[Weight 3]

Me this past week. I finally decided to wear a dress.

You are responsible for who you become… Love yourself, Like your speed; Leave your scars; Live your skills!”
― Israelmore Ayivor

Well, it’s June and I’ve made more progress. I’m down to 181lbs. That may not seem like a lot of weight loss, but it feels like a lot to me.

Even with all the issues I’ve been having to deal with, I’m still keeping the promise I made to myself to stay active. It’s getting easier and easier. I feel tighter. I mentioned last time that I had difficulty chasing after my kids, that’s no longer the case. I feel lighter, faster. I still have a lot more weight to lose but I’m doing it. I’m staying consistent and that’s been difficult.

I’m biking with my kids, running with them. I even created a game we play at the playground called Dodge Tag. It’s dodge ball but with tag elements added to it. That gets me moving and sweating. I’m trying to make this as fun as possible but I’m so proud of myself.

There have been some days where I don’t want to get up and do anything. So, on those days I get up and do chores at least. I’ll vigorously scrub the shower and mop the floors – do a lot of reaching and grabbing. I’m trying to add weight training into my routine but I’m finding it difficult for some reason. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

So, what am I eating? I’m eating a lot more protein. I’ve even implemented protein shakes into my eating regiment. It was so easy for me to cut back on the sugar and salt. I didn’t realize how easy it would be to let that stuff go. Fast food makes me gag and I can’t eat fried foods anymore, I got rid of my grill as I’m not eating that stuff anymore either. I’m eating more fruits – not so much bananas – but ones with a lot of vitamins and fiber. I recently found out that I like quinoa and acai. Cauliflower [rice] and artichokes are becoming a fan favorite of mine as well. I’m having so much fun with this. Trying new foods, watching how much I eat. Keeping to my eating schedule and making sure I chase my kids around. No white rice, brown rice. I cut back on my potatoes; I’m eating more eggs. I had to cut back on my cottage cheese because of the dairy. And when I did that my abdomen cramps went away completely, no sharp pains, no constant running to the bathroom and my bowel movements have become regular.

I did a full blood panel and of course I’m still vitamin D deficient but I’m taking D3 for that. I wish I can work on my sleeping, though. There are days where that’s the reason why I don’t want to get up because I’m still tired. I’m going to bed on time most nights. It’s either at 8:00pm or at 9:00pm. It depends on when the kids go to bed. Seeing as they’re home for the summer they’re going to bed later in the day. On Fridays we stay up for movie night but other than that I like keeping everyone on a consistent schedule. It’s working out for us.

I want to find more recipes to keep it fresh and new. I don’t want to get bored with the things I’m eating. I’m having so much fun though. I got stuck in the I like this so I’m going to eat it forever until it’s no longer mouth stimulating. The texture journey has been an interesting one to say the least. There were things that tasted great, but I didn’t like how it felt in my mouth. Made me sad.

I haven’t weighed myself in a month, so I don’t know if I lost or gained weight which is normal, but I feel great and just typing about it is making me smile. I’m so glad I’m sticking to this.

If I didn’t have to deal with baby daddy drama, and only have to buy clothes that fit, my life would be smooth sailing. But without trials and tribulations, life would be monotonous, stagnant. There would be no room for growth.

[Weight 2]

One of these days, something is going to scare me into getting up out of my seat and do something about this shit. – Me

Well, that day finally came, and it didn’t take long. It took a few episodes of ‘My 600lb Life’ to get me off my behind. I can’t imagine not being able to wash myself without help. I’m not anywhere close to how much they weigh but I like doing things myself and I refuse to make my kids be the burden of my own choices. That’s irresponsible AF.

I went to see a gastroenterologist. Apparently, at one point I was 280lbs. I forgot about that dark time in my life. I was extremely depressed, stuck in a dead-end relationship and wanted out. I ate to hide how I was really feeling. I buried myself in food to swallow what I really wanted to say to my [fiancé] at the time. That wasn’t healthy of course, but over time the weight fell off it seems because when they took my initial weight, I was 236lbs then down to 210lbs.

It’s been a little bit over a month since I went to see the gastroenterologist. I made an appointment to see a nutritionist and she gave me a lot of recipes and exercises I could do. I’ve been doing them. I’m under 193lbs now.

I’ve been walking more, eating better, thinking better. I’ve completely cut out fast food (I wasn’t eating that much of it before) and soda. I still can’t chase after my kids and keep up just yet but if I keep going, I’ll be able to catch up to them. I guess it would help when I’m playing tag with them, I’m not on grass.

So far, I’m enjoying my journey. What I was not expecting was sweets being disgusting. I tried drinking one of my kid’s Capri Sun’s and it was so sweet. My kids then offered me a Reese’s Cup the other day and I couldn’t eat it. I can’t look at fried food without gagging. I can only eat one proportionate sized meal a day and I cut that in half. I’m still snacking a great deal and I’m trying to cut back on that. I can taste the chemicals, (everything is a chemical of course) the processed ones in certain foods and drinks and that turns me off from those. There’s a lot of protein in my diet, because apparently that’s important. I learned a lot from my last couple of appointments that’s for sure.

My main issue I’m having with this journey is the new textures, smells and routine. I’ve made it where I eat every day around the same time. Take my medicine the same time every day. I don’t eat at night either. I need to work on my sleeping habits but I’m not watching television no more to sleep. It’s dark in my room, for the most part. I have to work on turning my brain off.

Next week, I’m off to the dentist. They’re going to get my smile together. I’m slowly but surely working on myself and trying to reverse everything depression and being in a shitty relationship did to me. I should have never let myself go like that; especially for someone I lowered my standards for. [Love]’s a bitch.

Now if I can just work on my diastasis recti so I can stop looking 7 months pregnant…

I’ve since had an update: [Weight 3]

[8½ Years]

I was oblivious to you clocking out. One day, you decided to clock out and never return. For 8½, almost 9 years you saw me as nothing more than a tool to be used and then discarded when you were done with me. You couldn’t care less how I felt.

“It took years for me to get over you!”

Why did you stay? Why did you come back? Why did you cheat on me? Why did you hurt me with your words? Why did you break my heart? Why did you manipulate me? Why did you use me? Why did you steal from me? Why did you destroy my belongings? Why?

WHY DIDN’T YOU LEAVE?!

For most of those 8½ years I focused on making myself better for you. Doing things differently for you. I paid more attention. I edited myself. I spoke up when I needed to. I communicated. But with you, it all remained the same. You didn’t bother to change anything. Then you tell me, after 8½ years of being your fiancé, that you spent majority of those years “getting over me”.

I spent a lot of those years unhappy, blaming myself, afraid to even speak to you. I get back into therapy she told me to make amends, to not give up if that’s what my heart tells me to do. You then tell me I hurt you and you can no longer care about me. You mentioned the amount of effort you gave.

Ok.

You put in effort that you were willing to do. When I needed you most, you made excuses. You couldn’t even apologize. When it was time to hurt me, that’s where the effort went. When I really needed you most. To keep from hurting, from walking home in the cold with no boots, socks, or a coat, you were nowhere to be found. When I had to catch the bus home after having my son, I then had to put the crib together. I had to deal with our miscarriage alone. I dealt with birthing our children alone, which for one, you were in the room for. You couldn’t even hold my hand and tell me “You got this. I got you!”. I’ve been alone for a long time. That much is true.

I guess your pain is valid, but I’ve never hurt you like you’ve hurt me. I’ve never cheated on you. I’ve never demeaned you. I’ve never made you feel stupid. I’ve never left you out. I never lied about how I felt. I never manipulated you. I never gaslighted you. I did my best to be there for you. I supported you the best way I could. I never once woke up any day of our relationship and decided to make your life a living hell. I never went out of my way to harm you with words in all those 8½ years. I spoke my piece because deep down I knew my feelings weren’t wrong. I knew how I was being treated but I kept trying. I was trying.

The only reason you wanted to marry me was so you could have the same [rights] my ex-husband has with his child. All you had to do was file the paperwork with the courts. That doesn’t require you to marry me. “It took years for you to get over me”, but just last year you were looking at rings. Seriously?

The pain in my heart from the realizations is going to take a long time for me to get over, but I’ll get over it and be better for it.

You gave up years ago.

I wish you would have let me go.

[Weight]

I want to laugh but if I laugh it’ll just turn into uncontrollable sobbing. I refuse to shed another tear. I’ve been in and out of the hospital most of my life. I wanted to say for the better part of 2 years but that’s not accurate. Doctors was talking to me about my probability of certain illnesses since I was 15, but alas.

I’m trying to lose weight but it’s not going anywhere. My nutritionist told me to expect this. I fasted. I starved myself. I walked. I ran. I exercised. I almost prayed but I’m not that desperate. I’ve researched. I’ve cried. I’ve gotten frustrated with myself. I’ve gone into denial and back out of it.

Nothing.

I’m sitting here thinking of my journey and I chuckled. When I was much younger, I thought I was fat. My family decided that on top of PTSD, I needed to have issues with my body as well. I thought that tiny, insignificant ass little pudge made me “fat”. If me right now could go back and stand in front of me of the past I’d laugh. I’d run so far away from the actual fat me that I wouldn’t have met my now ex-husband and my ex-fiancé.

I would probably still be skinny.

The baby weight fell off of me when I had my middle child but with my youngest, my weight is hanging around like a bad habit. Then again, I wasn’t driving or staying home as much. I also was walking and moving more.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve gone back to the stationary life that had me sitting in a nutritionist offi – I take that back, that’s not the only reason. I was incredibly physically sick at one point, and I almost jumped off a freeway overpass one weekend I didn’t have the kids.

shh..

Anyway, I’m better now and I’m no longer attempting to take my life at opportune times. That was a long time ago and I thought my diagnosis – that I’m not mentioning here – was a death sentence. That was my mind’s irrational overthinking taking over rational, logical thought, as usual.

I’m frustrated with my weight. I’m also at a loss because I know I only have so many years left before this is just how I’m going to look until that old people spread take over. Then again, I’m 35 and it’s too late. Well, in my mind it’s too late because it takes nothing to sit here and stay out the fucking way.

I want to justify my stationary life, but I also want to get up and do a few jumping jacks. I used to run track. I never thought my ass would go from a 135 to 210. I would laugh if someone said that shit to me. My weight is pissing me off but not enough to get up and actually do anything.

One of these days, something is going to scare me into getting up out of my seat and do something about this shit.

Today is not that day.

Here’s an update [Weight 2]

[C-PTSD]

The sudden anger. The deer caught in headlights feeling. The frustration. All of the feelings that come flooding in after getting caught up in place that no longer exists.

It puts me in a funk for the rest of the day.

Every single time it always feels like I’m there. It’s always at the kitchen sink. It never fails. It’s been almost 20 years now.

• Caused by long-term, repeated trauma.
• Typically arises from childhood experiences.
• Often occurs in those who have endured racism and oppression.
• Usually more severe than PTSD. 

Although the concept of C-PTSD is longstanding, it is not in the fifth edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5), and therefore isn’t officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Although C-PTSD comes with its own set of symptoms, some believe the condition is too similar to PTSD (and other trauma-related conditions) to warrant a separate diagnosis.

 As a result, the DSM-5 lumps symptoms of C-PTSD together with PTSD. [x]

I have been on every antidepressant known to man and nothing has worked. My [insurance] won’t cover psychotherapy so I’m shit out of luck there. The only thing I know that works is to tell myself to stop it.

Stop it, Lee! Cut that shit out! You’re not there anymore! They can’t hurt you anymore! Stop going back there! Every time you go, you get stuck. The more you get stuck the longer you’re there. Let it go!

It works about 95% of the time. The rest of the time I’m mad for no reason or sad for no reason or upset for no reason or tired for no reason or depressed for no reason or anxious for no reason…

The only time I’m fine is when I’m listening to music. I rely on music so much that when I’m stressed out my brain automatically plays a verse from a random song in my head until it drives me nuts. No matter what I do it only goes away when it’s ready to.

I’m looking forward to having a different perception of life.

[Walls]

I’m dead inside. I know it. Parents at my kid’s bus stops can see it. The bus drivers see it. Their teachers can see it. The cashiers at the gas station can see it. My doctors ignore it.

I don’t look in the mirror anymore. I can’t bare the sight of looking at myself. I wash myself with my eyes closed, I know where everything is. The irony in all of it is, things I would have never found funny I find hilarious now. It’s comical that now I gain a sense of humor.

What isn’t funny these days? Peep.

I talk to myself, a lot now. I’m talking to the walls, my computer, my bed, the windows, my refrigerator, and my front door. When I’m in the grocery store, I’m having full blown conversations with myself. People looking at me like I escaped the looney bin. Do I care? Nah. I keep telling myself to journal more, blog more. That way, my thoughts are not running around in my brain. But why? Talking is easier and quicker. It doesn’t help make anything better but It’s me I’m talking about. When does anything turn out for the better?

Okay, the punchline is that I’ve turned into my mother. Minus the alcohol.

She needed liquid courage. All I needed was enough unfortunate events to happen. She would talk and talk and talk. If the walls could talk back, they’d tell her to shut the fuck up. It would be the same damn thing every time. She never changed what she talked about. She would start off whispering and grumbling to herself. If someone came downstairs to go out the door or in the kitchen and ignored her, she’d get louder, and louder and louder. If she saw me you can hear her down the street. I just wished she’d changed it up a bit.

See? Funny.

That’s how I know she didn’t have shit to drink about. How are you that drunk in the afternoon and you’re not spouting out the true reason why you can’t sleep without a bottle in your hand? If I was that deep in the bottle, I’ll be airing out everything and everyone that put me in the muthafucka in the first place. Nope. She blamed me for her problems – the second oldest. She would say her mother is the reason why her kids hate her. Nah, lady, that’s your fault.

I want to get my talking to myself under control but I’m realizing that I’m failing at that. I have my brain filled to the brim with many other problems, I don’t think I have the capacity to keep it in anymore. It’s either that or I spent so much time keeping everything bottled in that it’s involuntarily leaving my face. That autism diagnosis threw me off last year, I’ll tell you what.

I already didn’t have a single clue to who I was and that didn’t help. I spent a lot of time keeping myself from crying and keeping myself from drinking. I would sit in silence and stare into nothing. I would get my kids out the door for school and sit at my desk staring. Thinking. Remembering. It made so much since. All of it. It explains why anti-depressants don’t work.

My suicide ideation was strong.

I had it bad. I would go into autopilot just so I can go inside my head. I would look up and it’s 9:30pm. I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was dying. Leaving. I wanted to leave this existence. It was like I was in a desert really needing a glass of water. I would not have known what to do with that glass of water once I got it. I just knew I needed it. I never wanted to die so badly in my life than I did – wait, I take that back.

Anyway…

I paid attention to it this time. really paid attention to it. I had this want; this urge to be in it. I wanted to feel every bit of that suicidal ideation. It felt warm. It felt normal. It felt safe. I don’t know how I got out of it. It really had a hold on me. I couldn’t go outside without thinking about. I couldn’t get behind the wheel without thinking about it. I couldn’t get in the shower without thinking about it. I couldn’t eat without thinking about it. I couldn’t take a shit without thinking about it. Every step I took, I thought about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

But there was always that voice, that muffled voice. Off in the distance, down the hallway, behind a closed door. There was that voice, that nagging fucking voice. My will to live: duct taped and tossed in the closet, but it mustered out a “You can’t do it! You have nothing to gain, but they have everything to lose!” every so often. I grew to hate that voice and no matter how much I wanted it to stop, it would haunt my fuckin dreams.

Speaking of which, I was having some weird dreams. I don’t dream often but I was dreaming a lot of weird shit around that time. I couldn’t make heads or tails of that shit.

Where was I…oh, right.

Last year were dark times for me mentally and emotionally. It was stressful for everything else. I still have suicide ideation but it’s at my normal levels: 1-2 times every other week. If I stick to my diet and going on walks, I’ll be fine, I guess. I can’t do shit else. Outside of my responsibilities making sure my kids have consistency, I’m a fart in the fuckin wind.

[Privileged Trauma]

The definition of privilege: A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
The definition of trauma: A mental condition caused by severe shock, stress, or fear, especially when the harmful effects last for a long time

I’d never heard of such a foolish thing before my ex-husband said it. I used to wonder why people say the things they say until I realized how pointless that was.

How could anyone put trauma in a little box and label it privileged? Simple. You can’t. My trauma isn’t privileged because someone else has worse trauma. My trauma is my trauma. I feel for those who have had it worse than I have. To look at me and tell me I’m lucky that I didn’t get gang raped and cut up while other people watched is ridiculous. To say that I should check my privilege because someone else in another part of the world has it worse is absurd. My trauma isn’t less valid because I live in America, and they live in what [he] considers a “third-world” country.

I’m so glad I never opened up to him about my trauma. He’s only gotten snippets here and there about what I’ve gone through.

I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone. Not even on the ones that traumatized me.

Despite it all and the damning circumstances, let’s talk about one aspect of my trauma that even I didn’t realize until recently. I halted generations of trauma when I became a mom. It ended with me. I’m not perfect, but I’m miles ahead of where I came from. I would say that my family would be proud of me, but I highly doubt that.