Day Seventy-Three

Breakfast: 9am
2 Eggs, Scrambled (w/American Cheese & Mustard)
32oz. Water

Mid-Morning: Nothing.

Lunch: 1pm
1 Sweet Cream Visalus Shake

Mid-Afternoon: Nothing.

Evening: 5pm
2 Slices Ham (w/Cheese)
16oz. V8 (Low Sodium, Spicy Hot)

Walk-Count:

State of Being:
(Disclaimer: You might not like today’s post. Things aren’t always good. Also, there are certain things about being hundreds of pounds overweight that are, quite frankly grotesque. There are plenty of things about being this way, that would gross you out. Here’s something even more unpleasant; Not all of those things are physical.

Some of them are mental. There are emotionally grotesque factors in my life. These are things that might make you very uncomfortable. I might even lose some of you here.

I am certainly not comfortable sharing this stuff. But, I made a pledge to all of you that I would not sugar-coat anything, when times were bad. Today I’m making good on that pledge. Fair warning.)


Sine Qua Non

I’ve been dealing with a lot of depression today.

Not feeling great, in general. I think I may have caught or contracted something at the store last Friday. I don’t know. I’m just feeling really low, both physically and mentally.

Last night I was plagued by nightmares. I took a nap this afternoon and the nightmares were right there, waiting to greet me.

These weren’t the scary kind of nightmares. They were more of the hopeless and depressing variety.

Before I get into those, I think I should share my own experience with a particular category of problem. It’s something that’s a problem for all fat people, almost without exception. But in my case, it’s a problem that has scarred me very deeply on a psychological level. That problem is the opposite sex.

It’s not like I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone. I’ve been in a few. I was even married once.

It’s just that they’ve all begun the exact same way; “I hope you won’t take it personally, Chris. I’m just not a very affectionate person. I’m not really into holding hands, touching, kissing, etc. when we’re around other people…”

And they’ve all ended the exact same way;… “Chris, I’ve been seeing someone else for a while. Goodbye.”

It’s not like I don’t realize that my problems in this arena are weight-related. They most certainly are.

But, there’s a part of me that’s just never quite believed that. There’s a part of me that thinks that it’s just me. That there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. That I am basically less-than and unfit. It doesn’t help that I’ve had a “friend” or two during the course of my life who were all too happy to use me as the “fat-friend” and, in a passive-aggressive (and pretty obviously sociopathic) sort of way, revel in their perceived superiority over me.

Neither of those friends are still in my life. But, the damage was done. I see it. I know what it is and where it came from. But, that doesn’t make it any less real.

I have come away from my life experiences with women, with what I’ve been told is technically a clinical phobia. On some level, women… by sheer virtue of their presence, cause me anxiety and sometimes worse.

Here’s where I start to lose some of you.
It’s ok. If I could have walked away from certain aspects of my life, I would have too.

The sound of a woman laughing… hurts me.
Now, I’ve gotten a lot better with this one in recent months. WAY better. But, it’s still something that affects me from time to time. When I hear that sound,… even if I know it’s not about me, it feels like it is. Or, to be more accurate, I feel an analogue of the emotion that I would feel if it were about me. That analogue can be very, very slight,... as it usually is anymore. Or it can be quite severe.

I’ve spoken before about the day I decided to kill myself. What I didn’t really go into, in any great detail were some of the particular features of that moment. I was working in a place where I was surrounded by women, clusters of whom were talking, chatting and periodically laughing among themselves. Each time this happened, my breath, my neck, my shoulders and my hands would seize so tightly that I’d get cramps. Now, it’s not normally that bad, but that day it was the cherry on top of what had shaped up to be a perfect storm of anxieties and depression.

I reached a point in my life where I hated everyone. I envied anyone who wasn’t me. I hated my life and I just wanted out of it. Most especially, I hated God.

Why did He do this to me?
Why did He make me this way?
Why is my DNA MY fault?

If it’s so ok for Amy, or Michelle, or Jen, or Lisa, or Shelly to walk away from me and not have to deal with me anymore, why wasn’t I allowed to walk away from me? Why couldn’t I just give up on me? Why would that be wrong?

It’s my life. I don’t belong to anyone else but me. Who’s got the right to tell me I can’t throw me away, if I want to? Everyone else did it without repercussion of any kind. What is it that obligates me to hold onto and keep playing such a faulty and worthless hand, when everyone else who’s held it was allowed to fold and leave the table for a better game?

To this day,… I still don’t have any answers to these questions.

For me, it’s changed. It’s no longer about finding those answers.

I’m not fighting because I believe in anything. Nor am I fighting for what I have.
I’m fighting for what I should have had all along.

I don’t have some golden vision of what my life’s going to be at the end of this.
All I’m really doing here is taking ownership of my problem and working to get rid of it. I don’t know what’s there, at the end. I don’t know what’s on the other side of this journey. I just know that it can’t possibly be worse than what preceded it.

That might sound dark. But, it’s been a dark day.

I know that my life will be better, if I just stay the course.
In fact, it already is. Don’t misunderstand me here. I Love the way my life already seems to be improving. So much has changed for me in so many ways, and really… I’m still just getting started here! lol

But, I have no idea if I’ll ever get over my difficulties with women. Or if I’ll ever find someone who doesn’t see me the way that all the others did.

Today has been a day when this particular issue just wouldn’t leave me be, for some reason. I thought I should share it, that’s all.

See you tomorrow.



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