Day 1: The Beached Whale, and more about me!

And so it begins; the inevitable weight loss journey that I am starting once again.  So what is different this time?  Is it the fact that the thought of going to the beach this summer not only makes me want to throw up, but also reminds me of what a snow white beached whale might look like?  Or is it the fact that I want to be able to run more than two steps with my kids without having to take a “time out” for a breather.  Don’t act like you don’t know what I am talking about, cause for us a “time out” actually means that we are done with our exercise. Not for the day, but usually the week (or month, ha ha).  So what is it?  I can continue to mask my obesity in jokes, but inside it really sucks sometimes.  I want to be skinny.  I want to wear the clothes that my beautiful, sweet, happy, and of course skinny sister wears.  I don’t want to watch those skinny bitches that walk down the street and hate them for being prettier and more confident than me.  I want to be a skinny bitch.  Ok maybe not the bitch part but you know what I mean.  I want to feel good.  I want to wear the clothes that I want to wear, and not feel like every time I walk into Lane Bryant I have to watch behind me to make sure that no one that I know if watching.  If you are laughing, you know exactly what I’m talking about. 

Before I get started on this expedition, I want to start from the real beginning; I grew up in a Christian home, with good values.  I was always happy and healthy.  I was always pretty small when I was younger, my dad used to call me “skinny Minny,” but things changed around middle school.  It was about the time when I went into the 7^th grade.  I mean damn, those “sevies” are mean!  I once thought that I would be cool if I worn a thong.  Yup, it was my older sister’s thong (sorry Sis).  Well after gym I changed back into my regular clothes, and as I was bending down to pick up my belongings, apparently my pants pulled down a little and all the girls could see I was wearing a thong.  Little did I know, only the naughty girls wore thongs in middle school?!  I was modified when they ALL started laughing.  As I walked through the halls that day I felt like I was the only person in the crowd that stood out.  People would hush whispers and laugh as I walked by.  The last period of the day, a group of the “popular boys” came up to me and surrounded my desk.  They didn’t say anything they just stood there, until, one of them said 1, 2, 3, and then they all joined in chorus, “She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck.  Thighs like what, what, what.  Baby move your butt, butt, butt.  Oh I think to sing it again.  She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck.  Thighs like what, what, what.  All night long.  Let me see that thong.”  OK, so it’s pretty hysterical thinking back to it now, but back then as I cried the whole way home, I didn’t realize that the things that crept into my head were the same demons that were going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

After surviving the depths of despair some call middle school (which I honestly tried to block most of my memory), I entered my high school career.  I seemed to be happy again.  I made new friends, got a part in both the school play and the musical, and at the end of my freshman year I made cheerleading for both fall and winter season of the following year.  I lost a little weight, but the demons kept haunting me.  I thought I was HUGE, the biggest girl on the squad, and definitely the ugliest.  I made it through the year, but by the next fall I decided that I was too fat to be a cheerleader and quit.  I guess that wasn’t the only reason.  I don’t blame the middle school boys who probably don’t even remember humiliating me in such a cruel way.  You see, like ever one, my family had its problems (though our “problems” are nothing compared to what others face every day).  It was the “skeletons in the closet,” I never would talk about.  My brother has struggled with being Bipolar, and I think that High School was extremely hard for both of us.  He had a lot of ups and downs, struggled with friends, had manic modes where he would go into a rage of anger, and he was constantly fighting with my parents.  My parents are amazing.  I don’t know how they were able to deal with all that, but the downside was that they had to occupy a lot of their time trying to help my brother figure things out.  I do not blame them.  They have to be the strongest, most loving people that I know.  They are the two constant people in my life that got me to where I am today, and who I will be in the future.  It wasn’t them at all!  In fact, it was me.  I guess I didn’t want to burden them with more stress when they were already dealing with so much.  That is when the binge eating began.  My mom was concerned when she started noticing an increase in my weight, but I would just get angry at her and tell her to mind her own business.  I wasn’t ready to face the things that I am now up against, and by the end of High School I was about 170 lbs.  (FYI my brother is doing a lot better these days, traveling the world and taking on new adventures!)

After graduating I decided that I would take a year off from school and just work for a little while.  I got a job at a local grocery store, where I worked as a checker, and where I met my second “real” boyfriend.  I thought I was in love, HA.  Well when we broke up, I was devastated (or so I thought back then).  I probably gained about 10 more pounds just after that.  Right before I met my most recent of boyfriends, we’ll call him Dick.  While we were dating, he was verbally, and sometimes physically abusive.  Well, I ended up getting pregnant, that’s right haters I got “knocked up.”  I firmly believe that God had a plan though, and boy did He ever.  Surprise, surprise!  It was TWINS.  During my pregnancy, Dick wasn’t around much.  I moved back home with my parents, who once again came to my rescue, but I still was hiding things.  I was scared to tell them the truth about Dick.  I don’t think I was hiding it so much to protect him, but because I wanted (once in my life) things to be good, and “happy,” or seem happy.  I thought if I hid it that he would eventually grow up, and grow out of that stage.  I made excuses for him.  I told his parents and family that things were great between us.  I told my friends of how we were hoping to get married but that we wanted to wait so that it was about us and not the babies.  I lived my whole life in lies.  When the boys were born, I hit the weight of 230.  It gradually increased as things got worse and worse with Dick.  He was drunk all the time, and I was extremely stressed and scared about my babies’ futures.  He went weeks without seeing them except for when his family came to visit he would all the sudden want to come around again.  I called an end to things in June of 2009.  The boys were 4 months old, and didn’t see their dad more than 4 hours the 12 weeks after that.  He told me that he was going to sign over custody; he said horrible things to me about how I was unrecognizably fat.  He told me that I would never find another man, and that I will end up marrying a loser who is going to abuse and bruise me and that in fact, he wanted them to hurt me.  When he started wanting to come around more, I got a lawyer.  He was ordered only supervised visitation for a year.  When the plan was up in 2010, it was time to readjust the terms.  Though Dick was incapable of caring for two children, his lies and absurdities made it so it would be hard to win a case against him.  In return, the boys have to suffer the consequence.  Through the process I managed to get up to 263, or as the doctor said “you are now in the MORBIDLY OBESE category,” (really…). 

By the way Dick, if you are reading this, you are the one that is going to be miserable.  I am done having you as one of the demons in my head.  YOU are the liar, YOU are the cheater, and YOU are the one that is making things hard for everyone.  I am a strong, independent woman, an excellent mother, a soon to be nurse, and even sooner to be hot mama!  I will find someone someday that I will be happy and in love with.  I will be successful in my career, and you will NEVER bring me down again. 

Well now with that said, I am 263 lbs and ready to start my life fresh.  I have two beautiful happy boys, an amazing supporting family, and some of the best friends that anyone could ask for.  I am ready to take charge of my life and take responsibility for my action.  So maybe stress, lack of self confidence, and depression played a role to my eating in the past, but today is a different story.  Today I am becoming, well, me.  I am becoming the real me.  Or, I guess, the person that I want to be.  So maybe that’s what’s changed.  I have decided once in my life that I am responsible for these pounds, and these demons.  It wasn’t the boys (or girls) in middle school that created these images I have of myself, it was me.  It wasn’t my parents who didn’t see that I was lying, that I was unhappy and that I was hiding an eating disorder and depression.  It was me who should have gone to them and told them, and gotten help when I should have, before I was “morbidly obese.”  It wasn’t the things that Dick did, that pushed me to my largest weight yet.  It was the fact that I enabled him to treat me that way for so long that I lost my self, and gave up fighting.  Well, guess what?  It’s time to kick this fat ass back into shape, in more ways than one.  My Focus for 2011:  My boys, school, and weight.  It’s time to fight the demons, one ass cheek at a time!