I have a theory. I believe during the time it takes to gain the first 30 lbs., on your way to being totally unrecognizable as your former self, you have a part of you screaming, “What are you doing to us?!!!” This is probably true of most addictions or compulsions – like gambling or binge drinking. There is a part of yourself that knows this isn’t going to turn out well. But the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing – stress, sickness, sadness, escapism – whatever it is, it feels necessary to continue. But after those first 30 lbs. that voice tends to be drowned out quite a bit. You become numb to the voice & you have succumb to the numbing sensation of food as comfort.
But here’s where my theory takes a turn – I believe the result of this is the “not wanting to be alone with oneself”. In some that becomes almost another persona – someone larger than life. Someone over the top. Someone with really big hair. You know the girl – too much jewelry, too much makeup – this is an end result of drowning out the sane person hidden deep inside. The other extreme is the “I give up” persona, the thoroughly unkempt girl – this is more the direction I have gone. No makeup, cheap ugly clothes, not caring about one’s appearance. It’s the same thing – not being alone with your true self. I don’t believe you’ll find a lot of fat people that are in touch with their ‘authentic selves’.
And the most amazing thing happens when you give up using food as comfort, you have to be alone with yourself & your thoughts & feelings for the first time in quite a while. I found it uncomfortable. I even wondered why I didn’t like myself anymore. I know I didn’t like what I had allowed to happen, but I actually had to get to know myself again. I had to determine what was important to me and what I was going to care about and what relationships really meant something to me. The truth is, as I sit here writing this, I still don’t have a clear picture of who I am now. My life has become something foreign to me and I often feel as if I’m living someone else’s life. It’s not in any way a bad life, but it’s so different than what I thought my life would look like. I don’t relate to my life or know what I think of the person living it. I guess after one has been numb to life for so long, when you “come to” you don’t recognize where you’ve gone.
The truth is, I think it doesn’t matter too much, as long as you haven’t thoroughly destroyed yourself or your family. I mean, we’re all on the rat’s wheel anyway so, in the end, we’re all in the same place after 20 years – it just has different wallpaper. But it is an odd sensation to wake up to yourself and your life not knowing yourself or knowing who you are anymore. Maybe this is just a result of getting older. Maybe we all wake up & don’t recognize ourselves anymore. Maybe allowing myself to get so large is just a small element in a process that was going to happen eventually.
But to answer the question – it’s quite easy to allow this to happen - after the first 30 pounds, that is.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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This is a really good & insightful post!!!To be able to stand back and objectively look at oneself takes courage and strength. Sometimes so many things regardless of planned or unplanned, cause changes, suprises, and events, in life to come at us so fast we become overwhelmed as we juggle and struggle to cope and contantly adapt. Sometimes thru this process we begin to question who we are, sometimes we doubt who we are, and sometimes we hide from who we are. Sometimes we even don't like who we are. It's all the same really because what we feel is that we've lost our own control of who we are and how we wanted to be and do things in our life...we feel runover and we feel a sense of loss at it all..and we feel helpless to control it and we wonder if we even matter anymore..so we may seem to ourselves that we "give up" who we are for awhile, but we can't really do that because we still exist, we've just reverted to our 2 year old self throwing a tantrum, which in reality is just our way of protesting, rebelling, against what we don't like about our life, and what we fear and are angry about and what we feel we can't stop...or control...and there are so very few things we can control once we feel so overwhelmed.....eating is one of them. To face reality and accept it, is the first step of taking back who we are and to standing up and gaining your control back and finding your way.
ReplyDeletePS...I've realized I've done this a million times...This system overwhelms all of us...;-)
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