I have just started reading a book written by a fellow Charlotte transplant, Tommy Tomlinson. Once I learned that the book, The Elephant in the Room, was about his struggles with his weight, I knew that I would read it.
It's a sickness almost, my obsession with weight, weight loss and others' experiences with it. Between that, my knitting fanaticism and my unrelenting love of all things true crime, I'm either a snore to talk to or spellbinding.
Already, this book has made my eyes well up with tears. I don't know if I can finish it, as it's painful for me to read, but I need to keep reading it. It's like the need to get my eyebrows waxed--I know it will hurt, but once it's over I'll forget about it and feel better about myself. (That's a horrible analogy, but I didn't want to resort to using something more trite.)
A passage has made me pause. It compelled to write in this blog again, after months of ignoring it. It reads: "Being fat made me a kid who turned inward. Being fat made me stand out to people inclined to be cruel. Being fat made me think I'd never find love. Being fat made me doubt every good thing about myself. Being fat made me. The past tense is wrong there, I know. I'm still fat, so it still makes me what I. But part of what I'm trying to do is drag the past back into the past. From here on out, I have to unmake me."
These lines sum up what I have been trying to say in this blog for over 3 years now, as the 4 year anniversary of the day Roosevelt and I met approaches.
And therein lies what I have been struggling with since I woke up in the recovery room that day in March. Or rather, since the day I decided to pursue weight loss surgery.
Being fat made me. And for close to 5 years now, I've been unmaking myself, as it was April 2014 I had my first consult with a bariatric surgeon.
In some ways, I have not changed at all.
My introverted self still craves time alone to recharge the old batteries. I still bite my nails when I'm stressed and tuck my hair behind my ears. I still talk with my hands. I still can't carry a tune, but love to sing in my car. I still drink way too much coffee and spend way more time than I should surfing the internet looking at yarn or adoptable dogs/pigs.
However, the funny thing is, the biggest nonchange of all, is that the way I see myself has not changed. I still see myself as a fat girl.
No amount of therapy, no new glasses prescription, no amount of pictures, nothing has changed that.
Over the course of the past few months, I've been working with a different group of people. They learned fairly early on that I had had weight loss surgery, as if you go out to eat with me, it's hard to keep it hidden.
After working with them longer, I decided it was time to show them my before picture. And I was terrified to do it, because I still see myself as looking the same way.
Logically, I know I'm not that size anymore. However, I still have some of my "fat" clothes saved. I still buy clothing at least one size bigger than it needs to be. I had to talk myself out of buying a size 22 dress the other day, when I happened to be wearing size 10 pants. Whenever I start knitting a new sweater for myself, I always cast on a much bigger size than I need and end up ripping it out and starting all over again.
Part of this is also fear of gaining back the weight.
I'm diabetic. Surgery did not cure my diabetes. It did make it better controlled for a while, than my pancreas once gain stopped playing well with the rest of my body.
So, I had to start using insulin again.
Insulin was one of the factors that caused me to pack on close to 60 pounds in under 6 months. I also was overeating, but the insulin didn't help.
Anyhow, my pancreas decided it had had enough once more and stopped chugging along the way it was.
And once I started using it again, weight started creeping back on. Granted, less than 20 pounds, but still, any weight gain to me was/is catastrophic.
Seeing that number on the scale grow instead of decrease...I did not handle it well.
I begged my doctor to let me stop taking insulin. Obviously, that was not an option.
I restricted my already limited eating even more and just tried to accept the inevitable--I was going to weigh at least 250 again, maybe over 300, because I was one of those people who had failed at weight loss surgery.
And as much as I want to preach that size doesn't matter, that you just need to be happy in your own skin, blah, blah, blah, for me, in this weird state of trying to figure out who the fuck I am now, it does.
When you've been defined by your size for most of your life, it does matter.
And I had been working on silly little things to help me accept myself. I stopped straightening my hair and embraced my curls. I stopped wearing my contacts and invested in some fun pairs of cheap glasses. I stopped trying to fight the person my genes told me I was--I am a woman with naturally curly hair and horrible eyesight.
However, thanks to taking a 23andme test, I also knew that my genes make me predisposed for gaining weight.
Thanks Ukrainian peasant heritage. I appreciate the love of vodka, but my hips don't need to hold on to lard for warmth.
So in the midst of this whole, I'm turning 40, time to embrace my genes groove I was in, I am hit with this weight gain and the dilemma--do I accept that my genes want me to be fat?
I didn't have 3/4 of my stomach removed for nothing.
And now, after panicking for months I should have never given away my size 20 jeans, the weight is coming back off, a little at a time. Even though I'm still on insulin.
But at the same time, a tiny part of me was relieved, because I know how to be the fat girl. If I gained all the weight back, I wouldn't feel like a stranger in my own body.
This new life, it's too hard some days. It's exhausting trying to pretend how to be in this body. To learn how to not be invisible anymore. To learn how to deal with unwanted attention. To have thighs that don't touch, but to still have a spare tire of loose flesh around my middle.
I thought that post surgery, I'd never need shapewear again. I now need it to hold in the damage that my weight caused to my body, to flatten the skin that will never snap back into place.
What I expected my life to be post surgery and what it is are not the same.
I thought that therapy had prepared me to handle it. And it did, to a point.
I thought that my religion would help. And it does, to a point.
But for me right now, no matter of time spent on a therapist couch or on my knees praying is making any of this any easier.
This could all be temporary. It probably is
However, I have no timeline of how long it will last. For fuck's sake, it has been nearly four years since my surgery. And I'm still struggling, although I have achieved my goal of being able to wear knee high boots, since I could never wear them prior to surgery.
Last night at work, there was an incident with a customer that quickly escalated from disgruntled woman to woman threatening to beat up librarians.
I hit what I thought was the button to summon security. Instead, I hit the button which summons the police.
My hitting the button to solve a problem potentially caused a bigger problem, as the situation wasn't dire enough to have the police come in, guns blazing.
It;s a clunky metaphor, but sometimes I wonder if I hit the wrong button in my life.
Maybe I could have tried another diet. Maybe I could have lost weight by an alternate method than surgery.
Then I think of how I have done WW before, lost a bunch of weight, then wind up starting over. I think of how I did Jenny Craig and ended up gaining it all back.
I needed a way to stop myself from the destruction I was causing in my own life, with food.
Hence, the gastric sleeve. or as I call mine, Roosevelt.
I do not like feeling these regrets, but it's hard to not ruminate at times at what I have done to my life.
Sure, I weigh less than I did.
I'm still overweight according to the good old BMI scale.
I avoid social situations where there will be food involved.
I wish I could eat raw fruits and vegetables still. I wish I could eat without fear of involuntary bulimia. I wish I could stop taking the pill that mostly prevents my debilitating heartburn.
I wish I could have lost weight in a way that doesn't feel so embarrassing.
I had to have a surgery that physically prevents me from overeating because I couldn't stop myself.
It's humbling. It causes me shame to admit I was too weak to just eat less. Or that's how I feel some people see weight loss surgery--you can't just put down the fork, so you have to resort to drastic measures.
Yes, I am addicted to food.
So is Tommy, the man whose book I cannot put down. The man who chose to not have weight loss surgery because he felt it wouldn't change what made him fat.
And that was a hard thing for me to read.
Yet, I know that no one is exactly the same.
I made my choice because I had failed at dieting and exercise. I knew I needed something more powerful than using a pedometer and counting calories.
And I think if I could see more changes in myself than I do, I wouldn't be feeling this way.
And it's not just the physical changes.
I wish I was more confident. I wish I didn't doubt myself so much. I wish I was more willing to open myself up to others. I wish for so much many things that I don't know if I'll ever get.
But I never thought I'd be able to wear tall boots. And now I own several pairs.
Irregardless of what people say though, a pair of shoes isn't life changing.
Yet, when I spend time with people, when I do reveal little tidbits of my life, when I can relax and be myself, I realize that I'm not that bad. That I would be my friend if I met someone like me.
I mean, my dog Lila adores me and she doesn't like everyone.
So I can't be all that bad.
And I have to stop this freight train of thought in my head "because you lost weight you should..."
Because who I was before I lost weight wasn't a bad person either. If anything, my fat made me more compassionate. More empathetic.
Last week, I had lunch with my 8 year old niece in her school cafeteria.
There was one little boy in particular who caught my eye. He was very chubby, wore glasses and had bright red hair. My heart started to ache for him, because I assumed he was bullied. I assumed he was friendless. I assumed because he was so deliciously fat, he was miserable.
Of course, my niece told me I was wrong, because she's his friend.
And my heart grew with pride.
And I realized that my experiences aren't necessarily what will be the case for everyone else who struggles with weight.
I just wonder who I would be today if I hadn't been told that I needed to lose weight to be pretty. That losing weight would solve everything.
I don't think I'd fight so hard for what I want.
I don't think I'd be a writer.
I don't know if I'd recognize myself. Or even like myself.
Because while I may not be a millionaire, while I may always have cat fur and dog hair stuck to some part of my outfit, while I may always be socially awkward, while I always say what's on my mind, unfiltered, while I may not be perfect, that's okay.
Because this is me.
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