The tip of the iceberg

I am SO behind, I wonder if I can ever catch up! Weight-wise I’m still hovering around 305 Boo! I’ll gain a few, lose a few, but haven’t gotten below 305 yet. Last Sunday, Erik, Tanner and I went for a hike at a local park and had such a good time. The weather was beautiful and it was just really nice to get out and get some fresh air. I’ll be sharing some pics of that hike and another one later this week, but I know most of you are wanting to know what happened on that date!

Well, I had a wonderful time. The play we saw was all about relationships and it was funny…several moments where we kind of looked at each other and knew the other one was thinking “uh yeah…there YOU are!” lol. Afterwards, we spent some time together and at some point, I had another minor freakout. Because we were getting in so late, I had arranged to just stay at his place, but asked him to take me home at like 3 in the morning. I felt a bit like a kid who decided she didn’t want to stay at the slumber party after all. Poor Greg. He did absolutely NOTHING to upset me, but what I’ve realized is that the second I begin to feel myself giving in…just a little bit…to how I’m feeling about him, where I see this going, etc (and NO I’m not just speaking sexually here…actually, it is the emotional intimacy that is scaring me MUCH more than the sexual intimacy at this point) I just STOP. Something inside me literally feels as if a switch has been flipped and I can no longer feel, sense, interact normally with my environment…It’s just weird.

Up until that night, I figured this was my mind telling me that I wasn’t ready for this relationship or just wasn’t…into a relationship at all so I would call things off, take my toys and go home. He has had to cope with the possibility that I was putting a terminal halt to things several times. This last one felt the most final to him…and to me as well. Even though I felt heartbroken the next day, I was more afraid of continuing to hurt him. I mean, how much crazy can a man put up with honestly? We talked later that evening (Saturday) and things ended with both of us saying our goodbyes to each other for what truly felt like the last time.

And then, the next day…true to form, he sent me one last email; not to pressure me, but to just ask if we could leave the door open…not leave things so truly and utterly DONE. We went back and forth by email; by now I was beginning to see that I wasn’t really rejecting HIM or the relationship, I was just having a difficult time allowing myself to be vulnerable with someone else. All those years of fighting off advances from older men…thinking I was building a friendship with them only to have them pull the rug out from under me with some awkward and inappropriate advance. In my marriage, giving myself completely and totally to another human being and then finding out years later that I had been in love with a mirage to some extent…again, rug pulled out from under me. Is it any wonder that when I start to feel myself falling just a wee bit more for Greg, I have this WALL go up to protect myself… It’s as if my subconscious is saying, “Oh no, I’m not falling for THAT again! We know how this ends, so let’s just save ourselves some heartache and nip it in the bud while we’re ahead”

So, we have picked up where we left off and things seem to be good for now. I think our game plan for now is to handle these “freak out” moments by giving me a few days of space to process my feelings and really evaluate where they are coming from before we make any hard and fast decisions about whether we do or don’t proceed with our relationship.

I know it sounds like we are having to work incredibly hard at making this work, but honestly…so much of US just works like a charm. Our sense of humor, the things we enjoy doing both together and apart, our love of writing, photography…the fact that we can talk endlessly and never feel as if we are running out of things to talk about or just sit quietly with each other and not a word need to be said. Our parenting perspectives and philosophies being so in line with each other…The fact that he makes me feel beautiful and cherished for the first time in my life as well as the fact that he accepts my fawning over him without making me feel like a “silly girl.” SO MUCH works effortlessly so I guess this is why we keep trying to get through the periodic rough spots that really have nothing to do with him.

So why am I telling YOU all this? When have I ever really held back lol. This is part of my weight loss journey. I believe my serious issues with weight began all those years ago when men started showing way too much interest in a young girl whose body looked years older. I will blog more about this (I promise), but I’m realizing that I am just beginning to face needing to DEAL with these feelings without food for the first time in my life. I think that is why I’m so caught off guard and overwhelmed by them when they seem to come out of nowhere; because I am no longer numbing them with food. This is an important realization because I need to make sure that I don’t start trying to numb them with something else…alcohol, drugs, whatever. I realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I have to deal with and I am acutely aware that I am most definitely not immune to using other vices to cope now that food is no longer a real option.

I’ve mentioned that I had started drinking a glass of wine each night which is extremely out of character for the old Michelle. The new Michelle can easily see how I could start to replace food with wine…something I NEVER thought was possible. One glass became two a few nights a week and one night when I was home for the evening, I downed a bottle and started on a second and realized I was doing what I had always had a hard time accepting about Erik when he drank. Not all the time, but frequently I’ve seen him keep drinking and drinking and drinking until there was nothing left to drink and I never understood it. Why would you want to do that to yourself? Here I was, realizing that I was doing the same thing and the next day I really thought about WHY I was doing it.

I’ve cut myself back to one glass a night and made myself an appointment to see a counselor. Unfortunately, I discovered that I had a huge deductible to meet before insurance would kick in so I’m going to try to find something through the Archdiocese or some other sliding scale program, but I am seeking professional help to help me cope with the issue of transference and cope with the feelings I’ve been stuffing down with food all these years in a healthy way. Obviously, blogging here would be a good tool, if I sat down to do it, but of course, avoiding my blog is another way of avoiding coping with these feelings. Avoidance is avoidance.

So, here is me..trying to share some of the really vulnerable bits I’ve been struggling with in the last few months. I will try to get back in the habit of doing this more regularly because we all know how obviously therapeutic it is for me.

My Dance with Addiction

I don’t know how many of you watch So you Think you can Dance, but I’m just going to fess up right this second and tell you that one of my guilty pleasures is reality TV. I’m sure it’s obviously because my life has become so devoid of actual activity, reality programming lets me live vicariously through someone else and help me forget that I’m essentially house bound.

One of my favorite choreographers is Mia Michaels. Her choreography is true artistry. I can’t think of a number that I’ve seen of hers that doesn’t just grip me deep in my gut and hold me captive for the one or two minutes it takes to complete the dance. Her routines are the ones I play over and over again because, like poetry, every time I watch it I get something new out of it.

Last night she had an amazing routine she choreographed; it’s the one I’ve embedded above for you to watch. You don’t see the workup to this, but this routine was inspired by Addiction and how it takes hold of someone; how impossible it can be to untangle yourself once you’ve become wrapped up in its web. How it weakens you and becomes your strength all at the same time. Before you know it, you are nothing without your addiction. At the end of the piece, the male dancer smiles malevolently at the camera because he knows she’ll be back. She always comes back. Wow, how can something so warped and twisted be so indescribably beautiful all at the same time?

I think most of us can relate to this artist’s representation of Addiction; especially those of us with a food addiction. I think we have it the worst because with most other addicts, their drug of choice isn’t required for their survival. I’m not saying it’s easy to give up booze or cigarettes or heroin. I know its not, but it’s so much harder when you have to have food to survive.

When we go on a diet, we can’t just quit food cold turkey. Oh sure, we can go through and get rid of all the crap and try to stay away from triggers, but we still have to eat and the stuff that is bad for us is forever calling to us. We are constantly fighting the urge to give in, to get the fix we need; that rush we get when we take those few moments to indulge…and its bliss…for those few moments, until the guilt and shame sets in and then it beats us right back down. It reminds us that we are failures, that we aren’t strong enough, that we don’t have the power or control…that we will NEVER beat this addiction; and before we know it…there we are back in his arms again.

The addiction seduces us initially because it is all reward and no consequences. We eat what we want and we don’t wake up the next morning to discover we can no longer see our feet or go to the grocery store or take a shower without getting out of breath. No, it comes on slowly and if we aren’t diligent, we find ourselves months later wondering where the 40 lbs came from and wondering why its so much harder to climb a flight of stairs, to stand in a long line, or to walk from your car to the store. By this time, we are weakened both physically and emotionally and are called upon to do something that takes great strength.

Many times we are called upon to battle an addiction when that very addiction has eroded our lives to such an extent that all we HAVE is the addiction. That addiction is our lover, our joy, our sadness, our pleasure, our pain. In Mia’s piece, you see the girl try to stand alone on wobbly legs, you see her fight to break free yet unable to keep her balance on her own. She tries to dance again and while the addiction supports her to some extent, her dance is a mere shadow of what she could have done on her own, without the influence of the addiction.

But for those brief moments where she gives in, most of her dance is trying to break free again. This is so how I feel. I want more than anything to break free and stand on my own, but to do so means to leave behind the only joy, the only thing I really know right now. Without it I truly am an empty vessel because at least for the immediate future I am so incredibly limited. I know…I know…it wouldn’t take long for me to enjoy the rewards of a healthier lifestyle; to push myself away and find my legs strong beneath me…ready to carry me out my door and back into the world of the living, but it isn’t easy getting there and you always know that, in the back of your head, your addiction is waiting with that malevolent smile; waiting for a moment of weakness when he can wrap you back up in his warm and comforting embrace. One small slip, one bit of bad news, one bit of good news, a set back, or a success…it doesn’t matter. That is all it takes for you to find yourself back in the dance with your addiction. You’ve been there many times before and each time you try to fight your way out, you know…how easy its going to be to find yourself there again.