See Who I Am

Some days, when I see my reflection I don’t see it as me, and yet when I see old pictures or videos I understand it was me—but no longer and I feel completely removed, like it’s a different person altogether. I wonder if that last part is a self-defense mechanism, having gotten past obesity and not wanting to go back I think my brain is protecting itself, if that wasn’t me, then I won’t ever look like that again.

A lot of my life post weight loss revolves around my appearance, but I don’t know if I can make others understand that while I’m address how I look, it’s not about “looking good” rather equating my appearance with my state of health. Like when I was watching my sons baby shower video (about a month after he was born so can’t say it was pregnancy) I see me, and I just don’t understand how I let things get that bad. I remember at that point I was using an insane amount of insulin, eating too much, not exercising because every time I exercised I had no milk. It was an annoying and vicious cycle. My health was out of control, I was killing myself and I didn’t even know. Therefore, looking like I did in March of 2009=obese, unhealthy, bad.

I look at my wedding pictures, I have them on the walls at home, I’m disturbed by how large I was in them, again, large, diabetic, obese, unhealthy, bad, but that’s only part of the equation. On that day I promised to love my husband forever and give him the best of everything. How long was the forever I could give him? I was eating myself into an early grave. So did I care more about food than the vows I made?

I used to never think all that much about food. I’m a picky eater, always have been, but the food I liked I loved, and I ate a lot of it. I have no self-control, I have very little feeling in my stomach, I did not know when enough was enough, and yet I was shocked by my uncontrollable blood sugar?

How long was I lying to myself? And why did I do it?

In the baby shower video there was a session of interviews and well-wishes, and do you know what was a common theme among everyone? They wished me/us good health and long life. At the time I believed it because my son was in NICU for 10 days, and they worried for his continued health, now I’m pretty sure they were fearful of mine. And why not? It was my lack of health that had him in intensive care, my fault they had to take him early, my fault I couldn’t take care of us.

So you can see why I find it easy to conclude that fat me was ugly, especially on the inside. Selfish, self-serving, uncaring, and uninvolved with my own life. I’m shocked my husband married me. I get yelled at every time I bring this up in conjunction with my weight, but it’s true, why would someone love me when I didn’t even love myself enough to bother taking care of me?

Arguably one could say I didn’t love him since I couldn’t take care of me, I didn’t care about how he would feel if I died. Strangely enough, not true. I have always cared far more about others than I care about myself, but it’s not selfless. It’s just easier to ignore your own issues if you have someone/something else to focus your attention on, and this is something I learned very early in life.

I often wonder why I’ve always been a magnet for damaged people, but I get it now, they didn’t find me, I found them, I needed them.

Today I am where I need to be, physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, I’ve overcome a lot of crap to get here, in all of those areas, and I just want to let everyone know, I’m okay. I’m not perfect, but I’m doing just great. Diabetes is in remission, I’m married to the best human being in the entire world (and we’re in love), we have a great son (and plan to try for a daughter in a few months), I love my job, I like my wardrobe, I have energy, and I’m positive about life (and my boobs are coming back!). Yep, things come along and try to wreck things, but they don’t stay, life cycles, and we’re going to continue to be okay, all of us, together.