Crash

Two nights ago I crashed.

I don't know how else to describe it.  I'm broken, numb, a shell of a person.  I just want to be human again.  I'm so unbelievably depressed.  I don't know that I've ever felt this way.  I put on a smile.  I go to work.  I take care of my kids, fold laundry, send polite messages, but I'm empty inside.

I just want to feel something and at the same time I want to feel nothing.

Recent events have taught me how unbelievably precious the time we have with each other is, and knowing this I can't help but feel a need to be with my kids and to cherish every second that they are with me because I never really know if or when that will end.  But the exhaustion of day to day life and my frustration of being stuck between being happy about being successful enough to provide for my family and being disappointed by the way certain aspects of my life overtakes me and all I want to do is sleep.  I rest and rest but I can't seem to sleep and it's taking its toll on me.

I haven't slept - really slept - in months.  My eyes are closed and my body is unresponsive but my brain never shuts off and I never find peace.

I feel incredibly humbled by all that I've been given in life and I can't explain why it's been given to me.  If I knew, then I would maybe feel entitled or at least like I've earned it but I feel neither.  I am neither.  I just simply have a knack for being at the right place in the right time.  Everything in my life so far has been a chain of events kicked off by pure happenstance and the way things have come together leaves me in awe.  I am not supposed to be here.  I say that not to elevate myself but instead in recognition of the way my life could be, and in some ways, the way I feel it should be.  The inequities in this world are sometimes more than I can bear and I know this is strange because I'm not complaining about how other people have it better than me or how some people get to the top by schmoozing their way.  I'm having a friggin existential conflict because I feel that my life is great and that I don't deserve it.  I see people standing on the roadside, holding signs to beg for food for their meals and wonder, "Why isn't that me?"  I read stories of children who die from malnurishment not far from where I live and I ask myself, "Why do I get the luxury of having an excess of food to the point that I can afford to use it to medicate myself, to the point that I can stuff myself so full it hurts, while these children who did absolutely nothing to deserve the destitute poverty under which they are living don't just miss a meal or two but die, die, because they don't have it?"

So then I look at my chicken sandwich that I don't physically want because I'm not actually hungry, and I feel an obligation to eat it.  It's like my grandma always said, "There are starving children in Africa..."  Hell.  There are starving children in Appalachia.  And even though I know that my eating that excess of food is going to do no one any good, I eat it.  My conscious mind says that it'd do me more good if I took that to a starving person and let them eat it but my subconscious mind tells me to clean my plate like a good little girl.

Why can I see a friend of mine, a wonderful, inspirational woman, who is part of an amazing family who goes out of their way to help those in need even when it means that they themselves go without, telling me about how she can afford to buy only fruit for her children at Christmas while my cart is full of frivolous things?

I've never been a religious person so I can't say that my evangelical missions of kindness ever touched someone or that I have suffered so much to bear my reward.  I believe there is a higher power but I don't worship that higher power.  I don't go to church.  I avoid conversations about religion and I look at my feet when people pray.

I wasn't born into a wealthy family and I am not exceptionally talented academically or otherwise.  I have no particular trade or skill to offer.  No connections to speak of.

I should be proud of what I've accomplished, but I'm not.  I should be thankful to have what I have and to not have to struggle, but I'm not.  I'm depressed because I have and others don't and I just want everyone to have what they need.  Maybe not an excess, but I believe that everyone deserves the basic human necessities and I'm so downtrodden by the amount of need in this life that I can't seem to dig myself out of the fire to be able to see past the smoke.

Drowning

Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in the business of day to day life.  I'm sure other people feel this way as well, so I know I shouldn't be alone.  There always seems to be so  much to do and so little time to do it in.  Sometimes I have to work late.  Really late.  Like 11 pm 4 days in a row late.  The I feel guilty because I feel like I'm sacrificing time with my children for my career.

So then I stop and get a big mac on my way home because I feel like I've earned it, and that little bit of fullness fills the emptyness I feel when I think of all the time lost with my kids.

I've done a lot for my kids.  I went to school for my kids, so that my kids didn't have to have the life I had when I was younger.  I studied late nights and stressed myself out so that my kids could see the value in education and that when you want something you work hard to get it.  I work late nights for my kids, so that I can continue moving up the career ladder in hopes of having the salary necessary to provide a sizeable college fund and a comfortable existence.  I work late and put my energy into my job so that my kids can be well-connected to important people and have an easy transition into the work force.  I strive to make lots of money so my kids can have all those things that the popular kids had when I was growing up.  So they don't have to be that kid whose parents can't afford nice things for them.

But I hate working so late and so hard.  I hate coming home exhausted every single day.  I hate making excuses to get time off because I feel guilty about taking a day or two for my family or myself.

You know what I wish I could give my kids?  I wish I could give them the realization that nice things and important parents aren't so important in the grand scheme of things.  I wish I could hand down the knowlege that grade school is temporary and, regardless of what "they" say, high school is not the time of your life.

Damian's graduating in less than a month.  We've been busy making preparations for his graduation - letting the family know, rearranging the budget to accomodate the change, planning the next step for each of us.  I have this lingering anxiety because I just know that this transition is going to result in my working harder, working later hours, losing focus on my family and shifting that focus to my career as he assumes full childcare and home duties.  They will need me less, and that hurts, but what hurts most is that I know I will deal with that hurt in one of two ways - either I will work longer and harder and focus on my career or I will stuff my face, and neither of those are appealing to me. 

I also start grad school in the spring and I'm nervously excited about it.  I'm excited to take this step to a new phase of my life; one that represents, in the big picture, a path to a career that better suits my interests and passions and more money.  I just don't want to leave my kids and my husband behind.

My Mom Doesn't like Chili

Comfort foods are called comfort foods because they carry a certain amount of emotional underpinning to them.  While making them, you remember the ambience of meals past; the scent triggers memories of the dish and those with whom you enjoyed it.  They’re usually hot, as heat provides a certain amount of comfort by itself, but they don’t have to be.  Ice cream on a hot day holds the prize for being the food that can snap you back to an 8 year old sitting on the sidewalk in the sweltering summertime.

Funny how food can evoke so many feelings all at once.

My mom came to visit last week.  She said she’d be here for dinner.  Considering the brisk Kentucky fall weather was in full swing, I ditched our plans to go out and decided to make chili for dinner.  Her recipe.  I thought for sure she’d love this; living alone doesn’t provide many opportunities to have chili so I was sure she hadn’t had it in a while.  Chili is my ultimate comfort food.  It’s warmth on a cold day invites feelings of security for me, like being wrapped up in a fluffy blanket or being held in the arms of the one you love.  The smell of it cooking on the stove takes me back to the days of coming home from school after a long day and spending time with my mom.  My mom.  Growing up I would spend time with my grandmother just about as often as I was with my parents.  We were a close-knit family in my early childhood.  My mom worked a lot to support so many kids (there were six of us all together), so she didn’t get the opportunity to be home with us a lot and I missed her.  I would cherish the times that we had together, and once I walked in the door from school and smelled that pot of chili on the stove I can honestly say that it felt like home.  That pot of chili on the stove was symbolic of my mother’s love.  She was overworked, tired, stressed, but still found time to serve a home-cooked meal.    I always thought she had the same associations only with her mother instead.

Moving away from my family poses a few advantages, but it also presents its own unique challenges.  In many ways it’s been good for me to have moved so far away.  I’ve changed a lot.  I’ve learned to question things and not just blindly follow what I’ve been taught.  To seek answers for myself.  To be independent.  Not to rely on people to catch me when I fall.  But in other ways, it’s been incredibly difficult.  I’ve raised my children without the help of my mother.  I’m a mother, mothering without the benefit of the wisdom of generations.  There are good parts of that as well, but being a mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world and sometimes I just really long for the type of support my mother had from my grandmother.  It’s not her fault that I don’t have this.  She loves me and she loves her grandchildren.  The feeling is mutual.  We’re not by any means estranged; we communicate via telephone regularly, though less regularly as of late.  But we’re both reasonably busy people and money limits the frequencies of our visits.  I have no doubt that I am meant to be here, just as they are meant to be there but it doesn’t make it easier sometimes.

Sometimes I just want some chili.  I need to evoke the memories and feelings of warmth, comfort, and love that it provides.  I have some great memories tied up in a pot of chili.  Nights sitting around our kitchen table with my mom, talking about anything and everything and nothing important but of the utmost importance all at the same time. 

So my mom, and I went for a quick walk downtown to look at a few things when my son announced that he was hungry.  I said, “Well, let’s hurry up and get back home so we can have some chili.  Then she told me, “Oh, that’s okay.  I don’t really like chili.  It’s all right though; we’ll just pick something up on the way home.”  I asked her, if she didn’t like it, then why did she make it so much growing up?  She said because it was cheap and easy to prepare and us kids loved it so she made it for us.  She said she never really liked it; in fact, she didn’t just not like it but she hated it.  She said it was awful and she wouldn’t make it for herself ever.

My mom doesn’t like chili.  So we went out for Chinese.

Determination Wilting

I've been watching my weight go up and up, and watching my body inflate while my energy deflates.  Lately all I've been thinking is "well, that was nice while it lasted".  When my weight was on a downward slope, I loved going clothes shopping.  I've never liked clothes shopping - digging through the racks to find my size, finding the perfect shirt, dress, pair of pants, whatever, and finding out they don't have my size (eventually, I just stopped bothering to look for my size), grunting and squirming in the dressing room to get into the next closest size and scrutinizing myself in the mirror: How well does this cover my fat rolls?  Is my "quiche top" (much bigger than the muffin top) overflowing too much?  What will this look like if I put on a tummy cincher?  I went shopping with a friend this weekend and it was honestly a tearful experience.  I was so upset that I had started to let myself go back to where I was.  I can't go back to 256 lbs.  I just can't.  For my kids, for me, for all of us.

I joined Weight Watchers tonight.  I'm hoping this will help get me back on track and back to where I need to be.

On the Up and Up

I have been off of phentermine for about 2 months now.  I sort of tapered off of it so I started coming off of it about 3 months ago.  It's scary to watch my weight rise.  I know that this increase is due to a combination of things - first, I knew when I started the low-carb diet that there would be some gain when I started eating normally again (not normally as in how I ate before, but normally as in how people are supposed to eat), second, when I came off the phentermine I started a workout routine so there's some muscle gain involved too.  Thirdly, and this is the part that worries me, I haven't been taking very good care of myself lately.  I'm at 215 right now - 11 lbs heavier than I was just last month.  I eat right all day but follow it up with Oreos in the evenings.  I need to find some other way to reward myself than with food.

A Really Bad Day

Today is Saturday, April 9, 2011 and today has been a really, really bad day.

It probably should bother me that I may or may not have a job at the end of next month, or that we don't actually have enough money to buy groceries beyond this week and I don't get paid until the end of the month, but it doesn't.  I guess I'd say it sort of bothers me that it doesn't bother me.  You know, as much sense as that makes.  I guess, on some issues, I'm sort of a fate-ist.  Sometimes something bothers me and makes me really anxious and sometimes something that I really should be anxious about just feels alright.  Serene, almost.  Like I don't need to worry because it's going to be okay.  I guess I've just decided that if it doesn't work out then it's not meant to be.  The money issue - I've got a sort of plan in motion right now to pick up some extra duties for a short while and get paid a small stipend for it, so maybe that's why I'm not worried?  But I don't know that it will work out, which is infinitely frustrating because I'm not worried.

So then why has it been a bad day?  I just feel so lonely.  I'm in a house with three other people - two children and my husband- and I feel all alone.  All  I want to do is eat and sleep, and I've done plenty of both today.  Actually, right at this very moment I have water boiling for some Ramen.  Carbs.  That's all I want to do today - carb load and sleep off the tiring effects.  And I'm going to let myself do it.  I just know that once I finish writing this I'll feel so much better and not want it so bad, but damnit right now I do.

I get into these weird sort of funks where I feel neglected by the world and those that I care about; ignored and meaningless, and the flip side of that is sometimes I feel this way but at the same time like the people who aren't ignoring me are just plain being mean to me, or like life is being mean to me, and to deny myself something that I know will make me feel better feels like I'm being mean to myself.

In this case I feel neglected by my husband.  I've done all that he needs me to do to take care of him, but he has been ignoring me.  Polite words, conversation in passing, but otherwise coexisting, and it's painful to me.  Of course I'm doing this mostly for my health, and mostly for my children, but I won't pretend that my physical appearance isn't part of it.  Damian tells me all the time how he thinks I'm beautiful and that he finds me attractive, but I haven't even gotten a hug and a kiss from him in a week and that makes me feel like an unattractive fat ass and like I'm not important enough to him to make time for me in his busy life.

I'm going through this horrible negotiation period at work over my job.  My supervisor is in my corner, her supervisor is neutral, and the HR woman believes that if I leave they can just find another me with no problem.  Maybe it bothers me the most that her supervisor is neutral.  He knows what was expected of my position and he knows how I've far superseded those expectations.  He knows my work, and yet he remains neutral.  I feel so helpless in this because I don't get to talk to the HR woman myself; we have to go through all these channels and middle men and such.  Why won't they just give me what I deserve?

I suppose that just makes me feel like I'm worthless, even after all I've done.  And I've done a lot.  I've poured everything I have into this job, as I do with each and every job I do.  I went to college to get a job where I'd be appreciated, only to work for the college I attended and  not be appreciated.  It hurts.  A lot.

So I'm going to go eat my Ramen now and probably cry a little about my seemingly meaningless existence, and hate myself in the morning.

More than just emotional eating

The most uncomfortable (and by "uncomfortable", I mean gut-wrenchingly painful) realization that I've come to along this journey is that I am not an emotional overeater.

I've tried to describe this obsessive need to eat to people before, but everyone gives me the same puzzled look and asks, "Have you been checked out to be sure there's nothing medically wrong with you?"  Yes!  Repeatedly.  Because really, if swallowing a pill was going to fix this, I would have pursued that a long time ago.

So I swallowed a pill.  Phentermine.  Legalized speed.  Basically.  The change was miraculous, overwhelming to say the least.  In a matter of only a few hours I went from nearly every waking thought was about food to not thinking of food at all, finding it unappetizing even.  I would wake up in the morning, and my first thought was "what's for breakfast?", even going as far as thinking about lunch before the sun had even risen.  I would get anxious around mealtimes, just waiting for my next meal.  Thinking about what I was going to eat, how much I was going to eat, and when I was going to eat it consumed my every thought. (Pun intended)

But with the phentermine, it was totally different.  When I was bored, I was able to recognize I was bored and not starving.  When I was upset, I was able to recognize the emotional feeling without tying it to my previous or next meal.  The thing is, I don't just eat when I'm sad, or happy, or angry, or bored.  I eat when I'm sad and happy and angry and bored.  I eat because I'm breathing; I eat because I woke up that morning.

I've got to say.  Disappointment, vulnerability, the true feeling that you've failed, or true remorse unmasked by food or appetite is painful.  The first time I felt it, truly felt it, I didn't know what to do with myself.  The phentermine took away my inclination to interpret the feeling as hunger or to mask it with endorphins related to tasty food.  It was beyond words.  In a sense, it blew my mind - at least it blew whatever beliefs I had originally held regarding my eating patterns out of the water.

So sometimes phentermine gives me insomnia and makes it so I can't sleep for days on end.  Sometimes phentermine makes me jittery, or makes me feel sort of anxious.  At those times, I stop taking it for a while.  When I stop taking it for a long while, the old ravenous feelings of hunger come back but I am better equipped to stave them off, but after a while I wear myself down and I'm less equipped to handle these constant urges.  That's when I either give in and gain or start taking the phentermine again.  I don't allow myself to feel like I've given up by taking it.  It's strange because it does weird things to me, and it almost, in a way, feels like a cop-out to me.  It does other things besides suppress my appetite; it boost metabolism and gives me a lot of energy.  I don't really have to do anything but take a pill in the morning and I'll steadily lose weight.  It feels shameful, like I'm taking the easy way out.  But I refuse to let myself feel that way, and refuse to allow myself to tell me things like that.

For too long I've allowed other people's opinions to mold my ideas, even when others weren't there to voice them  themselves.  I constantly turn over and over in my head, what would they think?  What would they say? WHY do I feel like this is a cop out?  Because I truly feel that way?  No.  No, I honestly feel the way I've described.  I'm not superwoman.  It's taken me 20-some years to even feel bad-feeling emotions.  It's taken me the same amount of time to admit this is larger than me and I need help to deal with it.  I'm proud of myself for being able to recognize when I am too much for me and I need help.  I'm proud of myself for getting that help, and I won't let me think poorly of myself for doing so.