In It For The Long Haul

So I haven’t been on in a long time for many reasons, but mainly I guess is because I have - since I moved, especially - fallen off of my diet.  This summer so many things changed, and it was a lifestyle change - and a doctor mandated one at that - and even though it started before this summer, everything changed when there became many foods my body was rejecting and used to make me sick.

Everything was supposed to get better when the tests came back confirming what they thought, but yet again, they didn’t.  They disproved their thinking and only further supported that no-one knows what’s wrong.  So on top of everything else in my life, that added into slipping back into the dark place, where food is love and nothing else matters.

Except I can barely look at myself anymore, and I don’t know what to do with myself.  I have an addiction, and I’m able to admit that.  But it’s more than just an addiction…it’s a dependence.  And it sucks.

I need help, like a buddy or something maybe?  I know it’s the Internet, but does anybody  maybe need a diet buddy?  I’ve heard the buddy system is helpful….I don’t know, really I’m at a loss for anything anymore.

I had a talk with my friend today about eating disorders and their mentality.  She tried to tell me that it’s not my fault that I am the way I am.  But I know different.

I know that when this all started, I wasn’t responsible.  Not in the beginning.

But then, after I got out of the situation that wasn’t my fault, I did nothing to change it.  Food was my everything.  My comfort, my life, my all.

I mean, it got better when I was doing theatre and music.  I had my chocolate addiction, but I was working constantly at school and theatre - always moving.  Whether it was learning a dance, or blocking, or walking around on break.  I was always doing something.  From sets, to practicing, to doing food runs walking to nearby places for cast members when I had a break.

There was the down time when I could just sit and do homework, or take notes on the performances, etc.

But I was always doing something.  Something distract me from eating.

Everything got alot better, and then first year happened.

I lost my both my grandparents and my cousin in one day less than four months.  My sister and I graduated on my grandmother’s birthday.  That morning we had brought her to the hospice village in our town, and helped to get her settled.  I made phone calls for my mom, explaining why she had to postpone classes, and enlisting some help from those who offered, so that we could get ready while they tried to track some clients down and let them know.  We went to graduation, left, and went back to hospice.  Within a week we had lost her.  She had lost her husband one day short of four months the date she died.  She did so much good, and it was finally time for her to relax, and let others treat her.  To go on vacation, and finally find a routine that wasn’t centred around the care of others.

And then her cancer came back.  And she wasn’t told.  We only know this because it came across the desk of one of my mom’s friends, who called to ask if anyone needed anything.  Little did she know, my grandmother had yet to be told.

As far as I recall, it was about two months after this had happened when she was finally given the news.  A fighter, she was.  She was going to fight.  But there was no time.

One of the doctor’s that was seeing to her care made a home visit, and informed us that in his esteemed career, he had never seen anyone dissipate so fast who still had the will to live.

She was a fighter.

After her death, we left for my orientation in another city.  Moved me out, and then my mother came back to deal with everything.  She hasn’t stopped.

I was alone.  Dealing with shitty roommates, moving to single rooms, and then completely alone.  With my thoughts, my words, my actions, and my food.

I’ve always felt worthless, but nothing has compared to how I have turned to food since I graduated and left for university.  Not since the disaster with my father happened back when I was a child.

I’ve fought and won so many battles.  Not without help - that’s for sure - but I’ve won them, nonetheless.

This year, I thought I had finally conquered my battle with food.  I thought that the worst was over, and I was finally moving on in my life.

And then I got really sick.  I lost my voice, the once thing that has been my constant.  It got me through the abuse years ago, got me through mental disorders, voices in my head, PTSD, medication changes, weight gain - everything.  Everything has always gone into my art.

I have known what I have wanted to do - what I have wanted to be - since I was four.  Though I had thought - like every child - of the thirty thousand careers I wanted to have, I always knew what I wanted to do. What I wanted to be.

And then this year, I found out that I won’t be able to do it.

Not because I wasn’t good enough, not because they didn’t like me, or I was too fat, or I didn’t fit in.  Not because I didn’t have the right training, or the experience, or the look.  Not because I didn’t speak the language, or have enough culture, or know enough repertoire.  Not because I was too tall, or too short, or too “weird”.  Not because of my past, or my family, or my “friends”.

Not because of any of the millions of things it could have, would have, or might have been.

But instead, because I lost my voice, and will never have it back.  Not the way I need it to have a career.

They wouldn’t give me a doctor.  They wouldn’t look at any of my other problems - problems that we are now finding out are not only linked, but are causing this because they went untreated - because of my mental disorder and my weight.

“If you lose sixty pounds and nothing has changed, then we will start to look at it.”

“I don’t know why you’re swollen, but it definitely isn’t a problem.”

“You worry too much - it’s all in your head.”

“You have a low immune system, don’t worry about it.”

“You’re stressed.”

“Those are too many problems to have; it’s all in your head.  We can’t take you seriously when there are that many problems.”

But then, we come to the doctors now.  The ones who are getting upset and frustrated because I haven’t told them everything.  The ones who are now saying that had this been detected, things could be different now.  This wouldn’t have happened had these things been detected.

“Why didn’t you talk to someone years ago about this?”

There’s nothing they can do now, but try and give me some kind of voice.  I’m being re-taught how to talk.  Put on a special medically demanded diet to try and control these out-of-hand problems.

They’re trying to regulate my body so it stops destroying itself.

 And that’s great.

But this all could have been avoided.  It could have been different.

Everything could have been different.

But it isn’t.

So now, there’s food.

There’s food, and nose rings, and earrings, and loathing, and anger, and self-hatred, and starting over.

There’s new programmes, new lives, new diets, new schedules, new systems, new doctors, new everything. 

More pills, less money, and extraordinary amounts of fear.

There’s not wanting to get out of bed, living under the covers reading fan stories about beautiful (however, fictional) characters, and living in a fictional world instead of this one I’m in.

I haven’t mourned.  I haven’t grieved.

It looks like I have, but I haven’t.  Not for this.  Not for this part of my life that I spent sixteen years building.  Not for everything I’ve put into it, and sacrificed.  Not to mention that it wasn’t just me, but my family.

I know my life is not as horrible as even a tiny fraction of those in the world.  But it’s so much more than I can handle.

And though I don’t live in a hick-town with thirty people, it’s not a large city.  I always felt that it was growing up, but it’s not.  We’re a small population, and the communities are even smaller.

I was finally getting to the point where I had some confidence. Some belief in myself and my abilities.  I knew where I was going to go, and what I was going to do.  I knew it, my family knew it - Hell, everyone who had ever met me knew it.  And now I have to tell everyone I know that not only have I failed, but I didn’t even get the chance to try.  I didn’t even get the chance to get shot down, or beat out, or told I wasn’t good enough by the people I’d be working for.  I didn’t even get the chance to travel the world and sing for the people I’d dreamt of singing for my entire life.

There was a show I’ve wanted to do from the moment I discovered it existed.  I wasn’t supposed to go off to university, because my mother had put a kibosh on it all.  People in the arts community who I’d worked with for quite a long time had shared the news with me that this show was going to be done in our city, and that they were taking auditions.  One of the boys had come up to me and told me he’d do whatever it took to make sure I got that part.

About a week later at a drama event we were out of town participating in, I got a letter from a university I wasn’t able to audition for, telling me I had been accepted to an alternate programme, offered a scholarship, and encouraged me to accept.  My mother had read it to me over the phone, and as we both cried, she granted her permission.  God had worked his magic, and I was going to university.  I was incredibly sad about the show I’d be missing out on the opportunity to audition for, but they all assured me that it was the right thing.  That I was making the right choice, and that staying in our little city to do a community theatre show when I’d be singing Opera in Italy was not the choice to make.

Had I known then that this was going to happen, I would have given it all up in a heartbeat.

Even though I was unhappy where I ended up, I have met some people that have undoubtedly changed my life, and I will never forget them and forever be grateful to them.

Still, I would have given it up in a heartbeat to have made that show the last performance I would ever take part in.  To have the opportunity to audition for it, with no guarantee that I would even get it.  I would have given it all up for that opportunity.

But I didn’t.

So here I sit with all of my baggage, having just eaten food I’m not supposed to eat, and loathing myself.  For the confidence I didn’t have, the worth I didn’t feel, and the chances I didn’t take.

Hating myself for everything I’ve done wrong, and everything I didn’t do at all.  Everything I ran away from (though I clearly don’t “run”), and everything I refused to attempt.  All because I had no self-worth, and felt it was above my level to even try.

I know my life would be easily taken by just about anyone, as there so many who have it incredulously harder than I do. But it doesn’t stop it from being far too much me to ever handle.  Far too much for me to be able to deal with.  Far too much for me to want to stay here for.

I love God with all my heart, and I know he has plans for me.  I know I am here for a reason.  But that doesn’t make it any better.

That doesn’t make it any better at all. 

So it’s been a long time since I’ve been on here… finals, moving, etc.

About a week (possibly two) after I moved back  home, I got on the scale and had gained ten pounds.  I was really upset with myself because I was really proud of the weight I had lost, and then I came back to this toxic city and went into a downward spiral. I mean, I could blame it on so many things, but in the end, it’s nobody’s fault but my own.

So now, despite everything I am feeling and not, and I am getting my act together.

I got on the scale today, and I’m 205.

There is no reason why every time I come back to this city that I have to let it win. NONE. So here we go, I am going to win this time.  I am going to fight everyone and everything that gets in the way of my success.  Because if it doesn’t work out, ultimately, I am the only one that can be blamed for it.

I won’t be blamed this time. 

Feeling a little gleeful right now… The weather here has changed rapidly and we are basically having summer in March, so I decided just now to try on a pair of shorts that have been sitting in my drawer for a very long time for when I finally lose enough weight.  I didn’t expect them to go on (as is usual with these), but they did - they do not look presentable as shorts by any means, but they are on.  And they can be stood and sat and crouched in and everything!  I was looking for something not wintery to go under a long summery top, and what do you know - they did the trick.  Suddenly they can be worn, and it solves the wintery and overheated issues as well!

I know it seems kind of silly, to be so cheerful about such a small thing, but I really am.  This week as been terrible - no sleep, not eating the way I should, at the school all night, 2 mid-terms today, etc.  But even with all that, it’s been a good night… Could be the delirium, but really I think it has been a good night…

It’s the simple things, folks.  I really think it is the simple, little things… :) 

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