Are You Fighting From In The Hole Or Even Ground?

Earlier this week my friend Christine over at A Deliberate Life posted a blog that I am going to share here with you. I read it at least three times.  I think it was the third reading when I decided to try subbing in the words "chronic migraines" for eating problems or overeating or any other similar version. I also subbed in "return to wellness or migraine improvement" for weight loss. It is a bit eerie how close to home this hit for me. I am often shocked, though I shouldn't be by now, how similar our journeys are. When I say "our" I don't just mean Christine and I... I mean the human race and I. Obstacles are obstacles and the overcoming of them is what it is all about to live a healthy, happy life. It was also more like 10 years to the 20 she referenced, but you get the idea. The parts that are in bold are mine. These sentiments were like... wow.

This is what Christine wrote on her post fighting to get even:

I fought to level.

I fought to even ground.

All my life I have been in a deficit.
When I lost weight...
I wanted to skip the rest of it..
I wanted to believe I had done all I needed to do..even though I knew I hadn't.
It took me 20 some odd years to come to grips with my eating problems..
Finding out I had more shit under there was discouraging.
I just wanted to be better!
When I got down to a weight where men were noticing me..
it scared the shit out of me.
so badly I nearly fainted.
That was when I knew I couldn't ignore it...or act my way better.
I had to fix it.
So I took self defense classes.
Then I knew my marriage wasn't what it should be...
because even though my husband was better towards me because I lost weight.
he was better towards me because I lost weight.
The solving of the problem created a problem.
One I couldn't ignore...and it began to expose other problems....that I couldn't ignore.
Any person who has lost a significant amount of weight...
and was using that weight to solve emotional issues,...
will have one hell of a surprise waiting at the end of their rainbow.
You don't get in that kind of predicament without living with a seriously faulty set of beliefs....about yourself, relationships, life and everything in it.
When you begin to correct how you see yourself, long term?
yeah...
When you no longer lose weight from self hatred..
and begin to have faith in yourself..
Your mindset will shift...and will no longer align with the people in your life.
Remember, those people were attracted to a person covering their pain with food....
or a person who had no boundaries.
or a person that wanted love so badly, they would accept even the chimera of it...a shadow.
and either they will change, you will change back...or one of you will have to leave.
IT is rare for both people to change.
It is nigh on a miracle.
Your weight loss is going to expose every crack in the dam.
This is why weightloss fails.
major weightloss.
Because ripping apart your whole life wasn't the deal...fitting in a bikini was the deal.
But your health is bigger than clothing...

all my life I have felt less than...
I had to tear it all down and fight like hell to get to a healthy even.
to even begin to build.
I spent three years fighting the notion that I still had to fight.
I was tired of it.
But I remained steady long enough..
when I got tired..I held steady..
gave it a rest.
You don't have to keep pushing all the time.
If it is a long ass battle...
sit down for a month or two and hold your ground.
Or hell, like me...a year here, or a year there.
take note of where you were and where you are headed.
And then move forward.
I tell you...
one day you will reach daylight.
and you will find.
fighting from even ground feels like fighting from high ground when you are so used to being in a hole.
fighting for so long teaches you how to fight.
teaches you patience.
I am ten times stronger for it.
So keep fighting.
It may not be fair that you have to fight so hard...when others came out the shoot even.
but like a bone that fractures and heals..fractures and heals..
you become nearly unbreakable.
Chris out.


I have nothing to add to that.
Robin out.

C is for CHRISTINE

My theme for A to Z this year is a wildly different, but very exciting, HERE'S TO YOU all month long. 26 posts to be precise. The most difficult part was narrowing down the 26. All of you deserve your own post. What you will find here is a post by the featured blogger, with traveling music chosen by me that complements said post, and two links. One will link back to the original post and the other to the main page. This year's A to Z is all about making new friends! 


Christine pens the inspiring blog A Deliberate Life. Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about this blog. This blog started out as a weight loss blog and turned into a life blog. Overeating is just a symptom of a life that is not working. Digging out the chicken coop that is your life experience, belief system, your Spirit is hard work. It requires self examination. It requires looking at the crap. It changes your life from something to get through to a wonderful journey to be embraced. As her header says, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived..." ~ Thoreau. These are the woods, my friends...

And the traveling music:


fat is the symptom - love is the cure by Christine
3/14/14


I would say the majority of morbidly obese people are that way because they are dealing with serious shit.
And instead of drinking, or doing drugs...they eat.

Why would I eat instead of deal with my life?

It was easier.

there...I said it.
It is EASIER.
not in the long run of course..

But in the short run....you bet your ass.

For me, food did indeed taste better than thin felt.
I am one of those unfortunate (or fortunate) women who does not give a shit if a man thinks my ass is wide.
Don't like it, lump it.

Well, that just left ME to care.
and I didn't.
Not for the longest time.
I cared about getting through each day.
Because I was miserable without knowing I was miserable.
YOu may think that is an impossibility..
But all my life,  my mentality was "Life is tough....no one wants to hear you bitch...so suck it up."
So I did.
I learned to effectively mask all my feelings by eating them.
It started around the age of twelve and continued til about five years ago.
Until I stopped eating them....
I thought I was a very even keeled person.
Water off a duck's back and all that.
lolololol..
When I stopped eating..
I started noticing things.
Things like how my husband talked to me.
(keep in mind my husband is a sober alcoholic...and how he talked to me is undoubtedly how he talks to himself in his own mind.)
How I spoke to myself in my own mind.
How others looked at and treated me because of my size.

The day I looked up and really saw myself at build a bear...
it was like waking up from a coma.
That awakening was not magic..
It was a long process.
A process which began at a karate class.
I know...it's labyrinthine...this story of mine.
But I am an examiner by nature..
I need the whys and hows....it is how I am made.
but back to awakening.
I had thought, up to that point...til the age of 35...that I was merely philosophical about my childhood...
And when I stopped eating..
and stopped masking..
I felt this weird pressure in my chest that kept growing and growing.
and growing.
And It was rage
sorry..
IT WAS RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE.

up till that point..
I had lived with a low level depression that I masked with apathy and eating.
and Not Thinking About It.

Once I confronted the state my body was in...270 pounds on a 5'3 frame...and the state my mind was in....and I would lay awake at night reliving parts of my childhood while trying to sleep...
...the rage would grow...
And I threw myself into weight loss.
I used the rage to my advantage...
And it really propelled me down the scale.

Then, at around 156 pounds (a weight I maintained through high school, something to think about later I suppose)
I hit a new emotion.
FEAR.
I was also molested by my stepfather's father.
he touched me inappropriately.
And I never told anyone until I was 19.
He called me his 'petite princess" and  would try and tickle me and put me on his lap..
and then one night...he laid down next to me and touched me.
and I rolled over and he left.
And I never went near him again.
But it colored the way I saw my body.
I felt dirty.
Every man I had met until I was 15 had been abusive, or perverted.
I hated men.
except my brother.
which was my saving grace..
In the time since...I have met men who aren't abusive.
Who are very good men...
My mom's fourth husband is a good man.
preachers and so fourth..
and my husband...while struggling with his own issues..is at his core, a good man..
so back to the fear.
The readers who have been here a while remember my fainting goat post.
A man tried to flirt with me at the mall..
and I was so afraid, I had to sit down before I fell out.
I was afraid to be 'petite'....or vulnerable.
There are a lot of reasons why I chose food.
It's easy,
IT's available.
IT doesn't judge.
It is legal.
and it worked.
But it kept me from feeling...and that is no way to go through life.
IT kept me from confronting the people who needed to be confronted, facing the issues in my mind that needed to be faced...It kept me dead inside.
Waking up from that was like the feeling your hand gets when you lie on it all night, and you have cut off your blood supply.
It is painful.
It can feel easier to revert.
or bury it in shit..
or spray some garden fresh spray.
or whatever euphemism makes it easier to live a lie than face a hard truth.

who wants to live a lie?
not me.

These last six months...the last of my fantasy land wishes were stripped away..
And everything I had hoped would be true about me if faced with bad circumstances..
I found to be true.
There is Nothing like a real trial by fire to show you who you are..
And If I hadn't been doing what I had been for the last 5 years..
I never would have been ready for the last six months.
And who knows...maybe six months ago never would have happened, If I hadn't become who I have become?
so it goes....
in any case:
I have become so solid in the knowledge of who I am..and what I am capable of...that I was able to find my feet in short order.
even as I have remained overweight...
I lay in bed one night a few months back, and accepted every pound on my body...not as some symbol of failure..
but as an acknowledgement that I am here...and the space I occupy and my body
is mine..
mine to cherish or abuse.
Mine.
I own it...all of it.
And I love it and am grateful for it..
old, overweight, stretched out....one weak knee..
I am here.
I love my body...it has carried me through.
Now I want to show myself what I am capable of..
I want to feel energetic and full of possibility.
And that means keeping my body in good shape.
For me.
God willing, I have a full life to live..people to meet and enjoy..
a world to see.
So why would I allow my body to be hindered.
when there is so much to do?
I have eaten under 1800 this whole week...
and exercised every day..
next week I will up my exercise and take another 100 calories off the plate...
not because I am disgusted with myself..
But because I have a goal to reach and things to do.
Anger will propel you.
Love will free you.
Chris out.

I know that was long and I looked for what to excerpt and couldn't find anything that wasn't essential. So, thank you for accepting that some truths take a certain amount of space to tell. If you aren't reading Christine's blog, you are missing out on something special. Robin out.