Last week’s post, and the behaviors that triggered it, have
generated so many great conversations and I am, for the first time, taking very
openly and frankly about the issues behind these behaviors. I want to tell you
all about some really great realizations/epiphanies/ah-ha moments I have had
and discuss some of the feedback I have received but that will come later.
First I want to talk to you about what is behind these behaviors- my baggage. Since I have already exposed the outer most
layer of my secrets (which has been both highly beneficial but also has left me
a bit raw) I think it would be good to dig a bit deeper and talk about what’s
truly behind the scenes.
See what I've realized is this….
I don’t have an unhealthy relationship with food. I have an
unhealthy relationship with myself and I use food as my punishment/coping mechanism.
My method of escapism is binging. No purging for me though.
I opt to wallow in the shame and guilt and let the self-loathing fester. That
is me present day. But that wasn't always how I escaped. Before food there were
other things (things maybe better left off a public blog) when I was younger, I
had many unhealthy behaviors. But you are smart, if you can think of a way to
forget/drown away pain I probably did it. And once I wised up to knowing that
was probably a very dangerous path to head down I cleaned up my act.
But I still had unresolved and unhealthy feelings towards myself.
And so I turned to food. Easy access and
legal. Always available. And damn tasty. What better way to drown my sorrows
than with a box of tastykakes or an ooey gooey cheesy pizza?
No, this wasn't my every day norm and it isn't now either. But when
shit got really hard to deal with this was how I coped. It didn't help
that my normal eating behaviors were already excessive and indulgent. I was already
behind the eight ball when I turned to food as my ‘drug of choice’.
Now before I go into the back story here I need to preface
this with this one very important statement- this is nobody’s fault but mine.
So if you are reading this (Mom, Dad, family, friends) and you think maybe you
could have done something differently or helped me or fixed this mess you
couldn't have. We all have our own baggage. We all have problems. Yes, we do
need support to help us find our way or get better or change but it is a path
we must find and walk alone. There is no blame in this story nor should there
be any guilt because of what I am talking about. I write this today to maybe
help someone else feel safe/comfortable about their baggage and in turn feel
safe/comfortable to move past it. Like I am trying to do.
Growing up, and I mean from a very young age (maybe 3 or 4 I
think), I was filled with resentment and anger. My mother suffered through
bipolar disorder and spent time throughout my childhood sick and in and out of
a hospital. This was very scary for me. Honestly, there is not much I
remember from my childhood other than that feeling of dread and not really
understanding what was going on. I was a child. I couldn't fully process or understand what mental illness was. But I do remember loving my mother fiercely (which of
course I still do) and blaming/resenting everyone around me for her sickness.
My poor father took the brunt of this misplaced rage and anger. I didn’t hate him. I hated
her illness but I couldn't take it out on her. So I took it out on him instead. It took a long time to
get past those feelings (the ones that shouldn't have even existed in the first
place) and develop a normal relationship with my father.
My very close friend committed suicide a week before my 20th
birthday. That was really hard for me to deal with. Suicide really messes with
those people left behind. I harbored so much guilt and pain that I didn’t
really know how to move past it. My life has since forever been changed and my
heart still aches because of this loss. I know (like the logical me knows) that
I should not feel guilty because he chose to take his own life. But I do. I
think we all do. I honestly believe that all of us who have lost someone from
suicide will always carry some morsel of guilt for feeling that they let them
down, didn’t do enough. That it is their fault, they could’ve done more. Or at
least that is how I feel. But I do know better. I know what it is like to be on
the other side. I know what that feeling of desperation feels like and in that
moment when you decide you want to die you don’t think of anyone else. You don’t
think that if so and so would have just called/spent more time/loved me things would have been
different. You just feel like you do not have the strength to fight your demons
any longer and you concede. In that moment it is about you. Not us. But knowing
all of that, having lived through all of that, did not make his death easier.
I have always had these personal issues that have caused me to
make not the best decisions. When I was younger (think teens and twenties) I
was still struggling with the mental shit from my childhood, the ‘I’ll never be
good enough’ feeling that came from other family issues, and I always felt like
I needed to make everyone happy and in turn always be happy myself. I had a lot of friends but I never had one
best friend. I think that stemmed from the above mentioned baggage and a fear
of letting people see it. I had really bad taste in guys. I had a series of
really unhealthy relationships. I was cheated on. I cheated on people. I was
immature. I didn’t know how to have a healthy relationship. And I was afraid of
being alone. So I latched onto someone that was also immature, didn’t know how
to have a healthy relationship and (I am almost 100% sure) was also afraid of
being alone. And I married him.
Are you surprised we are now divorced? I am pretty sure if
you ask anyone who knew us then they would have said the most surprising thing
was that we lasted as long as we did.
But I do know that through this all- through all of the packing
and unpacking of my baggage- I have finally started to work through some of it.
Not all. Trust me, I know there are still more issues and more pain in there
that need to be sorted through. But I try.
I made amends with my father and I try to maintain a healthy
and loving relationship with both of my parents.
I let go of the ‘not good enough’ feeling when it comes to
pleasing people in my family. Although, some days it is becoming clearer that I
still have that need to people please within my relationships. That behavior
right there is how I mustered through a decade long relationship that I had no
right to be in. Meaning- I was in it for many, many wrong reasons but stayed
because I just wanted to make him happy.
I still have sadness over the loss of my friend but I have
learned to work through and move past the guilt. That took at least a decade.
I am committed to having healthy relationships. I try really
hard to be honest about how things make me feel. As someone that passively
watched their life pass them by because of my weight I also found that I was
passive in other areas as well. I am now a very active participant in my life.
Not saying that it is always the Dacia show and I do whatever I want whenever I
want but I am vocal about my dreams and goals and I because of this I have
found a partner that wants to share them with me and in turn allow me to share in his.
I am not perfect, I am far from it. I know there are still
issues in there that are causing me pain. I know that I am not the best when it
comes to handling and processing pain and sorrow. I have things I need to work
on. I still have baggage, I know this. But I also know the more I talk about it, the faster and
easier it is to find the root of the problem. And finding it and acknowledging
it and accepting it allows me to heal and move forward towards a healthier and happier me.
This is my mantra right now...
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Love and hugs,
Dacia
xoxoxoxox
