Images of Me

I don't think anyone reads this blog, but if they do, I just want to state that anything I discuss on here- depression, weight, marriage, life- is only my point of view and only about me.  My struggles and issues are my own.  And I don't pretend to understand what others go through.  Whatever I say on here, I'm talking about me, and not you.  I never intend to offend or pass judgement or condemn anyone else.

So before I start launching anymore posts about weight issues, I want to say this first and foremost and get it out of the way.  I do not have distorted body image issues.  I don't cringe about the way I look.  I don't think I am gross.  I don't hate my body.  My body is strong, my legs are strong.  I can walk miles on the beach, I can run up the stairs, I can go hiking, I can hold a yoga pose.  I am not wanting to lose weight so I can look better, and I don't hide myself away because of my weight.  True, I don't wear tank tops and micro skirts, but I'm also almost 50 years old.  I had my flirty youthful days in the sun of short skirts, high heels, big hair and huge earrings, a great tan.  Yep, back in the late 80's when I was in my early 20's.  I'm not looking to recapture that again.

So I'm not ever going to say that I hate myself because I'm fat.  I do, however, hate being fat. I hate how it physically makes me feel.  I probably shouldn't even say the word fat, I know people think it's offensive.  But I'm just telling it like it is, at least in my situation.  I am barely 5'5" and I weigh 210 pounds.  This morning I leaned over to pick something up and split open the bottom of my pants.  That would be my flannel pajama pants.  Yeah...

My sister recently told me I'm the Queen of Selfies, because I have perfected the art of tilting my face at just the exact angle to make myself look 50 pounds lighter.  I took it as a compliment.  She said a mutual friend saw one of my better selfies and wanted to know what diet plan I was on, because I looked amazing.  Hah!  Thank the universe for filters on Instagram, that's all I've got to say.  Poor J, when we go out he takes photos of us and he knows without asking, I have to "approve" of the way I look in them before he can post them online.  I've lost count how many times I've told him "my face looks so big in that, you can't post it".  I think the only reason he bought me a newer phone the other day, is so I can be in charge of taking all the photos myself.

When I go out of the house, even when J and I go into town to run mundane errands, I am always dressed up.  You won't find me slouching through the garden section at Lowe's in a plain T-shirt.  My mascara and earrings and cute shoes are always present.  I don't dress to blend in, or to disappear.  I may feel like a slob on the inside, but I won't ever dress the part for the public eye.  Sure, my hubby sees me at home looking a hot mess, but he's that special kind of man who loves me no matter what.  And that includes the version of me that is no makeup, hair in a ponytail, and glasses on.

But under the beautiful blouse I'm always wearing, I have on jeans with an elastic waistband because anything else is too tight on me.  Trust me, I would love to be able to grocery shop in a cutesy T.  I don't "not" wear them because I don't like them.  It's because my body is so lumpy I feel as though I have to cover it up in big fancy shirts two sizes too big, so it won't cling to any of my rolls.  My mother has more than once tried to gently tell me that by wearing clothes SO big, it actually makes me look bigger than I really am.  But that message hasn't gotten through to me.  I don't want anyone to be able to see the muffin top.  So I wear large shapeless flowing blouses so they can't even find the muffin top, much less be able to measure it from twenty feet away.

I can make fun of myself here, but of course deep in my heart, when J or my family or my friends look at me and see a pretty woman, I see an overweight woman.  And that's how I think of myself.  I am not going to jump on the bandwagon that it's society's fault that women have body image issues. I have never ever believed that I will ever look like a super model, and I've never wanted to or tried to fit that image.  My body isn't built that way.  I wasn't blessed with those genes, and probably less than one percent of women around the world fit into that shapely statuesque mold.  I'm not tall, I will never be slim, my nose will always be big and Italian.  But I'm okay with that.  I'm even okay with being a bit chubby.  I am not okay with being my current size and weight, because of my health issues.  It's not because I think I have to "look" a certain way.

I read something recently that said "Your perceptions become your reality" and I want to change my own perceptions of myself.  Sometimes if I feel low on energy because I'm simply tired, I instead tell myself I'm lazy and it's because of my weight.  I beat myself up a lot about my weight.  If clothes don't fit or I eat until I'm stuffed, the little voice in my head says very negative things about my behavior.  It's easy to tell yourself to just simply change that behavior, but most people who are overweight have an emotional relationship with food that isn't so easy to cast aside.  I have an extremely difficult time viewing food as just fuel.  I attach significant emotions to eating- boredom, loneliness, celebration, stress, comfort, happiness, anger.  I know I choose foods based on how I'm feeling emotionally at the time.

I've never had self-esteem issues because of my weight.  Any of the worthlessness I still feel, stem from the years of mental and emotional battering I took from my ex-husband, feelings that I still have trouble shaking off.  And yes, he did use my weight against me during his tirades, but I never felt low and pathetic and stupid because of the extra pounds.  His abuse took in all of my flaws, not just my weight.

So while I continue to discuss my weight problems on the blog, please do not feel as though I am passing judgments on ANYONE else who struggles with this. The only person I'm pointing a finger at is myself.

MISS GEE

Little Pockets

I feel as though things have been good lately for me.  I wish I could say all my days were spent screaming with elation and joy, but no one should dare to be that happy.  If I was, I think I would break.

I do still struggle with my depression, but for awhile now it seems that the better days outweigh and smother the bad days.  I still have small moments of depression that hit me out of nowhere, but for once in my life I am fighting back.  I used to just give in, shrug, tell myself everyone has the occasional blue spells, that it's normal, just let it come and deal with it.  I don't want to continue to be that person.  I can have depression, but I refuse to feel depressed anymore.

In the fall I had a nonstop landslide of bad stuff envelope me.  It lasted perhaps two months. One kitty got very sick and died, then I had a grueling surgery, then another kitty had a surgery.  I felt as though I spent every day for weeks on end bounding from one doctor visit to the next, either for myself or for my babies.  The rocks tumbled down the hill on top of me one after another, until I was trapped under the pile.  I let it all overwhelm me and interfere with my life.  I cancelled two craft shows I had already paid for, I tried desperately to renege on a visit with family (J forced me to go, saying it would be "good" for me), and I went on a vacation that should have lifted my spirits but instead I spent it wallowing in my gnawing pain.

Then wham, here came the holidays and all of the family obligations.  I would play my part, do my thing, smile when I had to, speak when appropriate.  But I felt dead inside.  At night, when I could finally collapse, I would cry.  My bed, a hotel bed, alone, with J, in the mountains, at the beach.  It didn't matter if my husband was there to comfort me or not, I just cried.

So after yet another utterly miserable, boring, useless Christmas with the family, something clicked inside of me.  I don't know what.  But I realized that no matter how I was feeling, no matter what was going on inside my head, the rest of the world moved on.  Life moved on.  People moved on.  My family, my husband, friends.  They didn't stop because I was feeling low, because I was feeling like shit.  They didn't cancel their plans, they didn't mope beside me.  They could empathize, offer help, present solutions to problems, be supportive and loving.  But in the end, they kept marching forward with life, leaving me in their dust.

And I have to do the same, I have to keep moving in the right direction.  I cannot continue to let the depression drag me down, hold me back.  The more I do, the greater the chasm grows between me and my inner circle.  I am tired of talking about my depression, it doesn't seem to help.  I've been yammering away about it for how long now on this blog?

For the last month, I have been fighting it.  I can no longer just "let it" happen to me.  It's not fair.  It's not fair to my true self to let the chemical reactions firing in my brain, keep me from having a good day, keep me from making new friends, keep me from finishing a project or starting a new hobby.  I'm tired of it.  The depression has been winning the battle for so long now.  I've spent too long content to sit in the shadows on the sidelines, because that's where I felt I belonged.  But I have a right to a happy life.

So now lately I have been feeling "good", with little pockets of "bad" here and there.  But I am NOT going to let the one bad hour wipe out the good fourteen hours of a day.  I am not going to allow it to define me anymore.  It is time.  And I know I've posted this all before, but sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that it IS going to be okay, that it's going to turn out fine.  I am so tired of being tired, I am so through with feeding the sadness like it's a cute puppy.  It's not, sadness sucks, every day sadness for no real reason is a bitch.  Today out my window it's clear and sunny, blue and green, beautiful, flawless.  Why do I hide from it?

I am a strong person, and I am stronger than the depression.  My dreams are stronger than my fears.  My passion is stronger than my apathy.  My today and tomorrows are stronger than my yesterdays.  My healthy body is stronger than my weaknesses and illness.

My goal for 2016 is to kick depression in the ass, beat it upside the head, punch it in the nose, and leave it dying in the street behind me as I drive forward.  I won't even peer in the rearview mirror to check on it.

Life is full of amazing, wonderful, gorgeous moments.  I deserve to have them all.

MISS GEE

Resolute

Okay, I had started a post about the new year, resolutions, goals, blah blah blah.  But I quickly realized it was a lot of bullshit, and a lot of crap I've already talked about many times.  Making your dreams come true, that stuff.  So I deleted the whole thing.  2016 is going to be a year of brutal honesty, I think that's what I need more than anything else.  I can get on here and share anonymous banalities about my life, my marriage, whatever.  I can talk about my depression. I can continue to whine about why I can't seem to get my shit together.

At least a dozen times over the years I've tried to blog about the real issue, my BIGgest problem, my blackest shadow.  I try to put it into the right words.  Every time I've abandoned the posts, they are still sitting out there as drafts.  So with a new year, it's time to tackle it.  And it's nothing shocking, it's something that way too many people deal with, it's so common that it doesn't even really deserve a discussion.  But for me, I need to talk about it. Not to my husband, not to my friends, not to my mother.  Not even the repetitive conversations I have in my own head.  I just need to put it in black and white here.

I am overweight, and I have been as long as I can remember.  The older I get, the harder it is becoming to live with, the more issues it has caused.  I am at a breaking point right now.  I will be 50 this year.  I've spent my 20's, 30's, and 40's dealing with it.  I do not want to spend the second half of my life fighting this battle every day, it is wearing me down.  Killing me slowly.  Crushing my knees and back to the point I have days where I can barely walk from room to room. I don't want to turn this into a weight loss blog, but I need to spend more than one post on this.

It is critical for me at this point.  I've only ever managed to lose a significant amount of weight once in my life, and I couldn't even keep it off for a year.  And I didn't even get down to what would be considered a healthy weight.  I know that most of what I complain on here, is due to my weight.  My lack of energy, my aches and pains, and probably even my depression.  I know my weight hasn't caused my depression, but I understand that it doesn't help it, and it more than likely makes it "severe" on days when it could potentially only be "mild".  All the prescription medication I'm on, could be tossed out if only I lost weight.

Hours and days tick by.  Date book pages get flipped over.  And I do nothing.  I commit to nothing.  I weighed the same on December 31st of 2015, as I did on January 1st of 2015.  And January 1st of 2014.  What a fucking waste.  I have weighed myself every single day for about five years now, and tracked it on a calendar.  And I've saved those calendars.  I am not sure why.  It's torture, to keep around such a reminder of my failure.

You would never know it to see me on Facebook, I always look my best, I always pose, I always smile, I'm always dressed up.  But in private, I feel like a vile creature who could turn any admirers to stone when they see me.  And it's because of my weight.  I don't hate my hair or eyes or face or smile or whatever.  It's just the fat that surrounds all of it.  But that fat IS me.  It's all I ever see.  If I had to write one word to describe myself, it would be FAT.  I will say that here.  If anyone asked me in real life, I would say something stupid like ''happy" or "grateful" or what I think they would want to hear.

I would love to sit here and say I've tried everything.  I laugh to myself when people say that- I've tried to lose weight but I can't.  Well I'm here to tell you that's a load of utter crap.  If you are truly "trying" then that means you are "doing".  If you are "doing"- eating the right foods, exercising- then you are going to lose. 100% honesty here.  I talk a good game, but I am not trying.  That's as real as I can state it.  There is no action behind my words.  I know there is a mental barrier between our brains recognizing the need to lose weight, and our bodies actually getting up and doing something about it.  It's NOT easy.  It's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with.  It is my greatest failure in life.  Unlike all my other issues, this one is with me from the time I wake up until I go to bed at night.  And even then, in the middle of the night, it is there- making it hard to get comfortable, giving me acid reflux, causing me to get too hot.  It's all my weight.  All of it.

I have fallen into this ridiculous cycle of overeating on the weekends and barely eating anything all week long.   I could throw up my hands and say "I don't know how to stop" but of course I know how to stop.  I will gain 3 pounds over the weekend, and lose 2 during the week.  But the excess keeps piling up.  I have weighed over 200 pounds for about twenty years now.  I have vowed to myself that this year- if I don't accomplish anything else- I am going to be a healthier version of myself before I enter my 50's.  And it's just not my life, it's J's too.  The more I indulge, so does he.  If I am the strong one, if I say "no" to the overeating, he will too.  On the other hand, if I keep going at this rate, he will either be forced to take care of me more than he already does, or he may end up a widower too early.  Yes, it really is at that point for me, at least that's how I feel.  That's how I need to think of it.  It's beyond just being the chubby girl.  Now I am a fat woman entering the last decades of my life.

So I need to talk about my weight for awhile I think.  If you don't want to read my blog, that's okay, I don't think anyone is reading it anyhow.  This blog is still therapy for me, not a social outlet to find friends.  And I need more than one or two posts to do this.  I have to.  More to come next week.  You can jump off this train now if you want to.  I won't even know it.

MISS GEE