onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Personal Growth”

21 Nov 2015

To hang out in the uncomfortable unknown and trust

First, for those of you who were wondering if that internal growth spurt I mentioned last week meant I was pregnant, I am not.

I was referring to a spiritual/emotional/personal kind of growth spurt. I am talking about getting better and better. I mean becoming more and more my authentic self.

Perhaps it does have some similarities to being pregnant, though. Like in how I forget the pain and I get excited to do it again.

For some reason, every time I make a move and take action to grow and change, I expect it to be easy. I expect the experience to be that of getting consistently happier, and more confident, with a steady acquisition of new skills.

Yeah…not so much. The truth is, while I am in the middle of it, it sucks. It’s painful and humiliating. And before I am graceful and happy and better than I have ever been before, I have to stumble and fall, fail and persevere. I forget that, like having a baby, it takes the blood, sweat, and tears of labor.

And there’s something else I have noticed. Life will always, always, ALWAYS give me a chance to backtrack. Usually more than once. Life makes me choose change over and over again, depending on how committed I am. It makes me say out loud, ‘I want something better.’

When I made the decision that I wanted to be in a serious, committed relationship, I took actions and made different choices. And out of the blue, multiple men from my past started calling and texting me. Seriously. Guys I had not heard from in months or years decided that they were curious about me.

Maybe that doesn’t seem like such a hard test, but familiar relationships are comfortable. Even if they are bad, or mediocre, or unfulfilling, there is such a temptation to go backwards into a set of circumstances you already know. Especially if what you want hasn’t shown up yet.

I didn’t know that my current boyfriend would turn out to be the love of my life. It was an act of faith in the benevolence of Life to turn away from men from my past. But I did it. I told Life that I wanted something more. And that I was willing to hang out in the uncomfortable unknown and trust.

And here I am right now, once again in the middle of a huge transition. Learning how to drive. Writing samples and interviewing for a dream job. Staying at a job that I absolutely abhor while working my way into a bigger, richer, gooier life. And sometimes it hurts so bad that I cry. And sometimes I hate it so much that I behave badly, like a little brat. And sometimes I am terrified that I will get stuck in the middle of the transition and never reach the other side. But somehow, I always manage to make it. And I live to forget how terrible the pain was. And again, like childbirth, I have this person that I love more than I thought I could. Only, in my case, that person is me.

Having boundaries around my eating is not the reason I can change. But it puts the whole thing on a fast track. Not being able to numb my disappointments and dissatisfactions means that I either have to live with them or change them. So I usually choose change, because I am very bad at sitting in discomfort. And that is a very special gift, because it has given that incredibly unhappy little fat girl a life beyond her wildest dreams.

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14 Nov 2015
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Enough 

Today I am grateful that I do not eat compulsively in the most simple way. Just that I don’t spend all of my time eating or thinking about eating. I am going through a painful growth spurt (internal), and I don’t want to write about it yet. Because it sucks. And it’s hard to process right now. And I’m sad, and a little embarrassed. And that’s ok. 

It’s okay because I don’t eat. 

Did you get that? That is crazy. I don’t eat. I am unhappy and stressed out and yet, I do not shove sugar into my face. 

To this day, it blows my mind that I don’t stress eat. That I don’t drown my sorrows in chocolate cake. That I don’t obsess, hunt, and sneak. I am flabbergasted that I escaped that prison. 

I have plenty of things to be grateful for, and plenty of grief and gripes. But when I think about the fact that I have not had to eat over anything, that I have peace around my food, I am overcome with relief.

I could not stop eating. Now, I can. 

So simple. Today, if it’s the best thing I’ve got, it’s enough.

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07 Nov 2015
1 Comment

Because sometimes you just have to choke it down…

I have not been hungry for a while now. Dinner has been tough for a few months. I have been trying to make it as small as possible. Sometimes, if I am eating alone because of work or just because my boyfriend wants pizza or something I can’t eat, I make this teeny tiny dinner that I can eat in 10 minutes and be done.In some ways it is nice to not care about a meal. Since I have spent most of my life obsessing over food and eating, it makes me feel almost kind of normal to not be hungry. I mean, sure, once I put boundaries around my eating I got a little less obsessive, but then I got a lot more excited, because…guilt-free eating!

I don’t expect this to last forever. I expect I will go back to anxiously anticipating every single bite again sooner or later. Like everything else in life, this too shall pass. 

But I feel like I have said the obvious in explaining how it’s nice for a girl who was never satisfied to not be hungry, so I want to say this next part clearly. It is painfully uncomfortable for me to eat when I do not want to eat. And it is scary for me make the choice each day to sit down and (on particularly bad days) choke down food that I would rather do without.

If you don’t know about my food boundaries, I eat three meals a day. No more. But also, no less. The idea is that I don’t eat based on hunger, because I don’t have that thing that most people have that tells them when they have had enough. I have three specifically portioned meals a day. That is how I know I have had enough. And I must eat every last bite. I am not on a diet. I am a person who is sick with food and the boundaries are my medicine.

It has become clearer and clearer over the past couple of months that I am going through a major life change. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is why my appetite had changed.

I would tell you I don’t deal well with change, but if you have read my blog, you might know that to be a lie. I am actually spectacular at dealing with change. I’m a pro. But it comes with feelings I don’t particularly like to deal with: fear, anxiety, and that generally itchy-in-the-skin-rawness. And if I am going to be honest, the idea of pursuing big experiences and having a big life, which seems the direction I’m headed, is less pleasant than my ambitious friends and acquaintances would have me believe. 

I am not saying no to a bigger life. But I will say that there is something really beautiful about a smaller life of peace and quiet, a life of little joys. I have had one for a while and it suits me just fine.

Maybe when this transition slows down and I find my footing again in a new set of circumstances, I will get my appetite back. But for now I will choke it down. The feelings and the food and the next right action.

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01 Nov 2015
1 Comment

A Really Scary Halloween Story

Goodbye Halloween. I love Halloween. But it has been a while since I did much to celebrate. This year I didn’t even dress up, since I had to work.

No matter how I look at it, it’s such a beautiful miracle that I don’t care about candy. Halloween exactly 10 years ago was filled with humiliated binging, and a general sense of shame, but in a normal sized body.

Halloween 10 years ago was one of those days when I knew I was hitting bottom, but before I knew what I could do about it. It was the time in my life that I was most terrified about what would become of me. It was the time of my life when I felt the most out of control. I was barely managing to keep myself sane. I was in a regular sized body, but I could not stop eating. And all of my energy went into eating, and then trying to not gain weight from eating. 

Halloween 10 years ago was my first successful bulimic episode, where I stuck a toothbrush down my throat and actually managed to throw up. I had tried before that, but bulimia is not easy. (It turns out it’s not all that effective either.) I remember looking in the mirror and seeing how bloodshot my eyes looked from it. I remember being bloated and taking some gas medicine because of it. Gas medicine because I could not get the water pill some old woman recommend. I remember asking a pharmacist where I could get a water pill, and the pharmacist looking at me funny and asking if I had a prescription. And when I said I did not, telling me that they were dangerous and were not sold over the counter.

I remember being embarrassed and ashamed. I remember wondering if she could tell that I wanted it because I was bulimic. Wondering if it was written across my forehead. This girl is doing shameful things with food. I remember feeling crazy.

I remember that I was terrified that I was going to look fat and ugly for the Halloween birthday party I was going to. And I arrived later than I wanted because I was doing whatever I could think of to look normal. To not look bloodshot and bloated. 

The truth is, maybe I didn’t look as ugly as I thought I looked. But I was so unhappy. And I thought it must be obvious by just looking at me that I was so out of control that I had resorted to making myself throw up.

I thank God for many things about that day. I am grateful that I hit that point of desperation. I don’t think I could have found my solution for my eating disorders if I hadn’t tried something so extreme.

And ultimately, it would make for a very happy ending. Just two months later, I would find the solution to my eating problem. I would never have to worry about how to get rid of the food I wished I hadn’t eaten. 

I would get a life that was more peaceful than I could ever have imagined in my wildest dreams. A life where I can walk by a bowl full of candy, and rest easy knowing it’s not mine.

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23 Oct 2015

Not special. Still happy.

I am posting early this week because I have lots to do this weekend.

I am on a plane to New York again. I am going to an annual gathering for people with the same food boundaries as myself.I am already thinking about the farmer’s market and the giant apples. Maybe even Norther Spies, which I have not been able to get since I left. 

It has been nine years and ten months since I quit sugar and stopped eating compulsively. 3581 days.

Life seems to go so slowly while I am living it. But in retrospect, things change in an instant. The new normal doesn’t take very long.

Three years ago, I was single and living in New York. I had just quit smoking. I had just gained 30 pounds because of it. I was a nanny and a receptionist. I had not yet started crocheting again. 

Today I am happily, madly in love. I live in the suburbs of Chicago. I am learning to drive, and I just accepted a freelance writing gig, along with my part time job at a grocery store. Plus I spend my spare time crocheting gifts.

And the intervening years were also diverse. Living and making friends, first in Texas, then in Mississippi. Working for a construction company. Learning to crochet clothes. Teaching myself to knit (although I’m still not great at it.)

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I don’t remember my life being so filled with drastic improvement before I got my eating under control. I don’t recall it shifting so quickly. And, though it comes with dips and drags and false starts, I don’t remember my life getting always happier, calmer, more steady. More serene. 

But even if my memory is faulty, the truth is that my experience of myself before I got my eating under control was of stagnation, anxiety, and dread.

One of the things that happens every year at this gathering for people who don’t eat compulsively is that I meet people who are struggling with food and sugar addiction. I like being an example of what is possible. Because I was a hopeless case too. There is nothing special about me. I don’t have extraordinary willpower – or really much of any willpower. I’m not naturally thin. I am a sick and twisted compulsive eating sugar addict who weighed 300 pounds at 19 years old. And I still managed to find a solution to this problem. And that gave me the clarity to find solutions to my other problems. It allowed me to create a life that keeps getting better.

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18 Oct 2015

Killing me softly

I have been having a very emotional week.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently. The one with the button that says “Give A S***.” She said to me, “Every time I don’t eat a piece of chocolate cake, a little part of me dies inside.”

It has been a while since not eating cake made me cry. Many years, in fact. But there are things that are like giving up sugar, actions outside of my comfort zone, that are little deaths.

Giving up sugar was the biggest step I have taken on a journey I started long ago. I knew some time in my youth that I wanted to get better. I wanted to grow and change. I wouldn’t understand until many years later, but ultimately, what I was looking for was peace. Serenity. What I wanted was to rest easy, knowing that I was being the best person I could be.

But every time I get better, the girl I was dies. And while I certainly choose it, a life of little deaths can be decidedly uncomfortable.

So it turns out that driving is one of the more painful undertakings of my life.

My first lesson was just a few days ago. And since then, I have cried a lot over it. I am crying while I type this. This is the death of a very young and tender part of myself. This part of me I’m killing may be even younger than my sugar addict.

I was not terrible at driving, but I wasn’t good either. And that is kind of hard on me. I am used to being good at things quickly and without much effort. Even giving up sugar was relatively natural to me. Vigilance, perfectionism and being single-focused are things I am exceptional at. Being aware of four directions at once, remembering a whole new set of rules, and figuring out how the machine I’m controlling responds to my touch, is a lot of information to process. I find it overwhelming. It makes me anxious. It makes me cry. Either way, both giving up sugar and starting to learn to drive have made me feel raw and vulnerable. Itchy. Like I am walking around without skin.

These little deaths are not murder. It’s not bad that I am killing these aspects of myself. They were useful until they were not. Being sad or in pain does not mean that what I am becoming is worse than what I have been. But I have to be gentle with the girl in me that I happen to be killing off at the moment. It won’t do any good to kill her brutally. I am going to have to hold her hand and tell her it’s ok to go. I am going to have to let myself mourn her. I’ll still let her die, but ultimately, I’ll kill her softly.

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10 Oct 2015
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Freedom, anxiety, and doing that thing I had hoped I would never have to do.

I took a big step this week. I got a learner’s driving permit, took an online course, and scheduled my first few driving lessons. It’s a big deal.
I am afraid of driving. As a small child, I used to have nightmares about having to drive a car and not knowing how. I can still remember some of those nightmares. I can see images of the dark night and the bright street lights. I can feel my tiny body lean to almost horizontal to try to pull the heavy door closed. I can feel my heart race trying to figure out pedals and gears. I can still remember these images and feelings even though they are more than 30 years old.

When I was living in New York, I didn’t expect I would ever leave. I didn’t expect to ever need to learn how to drive. That was just fine with me. I loved New York just for being New York. But I was also always dimly aware that living in New York meant never having to learn how to drive. And I liked that about it too.

Now I am back in the south suburbs of Chicago where I grew up. I have lived here for a year already without driving.

In being sober from sugar and compulsive eating these past 9+ years, I have learned that I am allowed to do things in my own time. 

Just because I know I want a change, doesn’t mean I am ready for it. And it doesn’t matter what other people think about it either. I am allowed to change in my own way, and at my own pace. 

People keep assuring me that I will catch on quickly. That driving is simple. That even stupid people can do it.

I’m going to tell you something. This is not helpful. The nature of my anxiety is not rational. It’s deep rooted in childhood trauma. It’s not about easy or not easy. It’s about something much more primal. The physical reaction is intense. Fight or flight. And failure occurs like life or death.

And it is. I have never paid so much attention to vehicles on the road as I do now. I look at some guy driving a Hummer in this fully paved and basically flat suburb and I think “when I start driving, that guy will be a threat to my physical safety.” I think things like “perfection is the only option or I die. Or kill someone else.”

And I wonder how it is that every day, people just get into their giant rolling blobs of mass and inertia and go about their day like it’s no biggie.

I’m not saying I won’t do it. I will. I even suppose it will eventually just become life. Like things do. 

I was terrified to give up sugar and carbohydrates too. And in the beginning it was scary. But now it just is what it is. And I’m happy to have the freedom. Which is probably exactly what driving will be like in the end.

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04 Oct 2015

If you need the wood, I’ll be off the cross in a minute.

One of the ways I keep my eating under control is by focusing on my part of a situation. With food it’s about keeping my eyes on my own plate. I don’t worry about what anyone else is eating. With life, it’s about minding my own business. And keeping peace in my own heart and mind. Other people’s behavior and relationships are also none of my concern. I keep my eyes on my own life.
But another way I help myself keep my eating under control is by being authentic, and speaking up for myself. I do not let myself be abused. I do not please others at my own expense.

There are some people at work, both customers and fellow employees, who are really not nice people. (No seriously. Not like normal people having a bad day. Like people who actively try to make others unhappy. Like total jerks.) And it’s hard for me to find a balance between taking care of myself, and being peaceful, regardless of the situation.

The other part of this is finding the best way to keep the Good Girl in me on a short leash. She let people abuse her for a long time. Her worth was in how far she could diminish herself for the happiness and use of others. 

Look, the Good Girl, when she is right-sized, and in her proper place, is part of the reason I am so good at my customer service job. When I am not being a martyr, I genuinely like giving people a great experience. I aim to leave people at least satisfied, and hopefully even happier, as a result of their time spent with me.

But just like I wrote in last week’s installment, the Good Girl can have me agree to do things that end up leaving me feeling resentful and frustrated. I can wind up feeling taken advantage of, often forgetting that I allowed myself to be put in the situation in the first place.

I am not going to eat compulsively over these feelings of resentment. But that is a luxury that I cultivate. Resentment is exactly the danger to an addict like me. It is just the thing to convince me that I totally deserve that chocolate cake, damn it!

Last week, I was doing what needed to be done for the store/my department, and neglecting to care for my own self. I forgot that integrity means keeping my word, but it doesn’t have to mean volunteering at the expense of my own peace. I was doing what was requested of me, simply because I was asked. I agreed knowing I didn’t want to. And that was dangerous. I was putting myself and my eating disorders in a dangerous situation.

I know that I need to keep my food boundaries at the center of my life. Keeping my sugar addiction and my eating disorders at bay is the most important thing I do in my life. Part of that is never letting any resentment, judgment, or torment grab a hold of me. It means I have to shake them off quickly. I have to be grateful for what I have. I have to remember that all things pass eventually. And if I am unhappy, I am the one who must change.

In parting, I will leave you with the Serenity Prayer. (If you don’t already know it, I promise it’s a good one. By the way, it’s not just a prayer. It’s a way of life.)
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

AMEN!

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26 Sep 2015

Not Down With OPI (Other People’s Integrity)

I have a problem. Lately I have been jealous of other people’s integrity, or rather, lack there of.

The other day, I, and another coworker were asked to stay late at work. Multiple people called off and there was stuff that needed to get done. I agreed to stay, albeit grudgingly, and frankly, with a bad attitude.

It was a bad day. It was no fun. I was frustrated and angry for most of it. And then the other person who agreed to stay late decided to leave.

This made me feel like a sucker. A chump. I was the a**hole who kept her word.

It wasn’t until I was calm and away from work that I got my head back on straight. My integrity is a gift. Having a relationship with my word is not an experience I endure, it is a blessing. It is a choice that makes my life amazing.

Look, the truth is, I should not have agreed to stay at work that day. I was people-pleasing. And I suffered because of it. Not to mention that I did not do my best work. But I had made a promise, I kept it, and even though it was unpleasant, I lived through it.

My word is not just about promises. When I got sober from sugar, I started making commitments about food and food boundaries. I renew those commitments every day. But more than being committed to what goes into my mouth, I am also committed to what comes out of my mouth. When I stopped eating compulsively, and I got a clear head, I stopped saying things lightly. I stopped speaking thoughtlessly.

In some ways, the kind of liar I was when I was in the food was sometimes malicious, but mostly careless. I just wasn’t connected to what I said. They were only words, I thought. So when I got food sober, I really started to take myself seriously. They were not “only words,” they were “My Word.”

It seemed to me at the time that my coworker was living an easier life because she was able to break her promise. But I already know what kind of life I lead when I feel entitled to break promises. And I would do well to remember that I was an unhappy person then. Not for a moment, but always. I didn’t like myself. Not for that day, but every day.

So a few hours of cranky resentment ended, and in the end, my word still means something.

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19 Sep 2015
1 Comment

In Defense of Giving A S*** (Please note, I use the “s” word freely in this post)

A friend of mine recently posted pictures from her trip to Burning Man this year. In one, she has a button that says “Give A Shit.”

I used to have a skill that I cultivated. It was the ability to not flinch. It was part of my “cool” persona. I was very good at it. When people did things to try to get a start out of me, I would barely react.

Not just friends playing pranks. Even when I was mugged and punched in the face when I was about 24 years old, I can still remember the look in the eyes of the guy who punched me. It clearly freaked him out that I didn’t scream or cry, or even cower. In fact, I remember looking at him with a disgusted look. I made him flinch. (Of course, I would later realize that I was a bloody mess because he punched my teeth right through my lip. I suppose that would be scary if you punched a seemingly weak girl in the face and all she did was look angry at you…)

From the time I was a very small child, I was very good at building fortresses. My fat body was a kind of fortress against intimacy. So was smoking. So was that unflinching bitch attitude. And being high on sugar.

Sugar may, in fact, have been the most useful tool I had against giving a shit. Because it made everything foggy. And surreal. And it made life-moments incidental. My real life lay in food and eating and getting high. Everything else was simply something to be endured until I could get my next fix.

But then I got my eating under control and I quit sugar all together. And then slowly, (very, very slowly…one at a time, after years of being sober from food) I dismantled my fortresses.

Because you can’t have love without pain. Because you don’t get to pick and choose what you let in. A fortress doesn’t keep the bad things out. It keeps EVERYTHING out. All of it. Not just the sadness of rejection and the pain of being wounded, but also the love and the joy and the trust and the intimacy.

I made a choice when I decided that I wanted to let myself fall in love and be loved. I made the choice to give a shit. I knew that it meant getting hurt. I was a grown woman in my 30’s. I didn’t have fairytale delusions about how love made everything easy. I was quite clear that the life I had chosen until then, behind my very secure, safe walls, was the easy way. Not giving a shit is, by far, the easier way. Love is not safe. Intimacy is not easy. It is complicated and messy.

Admitting you are wrong is scary. Making amends is scary. Restoring a broken relationship is scary. Being vulnerable is just plain terrifying.

I could make all of it go away by just not giving a shit. Still can.

But that would make the love go away too. And the joy that comes from loving. And the warmth that comes from being loved. Because ultimately, love is giving a shit.

I choose love, so I choose to give a shit. And I wish the same for you.

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