I had what has mostly been a good experience happen this weekend. Wait... My mind knows that it is a good thing and that being healthy is what we want, but there are feelings of sadness in giving up things from our past that represent a time when we were very unhealthy and unhappy. It's hard to explain.
We are not fat. We are 5'8" and weigh 140lbs. According to all those charts, we are a perfect weight for our height and build. We exercise regularly except when school gets too crazy and do our best to eat healthy (well, most of the time). We are healthy.
A year and a half ago I weighed 113lbs and wore a size 0 or 2. We stayed around that size for about 2 years. It wasn't about wanting to be thin - at least at first. We've always been on the thin side. We were in an ongoing major depressive episode for approximately 5 years. Even during our "happy" times we were still depressed. When we get depressed, we lose our appetite and even the thought of eating makes us sick. For several years the weight loss was slow and we stayed around 125lbs. with fluctuations in the level of the depression causing the weight to drop a few pounds.
In the Fall of 2007 a part came forward struggling with some memories involving oral sex and a huge aversion to swallowing anything. Despite therapist working with her on the issue, things only seemed to get worse. By Jan. 2008, we weren't eating anything or drinking much of anything before 6pm (apparently things felt safe after 6pm b/c as a child we were always home by then and no more abuse would occur for the rest of the evening). We worked with this part during our inpatient stay in Feb.-Mar. 2008 and made a lot of progress. I am happy to say being triggered by eating is not something we've struggled with since that stay.
I'm not conviced I do or ever really had an eating disorder, but I do believe a side effect of me being so incredibly thin for so long and getting compliments about my looks from everyone other than my family, made it very challenging for me internally as I began to naturally put weight back on because I was eating regularly again. Giving up my 0 sized clothing wasn't too hard b/c I actually could get back into some of my size 4 clothing that I was sad had become too baggy to wear. Giving up my size 2 clothes was a bit harder. Over the summer and early Fall, I've given up my size 4s for size 6s. I know the average American wears either a size 12 or a size 14, so I'm still well under average, but it's been a hard adjustment.
Until this weekend, I've been holding on to all of my old pants and skirts thinking that one day, I'd fit back into them again.... that maybe this is just a phase and that my "real" weight is skinnier. That I really am a size 4 or a 2.... I must admit that I did not take the initiative to part with my smaller sized clothing and thus commit myself to staying at least at this size. My mother has a friend whose daughter is a size 2-4 and she just landed her first professional job. First jobs don't pay much and she has to dress professionally everyday. Since my mom just helped me purchase enough dress pants in a size 6 for me to wear to work, she thought it was a perfect idea for me to sell my smaller pants that I can no longer wear to this girl for a discounted rate. Makes sense right? I mean, the pants really are too nice to just take to Goodwill. When I started adding it up, I put a lot of money into that wardrobe over the past 3-4 years.
The girl and her mom came over and bought 4 pairs of pants. They looked great on her..... almost made me jealous... Okay, I had to fight the jealously I was feeling inside... She ended up with some nice pants for work, and I ended up with almost $100. I should be excited, right? So, as they were leaving, why did I want to run after them, give them the money, and take my pants back? It's not like I don't still have about 10 more pairs of pants left that I need to sell/give away.... or as the unhealthy side of me thinks - fit back into in a few months.
Please, we don't need more issues! Fiance' doesn't think we're fat. He likes the way we look. If he thinks we look good and our family isn't on our case anymore, shouldn't that help to make being healthy feel more "acceptable" to us? I don't know. It just seems kind of rediculous to me to develop weight issues at this point in my life. I'm only a little bit heavier than I was when I graduated high school and I am wear the same size clothing I did in high school. I didn't have any issues with my weight then.
Don't think I'm going to solve this tonight, and think I could ramble on this topic forever right now. Night folks!
No comments:
Post a Comment