survive.

So yeah, i lose a few pounds, get really freaked out about it, sit for a while with the new, smaller body size, calm down, and then lose a few more. It’s another very important reason i do all of this slowly. It’s being kind and gentle to me. I treat myself with respect for surviving the hell i did, and i honour my process. It gets to take as long as it takes, for me to lay down the fear and pain of long ago and embrace living fully present in the here and now.

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I’m proud of how far i’ve come, and i’m not in an all-fired rush to get the rest of it off. I know that’s not good for my brain, and i believe that i will eventually get where i want to go. No mad dash for the finish line for this girl. I’m just happy to be plodding along, having faith in myself and confidence in my abilities. I will continue to push myself a little or make myself slow down, where and when i see fit. It’s not the end that i’m seeing in my sites, but there is a nice ribbon stretched across the line. There’s balloons bobbing about on a perfect afternoon, and cartoon birds and mice who will cheer and sing songs in little chipmunky voices.
There will also be cake. LOTS of cake.

* Slow and steady wins the race, amirite?!

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Problem Solving

I’d like to use this post to demonstrate some of my problem solving. It’s something that i can use as good evidence that i’ve learned and changed as a result of all the personal, inner work i’ve done. It shows that what i’m doing is working.

Alcohol is high calorie, and they’re empty ones at that (“empty,” meaning having little or no nutritional value). When i’m on a bender, the calories i consume come primarily from that source. Outside of that, because i’m often incapable of cooking, i eat junk and fast food. My family still has to eat, so my husband will grab some takeaway after work. I used to refuse most of it, but recently, as i’ve been listening to my body and allowing myself to feel physical sensations, i’m hungry more often, and more intensely. That includes when i’m switched and/or binge-drinking. Add in my history, which includes a lifetime of serious food/eating/body image issues, and you’ve got weight gain. These last 2 go-rounds have cost me.
<insertughslashsighslashwhimperhere>

When i sobered up and detoxed this last time, i finally noticed that the pounds had been creeping back on. I’m not sure how many, because i don’t weigh myself, but experience plus the way my clothes fit gives me a decent idea. I go with general ball-parking to avoid obsession, which is always a possibility when i’m dealing with food. It was my anaesthesia of choice before weight loss surgery and mania turned my attention to alcohol.
I knew the first thing to do was ask myself, Why am i eating compulsively again?

I have a notion that it has to do with this work of reestablishing my brain-body connection. I would be given food as a reward and have it withheld as a punishment. I would be starved simply out of neglect. I would be abused by being forced to eat burned, frozen, or spoiled food. My mother modeled sick eating behaviours, and eventually ate her way up to what i’d estimate to be around 650-700lbs. I’ve written about all of this at length and in great detail before, so i’ll leave it at that. I reiterate to make this point: my system is full of hungry children, and my body hosts memories of starving.

There are things that my system particularly craves, like meat, junk food, and fast food. These were things that my mother never went without, but were regularly denied me. She’d eat them in front of me, but more often, she’d wait until i was in bed. I had a nose and i wasn’t stupid, so i knew what was happening. Probably my system’s favourite thing is a sandwich. I think it’s because i almost never had a lunch for school. She wouldn’t make me one, and there was regularly nothing to make a proper lunch with, so i went without. And i had to watch all the other children with their neat little, nutritionally sound lunches packed by their moms, or see them with enough money in their pockets to go buy something to eat. Some days, it was nothing short of torture.

Now, after a hard switch, especially if it’s more than a few hours, they eat, and they hide and hoard food, too. Once i’m back in the face, i might open a drawer or pull back my bed pillow, and find some food stashed there. They hide food because they’re afraid of starving, and they particularly want to hoard the foods that i was denied as a child. This has happened my whole life, and was a source of fear and shame. Before my MPD/DID diagnosis, i couldn’t understand what was going on; i would find the food, throw it out, and dissociate from what happened immediately. Once i had the information that i was multiple and was losing time and could filter my memories through that, it became obvious what was going on. Over the last 6+mos or so, the behaviour has reemerged and escalated, and i’ve been finding food everywhere. My family also informs me (because i want to know) that my parts will cook a big batch of meat and consume it, from steak to SPAM. My system and my body both, remember my history with food.

It can take awhile for me to mark a weight loss or gain. I see myself a certain way and it’s like my mind locks on that version. I think it’s so i don’t have to connect to what i’m seeing in the mirror, i.e. it affords me some distance and facilitates dissociation. It’s like having the same profile pic for 6mos and then i realise i don’t look like that anymore, say, i’ve changed my hair colour or gotten new glasses. These last months i’ve been working on being kinder to my body –the things i say in my brain about my body can be vicious– trying to be more appreciative of how well it has served me over my lifetime, despite all it’s been through. I chase every acid statement with a realistic one, e.g. You’re in your 50s and were morbidly obese for many years – cut yourself a break. What i’m trying to get around to is, i’m more aware of my body than ever before, and this time around it only took around 10lbs for me to notice i was gaining, instead of my usual 30, 40, 50. (I use “usual” lightly though, as i’ve never been much of a yo-yoer when it comes to weight gain. I’d go slowly and steadily up. The only time i lost weight quickly was after weight loss surgery. I got down to a healthy size only twice before that: once in junior high, and the other time when i was 27. I had a bit to lose yet both of those times, but i’d get scared and eat my way back up.)

But here i am, noticing, and more quickly. That’s because of therapy and a firm commitment to mindfulness and being more present and conscious of my surroundings and situation in the moment. And now that i have noticed and i’m in problem-solving mode, an awesome thing happens.
Without much effort or angst – i get to solving the problem.

I’ve tried most diets and programs and methods. I know how my body responds to food and i know how my brain reacts to particular foods and consuming behaviours, like overeating and secret eating and over consumption of foods i was denied and/or manipulated with as a child… I’m saying i’ve got this, and i know it. I’ve amassed a rather large hill’s worth of good information on nutrition and physiology. I won’t be sharing specifics – i’m of the (very likely) heavily biased opinion that these issues are complicated AF and full of nuance and can trigger obsession and self-hatred in many. This blog is never gonna be a how-to, it’s only here to offer hope that you might suss out and survive your own path, as i have mine.
So yeah, after all this time, energy, and effort spent on figuring out this aspect of my life – i knew exactly what to do. So i’ve just gotten at it.

I’m 2wks out from my last fall. I don’t know when, or even if there’ll be another.
The day i got back at it, and for days after, i wrestled with all the thoughts and feels that come along with weight gain, and not being where i want to be with my physical body. I can look at myself with what i call “fat eyes”. My vision is not accurate, my eyes send the information it gathers to my brain, and my brain (a brilliant wonder of an organ that is my blessing and my curse, and my sometimes unwilling but always hardworking partner in healing what can be, and duct-taping, gluing, or stapling the rest) paints it with a fresh coat of old issues from a sticky old can, the label thick with layers of dried spills. The colour echoes its subtleties, like breath on a steamed up mirror, and i hear their faded and fading admonishments.
But i’m not convicted of any crime anymore. The charges don’t stick and the mirror clears up and i see myself clearly.

I don’t buy the hopelessness anymore. The fear that i’ve carried all my life is falling away, and as it does, so my need for protection, both figurative and literal, melts off my body – as long as i keep moving forward and allowing it to happen. I will acknowledge the fear of being smaller and more societally attractive as it happens, in real time, and see it for what it is, which is NOT ABOUT ME, nor is it the place at which i handle my lifelong battle with self hatred. One foot in front of the other, on the road with my dogs, on the treadmill with a podcast in my ears, in the kitchen preparing a meal, in front of the mirror, deciding what to wear and what colours to paint on my face. See what’s in front of me, acknowledge what i’m dealing with, and make healthy choices based in the now.

I’m not that adolescent girl anymore, the one who cried herself to sleep at night, while begging god to let her wake up the next morning slim and shapely. I’m no longer completely disgusted by my body, and i don’t view it as my enemy. I don’t feel trapped and claustraphobic inside my own skin. I’ve let go of unrealistic and unhealthy expectations regarding what i can achieve with a healthy weight and fitness level.

I know why i put on weight. It’s understandable and i know what to do. I’m no longer interested in diets and programs, and i give every new guru that comes along a wide berth. I’m invested in long term, sustainable change. I’ve stumbled many times, and i keep getting back up, and faster than last time too, thank me very much. This is my path, this is the process. I notice that i’ve tripped on something, i figure out what it is, and i handle it. I know myself so well at this point that i can usually avoid the complete devastation that used to come with each new bit of knowledge or insight. Ten pounds is progress, man. Ten pounds ain’t nothin’.

I’m settling back into healthy routines that i’ve slowly and carefully established over years of therapy and self-exploration, through an accumulation of experience and education. Two weeks in and, while i’m a bit impatient to see results, i can hang on without white-knuckling, because i know results are forthcoming. I’ve been 2wks in the face, with a minimum of sliding around and no switching at all. I’m babystepping my way back to a higher level of functionality. My mood is still low, but as with my weight gain, i know what it’s about and i know what to do. Stay the course. Keep on truckin’. Hang in there.

I hope you’re able to do the same.

Peace and Love,
~H~

IMAGE: Alexander Kaunas

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Cloak of Invisibility

I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they are got.
~The Invisible Man, H.G.Wells

I’ve dealt with food, weight, and body image issues my entire life. It’s quite common for someone with my history. After marrying i put on enough weight to be just a shade under super morbidly obese. Weight loss surgery helped me attain the healthiest, lowest weight of my adult life, but likely triggered my first full-blown bipolar mania.

Being slim for the first time in my adult life triggered an avalanche of issues. Since early pubescence i’d heard comments like:

You’d be so gorgeous if…
You have such a pretty face…
I’d date you, except…

As i progressed into full sexual maturity, my ambivalence regarding my size bought a nice chunk of real estate in my brain, built a house, and called it home. Consciously, i hated being fat. I felt awkward and lumpy and bumpy. The other girls were graceful, with firm, smooth skin. They all got boobs and their periods long before i did, which was embarrassing when we’d be in the change room before and after gym class, and they all wore bras and borrowed tampons from each other. And just to make it all extra fun, i’m extremely tall. So, i took up a lot more space than my female peers, or any girl in the entire school, in any school i attended. There were a couple who carried more weight, but they weren’t also size Amazon.

Unconsciously though, fat worked for me. After all the abuse, it kept people away. It was flawed reasoning, as it targeted the wrong audience, but at that point i needed a wall. A wall of unwashed flesh didn’t stop sexual predators, but it did something for me that i’ve only recently begun to realise.
It made me invisible.

I didn’t get asked out on a date until i was 18. And that was by a very large and socially awkward, but very nice 27yr old. I’m not sure he’d ever had a date before, either. It was a fancy New Year’s Eve party with other older adults, no one who would be in my peer group was there (probably a blessing). He bought me a wrist corsage i think, and was shy and quiet. I might have given him a kiss at the door… Thank you?

I say i wasn’t asked out on a date, but boys certainly approached me now and then. When no one else was around. They’d throw a little attention my way and then expect a little something in return. Oh, how shocked and angry they were when i either shot them down, or just got away from them as quickly as i could. Fat girls should be grateful and shower them with fucks, i guess. Not this fat girl, though. One of the benefits of being a multiple is the fearless, mouthy teenager i had inside me – and the terrified younger ones who knew a little something about slipping the sweaty, expectant gropes of sexual opportunists.

So i missed out on all those coming-into-sexual-maturity rites of passage. No one sent me notes asking if i liked them. No one asked me if i wanted to “go around”, the vernacular from my local peer group for dating exclusively. I was never invited to drive around town after school. Before i hit adulthood i was asked to dance exactly 3 times. The first time was at a Christian summer camp. I carry most of my extra weight below the waist, so i can appear to be slim if you see me sitting at a table, which i was, plus it was dim, dance-friendly lighting.
He shook his head and walked away from me when i stood up to join him on the floor.

It’s not all bad though, the other 2 experiences were nice. In grade 7 a boy i was friends with approached me. He was a class clown, and he walked over to me as i sat alone on a bench, and banged the wall above my head for me to join him.
You know, like Fonzie in Happy Days. I laughed. I know he did it for me, and i’ve never forgotten it.

In grade 9 i went on an exchange trip, from my tiny town of 1500, to one of the largest cities in my country. The boys there were a bit more, metropolitan, shall we say? Hundreds of students lent itself to a better chance of finding someone who didn’t mind dancing with a fat girl. And he didn’t mind at all. In fact, the dance he asked me for was a slow one, Night To Remember, by Prism. Height wise, he came up to my shoulders. I’m laughing right now, but it’s a good laugh – what a sight we must have been. He was a lovely boy.

My first relationship was at 21, with a girl i met at a Catholic halfway house. She was a raging alcoholic who constantly cheated on me, and once came to my place of work in a jealous rage and did over $5K worth of damage to the store. It was toxic AF. After that i decided i was done with women (i most certainly wasn’t). I met a young man through my best friend, and decided it was time to lose my virginity*. It wasn’t great, but we did it a lot. After our weekend romp he was quick to tell me he’d just gotten out of a bad relationship, and wasn’t looking for anything serious.
The look on his face when the fat girl told him she was fine with that…

See, 1 shit relationship was enough for me to learn that i didn’t want another.
After that, i chose people i would have sex with, and maybe play at us being a couple, but they were always people that –if they left me– i wouldn’t grieve their absence.
I’d gotten the message that fat girls were to be used for sex, and should be grateful that they were used for anything. But subconsciously, thanks to the people that live in my brain, i’d decided to flip the script.

Of course, all these years included me trying everything NOT to be fat. Every diet, self-help book, course, diet-guru, all of that. None of it ever worked well, or for very long. I didn’t yo-yo, i stayed fairly steady. That was, until i had my second child and still didn’t have a partner of any sort. (To be clear, i never wanted anything from either one of the men who fathered my children.)
Something changed in me, then. I’d done a fair bit of therapy and was getting to know myself at that point. I’d tried a lot of things, joined all the programs, and i’d actually picked up a thing or 2. Plus, i had a few supportive girlfriends (platonic), so i wasn’t so alone.

I went back on a diet i was very familiar with, and for the first time –KEY– i joined a gym. Things started clicking for me. I discovered a kind of exercise i like. I like machines. I liked the cycles, and i loved all the weight machines. I even got into the stairmaster, fer crissakes. The weight fairly fell off, and i entered the dating world for the first time. Wow, what a shitshow. I discovered the he-said-he-had-a-great-time-and-he’d-call-but-he’s-not-calling guy, and the i-bought-you-dinner-so-where’s-my-handjob guy, and all the catfishing motherfuckers who lived on telephone dating services. No internet then. Yes, i’m that old, shaddup.
And then i stumbled across the deep, mellifluous tones of the man i asked to marry me. Not right away, okay? Much later.

I was in love for the first time, and was loved in return. We were committed and building a life together. That was a vulnerability i’d not experienced since leaving home. I think in retrospect, the scariest thing about it was that, unlike my parents, he wasn’t even remotely abusive. He loved me and he didn’t hurt me, but i started pushing back anyway. The most important people involved in my rearing had purposely caused me incredible harm, so why wouldn’t he?
I started packing on the weight; rebuilding my wall. Pushing him away before he could hurt me – because iknewiknewiknew he would. It was only a matter of time.

All of that was done unconsciously, understand me, but also understand that i’ve never stopped trying to figure my shit out and be happier and more helpful to loved ones specifically, and humans in general. I knew the weight gain signified a problem, but as i continued working on myself i also gained insight. Unfortunately, by the time i’d wrapped my mind around the issue, i was 300+lbs overweight. And i had a new baby that needed me at my best. I needed some serious help to get my feet back underneath me and set back on my path.

I had weight loss surgery and lost it all. Which is when everything got even worse.

Suddenly i was receiving all the attention i’d craved as a young girl. As i took up less space i became more visible. Ain’t that a kick in the head? My bipolar disorder, which had largely lain dormant, perhaps cowed (word choice intentional, cuz funny) by the physical load i carried, woke up, took a look around, and decided the time had come to party. I got a job in the entertainment industry, one where i was the centre of attention, one where i was visible and expected to present myself as at least a very attractive, if not overtly sexual, object. Men wanted me, women wanted me, and people just wanted to be around me. It was cocaine and weed and fine wine and MDMA all rolled up into 1 heady drug, except better.

I was a socially acceptable size, which made my looks somehow beautiful. It was like i’d always been told. People were nicer to me. It wasn’t just men who wanted to get with me who were nicer, either. It was everyone. People held open doors for me, offered to carry my groceries. When i was fat, with 2 kids and struggling with 10 bags of groceries, i was on my own. Now, with 3, and 2 of ’em screaming they dang heads off, i’d get help if i only had 2 bags. People would stop on the street and tell me i was pretty. I actually got out of traffic tickets, just like in the movies. And people would give me stuff: my meals would get comped or they’d wave my cover charge or if there was swag being handed out, i’d always get some.

When you take all of that, and you mix in mania, it wasn’t long before it equalled disaster. In and out of hospital, in and out of treatment, i wound up jobless, with my marriage in tatters, children who hated me, and zombified on nearly a dozen various medications.

Oh, and 100lbs heavier.

I’m sure i would have been ignored again, except i was already hiding in my house and refusing to come out.
But it was okay, because this was when i finally found a therapist i could work with, and my life started changing for the better. That extra hundred has stuck around for the 10+yrs i’ve been working with her, though.
But that’s also okay, because it’s taught me a great deal that i needed to learn.

My next piece is going to be unbearably uplifting, so you might want to skip it.

Heh.

We are so much bigger on the inside,
You, me, everybody
~ Bigger On the Inside, Amanda Palmer

*Relatively speaking.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Inside My Skin

There is a part 3 for I’m Not A Bitch, but today i’m posting a little blurp-up on how i’m doing right now.

Last year i had a schedule, with routines, regimens, and rituals aplenty, and i was hummin’ along like a vintage car that’s still with and well cared for by its original owner. I was as functional as i’d ever been in. my. life. and i was proud of what i’d accomplished and excited for more and better in my very near future.

That was when my body started poking my brain and saying, Ahem? Ah, excuse me?
I need some help.

It’s a little on the airy-fairy side for a firm atheist like me, but i have come to believe that it’s possible that it’s not just my brain that houses my memories, but my body, as well. Like, when i feel threatened, i can feel it immediately in my feet, my calves, my knees – the urge to run, to get away. The memories of being trapped by my abusers and unable to leave might be there, i think. Nestled in there with my muscles and tendons, lying dormant until a situation triggers old thoughts and feelings about the past and my fast-twitchers spark awake, GOGOGONOW!

I recognise that this may not be measurable in a scientific sense as of yet, but that’s okay. I’ve been working on getting down into my feelings,
<feelfreetorollyoureyesherebecauseicertainlyam>
and the deeper into them i get, the more i experience how connected my thoughts and emotions are to my physical body, when i feel safe enough to allow it.

As a highly dissociative human, i put distance between emotion and sensation and thought, because they have historically been too much for me to cope with all at once. I also never had a person safe enough and knowledgeable enough to teach me how to process these things; the why-am-i-like-this and the how-do-i-fix-it. Now that i do, when she (my therapist) suggests that my memories are not just in my brain, but in parts of me that exist in real time below the neck, well…
I experience, observe, and exist consciously in those moments when i sit down in the armchair by the window in her office, and my girl parts are buzzing like they’re covered in a thousand bumblebees, and she asks how i’m doing today, and my vagina starts to burn, like the bees are stinging me, so she has me take a big pillow and hide myself behind it, and wrap my arms around that pillow and pull it in tight, hugging my genital area, protecting it with a soft, warm barrier and my loving arms, and she asks me,

“How does that feel?”

And i roll my teary eyes and say, “I don’t know. Weird. Better… I guess. Good.”

Or how i pull my legs up onto that armchair, fanning them out alongside me because if i put them on the floor, they’ll start bouncing like corn popping, wanting to run. I feel safe with her in her office, and i come ready to be conscious of my body and be in it in real time. But other people that live in my brain, especially those that exist in a painful moment from the past, come wide awake and all they feel is trauma, and they want it to stop, so badly; they want to get away, nownownow. So my therapist has me put my feet back on the floor and bounce my knees and flex my feet and sometimes i’ve even placed the bottoms of my feet on the bottoms of hers and pumped my legs, HARD, like i’m riding a bicycle away – away from pain, away from danger, away from evil.

And i’ll be damned if it doesn’t help. I think my body is purging the memories of all the terrible things that were done to me when i was little. When i was with my mother and dependent on her for everything – helpless and unable to get away from the things that she did and allowed to be done to me.
It’s like i’m shedding “psychic” pounds.
I know, another metaphysical word coming from me, but i use it as a poetic description of what i’m experiencing, rather than an actual, tangible thing that exists.
What i mean is, i feel lighter in my feelings and my mood and my outlook on life, when i do these things –when i directly address the sensations in my body, and act out the movements it seems to be itching to do– i feel better.

So this is what i’ve been doing. Learning to tune in to my body, rather than distance myself from it. Letting my fists ball up, kicking my legs, covering my breasts, my belly, my nethers, with blankets, pillows, honouring the need for a barrier. Pulling my big dog into my lap and wrapping my arms around her, burying my face in her neck and feeling her warmth, her weight, her protection.

And walking again. Not taking off. Not getting away.
Recognising and honouring the need of my feet, my calves, my knees, my thighs, to move. The memories of wanting and needing so badly to get away from what was happening to me all those years ago and being unable to, all trapped there in my flesh and fascia. Pumping it out of me with each determined step, the pain and the fear pouring down into my toes and out, like i’ve lanced an infection and i’m draining the pus, leaving a trail on the dirt road behind me.

Lighter. Healthier. Cleaner. Freer.

It’s constant work but i don’t mind. I can see and feel the benefits. Unlike the brain work, where i slogged and slogged through the muck, such slow-going. Putting in so much time with little to no change, but hoping. And then seeing that which had been unravelled, ever so slowly knit back together.
The body work yields refreshingly immediate results. They don’t always last, but i can do it again, and the good stuff lasts a bit longer each time. One day, it might just settle right into my bones and that will be that.

So here i am today.
I’m sober. I’m not doing anything to numb myself, neither brain nor body. I’m living my life as simply as i can so that i might teach myself to be present and feel it all. To make conscious, thoughtful decisions on how to handle and cope with the day-to-days, and those times when life just happens. I mean, i wish it wouldn’t do that, but even to have the presence and awareness inside this skin sack in real time to think, Geez, Universe, now why’dja have to go and do that?! is a priceless gift.

I’ve lost the booze bloat and the grey cast to my skin. I’m back to managing my food choices and eating at a calorie deficit, nutritionally sound and designed for slow and steady weight loss, my goal of a single digit clothing size before summer hits is doable.
I often wear my clothes a bit on the tight side because:

1) I like having my business held in, hugged, and smoothed out;
2) It boosts my self-esteem and motivation to be wearing smaller sizes; and
3) It keeps me consciously in my body, that tight squeeze, that occasional escape of flesh over the top of my jeans.

Understand, this is not a shaming technique. I’m proud as heck of what i’ve accomplished, and any shame i carry about my body is due to childhood stuff, which i’m working through, tyvm. I’m also not suggesting anyone else do what i do for my weight, my body, my brain, my relationships – none of it, period. What i’m doing is sharing my process, in every way and on every level (save sexual and spiritual, although that may come some day), not so that you can do what i do, but so you can see that it can be done. 

I’m 52yrs old, and there’s no shame in that, either.
I am not who i was born to be.
It’s taken a lot of hard, intense, terrifying work to get where i am today.
Nobody could do it for me and a lot of it i did alone because i couldn’t find the right person to do it with me. But i persevered, taking little nuggets of wisdom from this place and that person, knocking on door after door, taking class after class, asking “professional” after professional? for help.
(That word though, what a loaded word in this particular field, heh.)

I got disheartened, led down wrong paths, misunderstood, misdiagnosed, ignored, unfairly judged, and many times, told i was Just fine! and/or Highly functional! because i was so willing to open up and do the work, and already had so much self-knowledge and personal insight and i’m clearly intelligent and have a large vocabulary and i’ve never been arrested or lived on the street, so… What’s your problem?

With such narrow definitions, it’s a wonder anyone gets any, let alone enough help, but some of us do.
If you have stuff inside you that needs work, i want you to see that i’m doing it, and so maybe you can, too.
If you need help with that work (and who doesn’t?), i want you to see that i found some (FINALLY!), and so maybe you can take heart and keep trying until you find that good fit: that person, that place, that program, that system -whatever it is- that clicks with you and helps you get your feet underneath you and walking forward. Or running, swimming, flying – however it works for you to figure your shit out and get through it. Whatever gets you moving towards something that you’ve always wanted for yourself.

I did it and i’m still doing it.
I should be either dead, or locked up, or completely non-functional, or just a shitty, awful human. I am none of those things.

Every time i blog it’s for me first, because it’s been very effective.
But it’s for you, second – because i want you to hang in there. I want you to find help, answers, love, success, happiness. All of it.
I wish i could do more, but i’m a lot of work, and this is what i can manage.
So far, anyway.

I’m pluggin’ away. It’s what works for me. I go through some tough, scary shit, but i just keep plodding along, learning about myself and how i work and doing the work that’s in front of me.

Then there are moments, beautiful, transformative, life-affirming moments, where i can see, not only how far i’ve come, but the depth and the breadth and the weight of what i’ve been able to achieve. It may not look like much to the rest of the world, but that no longer matters to me. What i’ve been able to do with my brain, my body, my life, is incredible and amazing. TO ME.

I hope that i can inspire others to just hang in there and keep trying. Stop and rest and feel how hard it is when you need to, you deserve that, but as soon as you can muster, try some more.

Love and Peace and So Much Thanks,
~H~

Image: Reclining Nude (c1887), George Hendrik Breitner

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Hungry

Content/Trigger Warning: This deals with food and weight issues, and references childhood abuse and neglect with regards to food, as well as indirect referral to childhood sexual abuse as it relates to such. Take good care.

**********

It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.
~ George Orwell

I’ve struggled with food my entire life, and with my weight since i was around 8yrs old. I’ve tried every diet, but gradually starved and binged my way to around 230lbs in high school, where i stayed until i Grey-sheeted (Overeaters Anonymous’ suggested eating plan) myself to 180lbs when i was 27. For a 6′ tall female, that wasn’t half bad. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long because i went and fell in love for the first time in my life, got married, got triggered massively by the whole thing, and ate my way up to an all-time high of 465lbs.

In the early aughts, weight loss surgery became a thing again. There had been a craze of “stomach stapling”, but that hadn’t been easy to come by for many years. People would overeat, pop their staples, and some even died. Doctors weren’t too keen on it, and the idea that weight loss is simply a matter of the right diet and some willpower was still the overwhelming attitude of many, if not most.

Then along came Carnie Wilson, daughter of Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, and member of the 90s pop group Wilson Phillips, and she not only got herself a new, better, safer-than-stapling weight loss surgery called a Roux-en-Y (RNY), it was filmed and released for public consumption. I saw my doctor immediately, got a referral, lost enough weight that he okayed me for surgery, and went from 367 to around 150lbs.

Cue my first major Bipolar mania. And just for fun, cue my multiplicity run amok. What followed was more chaos than i’d ever endured as an adult. It had me searching, once again, for a therapist that i could work with, someone who would help me gain control of my runaway brain that was making an absolute train wreck out of my marriage, my mothering, my life. I did some decent inner work on my own, but without help to understand how my brain worked, my system derailed me, over and over again. My doctor diagnosed the bipolar and i went to a psychiatrist, got medicated, and regained around 100lbs. I’ve struggled with it ever since.

When i started working with the therapist that changed everything, the one who helped me save my life, the one i’m working with again today, i finally had a painfully clear and complete picture of why i had such issues around food.

My mother.

Her abuse of me started soon after i was born, and based on others’ recollections of me as a baby, feeding and food was likely an immediate issue. My earliest, clearest memories that i can confirm start when i was around 4yrs old. I remember her showing me how to prepare a roast with a package of onion soup mix, and how to turn on the oven. She also showed me how to peel the potatoes and carrots to go in with it, the dexterity of which was tough for me to learn, and she’d smack me across the head regularly for not doing it right.

I remember her locked in the bathroom, threatening to kill herself, screaming about getting fat and being alone. I remember wailing and banging on the other side of the door, begging her not to do it.
I remember staring at my face in the mirror a short time later, holding a bottle of some pinkish-orange liquid (Mercurochrome?) with a skull and crossbones on it, thinking i could kill myself too, if things got too bad. It’s the first time i remember a soft switch.

I also remember her leaving me alone, sometimes for days, and there would be nothing to eat in the house. I became quite resourceful. I’d put ketchup and mustard on saltines and pretend they were fancy appetizers. I ate food out of the garbage. I ate frozen food, spoiled food, anything i could find.
Sometimes when she came back she’d bring treats for me.
Sometimes she’d beat me for eating things i wasn’t supposed to, and feed me frozen food or garbage as further punishment.

When times were particularly lean, she’d taught me to shoplift food – to stuff my coat with meat, cheese, chocolate. She taught me to panhandle, as well. Sometimes she’d buy me a treat if i made enough money to satisfy her, but mostly not.
As her relationship with the man i think was my father (not a story for today) began to deteriorate, she ate more and more, and there often wasn’t enough money or food for both of us to eat. I was always the one to go hungry.

All my life she would buy salty and sweet snacks for herself, and only take them out after i’d gone to bed. I could hear the bags crinkling and her masticating and watching television. Sometimes she’d even cook, and i’d be laying in bed, hungry and tortured by the delicious smells wafting under my door.

She also used food as punishment and reward with regards to the sexual abuse, as did the people with whom she associated for such. When she was happy with me, her face would be lit up and she’d make us an incredible meal, or even take us out to dinner at a sit-down restaurant. I remember her regularly being complimented for my behaviour and etiquette out in public – she’d incline her head to the side slightly and nod as if it were her due. If i got too much attention, she’d beat me when we got home, and forbid me to eat for a couple of meals.

This abuse and willful neglect shaped me into my school years. I learned to sneak food from anywhere i could: school, friends, friend’s homes, any place where my mother would farm me out.

I rarely brought lunch to school, and at best i’d have a peanut butter sandwich and a carrot or an apple, all of which i’d have scrounged together myself. She never made me a lunch, even though she quit working when i was 10 and laid around the house watching tv all day after that. So when children threw their lunches into the trashcan at the front of the classroom, i’d wait until everyone was gone and root through, smuggling whatever i found into the bathroom, where i’d sit on the toilet in a stall and pack it all into me in a frenzy, barely chewing it enough to swallow without choking.
When i began babysitting outside the home, i’d make up for the $1/hr we were paid in my day by eating the couple out of house and home.
And when my mother married and started popping out other children, i began brazenly stealing food from her; my fear of starving was so great it even overcame my fear of being beaten, as i inevitably was, every single time i was caught. I think i saw my new siblings as competition for what little food was in the house.
I think that’s exactly what she intended.

One might ask, how could i be starved as regularly as i say and still be the fat kid?

The years of regularly starving and being withheld food had made their mark on me. Not just emotionally either, as i was to learn much later in life; my body would hold onto calories as fat in anticipation of the next period of starvation that would come. Once my mother was married and had morphed herself into a (somewhat) different person, my fears were set, and my behaviours ingrained.

Eat whatever i could when it was available.
Food was comfort. Food was reward. Food was a stimulant, and made me feel euphoric. Food was like an opioid too, numbing the pain and fear. And food tamped down my anger, which i was never, ever allowed to display, let alone express. Food and my system worked together so well i didn’t even know i was angry.

And once there were other people in the house living with us, her behaviour changed.
A bit.
She no longer earned money, gifts, and favours using me.
Her mask had begun to slip, she was gaining weight at an alarming rate, and she slowly became a shut-in, rarely going out and almost never socialising.
She continued to put food above everyone else around her. She used her much younger, new husband to procure food for her, which she consumed whilst her children with him were skeletally thin.

I was young and didn’t see the way things had progressed, naturally. I think my subconscious mind processed things like, the bigger i got, the less i was being molested. And i’d found that food was the closest to love i could get. I thought that if i was eating, i must be okay. So food became my metric. For everything. For love, for happiness, for safety.

Food was my currency.

I probably don’t need to tell you what that cost me.
How the fat kid is guaranteed to be bullied.
How people assume the fat kid is indulged rather than neglected/abused because clearly i was getting enough to eat.
How the fat girl gets preyed upon by sexual opportunists who think we should be grateful that anyone would want to screw us.

Any potential as an adult that i had was always at least partially marred by my fatness. The unspoken assumption that i was lazy, slovenly, even pampered. That i had no self-control. No determination, no gumption, no tenacity.

When i’d finally done enough inner work that i could look back and see all these things (all these things that i’ve shared about food and yet i assure you there is still so much more) i was set free.

I now understand why i love grocery shopping so much, and why no one else gets to unpack and put them away. I now totally get why i become antsy as soon as my fridge or my pantry doesn’t look full, when i get low on things. I know why i’m curious what foods other people have in their kitchens when i visit. I know why i have such trouble throwing out spoiled food, or food that just doesn’t taste good, or food that i’ve burned or overcooked or over-spiced…

I know why when i’m doing well and feeling good i want cake, and when i’m doing poorly and feeling bad i want cake.
And i know why i don’t want sex when i’ve overeaten and when i have great sex i’m not scared to eat when i’m hungry.
I know why i gained almost 200lbs when i fell in love and got married.
And i know why i went completely batshit when i lost all the fat and was a healthy, normal weight.

I tried a dozen different times to write about how my mother’s sexual abuse factored in to my issues with food, but i don’t think it’s necessary for this piece – neither for me, nor for anyone else. Perhaps another time, but i’ve agonised enough over this. It was hard to write and even harder to come to a decision about whether or not to post. I prefer glossing over the abuse and focusing on how it affected me and how i’ve coped.

But being fat since i was 8yrs old really, deeply hurt me. It’s held me back from so much living, so much that i might have achieved, because all i could see was my weight. It seemed like it was all anyone could see, honestly.
You could have this if only…
You could be this if only…
You could do this if only…

Relationships. Sex. Body image. Food.

I’ve spent my adult life trying to take these things back, and it’s taken everything i have, and it will continue to do so. I have to examine all of it, and it’s deeply personal and drenched in secrecy and shame.

I’m so fucking tired of it.
This is not my shame to carry – not my embarrassment to bear.
It’s ugly because SHE made it ugly. Because she was so terribly ugly.

I’ve learned over the years that eating and food and weight issues are rarely a matter of willpower coupled with the right diet. I’ve found it to be intricate and complicated. Skeins of moments and messages woven together in a tapestry of pain and fear, unmet needs, loneliness, dashed hopes, and hunger beyond the belly.

This is painful and intensely personal for me, and i’ve cried through a lot of it – but i see how i got to 465lbs and i see how i got here, sharing this piece today. I don’t weigh myself anymore, but i have enough experience with my body to be able to tell you that i’m likely less than 50lbs from where i’d ideally like to be. I took a hard look at my past, a harder look at who i am and how my brain works, and then puzzled over how those 2 things are related with respect to how i see food and eating.

I now know myself so well and have amassed enough knowledge about diet and nutrition (h/t to Registered Dietitians – where i go to get the most accurate information), that i’ve been able to tailor-make my own way to eat to lose weight and keep it off, finally, for good.
I make small, sustainable tweaks to how and what i eat.
I comfort and feed the parts inside me that hunger for much more than food.

My body physically manifested the wrongs that were done to me as a child. I wore it in pounds of fat.
My body is becoming evidence of the good and kind and right things i’ve been doing for myself.

Starving for love, starving for food. These things are so intertwined for me.
These knots inside me are being untied, these constraints inside me are being unbound.
By me.
I’m trying to help anyone reading this to find hope in however your own childhood struggles may have expressed themselves in how you do or don’t eat, and how much or how little you weigh.
This piece is disjointed and choppy AF. I did my best. I think it’s been super hard to foment into something consumable because it’s not just mental, this stuff is inextricable from the physical. It’s visceral.

I hope this was helpful.
Please take care of yourself and talk to someone if you’re stirred up inside.

I Wish You All Love and Peace,
~H~