I was getting ready to go to the gym this morning and I
started thinking about my emotional journey these last six months since
Serenity was born. When I say emotional journey…what I really mean is
self-esteem continuum. I will be honest, my self-esteem has taken some major hits as a new mom.
I loved how I looked pregnant. I didn’t turn into a beached
whale like I’d always assumed I would. I looked like my normal curvy, muscular
self…just with a beach ball under my shirt. When it came to being postpartum, I
was fine with how I looked at first. I missed the taunt skin of my belly but I
understood things would tighten up eventually. I had a big baby so things
stretched out. It happens. I gained 35 lbs while pregnant. I lost 20 of that on
the table. Like I said…BIG baby.
I was doing okay until one day when Serenity was about three
or four months old. I was on Facebook and I came to find out that a rather mean
person had taken a very unflattering picture of me (made me look like I had a serious
gut and a double chin) holding Serenity and posted it with the caption: “We
promise we will feed you! Just don’t eat the baby!” I probably don’t have to
tell anyone how devastating this event was. It felt like my logical brain and my
emotional brain took two separate paths. My logical brain said “Do not
retaliate. It will make things far worse and can undermine your ministry.” The
emotional side of my brain cried….just cried.
My husband David was furious like I’ve never seen him. He
was practically calling for blood over it. He had never seen me cry like that.
He’d seen me shed tears while angry…even seen me crying silently when moved or
sad…but he had never seen me just collapse into such heart wrenching sobs. It wasn’t
so much about a stupid picture. It was because that picture reopened a
lifetimes worth of wounds.
I’ve never been what one would call skinny. I’ve worked very
hard my entire life to remain my “normal curvy, muscular self” living on diets
for decades at a time and visiting the gym 3-7 times a week depending on how
bad my symptomology was. Some very insensitive kids made some very unkind jokes
about me as a child (“Could you tell me how to be fat? You seem to be good at
it.”). As an adult my talent as a musician was undermined because of my weight
(“She’s a great singer and songwriter but she needs to lose weight. She’s what…a
buck fifty?"...and
if someone would judge me at that weight what would they say now!).
So there I am…sitting on the bed beside my infant child…and
she looks very confused…probably can’t understand why Mommy is crying so hard.
She’s never seen Mommy anything but happy…well, maybe annoyed but usually that
bounces back to happy pretty quick. I felt a little dead inside, to be honest.
That picture opened some pretty toxic wounds and I’m not proud of the
over-reaction that followed.
I didn’t do it on purpose…but my body didn’t want to eat
anymore…or better yet…my brain wouldn’t let me. Slowly I started skipping
meals. I have health reasons why I need to eat every three hours…but I’d go
almost eight hours without touching food. Going into the kitchen started a
steamroller of self-hate rolling that would knock me over with its vehemence.
My blood sugar stayed completely unbalanced and I started having emotional/physical
breakdowns on a bi-daily basis. The
scale wouldn’t move and I knew logically that every time I had a crash my body
converted everything to fat…but eating was so hard…everything tasted like
ashes. I’d go to the gym as much as possible…but when that failed to move the
scale I got so depressed I could barely make myself go at all. Once I walked in…worked
on one machine…and felt buried by depression…so I got up and came home to have
a good cry. Some might think that I let the pain of my Fibromylagia compromise
my workouts but I’ve always been pretty pro-active about that…and usually
pretty good at ignoring the pain as a general rule…but the subconscious voices
of self-loathing…those were harder to ignore.
It got to the point where things were extremely stressed in
my home. My health was being undermined and David was getting understandably frustrated
with me. I thought constantly about falling back on old habits that “helped” me
back before I rededicated my life to Christ. I knew in my heart that it would
just make things worse…but temptation is a hard thing to fight when coupled
with depression. I realized I was starving for more than food. I started
reading my Bible daily…devouring large chunks of the Word…and slowly it became
easier for me to eat again.
Things in every area of my life got better as my self-talk
turned more positive. I realized that my focus should not be on the loss of
weight but on endurance and health. If I go to the gym I should focus more on
what allows me to be a better mother physically and when I eat my focus should
be on what allows me to retain the most level mood (glycemic index) to allow me
to be a better wife and mother.
It might seem elementary to most…eat right and regularly,
work out to be strong…but when you have such profound issues with food…it isn’t
nearly as easy. This place I’m at right now was hard won. While I know
logically that “the picture” was just a bad picture and was taken only one day
after a photo shoot in which I do not look fat, it swept me up in a current of
self-doubt and depression. I just didn’t see it coming. I’m still a little
tender emotionally, but I’m healing from this…and I hope that maybe my story
can help someone else dealing with issues of weight and self-esteem.
Love you all. God bless.
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