Headed into the unknown

Seeing my shrink today... It’s my last session with her and I’m starting to get some serious anxiety about it. We hit dead ends with every doctor she suggested for ongoing care. It’s frustrating and I’m a little scared of going forth on my own. Mike and I were talking about Carnie Wilson today; I was reading an article about her most recent weight loss surgery. Yes I said “most recent”, she had surgery once before and now she’s had lap band surgery. I wonder how many more times she’s going to do something of the sort before she starts to understand it isn’t just a matter of being capable of eating or not. Back in the day when I went through the beginning stages of the process for bariatric surgery they placed a high emphasis on psychological screenings. At least it seemed that way to me. I met with a dietary psychologist once, who even knew that was a specialty? Anyway she had asked some questions about why I wanted to do it and whatnot. She was concerned because I wasn’t the size of her typical patients. I was 215lbs at the time and the only reason they could consider me at that weight is because of the co morbidities. Funny how much weight I’ve gained and lost from that point. I’m currently about 10lbs lighter than that but I ballooned up as high as 245 and I’ve sat at every weight point in between. But the point was that they explained if I chose to continue through the process I would be meeting with this psychologist for a good 10 sessions prior to surgery. That was when it was still a relatively new procedure, before the days where you could drive down any highway in California and see billboards for 1-800-LAP-BAND. I think it is now being seen almost as a “cosmetic” procedure which it absolutely is not. There can be some serious complications from it but because it isn’t gastric-bypass doctors are pushing people through it like cattle.

Some days I regret my decision not to go through with it, others I don’t. I know for a fact that having the surgery wouldn’t have fixed my food issues and I don’t know if I was ready to face them at the age I was. I was 22 when I was considering it and when I think back I say wow I was young! At the ripe old age of 28 no less! But really I think I’ve done a lot of growing in those 6 years. I always joke that I am bitter beyond my years but really I think I’ve just experienced a lot. I’ve been managing my own healthcare since I was a teenager. Not because my parents didn’t care but because they really couldn’t. They both worked very hard and long hours to be able to provide me with the health insurance I was blessed to have. I was in an interesting situation, making some pretty serious health care decisions on my own. Accepting the recommendations of the doctors I was seeing and even scheduling my own surgeries. That kind of stuff is hard for someone who’s been around the block a few times let alone a 17 year old!

Mike thinks we’re both better for opting against weight loss surgery. It’s a feeling of self gratification, proving to oneself that you can in fact do it. For me it’s neither here or there. I’m still struggling. I am glad to see 45lbs gone but it upsets me that I could have let myself get to that weight because I feel like I am where I should have been starting. Sure it is the same for Mike isn’t it? But I am pretty angry at myself most of the time. I am angry that I lack the self control. I want to make the excuse that maybe this just isn’t for everyone. Sure I have made far better choices since this all began but I continue to fall into the same ditches that I dug before. Sometimes it feels like this restriction I continue to place on myself is just making me lash out and it is. I have eaten more potato chips since we started juicing than I probably ate in 4 months without juice. A bag here a bag there and then a laxative. Believe you me; if I could force myself to vomit I would only because some days I wonder what I might be doing to my intestines. We’ve all seen the 1970’s eating disorder films they used to show in school right? We all know the perils of bulimia but what do laxatives do? Oh I could certainly google the answer to that but it would scare the wits out of me. It isn’t an everyday occurrence but what does even once a week or every other week do? Maybe it is something I should look at before I cause permanent damage. Maybe it is time I stop trying to hold myself to some unattainable measure of success. Maybe I should just be glad that I gave it a chance, I want to say that I gave it my all but is that a lie? I think about that, I gave it my all… and I have thoughts floating into my mind of potato chips being crammed in my mouth, bowls of plain rice, raw veggies. Was that really giving it my all? Given my circumstances maybe it was.

Only time will tell what will happen once I'm on my own. I don't like the feeling that's for sure.

60 bottles of juice on the wall

Day 59 is coming to an end... It is an incredibly frustrating feeling to know that I am only half way there. Yet it is also so reassuring to think I am half way there. I don't know if that makes sense or not but whatever.
I've been kind of in a funny place since the chat I had with my shrink about seeing someone on the long term. The two doctors she referred me to aren't taking new patients. I was pretty frustrated by that and at the same time I felt like maybe it was just what I need so I could just stop. Just stop trying to fix whatever is wrong with me because A) there isn't anything wrong with me and I'm just blowing something way out of proportion and/or B) Mike's right and if I just stopped eating meat everything would be better.
I don't actually believe either of those statements. Over the last week I had a number of "discussions" with Mike about vegan-ism and his unfounded theories of how it will heal me. Each discussion left me more unnerved, upset, frustrated and left me questioning myself. His theories left me feeling like I am making more out of what I'm feeling than is actually there. But if it is just me making more of it then that would mean I wasn't secretly eating entire bags of chips, platefuls of rice, and whatever other snacks I could get my hands on to the point of physical pain and emotional self destruction. If I was maybe eating a few chips and then crying about it I could see how many I was just disappointed in myself for breaking fast but I am literally eating myself to death. Because I learned that I couldn't purge after these binges, I have turned to laxatives on a number of occasions. I eat because I don't have the coping mechanisms and skills that other adults have. I eat for the same reasons that many alcoholics drink. And you know what I find fucked up and unfair? It is possibly more acceptable to be an alcoholic than a binge eater. Because alcohol is pretty well accepted but fat people are not. And yet both are horrible life destroying addictions but one is just prettier.
I think, and I am completely speculating here because I don't quite know how to ask... but I think that for Mike this eating thing could seem like a side effect of this attempt to fast. Maybe he thinks that restricting myself to nothing but juice might be bringing out all these cravings. It really isn't. It is pretty deep set stuff. I wish he could be a fly on the wall and listen to my sessions because it is so difficult to verbalize what goes on.
I remember when I was little our bus stop was near a house that had tons of mandarin trees lining their fence. Like tons and tons... Every morning while waiting for the bus I would pick and eat as many mandarins as I could. I would usually fill a produce bag with as many as I could to take with me to school. I didn't have a lot of friends, my sister did. She was always the popular one and so when we waited for our bus she would have all her friends around her and I was always standing awkwardly by stuffing mandarins into my face. Once I stole money from my parents so I could buy ice cream it took years to confess to that. In 4th grade I remember some girls making fun of me I don't remember why but one of the girls had bought a nutter butter bar and left it near the corner of the swing set while she swung. When no one was paying attention to me I stole it. I took off running and hid in a bathroom stall eating it as quickly as I could. At home there were a number of nights where mom would make dinner and enough to have left overs for her and dad's lunches the next day. After we had all eaten and they were watching tv I would sneak in the kitchen and inhale more and more. I remember literally sneaking, being as quiet as I could as I lifted the lids off of pots and pans so she wouldn't know what I was doing in there. Often times she was just pissed off that I had eaten the left overs or that there wasn't enough for both of their lunches. But sometimes she was just pissed that I was still eating.
When I was in high school I couldn't have been more than 14 or 15 I remember we took a trip to see some doctor in Mexicali. My sister, my cousin and I along with another friend of of the family and her daughter all got dragged off into this doctors office in butt fuck ass nowhere Mexico where we were weighed like cattle and put on some insane weight loss medication. I remember we had to be on some strict diet and I prayed I never had to eat another beet in my life. It didn't last long, my uncle quickly demanded that our mothers take us off of those medications since they were known to cause some serious health issues.
See nothing new here... it just isn't something that comes up in the getting to know you conversations. I don't know... I don't remember myself as being a difficult child. I feel like I took pretty good care of myself with minimal supervision. As a teenager I wasn't difficult, again I didn't have many friends and I spent too much time on the internet. Honestly I think I was easy to raise because I didn't ask for much. Am I seeing that wrong? I mean while I was at home tying up the phone lines with my dial up my sister was out on the street somewhere getting high with someone. Which kid would you think got disciplined more?
So here I am 59 days into this "fast" and really trying to make an effort for me. I wish I could show to myself that I can do this. That I am stronger than my addictions and when I think I'm close to saying "Yeah!!! I totally did that!!" I just screw myself up. I find myself sabotaging myself and I don't know why. Today I made it the entire day without falling victim to myself. I had been longing for chinese food since my coworkers were having it today and it smelled so good. But I stayed in the office at lunch to minimize temptation and after work I got into my work out clothes and drove to jazzercise after turning down an offer to hang out with friends while they ate dinner. I was frustrated, I wanted to eat something and the only thing that would distract me or so I hoped would be jazzercise for the next hour. I climbed the stairs to the class and thought it strange that the music was already going. Goddamn it how could I have forgotten that Friday classes start at 5:30? I went back to the car, it was nearly 6 no use going in at that point. But I was gripped with panic. If I went home I would undoubtedly eat something. If I walked into a grocery store to get stuff I need for juice I would eat something. I started bawling in the parking lot of the Jazzercise center like a crazy person. Like THE crazy person that I am. I had no idea what the hell to do. I am completely mad. Who does that? I couldn't think of any escape route. It was like fighting the urge to stop and pick up a bottle of booze or just stop into a bar where no one recognizes me. I wanted it so bad and yet I was sobbing because I didn't. I just lost it and I don't know how else to explain it. I told Mike what I was doing and he suggested I drive myself back to my office and go into the gym there because I needed it. It would be therapeutic, and he was right. I did just that and I walked on a tredmill until the panic was gone and I felt like I could go into a grocery store without devouring everything in sight. Until i could walk into that store pay for my produce and not ask for cash back so I could buy cookies from those crack peddling girl scouts. And I did it. I came home and I made juice and I did not eat anything. It was absolutely exhausting. And tomorrow I will wake up and go to class on time and I will somehow make it through the rest of the day fighting off the same demons and Sunday and Monday and everyday after I will continue to do the same as best as I can.