Come on get happy.
For DK, and anyone else interested in being notified when I update, send me an email and I’ll add you to my notify list (I’ll still update my diaryland page).
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In my last entry, I talked about having congestive heart failure in 1997. To say I have a checkered medical history would be putting it lightly (as Kay says, I’m a “medical marvel”). I almost died, mostly because I knew something was wrong with me, and I kept avoiding going to the hospital, because I knew it was bad. The fact that I couldn’t walk, couldn’t breathe, and could literally make dents in my legs because they were so swollen and full of water wasn’t encouragement enough (yes, I have serious psychological issues). Finally, my mother forced me, and I ended up having blood pressure that was 210/140, and my pulse ox (the oxygen saturation of your blood, which should be 100%) was 84. I had to have an IV of nitro glycerin, and non-stop oxygen. My heart was enlarged, and I had retained many (MANY) pounds of water.
My doctor told me that I had cardiomyopathy, and that my heart would be enlarged for the rest of my life, and that I would have to take a handfull of heart pills forever, too.
For most people, that would be one of those “scared straight” situations where they have a life-changing epiphany and turn their life around for the better. And for the first few months, I did. I was walking every day, and eating very sensibly. I had stopped smoking, and was losing weight.
I work really well as long as there is a large degree of fear involved. As long as I thought I was going to die at any moment, I didn’t eat any fried food, didn’t drink, didn’t do anything I shouldn’t. But it’s when I do cross over, and have that cheeseburger and don’t immediately keel over, that I fall off my path, and screw myself.
This happened to me. I started smoking again, I was drinking a lot, and I started slipping fast food back into my diet (though, not even close to the amount of food I was eating before the CHF - I literally ate at Taco Bell EVERY DAY). I knew that I was damaging myself, and that I could probably kill myself, but that didn’t stop me (well, I stopped smoking, and I don’t drink often - and I do still eat junk food occasionally).
I realized when I was watching Angie Stone on Celebrity Fit Club that she was me (and in some areas, IS me). I am the queen of excuses. I can come up with a hundred reasons right now why I can’t do some form of exercise when I get home from work at five o’clock.
I’m not saying that I’m proud of the fact that I hate exercise, I just do. I deplore the idea of doing some boring, forced activity. Of walking in circles for an hour, or on some treadmill, walking and walking and walking, yet going nowhere. I can walk for hours, if I don’t think it’s exercise. I hate to say these things, because I know most people who do exercise don’t like it, but they still do it. I just can’t do it, and continue to do it. I lack motivation, in a major way (for some reason, my health is not a motivating factor. I already admitted to having head problems).
That gets me to the point of this entry. I have been avoiding going to my surgeon’s office to discuss my hernia repair surgery because I was supposed to lose a major amount of weight in the four months since I’ve been there. And while I have tried, I have not been able to (which is why I had gastric bypass surgery to begin with). I am not proud of it, but it’s true. I have beat myself up over this, I have hated myself, and been angry, and depressed, and frustrated. I have cried, and yelled, and thrown things in my anger.
I am confounded with my own need to destroy my success. I have wanted my entire life to not be fat anymore. Yet I have been too lazy to do the work. I became a food addict. I finally gave in to my doctor’s suggestion and had a radical surgery to lose weight. And it worked for a while, until this fucking hernia came along and stopped it, with 100 pounds to go.
Now, on Sepember 25th, I have to go into the surgeon’s office, and explain to him why I have probably only lost about ten or fifteen pounds in the last four months, instead of the eighty that he told me to lose. What excuse will I give, then?
I won’t. I will tell him the truth - that I could not do this. I have tried, and I have failed. For some reason, I don’t care enough about myself to take control of my food issues and face them head on. I am, by weight loss surgery standards, a failure. Even though I am 125 pounds lighter than before, it’s still considered “poor weight loss”.
I think that because I’ve been fat my whole life, it’s been like a security blanket. Even though I’ve hated it, and myself, I’ve still kept it around. I think I am afraid to be thinner. To be “normal” (whatever the fuck that is). To have people look at me differently, and notice me when they might not have before. To have to worry about things I never did before. Or maybe to not have anything to worry about at all. Maybe I want something to hate. I need to keep it so I can keep being angry. So I can continue to be miserable, because maybe I’m one of those people that I hate - someone that is only happy if she’s unhappy.
Fuck that. I don’t want to be unhappy.
Now I just need to figure out how.
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I know I’m whining. And I know that there are plenty of you sitting there thinking, “Fuck you, Andria. Stop complaining and fucking DO IT.” Â
I really am making an effort to figure this shit out. This has weighed so heavily on me recently (oh, god, I really did pun right there, didn’t I?), that it’s affected my relationships with my friends, and it’s even seeped into my conversations with Scott. It’s made me even more bitter and cynical than usual.
I try not to write about this here, because it IS whining and complaining, and I don’t like it. But I have to get it off my chest.
And off my ass. And every other flabby place.
(I know the formatting is all wonky. I hate it)
And when I get around to shedding the 8-lbs I have gained then I’ll take some new photos. Trust me, on my frame, that amount of weight SHOWS.
Comment by Prolifique
August 28, 2006 @
It didn’t seem like whining to me, but then I can relate to your feelings in some ways, so maybe that’s why. I wish I could help you. *hug*