A year ago today...

A year ago today I was staring down the barrel of one of the hardest physical challenges of my life.  A year ago today I went in for my first reconstructive surgery (tummy tuck) with all the bravery and smiles a girl who had halved herself could muster!  I was the fittest and healthiest I’ve EVER been, I’d worked SO hard, I was mentally and physically ready - and I was determined to rock that surgery in every way possible!

A year later, and I’m sitting here with what feels like a fist gripping my heart.  It’s been THE hardest year of my transition, and part of me is just….  hurting/lamenting/questioning/dreaming/consoling… ?  I’m not sure how I feel at the moment.  Very mixed emotions.

Ofcourse, I had to contend with the physical issues post-surgery – there was dizzy spells and fatigue like nothing else.  Ofcourse there was the pain and swelling of cutting off a significant portion of your body. But it was the insane staph infection which totally messed me around for bulk of the months following (and even 12 months later, I still have a few slight issues) – and the biggest brain-messer-uperer was when I “burst at the seams” from the infection.  Scariest thing I’ve been through – there are just no words when you have a mass load of fluids streaming out of a wound in your body and you’re helpless to do anything about it...  It made me seriously question if any of it was worth it.

As the months rolled on, I realised there were other issues coming out of the woodwork that I hadn’t had to deal with before – nor had I been prepped or ‘warned’ about.  My anxiety levels skyrocketed – my heart palpitations were fit to send sonic shockwaves through all of Bathurst on some days.  I’d be close to heart-attack status with the anxiety, just trying to walk into a shopping centre to buy a few groceries, after numerous near-fainting spells over the first couple of months left some jagged memories in there that would shoot me with anxiety every time I’d attempt it.  Even trying to leave my house was becoming problematical – driving my car would scare me (I nearly fainted driving the car when I didn’t know I was infected) - and exercise… pfft.  It started scaring the life out of me – my body would ‘tighten’ when it was swollen with heat or movement, and most days it felt like the safest place for me was to lay on the floor.  Couldn’t fall any further if I was already on the floor. I became very accustomed to laying on the floor.

It hurt SO BAD in that first six months – I was shattered.  My surgery wasn’t the ‘be all, end all’ – it left me significantly scarred (not my surgical scar – that mofo rocks my world, it’s seriously bad arse from hip to hip!!).  No – my mental state was completely shattered.  I was fucked (for want of a better word…!).

My anxiety – untreated and undiagnosed – turned into depression over winter (one of my trouble points on any given year!) – but fuelled with the hurt and resentment of the swelling, issues, anxiety, and my distaste of my wonky, still “unattractive” body….  I forfeited into a spiral of self-hatred and ended up totally lost.

If you’ve read my previous (and very infrequent, very distanced) blogs this year – you’ll have probably caught onto the fact that I wasn’t very ‘ok’.  I thought I had it covered… hell, I’ve been through worse in the past (or so I thought!) – but this was a whole new kettle of fish.  I was in unchartered territory – again – and it left me completely lost.

I went in search of outlets and ‘help’ throughout different avenues this year – including the Brisbane and Sydney Emazon STAND conventions in March and September.  These taught me that there is far more to life than the ‘superficial’ (which I already knew) and pushed me to re-discover and re-connect with my Spirit – and work on finding meaningful relationships with everything in my world.  Including myself – one of my hardest tasks.   

Trying to piece myself together after a massive physical transformation, I was coming unstuck.  Literally.  The surgery – "I thought" – was going to help me feel better about myself.  To help me facilitate some awesome self-love that was still lacking.  Help me be brave and put myself out there – so maybe someone else could see past the exterior and like Amy (god knows my biggest fear is ending up completely alone for the rest of my life…!).   But there it was – in cold hard black and white (or in my case, black and blue!) – the superficial was NOT my answer.  The surgery had failed me in that respect.  My weightloss, therefore, felt like it had failed me too.

I was emptier AFTER surgery than I've ever felt before.   …. And it broke my freaking heart.  

I didn’t look how I wanted – I didn’t like what I saw – I felt rejected, dejected and foul.  It wasn’t “the best thing you’ll ever do Amy!” as I’d heard numerous times prior surgery –  I resented what I saw in the mirror – and even worse, resented the girl staring back at me who had DONE THAT TO ME!  I blamed her for my brokenness.  I hated where I was.

I was full of hate and hurt…. again.  Just like I was when I was twice my size.   THAT is what hurts the most…  How did I end up right back there again?!  

Twelve months later, and I’m still being asked about the surgery.  I went AWOL for a while – trying to deal with everything. I felt I couldn’t comment in a positive light, so I just stopped commenting at all.  People would ask me for specific details, and photos – and it’d take all my energy not to want to shake them and tell them ‘DON’T DO IT!!!’… but I knew that’s not how I felt entirely about it all.  I was just hurting.

There is still a wad of leftover skin on my belly….  That’s something they don’t tell you either – here I was thinking it was going to help rid all that, but NO – there’s only “so much they can take” because its living tissue / blood loss issues mean they can only do so much.   When I was carrying the amount of skin that I was, from having been the size I was, I was left with more skin than I actually realised…  I learnt that the hard way.

I’ve deliberately refrained from showing pictures.  I’m still struggling with body shame – and quite frankly I can see no need to showcase pics of me in my undies for public scrutiny!   I’m far too scared of the damage that may do… even though I’ve suggested in the past that I would offer those up “when I was brave enough”.  Truth is, I’m just not.   I’d love to show the difference between the before and after- it’s quite significant (or at least, moreso at the beginning of the year before my self-sabotage stint) – but I don’t think it’s ‘show worthy’ (my stomach isn’t flat – my body is bumpy and lumpy and I still carry wads of skin in other areas that upset me…).  So it’ll remain private – and as it is, I can barely look at those photos myself without ending up upset.  Looking in the mirror now is hard enough – I haven’t even HAD photos taken in the last few months because of the decline in my mental state in relation to my body.  I feel as though we haven’t even been on speaking terms for bulk of this year.

That’s the thing right there.  The disappointment in the physicality has instigated a serious shift in perspective in my mental state – a very rapid, very dangerous decline.  It had taken me YEARS to like what my body was achieving – losing the weight, getting fitter, reshaping – I was actually starting to LIKE who and what I was!!    There’s one photo taken just a week or so before surgery in a dress at Finale, end of November, that I was totally in love with!  I was just radiant – super happy – and it showed in my face, in my  body, in the way I talked, laughed, looked…

Twelve months later, and I’m a mess.   My body gave out when my heart and head did.  I’m pretty sure I just gave up mid this year. It was just too much. Too hard.  I was over it.  I ached from tip to toe.  Physically and mentally.  I couldn’t breathe from the anxiety, and I didn’t care because my heart hurt so much.  

Add to that, I’d put myself ‘out there’ earlier in the year, hoping I was a bit more desirable (also mistakenly assuming I was more comfortable in my skin) – I’d been met with a string of rejections.  Having my heart ripped out of my chest when I connected with someone, when they chose someone else – well that was the last straw.  I don’t think I recovered after that – to me, that was the biggest confirmation that I was still unwanted – still not good enough.  I stopped looking, I shut down, I gave up on that too.  In my eyes, I was too hideous and foul – and at the rate my esteem was plummeting – too gross of a person, on the inside as much as the outside, to love anyway…  (I’m still fighting this thinking…!)

Lots of tears and lots of FOOD MEDICATING later – and a couple of months ago I’d had enough.  I was tired of crying, tired of hating myself, tired of fighting over and over again the same shit day in, day out.  I was pissed off that I was fighting depression-symptoms again, and I was TERRIFIED that I was heading towards self-harm territory like I’ve dealt with in the past.  Absolutely terrified – and totally fucked off.  I DID NOT WORK MY ARS E OFF TO GO BACK THERE!!!

I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own – I wasn’t winning.  The anxiety had turned festy, and I KNEW I wasn’t winning against that - everything upset me and every day I was contending with 'something'.  I was more inclined to eat my emotions, my body was aching even though I wasn’t training, and I was tired.  Constantly, utterly tired.  I had unexplained pain and fatigue – tendonitis in my arm, severe joint immobility and now a heel spur from seemingly out of nowhere!  My body was breaking down – right along with my head.   So I sought help.   I pulled in my stubborn Taurean head and went to the Dr…

Last couple of months I’ve been on low-dose anti-depressants to help calm the anxiety (and for the most part it’s worked, I don’t rock sonic shockwaves nearly as much now! I was VERY anti-drugs prior to this, so was a major decision for me to go down this path) – and despite my fear of counselling (for valid reasons from prior experience) – I found a local counsellor to go and talk to.  I was punishing myself with massive self-blame, and it was unravelling me.  She was pretty quick to pick up on that in the first couple of sessions – and her questioning me on why I was so adamant on taking the blame for EVERYTHING, and then sabotaging and hating myself for it (when it wasn’t always warranted or even my fault!) - was a key to helping me start turning it around.

I started implementing other techniques aswell - including positive meditation that I’d listen to of a night, and gave myself permission to step back from “the weightloss world” and look after myself for a while.  I hadn’t been able to do that before…  (I felt compelled to help everyone – but then I was hating myself for being a “failure” in the process, a hypocrite – who’d want to listen to the girl who couldn’t even sort her own shit out?!!).  And let’s not even mention the hideous jealousy…  Ohhhh dear god, green eyed monster for sure!    I took myself off dating sites, and I deleted a wad of people from my social networks that I just couldn’t handle ‘for now’ (sorry if that was you, ha!).   I sat on my arse, I ate whatever I wanted, I slept as much as I could and I tried not to let my head go rancid.   I put myself into a bubble for a while – it was time to heal.

So that’s where I find myself today.  Twelve months on from my first reconstructive surgery.  They took about 4kgs of skin off – and in 12 months I’ve put on 15kgs (was nearly 20) – became reclusive – regurgitated some serious self-hatred of times gone by – and learnt some hardcore home truths about being superficial!      My heart hurts for the life lessons I’ve had to endure – but in saying that, had I not gone through this, had everything been “peachy and beautiful” – I’d have missed some of my biggest turning points and experience.  I wouldn’t have found gratitude in other areas or learnt to take the hits the way I have. 

Was it the best thing I've ever done for myself?  Well no - but it has played its part in helping reshape me - physically and mentally.  There are benefits in lesser loose skin - although I spend bulk of my time pulling my undies up now because they keep rolling down over a belly that's out of shape to the rest of me!  I find myself with pockets of fat that weren't there before, with the sabotage-gain and lack of weight training muscle loss - I guess the fat cells have to accumulate somewhere else?!    But I can do pushups now without wanting to hang my head in shame because my gut falls on the floor - which is something that used to send me into fits of tears....  And when I run (if and when I can run these days!) - it doesn't hurt my belly as much as it used to or slap against my thighs  (that's not to say there aren't other issues though - thigh slappage of its own accord is still there!!!).   My body is nowhere near perfect - it's anything but - but it's mobile, and now that I'm back to looking after it PROPERLY - not fueled with hatred or wrong goals - I hope we can start talking again, and make some progress.  I sincerely hope the twelve months ahead can turn this experience into a positive learning curve, and help facilitate some real self-love and acceptance for what I am, who I am, as I am. 

Weightloss can no longer be my main focus.  It’s EGO based, and reflects badly against the person I am within.  It’s superficial and living off the Ego of weightloss success - without having created a tangible, meaningful esteem behind it - leaves you longing and empty.  Let that be my lesson to you all right there!!   My “success” is not found on the scales – it’s in my strength of character, my honesty in myself, my integrity in accountability.   Who I am is not measured on anything other than the heart inside – and as it stands, she’s pretty ok – even with the multiple hits this year that have taken a few chunks out of it.

Would I like a smaller arse?  Sure. 

Do I want to lose this gain and go back to my smallest size pre-surgery?  Yes. 

Will I surrender to quick gimmicks, shortcuts, self-manifesting diabolical obsessive body-smashing or unnecessary starvation to get the results I want?   Hell no.  

Will I have more surgery in the future?  I don’t know.

Will I overcome my twelve months of hurt?  Yes.

Will I be ok?  Yes.

    

Depression and all its not cracked up to be

At the risk of upsetting my family and friends - or sparking an "are you ok?!" frenzy - I wanted to bring up one of the topics that I have to deal with - that I think is highly misunderstood - and something that I think is still stigmatised to a certain degree, simply because it's something too personal to have a "one title fits all" cover.  Depression, anxiety and suicide.


For the past month or two, I've spiraled backwards. Initially I thought it was because of my body's response to the surgery - it disliked it (immensely) and has fought me wholeheartedly the last 7 months since my monster staph-infection burst me at the seams.  I thought my crazy fatigue was from my body trying to heal itself - my emotional imbalances were from the poor results and the 'hurt' that comes with bitter disappointment.  I thought my weight gain was a kickback because of the emotional imbalances and a rebellious "what's the point" attitude that was filtering through.

… but then winter kicked in, the sunshine disappeared, and my yearly bought of SADs came to fruition. I've seen this pattern for the past few years - now that I'm more aware of my routines. SADs (seasonal affective disorder) isn't a rarity - I see it a lot in other people. Winter is a bugger for bringing this out in so many of us - and I'm certainly no stranger to the "winter blues" when it comes around. I live in Bathurst - it's cold and miserable in winter (with occasional bursts of sunshine to bring your hopes up - followed by a dismal day to drag you back down again!) - and if you're really not expecting it, there'll be snow in outlying areas, and the potential to see a penguin cross your path downtown!!  It's such a great place for feeling shit during winter (haha!) - which up until I lost my substantial layers of blubber, didn't even bother me!  It's been the last couple of years at "half my size" that it's really affected my body, and in turn, my head…

So as it turns out, I took a rapid spiral downwards - between the body not dealing with its recuperation, my headspace in a disjointed "I can't believe I messed my health up" guilt trip, the crazy anxiety that I'm STILL having issues with many months later…  and then the SADs knocking so violently on my doorstep - it was going to take me down.  I just got a little ignorant to see it coming.

… and down I went. 

I've been effectively "in hiding" for the past month or two. No - I wasn't ok.  I deleted a bulk lot of social media 'friends', I deleted myself from numerous groups and networks. I was ashamed of my weight gain - and the fact I was falling to pieces at the drop of a hat just seemed to bring me down even quicker.  I'd come home and bawl my eyes out, over seemingly nothing.  Granted, there were "life" things going on (SO many of them this year), and I was dealing the best way I could… but it wasn't enough.  I was hanging on with the skin of my teeth.  Fabulous teeth, yes, but pretty ineffective for holding onto things!

Then my body shut down entirely.  My joints packed it in - my knees hurt so much trying to do my weights class that I had to stop attending.  My few days a week of gymming came to a grinding halt.  I'd drag my sorry bum through my door of a night and be that fatigued, I'd fall asleep if I even dared put my head down - despite the fact I wasn't even training anymore!!   … and I'd just cry.  All the time.  Cry.

I thought I was losing it - again.  I've been here before - this isn't new to me.  In the past it's been MUCH more aggressive, and generally had little to no real 'for a reason' - but that still wasn't measure enough for why it was taking me down again.  I felt like a great big failure - and everything around me felt like pressure, to the point where my anxiety would flare up reading something online, or I'd think about trying to get control over my emotional binging, and the tight chest and brain-swirling would hit again.  EVERYTHING was too much - and nothing was working to dull it down.   Some people turn to alcohol or drugs (or any other 'addiction' style thing)… me, I turn to food - eating myself into food comas and it rarely hitting the sides.   I have an eating disorder - and when I'm not right in the head, I can't control it.  It consumes ME - and the pitfall is weight gain - and the hatred flares again when you hate what you see.  Round and round in circles… and further down I'd go.


When people talk about depression, I think there's still a huge misconception that you've already hit "rock bottom" when its the most obvious.  I can't speak for all those who suffer - I won't pretend to know it all - so I'll talk only about how it feels for ME.  I have "undiagnosed depression" - I've never intentionally sought help with it - I've mulled through my down-days and sadness - and for the most part, have managed to overcome it and push through.

When mine flares back up - as it's done so nastily lately - there's only so much patience you can have when it's the same-old routine you've seen so many times before.  It's gradual - it builds on itself.  You think you're doing ok one day, but then the next you lose your footing and BAM, another cry-day.    … but when I started resurrecting old haunts about believing I'm worth more 6-feet under, THAT is when I started to panic.  THAT was the moment I got the shits with myself - my perpetual negative brain - and got scared. 

Now, before anyone rings the emergency help line when I talk (so candidly) about suicide - take a breath and let me explain first.  NO, I'm not about to top myself. Far from it actually. It's actually got little to do with "being dead" at all.  To try and verbalise how it feels - when my headspace says "I want out" - if you can imagine someone taking a big eraser, and just quietly rubbing me away - slowly and very undramatically - no pain and no ridiculous TV-inspired over-dramatic traumatic bullshit…    When I say "I just want to go away" - I mean just that.  I just feel like sometimes I want to disappear. 

… but that sucks.   It's shit.  NO I don't want to be dead.  YES I want to be here and part of the world, and live long and prosper!   .. but I'm exhausted.  And fighting that sometimes takes a backseat to letting the feeling of 'nothing' take over, where you think you already are / destined to be.

I had a very blunt conversation with a friend recently - talking very openly about this very topic.  The conclusion of our talk came to something like this…  It's not that I wished to be dead - it was that killing myself wasn't feasible. I couldn't do that to my family, friends or myself.  It's the fear of hurting someone else that stops me in my tracks.   … but in doing that, in "staying" - you suffer, alone, in silence. 

…. but this is where I'm wrong.  I'm not always alone.


Despite my crazy anxiety attacks - the decline in my headspace and spiral back into depression - the fleeting thoughts of believing I'm worth nothing again (that got scrubbed very quickly - I find this a HUGE level of progress)…  and my intermission with being a total recluse and loner again…  there were a few key people who wouldn't let me stay down where I'd put myself.   I wasn't alone.

The few key people who have been whispering their thoughts and genuine concerns in my ear lately have been my little rising bubbles, helping me to come up faster than ever before.  I might have been on my way to hitting the bottom again - but I already know I'm on the way back up.


Except this time I'm taking a different approach.  No point banging on about how great things are when these cycles keep on happening - there's a reason why I keep coming unstuck…   Keep smacking my head against issues that I haven't been brave enough to deal with before - or too immersed in the wrong things to see what's really hurting me.  

I let my surgery dictate a 'happiness outcome' that never happened - it let me down like nothing else.  I let the weightloss rule my world and thought it'd make everything "bunnies and rainbows" afterwards, but it didn't.  I tried to make new friends and find love - but I seemed to be drawn to the wrong people and miss the ones who stood behind me, holding me up instead. 

If I'm really honest - and I am - this year has been one hell of a messed up wakeup call.    … and I'm very glad it's happened.

I hit my rock bottom (though nothing as fierce as the ones I've hit in the past) - my health is in jeopardy (I'm waiting on test results to find out what damage the surgery has done / if any / or to give me SOME idea WTF is actually going on?!) - my weight has piled back on (hello 15kgs gain) - my body is fatigued and severely fucked up from toxic yo-yo weightloss, binging, restriction and over-eating - and I'm so confused about who I am, where I want to go, what i truly want to do.  Some days I'm just plain exhausted by what's happened in the past six years of transition…  I never "lived" so much emotion as I have since I opted to change my life "for the better"… !!!    (there's extreme irony in that).

… but I'm grateful it's happened.  It forces me to question myself and look at ways of working smarter - to be brutally honest with myself and question what's truly important - and makes me stronger.  It builds my worth.



Last week I sought answers and help.  I'm not the same girl I was a decade ago (the one who hid away in shame, believing I wasn't worth fixing).   Nope - I need things to change, and I need help in doing that.   I know myself - now - well enough to know there's a time and place for everything.  And last week I marched myself into the Dr's surgery for answers.  Bloods were taken and a counselling session was initiated.

This is a huge step in my self-development - I sat down with a total stranger to help me deal with "my life".  I've never been one for counselling - it's been suggested time and time again, but I was never really interested. I seemed to push through enough on my own (or with my friends - before they'd tire of trying to deal with my headspace) - but I can't deal with EVERYTHING that's happened now.  I'm exhausted.  Literally.


This year has taught me a HUGE lesson.  I put my surgery up on this hideous pedestal. I believed it would be the ultimate thing for me - to help me like who I am, love my body, and (again, with the over-sharing honesty) - help me find someone who'd like the package so I wouldn't have to be the single 34 year old that I am.  I wanted a LIFE and I wanted love.   … and I went to hellish measures, cutting myself to pieces just to do that.

If I had a dollar for every time someone says to me "but you have to love YOURSELF before someone else can love you" - then I could go buy myself a freaking boyfriend…  !!!   So let's not go there.    Let's just say that I acknowledge that this is a very large aspect of self-worth - and when you're lacking that in the tormenting field of weight-issues - there's just a monotony in believing that you're somehow destined to be alone forever because you can't figure out if you're worth loving, therefore can't love yourself first.  It's cyclical, and it's screwed!

… but I didn't factor in the self-hatred coming back into play - particularly when the surgery was less than successful and my health took a nose-dive in the process - and when my mental space has the capacity to decline so rapidly.

Knowing I was perpetuating the cycle - and even cutting myself to bits didn't solve the issue… it just all became too much.  Knowing I've messed up my superior health - the guilt trips came in thick and fast.  Having uncontrollable anxiety and depression symptoms ravaging me the rest of the time…  just too much.  Fucking too much.

I broke.   I sought help.

My first counselling session mid-last week scared the pants off me.  I DID NOT want to open a can of worms delving into what's already happened in the "long ago past".   I had little to no tolerance at all to break the seals on things I can't shoulder right now.  Everything that's weighing me down has everything to do with my surgery, the body hatred and my solitude.  Going in there to face up to my reality as it is right now - with a total stranger - was one of the scariest things I've had to do.   I can talk - I do that really well these days - and my honesty was right there on the table when she'd prompt…   No, I think my fear was more in actually overcoming issues and having to walk a new path - one that doesn't revolve around negatives. 

… what do I do if and when I actually get happy?  

I thought I had a glimpse of it when the weightloss came through - when the publicity boosted my ego - when people noticed I existed.   … then I fell back down, because I had nothing inside that believed any of that.  I couldn't see my worth - my value - my strength.  I knew I'd done myself a favour changing my world via my weight - but it wasn't enough - I was still alone, still mentally distorted, still 'ugly' in a mangled body.  Still as empty as ever - and even more acutely aware of all the beautiful things I was watching so enviously in everyone else.    Was easier to run away and hide - turn my back on them so I couldn't hurt so much.   … because I WANT that happiness - and I can't fucking find it.

So I walked into a Counsellor's office to get perspective.  I put my pride back in its box - knowing damn well I simply won't get any further ahead if I don't - won't ever get to have those things that make me ache inside - and end up living a messed up, solitary life full of self-hatred and cyclical negativity if I don't do something different.

… and she was lovely.  Post-briefing about my life, all the changes, all the tears and tantrums this year… she said "god, no wonder you're exhausted!!" - and that was enough for me.   No dogmatic preaching that I'm too highly strung or emotional - and she even questioned if some of my decisions (albeit my choice) have been pushed/swayed from outside influences - giving me permission to stop unceremoniously slamming myself with guilt and continuing the hatred for "what I've done to myself".   And I can already see she has the capacity to make me crazy uncomfortable when it's time to really challenge me...  It's about to get messy - and I'm ok with that.

I have homework - I'm working on a list of all the things I love/do in my life - things that make me AMY.  She asked for a list of just ten things - so far I'm up to three full pages.  I can't stop writing them - three days later and I keep thinking of new ones.  They're even coming up in my dreams!    … and what makes my heart sing, is that so far not one thing on my list is about what I weigh, or why I have to fight so freaking hard to try and impress 'whoever'.  They're just all ME - all my crazy, funny, silly, quirky Amy things - and I love it!  I'm re-connecting again.

I was very lost.    

… but I'm still here. 

Hibernation time is nearly over…

 

PS:  Yes, I'm ok! 

xxx