(no subject)
in the interest of full disclosure, i'm seeing a shrink. many keep these issues close to their chest, but i think it's important that i share with everyone, especially considering that so far, i've shared with no one.
back at the end of july, after joseph, i decided to lose weight. i didn't like the way i looked. i was fat and out of shape, and i had really let myself go since the end of soccer sophomore year. my family (mom’s side) has weight problems, and the issues that go with it - diabetes, heart problems, ect., and I wanted to stay away from that. also, most significantly, I am a perfectionist, and decided that unless I was physically fit, that I wouldn’t live up to my potential, and grow into what God had planned for me.
Long story short, by the end of January, I had lost 25 pounds. In hindsight, it went too much. And I went about it the wrong way, by dieting instead of eating smartly and exercising regularly. My cue to stop never came. I was waiting for acknowledgement from my closest group of friends, the people whom I spent the most time around, but to my exasperation and dismay, it never came.
That acknowledgement came in the form of what I took as taunts, a “chris eats so healthy” or a “chris doesn’t eat junk food”. These did much more harm than good, and drove me deeper into my obsession to lose weight.
In February, I started lifting weights and eating a little more, and by the time kiss me, kate rolled around, I was, for the first time since sophomore year, comfortable and confident with my body.
But still no acknowledgement, no indication that my work had accomplished anything of visible impact. Only searching, probing looks that seemed to try to figure out why I acted and ate like I did. But disturbingly, there were no searching, probing questions. I was told that people were concerned. Well, if that was so, then where were the concerned questions? The concerned conversations, the concerned friends that cared so much?
I then tried to eat like a normal teenager would, but convinced myself that I was still fat, and that I couldn’t eat desserts or anything around people (emphasis on around people) without them thinking less of me.
Naturally, as happens to 95% of people who diet, they gain the weight back. And I did. One cookie was not an option. It was zero or twelve, I had no middle ground. In private, away from the eyes of everyone, I ate and ate, and created a new world, a secret shame only evidenced by the pounds steadily repiling around my waist.
By the end of may, 11 weeks after kiss me, kate, I had gained back all of the weight I had lost in the prior 8 months. And still, no one in my closest group of friends said a single thing.
One morning in late may, I snapped. It was a morning after I had eaten what felt like the whole fridge, and I told my mom that I couldn’t go to school. I genuinely had a plan that I would not leave the house until I had lost the weight I had gained back. I thought that I was completely unattractive and repulsive to everyone, and that anyone who looked at me was thinking of how inadequate I was for my loss of self-control. Anyone who wants to call shenanigans on this claim can ask my mom, because it’s exactly what I told her that morning.
We realized that I needed help and guidance, help and guidance that I was not currently getting. Physical help to break what looked like a sugar addiction, for which we made an appointment with a nutritionalist. And mental help, to figure out why I was doing what I was, for which we made appointments with a therapist.
With one session on Friday, I poured my story out, and it was the best thing that happened to me all year. God led me to this treatment, I believe, and now God is working through me in typing this right now. I have prayed and prayed on this, but found that if my closest friends didn’t bring up the subject when I had lost 25 pounds and then rapidly gained it back, that it wasn’t a welcome topic. I know that God will Shepard me through this, even if his guidance comes in the words of a shrink.
This summer will make or break this issue in my life. Q cast me as Gaston in the play, and I’ve all heard the grumbles about Gaston being muscular and handsome and me being me, and not. Trust me, I’m as dumbfounded as you that Q casted the way he did, but I’m gonna go along with it. God opened this door, and I need to walk through. I joined a gym, and am working to get in shape by A: working out and B: eating right, not by simply dieting.
Going to a therapist is a sign of strength, of recognizing your faults and working to drive out the demons that cause them. Cowardice is keeping your problems private (like I did for 2 months) and not seeing them as what they obviously are. I am not looking for a pity party, and I am not looking for apologetics. Sincerity, however, is always welcome, as are questions. In fact, I am mostly looking for follow-up questions so I know that people have read. And lastly, I am looking for understanding of who I am, and what I am going through, and how we are all at risk in our superficial teenage world.
If you read all this, thanks.
back at the end of july, after joseph, i decided to lose weight. i didn't like the way i looked. i was fat and out of shape, and i had really let myself go since the end of soccer sophomore year. my family (mom’s side) has weight problems, and the issues that go with it - diabetes, heart problems, ect., and I wanted to stay away from that. also, most significantly, I am a perfectionist, and decided that unless I was physically fit, that I wouldn’t live up to my potential, and grow into what God had planned for me.
Long story short, by the end of January, I had lost 25 pounds. In hindsight, it went too much. And I went about it the wrong way, by dieting instead of eating smartly and exercising regularly. My cue to stop never came. I was waiting for acknowledgement from my closest group of friends, the people whom I spent the most time around, but to my exasperation and dismay, it never came.
That acknowledgement came in the form of what I took as taunts, a “chris eats so healthy” or a “chris doesn’t eat junk food”. These did much more harm than good, and drove me deeper into my obsession to lose weight.
In February, I started lifting weights and eating a little more, and by the time kiss me, kate rolled around, I was, for the first time since sophomore year, comfortable and confident with my body.
But still no acknowledgement, no indication that my work had accomplished anything of visible impact. Only searching, probing looks that seemed to try to figure out why I acted and ate like I did. But disturbingly, there were no searching, probing questions. I was told that people were concerned. Well, if that was so, then where were the concerned questions? The concerned conversations, the concerned friends that cared so much?
I then tried to eat like a normal teenager would, but convinced myself that I was still fat, and that I couldn’t eat desserts or anything around people (emphasis on around people) without them thinking less of me.
Naturally, as happens to 95% of people who diet, they gain the weight back. And I did. One cookie was not an option. It was zero or twelve, I had no middle ground. In private, away from the eyes of everyone, I ate and ate, and created a new world, a secret shame only evidenced by the pounds steadily repiling around my waist.
By the end of may, 11 weeks after kiss me, kate, I had gained back all of the weight I had lost in the prior 8 months. And still, no one in my closest group of friends said a single thing.
One morning in late may, I snapped. It was a morning after I had eaten what felt like the whole fridge, and I told my mom that I couldn’t go to school. I genuinely had a plan that I would not leave the house until I had lost the weight I had gained back. I thought that I was completely unattractive and repulsive to everyone, and that anyone who looked at me was thinking of how inadequate I was for my loss of self-control. Anyone who wants to call shenanigans on this claim can ask my mom, because it’s exactly what I told her that morning.
We realized that I needed help and guidance, help and guidance that I was not currently getting. Physical help to break what looked like a sugar addiction, for which we made an appointment with a nutritionalist. And mental help, to figure out why I was doing what I was, for which we made appointments with a therapist.
With one session on Friday, I poured my story out, and it was the best thing that happened to me all year. God led me to this treatment, I believe, and now God is working through me in typing this right now. I have prayed and prayed on this, but found that if my closest friends didn’t bring up the subject when I had lost 25 pounds and then rapidly gained it back, that it wasn’t a welcome topic. I know that God will Shepard me through this, even if his guidance comes in the words of a shrink.
This summer will make or break this issue in my life. Q cast me as Gaston in the play, and I’ve all heard the grumbles about Gaston being muscular and handsome and me being me, and not. Trust me, I’m as dumbfounded as you that Q casted the way he did, but I’m gonna go along with it. God opened this door, and I need to walk through. I joined a gym, and am working to get in shape by A: working out and B: eating right, not by simply dieting.
Going to a therapist is a sign of strength, of recognizing your faults and working to drive out the demons that cause them. Cowardice is keeping your problems private (like I did for 2 months) and not seeing them as what they obviously are. I am not looking for a pity party, and I am not looking for apologetics. Sincerity, however, is always welcome, as are questions. In fact, I am mostly looking for follow-up questions so I know that people have read. And lastly, I am looking for understanding of who I am, and what I am going through, and how we are all at risk in our superficial teenage world.
If you read all this, thanks.