Warning: this post may end up being long and pretty boring.
I had a bit of a breakdown a little while ago, but I'm hoping that it will turn out to be more of a breakthrough. There were an embarrassing amount of tears involved, which is annoying, because now it's hard to breathe through my nose. Why do I so rarely think to buy Kleenex?!
Here's the whole story (this is where you should scroll on by, if you so choose)-
I gained 65 pounds from the time I was 17 to now. The fun part of that is, that I've lost 30 pounds, and then gained it back, about three times in the last twelve years, and that's not counting when I had each of my kids and dropped a ton of weight literally in just a couple of days...before gaining it back. That's also not counting the times I've managed to lose up to ten or fifteen pounds before gaining it back. Or all the five pound losses...that I gained back.
When I "ran away" from home to get married to a soldier, I was in the best shape of my life; I was active, I ate healthy food...and I was still a size 14 and still felt like a whale. It's amazing how my perspective has changed over the last decade; what I wouldn't give to be a size 14 again! Even though that would still be technically overweight, it's certainly preferable to where I am now. I've barely started my story and I've already gotten off track.
Right, so, there I was, married at 17, and living across the country. Eating out at restaurants every day because that's just how my (then) husband lived. Fast food. Dinner and movies. I thought it was exciting and fun, I'd never gone out so much before in my life.
As it turns out, that kind of thing...it really packs on the pounds fast. Add to that the fact that I was getting no exercise...I gained 20 pounds just from being married (obviously it wasn't the marriage itself, but you know what I'm saying).
Fast forward a couple of months, and my (then) husband was sent overseas, and I was living with a room mate whose whole life revolved around eating junk food and watching television and partying. It was so easy to fall into her habits, having nobody but her to depend on, being around her friends who did the same thing. I didn't even notice I was putting on weight at first, but one day I stepped on the scale and I cried. I was up another ten pounds.
A side effect of uprooting my entire life and living somewhere I hated and drinking frequently and being indoors all the time and eating the way I was eating- depression. Which only made it all worse and continued the cycle; the more I did these things, the worse I felt. The worse I felt, the more I did these things.
My whole world came crashing down around me that summer. I was raped. Twice. I was pretty well convinced that it was my own fault on both counts, because of my wild behavior, and because of my stupidity. I've tried to accept, since then, that it wasn't my fault, and sometimes I've thought I was successful, even...but I still struggle with it even now, wondering "what if" and "why me" and a number of other less pleasant things.
The result of these events happening within just a few short weeks of each other, done by people I thought were my friends, was that I spent over a month locked away in my room, sleeping 16 or 17 hours a day, and eating. And eating. And eating. I only came out at night, and only to go buy something to eat. I read any book I could get my hands on during the times I was awake, crappy romance novel after crappy romance novel, because that's what my room mate had on her bookshelf.
The thing that made me stop this was that my husband called me one morning after I'd been drinking (I was still drunk when I woke up and answered the phone) and told me that if I didn't go live with his mother, or at the very least go back home to my mom, he would divorce me. So I packed up my few belongings and bought a bus ticket and came back to Colorado to live with my mom.
By that time, I'd gained 40 pounds. My family didn't say anything about the way I looked (at first), but I could feel them staring at me sometimes, and I can't even begin to describe how ashamed of myself I felt. It wasn't even just about the weight, though, it was all of it, the stupid marriage, the drinking, the parties, the rapes, everything. I wasn't that kind of girl. I was raised in a conservative, Christian home. I went to church my whole life. I'd been baptized just barely two years before. I had a good family, I had good friends, I'd been raised to do better and be better...what the hell happened?
My mom went on a diet with me and we started taking walks together in the evenings, but when my husband told me, via instant messenger, that he was back in the U.S, and at home (6 hours away from me), and that he wanted a divorce and would be bringing the papers for me to sign...when I told him I wanted to work on things and he agreed but then filed for a divorce anyway...I dunno, my mom kind of gave up on me, and so did I.
I had happy moments after that. I did. I lost ten pounds. I went through beauty school. I got married again. But there was always the depression that hadn't been dealt with, and while it was so easy to blame all the problems in my marriage on my husband for so long, my issues were to blame for half of it. The fact that we fought so much didn't help, obviously, and the more stressful our lives became, the more I would just shut down emotionally and binge eat.
I've not been...healthy. Not physically, not mentally, not emotionally. I go through times where I feel good, and start to get it together, and then I crash and burn and end up back at square one.
I can't live like this. I can't have a healthy marriage if I'm not healthy. I can't be the best mom for my kids if I can't be a good example. And I can't fix any of this until I learn to accept and move past things that have happened to me.
So tonight, I had a talk with God about it all. Well, I talked...and cried...and I know God was listening because God is always listening, even when I'm making no sense. He's answered so many prayers that I've prayed under the worst conditions. So, this is yet one more thing that I need to try to trust God to pull me through, and I'm starting to feel like a hopeless case, but at the same time I know in my head and in my heart that God has seen me through worse times than tonight. It's just, tonight is the first time I'm really fully seeing all the ways in which I'm broken, and it's the first time I've made a committment to God to start fixing these things so I can better serve Him and my family.
I'm chock-full of cliches right now about hope and motivation and whatnot, all of which I'll keep to myself out of respect for y'all. I'll just leave it at...I'm excited and nervous to take the first steps towards healing and a healthier life. My husband and kids deserve that. I deserve that.
P.S. If you read all that...well, I'd give you a cookie, but I'm trying to kick the habit...
If you did read all that, thank you. Sometimes it's just nice to know I'm not alone on the planet.
