Envy

I envy cutters. Yes, you read that right. I envy people who harm and mutilate themselves to deal with their pain. Unlike people who eat to bury their pain, cutters are regarded with sympathy. People want to help them and realize that the scars of their destructive behavior are a manifestation of illness. Fat people receive no such sympathy for bearing the scars of their suffering, and the bigger the "scar" (the heavier the person), the less sympathy they receive.

Lately, the quality of my life has been spiraling downward. This is related to what I wrote about in my previous posts, but also an overall tendency for me to work harder at being more productive, more psychologically whole, and to be physically stronger. At this point in time, the way I've taken myself apart to stop my reliance on food to deal with my pain is something I'm not sure I'll survive intact, one way or another.

I'm that much weaker for having made this effort, but not in any of the ways which people would recognize as being "weaknesses". On the contrary, I'm sure people would see everything I've done as nothing but success - losing lots of weight, looking "better", being healthier, and assuming a more productive role in the world. Superficially, I'm looking to be a screaming success. Inside, I'm falling apart.

One thing I know in a visceral fashion but knew superficially before is that the palliative effects of overeating for someone psychologically inclined to use such coping mechanisms are profound. When that is taken away, the forces that drive one to it do not vanish. The pain that motivated the seeking of food for comfort or numbing remains. Without the food, there is nothing but profound pain with no relief. Sometimes the pain is so great that I wish I would simply fall asleep and not wake up the next day. I don't want to die and I wouldn't end my own life, but I wish to stop hurting without relief.

People who fail at their "diets" have something I no longer  have. They have the capacity to return to food for comfort because they haven't conditioned the effectiveness of doing so out of them. All I have is rawness and suffering. It makes me wish there was something else to turn to, and that returns me full circle to cutters. I in no way want to elevate what they do, but I can see the appeal of seeking relief in a way that doesn't find you being labeled and judged. It's a sad fact of the world that hurting yourself in one way is ridiculed and seen as character weakness and a lack of self-control and hurting yourself in another is a cry for help. I keep crying, but find no help.

Tired of Climbing

In moments of despair, I often feel like I'm in a deep, dark pit which I am trying to climb out of with little, slow or no success. In good times, I don't think about being in it because I have the sense of moving up toward something better and brighter, but the truth is that I'm still there and still climbing. I only really notice where I am when something happens to knock me down deeper or stop or slow my progress. The effort of the climb or in simply not sliding down deeper, however, is always with me.

This pit isn't physical, of course, nor is it necessarily metaphorical, but speaking of it in this fashion renders it so. This tunnel toward the center of the earth is psychological, and it is uniquely mine. The depth, the shape, the angles, the obstacles, and the holds are formed by my personal history.

Everyone has their own pit of some sort, but not everyone has one as deep, dark, or as difficult as any other particular individual's. In fact, I dare-say that mine is nowhere near the hardest to climb up from nor the deepest, but it's still pretty deep. Some people have very shallow ones, or very gently sloping ones. Their move toward the brightness and beauty of daily happiness is so effortless that the only thing which makes it hard for them to regularly climb out is a catastrophe. For others, it tunnels all the way through to China. They can't even see the light of joy, and mainly imagine what awaits at the top.

The pits we're in are formed by life experiences and circumstances.

Poor? Dig a little deeper.

Ugly? Deeper.

Sick? Deeper yet.

Emotionally unstable or sensitive? Much deeper.

Fat? Tormented? Abused? Much, much deeper still.

There's a nearly endless list of things which can make that hole harder to get out of, and I've lived a lot of them, though not necessarily the worst possible ones. My husband, on the other hand, has one of those shallow, gentle pits. He spends little time in it, and gets out of it pretty fast. He had good parents, a middle class lifestyle, and a natural easy-going nature. He's not only in a shallow pit, but he's got strength to climb out.

One of the things I've realized is that a lot of people, me included (for a little while at least), think that the pit they're in is entirely dug as a result of one factor, their weight/relationship with food. They think that losing weight will mean they are out and in the sun. It's not like that though. Dealing with your food issues makes you stronger for the climb. It may make you move up a little faster, and even closer to the top because less is weighing you down. I'm not talking about the ballast of your body, but that of social censure, self-hatred, and rejection. Losing these things which fall away with the weight makes the climb easier.

You are still, however, in that same hole. You're not out by a long shot simply because you've dealt with food issues. If you think you're out though, you're more vulnerable to easing your grip and slipping back down again, pulled down by the weight of self-loathing and disgust when you think you're detestable again because you've regained weight or started to eat in a less noble fashion.

I realize ever more clearly how deep I'm still in a dark and unhappy place and how hard it continues to be to pull myself up and closer to the top. At times, I grow incredibly weary of the effort of it all, but I still keep trying because I want to reach the light at the top. This has little to do with food anymore, and that's what brings about a certain clarity. It has to do with all of the crap I've been through in life as a result of the way I've been judged, mistreated, and physically damaged.

Every day is a new day with pain - knee pain, back pain, and sometimes other random but not infrequent pains like headaches or stomachaches. Every day is stressful. Every day is walking out on a limb in fear of falling off but walking out on it nonetheless. You can only do that so many times before you grow worn out and just want to stop. You want to arrest the climb for awhile, even let go and slide down just so you don't have to exert even the effort of holding yourself in place.

In all of this, what I realize is that food actually played a role of value in that climb. It was fuel, both emotionally and physically. The emotional palliative effects made the pain more bearable. The physically fueling effects made the exertion less noticeable. Food made the climb easier, but the results of using food in this fashion made it harder.

Gaining weight and being super fat added to the pain and sapped my stamina, but it was hard to find the strength to let it go and keep climbing while waiting for the slow changes that would make things easier to manifest. It was, essentially, abandoning the medicine and hoping in a few months, years, etc. to no longer feel sick. It takes a very long time, but eventually, that is what happens. If you keep climbing without that ballast, you get stronger and can climb a little better and with greater ease. But, it's not easy. It's never going to be easy, and right now I'm just tired of climbing.

And it has nothing to do with food.

The Problem Isn’t Solved

This morning I woke up feeling listless and numb. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but the feeling grew increasingly familiar. It was the sort of “going through the motions” feeling that I felt during my prolonged bout of clinical depression.

Last night was not a good night for my husband and I. We didn’t have a big fight or anything as we rarely have that kind of conflict. He had been caught up over the last 5 days or so in a drama related to the professional training he has been undergoing. The people he is working with are in a situation where they are privy to the most intimate thoughts of the people they are training. Supposedly, thoughts are shared frankly and in the utmost confidentiality, but the people conducting the training are being rather unprofessional about some of the negative comments made about them in the journals they have asked people to submit. While my husband’s journal hasn’t been at issue, some vindictiveness toward one of the other people in his training group has been alluded to, and he was sucked into the whole drama when he attempted to be supportive of the women who are being victimized by the unprofessional behavior and postures of the powers that be.

Since he has been so wrapped up in this drama, there really hasn’t been any room for me in his life. He goes to work and works long days, comes home and reads e-mail related to the drama, writes responses to the drama, and eats dinner. Then, we go to bed. Anything I say or do pales in comparison to this situation. Any need I may have, like having my husband inquire after my day’s diet progress as I asked him to do when I had my “cry for help” binge eight days ago, has fallen utterly by the wayside. For the last three days, he hasn’t asked me about my diet, despite my request that he simply ask one question to help me get a little more accountability. It would only take a moment of his time, but his brain is so crowded with helping everyone else that he can’t help me.

This morning after he headed off for this training, I sat on the bed and my morning numbness cleared as I reached the previously detailed realizations, and I started to cry because I feel so utterly isolated and alone. I feel as though my concerns don’t matter, and even if they do, he’s too stressed by the immediate situation to have me pile my issues on top of his. Last night, one of the problems he had was that he suddenly became acutely aware that his e-mail-based support of the women who were caught up in the drama could cause him serious problems if they were accidentally passed on to the wrong people. He had been preoccupied all day with this, and when I mentioned that he hadn’t done what very little I had been asking him to do in regards to asking about my day’s eating, he cried.

My husband rarely cries, so it is very devastating for me when I do something that upsets him this much. He then became very hard on himself about how good a husband he is in general (and he is a very good husband, the best I believe). This made me feel petty and terrible for heaping another concern onto him, and making him feel so bad about himself. I felt I should have waited to mention my feelings about his not asking me about my diet progress until this evening, after the last day of his training when any concern for his involvement in this drama blowing up in his face would have passed.

I’m a strong believer in communication with one’s spouse, even when there are difficult emotional accompaniments. That being said, I believe that it is important to use discretion about the timing of that communication. And, that being said, I think my sense of depression, isolation, and disconnection this morning was related to the fact that lately I feel there is no good time for my needs to be dealt with. What is more, I feel that the mundane nature of dealing with my issues and needs pale in comparison to the complex interactions and ensuing drama of the people that he is dealing with now. I can’t help but feel boring, unimportant, and superfluous. I’m also resentful that he’s spending so much time and energy supporting and helping other people while ignoring my request and needs. He tells me I’m more important than anyone or anything, and then goes on to help everyone but me. This disconnection between his asserted wishes and actions has been an issue for us before, and it is now again, but I don't know if he has the mental energy at present to even begin to deal with it at present.

I don’t mean to paint my husband in a negative light. It is difficult for him not to be involved with these people, and he cares about them and wants to build meaningful relationships with them. It’s all very exciting and fulfilling to be involved in this training and to get to know these new people on the deep level that he has. I have tried very hard to allow myself to be marginalized to some extent with grace throughout this process, but I’m starting to feel entirely pushed out of the picture. I don't want to be one of those women who needs some sort of proof that she's more important than anything else in her husband's life, nor do I want him to drop all other concerns for me. However, I'd like to feel that I'm in the mix at least, and I'm starting to feel that not asserting myself in the interests of not being a type of person I'd rather not be is harming me, my self-esteem, and ultimately my relationship with my husband. I don't want to insist on him putting me first, making me a priority or whatever one wants to call meeting my needs, but it is starting to look that there is no other way that I'll have my concerns dealt with or needs met.

I feel trapped. I feel alone. And I feel like there’s nothing I can do about it except cry and feel pain in my stomach and hope that writing about all of this will provide enough catharsis that I don't develop an ulcer or go on another mechanical binge in order to cry for help again.