So many people care what people think of them. They don't like going to the gym because they worry that people will be judging them because they are overweight. I have a dear friend who actually underwent gastric bypass because she was afraid her nieces and nephews would be embarrassed by her. There are people on MFP who won't even admit to how much weight they need to lose, because of what others will think about them.
I get it. I really do. I spent most of my life not only caring what other people thought of me… but caring so much that I actually lived for them. For the first 28-ish years of my life… I did not write my own life story. I took dictation. I lived the way I thought everybody else wanted me to live. I did what was expected of me by everybody else. I suppose I have to say that I chose to live that way… nobody ever held a gun to my head, but I never felt like it. I never felt like my life was my choice. And in way, I felt like there was a gun to my head. I felt like I had to be perfect if I was going to be loved. And love is everything to me. EVERYTHING! The threat of losing love was as terrifying, if not more so, as if someone had actually put a gun to my head. So, I did what I thought was expected of me… by my parents, my siblings, my friends, my church.
I was desperate for some form of control over my own life. I was desperate to make a choice that was just mine. But I had to be careful. Because if I did anything that anybody didn't approve of… I would lose their love. At least that's how I felt. Long around the age of 15 (I think?)… I made a choice. I started engaging in a behavior that I knew nobody would approve of. Not my parents, friends or church. And I did it in secret, so nobody would ever know that I wasn't that perfect little girl. The first time was probably more curiosity than anything. But it quickly became a control thing. It was the one thing in my life that was just me. A choice that I made. And it continued. And it escalated. There were numerous times when guilt would get to me for what I was doing. And I would stop… for a time. But deep down… I clung to it. It was the one thing that was just me. That was my own choice. And I loved it for that reason. Over the years it escalated into an addiction.
I decided that maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. It was just going to be part of my life. Which might have been okay. Except I started hating that I was living a lie. Not just with this… but in general. My whole life had been lie. And I hated it. I resented it. I resented everybody in my life… because it was for them I was living it.
I finally got to the point where I was done. Just DONE! I was sick of living for everybody else. I was sick of not knowing who the heck I really was. I was sick of caring what everybody thought of me. I was sick of having to be someone I wasn't in order to be loved. So… I did what any normal person does… I rebelled. If I knew my parents, friends or church would have disapproved… I was willing to try it. Don't get me wrong… it was never major. I just did the same things I knew other people my age were doing. I was hurting. I was angry. And I was miserable.
And that made me even angrier. That I had been so brainwashed about what was acceptable for so long that I couldn't even be a normal person. And as you can imagine… the addiction only intensified during this period.
After one particularly horrible night… that followed a particularly horrible week… I reached a breaking point. I was miserable. I was screwed up. And I needed help. I reached out to the only person I knew… a religious leader. It wasn't that I was particularly wanting to "get right with God" or to come back to church…I just knew I needed help and I seriously didn't know where else to turn.
What started on a desperate Sunday afternoon continued for more than 5 years. I had been lucky that that religious leader (he was called a "bishop") somehow understood what I was saying and knew that what I was dealing with went a lot deeper than just getting right with God. And that in fact… getting back to church was really the last thing I needed to be working on. And I was lucky he was patient enough and stubborn enough to stick with me as I worked through all my crap.
I can't even begin to describe what those 5 years were like for me. I thought I had hit rock bottom on that Saturday night before I first approached my bishop. I learned in the 5 years that followed that, like Rachel said on Friends, "there's rock bottom, there's 50 feet of crap. Then there's me." When I thought I could sink no lower… the bottom would drop out from under me. It was an all-consuming process. I spent hours writing in journals trying to work through all this. I isolated myself from everyone. I would meet with that bishop every week. Sometimes as often as twice a week. And this continued for 5 years. I went through a pain I can't describe. I shed more tears than I thought a human body could produce. I know what it was like to know that the worst, the darkest, the most terrifying demon I would ever face was the person I saw in the mirror. I know what it's like to hate yourself. At least 5 times a day I would say "I give up." And every time I said it, I knew I couldn't. I know what it's like to take two steps forward and one step back. And I know what it's like to feel like the way it was for me was one step forward, two steps back. I wondered time and time again why I was doing this if it was making me so miserable. I remember feeling like I was in an even worse place than I was when I started. And I wondered why I even bothered to try. The bishop actually asked me that question too. And the only thing I could say was "if this is where I'm at when I'm actually trying… imagine where I'd be if I wasn't." And I kept going. Finally after 5 years, I got to a point where I was actually feeling good about myself. Where I was learning who I really was and learning how to make my actions consistent with that… no matter what other people thought. Things didn't go perfectly from that point on… but I started to learn to monitor myself and how I was feeling and the way things were going, so that I could fix things or ask for help before I got to that point of rock bottom. I learned that honesty (in word and deed) trumped all for me. I learned that if I was going to lose love by being honest… by being who I truly was... it wasn't really love to begin with. I learned to live my life and not the life I thought was expected of me.
Now fast forward about 2 years even beyond that. That was when I decided to start losing weight. It never occurred to me to be self-conscious at the gym. I didn't care what anybody thought of me. And MFP was the one place where I knew I could be absolutely straight forward about my weight. I also knew that I could do this. If I could lose weight at the pace of 2 pounds a week… I'd lose the weight I wanted in 2 years. Two years? That was nothing! Even if I slowed down to only a pound a week… that was still only 4 years. I could do that! I knew that no workout induced pain or hunger induced pain could even come close to matching the pain I had already experienced. A different kind of pain to be sure… but pain nonetheless. I knew I could keep this up long term… no matter how many times a day I wanted to give up. I also knew that when the time came, I would be able to maintain it…. because I had been doing exactly that for the past 2 years. Losing weight is not the hardest thing I've ever done. Not by far. In fact… losing weight is child's play compared to what I've been through!
And honestly… it's been a little over 8 months… and not once have I said "I give up." Not once have I thought this was hard. My sister has compared me to a crocodile… because I bite down and then I don't let go. People have found me inspirational. People message me and want to know my secret. And I don't understand why. It's just me. I'm not doing anything special. Nothing that hundreds of thousands of people don't do everyday. But maybe that is my secret… that this is not a big deal to me. That I don't waste time caring what people think. And that I knew from the very beginning that I could do it. So I do it. And I keep doing it.
I will succeed because I'm crazy enough to believe I can.
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