The Food and I

Howdy, pals! I am not quite sure why I went with howdy, but here we are. It’s been an interesting week to say the least. Most importantly, the weather has changed and you KNOW I cleaned out my closet and brought out all my snuggly sweaters. I am basic and proud. Even bought a pair of ugg boots from Goodwill. Really embracing who I am deep down.

Something else has been brewing deep, down inside of me. It’s gas. I’m gassy and sick and it’s more commonly known as gastritis. Basically, there is too much acid in my stomach and it’s caused some inflammation of the stomach lining. I’ll be honest… it’s not very fun. I’m sure you probably assumed that, but it’s not fun for more than just the stomach pains.

This is not the first time I’ve dealt with acid in my stomach. I was diagnosed with GERD last summer and they were also worried I had cysts. (Luckily, no cysts, just acid.) Whenever there is a stomach issue I get the same advice from medical professionals- lose weight. I know they are saying it because it honestly does help things like that. Usually I would say let’s explore other things that could help the issue, but after being diagnosed with GERD I lost some weight and I didn’t have any heartburn again, until I started gaining the weight back. Yet, when I hear someone say I should lose weight I roll my eyes so hard that they could probably knock over a building.

It’s because of the fat phobia that permeates our everyday lives. I can’t look on the internet without someone selling a get thin fast diet. It’s near impossible to shop in a store, I must shop online to avoid people seeing a fatty actually shopping in a store. You know, they don’t want to ruin their brand or anything. If they do happen to carry plus size clothes take note that it’s conveniently tucked into the back of the store to still hide fat people. I roll my eyes because it cuts through me like a knife cuts through butter- it’s a swift, clean cut that happens again and again.

I have carried the weight (pun intended) of binge eating disorder for most of my life. Food and I haven’t had the best relationship, but in the last few months I have felt myself getting more comfortable. The idea of eating before I feel like I am going to burst at the seems has been easier. I no longer feel the need to hide snacks throughout my living space, or sneak food behind my roommates backs. I’m open about my love of food. We are in a good place, food and I.

Yet, when I heard the doctor say “losing weight will help this go away”. All that work and progress disappeared for a moment and I wanted to stop eating forever. I wanted to breakup with food while simultaneously wanting to go binge eat McDonalds behind closed doors. All the pain and anguish from the last 20 years came flooding back in me and I wanted to cry. It felt as though time had stopped for a moment when he said it and a loop of all the self-hate I had ever experienced jumped to the front of my mind. In that brief moment I felt more than just the pain that was in my stomach.

Time stopped it’s because those feelings all happened in slow motion but when time resumed it went away fast. I sat for a minute in my office before returning to work and I thought about how far I have come and all the ways I can help my stomach without using a scale to figure it out. I googled good foods to eat for gastritis and did some deep breathing exercises. Of course, a visit from baby Sarah was also warranted.

Closing my eyes, she came to me crying, putting her hand on her stomach she called herself ugly. We held hands and we put our hands on our stomachs and together we talked about being gentle with ourselves, with our words, and with our bodies, and particularly with our stomachs. Wiping her tears, I told her the real meaning of beauty; that no matter our appearance on the outside, true beauty comes from within. Fat doesn’t make you less than, it doesn’t make you unworthy, and it definitely doesn’t make you ugly.

All of this happened last week Friday and since that day, I’ve had to visit with baby Sarah a few times. I’ve found myself more hesitant with food, brief moments of wanting to restrict and binge. I am being gentle with myself because I know that day I was triggered and it brought up a lot of feelings I haven’t seen in awhile. This doesn’t mean I haven’t healed or done the work, in fact without that work I wouldn’t have been able to work through all of those feelings so quickly. And quite frankly, that is what life is made up of- unpredictable moments that catch you off guard; sometimes those moments are happy ones and sometimes they are heartbreaking ones. Both make us stronger.

If you are having a hard time because you just so happened to have a heartbreaking moment catch you off guard, please try to be gentle with yourself. If you are grieving, if you are triggered, if you are just hurting the most important thing you can do is let yourself feel it and work with it, not around it. You are stronger today than you were yesterday. And as always, if you are not in a place to work with it, that’s okay. What you need is what you need and there is no shame in any of that.

A[wo]men

–

in the dips

of your rolling fields

find home

–

Earlier this week on the island I call my second home, Prince of Wales, Alaska, a tragedy occurred. Copied text from the GoFundMe page: “Herbie Nix Jr. was born to Marvell and Herb Sr. (Big Herb) on September 23, 2002. Lil Herb passed on October 5, 2020.  We are asking for support for the Nix/Edenshaw family during this very difficult time. Thank you in advance for your emotional and financial support. We will update you on the service times. Any cash donations may be given directly to the Nix family. Monetary donations can be made through GoFundMe, Facebook Pay, Cashapp and PayPal.” Please donate by clicking this link if you have the means and send love and healing to the island ❤

Good GERD

Hi, friends. Last week I thought I was dying. And I don’t mean the normal ‘I have the flu and I feel like death’ dying. All of the sudden while I was writing my blog I started to get this pain in my chest. It felt like I couldn’t breathe and I was having trouble swallowing. Turns out it was severe gastric reflux or GERD as some people call it. I also had severe back pain which was being impacted by the reflux. It was uncomfortable and I was sure WebMd was right, it had to be cancer. Of course, it wasn’t and I am doing much better as I sit here and write this, but it brought up a lot of feelings for me. Feelings about my body, my misunderstanding of health, and trying to find a balance of self-love and self-care.

If you are an avid reader, you know we have been here before. (Also thank you, you da real MVP.) The battle with my body is repetitive and important. Prior to my move to Alaska I was in the best shape of my life. I was running 6 miles, eating well, and felt good. Then I moved, and moving is scary, and I was told to be easy on myself, do things that make me feel good. Following my break-up, I was also told to be easy on myself, do things that make me feel good. In fact, if I look back at all the things I’ve struggled through in my life, these words are often uttered to me in some way. It is a kind message, but a message I took quite literally. Carbs make me feel good… Carbs and cheese and chips and well you get the idea. I did what everyone was telling me to do, I made myself feel good. I ate and I ate and when I would eat, even if just for the moment, I would forget how I was feeling.

After my break-up I was in a low place. I thought that there was something wrong with me, and more specifically I thought I was physically gross. I thought I deserved what happened because I was a monster, with thicc thighs and hairy skin. I thought that, that feeling would never pass and I would die alone, a monster. Trust me, I know how dramatic this sounds. I can now recognize how truly absurd I was being; thinking that the weight I was at or the growth of my hair somehow impacted the respect I deserve. This was partly baby Sarah making an appearance and it was also the years of media telling me that only the skinny girl finds love and the fat girl gets to be the sidekick on her journey. When I started dating my ex, I believe a part of me thought I had broken the mold. A fat girl found love and I couldn’t lose it because it was an anomaly that it happened in the first place.

Fast forward to New York City. Through my millions (or what felt like millions) of dates and ghosting and texts and calls, I started to realize that I wasn’t in a film where I was the side kick. I am the star, baby. Even better, I realized that I get to choose who I fall in love with and I don’t have to settle for someone because *SPOILER ALERT* fat girls fall in love too. Then, last week, when my body started to revolt against me, all those thoughts came flooding back. Not only will I not find love, but I am going to die early because I mistook binge eating for self-care. I was a failure and I deserved this, because I am a monster.

I was mad at my body and my brain for failing me. I wanted a new body and a new brain, an all too familiar thought. For a long time, I thought that self-love was about denying that part of me that doesn’t like myself. Every time a negative thought would surface, I felt like I was failing my message. It begged the question: Can I preach self-love if I, in fact, don’t love myself? The simple answer is, of course, yes. I am human, with human flesh and human faults. At the core of me, I love who I am and I think that is what is important. I strive for self-love everyday, while honoring the part of me that wants a flatter tummy, a thinner face, more toned arms, etc. That part of me is what started this blog and pushes me towards constant self-reflection.

Because I am in therapy and being much more proactive about my health (both physical and mental) these recent thoughts did not last long; I honored them and let them go. However, these thoughts really made me reflect on what messages I still cling onto and what core ideas I am finding hard to let go of? I mentioned media earlier. When I say media, I predominantly mean romcoms, because let’s be honest I am basic AF, a fact I am v. proud of. These romcoms though have become extremely problematic in my way of thinking. [And I would like to point out the multitudes of other ways romcoms are problematic, but that’s a whole other post… or research essay really]. Not only did they make me believe I wouldn’t find love, but I think I excuse a lot of behaviors in the name of love, as is seen in romcoms. I let my boundaries become irrelevant in order to please others, because the most important goal in any romcom is to find the one… *pukes in mouth* ..even if that one is completely wrong for you and treats you like trash, but he apologized and told you the 3 most basic compliments to make you forgot the horrible things he did, so like oh, well! Marriage is on the horizon, ya know?

Really, I am just trying to rewrite these automatic thoughts I get about my worth and how I attach that to the need for love from others. Life isn’t a romcom and and I am not a monster and things are never perfect. If I am being honest, I am up and down on the whole loving myself thing and I think that is healthy and normal. The thing I embrace about the self-love movement is that it centers on honoring oneself, all the parts of oneself. There is a scene in one of my favorite romcoms, ’10 Things I Hate About You’ (told you I was basic) where she is reading this poem about all the things she hates about her love interest, Heath Ledger: heartthrob, sexual awakening, RIP. BUT the poem ends with how she doesn’t even hate him at all. Honestly, it is one of the cheesiest things in a film I have ever witnessed, but her poem resonates with the way I feel about myself. Let me show you what I mean:

Me to me: I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you [wear] your hair. I hate the way you [sweat and chafe when you walk]. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb [stomach], and the way you get [caught in your own mind]. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me [write]. I hate the way you’re always [comparing]. I hate it when you [over-eat]. I hate it when you make me [angry], even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t [rest]. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Okay, I made some small edits, and it no longer rhymes, but you can see what I mean. There are parts of me that I will struggle with throughout my life, but the good news is it will be me the whole way through and I am here for it.

*Also to circle back on the GERD diagnosis, I basically have to avoid acidic foods. Meaning it has now been 7 days since my last coffee. I am surviving, but would appreciate your #thoughtsandprays in this trying time. Honestly though, my stomach is healing just fine and the back pain has subsided. Thank female yeezy. 

**Also, also dating is still going really well [as you might have guessed from my rant about the lies media has told me], thank you for asking!

 

Featured image found on https://www.mooreaseal.com/products/self-love-club-sticker where you can purchase the sticker for $4.50