Walking Away

There's this song currently playing on the radio. The first time I heard it, I thought it was beautiful. I was driving in the car and as soon as I heard the piano introduction, I was hooked. I got home that evening and wanted to share it with my kids, so I looked up the YouTube video. Like many others, the song became even more poignant for me after seeing the video. Take a look:

Now here's what makes me different from most others: Most people, when they watch the video, become emotional at the scene where the elderly couple is introduced. Watching the emotion of the man as he is saying goodbye to his wife stirs great emotion. For me, though, I'm teary from the first scene. The scene of the little girl huddling on her bed, with a blanket wrapped around her, which she eventually pulls over her head.

I've mentioned bits and pieces of my childhood before, that things weren't good. So when I reacted with strong emotion to the little girl, I assumed I was simply identifying with her fear, her isolation, hiding under the bed to escape frightening scenarios. From there, I went on, always listening to this song with a touch of emotion, remembering each time the little girl who felt so alone. For that reason, I typically avoid hearing the song, I don't need to spend every day remembering my childhood: I find that best left for the occasional thought.

Then, a friend of mine posted to Facebook a cover of this song. The band covering the song is called Pentatonix and I absolutely love their music, I sang in an a cappella choir for eleven years. When I saw the video, I absolutely had to watch it, knowing the music would be even more beautiful than the original song. I commented before I clicked the link, "OMG, I know I'm going to cry!"

Sure enough, I did. I bawled my eyes out watching this video, crying so hard tears were dripping off my chin.

Afterward, because I take a walk down memory lane every time I hear this song, it finally dawned on me why it is this song touches me so much. It can't possibly be just the image of the little girl, she's not in the Pentatonix video.

No, what touches me is realizing I did exactly what this song suggests one might do: I walked away.

I've mentioned previously walking away is a big deal for me. One of the reasons I end up (and stay) in abusive/disrespectful relationships is I can't stand walking away from people. I felt like my parents walked away from me when I was a teenager, because they kept passing me back and forth, "My spouse has a problem with her, I need you to take her for awhile." "I can't handle the stress, I need you to take her back, I'll pay for her plane ticket." And so it went until I moved out on my own.

Wait. I moved out on my own.

In light of my previous recollections/thoughts from, "A Promise to Myself," I remember from a very young age I couldn't wait until I was old enough to get away. I promised myself over and over and over again as soon as it was legal for me to be on my own, I would move out. That is exactly what I did.

When I was thirteen, I needed out of my mother's house so bad, I wrote every adult relative I had asking if I could move in with them. When that failed (one of my aunts turned me in, read the letter to my mother), I turned to looking for my father. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him in seven years, my last memory of him was him being arrested outside my house while I screamed and cried and was dragged away from the window by my older brother. The military police jailed him and held him long enough for my mother to pack up my brother and I and move us out of state.

When I went looking for my father, my mother reminded me he was a junkie and an alcoholic and abusive. "Not to me," was my reply, "he never abused me." With that, the search went on until I eventually located my father, who was five years sober at that point. How that ended can be found in, "Attention, Love, and Affection," after telling my father for over a year that I would leave and never look back if he didn't stop abusing me and start parenting me, I finally left.

This is the point of this story: My parents didn't leave me, I left them.

While I was homeless, shortly after moving out of my father's house, my mother begged me to come back and live with her. I told her, "I can't. I have to stand on my own now, I have to prove to myself that I can stand on my own and be okay."

So I did.

The little girl who sat huddled in a ball, rocking, crying, stroking her own hair, she got up and she walked away. She proudly and boldly looked her abusers in the eye and said, "No more. I will not take it anymore."

Just like the song says, they were the ones that I loved and I said goodbye. Now that's empowering.

Reconnecting with Myself

"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear."
--Joan Didion

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you are aware that I have spent this year in a state of self-discovery and self-improvement. This has been quite the life-altering process as I have done more growth in the last year than I had done in the previous ten.

With everything that has happened this year: the car accident, repeated hospital trips, break-ups, moving house...the list simply goes on...it's a wonder I've had time to introspect and at the same time, not surprising at all. Great stress brings with it great change--whether for better or worse.

Some of this year's changes have seemed for worse. Lately, it has been brought to my attention that I am overly critical of myself. We all know the phrase we are our own worst critics. This year, my internal critic has been a right bitch. Completely and totally unforgiving of even the slightest mistakes. And to boot, I've been fighting her through the haze of all the stressors of this year. The language I've used on myself recently has been the very thing I would take another to task for were they to use it on someone I love.

Why, then, would I use it on myself?

It's become quite obvious: I do not love myself.

I do not think I am a bad person, I do not think I am an ugly person, but at the deepest root of my being, not only do I not love myself, I also do not find myself a lovable or worthy being.

Once I concluded this last weekend, a friend pressed me on this topic: "Andrea, why? Why don't you love you? Why are you unlovable and unworthy?"

Initially, I could not answer this question. I've always known I don't hate me and while I've been harsh of myself lately, I know there's no way I've been this harsh my whole life or I would think much less of myself than I do.

But in digging through my psyche, I realized I have never believed myself lovable or worthy. I have been told, "When I tell you there's nothing wrong with you and you are beautiful, you dismiss my words. You don't believe me." And this has nothing to do with the speaker, this has entirely to do with me and my self-view.

Now, I could go on and tell you what happened in my childhood that led me to this place. I could tell you of the drugs and the abuse, the absent and/or unavailable adults, the way I jumped between an adult and another child in the hopes that my tiny body could shield someone I loved from pain. And the feeling of utter defeat when I realized I had no power to save the people I loved.

In the end, though, it makes no difference. The fact is, I was a child. And from my child's perspective, I could not understand the grown-up things that were going on simply took more precedence than me and whatever I was doing. Later in childhood, I tried to make up for it by becoming a delinquent and miscreant, since it seemed to garner attention. Then, in late adolescence, I came to the conclusion this was not a sustainable life model and I began my journey to who I am now, carrying with me the most unworkable conclusion I had come to.

That conclusion was that no matter what I did, I could never be worthy or lovable. But that I should always try. My entire self is predicated on this notion. I have struggled for the last thirty plus years to make myself lovable and worthy, the one thing I had already concluded I could never be.

Damn. No wonder I could never feel secure in a relationship. How can a person prove they love me if, at my root, I believe myself to be unlovable?

So, then, the question now stands: What do I do with this information?

Who am I?

Knowing that I came to such an erroneous conclusion frees me to know that I am lovable and worthy. But without this notion of unlovable and unworthy, again the foundation which I have built my self upon, how do I know who I am?

The answer to this is really quite simple. I am still me. All of my values, goals, loves, hard work, remain the same. What is removed is simply the notion that no matter how hard I try I can never be loved. What is also removed is the need to be loved, the feeling of desperation, the feeling that I am not worthy. Don't get me wrong, it's not wholly gone, but it's on its way out the door, I can feel it.

And in the meantime, I'm spending time reconnecting with myself. Doing things I haven't done since I was a child, things that when I was a child I berated myself and called myself unworthy for. As silly as it may sound, I have started coloring. Actually went out, bought two coloring books and a box of crayons and sat down and colored some pages:

The simple act of sitting down to color has created not only a sense of zen, but a quiet appreciation of myself. Something that I did not do, even in childhood, because I told myself I was incapable of doing so. And here I am, finding peace in the smallest of activities.

But more importantly than peace, I'm finding love. Love for myself, my capabilities and lack thereof. My daughter sat next to me at the table and while I know I can't draw or color as well as she can, at the same time I know that I'm capable of anything I set my mind to and that anything I choose as worthy is worthy because I'm worthy. And that's the long and short of it.

The Polite Way to Discuss Weight

So, I'm sure I made a few waves with my previous post and that was not what was intended. My intent was to address something that annoys me deeply.

You see, I've been overweight since I was 11 years old. Science still doesn't understand why, but I went from weighing 52 pounds at my 10-year check-up to 110 pounds at my 11-year check-up with no significant change to my diet or activity level. Best guess is that it's a matter of hormones, google Syndrome X or Metabolic Syndrome to learn more.

And when I was 11 years old and 110 pounds, the world was a cruel place. The way I was treated by many people was, well, not nice. If you were there, lived in that world, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about. Because, see, I went from being the kid who sang, "Fatty, fatty two-by-four, can't get through the bathroom door," to being the kid the song was sung to. And so the jokes about fat kids and Twinkies became not funny, because I didn't really even like Twinkies.

And so this is where "fat acceptance" comes in. There is so much going on in the world, technology is snowballing far faster than evolution has the chance to keep up with and we have some weird stuff happening to our bodies as they try to keep up with an onslaught of NEW.

Perhaps, once upon a time, all fat people were fat because they ate more calories than they burned. I mean, I'm sure this concept comes from somewhere. And I look around at the rest of the populace with envy as I see people enjoying a soda and it not impacting their weight or metabolism. I had a partner tell me, "I've always eaten whatever I wanted. When I got to be about 27, I noticed I was packing on the pounds, so I cut out donuts in the morning, that's about it." Clearly, he is on a different evolutionary chain than I am. He looks like a model and he doesn't even work out.

So because there are people like him vs people like me, it's important that everyone be nicer and more understanding. I spent many years struggling with my weight, frustrated at my attempts to lose weight while I just got heavier and heavier. And I did get tired of the comments everywhere I went (on a stretcher once, the EMT was struggling to lift me and pointed out how many miles of capillaries I had for every extra 10 pounds of weight).

But. Part of what made it difficult for me to lose weight is the point of my previous post and what I'd like to extrapolate on here:

When you are trying to lose weight, the whole world is your enemy.

Now, I understand that there are many people out there who have 10, 50, even 100 extra pounds and are perfectly comfortable in their own skin. More power to them. If their numbers look great and they feel good in their bodies, then there's really no reason for them to change anything, is there? But, I suspect that many have decided it's easier to be overweight than to deal with trying to lose weight in this society.

Because it doesn't matter your reason or your method when you want to lose weight, people are clamoring to tell you how wrong you are. 

I approach weight loss via the scientific method. Have a theory, test it. If it works, test it again until it stops working. If it doesn't work, discard that theory and try another. Eventually, I will (and have) found just the right combination of methods that work for me. And as mentioned in my previous post, I was in a car accident, so some of my methods got derailed--I can't exercise much at the moment, so here goes the scientific method again.

And really, that's a good plan for anyone wanting to make any change within themselves ever.

But when I go to have a conversation with someone regarding weight loss, rather than approach it like a fellow scientist, everyone's an expert. "Oh that method is bad for {x reason}, or {y result}." or "I heard {ABC famous person} got hospitalized when they did that." That's great, but their results are not mine. I have a different body, different environment, different lifestyle and my method of diet may have that one key element which makes the difference between success and failure. And you have no idea unless you ask me.

So here's how to approach someone who calls themselves fat or says they're trying to lose weight:

First, ask why. If there's a self-esteem issue that needs to be addressed, it'll come out right here, first and foremost. And if that person is a loved one or a human being and you happen to care, then please, by all means, address their esteem issues. Let them know that their value does not rest on the package they come in.

Second, ask how. This will open up a logical, rational discussion. No matter where someone is in their journey, asking them how will give them additional things to think about. Had someone asked me how I became fat and we had discussed theories together, perhaps I would have gotten more information sooner that would have saved some of the physical issues I now have. If people ask how I'm working to lose weight, they then have the option, without making me wrong, to discuss theories on what works and what doesn't.

Thirdly, be supportive. Know that their journey is not yours and what works for you does not necessarily work for them. What you've heard in the media or for pete's sake even in scientific literature is not necessarily the right answer for that person. Hear what they are saying, listen for where they may be struggling and offer them information if you have some or your sympathies and encouragement if you have none (and the latter, anyway).

But please don't tell them they're wrong.

I once went on a McDonald's diet just to see if it would work. I've also been on a Taco Bell diet. Both times I lost more than 10 pounds. But I didn't feel good with those foods that lacked in nutritional value and they were difficult to stick with, so I quit.

Finally, let me address the issue of what I call drug pushing. We are all guilty of it, even myself, who sees it for what it is and have willingly and knowingly participated in it.

Many years ago, I was working a job and at the time I was coming close to being 200 pounds overweight. I felt extreme measures were necessary and so I investigated liquid diets. I created my own and then sat down and discussed it with my doctor. He said, "the risks associated with a liquid diet are far outweighed by the risks associated with you continuing to be super-morbidly obese. The biggest thing we need to watch for is your liver as you process out all the fat, so drink lots of water and see me once a month so we can keep an eye on your liver, here are signs to look out for..."

So I had my physician's blessing. But this didn't stop my co-workers. At an office birthday party, I stood around and sang with everyone else. And as the cake got doled out, I remained in the group so I could continue to socialize. And I got offered cake, by my boss. At first my response was a polite reminder, "No, thank you, liquid diet, remember?"

"Oh, Andrea, I'm not so sure that's healthy."

"Doing it with my doctor's blessing, remember?"

"Fine."

Two minutes later: "Hey, Andrea, are you sure you don't want a piece of cake?"

"Yes, I'm sure thank you."

Another minute later: "Andrea, are you sure you don't want a piece, it's pretty good?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure my health is tastier than a piece of cake."

Five minutes after that: "Andrea, are you sure? It's just one piece of cake, it won't hurt you or your diet, it's no big deal."

"You sound like a drug dealer! 'C'mon, first time's free...everyone's doing it!!'"

She was ticked. But it is so true. I'm not sure why, but we have this damnable need to push food on people in our society. And 99% of the time, we are pushing foodstuffs that are pretty universally agreed to be not part of a healthy diet. And yet, we do it anyway.

Conclusion:

Be polite. Be supportive. Ask questions. Don't "push drugs." 

Oh and don't ever bring up someone's weight to them. These suggestions are only for when they bring it up. Anything else is offensive, plain and simple.