The weight of it all...

When you're nearly 200 kilos, it's more than just carrying the burden of an "extra person" that weighs you down….  It's the emotional baggage that drags you further, that never seems to lift - making ordinary tasks seemingly impossible.

“Three years later”, and approaching the final phase of my mission, I get asked NOW how things ended up so out of control, how I could let myself fall into that pit, and what this change means to me… but, I’m still somewhat at a loss to explain it.  

Will I ever fit into my gold bikini again?!

Those that already know me, know that I'm a pretty jovial person - I have a great sense of humour and am a bit of a giggler - don't mind taking the mickey out of myself, and can generally go about life with a cheeky resolve...  I do that because I choose to be that person (NOW) - but let's put the jokes aside for a moment, and get real...  

In retrospect, yes, there were times when I let myself down through self-neglect, but there were also a lot of influences outside of my control that shaped me into the self-destructive person I used to be…

Chubby 4-year old me

I remember way back in primary school, when I was about 6 years old, that first push over the edge that I was ‘different’. I can’t quite remember how it came about that the kids were teasing, but I copped it – the chubby kid in the class, quiet, unassuming and didn’t fight back - I may as well have been wearing a bright red target on my back, because the teasing never did go away. It’s funny how vividly you can remember an emotion or feeling – and I remember that first feeling of embarrassment, trying not to cry because I was the brunt of the laughter - but not understanding why…  

Dear Santa, please make me skinny...

I was designated the nickname “Fat Amy” in primary school by kids who thought it was somehow incredibly hilarious to associate my weight with laughter – and the name never did go away, nor did the humiliation. The word ‘fat’ is so derogatory to me because of this - I refused to key the term in ANY context, until recently, because it stung so viciously in my ears…  

Fast forward a few years into high school, and a string of failed ‘diets’ through the back end of primary school was only leading me into even worse habits and more hatred about my body later…  High school – the breeding ground of insecurity - and I was already predestined to suffer.

Men's shirts and home-made skirts
were all that would fit...

By now I was the fattest girl in the class, extremely shy, introverted and most days, hoped I’d somehow just blend into the background and not be noticed at all. Every morning I was anxious about walking through the school gates – so much so that I couldn’t stomach breakfast (enter foul eating habits here) and suffered anxiety attacks, which I didn't understand at the time (it's more publicly understood these days). My chest would feel like it was caving in, I could barely breathe, I’d be in so much pain that I’d want to cry – if I wasn’t already wanting to cry from the sheer torture of having to go to school anyway – and I was late.  Always late. By the end of high school, it was the running joke that I was never on time for school. I don’t know what people assumed, but whatever it was, it would have been wrong…  I was a good student, did my work, kept my nose clean, never wagged or caused issues – but I was always late, and I was laughed at for it.

The ‘fat girl’ that I was, I was too embarrassed to eat my lunch during school hours, so I simply didn’t…  I couldn't bring myself to eat in public - ever - was far too ashamed, and had it in my head that people were always watching, judging, laughing... “oh there's that fat girl, she's such a pig, she never stops eating...”  - so I didn't eat. No breakfast, then no lunch meant by the time I came home from school, I was so ravenous that if it wasn’t nailed down, I’d eat it. Food at home was “family food” – and I acknowledge now that in taking what wasn’t mine deemed me as selfish – a stigma that’s carried through since.  There were threats of having the fridge and cupboards padlocked, and “stealing food” labeled me a thief - the retribution for the crime was carrying the shame of the title. I was the family embarrassment, and labeled a poor excuse of a 'role model' for my siblings.

Home-made Yr12 formal
dress, covered from neck
to floor in the middle
of summer...

I was so ashamed of my body, that I’d wear my school jumper over my uniform, even in the middle of summer in our blistering 35-40 degree heat, people repeatedly telling me to take it off before I passed out – but I’d refuse, and pretend I was fine… thank god for air conditioning! 

I avoided sports – the “fat girl” couldn’t keep up. I wasn’t agile and was far too uncoordinated, and always picked last for teams – humiliating for anyone, but always a reminder that I wasn’t worthwhile for anything. I found solace in music, and let that be the voice that I didn’t have. It became the only thing I enjoyed during school and the passion that kept me walking through those gates when I’d rather have stayed home and stayed invisible.  

By the end of my HSC and Year 12, I was well and truly head-first into the decline. I now saw myself as mute, battered and bruised, self-loathing, humiliated and lost.

Being prodded by your peers that you’re somehow a ‘misfit’ is one thing, but being told your weight would mean you’d never have friends, a job or a boyfriend (because you’re too much of an embarrassment to be seen with) is an entirely different thing. A failed statement that was probably made as an unconditional love “reverse psychology” scare tactic at the time to try and encourage weightloss and avoid all the hurt of being overweight growing up…  it still rings in my ears today. It became the measure that I’d self-judge from there on in, and ofcourse self-loathe when my weight obviously meant I wasn’t fit for any of the three categories.   

Add now friendless, lonely, unemployable and not worthy of being loved.

The photo that haunts me - could I
look any more miserable?
First year at Uni, living on my own
at the ripe old age of 17.

… then I went to Uni.  I was 17, brutally shy, had never been away from the family before and ended up nearly 7 hours from my hometown. For lack of accommodation on campus, I ended up living on my own – in hindsight, a really bad move.

By the end of my second year, I was well and truly into the downward spiral. I was a loner, too shy to interact with people at uni and living off-campus (and besides, I was too much of an embarrassment for them to want to befriend, right?!) - it was far too easy to became a hermit. 

Without a job (because I was unemployable right?!), my funds were scarce – so I was a burden on my family, didn’t have the money to socialize, no transport (and being as big as I was and humiliated in public, preferred taxis than walking to and from uni) and my groceries were dismal and poor.  My eating habits ranged from boredom through to stress eating, and everything in between. It became an ‘effort’ to go to classes, I couldn’t face being seen in public, and hid myself away behind a computer in the corner of my house instead. Again, I found solace in something that let me have a voice without needing to speak – talking behind a computer to a world that wouldn’t pre-judge me and “friends” that treated me as an equal (despite them not seeing my face) when there was noone else.

A slow, painful decline – I’d cry myself to sleep every night, breakdown at the thought of having to leave the house for a lecture, and then the “bad thoughts” started to infiltrate…

Surely if God was good and cared so much, he’d just let me go away… he’d find a way to stop me hurting so much, take the pain away.  A fatal lightening bolt perhaps?  Or maybe a bus would hit me?  What about if I just fell off the edge of a mountain somewhere, where noone would have to find my revolting body?  Anything, as long as someone else didn’t get hurt in the process…  Suicidal thoughts are one thing, but finding yourself standing at the kitchen sink with a knife in your hand is a whole other matter…  The only block between thought and action was knowing how much shame and upset I’d bring my family - I was already the family embarrassment because of my size, did I really need to cement it in history?!… so I suffered on in silence.

My 21st birthday in 2000 - my family
and neighbours were the only people
who bothered to attend...

Over the next few years, I failed subjects, repeated subjects, always under the pretence that everything was ok…   I tried. I always tried… but I knew I was failing…

Add now failure, useless, worthless, burden, selfish, cowardly and revolting.

2002 Uni grad - finally
felt like I'd achieved
something...

After uni, I managed to land a job – which proved beneficial in helping create some semblance of self-worth in a business environment, and as it turns out, was the catalyst for unearthing my passion for graphic design – I found a new ‘voice’. I didn’t know I was a designer or photographer until I was given a rare opportunity to redesign the company brochure – and the rest flowed on from there…

However, despite working and finding a sense of worth in that - over the course of the next few years, the story just repeated itself – and quite frankly, there’s actually very few memories I can recall, it’s just like one big blur, as though my memory shut itself down in self-preservation mode??  

One of the most brutal experiences in this bracket, however, was an “internet relationship” which went horribly wrong. Given my size and my assumption that I was simply too revolting for any guy to be interested in me – no surprises that it was easy to fall for the attention of an internet admirer. When you’re a girl whose been told you’re not worth being loved, and there’s a guy who treats you like you’re the best thing since sliced bread – it’s not hard to see why the blinkers were up to all the lies and deception. I’d have believed anything for just that one minute of feeling like I meant something to somebody….  except it was the beginning of something brutal...  not beautiful. 

It was one lie after another, one excuse after the other – couldn’t phone him but sms was ok; no address to send letters to but he had both my home and work contacts, etc – and I let them all slide just to feel wanted. When I questioned him, I’d be verbally abused – I’d be told he’d tried to harm himself because of my inability to trust him – repeatedly – a bullet, an overdose, slashed wrists, drunken abuse, you name it….

As someone who struggled with suicidal thoughts myself, I felt instantaneous remorse for inflicting that on someone else – I’d blame myself for his cruel actions – the guilt would break my heart and make me beg for forgiveness.  It was a foul cycle that lasted 18 months – with all the hurt, pain and emotional baggage that goes with a “real” abusive relationship, and not one speck of reality to it.

During the middle of all this, my Nana died – the only person I believed loved me “just as I was” was taken away from me. When the family traveled down for the funeral, all I wanted was a hug from my ‘guy’, but instead was told that in trying to get to me, he’d been physically beaten by his father for taking his car, and hospitalized instead, and that it was my fault…   It wasn’t enough that I was grieving for the loss of my Nana, but now I was shattered guilty that I’d caused that too…

Add now cruel, intolerable, harmful and evil.   

Cycling on, it was when he “cheated” on me and ended up getting the girl pregnant, then not allowing me to be part of their life… and me questioning the validity of any of it at the baby's birth (yes, I'd waited through that too) – and then being told he’d shot himself at the thought of me leaving him when the baby was born, and I wasn’t to make contact anymore because *I'd* caused too many problems…   NOW it was time to call it quits. Enough…

He didn’t exist, never met him and yet I bear the brunt of his cruelty every day – the scars on my body and mind are a constant reminder of the useless patch of my history that I’ll always regret.  It hurt less to carve into my skin than the pain that was shattering my heart inside….    I let someone abuse my trust, all because of my inability to love myself – trying to seek some semblance of self-worth in a source that wasn’t even real.  The scars on my body became the reminder that I wasn’t worth loving “in the real”, that my body was revolting and unwanted, and the heart within didn’t deserve anything but this pain...   I was obviously not worth loving - I wasn't worth reality - and I clearly wasn't worth the truth. 

Add now rejected, remorseful, ashamed, heart broken, damaged and exhausted.

Christmas 2005 - had I really
become this person?

One of my defining moments was the night before my 26^th birthday. I’d simply had enough…  I’d put my emotions and my body through enough torture, and I wanted out.  If not out, then I needed to shut up, step up and get over it…  They were my only options.  Finish it, or finish it.

It broke my heart, the prospect of upsetting my family because of my selfishness in suicide – and is probably the only reason why I didn’t go through with it that night.  I had a birthday party with my ‘friends’ (some work colleagues, who I gratefully acknowledge made the effort to celebrate with me) – that was my final fan-fare. Ofcourse, they didn’t know it at the time, and luckily, it wasn’t the end of the story….I cried myself to sleep and woke up the next day.

I chose to “live”…  but I barely made it through day by day. It’s all I could handle, one day at a time. In my mind, I had no future - I had no thoughts of weddings or babies, lovers or career progression, no holidays or celebrations…  nothing.  No week ahead, least of all a year or decade ahead!  I was simply walking and breathing.  Still here, because I simply couldn’t go through with the alternative.. but not living.  Every day was just another day with nothing and noone in it…

Well before I'd
hit my largest -
but well and truly
on my way there..

So I guess that's when I started to really unconsciously eat my way into the grave…  Didn’t care what I put in my mouth – was addicted to fast food (easy, cheap and nasty and VERY addictive) – and my laziness reigned supreme.   In hindsight, I guess that was my way of doing what I couldn’t do by my own hand – an easy out, an easy excuse…  and on went the kilos. One after the other after the other…on top of my, already, huge body...

Add now enormous, lazy, glutonous, detached and spiraling.

Skip ahead to 2008 – the day I truly decided to live.

Enough was enough. I’d had enough. I was enormous – my body was NOT something I could live in.  I was repulsed by my own skin, wouldn’t let anyone touch me for fear of repulsing them equally as much. I literally had it in my head that touching my skin made people physically ill, so would baulk if anyone ever tried to hug me, or even at the smallest gesture of a hand on my shoulder... I very much regret this now - basic human contact is a necessity and something I'm still trying to overcome. 

I was ashamed of everything – the shame written all over my fat face. The constant ache of craving all the beautiful things that I was so enviously watching everyone else experience was too much… I had no self-respect, was consumed with self-loathing, couldn’t breathe for the hatred and envy, and so gutt-wrenchingly broken and desperate for ANYTHING that would free me from this hell I’d put myself in. Anything…

I hear people talk about their “lightbulb” moment often on the weightloss forums, and always ponder the thought…  I didn’t think I had any lightbulbs go off at the time – all I had was sheer repulsion for what I’d made myself into… (but perhaps that WAS the lightbulb talking?!).

I didn’t know it at the time, but the choice I made in starting my new ‘lifestyle’ was “THE MOMENT” that would shape the rest of my life…  My sheer terror in a future fueled by hate and a broken heart was enough momentum to force the changes, but I would have put money down that I’d have failed within the first few days, and I never once believed I actually deserved it…   and I still question myself NOW whether I’m capable of pulling this off (old habits die hard!!).

Starting at nearly 200 kilos (my first official weigh-in was 188, but that was after I’d already started, and had to wait to find scales that weighed high enough accurately)…  It was the most daunting task imaginable.  Completely overwhelming… I would sit and cry tears of sheer terror and pain at the prospect of trying to piece my worthless life back together.

How do you slim down an elephant?!   ............. One freaking day at a time, that’s how!

There’s so many other aspects to my story that I haven’t even touched on here – things that I’ll probably ponder on “later” in other blogs, or as I recount different experiences parallel to new ones along the way.

I don’t put this out there to pull sympathy cards – but more for empathetic appeal to those who may be going through something similar.  I UNDERSTAND the hurt and stigma that comes with being as large as I used to be.  It’s taken me three years to drop down in size, yes, but it’s taken me those same three years to rebuild myself from the inside out, too.  I don’t propose that I’m “rebuilt” just yet – I still have a long way to go both on the mission and on the healing… but I’m still going, and I don’t plan on undoing all this hard work!

Add now: strong, driven, motivated, positive, resourceful, sympathetic, empathetic, excited - and the big ones…   I have hope and WANT for the future!   

It hurts that I’ve lost the last ten years through all this… I lament losing my 20s buried in so much crap, when others seem to have been off on adventures, learning curves and established their lives (oh how envious I am of them!)...  but I believe that I’m a better person for it NOW than I ever would have been without it.  I question my ability to see this mammoth mission through – but there’s definitely no signs of giving up anytime soon – and my will for a future dictates that I’m not allowed to! 

What is done is done and we can only learn from our mistakes. They shape us into who we are, and if we let them, help us rebuild into something even better and more sympathetic to those who are blind to their own life-lessons…  

So, I guess the next time someone asks me how I let myself get to that state, and just what it means to me now to have changed it, I guess they’re in for a really long novel-style read…!!   It was never as easy as “oh I just stuffed my face and sat on my arse all day…” – which is what the ignorant would have us believe!

Nov 2010

Writing this has been a cathartic experience in releasing the haunts that I’ve spent so long hiding behind (because they’re predictable)…  I’m giving myself permission to embrace the person I’ve become and learn that I actually DO deserve all the beautiful things that life has to offer too – whatever and whenever they decide to appear in my future.... and if nothing else, the photos of me NOW show a different person on the inside than the ones from before. The smiles are actually real now, because the heart's smiling too, and I need to acknowledge that change, in the very least!

Seriousness aside, I reckon that the final ten kilos of my mission will undoubtedly be ten kilos of emotional baggage that I’ve been carrying around with me my entire life!  Try to shove that on an airplane and I'd be done for 'excess baggage' - SO, it's time to release it!!    Get rid of the unnecessary baggage, find my wings and fly! 

Right.  Pity-party over.  Back to work, these kilos won’t lose themselves…. !!!