So I decided to start trying to follow the 90 day OA plan (no flour, no sugar, no artificial sweetener, no whatever the frick) today. I started my day off with a bowl of plain oatmeal flavored with a little cinnamon, a cup of coffee which is not allowed, and minus the fruit as my stomach can't deal with fruit and I had to go to Weight watchers this a.m. So breakfast was fine...ate it and felt fine. I go to WW, lost 3.8 lbs (no celebration as this is the 4 I gained last week with my friggin period), ran to my friend's house who had pregnancy books for me, and ran home starving. I wanted to stop and buy some fish as I thought it'd be nice to have fish, brown rice and some spinach or other veg but of course was too hungry to start shopping so I came home, put a few baby potatoes to nuke, scrambled an egg along with a container of egg white, and sauteed some broccolli with onions and peppers. (I mixed the eggs with the broccolli and put some reduced fat cheese on top). Ate all of that and felt that crazy feeling you get when you need a little sugar or a cracker or piece of bread so had a piece of fruit..still no good. So I'm sitting here with my bottle of seltzer saying "listen you crazy animal..settle down now, settle down".
If you haven't spent your entire life dieting, researching dieting, learning about compulsive overeating, and why people who are fat stay fat, you're probably thinking, wtf is wrong with this chick? But whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, thinking that the person just has to diet and excercise, is somewhat primitive and ignorant; if you have half a brain cell, you'd have to acknowledge that there is more to the problem than that but my point is not to lecture..my point is: I have a serious problem with food. Now you're probably thinking I'm one of those people that have to be forklifted out of my house...that's not the case at all as I excercise daily and have a regular life, and though I'm overweight it's not stand out overweight...
nonetheless, my addiction to food is very real, very heart breaking, very painful.
How I first made the final decision to start trying to get pregnant was related to my weight. Last month I'm at the doctor's office..my regular G.P. and she is flipping through my chart commenting that I've gained a tremendous amount of weight in the last few years.."How come?" she says. "Cancer and quitting smoking", I say. She nods. I explain how I can't seem to get it off and she says "have you considered...", "Lap band", I say. "Yes" she says. I explain that I am now at a crossroads in my life where though I have considered lap band I would like to have a child though I'm uncertain if perhaps I'm too overweight? "Oh no", she says.."go have your baby. Lap band can wait a few years". and right there I could have cried with joy...I cry as I write this. So here I am ..day one of the OA 90 day, struggling but still trying as I know the lighter I am the better off I am.
I've been going to OA for about maybe 5 months however I only go to one meeting. It's a meeting made up of mostly Orthodox jewish women which is fine with me as I am able to keep my identity on the DL (I know a lot of people and they know me right back and they're the good, the bad, and the ugly). So this meeting with these women, who are too kind to the Puerto Rican girl who shows up each week, give me strength, hope, and the will to keep trying to lose with the help of God and the sisterhood who transcends all Religions, and all cultures.
I mentioned in another post that I had experienced something traumatic. I'm not going to go into detail but suffice is to say it happened at work, it was an incident of bullying and emotional abuse by a male colleague, and depending who you speak to, you may or may not feel I deserved it. Doesn't really matter as I've made my peace with that issue as well. As I had previously described, it left me feeling like a dog that'd been run over on the street and I honestly didn't think I would ever recover. I found a new therapist who has been supportive (of course she is retiring in a month), who suggested OA and though I was resistant, I trust this lady. I met her after my regular therapist who I'd been seeing for years emotionally abandoned me, and I had tried some other chick who insisted on speaking with a baby voice unless I reminded her that I needed her to talk to me regular (you think I'm effing kidding? I'm not.). Picture being at one of your darkest moments and everywhere you turn you encounter what appears to be crazy. You know those horror movies where there's a person who is scared and running and they keep bumping into some distorted clown figure or the like? That's how I felt...everywhere I looked..instability and dysfunction. So when I found this lady, I wanted to go home with her, cling to her, have her protect me from the demons in my head, and at my job, and from my family (yes them too). I felt like an infant who had been battered and left outside to die and I didn't think my psyche would actually make it but we humans are resilient. My therapist says to me all the time that I'm brave...if she had met the me who I used to be she would have thought I was a warrior!..but that person..she was clobbered too many times...by too many things...molestation, parents who couldn't protect her, by a sick sibling, by cancer, by an abusive coworker, an asshole boss, and by life...so now, there's just me..I'm no longer a warrior but I can fake it a little and I have my moments. You fuck with me...you're going down, maybe not physically but verbally...I don't take shit anymore and I don't get upset at people like I used to. It's sort of a zen feeling where I can tell you off, get super heated and it's gone..poof..it doesn't stay inside. How? you ask..no. It's not How..it's why? Because I don't give a shit about those people any more. Those people who try to squash you down with their words and make you feel less than. I know who "my people" are now, after so many heartbreaking losses, and I was surprised to find that "my people" are many. I have a lot of people on my team and I love them..it's clear now whereas before I loved them but I loved too many who just wanted to be seen with me.. a person who had something. If I sound like an ego maniac, please excuse me, as though I'm not super special and won't mention what I do, I have a semi-important job where you might want to know me. Anyhow, that's that. I went from a person who was somewhat stable to a person who gets frequent anxiety attacks and for a while flackbacks. A shrink I saw said I was suffering from PTSD...I think he's right but enough about that. I go to OA to be with the women..I call them the Canadians..don't ask. So I go see the Canadians every Tuesday and it helps. It helps me stay connected to my higher power, God, who I had all but abandoned until I was on my knees beggin for mercy from the pain..just begging from the pain, and I'm up, I'm walking, it's still painful but I'm functioning, trying to have my baby.
So some may be thinking, Chick is crazy, that may be, but my thinking is, where the eff else can you go to rant and ramble.
What a shitstorm you've been through the past few years. I have to disagree with you....you, indeed, ARE a warrior.
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