I Want, I Can, I Will

It’s probably not the most difficult chapter of my life, but maybe just one of the MORE difficult ones that I seem to have repeated six or seven or maybe eleven times within the course of my short 34 years on this planet.  It’s the sense of extreme deja vu, the certainty that the piano in the corner has played this music before, although perhaps in a different key, a slightly different tempo.

Yes, it’s time to work on the recovery stage of a big, huge, fat, ugly depression, and to be starting to see the crest at the top of the hill.  It is within the next fifty yards or so, that I have started “doing things” again.  When I say, “doing things,” I mean everything from showering daily to leaving my house regularly to baking apple pies from scratch to exercising.  There are THINGS and they are getting DONE.  By ME.

A few days ago, I fell coming up the steps of my house and turned my ankle.  I was pretty sure something was broken, and I was somewhat positive that I had re-broken the metatarsal in my foot that I had also broken the last two Decembers.  My mood turned foul as I hobbled and waited to go see the doctor and have an x-ray.

As it turns out, nothing is broken.  While I was at the doctor’s office, I also managed to ask for a dietician referral and a prescription for compression stockings.  You see, I have let myself get a big fat.  A lot fat.  Ridiculously-bigger-than-ever fat.  Fat enough, that it is affecting my health.  My doctor almost put me on diabetes treatment medication, but I wouldn’t let her and asked her to re-do my labs — which came back within normal limits.

So, for the sixth, seventh, eleventh time in my life, I have had my “oh holy crap, I’m too fat to keep going in this way” freak-out.  I am going to, first thing tomorrow, go see about some compression stockings because my lower legs, feet, and ankles are swollen so terribly uncomfortably.  I’m going to research a dietician, who maybe can help me with some meal-planning.  I’m also going to get back to my aqua exercise at the YMCA, because that was really helping last week.

Life is too good, too sweet, too soon gone to spend my time being:

1. So overweight that almost any movement is prohibitively uncomfortable
2. So self-conscious about my high weight that I avoid eating or grocery shopping in front of other people
3. So heavy that all I can think about is how heavy, slow, syrupy my body feels
4. Ashamed (yet baffled) that I have let myself get so big
5. So unhealthy that I need medication to treat any weight-related disease

SO friends, I might do something nutty, something drastic — I might swear off sugar or swear off carbohydrates or start making my goal of exercising every day.  Whatever it takes, I’m gonna do it.  Because, friends, I have TOO FREAKING AWESOME of a life to be without one, all over some fat cells and high blood sugars.

 

Reasons I Might Be Losing My Mind

With the exception of “Dear God: You Forgot to Mention the Bad Parts” (which was one of my favorite posts of recent, but that received almost no attention…go look!), I have mostly been doing challenges for my post updates.  Lots of list posts, goal posts, thankful posts.  That’s all well and good, but I don’t want to be THAT blogger.  I started this blog to put it all out there and to process and to be reminded that I am flawed, but human.  I haven’t been putting it all out there.

I know we’re all tired of Rosa saying what crap 2014 has been (but it has), and it’s safe to say that my mental health has taken a nosedive once again.  There are reasons, though, this time.  There were triggers to the nosedive and I am going to say like I say on my tagline and “tell it like it is.”

Firstly, I have been going through a family struggle.  It’s something that everyone wants to keep private for very good reason, but it’s really been bringing me down.  I don’t know how many tears I have cried over this, and I don’t know when or if it will get better.  It weighs on my mind heavily, maybe more so than it should.

Then, there’s all the med changes.  No more Zyprexa and no tapering off the 10mg I took three times a day.  No more sleeping pill (a benzo) after a very short taper.  And remember the Geodon decrease and the Abilify upswing.  All 0f this within the last little while.  The no more sleeping  pill thing has probably been the worst and I haven’t slept in days.  I did, however, get a reprieve and was prescribed a small dose of Trazadone that I am hoping will work wonders.  I want to sleep, I don’t want to be comatose.  Hence getting off the other sleeping pill (plus, the sleep-driving just wasn’t a good thing).

The pressures to change my lifestyle.  Quit smoking AND lose weight.  Start exercising.  Eat healthier.  Taper down your smoking.  All at once, all coming at me from family, friends, doctors.  Everyone means well, I know, but I can’t do it all at once.  Goddess of Mindfulness told me today the same thing:  Rose, you can’t do it all at once.  She thinks this is a terrible time to quit smoking, even though I have been amping up for it for almost two weeks now.  She says I need to let my meds even out, start sleeping again.

Goddess of Mindfulness also thinks I need to focus on healthy eating.  She thinks it will make me feel better overall.  My dad really wants me to join a gym, after I mentioned that I might at some point want to do water aerobics.  The doctors are telling me no help for me until I quit smoking.  Everyone else just looks at me and my growing size and horrible cough and tries to recommend something.  Or just looks at me.

Something has to give.  Right now, in this very moment, my eating is out of control and I have to fix that.  Weight loss surgery somewhere down the line?  Maybe.  For right now, though, there has to be a change within my brain.  This is something I can do anytime.

Quitting smoking?  I will continue to cut back.  I will quit within the next month or so.  Can I do it all at once?  No.

Exercising.  I do want to do the water aerobics classes, but money prevents it, and right now I am so out of breath to do anything, that continuing smoking prevents it.

And all 0f the aforementioned squirrels just run around my mind chattering, and I am overwhelmed, and I feel like I’m losing it.  Something has GOT to give.

Grocery Shopping Issues Come Full Circle

For as long as I have been adult, living out on my own, my biggest fear and most dreaded chore has always been going to the grocery store.  At certain points in my life, I have been almost phobic.  During those times, QoB would take my list and do the shopping for me.  Those were the times when the phobia was at it’s worst.  Other times, and oftentimes, she would simply go with me and help me find what I needed in the most efficient manner.

For the past long while, I’ve been able to do my own grocery shopping.  Or rather, I’ve been able to do all the grocery shopping for DSB and myself.  I relied heavily on Dollar General and a tiny IGA in a bad part of town, because they’re small, not crowded, and not very big.  There’s also almost no selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, and the prices of everything except meat are almost robbery.

When DSB and I were together, I cooked rich, fatty meals that were often cheap and, more importantly, things  he liked.  There were rarely vegetables, mostly because DSB would eat only green beans, corn, and broccoli, and I was an idiot who didn’t just wise up and buy  herself some vegetables, even if he wouldn’t eat them.

There was also the issue of the ginormous amounts of food that DSB would eat.  It would be nothing to buy two pounds of lunch meat, cheese, and a loaf of bread, and for it to be gone in 24 hours.  Without me having eaten a sandwich.  It is almost incomprehensible, looking back.

So, I stopped buying a lot of things because it was too expensive, at the rate that DSB ate things.  We relied heavily on meat and starch.  And gravy.  Good Lord, there was always gravy.  And there were a ton of things that I liked to eat that DSB didn’t.  We didn’t have enough money to cook two different meals each night, so I just went ahead with whatever he wanted.  Total idiocy.

Ok, this was supposed to be a positive post, and here I’ve been ranting for 400 words.  My ap0logies, but I’m not deleting it, because I mean every word of it, and I think you  have to read that part to understand the true beauty of what is to follow.

As a side-note, my emergency visit to the pdoc is tomorrow @ 2:30pm, for those of you who read yesterday’s post.  Hopefully all will be well soon.

Now, here at Day 8 with no DSB, it’s come time to grocery shop.  For the first time since March of 2012, I am shopping just for myself.  I’ve been pumping myself up about it for the past few days, thinking of things I’ll be able to buy, meals I’ll be able to cook, money I’ll be able to save.  It’s actually been on my mind quite a bit.

I’ve been talking things over at work today with Catfish, about grocery shopping, and commented how much I hate the monstrosity of a grocery store that serves the North side of town.  I mentioned that I missed the smaller Dillons’ that was out southwest.  He pointed out that it’s only a five mile difference, and maybe I should just go to that Dillons’.  Catfish can be mighty smart, sometimes.

So, I heeded his advice.  I parked in the smaller parking lot (ya know, one smaller than the size of a football field, like up North) and readied my list.  It wasn’t too busy and I hit the produce aisle first.

I shopped like a woman who has been without fresh fruit and vegetables for two years (close to the truth).  I have apples (Honeycrisp!!) and celery and carrots and bananas and strawberries.

I bought a little tray of sushi for a dinner treat and almost jumped up and down when I realized that YES, I can afford this!  I bought salmon and edamame and the fixins’ for salad and sandwich stuff.  I bought a box of granola bars and it was like I’d been set free.

I bought all those condiments that DSB would  use up in a week, like mayonaisse and BBQ sauce and Ranch dressing and red wine vinegar and soy sauce.

I bought a box of frozen taquitos, because they were on sale and I haven’t had them in a million years.  It was almost more exciting than finding cash in your pocket.

I bought several other things, but those were the highlights.  The bottom line is that I will be eating MUCH healthier, and I will be eating things that I want to eat, and the food will be there when I’m ready to eat it (unlike before when shit disappeared like a Grizzly bear had stalked the fridge).

So, I’ll just say that I’m a little bitter about my food life for the past two years.  I gained a significant amount of weight, living the lifestyle we did, and really did feel stuck in it due to constraints like trying to feed two people on only my weekly money (because DSB rarely bought groceries, and then, only on the 1st) and also just not wanting to argue.

But it’s OVER!  And I am CELEBRATING!

And eating sushi and edamame for dinner.  Because I can.

I feel like this was a big victory, and maybe it seems small to others, but this really is a big huge deal for me.  Go Team Rose!

 

The Last Glass of Milk

I was very fortunate to grow up in a home filled with plenty of food.  We never went without, and, to the best of my recollection, we always had a nice sit-down dinner every night (with everyone attending) often had hot breakfasts on the weekends.  We wanted for nothing.  It’s possible that my parents struggled to pull this off, but that’s how it felt.

There was always salsa and chips or carrots and ranch for snacks.  Often there was fresh fruit and vegetables that could be munched on.  Mom pulled that off with (seeming) ease.

It’s funny how one’s upbringing around food can change their attitude about it.  While there was always plenty of fo0d at home, I’d get in trouble constantly for “sneaking” food.  I don’t know why I did it.  If I had asked, it would likely have been given to me.  But there was a lot of sneaking around.

The Big Dawg had perhaps the worst habits when it came to food.  You didn’t eat anything out of the fridge or pantry that you thought he might possibly want.  He grew up hungry, and lived hungry for years, fighting with his brothers over food.  He seemed to have this almost paranoid idea that you were stealing food from him when something would go missing.  To this day, I still think he gets a little bent out of shape when Mom offers me leftovers.

I don’t fault him for this.  It’s how I grew up.  I grew up learning that everything in the kitchen was not to just be had.  We had to ask.  Maybe lots of kids grew up that way.  Maybe it kept me from blowing up into a little porker, I don’t know.  Even now, my mom (and occasionally the Big Dawg) will criticize the amount of food I put on my plate when I come over.  I know it’s “about health,” but it’s a bad, bad feeling to have your parent police your food intake like that when you are a grown-ass woman.

Sometimes it’s easier just to have Mom dish it up, put it on a plate, and put it in front of me.  The way I grew up with food has significantly affected DSB and mine’s relationship.  Where he grew up, there was also nothing lacking, but there was a more open relationship with food.  If you were hungry, take it, even if it’s the last one.

This has led to issues sometimes with us when say, for example, there’s not much milk left but I really want a glass.  In my mind, that’s DSB’s milk, because he’s the one that drinks the most of it and it’s “his thing.”  DSB wants me to just drink the friggin’ milk if I want a glass.  Drink the milk, eat the last piece of cake, just go for it.

I spend so much time trying to make sure everything is “fair” between us, that sometimes I go a little crazy.  I worry when I’m putting our plates together that I got a slightly bigger piece of chicken, so I will give him slightly more mac and cheese and so on and so forth.  DSB could really care less, as long as  he has a plate of food in front of him at suppertime.

The way I grew up with food influences my shopping habits today.  At home, there was (and still is!) a full stocked refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.  When we’re running low on supplies, I start freaking out.  DSB has to walk me through the fact that there are at least eight meals left in the house that could be had.  I just don’t see it like that.  If there’s not gobs of stuff to cook, I think we have nothing.  You would have thought I grew up in the Depression.

I’m not saying all this to make anyone feel bad, and certainly no one should.  But more to highlight how growing up around food affects how we view food as adults.  To me, food is comfort and  home and something to be cherished.  To DSB, it’s fuel.  And that’s it.  Maybe that’s why I’m so big, I don’t know.  There are a lot of answers to that question, I think, and it can’t all fall back on my childhood, other than some wicked stepmothers who warped my mind against my body and my appetite long, long ago.

To sum up, childhood experience plays a huge role in how you view food, grocery shopping, the division of food between family members, and so on.  I wish I could get it a little more scientific, but I know that my mom and stepdad didn’t create my eating disorders.  I KNOW where that came from — evil stepmothers.  And hey, my own doing, too.  I can own up to that.  I hope at some point I can be at a healthier weight, but it has to be on my own time, at my own choosing.

Sam has made these before.  Divine.  No butter or syrup needed!

Banana Pancakes — great recipe!

Most of the Way

Thanks to Mom (oh glorious QoB!), my house was almost fully deep-cleaned yesterday.  Every bit of dog hair and dust and clutter was decimated and really, it’s looking pretty good.  I just finished mopping my dining room and kitchen, and it looks like they will need another round, but, most of the way there.

I have therapy today, and it’s kind of like cleaning house.  I feel like I’m “most of the way” there, but am missing certain key pieces that keep me from living up to my full happiness potential.  The big stuff has been knocked out of the way for now, you know, the dead weight of depression and the lunacy of mania.  They’re gone, probably not forever, but at least for now.

Now, I’m really needing to go through my proverbial house and get rid of some clutter.  I need to work on trauma issues and negativity and poor self-concept.  I need to stop eating at night and stop bingeing during the day.  I need to be a more devout shower-er and housework keeper-upper.  Can you really get all that out of therapy?

I’m not really sure.  I think that if some of my basic issues were addressed and dealt with, those things would be a lot easier.  I think a lot of my problems have to do with a lack of self-compassion, black-and-white thinking, and a constant inability to reassure myself that, by golly, it’s gonna be ok!

I have had times in my life where food was not a huge issue for me, where I had things in check and was eating right.  There was even a time that McDonald’s and Ben and Jerry’s and Oreos grossed me out.  I could taste the fat on my tongue.  Blech.  Sure do wish I could get back THERE again.  Ok, maybe not that far over, but not like it is now where I find myself hoovering triple portions of deliciously carb-laden, fat-riddled food into my mouth.

I have always had the problem with taking showers regularly.  I can remember being in college in the dorms and waiting until no one was around so I could wash my hair in the communal bathroom sink, so that everyone would think I had showered.  I still employ that trick, quite regularly, to this day.  This is a tricky one.  It stems both from trauma and not wanting to feel all that disgusting fatness with my hands.

I detest housework, mostly because it takes stamina that I don’t have to do it.  It’s that and it’s also letting it pile up around me and letting it become an unmanageable issue.  I would like to hope that, now that my house is clean, I keep it up better.  We shall see.

I notice that the underlying themes of some of my most irritating problems stem from being overweight, or relating to food.  At one point in time, I fit criteria for Bulimia, but at this point I think I fit criteria for Binge Eating Disorder.  Such a nasty, nasty thing.  Shameful!  And people don’t talk about it.  It’s almost as stigmatizing as Bipolar Disorder.  People who don’t have the problem, just.don’t.get.it.

I’m so glad I was able to process all of that to an audience today.  Haha!  I think I need to bring this up with my therapist today and see if I can get some tactical responses ready to go when the urge hits.

Name-calling and More

The food saga continues.  I don’t ever want to look at it that way, but it does.  My life revolves around food.  A lot more than I would like to admit.  Apparently most people don’t give it nearly as much thought as I do.

When I wake up  at 4:00 a.m., I think, “What’s in the fridge and can I eat it quietly enough to keep Dr. Love from hearing me?”  After eating, I’ll pass out on the couch for fear of being found out, and fall quickly into a carbohydrate-induced slumber.  When I wake up for the day, I start looking for food again.  I sit and I drink coffee and consider what I could eat for lunch and snacks at work that day.

I think about it quite a bit.  Sometimes I am nearly late to work because I decide I need to fire up the stove and cook something.  Or, I can get caught in the trap of knowing I didn’t pack a lunch, but I have a few bucks and I can stop at Casey’s and get a snack to get me through until I can get back home and make myself a “proper” lunch.

Sometimes I’ll come home and make a proper lunch, sometimes I’ll just go to the grocery store and get a salad, and then sometimes I’ll go fast food.  Whichever way I go, it isn’t pretty.  And once I start that thought in the morning that there is nothing to eat at the house, there is nothing that can keep me from going out and buying something.

Spending money and eating compulsively.  It’s what I do.

QoB manages my finances to cut back on the catastrophe that I used to do to my banking account.  I appreciate it and I know it can be a real PITA for her.  I stole one of my checkbooks from her desk drawer the other day.  Feeling desperate, so low and desperate.  It’s hard to explain.  I felt like that was the only answer.

I can’t stop eating.  I am eating and eating and eating and I can’t stop.  I don’t know what hunger feels like anymore.  I can’t control my portions and I can’t stop heading back to the fridge/grocery/fast food place.  Nothing is satisfying me and it is really at a bad point now.

I stopped showering about a month ago, maybe a little longer.  My body disgusts me and I can’t stand to touch it or see it.  Can’t stand to be naked for even a little bit.  I worry about Dr. Love seeing me without clothes on and know for certain that he is disgusted by me, as well, even though he says this is not the case.  I know the truth.

I see how people look at me.  The token fat girl walking around work (waddle waddle), going to the store (hmmmm, what’s in her cart?), going through the fast food line (supersize it!), people are staring.  They might even be pointing, but I wouldn’t know because I can’t stand to lift my head up to look.

This is becoming a real problem.  I know it’s a problem because I have no energy to do anything, all I want to do is eat and think about eating and lay on the couch.  All I can think about is food, and, alternately, how disgusting I am.  I can’t take a shower.  I wash my hair in the sink every other day, and am down to showering probably once a week, maybe a little more.

It’s just not good.

This whole idea of going lactose-free has really compounded everything, too.  As you can only imagine.  Probably more than you can imagine.  Maybe I will be able to blog about that tomorrow but right now I’m completely disgusted and am going to lie on the couch and stare at the wall.  Ponder what’s for lunch tomorrow.

Ugh.

Sarah McLachlan, Answer