the healthy way

Preface: I didn’t always have issues with my body. As a young child, I wasn’t too thin but naturally lithe and, thanks to a lot of tap and ballet lessons, also quite flexible. When I was eight years old I fell terribly ill around Thanksgiving and was admitted to the hospital. My symptoms were extreme thirst and hunger, frequent urination, lethargy, and unexplained weight loss. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and my body’s inability to naturally metabolize carbohydrates (basically, whatever I ate was almost immediately expelled from my body – a natural effort to lower my blood sugar and save my own life) resulted in a serious weight reduction before I was brought to the hospital. I was eight years old, and I weighed as much as a healthy five year old should, about 45 pounds.

I never gained much weight after that. I finished elementary school still looking very sickly, though I was completely adjusted and healthy now. My appetite was healthy, but I believe my young body’s adjustment to synthetic insulin injections and the energy of being a child prevented me from putting on any significant weight. I became very ill again when I was in seventh grade. When I began vomiting blood, I was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with an extreme case of diabetic ketoacidosis. My body was shutting down and I spent a week in the hospital recovering. Vomiting blood for days led to erosion of my esophagus, leaving me unable to eat without excruciating pain even after I left the hospital. I lost twenty pounds. When I went back to school, none of my clothes fit. My gym suit shorts were nearly falling off me during class. It took time, but eventually I fully recovered and put on some weight. I was still very thin. It was not until I reached puberty in eighth grade that I started to acquire any sort of womanly shape.

My sophomore year of high school, I was informed by a male friend that I had “let myself go”. I wondered what he meant. I had never thought anything negative about my body. In fact, I had never thought anything about it. I wasn’t terribly into makeup or fashion at that age, so my outward appearance really wasn’t of too much concern. I had a steady boyfriend, but we were young and it was not sexual and he had never really said anything about the way I looked, positive or negative. This was the first criticism that had ever been brought to my attention. I looked at myself in the mirror that evening and realized I had a bit more pudge in my hips and thighs than I had noticed before. I smiled at my reflection and my cheeks were suddenly chubby. I weighed myself. I was 148 pounds.

A year later, I found out I was pregnant. Obviously, this resulted in some weight gain but I didn’t have issues with it. I put on another thirty pounds during my pregnancy. Shortly after giving birth, I was back down to about 150 pounds.

Then I quit eating. It developed hard and fast. My schedule was a whirlwind between my infant daughter and beginning my first semester of college, and I noticed a bit of weight loss from the stress. I ran with it. I would drink a pot of coffee a day, nothing for breakfast, rarely anything for lunch. I would pick at dinner with my family. If I had a night class, I sometimes stopped at McDonald’s on my way and scarfed down a happy meal. I became obsessive and weighed myself every day. I quickly lost 30 pounds this way. My family became a little concerned, making comments like “I can see your bones” or “you need to eat something once in a while”, but no one said anything convincing enough to make me stop. I remember stepping on the scale in May 2011, and I was 117. I wanted to be 110 so badly, so I kept it up.

Then, I met this guy, we’ll call him Mark. We had a long, very serious relationship that eventually resulted in me moving in with him. Mark’s mother was a lovely and sweet woman, and I became pretty close with her. She was 100% Lithuanian, and she could cook like nobody’s business. I began to let go of my obsessive behavior towards eating there. I put on some weight, because I was happy and I was eating well. I was also treating myself to craft beers and red wine pretty much every night.

We broke up.

And that was awesome.

But I was miserable about a different guy and so I lost some weight again.
And then I gained it back and then a bit.
And then I would lose, and then I would gain, and lose and gain, but I’ve been hovering around 130-140 for the past three years.

For the past two weeks I’ve been diligently watching my calorie intake and making a serious effort to make it to the gym, or at least do some strength training at home, three times a week. At the risk of looking like a total loser, I’m just gonna track all of my progress here where no one can accuse me of being attention seeking or fishing for compliments. I’ve lost 4.5 pounds so far 🙂 the healthy way

school-boy crush

written Tuesday, September 1 2015

I believe this trauma began in kindergarten.

I was six years old, a new student transferred in at the beginning of the last quarter of the year. The other children in my class had spent the last six months pairing off into their first friendships–some of which would turn out to be lifelong. At this age, my shyness had not swallowed me yet, and I was still a very curious and friendly child. Though I arrived terribly late in the year, I managed to weasel my way into the previously organized group pretty deftly. The other children were eager to befriend a new student, and this worked to my advantage. I was overwhelmed by the support of the new children. I felt no allegiance to my old classmates–I loved my new ones so much more than I had the others.

At Illinois kindergarten we did not have tables like we had in Michigan kindergarten. We had two rows of carpeted steps, steep enough to sit on as though it was a tiny auditorium. Our teacher sat in a large rocking chair in front of us with the blackboard behind her. I loved kindergarten.

There was one boy in Illinois kindergarten, we’ll call him Kyle. Kyle was the first boy in my life who was unafraid of displaying his affection for me publicly, and it mortified me. Kyle would insist on sitting next to me on the steps at the beginning of the day, and I grew to despise the insistence of our teacher’s “boy, girl, boy, girl” seating chart. He drew pictures of me and gave them to me in front of everyone. M friends teased me about his crush, taunting that I returned his feelings.

“No way,” I remember telling them. “I can’t stand him. I wish he would just leave me alone.”

I remember being humiliated the day Kyle came to school bearing invitations to his birthday party. He passed one out to every boy in the class, and then he sheepishly tossed one in front of me. I cried all the way home.

Another disturbingly vivid memory of Kyle takes place on the school playground. Kyle and a few other boys had infiltrated our girls-only game of tag. I watched in horror as one of the other children tagged Kyle–he was “it”. I froze, and Kyle saw an opportunity. He came thundering at me (as only a six year old boy can) and I ran for my life. He was screaming my name and making kissing noises. I ran straight into the arms of one of our playground aides, crying and sputtering. When she asked me what was wrong, I buried my face in her chest and screamed at the top of my lungs, “KYLE IS TRYING TO KISS ME!”.

Anyway, this was clearly just some childhood innocence against the backdrop of my dramatic memory (which has improved a bit with age, but not by much) and a little boy who had no control over his very scary, upsetting, animalistic attraction to my kindergarten self. However, it’s important to remember that I was truly terrified of this boy. I lived in constant fear of Kyle approaching me, talking to me, trying to kiss me…

I am still like this today, with grown men, and for this reason I am dreading Thursday and now at 23, instead of fearing Kyle, I am living in constant fear of the man who removes the medical waste at my office.