A new life...a life in recovery

So it's been over a year since my last post and things have changed.

A new life in a new home and a new-ish body.

In January of 2010, I returned to Overeaters Anonymous after failing the latest greatest "get thin" attempt and gaining back 15 pounds of a 25 pound weight loss.

It didn't stick. I disappeared again after a month.

Over the next few months, there were two instances of showing up to the parking lot but not making it out of the car.

In August, I felt broken. I could not go an entire day without "screwing up." My leg would literally shake as the obsessive compulsive thoughts drummed away in my head with a repetitive "gotta eat" chant. I knew I was sick.

At 190 pounds, I was far from my heaviest weight of 275, but I never felt fatter. I'd gained back 17 pounds and was well on my way back to 199.

199 was my highest weight since my gastric bypass surgery ten years before and the point where I'd hunted down Chantel, a local mini-celeb in the diet and fitness world, to convince her to take me on as a client. I once swore I'd never be 200 pounds again, so 199 was the "uh oh" moment. With Chantel, I was taught to focus on exercise as the key to everything. If you workout 5-6 days a week, you'll want to eat right. I proved her wrong.

Last August, on a Saturday morning, I walked through the doors of an OA meeting and sat in the back of the room. I cried throughout the entire meeting and spoke to no one.

Having been through eating disorder treatment and done the OA thing 18 years before, I was no stranger to the 12 steps and concepts. I wanted abstinence and I wanted to be happy, joyous and free.

I left that meeting but did not find abstinence that day.

"Keep coming back." That's the phrase we hear over and over in the 12 step rooms. I joke from time-to-time "when in doubt, just say 'keep coming back' if you don't know what to say."

So, I did just that. I came back the following Saturday. And I sat in the back of the room and again cried throughout the entire meeting.

I did not find abstinence.

The following Saturday, I returned. I sat in the back, by myself, and cried for the entire meeting.

When I left that day, I said to myself "don't eat until lunchtime...you can make it until lunchtime." Every few minutes I would look at my watch or a clock and see if it was lunchtime yet.

And then it was lunchtime.

When lunchtime was over, I said to myself "don't eat until dinner."

That day I found my abstinence.

I don't take credit for this miracle. If you really knew me then and even now, you'd know that those words do not come naturally or lightly. I'm not a big one for throwing the typical 12-step spiritual awakening lines out there. But that day, and every one since, I believe that G-d did for me what I could not do for myself.

I've come to believe that recognizing and accepting the spiritual and emotional recovery as what I needed the most help with, G-d took over on my physical recovery that day.

I have had abstinence since August 28th, 2010. My disease manifests in a constant need to eat and graze all day long. For that reason, I chose a food plan of 3 meals a day with no snacking (with an occasional planned snack for scheduling or social situations). I also gave up refined sugar and flour, simply because I'd heard others in the room on that plan.

My food plan has evolved as my strength in program has grown and with the help of a nutritionist. I do eat whole wheat flour and am not 100% anal retentive about whether sugar is the 3rd or 5th ingredient on a label.

I have lost around 45 pounds. I was as addicted to the scale as I was to the food, so I now abstain from compulsive weighing. I weigh-in once a week and put the scale back in the closet. I've found having the scale out is the same as sitting at the table for hours with the snack foods in front of me...if it's there, I want it.

As I mentioned, the emotional and spiritual recovery is as critical for me as the physical. I have been through a number of sponsors through the online resources and meetings. I had some really high expectations so it took me a while to even try to find one. The person had to have lost over 100 pounds, be thin and kept the weight off for 20 years. I met someone like that but when I asked her to sponsor me, she told me she wasn't available and pushed me off to a friend. She'd wanted me to call her and work on assignments from the workbook daily. It was more than I could juggle and didn't fit. She lost her abstinence while we were working together and that wasn't comfortable for me. After a month or so, I let her know I couldn't keep up and didn't want to waste her time, so we amicably parted ways.

Finally, I met someone who didn't meet all my requirements - she hadn't lost all the weight yet and hadn't been in program 20 years. However, I related to her personally and found that she "got it" when it came to her program and her sanity. She'd stood up for a 9 month chip at one meeting, then she spoke at the next, and at the next meeting she'd been "stepped up" - meaning she could now sponsor all 12 steps.

I took a chance and asked her if she'd sponsor me. It's a sponsorship and relationship that works for me...I get the guidance I need without the pressure of daily call and assignment due dates. She is as busy as I am and leads a similar "single professional working mom" lifestyle and gets it. We text message.

I'm working my program and the steps. Today, I'm on Step 6. I've learned a lot about myself, and let go of the idea that I don't have emotions and am superwoman strong. I've come to realize that my anxiety and other fears have dominated my life and are what I need most to address for my recovery.

Abstinence is not easy every day, but most days it is. My relationship with G-d has been a matter of "acting as if" and practice. It's become more natural for me to have an internal conversation about surrendering and letting G-d handle what I can not.

Have the promises come true yet? No, but I have faith that they will. Recovery is a journey and I'm grateful to be on the road.

Serendipity

If you somehow come across this post on this blog unknown to you, take it as a sign that it was meant for you to read this.

So you would have no regrets as you did for all those years before we "found" each other again, you said "I love you, Helene" as you said goodbye. Responding to that would have been selfish on my part, so I let your words become our final words.

I hope and believe that, in your heart and mind, you know...I love you, too.

Gratitude Has A Following

As a daily reminder to myself, I began posting "gratitude" messages as my status on Facebook. It turns out that these are much more appreciated than status updates about what I'm working on, watching on TV, planning to do for the day or thinking for a moment.

It just occurred to me that if my brief status update of gratitude can get people going, then imagine what can be done with a full blog post.

Firstly, here's my disclosure statement. Reread my first sentence and you'll see my gratitude messages were intended as daily reminders to myself. So in writing these blog posts, I'm hoping to push myself even further into remembering to be grateful for my life and the people, places and things in it.

If you happen to come across my blog or status update, and it affects you in some way, then that's just icing on the cake. I hope that it may inspire you to do the same and pass the feelings on to someone else.

Now, I can't promise that I'm any different or better than some of the awesome inspirational and self-motivating blogs or websites out there. I can only promise that I'm sharing my own thoughts and feelings and hopes, and that I do hope to affect someone else in a positive way, every so often.

It's been awhile...

Over four months have passed since my last post so I wonder if I have let too much of my rollercoaster of emotions slip by undocumented. If this blog is a time capsule of where I've been, are there some blackouts? Or maybe it was just so much of the same sentiment as the last post written that nothing new could be said.

It's true that I have hovered over the borderline between "over it" and "but, what if," for a very long time. But as I inch closer to moving back to my own home, I feel more hopefulness towards my new beginning than avoiding the ending. I'm truly looking forward to "what if's" of my future and letting go of him, without hate and resentment.

Spending time with someone new has reminded me of what I knew when I had chosen to leave so many months ago...that I could laugh again, that I would feel passion again, that just being myself could be impressive enough.

Who knows where this will go or if it'll go past today. I may have moments of reflection that pulls me back for an instant, but hope has always driven me forward and I have many more moments of hope these days.

It just feels good to feel good again.

The Truth

The truth is that love doesn't just go away overnight because you're angry with a person and it doesn't just stop because you want it to.

The truth is that I'm still glad to see his car in the lot when I pull in.

The truth is that I try to find excuses to talk to him during the day.

The truth is that I miss his looking at me, smiling and sighing.

The truth is that I would do anything to turn back the clock and not know some of the things I now know and have learned some of the other things a bit sooner.

The truth is that I wish I could have let go when I really needed to...let go of my ego, let go of my resentment, let go of my defenses.

The truth is that I hate what he did, but I don't hate him.

The truth is that I would do things so much differently despite how hard I believed I worked at this, and despite his being so much to blame.

The truth is that it hurts to sit beside him in the car and not hold his hand.

The truth is that I long to feel him spooning me when I lay in bed at night.

The truth is that knowing I will love again doesn't make this pain go away.

The bell that ends the match

Should I stay or should I go was answered for me when the text message came in "Helene, u should know that we never had sex but guess he thinks like Clinton. Can do other stuff but as long as it's not that, he did nothing wrong."

In one simple text message, this woman who was seeing my fiance behind my back for almost four months gave me what the man who claimed he loved me and wanted to marry me did not...closure. I begged him for the truth - begged him to lay it on the line for me, letting him know I needed his brutal honesty to help me move on, to please do it for me. Again, he swore nothing happened, not even a kiss.

It's painful to learn that it was worse than Clinton...this insecure and egotistical weak man picked up a woman at a bar where his band played and pursued her romantically. The oral sex was just icing on the cake, I suppose. He said all the right things a woman wants to hear, made all the romantic gestures, sent love letters and poems, left notes for her with the hostess of the restaurant she was going to with friends. He PURSUED her, it wasn't something that happened at the heat of the moment or during a drunken night out. He went out looking for a relationship.

The truth is that I had been looking to leave for a long time, two months in fact. I'd been out with a realtor and confided in a few friends that I would be leaving him when I found the right home. But as soon as he told me he thought it was over, I tried to restore hope...the fighter in me jumping up from the mat for a few last punches. And he was questioning his decision, I could see it. Yet, he was still holding back and I knew that if he truly were still in love with me and didn't have someone else, that he would've fallen for it. The point that he was still resistant, combined with his history of cheating at the end of his previous two major relationships with justification stories behind it, told me that something was going on.

I did my homework...only too well. Sometimes it's better not to know the whole truth because it can haunt you. So a couple of my friends had told me to stop digging, and have given me an "I told you so" since. But for me, as much as this hurts, I needed to know the truth. A fighter needs to hear the bell to give themselves permission to stop trying to get up.

The text message was the bell that ended the match. I'm feeling my bruises and questioning my moves but I'll heal and move on. I didn't intend my romantic life to be a death match. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Should I stay or should I go? It should have never been questioned, after I'd made my own decision two months ago. The only decision left to make is where to and how soon.

Back to Movie Logic

Sometimes being analytical and logical can be a bad thing. In this case, sometimes means in matters of the heart. Try to break down your relationship into what works and doesn't work, your compatibility and flexibility, your desires and goals for the future and you may find that it's great on paper. You may also find that it sucks on paper. But what happens when it falls short in the mathematical equation of a good relationship and your heart won't let you hear it?

The logical part of the brain - the left side - tells you run, run for the hills! But the feeling, creative, imaginative part - the right side - tells you he loves you and you love him and anything is possible when there's love. Can you figure out that it's those right brained folks that write those beatiful romance novels?

That right side of my brain wants so badly to take the shotgun to the left side of my head and kill the hope. My right side sees hope and love and romance and movie moments. But my dang left side is ruining the movie!

Having read the books on making movies, it's always after the lowest moment in the relationship, the biggest fuck up or betrayal or disappointment, that makes it possible for the reunion so much more joyous. Without the low point in the movie, the high point or resolution can't exist as a contrast.

So there's some logic in a movie formula. For the best moments of your life to exist, you have to know the worst by comparison. No one could understand the true joy and meaning my daughter brings to me without understanding what it felt like to hear I would never have children. No one would understand the relief of the clean bill of health from a regular checkup without understanding the fear of being told I have cancer.

Logic in the movie would say that I would find no greater romantic love than the rediscovery of the great love that was lost.

But here's the analyst coming. This is not a movie. This is life. Life has taught me that movie logic is an escape, not a reality. How many times has my life worked out to the formula of a movie? How often does a man or woman truly change the parts of themselves that cause the conflict, in real life, as opposed to the movies?

And the logical, analytical woman leaves the theater and heads back to real life. She wonders why life can't be like a movie and gets stuck in "analysis paralysis."

Analysis paralysis in business is where you can’t make any forward progress because you bog yourself down in details, tweaking, brainstorming, research and … anything but just getting on with it. Sound familiar?

Here's where I am today...the details are bogging me down from the "should I stay or should I go" decision. Why? Because the two freaking sides of my brain are at war with each other! In the immortal words of Sandy in Grease..."my head is saying 'fool, forget him. My heart is saying don't let go...'"

Ergo, analysis paralysis. Stupid movies!