Binge

Last night I had one of the first binges I've had in probably 2 or 3 months. It was not good. I told some friends about some interesting/surprising/crappy stuff going on in my personal life and it was harder than I expected. While I am glad that I shared with them, it was surprisingly difficult to let them in on some of the stuff I consider embarrassing, shameful and central to my life.

I first of all want to apologize for being intentionally ambiguous, but I know that a couple my students read this and I don't want to really go there so publicly. Anyway, I told my friends about this situation that I deal with (and have been for about 10+ years now) and it is never fun to talk about or deal with. I told them that it was like a scab had formed over the wound, however, and now the recent developments - while potentially positive - were just ripping the scab right off and exposing some very real hurts underneath. This might be necessary for healing, but I can tell you it still sucks.

I am glad my friends now know and can help support me through this unpleasant situation. However, I was surprised at how unsettled the whole thing left me. I went home by way of Walmart and picked up a bunch of food -- cheese, salami, pretzels, and green onion dip. The funny thing is I thought to myself "You KNOW this will not make you feel better. STOP IT!!!" Like a defiant child, however, I soldiered out of that Walmart with crappy food in hand and ate it. I threw a lot of it away, but still, I ate a lot of it. Yuck. Not one of my finer moments.

The thing is, the situation I'm referring to is crappy. However, there is little or nothing I can do about it. This situation has already caused me (and all of our family) anguish and heartache, so why would I let it bother me more and impede my progress to live a healthy life? The reality is, removing myself from the situation is what I believe to be best for my mental health. That is not always possible, but a large part of the time it is. Engaging in the situation just makes me want to eat and feel sorry for myself, and last night I went there. It was not a proud moment. However, it is a moment I can learn from so that is what I need to do. Learn from it and move on. Maybe in time I can even face this and overcome my instinctual reactions to this situation, but one of the hardest parts is knowing that I cannot change it. There is nothing you can do to make someone else want to change. And knowing that sucks, but is not worth overeating about.

Out of the Closet

I have mentioned before that I am getting more involved with a community group from my church. I like the people in it and am starting to feel more comfortable and safe revealing parts of myself to them. They still don't know all of the history with my dad (probably going to drop at least parts of that bomb tomorrow), but I made a big step to one person yesterday: I told her that I struggle with food.

That was it. I didn't go into the details (though I later did thank her for her empathy and share with her the link to the blog in case she was curious via e-mail), but it feels good to have at least one person know. Ironically, I told her this after I had been with our group at McDonalds. I had a walnut/apple salad and actually the sight/smell/thought of McDonalds not only no longer has any appeal to me, it totally grosses me out. The circumstances/significance of our being there is another societal rant all by itself that I will forgo for now.

It feels good to have at least one person know my "secret". Now part of me thinks, "Who are you kidding - you wear size 18 and are welllll over 200 lbs; your struggle is no secret!!", but another part of me thinks of the years of shame and secret eating and knows that this is a huge deal to have my "secret" out in the open. I am similarly divided on the significance of this revelation - I mean, the title of my blog states that food will NOT define me forever, so why am I making a big deal of my dysfunctional relationship with food if I don't want it to define me? But the other part of me knows that still I often teeter on very tenuous ground and that I am not yet to the place where I can regularly control my eating; this in fact makes this revelation very noteworthy and underscores the importance of being vigilant about it at all times. Although I don't want food to define me forever, my wrestling with the emotion attached to food is still at the forefront of my day to day life and, as a result, still largely does define me for now.

Revealing my struggle was a big huge step for me. I am not sure what happens next with these people and in how they relate to my journey to have a healthy relationship with food - while I do not want them to change their food-related behavior around me, I will appreciate their understanding when I act weird around food or just forgo a lot of the food choices that are available. Further, trusting people in church-related situations is HUGE for me, and I made what for me is considered a huge step by telling one person from this environment about my problem.

I sometimes think it must seem so weird to someone who has never struggled with disordered eating before to hear that people "struggle" with food, just like I think some addictions are weird (e.g., I cannot for the life of me understand the hoarding thing!). The good news is that, even if the person I told felt like this, she never showed it at all. Could be that she is a counselor. Could be that she has a good poker face. Or, maybe just maybe, it could be that she is kind and trustworthy and genuinely empathetic. Believe it or not, my money is on the last option. I am starting to trust. I hope it is not a mistake.

Mourning

First of all I wanted to make a correction to my earlier post. My dad was apparently awake yesterday for awhile. He did 2 hours of handyman type work at the house of a client of my mom's (she does assisted living/homecare agency type stuff). My story was (unintentionally) inaccurate.

I wanted to let you know that this afternoon has been kind of tough.

I remember spending the last week of my grandma's life at the hospice with her. It was tough too as her descent was very rapid and heartbreaking. She suffered from dementia when we arrived, but we watched her slip even deeper into that and, eventually, into a coma from renal failure during our week in the hospice before seeing her pass.

I learned a lot while we were at the hospice the hospice (including that I had not severed my emotional ties to food -- this was the start of gaining back the 60 lbs I lost), but the lessons I am talking about were primarily about myself and about death. Many people are able to resist death and fight through it for a long long time (up to two weeks or even a month sometimes) when they have unresolved issues. It was clear that it was my grandma's time to go about 3-4 days before she actually died.

It was also clear, though, that she was NOT ready and was NOT going until she took care of something. The nurses at the hospice kept telling my mom and I (who were there with her the whole time), "She is not ready yet. There is something she needs to hear or wants to take care of." My mom wracked her brain. What could it be? What did she need to hear?

She went through tons of hypotheses. None of them seemed to be what she needed to hear.

One night -- it was a Tuesday I think -- mom was talking to Mema, running through scores of possibilities of what it was that she needed to hear to feel comfortable crossing over, and also telling her that we loved her and would be ok when she decided to go. Finally around 11:30 I decided I needed to get some sleep. Mom continued to talk to Mema, telling her things would be ok for those of us who would be left here. Finally, she told Mema the thing she needed to hear (my mom had no idea this one particular issue was the one that had been troubling Mema, or she would have said it much earlier!).

The nurses came and woke me up at around 12:15. "I think you might want to come in here. I think she is ready to go," they told me kindly. I went into Mema's room and with tears in my eyes and love in my heart I told her that I loved her and would miss her, but that it would be ok. It was hard, but it was probably harder to see her in such a pitiful place before she left. She died at 12:22. I was glad it was over and that she could be in peace.

The last days were painful. They were hard on us, and I am sure they sucked for Mema too.

I agonized all day today over how I should handle this situation with my dad. Should I say anything? If so, what? And also how?

A letter? I was not sure that if I wrote one, that it would get there in time.

A phone call? No. There is a good chance he would say something stupid, and I would get even angrier. And I don't want to have to think about this anymore. And I don't want to blow up at him. There is a good chance that whatever I said would not be what he heard in the spirit it was meant, and vice versa. I don't want my last memory to be a bad one. What would that help? Nope. A phone call was definitely out.

I decided to text him.

"Just wanted to let you know I forgive you," I typed out on my keyboard. Not sure if he remembers that I have said this before. Just wanted to let him know that he has my forgiveness. If that is one thing that he needs to ease down the path toward whatever comes next, I freely and genuinely give it to him. It is out of my hands.

He tried to call me. I was at the colleague's house for dinner and mercifully I did not feel my phone vibrating to let me know I had an incoming call. He left a voicemail.

He sounded terrible on the voicemail. The message started with him coughing. "Thanks for the message Sarah. Wanted to let you know I love you." Click.

I'm not sure I believe him. I am not sure he knows how to love anyone other than himself. I'm also not sure that it matters. I have done what I can, and I will definitely keep the message as something to remember him by just in case it is in fact time for him to go.

When I listened to the message as I left to go home, I started to cry. I cried several times today actually. And do you know what?

I realized that I am already in mourning. It's not so much for my dad's passing-- if it even comes now. I am sad because I laid to rest the possibility that he and I will have a relationship awhile ago. There was an outside chance that he would come around and we would reconcile, but that chance is growing slimmer and slimmer. If he dies, the chance will die completely. I am mourning the fact that I never really felt like I had a dad that I could trust, or one that put our family on his priority list ahead of himself, or one that I even liked after awhile. I am mourning for what never was rather than mourning for what might be lost if he dies.

Who knows what will happen next. I do forgive dad, and if that is the last he hears from me I am glad that he knows.

Wow this sucks for all involved. No one is really a winner here. And food will not help me deal with this situation. It didn't help when Mema died, and it won't help now whether or not my dad ultimately ends up staying here or moving on to whatever happens in the next life.

Numb

Yesterday morning I got a call from my mom. We usually talk on Saturday mornings (or at least IM ) to fill each other in on any news that transpired that week, so I was not surprised to hear from her.

What did surprise me, however, was the trepidation I heard in her voice.

"I want to talk to you about something hard," she said. I steeled myself, not sure what to expect but not expecting whatever the upcoming conversation was to be good.

She went on to tell me that my dad (who has recently retired and been struggling from health problems) has not been doing great. When she came home from working an overnight shift at around 9:30, he was still sleeping. For someone who used to regularly wake up at 4:30 or 5:00, but would "sleep in" until 6:00 on the weekends, this struck me as unusual. He woke up briefly to say hi, and then relocated to the couch, where he slept most of the day away. Mom woke him up for dinner at 5:30ish, and then woke him up at 8:00 PM to tell him it was bedtime. He has an appointment with the cardiologist this week, and who knows what if anything they will find. Hopefully they can help him. He is sleeping more and more, and generally just not doing well. Although it could be a raging case of depression, it could mean that his health is going downhill fast.

This understandably scares and upsets my mom. I could hear the fear in her voice as she told me that she wakes up several times throughout the night to check if he is still breathing. Her brother died in his sleep of a heart attack when he was around 50; my dad is now 65. Her brother had yo yo dieted his whole life, but was training for the Ironman when he died. He was in good shape then. My dad is not.

"I know this is hard for you to hear, but I just wanted to let you know. If there is any last business you want to take care of with your dad, you might want to do it now. I didn't want you to be blindsided."

Well, damn. That's pretty heavy to hear.

Although I have not gone into the details here (and I probably won't), my dad and I have a relationship that is tenuous at best but probably is more accurately described as non-existant. I found out my senior year of college that he had been living a secret life that caught my entire family off guard. Although I had issues with my dad prior (particularly his emotional distance from our whole family), this really brought the issues to a head. I felt like my world was crumbling down around me. This was probably the first really dark bout of depression that I faced in my life. I could barely do anything when I found out.

Dad ended up going to jail for what he did. It really put a cloud over my first year of grad school. If you ever want to feel like white trash, spend Christmas eve in jail with your father and the rest of your family. You will feel like a huge loser. Unfortunately I can tell you this from firsthand experience.

I think the time that dad had in jail ironically ended up giving me -- and I think the rest of my family -- hope. Dad was able to be released every Friday to go to counseling and to go to an AA-like group to help him work through his issues. My dad has always been self conscious about writing and had never been in good control of his emotions. While he was in jail, though, he would write us letters and tell us about how he wanted to change. His letters actually had substance, not just the vague puffery and small talk like conversations I'd had with him my whole life.

I really tried to build a relationship with him during this time -- one that I had either not had in a very long time, or never. Eventually, though, I became convinced that he had not changed. After his release, his promises were still empty. His words were still shallow. And what stung the most, is that he still expected everything to revolve around him -- AS IF!!!!! Basically, I felt like everything was back to business as usual, with two major differences. First, we knew about this creepy stuff he dealt with that had led him to jail. Second, he was telling us how much he had changed while doing the same old stuff. Sorry, this girl doesn't buy it.

The whole experience left me -- and both of my brothers -- really wanting nothing to do with the jerk. While it is sad, I think it is ultimately better and definitely a coping mechanism for us to just cut ourselves off. Things at home are so bad that I have not been home for two Christmases and I really try to schedule time to go home only when I know he will not be there. And it's not like I'm doing anything great on Christmas either. I usually just stay here -- alone -- and am sad. Nonetheless, it is better than going home.

The hard part is that it puts my mom in the middle.

So that's a brief and cryptic history of the situation. So back to yesterday.

"...if you want to resolve anything, I think now might be a good time."

*SILENCE*

I was surprised to know that I felt...nothing. I didn't cry. And to be honest, I really didn't even care.

I feel badly for my mom. I want to support her, but as to my dad's failing health? I was surprisingly ambivalent.

When I called a friend to talk about it, she said "You sound upset not at the fact that your dad is sick, but because you feel like you should be upset and you're not."

Ding ding ding. She was right.

The more I thought about the situation, though, the angrier I got. I don't even know who I am angry with.

Unfinished business?! I mean seriously, what can I do?

I have forgiven him. I have let him know that.

I have tried to have a relationship with him, but after being burned on this several times I am over that.

I am not the one who caused the situation in the first place. I have tried to build bridges and mend fences, but after having them sabotaged several times why would I bother anymore? And more fundamentally, HOW IS THIS EVEN MY RESPONSIBILITY?! I AM NOT THE ONE WHO WRECKED THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!! HOW CAN I ONCE AGAIN BE EXPECTED TO COVER FOR THIS LOSER?

Embarking on this journey to get healthy has really underscored to me the importance of not taking a day for granted and not letting life pass you by without really engaging in it. I am angry with myself that I spent so much time fat and a spectator in my own life, rather than grabbing the bull by the horns and steering the ship of my life myself. I am truly trying to live a life without regrets, and one that I can be proud of.

That is why, in this situation, I am sad that I am just numb to the whole thing. I really just want the situation to go away. I am sitting on the sidelines on this one, just like I used to do with my whole entire life.

I don't wish my dad a slow and painful death or anything, but I also don't really wish him a speedy recovery either. I really just don't care either way. And I am sad because of my indifference and because of the lack of a relationship with a father that I never really knew, not because my dad is dying. And that makes me feel like a huge bitch. I just feel numb to this.

I wonder how I will feel when he actually dies.

Update on my dad

Thank you all for the kind words about my dad. As I eluded to in the post, I wish I cared more about the situation. Mostly I feel badly for my mom and how all of the stress of everything plays into her life, but obviously I'm not wishing ill on the man (although, objectively, I think it would be justified if I did).

Anyway, I want to let you guys know dad was released from the hospital and sent back home. They found out that in the not too distant but not immediately recent past my dad suffered from a heart attack. No heart attacks are good, but as far as heart attacks are concerned it seems that this one was relatively mild. The heart muscle in that area is not too damaged (though not healthy), and they will just have to monitor the situation.

They released dad and have placed him on coumidin, which is a blood thinner that apparently is toxic if you are not incredibly careful about administering the correct dosage. He will have to visit the doctor every three days until they are confident they're giving him the right dosage for his situation. He will still have to go in to get the dosage level monitored periodically, although eventually it will become less frequent than every three days.

Not sure what all of this means for the future health of my dad, but I do know that it will put a cramp in my mom's style for awhile. I also learned this week talking to my mom that my dad's dad and all of his brothers died of heart disease when they were 59 or younger. My dad is now 65 (turns 66 in March). Thank you to advances in modern medicine (dad already has several stents installed)! Who knows, maybe they can keep him alive long enough for him to smooth it over with all of his kids. I am not holding my breath, but that would be great and I would not have to feel guilty about disliking him when he died (even though I have made the choice to forgive him).

The right reasons

My initial motivations for wanting to get healthy were absolutely correct. I wanted to feel better and not worry about dropping dead of a heart attack. While I am still absolutely interested in getting healthy and losing this weight the healthy way, I have to say that my motivation has morphed a bit over the 10 months I've been on this journey.

In particular, in addition to wanting to get healthy I now also want to get hot. And actually, if I'm honest, I want to be not just hot but smokin' (hott with two t's). Over time I think this has shifted somewhat to my primary motivation rather than just a nice bonus like it was initially.

However, this weekend my focus has been renewed and some things have forced me to revisit and reexamine my motivations for being on this journey.

This weekend, crazy things have been happening to my dad's heart. On Friday, he was not feeling well. Eventually his heart started racing (his resting heart rate was about 190) and his blood pressure dropped perilously low (70/90). They could not find what was wrong with him at the hospital and he began to improve so they released him. I was home this weekend and was able to see him, but he did not look good. He looked so so much older than the last time I saw him, with many more wrinkles and just looking old, uncomfortable and kind of sickly. I feel like the stress of his premature and unexpected retirement as a result of being laid off had really taken its toll on him.

Today, he began to have heart problems again. He has been admitted to the hospital for atrial tachycardia, and they are keeping him overnight to see if they can determine the cause. I am concerned for him, and somewhat sad that he and I have some unresolved issues that I just don't see being easily resolvable, or, sadly, maybe even resolvable at all. I hate having that cloud hanging over this situation too.

My grandpa on my mom's side had two heart attacks in his late 50's/early 60's. My grandpa on my dad's side died of a heart attack when Dad was in Vietnam. My grandma on my dad's side had a heart attack as well. When my grandma on my mom's side died, they realized she had blown one of her heart valves. And, with one possible exception, none of them were obese, let alone morbidly obese like I have been! This really makes me think of how important it is that I exercise and get my healthy diet on NOW when I am 30 rather than later or never. My dad has already had some heart procedures done on him as well (I believe they put stents in to open up some partially blocked arteries). The genetics are stacked against me, so I need to do my part to counteract them.

Yes, I'd love to be hot but it doesn't matter if you are hot if you drop dead of a heart attack. I need to focus on being healthy, and hope that being hot will be a side effect. Fortunately, I believe this is likely. I need to remember why I am doing this. The real reason is not to be hot, it is to be alive -- and truly living, not just existing. I need to exercise and eat right if I want any chance of beating the genetic odds. THAT is my motivation. I am sad it has taken recent events to remind me of that, but am glad that I was snapped out of my vanity zone to remember what is important in life.