Mamavation Monday: Rollercoasters

Welcome to another week. Mondays, for some reason, have always been one of my favorite days of the week. It always feels like a fresh start and in life, fresh starts are important things.

When dealing with food issues/eating disorders/life, knowing that tomorrow is a new day and a new chance is an important thing. When I left you last week, I was happy and excited about life again. It's funny how quickly emotions can change.

On Tuesday, I was faced with something that I didn't see coming. I can't talk about it here though. Not because it's personal but because it's private between me and another person. This person still means the world to me and I won't risk that. What I can share is that it messed me up. I went from someone who woke up happy and singing and excited about the prospects of the day to someone who wanted to curl under a blanket and hide. The food thing kicked in and it kicked in hard. I didn't eat on Tuesday. That night, I was asked what I'd eaten and the honest answer was nothing. I didn't want to eat. I wanted to hide. I was an emotional wreck who hated herself. I hated my body. I saw no reason to feed it. It was probably one of my lowest moments so far. By the end of the day, I could almost feel my body turning on itself. I was in physical pain.

I did eat that night. I was begged to eat something so I did. I ate an apple. It was hard. I had to force myself to take bite after bite, chewing and swallowing, but I did it. I ate it. Since then, I've slowly been healing. My heart was hurt and so was my self esteem. Those two are tough areas to overcome. I did eat the rest of the week, although after Monday, my body rejected everything that I ate on Tuesday. The rest of the week was easier, as far as that goes.

It's still hard. I was hungry this morning so I ate some cereal. After about 2 bites, it no longer tasted good. I finished it though. I know my body needs fuel. I know my brain is confused. I know this will take time and will always be something I have to watch out for. I'm thankful to not be alone in this. I have good friends and good people in my life who check in on me. Their support means so much to me as I struggle to find my balance again.

I can do this though. I'm not giving up on me or on life. Phoenix is in 9 days and I can't wait. Life holds so much beauty that I'm not going to let something like this stop me from enjoying it. Besides, there are those in Phoenix who will probably put food in front of me constantly..and while I don't need to gain 10 pounds in a weekend, it feels really good that they care about me enough to take care of me. I am loved and I am not alone in this.

Mamavation Monday: Healing

I'm a day late but I don't care. Isn't that selfish of me? I guess I don't really care about that either. What's important is here is my post. The date at the top or the bottom doesn't matter. It matters that it's here and I'm here.

Not only am I here, but I'm here and I'm healing. I just got back from a weekend in Canada and I honestly had no idea that by driving 14 hours or so round trip, my heart would start to heal. It did though. I just needed time with the people who really and truly love me, who accept me..all of me..and who I can just be with. I don't have to be mom or in charge or anything, I can just be.

Am I making any sense? Honestly, I'm not really sure. My thoughts are scattered today, but the one thing that keeps coming through my head is that I am loved. I know people tell me that all the time, but sometimes..just sometimes..you need to physically feel that. I had that this weekend. I was hugged on Friday. I was hugged so many times on Saturday. I was hugged on Sunday. I was hugged on Monday. Those hugs were a healing catalyst. They reminded me that I'm not alone in this world. All I have to do is reach out and people are there.

Not just any people, but my family. We all know that the family given to me by blood is ..well...not the healthiest thing in my life. With the distance and everything over the course of the past year, I'd cut off a piece of myself and locked it away. I'd convinced myself I didn't need this anymore. Being back with my family, the family I was blessed to have found during another period when I felt alone, woke up that part of me. I need that part of me. I need to be all of me, not just parts of me..not just the parts that people find socially "acceptable".

So while this post might seem disjointed, it's only because ...well, a part of me has woken up and I'm filled with huge amounts of emotion today. This time, however, it's not negative. It's..well like rainbows and sunshine are filling me from the inside out. I left a piece of me behind in Ontario, but what I brought back is so much more. It's as if each of those hugs came together to form some sort of...love shawl and I can feel it wrapped around me. It's holding me tight and it's keeping me safe as I heal from the damages that have happened.

I am so beyond blessed to have some seriously amazing people in my life and today, I celebrate being a part of life. Today, I am loved as I was yesterday and so many yesterdays before that. Thank you, my friends and my family for reminding me of who I am...and ..well, for making me human again. Thank you, Rob..for pointing out just how far I'd slipped. It was good to be home.

Mamavation Monday : 52 Reasons...

Happy Monday, everyone! Yes, that's right. No gloomy Katrina/Katie* here today! I'm actually in fairly good spirits. As always, there will be good days and there will be bad days. Sometimes, there are in between days. How's that for covering all the bases?

In all seriousness, I'm doing ok today. Am I 100%? No, not even close but I'm better. Already today I've been struck with moments of terrible sadness. Eric asked me the simplest question and it threw me. It's ok though. I can take that in, take a deep breath and move on. I'm not paralyzed by the emotion.

For those wondering, I am eating. Last week Tuesday-Sunday, I actually ate 2 meals a day. Granted, sometimes those 2 meals meant 2 bowls of cereal but it's progress and I'm counting it. Today, I'll be in town for a chunk of the day and will be having dinner with the boys. I'm not sure yet what we'll have. It depends on what their dad has on hand.

Sometimes life is about babysteps and that's what's happening with me right now. For perhaps the first time ever, I'm ok with that. I'll get there. Life's been tough and a life like I've had lately would have knocked most people on their ass. It did me. Ok, that's fine. Now, it's time to get back up again and to keep going.

The best part is that I'm not alone in this journey. I have some really great friends. In fact, if any of you remember back when Rob was posting here, I get to spend this coming weekend with him and his beautiful fiancee, Nicole. It's been something like 18 months since I've gotten to see them and I've missed them something awful. It's going to be a long drive but totally and completely worth it. Now, I just have to do laundry! I suppose I ought to drop Rob a note to make sure I don't need to pack anything special.

Once I'm home, it's only a couple more weeks until I'll be in Phoenix. Phoenix..ahh Phoenix..Y'all have no idea how bad I want Phoenix to get here. Justin will be in Phoenix. Eric will be in Phoenix. Other fine people will be in Phoenix. I will be getting massive amounts of love in Phoenix. Phoenix will be the most amazing 4.5 days of the year. I'm also there for the comicon with a press badge, so I expect I'll be bringing home more review work for over at Life With Katie. Yes, Phoenix will be good. Just saying the word Phoenix puts a smile on my face.

So, that's life here..busy preparing for multiple trips, end of the school year wrap up..Speaking of which, how is it possible that my baby is going to 5th grade camp this week? It also reminds me to get his sleeping bag into the washing machine so that it's ready for him. He's going to have a ball but this mama is just a tiny bit sad that her babies aren't even close to being babies anymore. Next year, they'll both be middle schoolers.

Yes, life moves on but now, it's moving on with me as a part of it. I know there will still be bad days. There will. It's ok. I have so much love in my life..I only needed to look around to find it.

*How many of you know me under which name? I'm curious.
** Does this post scream ooh shiney syndrome to you? Note that nowhere else do I ** to even make you look here..lol
*** The title of this post refers to the graphic on the side..a thought that's been in my head as a project that might be worth doing not for someone else, but for myself.

Being Appreciative

I want to start this post out by thanking those from Mamavation who stopped by to leave their comments. I appreciate the support. Support is something that's been so very important to me over the past few months and yet, the ironic thing is, I've pulled back from a lot of people. I can honestly say, it wasn't personal. It was/is a defense mechanism. I was/am dealing with so much that I just didn't have the energy to deal with ...well, being who I normally am. So often, I spend a lot of my time listening to and trying to help others and during this period, I just didn't have the energy. I know that looked as if I don't care. I do care. I care deeply for the people who are in my life. I sometimes care far more than I should because that same level of care isn't returned. That's who I am though and I would rather take the risk of caring than not. I know that over the past few months I haven't been the best friend a girl can be and while I could apologize for that, I won't. Sometimes life happens and sometimes life runs you over, then backs up over you and runs over you again. That's been my life the past few months.

Because of that, issues that I thought were dealt with cropped up again. Outrageous levels of insecurity for one.  I've always been insecure but over the past few weeks, it's been at an all time high. I know that part of that is that there's someone new in my life and he came in at a point where my life has been insanity and the demands on me have been insane. With everything happening, I've been not only physically but emotionally exhausted and it's been harder to silence the negative voices inside my head. He's good for me though. He's seen me at some of my lowest points and he's still here. I flat out asked him if he wanted to be stuck with me even though I'm all sorts of levels of crazy and he said yes. How sweet is that? Like I said, he's good for me. He makes me laugh through the tears. He tells me that he thinks I'm beautiful. Yeah, I'd like to keep this one around. I just need to convince him of that. ;)

Combine high levels of insecurity with high levels of exhaustion and you get where I've been food wise for the past month or so. It starts out innocently enough. You're just too tired to eat. The effort isn't worth it to you. Before you know it, it's as full blown as it was for me on Monday. I'm better today. I've actually eaten 2 meals a day for the past 2 days. Eating at night is easier. I think that's a habit that goes back to my college days when I was living on a king sized snickers bar and a glass of orange juice. A roommate caught on and started making me mac n cheese and watching me eat the entire box myself. It's more of an issue during the day where I get busy, don't watch the time and so don't bother. I've made the effort though for the past two days and yes, eating has been hard and after, it feels like a lead weight in my stomach but that's ok. I know I need to do it and my body will readjust again.

I worry vaguely about the weight gain that might come with me eating again but if it does, it does. I know how to lose weight in a safe, sane and consensual manner. (bdsm joke anyone? no?) I can lose any weight I put on and the reality is that it's better to eat and gain a little back than to starve myself and end up a sick shell of who I really am.

I want to thank those who stopped by and gave me your support. Even happy thoughts on the internet are still happy thoughts. I won't lie and say bing bang boom I'm all better. I'm not. It will be a while before I can easily eat 3 meals a day. That's ok. Life is a journey, one step at a time and while I won't be seeking professional help with this, I understand the suggestion. I know the problem and I am beyond blessed to have two men in my life who won't let me fall. One makes sure that I have food to eat. He bullies me some and that's ok. The other reminds me to laugh and tells me how proud of me he is when I do the littlest thing. It might sound selfish, but it helps to know that there are people who are worried about me. I don't like these guys to worry but I am always honest with them. They know the good days and the bad days and through out both, they remind me that they think I'm beautiful and that they're proud of the woman I am and the things that I do. Right now, that's what I need. I just need love and support.

I'm not asking for anyone to fix me. Fixing me is up to me. I'm not helpless. I can choose to give in to the negative voices or I can fight. Some days the fight will be easier than others. I know this. Some days, it will be all I can do to drink some juice and eat a few bites. Other days, will be easier. Either way, I can do this. I have the love and support that I need. I am one of the luckiest girls in the world right now and I'm not going to waste that by wasting away.

Mamavation Monday : Bondage

I'm sure that most of you never expected me to title a post anything to do with bondage or the like. Before you get excited, I'm not using that in the literal sense, though those who know me, know I'm a big fan of rope.

Today is more about the emotional bondage that I seem to be in right now. My last post talked about my eating issues and I wish I could say that they're better, but they're not. If anything, I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the fact that I don't want to eat. I have no desire to eat.

I told someone yesterday that it wasn't about weight. Food and eating just don't appeal to me. Today, I'm not so sure that's true. Someone special to me did a fetish style photo shoot last night and as he told me bits about it today, I found myself thinking things that never should have entered my mind. I quite literally told myself that it's ok not to eat, that I don't need to eat. Even if I don't eat between now and the time I'll see him in a month, there's no way I'll be thin enough, maybe I need to add in working out as well. Thank goodness he won't read this. He's been here before but he doesn't come here all the time. I don't want to worry him or have him upset with me.

I know this way of thinking isn't healthy but I've become more and more comfortable with it. Other than some candy, I didn't eat anything until about 9pm last night. Then, I only ate because it was expected of me. Had I been left alone, I wouldn't have eaten anything. Tonight, I will make dinner for the boys and eat with them because they expect me to.

I don't really want to eat. I know it's bad but right now, in this moment, I don't care. I just want to be thin and beautiful...and that's the voice that I hear in my head. I'm scared for me. I'm scared I won't be able to break free from this. I'm already getting tired all the time. I know this path isn't worth it but I don't really know what to do. He wants to take pictures of me in a month and I'm just not thin or pretty enough. He'd be angry with me for saying that. He'd tell me that I know it's not true. That he thinks I'm beautiful. I just wish I thought I was too...

I Need Help

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been here lately. There's good reason for that. My grandma died about 3 weeks and my life has been chaos as I attempt to tackle my own home, tackle her home, deal with a family who is insane at the best of times and at the worst, well they'd drive a saint to drinking and also handle my own little family.

I thought I had everything under control. Progress has been made on my house, progress has been made on her house and the kids had excellent report cards. From the outside, everything looked ok..just don't look too closely at the inside.

The truth is, I'm not handling things. I'm just pushing through and not dealing with anything at all. I clean the house so that I don't have the time to think about the fact that she's really gone. I go through her boxes and it's as if she's just inside the house and at any time, I can carry something in and ask her to tell me the story behind it. I know she's gone and yet I'm still in some sort of suspended animation. I'm still in denial and in those moments where it hits me that she's really gone, I've turned to food for my comfort.

I've been using food to try to fill this horrible void inside of me. Then, I realize what I'm doing and I go the other way. I stop eating. I go all day and then eat something like a bowl of cereal for dinner. I've become the queen of Fruit Loops and Capn' Crunch. I'm rapidly sliding back into eating disorder days and I feel completely incapable of stopping it. More and more, I find myself into this negative headspace of what does it matter anyway? Nobody can tell. Nobody can see just how badly I really am doing right now. Nobody knows that thrill I feel when I allow a piece of food to actually go into my body and that rush to keep eating and that equal rush of being able to stop and control it.

Eating disorder anyone? The thing is, I'm wrong. There are those that are affected by this. Tonight, I let these thoughts fill my head until I was back at that place where all I could see was the weight. It wasn't just a number, anymore. It defined me. It defined me to the point where I stepped on a scale to prove to someone that the number was real. I took the scale to the front porch and I stepped on it...289 pounds. They told me it didn't matter what the scale said, they had seen me maybe 6 weeks ago and it was clear that I had lost a large amount of weight. They told me it wasn't possible that I had gained back all that weight in that amount of time and my pants were still falling off of me. I told them it must because I'd worn them so much without washing them that they'd lost all their shape. They made me put the scale back where it'd been when I was weighing in regularly..264. If that's accurate, I've gained back about 15 pounds..

The reality is that it doesn't matter if that number is accurate or not. I'm not healthy. I'm not in a healthy mental state. I'm headed down a road that dangerous. I know it and I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to deal with the emotions that I've bottled up inside of me while I try to save the world. I don't know how to mourn. I don't know how to mourn while everyone leans on me. I don't know how to do this when the very people I thought would support me the most have supported me the least. So many people that I have helped in the past, the people who have called me when they considered cheating on their spouses or when their world was upside down, haven't been here for me. I was good enough in the bad times but not when the bad times have found me. I thought there'd be support from those who have gone through this and yet, nothing. For months, I would leave dozens of comments for my Mamavation sistas and yet when I need it most, so few have even noticed my absence. It's hard.

Tonight, I am in a bad place. I don't know how to get out of it. Tonight, I said things to someone who had become incredibly special to me over the past few weeks. I said things that I think hurt him, because he cares about me. I jumped to conclusions based 95% around my own negative mental image of myself. The truth is..I don't know what I look like. I only know that somehow I have to get through this...and I don't know how.

Mamavation Monday: Functioning Spaces

Image courtesy of clearsimpleliving.com

How often do you feel like this fellow over on the left? More often than not, this is just how I feel. I feel wrapped up in chaos. I walk into a space and my brain short circuits. "I can't deal with this. There's no way I can make this work." These are the phrases I've told myself. It's frustrating to walk into a space and not have the first clue where to start.

Today, I'm here to help with that. In fact, when I'm done, you're going to say duh and leave me some comment about how this whole post is pure common sense. I'm ok with that. I write for myself as much as I write for anyone out there who may come across this.

Since this is my handy dandy blog about weight loss, I'm going to focus on the kitchen as our space. Let's face it. Without an effective kitchen space, this weight loss journey becomes ten times as hard as it should be. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into my kitchen, looked around, sighed and turned right back around and begged Justin to order me a pizza for dinner. Why? Because somewhere along the way, I lost control. My house became something that you'd see on an episode of hoarders. Life overwhelmed me and it took me a while to get back to the point where I felt like I could start to take back that control. One of my first steps? Turning this...

Empty boxes, dirty dishes, groceries and more..just waiting for me.

Into this...

Cleared space combined with organized canisters makes me happy!

I walked into my kitchen. I looked around and I chose one space. It didn't matter what space. What mattered was that I got started. For me, I needed an area where I could at least make a sandwich or a wrap. Up until this point, there wasn't a clean surface for me to do anything. I won't lie. This process wasn't always the easiest. My kitchen sinks still aren't draining and there hasn't been enough money (and the house hasn't been in good enough shape) to get another plumber in. This meant I grabbed small totes and filled them with dirty dishes. Then, I lugged them into the bathroom and I did them in the bathtub. Was it fun? Heck no! Every time I wanted to give up, I went back into the kitchen and I looked at the progress being made. Want to know a secret? This whole counter...in the horrible condition it was in...took me less than an hour to make into a yay spot in my home. 

In less than one hour, I gave myself a clear space that helped me in multiple ways.  Every time I looked at it, it made me smile and when you smile, a little of the stress disappears. This weekend, for the first time in quite a while, I cooked dinner for myself and the boys. I actually had enough counter space that I could break out our new Foreman grill and I made us some burgers. 

So, who wants to know the secret of where to start? Anyone? I bet not. I bet y'all know it by now. The secret is that there is no secret. Take one space in any room or in any part of your life and just take babysteps. For me, it's my kitchen. My goal for this week is to actually have walls painted. Then, I will move on to my living room. We spend so much time in there and we need it to work for us. I will clean and reorganize. I will repurpose containers and I will even clear out a space for me to workout.

Life is hard but if we take it one babystep at a time, we can do anything.