I have two memories of kindergarten. One is that my only friends at the time were my two imaginary ones that I represented with my hands. I would make these two little animals critters and play with them in my desk and talk to them in my head. I thought I was being subtle, but somehow, my grandparents and my teacher, Miss Rosemary, figured it out and even knew their names. And they thought it was kind of funny, and I just felt made fun of. So I stopped that pretty quickly. I saved my imaginary friends for when I got into bed at night. They lived in my light fixture, and no one had to know they were there.
My second memory was of the paddle room. My class had this pair of twins that everyone just adored for some reason. I guess it's because twins are kind of a novelty. We had nap time, and Miss Rosemary would have us get our sleeping mats and unfold them, and then fold them back up and put them away afterward.
One day, Jennifer and Jeanine folded their mats into triangles and everyone laughed about how they had made little houses. I was lonely and friendless, and probably already depressed, and I saw them getting love and attention for their creativity. The next day, I did the same thing because I thought people would think I was cool, too. Instead, Miss Rosemary yanked me to my feet, dragged me down the hall to the supply closet, and introduced me to the paddle.
She didn't hit me with it. At least, not that day. I do have a vague memory that maybe I did get punished with it once or twice, but I can't be sure. If I was actually paddled, it was not nearly as terrifying and traumatic as this threat was. I never understood what I did wrong. I still don't. I can see where my plan wouldn't have worked now, looking back, but I don't understand why it was worth getting threatened with a paddle over.
Anyway, that was the day I learned that rules are different for me. Other people can do things, but I have to keep my head down because, at the very least, I'll get mocked. This lasted through my entire Christian school career. Other kids could do the trust exercise, but I would get laughed at. Other kids could ask to go the bathroom during class, but I had to wait. Other kids could get sick, but my brief hallucination due to sinus pressure (it made my sense of something or other go completely insane and made me feel like my desk was about eight feet away as I was trying to work, and sometimes I experienced phantom odors) just got me laughed at again and sent back to my desk.
I know I was said I was done writing after that last post, but I just figured out why I'm not feeling better. This still burns. The injustice of it all still burns in my mind, and all I can feel is hatred and anger. I trusted these people, and they took that trust and taught me that I am worthless. I don't deserve the same treatment as other people. If I have a problem, I don't deserve help or even sympathy.
I was in my teens when I first heard the word sociopath, and I was suddenly terrified that I might be one. I didn't feel like I cared about other people. I never wanted to do the dishes or the laundry. I hated visiting the larger family on holidays. I just wanted to be left alone in my room forever. That's totally what it means to be a sociopath, right? (Note: no, I know what a sociopath really is, now.) So I worked up the courage to go tell my grandparents about my concerns.
Maybe you can see where this is going by now. I got laughed at. They thought it was hysterical that I thought I had a serious psychological problem. And my grandmother told me that I was fine and to go back to my room so they could watch the news. It was years before I stopped worrying that I might be a sociopath, that I was a ticking time bomb who would kill everyone around me at any moment.
A few years later in high school (and yeah, that last story? Not even in high school yet.), I realized that I was suicidal. I was down in the laundry room toying with my uncle's box knife, running it against my wrists, realizing how much I wanted to open the blade and do it for real. And then I got scared and put it back down. And when I finally got up the courage to tell my grandmother that I wanted to slit my wrists, apparently I said it in a way she found funny because she just started howling. She went and shared the story with my mother, who totally agreed that it was hysterical, and told me that, yeah, it was really sad that I wanted to kill myself, but damn that was a funny way to say it.
Other people get help. I just get laughed at.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Spanking
When I was...eh, three or four years old? This woman walked into my house while I was watching TV with the people I called mommy and daddy. I was stressed because strangers don't just walk into people's houses like that, but they didn't seem to mind. When it happened a few days later, they greeted her by name, so I did, too.
"Hi, Vickie."
She gave me the most shocked and incredulous expression, kind of laughed a little, and said, "No, you call me Mom."
Ohh...
I don't remember being surprised by this. I know that I had never seen her before that I could remember, but maybe I had some unconscious memories because this just explained the mystery for me. So she was mommy, and my other "mommy" became grandma. It was quite a bit longer before I got in the habit of calling my "daddy" grandpa.
My grandmother believed in corporal punishment. Here's the weird thing. I don't actually remember getting spanked. I remember she used a fly swatter. I remember this one time that she threatened me with a belt, but I don't know if she ever actually used one. I don't think so. I remember that it didn't really matter what room we were in, but it was usually either the kitchen or her bedroom. The kitchen was where she spent the most time and where the fly swatter was. If we were in her bedroom, she used her hand. I don't remember ever fighting back or trying to defend myself.
Back then, even at that young age and having lived like that forever, I knew that this was wrong. Spanking was abuse. I was abused because I was spanked. At the time, that came from a very limited understanding of what abuse meant. Abuse was when a parent hit their kid. I was hit with a fly swatter. Therefor, I was abused.
In practicality, I was not physically abused (other forms of abuse still totally happened.) She never did worse than sting me. I'm pretty sure I never had to take down my pants. I don't remember her ever punishing me unfairly. Unless you consider any punishment unfair, which I kind of do, but that's a different blog post. The point is I had always done something. What those specific somethings were, I don't remember now. But if you are the type to believe in spanking, then my grandmother always was justified in spanking me.
It wasn't awful and abusive, is what I'm trying to say, and she didn't spank for every perceived infraction.
My mother quickly became a kind of ally to me. She was my mommy, my real mommy, and that meant I could talk to her. Right? Well, apparently not, because when I tried to complain about this abuse I thought I suffered from, she thought it was funny.
I remember that I complained that my grandmother hit me with the metal part of the fly swatter. That wasn't true, but I thought it sounded worse and would get a better result. I thought my mother would be horrified that my grandmother hit me. Instead, she laughed a little and told me the metal end would probably hurt less because it was thinner.
She knew. She already knew my grandmother hit me, exactly how she did it, and had no problem with it. I never complained about punishments again. At least, not until I was much, much older.
When I got too old for spanking, my grandmother resorted to grounding. I have actually met some people who don't know what that means, so let me just explain real quick. Grounding is, at its core, when you have to sit and think about what you did for X amount of time. In practice, this usually means no TV for a day or two, going to your room for the rest of the night, or other things like that. Everyone does it a little bit differently.
In my case, the rules were no TV and no video games, but I could listen to the radio in my room or watch TV with the family or go outside to play. I usually chose being in my room because I could close the door, turn the TV down, and play video games to my heart's content because my grandmother was sitting down, and that meant she didn't have to stand up again until it was time for bed. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was on the third floor, and she was on the first.
Grounding doesn't sound that bad for a night or two, right? But as I got older, the amount of time I spent grounded got longer and longer. See, she grounded me for everything. Didn't wash the dishes because no one told me to and I didn't realize that was my permanent job? Grounded. Forgot the laundry because I hate doing your job for you while you sit on your ass and watch soap operas or go shopping? Grounded. Got a B in class? Grounded.
It was that last one, especially. I don't know when she realized that being grounded didn't improve my grades, but her answer to this was to ground me for longer. It's like she thought if she could just ground me for long enough, I would suddenly realize the error of my ways and start getting straight A's. I don't know, maybe she thought I'd study or something if I couldn't watch TV, but if so, she never addressed that with me.
So by the time I was in 6th grade, or maybe 7th, I was grounded for the school year. Literally. And in practice, this meant I spent pretty much my entire life alone in my room. All my social interaction came from class, and there were only like a dozen kids in my class. I same that same dozen or so kids from preschool to 8th grade. I was able to interact with other people during recess times, but, you know, I didn't. I was the bottom of the pecking order, so only a couple other people really even wanted to interact with me. Once I discovered books, I stopped interacting with my class almost entirely.
When I got home, I went straight to my room, closed my door, and watch Power Rangers or played Final Fantasy until dinner. Then I came to the table to eat, but I always brought a book with me or stared into my plate and ignored the people around me. Then I went back to my room until it was time for bed. That was my day. For seven years.
By the time I escaped to Washington, it was just my life. My mother didn't understand why I didn't want to spend time with "the family", by which she meant her and our roommate. I tried to tell her, but she just didn't get it. She didn't understand, and neither did I at the time, that spending my time isolated wasn't really a choice for me. I couldn't enjoy other things. I didn't know how to go without video games. I didn't know how life worked without video games.
But I couldn't articulate any of that except to complain about how I spent my life grounded and alone, and so she would turn the whole conversation into a pissing match about who had it worse. She would make me feel like I was being unreasonable, like it should have been easy to just come out of my room now that I wasn't being punished anymore. I don't even know if she meant to do it, or even realized she was doing it, but she manipulated me into feeling guilty to bring me out of that room. If I didn't come out, I'd sit in there unable to have fun because the guilt would have me in knots. If I did come out, I'd sit there, miserable and resenting her, and the guilt would still have me in knots because I was miserable and resenting her.
To this day, I have trouble putting down my games. I don't even like watching movies or TV shows on Netflix with my girlfriend. I want to, and I know I'll have fun once I get into it, but my initial reaction to her asking is a resounding no. I have to stop and try to figure out if I don't want to because habit or because I'm really just not in the mood. And sometimes I say yes when I don't actually want to because I couldn't figure it out. That old sense of guilt just starts tying me into knots, and even though she says I can say no if I want, I really can't in that moment. I can't say no, and I can't say yes, so I say yes because maybe I'll be able to relax and enjoy it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
I had a goal for this post when I started writing it. I don't remember what it was now. It was all leading into a coherent conclusion, but that's gone from my head now. Usually writing these posts makes me feel better, but this hasn't. Maybe I'll revisit the topic in the future. I'm just going to stop writing now.
"Hi, Vickie."
She gave me the most shocked and incredulous expression, kind of laughed a little, and said, "No, you call me Mom."
Ohh...
I don't remember being surprised by this. I know that I had never seen her before that I could remember, but maybe I had some unconscious memories because this just explained the mystery for me. So she was mommy, and my other "mommy" became grandma. It was quite a bit longer before I got in the habit of calling my "daddy" grandpa.
My grandmother believed in corporal punishment. Here's the weird thing. I don't actually remember getting spanked. I remember she used a fly swatter. I remember this one time that she threatened me with a belt, but I don't know if she ever actually used one. I don't think so. I remember that it didn't really matter what room we were in, but it was usually either the kitchen or her bedroom. The kitchen was where she spent the most time and where the fly swatter was. If we were in her bedroom, she used her hand. I don't remember ever fighting back or trying to defend myself.
Back then, even at that young age and having lived like that forever, I knew that this was wrong. Spanking was abuse. I was abused because I was spanked. At the time, that came from a very limited understanding of what abuse meant. Abuse was when a parent hit their kid. I was hit with a fly swatter. Therefor, I was abused.
In practicality, I was not physically abused (other forms of abuse still totally happened.) She never did worse than sting me. I'm pretty sure I never had to take down my pants. I don't remember her ever punishing me unfairly. Unless you consider any punishment unfair, which I kind of do, but that's a different blog post. The point is I had always done something. What those specific somethings were, I don't remember now. But if you are the type to believe in spanking, then my grandmother always was justified in spanking me.
It wasn't awful and abusive, is what I'm trying to say, and she didn't spank for every perceived infraction.
My mother quickly became a kind of ally to me. She was my mommy, my real mommy, and that meant I could talk to her. Right? Well, apparently not, because when I tried to complain about this abuse I thought I suffered from, she thought it was funny.
I remember that I complained that my grandmother hit me with the metal part of the fly swatter. That wasn't true, but I thought it sounded worse and would get a better result. I thought my mother would be horrified that my grandmother hit me. Instead, she laughed a little and told me the metal end would probably hurt less because it was thinner.
She knew. She already knew my grandmother hit me, exactly how she did it, and had no problem with it. I never complained about punishments again. At least, not until I was much, much older.
When I got too old for spanking, my grandmother resorted to grounding. I have actually met some people who don't know what that means, so let me just explain real quick. Grounding is, at its core, when you have to sit and think about what you did for X amount of time. In practice, this usually means no TV for a day or two, going to your room for the rest of the night, or other things like that. Everyone does it a little bit differently.
In my case, the rules were no TV and no video games, but I could listen to the radio in my room or watch TV with the family or go outside to play. I usually chose being in my room because I could close the door, turn the TV down, and play video games to my heart's content because my grandmother was sitting down, and that meant she didn't have to stand up again until it was time for bed. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was on the third floor, and she was on the first.
Grounding doesn't sound that bad for a night or two, right? But as I got older, the amount of time I spent grounded got longer and longer. See, she grounded me for everything. Didn't wash the dishes because no one told me to and I didn't realize that was my permanent job? Grounded. Forgot the laundry because I hate doing your job for you while you sit on your ass and watch soap operas or go shopping? Grounded. Got a B in class? Grounded.
It was that last one, especially. I don't know when she realized that being grounded didn't improve my grades, but her answer to this was to ground me for longer. It's like she thought if she could just ground me for long enough, I would suddenly realize the error of my ways and start getting straight A's. I don't know, maybe she thought I'd study or something if I couldn't watch TV, but if so, she never addressed that with me.
So by the time I was in 6th grade, or maybe 7th, I was grounded for the school year. Literally. And in practice, this meant I spent pretty much my entire life alone in my room. All my social interaction came from class, and there were only like a dozen kids in my class. I same that same dozen or so kids from preschool to 8th grade. I was able to interact with other people during recess times, but, you know, I didn't. I was the bottom of the pecking order, so only a couple other people really even wanted to interact with me. Once I discovered books, I stopped interacting with my class almost entirely.
When I got home, I went straight to my room, closed my door, and watch Power Rangers or played Final Fantasy until dinner. Then I came to the table to eat, but I always brought a book with me or stared into my plate and ignored the people around me. Then I went back to my room until it was time for bed. That was my day. For seven years.
By the time I escaped to Washington, it was just my life. My mother didn't understand why I didn't want to spend time with "the family", by which she meant her and our roommate. I tried to tell her, but she just didn't get it. She didn't understand, and neither did I at the time, that spending my time isolated wasn't really a choice for me. I couldn't enjoy other things. I didn't know how to go without video games. I didn't know how life worked without video games.
But I couldn't articulate any of that except to complain about how I spent my life grounded and alone, and so she would turn the whole conversation into a pissing match about who had it worse. She would make me feel like I was being unreasonable, like it should have been easy to just come out of my room now that I wasn't being punished anymore. I don't even know if she meant to do it, or even realized she was doing it, but she manipulated me into feeling guilty to bring me out of that room. If I didn't come out, I'd sit in there unable to have fun because the guilt would have me in knots. If I did come out, I'd sit there, miserable and resenting her, and the guilt would still have me in knots because I was miserable and resenting her.
To this day, I have trouble putting down my games. I don't even like watching movies or TV shows on Netflix with my girlfriend. I want to, and I know I'll have fun once I get into it, but my initial reaction to her asking is a resounding no. I have to stop and try to figure out if I don't want to because habit or because I'm really just not in the mood. And sometimes I say yes when I don't actually want to because I couldn't figure it out. That old sense of guilt just starts tying me into knots, and even though she says I can say no if I want, I really can't in that moment. I can't say no, and I can't say yes, so I say yes because maybe I'll be able to relax and enjoy it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
I had a goal for this post when I started writing it. I don't remember what it was now. It was all leading into a coherent conclusion, but that's gone from my head now. Usually writing these posts makes me feel better, but this hasn't. Maybe I'll revisit the topic in the future. I'm just going to stop writing now.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Showering
When I was little, I used to spend an hour or more in the shower, but I only took them when my grandmother forced me to. Most of my was spent with the water running while I sat on the floor and daydreamed, and the actual shower didn't take long at all.
When I moved out, I still took them as seldom as I could get away with, but I also stopped spending an hour just hanging out in that room.
I used to tell people I'm hydrophobic, but I've never really been that stressed about rain or swimming. It was more of an excuse for why I hate showering. But looking back, I realize that I spent so long hiding in the bathroom because it was my refuge. We had enough bathrooms that no one was ever yelling for me to hurry up, and if I was in the shower, then no one was yelling for me to do things either.
But at the same time, I hated showering because my grandmother made sure that I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I was incapable of washing my own hair. Every time I went in, she gave me a lecture for how to wash my hair that included scratching my scalp raw. Every time I got out, she wanted to know if I did it right this time. When I moved out, I internalized that, and I still can't shake the feeling that if I'm not scratching at it until I bleed, I've done it wrong.
Today, I willingly took a shower. It's something I do more frequently now, though still not as much as I should. Nowadays, showering means time with myself, thinking about the past and what my grandmother taught me, and I like to get out quickly. But today, I had this epiphany.
I'm pretty sure my grandmother kind of ruined my hair. She always insisted that it was horribly oily and any amount of oil was bad. I don't know if I always had dry hair, but I'm pretty sure I do now. All of which is a kind of roundabout way of reminding myself that she was wrong. She was wrong about the scalp's natural oils, and she was wrong about how to deal with them.
I don't need to hide in the bathroom anymore. It's time to stop being critical of my hair-washing skills, now.
When I moved out, I still took them as seldom as I could get away with, but I also stopped spending an hour just hanging out in that room.
I used to tell people I'm hydrophobic, but I've never really been that stressed about rain or swimming. It was more of an excuse for why I hate showering. But looking back, I realize that I spent so long hiding in the bathroom because it was my refuge. We had enough bathrooms that no one was ever yelling for me to hurry up, and if I was in the shower, then no one was yelling for me to do things either.
But at the same time, I hated showering because my grandmother made sure that I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I was incapable of washing my own hair. Every time I went in, she gave me a lecture for how to wash my hair that included scratching my scalp raw. Every time I got out, she wanted to know if I did it right this time. When I moved out, I internalized that, and I still can't shake the feeling that if I'm not scratching at it until I bleed, I've done it wrong.
Today, I willingly took a shower. It's something I do more frequently now, though still not as much as I should. Nowadays, showering means time with myself, thinking about the past and what my grandmother taught me, and I like to get out quickly. But today, I had this epiphany.
I'm pretty sure my grandmother kind of ruined my hair. She always insisted that it was horribly oily and any amount of oil was bad. I don't know if I always had dry hair, but I'm pretty sure I do now. All of which is a kind of roundabout way of reminding myself that she was wrong. She was wrong about the scalp's natural oils, and she was wrong about how to deal with them.
I don't need to hide in the bathroom anymore. It's time to stop being critical of my hair-washing skills, now.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Weight Control
I think my weight is the lowest it has been in years. Girlfriend says it's almost definitely gotten a little lower since she's known me, but I didn't have a scale then, so it doesn't count. Woke up today, and I'm down to 321 lbs.
I'm not trying to lose weight. I think that's where most people go wrong. I'm very fat positive (when I'm not depressed, and then I start shaming myself). I don't believe there's anything wrong with being fat or that we should all aspire to thinness. I believe we should aspire to live a healthy lifestyle, and if you can do that while being 500 lbs, then no one has the right to tell you to lose weight.
For me, being this size has a detrimental affect on my health and self-esteem. Food is an addiction, one that I've tried a couple times before to control. For most of my adult life, I've hovered around the 330 to 345 range, and I think I might be pre-diabetic. Switching to more healthy eating habits is causing me to lose weight, but my goal is only to feel better about myself and not tip over into serious health problems.
I think I can trace this problem back to when I was a kid. I don't know where I got the idea, but I recall being in third or fifth grade and lying about my weight because otherwise, my peers might think I was fat. I very vividly recall telling someone that I was 98 lbs and having them all make fun of me for lying about it, but thinking that was better than them knowing the truth. If I recall correctly, I was around 120 at the time.
I've always had a sweet tooth, and I was never taught to manage it. I used to be on the local swim team, and I looked forward to matches, not because I enjoyed swimming or competition, but because my grandparents would give me a giant cooler full of soda and candy to eat at my discretion. They reasoned that the sugar would give me a burst of energy for winning, but it probably just weighed me down.
In high school, my grandmother decided that the solution to this problem was diet pills, which she made me take on and off. She'd get the latest fad pills, and I would take them for a few days until they were forgotten. And then a new fad would start up, and she would make me take those for a while. Apparently, she did the same thing to my mother, only the diet pill fad of choice back then was Black Beauties, which did not help her already struggling school career.
At 19, I finally moved to Washington to live with my mother, and that's where things really got out of control. I went there for school, but wound up working 18-hour days as a housekeeper, constantly on the road and eating fast food and candy bars to get through the day. Every second that I wasn't working or eating, I was passed out in the passenger seat of the car because I couldn't stay awake. I realize, in retrospect, that was when I started stress eating. I needed those candy bars between McDonald's and Taco Bell meals. I drank nothing but Coke (the literal brand of soda) except for the rare moment's when I got a Dr Pepper or a Mountain Dew with my meal. I think I had water once over the entire two-year period.
To this day, 10 years later, I can't have more than a single can of soda at one time. It turns completely tasteless after the first few sips. I mean, I shouldn't be doing that anyway, but sometimes I still do.
When my grandmother's health took a turn for the worst, and my mother and I moved back to Missouri together, things got a little better for a little while. We both got jobs at Wal-Mart, and suddenly we had time to cook real food. Except that we both spent so long on a fast food diet that neither of us felt like it anymore. Real food became a weekend treat, and while we gradually got better about that, defaulting to pizza delivery or something never really went away.
At the same, we started off and on dieting. About once or twice a year, mom would see a new fad diet. She didn't believe in pills after her experience growing up, but she kept getting taken in by the latest programs. I would go along mostly to support her because I didn't believe either of us could ever lose weight. So we'd join a program for a few weeks, do really good the first few days, then slowly get worse until we gave up entirely. Rinse and repeat for like five or six years until I moved in with Girlfriend.
Girlfriend was bigger than I was back in high school, and she had successfully lost that weight and kept it off through a combination of martial arts and educating herself about nutrition. She taught me that what I considered a healthy diet (meat fried in butter, potatoes with butter, cheese, and sour cream, fried chicken-- staples of a Southern diet.) was actually pretty high in fat and calories.
I know, right? Butter is high in fat? Who would have ever thought?
So now my diet is pretty healthy, except for one thing. I still have a food addiction, and when we hit rough times, I lose control and eat an entire bag of chips every day. Healthy meals don't do much good when you're snacking on high fat and sugar snacks constantly.
Like I said, I've tried twice before to control this. I do good for a while, and then every crashes at once. This time, though, I've got a secret weapon. Somewhere along the way, I have developed a taste for sugar free candy and soda. I know, I know, sugar free doesn't actually help you lose weight. But the thing is, it does help me.
See, I still have those days where I drink nothing but soda and eat candy all day. Having sugar free around means I can get through those days without beating myself up over it. Although, re-reading that article, I had forgotten about the increased risk of diabetes. I may have to rethink this plan.
But I can do that now because I have the most important thing that someone in my position can have-- support. I am not alone. I do not have people telling me to just eat less and have some self control. Now, I'm the only person telling me that I'm bad and lazy for being fat, and Girlfriend has a much louder voice and is happy to help me drown those thoughts out.
I'm not trying to lose weight. I think that's where most people go wrong. I'm very fat positive (when I'm not depressed, and then I start shaming myself). I don't believe there's anything wrong with being fat or that we should all aspire to thinness. I believe we should aspire to live a healthy lifestyle, and if you can do that while being 500 lbs, then no one has the right to tell you to lose weight.
For me, being this size has a detrimental affect on my health and self-esteem. Food is an addiction, one that I've tried a couple times before to control. For most of my adult life, I've hovered around the 330 to 345 range, and I think I might be pre-diabetic. Switching to more healthy eating habits is causing me to lose weight, but my goal is only to feel better about myself and not tip over into serious health problems.
I think I can trace this problem back to when I was a kid. I don't know where I got the idea, but I recall being in third or fifth grade and lying about my weight because otherwise, my peers might think I was fat. I very vividly recall telling someone that I was 98 lbs and having them all make fun of me for lying about it, but thinking that was better than them knowing the truth. If I recall correctly, I was around 120 at the time.
I've always had a sweet tooth, and I was never taught to manage it. I used to be on the local swim team, and I looked forward to matches, not because I enjoyed swimming or competition, but because my grandparents would give me a giant cooler full of soda and candy to eat at my discretion. They reasoned that the sugar would give me a burst of energy for winning, but it probably just weighed me down.
In high school, my grandmother decided that the solution to this problem was diet pills, which she made me take on and off. She'd get the latest fad pills, and I would take them for a few days until they were forgotten. And then a new fad would start up, and she would make me take those for a while. Apparently, she did the same thing to my mother, only the diet pill fad of choice back then was Black Beauties, which did not help her already struggling school career.
At 19, I finally moved to Washington to live with my mother, and that's where things really got out of control. I went there for school, but wound up working 18-hour days as a housekeeper, constantly on the road and eating fast food and candy bars to get through the day. Every second that I wasn't working or eating, I was passed out in the passenger seat of the car because I couldn't stay awake. I realize, in retrospect, that was when I started stress eating. I needed those candy bars between McDonald's and Taco Bell meals. I drank nothing but Coke (the literal brand of soda) except for the rare moment's when I got a Dr Pepper or a Mountain Dew with my meal. I think I had water once over the entire two-year period.
To this day, 10 years later, I can't have more than a single can of soda at one time. It turns completely tasteless after the first few sips. I mean, I shouldn't be doing that anyway, but sometimes I still do.
When my grandmother's health took a turn for the worst, and my mother and I moved back to Missouri together, things got a little better for a little while. We both got jobs at Wal-Mart, and suddenly we had time to cook real food. Except that we both spent so long on a fast food diet that neither of us felt like it anymore. Real food became a weekend treat, and while we gradually got better about that, defaulting to pizza delivery or something never really went away.
At the same, we started off and on dieting. About once or twice a year, mom would see a new fad diet. She didn't believe in pills after her experience growing up, but she kept getting taken in by the latest programs. I would go along mostly to support her because I didn't believe either of us could ever lose weight. So we'd join a program for a few weeks, do really good the first few days, then slowly get worse until we gave up entirely. Rinse and repeat for like five or six years until I moved in with Girlfriend.
Girlfriend was bigger than I was back in high school, and she had successfully lost that weight and kept it off through a combination of martial arts and educating herself about nutrition. She taught me that what I considered a healthy diet (meat fried in butter, potatoes with butter, cheese, and sour cream, fried chicken-- staples of a Southern diet.) was actually pretty high in fat and calories.
I know, right? Butter is high in fat? Who would have ever thought?
So now my diet is pretty healthy, except for one thing. I still have a food addiction, and when we hit rough times, I lose control and eat an entire bag of chips every day. Healthy meals don't do much good when you're snacking on high fat and sugar snacks constantly.
Like I said, I've tried twice before to control this. I do good for a while, and then every crashes at once. This time, though, I've got a secret weapon. Somewhere along the way, I have developed a taste for sugar free candy and soda. I know, I know, sugar free doesn't actually help you lose weight. But the thing is, it does help me.
See, I still have those days where I drink nothing but soda and eat candy all day. Having sugar free around means I can get through those days without beating myself up over it. Although, re-reading that article, I had forgotten about the increased risk of diabetes. I may have to rethink this plan.
But I can do that now because I have the most important thing that someone in my position can have-- support. I am not alone. I do not have people telling me to just eat less and have some self control. Now, I'm the only person telling me that I'm bad and lazy for being fat, and Girlfriend has a much louder voice and is happy to help me drown those thoughts out.
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