Fighting the gamut of emotions...

If someone (anyone) tells you that weightloss is ONLY about food and exercise... then slap them up the side of the head for me and tell them "they're dreaming!".

It's not.

In all my 3.5+ years of doing this, I have NEVER felt so up and down emotionally as I do right now...  but why?!  That's the question I'm not entirely sure I know how to answer...

I KNEW at the beginning that I was embarking on something "life changing" - literally. I don't make light of that, nor say it tongue-in-cheek...  My entire life HAD to change - I wasn't allowed to put myself into that grave like I wanted, therefore it HAD to change.... and I had absolutely no idea then just what that meant or how the hell I was actually going to do it...  Blind faith, it just happened.

I think I 'assumed' that when I shrunk, that my little world would just somehow magically open up - that birds would fly around my head and chirp melodies of pure happiness!  That all my "dreams" (whatever the hell they were?!) would just sprout out of nowhere, without effort or consequence, and I'd be transformed from the 'broken girl in the invisible cloak' into this "vision" of supreme awesomeness, beams of light floating through the ceiling and hitting my cheeks!

... well, not quite...   but I DID think that things would just "fall into place".  Somehow. 

The last few months have proven testament that THIS IS NOT THE CASE.  Weightloss success aside (in which I'm acutely modest, I don't 'see' the hype about it myself - I still haven't finished and things aren't "glowing with the after-effects of pure sunshiney happiness") - there's been so many changes the last few years, that it makes my head spin. This year alone has been so fast-tracked with changes, that I'm almost nauseous just trying to catch up!

I'm finding myself questioning EVERYTHING. Why did I do this, why didn't I do that... Why can't I have this, what happened to that... I look in the mirror and I'm disappointed - not because of what I see (the physical changes are there, I look much better, not perfect, but better)... and 90% of the time I SEE it in my eyes how much better it truly is...  But then you hit a patch like I am hovering in at the moment, and that 10% of doubt rears its ugly head. Taking a really deep look into your own eyes, you realise you're still... Empty. Longing. Broken.

I loathe being broken.

That to me says "you need fixing" - and hellllooooooo isn't that what I've been doing for the past 195 weeks for crying out loud?!    Fixing myself - one kilo at a time. One workout at a time. One tear-jerking, heart-wrenching, breakdown at a time...

Yes I have.

Fixing myself... for 'everything'.

There's reason for everything. I know this. Do I want to admit to it and acknowledge it... (in the headspace I'm in right now, hell no!!) - but it's true.

My 'everything' is what makes me get up each day and try.  Some days I try harder - some days I don't try at all...  it all evens out in the end though, right?!  I've been trying and working, fixing and healing for 3.5 years now...

So WHY am I so upset NOW?!  Why do I feel as empty and hurt as I did 'before' all these changes came into play?!   Not looking to answer these questions - they're just questions!!  Like I said before, everything happens for a reason,  and sometimes questions are just questions... !


Finding myself 'stifled' at the moment - torn between feeling like I deserve things to have "fallen into place" from 3.5 years of severely focused, very commited changes...  to knowing full well my 'everything' will only happen when I step up and make it that way - and even then, that'll change as time progresses anyway!   Just like I wrote in my 'goalposts' blog - I don't WANT to catch up with my goals - I want them to be forever changing and always ahead of me.  IT MAKES ME MOVE FORWARD. 

... but I'm struggling.  I'm tired and I'm lonely.

It's funny, for 3 years I chipped away at my weightloss slowly, and in secret.  Noone "in real life" (outside of the forums) knew what I was doing - least of all what numbers were ahead of me or just how all-consuming the pain truly was beneath the surface.  I didn't tell anyone - I couldn't.  How do you explain something that "those who don't understand" would assume was self-inflicted and I deserved nothing less?!   Secrecy and solitude it was - was just "easier" that way.

This year is proving to be something entirely different. I'm no longer "the invisible fat girl" - in more ways than I can account for.  My 'secret' isn't a secret anymore - it's splashed right here all over my blog, on my website, over Facebook... I have hundreds of people who read my words and gain momentum to empower themselves from what I say (and I LOVE THAT - it's the sole reason I'm doing this)...  it's opened my world up.

I opened a door, stuck my head outside and said 'Hello, I'm Amy!'.  It changed the course of my changes... and those changes have changed my life.  It makes my head spin!

With that, came the introduction of a self-confidence I didn't see coming...  but even more profound, was the self-worth that grew with it.  I now appreciate who I am, what I've done and why I've done it.   THAT is worth everything to me.  THAT is what will keep my feet planted on the ground, even when my heart is breaking, I'm questioning everything, when I feel like I'm failing...

I.am.worth.EVERYTHING.  My 'everything'.


It just doesn't feel like it at the moment, I'm struggling to deal with all the changes I've put into place.  Trying to push past concrete boundaries I set for myself years ago thinking I didn't deserve happiness, and it'd just be "easier" if I barricaded myself up?!

My head and heart are at loggerheads at the moment...  All my old 'haunts' are having a field-day with my emotions!!  I keep forgetting just how bad I used to think about myself - when you're too busy pushing forward and making (and dealing with) new changes... I forget just what self-inflicted hell I used to put myself through. Til it happens that it comes up again... and it stirs up a wad of emotions!

Like the fact I believed I was too repulsive to be hugged - actually believed I made people physically (and violently) ill if they touched me.  So stopped letting people touch me.  No hugs, no nothing. I'd flinch and pull away, or just avoid entirely.  Entire avoidance in EVERYTHING is something I'm really good at (it saves on humiliation later)...  And yet when I was hugged recently, I wanted to crawl into their lap and close my eyes, and just have them hold me forever cuz I was just so overwhelmed with how much that meant to me in that moment...  I am NOT the same girl I used to be.

Socialising and relationships were something on my 'list' that were going to come into play eventually - after I dealt with some of the other stuff first.....  Came under the "too hard basket" for the first three years - after all, my reasoning was "you can't make someone want you" so I negated that aspect of my life changes. Easier to just stay solitary - though there's nothing good or 'easy' about solitude, it rips my heart right out of its socket.

... up until now.  The other week, I threw my hands up in the air and said I've had enough of the weightloss!  It was doing my head in - the scales had had their time and NOW I NEEDED MORE - and said now I want the LIFE that I'd been putting 'on-hold' while I got healthy...  I wanted all the things I'd been hiding away from, because I DESERVE them now. 

I wasn't wrong... I DO want all those things - but was I ready for it?!!  Enter here the Universe, in all its crazy, confusing glory - who heard me shout it out there and has hit me with all sorts of challenges since!

It seems I came out from under the invisibility cloak, and got a little attention - real stuff.  The real stuff I'm aching for ...but I'm flinching. I'm emotional and I'm feeling VERY overwhelmed.

I got told the other day 'Amy, you need to deal with your past before you can handle being with someone' - and they weren't wrong.  The thing is, I've made peace with my past - it's the past 15-years of mental hell and 'nothingness' that I'm fast-tracking back through to "catch up with everyone else" that is proving problematical.

I'm having meltdowns and breakthroughs all at once.  I'm finding new things about myself I didn't know - new grievances and new acceptances.  I'm growing by the minute - filling that inconspicuous void inside that sometimes just wants to strangle me from within.  I'm not the girl I used to be, and my past isn't dictating my actions (not entirely - influencing yes, making me hesitate and reevaluate, yes.. but not dictating entirely).  It's all part of my changes... and it's all happening for a reason.

Gamut of emotions... !!!   One minute I'm up, the next I'm back down.  Feel like a hypocrite half the time - I'm happy, but I'm still sad.  I'm excited, but I'm plagued with fear.  I'm 'out there', but I'm still hiding.  I'm surrounded by people, but I'm insanely lonely.  I'm totally, undeniably stubborn and committed, and yet I'm insecure.  I'm clearly ridiculously complex, and yet it's all so very simple.

I'm EVERYTHING, but I feel like I'm nothing.

No, I'm not nothing...  I.AM.EVERYTHING.   (breathe...)


I got to this chapter of my changes and KNEW it was going to be some of the hardest to handle yet - and I wasn't wrong.  Anything to do with the heart was going to prove gutt-wrenching, vomit-worthy and internally-strangulating!!!   I WANT my life - I want the everything that goes with it - adventures, career, family.  I want to love and to be loved in return, my heart is aching for it.   I crave those freaking hugs like I need air... feel like I'm suffocating cuz I'm holding back from throwing myself on everyone who comes within a few metres of me!!    I want the partner I've never had, someone to help me grow and share all this amazing life-stuff with...  I want happiness.   ... and I finally believe I deserve it.

... but if I hear 'Amy, there's someone out there for everyone' OR 'It'll happen when you least expect it' OR 'You have to love yourself first before someone else can love you' one more freaking time... I'll ring their bloody neck!   If it was that simple, then I wouldn't be so torn!    Back to the 'you can't make someone want you' philosophy, riddled with the fact that I AM deserving of all things love and beautiful, and yet I'm struggling to find someone who can cut through my crap, handle the emotions and let me heal - all while I'm desperately trying to hold back from suffocating them with everything I want to give that's been brewing like a lava-pit inside - because that's just how I am?! 

My god... battle in my head much?!!  ... So I'm back to sheer avoidance, because I can't handle the hurt of not having what I so desperately need.  To heal.  To live.  Life isn't life without people in it to share it...


Feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, repeatedly...  TRYING to overcome all the things that hold me back... be "a better version of myself"...  all the time knowing I ALREADY AM a better version of me.   ... and yet I'm still lacking.

Everything happens for a reason.  The gamut of emotions are here to teach me that too.  All I can do is breathe and keep moving, and have that blind faith that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be in the course of all these changes.   Might have been the girl who got left behind, but if I stop long enough to recognise what it is I've done, I'd realise that I'm so much more advanced than I give myself credit for.

... just need to stop pushing the beautiful things away, and push through the boundaries some more... and step up and BE that "vision" with the sun streaming through the window, bouncing off my hair and making beautiful shadows against the wall...  !!! 

I guess to answer that question at the beginning about 'why' all this happens... it's as simple (or as complex!) as this.  In the creation of a better version of Amy, without the questions, there'd be no reason...  I have EVERY reason now, therefore I'll continue to question...


Dr Seuss would be proud, no?!  haha...    SIGH!

More tears and breakthroughs ahead...  ugh!  Give me strength...