Christmas Hiatus

I am taking some time off for the Holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.

Second Abstinence

This is a hard blog to write. I am going to quit blogging for a while. I will still be reading.

I love to blog but I think instead of relieving my food problem/depression it is actually making it worse. I get on here and reveal stuff I wish I had kept to myself. Then I feel bad. Then I eat. Some of the stuff I am spilling out here I need to hold inside and examine before letting it go public. I am tired of writing about my wretched condition. Seeing the words in print just seems to reinforce my sorry state.

I have also been relapsing big time. I have gained 20 pounds. It depresses me to go online and read everyone else's ongoing success stories when I feel so unsuccessful. I guess misery needs company.

I hit bottom with a thud on Saturday. I have been sugar abstinent since Monday. I will start flour abstinence next Monday. I want to be abstinent. No whining about the loss of the pleasure of sweets. No anger at not being able to eat like other people. No resentment about the prep time it takes to eat abstinently. Just relief that there is help for me and I know how to implement it.

I need an on the ground support system. I have gone it mostly alone up to now because that is part of the disease process, and there is no addictive eating anything in the wilds of Wyoming. I am researching my options for help.

Thank you all for YOUR support over the past couple of years. It has meant the world to me. See you in the new year.

Take care. Love Lynn

Tired or Depressed?

Hell of a way to start a Thanksgiving blog ain't it? Let's get this straight upfront, I recognize and count my blessings. I am a well blessed woman. Thank You God. And God bless Us everyone.

We got back Sunday evening from a 1082 mile round trip..trip. We visited Mentor Mary and Heart Surgery Friends. Mark attended a CLE course (free). I shopped at Wally World. The dog moped.

On Monday I did laundry and cleaned house. I then spent three hours at an evening church committee meeting. Tuesday I spent three hours at another church (morning) meeting and then shopped for groceries and made a pie. Today I am supposed to be cooking for Thanksgiving. And you know what? I ain't a gonna do it. I'll cook the damn dinner on Friday. Thank God we are invited out tomorrow. I just need to make another pie.

I couldn't sleep last noc. I was attacked by my mind. Racing thoughts, twitching, sweating, the whole nine yards. I got up...and ate the pie I now have to replace. A whole pie. Amazing. Then came the backlash. I was plagued by visions of plunging knives into my bulging flesh. In an effort to right myself I decided to pace the deck. (Was freezing cold out there in my nightgown and robe I might add.) I also gave my craving a voice. Whoa Nellie.

Ever seen a two year old's temper tantrum? That is what came out of me. I hollered (quietly) for fifteen minutes. Much of it consisted of sobbing "I want it" and "Now." Eventually I was totally spent. Then I noticed the quiet, and the stars. Cold crisp wonder. The Big Dipper and Orion's Belt and the Milky way were there for the touching. I was at peace. And filled with gratitude. And I no longer wanted to eat, ever.

What did I learn? 1) I am tired. Having seventeen bodies to dinner one week and then going 1000 miles a week later was TOO MUCH. I do not adapt that quickly anymore. May hap I never did. 2) Sitting in front of the television to relax and rest up only makes me feel worse. 3) Movement makes me feel better. 4) Giving the craving a voice may be a useful tool in the future. 5) I am afraid the dog will want to get up at 1pm every morning and go for a walk.

I know this is a weird Holiday post but I had to let off more steam. Thanks for reading.

Happy Thanksgiving. Love Lynn

Black and White

I hate stupid shades of grey. Not having absolutes makes me depressed. Take losing weight for instance. (That last sentence was supposed to be ironic.) I want to make up my mind, plan, statement, whatever and have a stopping and a starting point. I want to draw a line in the sand and then build a concrete wall on it. I want to be sure of a thing. I hate wandering around in a land of constantly shifting barriers.

I know where the longing for absolutes comes from. I know it is common to to women of my background. And you know what? Knowing is not all it is cracked up to be. And of limited practical value.

How do y'all cope with the living in rainbow land? ("Rainbow land" is more cheerful than shades of grey I thought.) It seems I can't respect myself unless I am functioning in black and white. It seems I can't be at peace unless I am functioning in black and white. It seems as though I can't think unless it is in black and white. How do most folks live in a world of shifting sand? I am sure I don't know.

Okay, after that depressing little diatribe I will cheer up a tad and tell you how the dinner went. Dinner was fine, I was a mess. I ended up with thirteen adults and four kids. We had enough food and drink. That was good. We had enough chairs to eat dinner. That was good. Guests had fun fellowship I think. That was good. I was mad as hell the whole time. That was bad. Gad am I a putz. I wasted a nice evening with friends seething inside about being taken advantage of. Since I invited all these people I am not sure who I thought was taking advantage of me. I want to enjoy people in my home so I invite them over, and then I promptly begin to hate them. What is my deal anyway?

Good bye cruel world from your fat depressed friend, Lynn.

Entertaining

Fourteen people are due here at 6pm tomorrow night. I am cleaning like mad. I have the upstairs done and will soon have the kitchen done. Bathrooms I will do later this evening. Living room and bedroom I will do tomorrow along with setting the table. Will be lovely to have the house clean from top to bottom before the holidays get here. We are doing pot luck so my cooking is at a minimum. I am using paper everything. I finally got the living room curtains done and the laundry room shampooed. Yeah for me.

I am stressed so am eating. I am eating nuts. I have begun to hate nuts. I want peppermint candy. Do you think you can get addicted to peppermint? I even dreamed about it last night. Very odd. Peppermint tea helps with the craving but is sure not as good as those red and white starlight mints. I am totally off chocolate. Finally got on the scale. I gained three pounds. Good grief. I don't have time to hate myself today so I guess the three pounds will just have to remain three pounds.

Mentor Mary is holding her own. Her children and all her church family have rallied round. They ended up having two funerals, and a memorial service at the high-school. Fifteen year old Donna was well loved.

More next week if I survive the dinner party. How I am going to fit fourteen people in our kitchen is the question. Mark said the men could stand around in the mud room holding their plates and talk hunting and football. He said this sort of wistfully. Men are just odd.

Take care. Love Lynn

Out of the Loop

Thanks guys for all of your comments about my friend's surgery. I feel a little less like an envious creep now.

Has been a hard week all around. A friend was laid off her job after working at the same hospital for twenty years. She was summarily let go and then escorted out of the building by a security guard. I thought this stuff only happened in the movies.

Mentor Mary's granddaughter was killed in a car accident on Thursday. Mary is coping but is in great pain. She said, " At 82 I am no stranger to tragedy, and it hurts the same each and every time." Please pray for her and for friend Kim.

Both of these events make being fat seem like a cake walk. No pun intended.

I am still reading and learning about feeling my feelings. Sitting with them and not eating is hard. I have figured out where my "overwhelmedness" comes from. I can now recognize my chest swelling on the inside when the feeling takes me over. All to do with the past of course. Just knowing that overwhelmed feeling is an unprocessed childhood reaction has been a God send. When I begin to feel it I can choose to sit down and look through my memories and see what surfaces. Has been real interesting what has come up. When I remember stuff then comes the hard part. I have to sit still and let the memories and all the accompanying emotions wash over me. If I can stand the emotions (and not eat) I eventually sort of pop thru on the other side of them. This feels like a miracle. Finally feeling the old buried stuff...diffuses it. I can then look at the "stuff" as a fifty-one year old woman and decide how I want to feel about it. I do not have to keep reacting like a child. I have allot of work ahead of me but I am eager to get to it.

Take care of yourselves. And I mean that. Love Lynn

Frustrated

I am jealous. So jealous I can hardly even be friendly, let alone interested.

I have a good friend who had gastric by-pass surgery four months ago. She has already lost 60+ pounds. She needed the surgery. It will give her her life back. I am glad she did it. And I almost can't stand to talk to her.

She wants to talk about renewed energy and new clothes and getting off medications. I just want to hang up the phone. You know why? In my heart of hearts...I feel she cheated. My head knows what a wonderful thing this is for she and her family. My heart wants to cut off all contact with her. She took the easy way out. I know this is stupid thinking. I know what the surgery entails and the lifelong consequences. And still I am still pissed that she got to do this and I didn't. She will be thin and not have to worry every darn day about the pounds coming back. I will have to struggle and worry forever (maybe) about my fat. Why wasn't I allowed to take the "easy" option too?

I am not fat enough, and never have been.

I think my high was about 255. I quit weighing at 248 so I am not sure. My friend is my height and age and was way over that. Her fat was killing her. Mine just made me vaguely miserable. And still does. I always, for the most part, was able to do what I wanted to do. I just looked awful and suffered with society's stigma about fat people. I still do.

This has all got me to thinking about, for me, when good enough will really be good enough. Francis wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago about the things she wants in her life. I was shocked to discover I already have most of the things she so desperately wants. The main thing in my life that I allow to make me miserable is my perceived inability to lose my fat forever.

Am I wasting my life? Have I wasted the past thirty years on this issue? I think maybe I have. Will I waste more time valuable time? God I hope not.

We are still limping along with our broken computer as the computer guy went hunting.

Take care of yourselves. Love Lynn