I'm sure that in the day and age when the internet is available at your fingertips we are all pretty familiar with images of young teenage girls, skinny as skeletons and suffering from one of many eating disorders. We look at her and we see someone so obsessed with her body, never convinced that they are thin enough, and we blame it on the Barbies, the models, the pressure from society to be thin and therefor perfect.
So what about the women, the ones who don't look the part? The ones not just skin and bone? The ones who are doing their best to keep everything together? What about the ones confused and afraid, not understanding why they have the problems with food that they have?
I'm one of those lucky women. You know the kind that have kids yet you could never tell? The kind who are months away from turning 30 and yet no one would guess they were a day over 25. People look at me and they tell me that I look amazing, especially for having five children within 7 years.
For the most part I agree. Aside from the dark circles under my eyes and the occasional breakout I feel pretty good about myself at this age. Sure my stomach is not as toned as I would like it to be but what else can I expect after having 5 kids? Not to mention the fact that I'm actually kind of lazy and even though I could probably find time to do an ab workout on a regular basis I don't, and that's on me.
But anyway I still have a hard time with eating. You see, the first time I ever thought that I looked fat was in the 6th grade. I remember sitting down in my chair in a pair of floral print leggings and thinking that my thighs look fat. After that I don't remember feeling too obsessed with my appearance until I hit 7th and 8th grade. I knew that I was short, flat chested, and I was at that age when acne was a common occurrence. One of the worst memories I have from middle school was when a friend asked a boy that I had a crush on what he thought of me. He responded rather enthusiastically that I was a 10... On a scale from 11 to 20.
Ouch.
In high school not much changed. I had hoped that as I got older things would get easier but instead it came with new challenges. Making friends, Raging hormones and more acne. By the time I was a sophomore in high school I weighed 126 pounds. Yes I know to a lot of women out there it's a very good weight that many would be very happy with. But on my small frame it didn't look so flattering. I had a very round chipmunk-like face and unfortunately for me I was not on the cutting edge of fashion. My wardrobe left much to be desired as did my hair style and makeup techniques. The summer before my junior year was when all of that came to a head. I felt insecure with my appearance, my life felt like I had no control over it whatsoever. School was stressful, I was after all and a private high school with high academic standards and taking AP classes. Yes I was one of those kids. That summer I decided to attend a soccer camp and subsequently tried out for the soccer team. During the two week camp of Daily Doubles I expected to lose a few pounds. I had hoped that the exercise would get me into good shape and would allow me the diet of Snickers bars, Dr Pepper and whatever else I felt like eating. I was shocked when after the two weeks or so I stepped on the scale only to find that I had lost 12 pounds.
My father offered me one of the rare compliments on my physical appearance. He said that my face looked thin and I'm sure he made some comment about me being in better shape.
My eyes were opened.
I had no idea that I could have lost that much weight. I really thought that weighing 114 lbs would have made me look ill. The opposite was true. I looked good. I had energy, my metabolism was roaring and I liked what I saw in the mirror. At first I tried to keep my diet fairly normal-very similar to what I had been eating before I was playing soccer. I started to see food differently. I started to realize that I had control over what I ate and when. If I was hungry or craving a candy bar I could actually deny that urge and go without. It was an amazing power-trip. I did not choose to go to the private high school (although later on I was grateful that I was there)I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend until Junior year (although that didn't really stop me), The school had a dress code I was not fond of only because I didn't like being told what I couldn't wear. I was the oldest in the house of 3 children until I was 16 when my parents got pregnant again. I did not take it well and I of course regret the attitude I had when I was told about the new family member. I felt ugly, unpopular, frustrated, and totally at the mercy of my parents, my school and life in general. Except for when it came to food. I had complete control over that. I controlled what I ate for breakfast, lunch, and since often times I at least helped make dinner (if I didn't make it all on my own) I had a lot of control over that too.
I also had a friend who admitted to having anorexia. Whether or not she really did, I don't know. She was thin and she seemed to say the right things, but its not something you ask a ton of questions about at 16 years old. Either way, on the surface I was hoping she would help me keep my eating under control, you know, not to take it too far. In reality she enabled me. She made me feel like it was okay to starve yourself occasionally. To eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, an apple and maybe some crackers for lunch and no dinner. I felt like I had someone who understood me and would not judge me or tattle to a teacher when I confided in her.
How did that all end? Not well.
My grades started slipping, mostly in my AP English class. It is hard to focus on reading about Huckleberry Finn when you have no energy. I struggled a lot in that class and I shouldn't have. I loved writing and reading and from what I have heard from most people, Huckleberry Finn was the one book they actually liked reading in school.
At my school we occasionally had half days. Our normal 7 periods that went from 8 a.m. to 2:37 p.m. were all shortened so that school would be out at little after noon. By 6th period my stomach was sounding like a some kind of wild animal. It was loud enough that a friend of mine sitting probably 10 feet away heard it. The chapel was pretty quiet. As I left the chapel in the middle of campus, I don't really remember the walk to the next class. I remember it being empty. I remember turning around to sit in a desk and then the sensation of falling.
The next thing I remembered I was with a couple friends in the office building at the front of the school, someone was handing me one of those nasty cherry pies from the vending machines.
I was in the school councilors office.
I knew my secret was out.
I cried. A lot.
When my mom came to pick me up I walked out to her, no backpack, my eyes red, and I asked her to follow me into the office. I'm sure she was scared.
She cried when the councilor told her what was going on.
We went to lunch at the mall and we talked. It was nice. She wasn't angry that I can remember, just concerned.
After that I don't remember what really went on at home. I know my soccer coach kept an eye on me for a while. At home however all I remember was not being allowed to go anywhere for an hour after dinner. I don't even know how long that lasted.
I didn't really have problems with it for the rest of high school.
I went on a few dates, had a couple of crushes that year but nothing that amounted to anything real.
Senior year I had a boyfriend. He wasn't the greatest and it did not help my self esteem that he asked me out in order to make another girl jealous. That December my Grandfather had a stroke. My boyfriend was too busy with homework to talk to me. When my Grandfather passed away on Christmas Eve I had hoped that my Boyfriend would go to Christmas Eve mass with me since my parents were going to midnight mass and I was staying home with the little ones. You know what he said? He said no because he was already going to mass with his family either at midnight or the next day, I can't remember. So I called a friend, a guy friend, and he agreed to pick me up and take me.
During mass I was distracted understandably. When it came time to pray for people, I braced myself for the part when they would say "For all those who have died." I did not expect them to have my Grandfather's name in there already and when I heard it, it took all my strength not to to burst into loud sobs.
I was grateful for my friend and the support he offered me by being there with me. I later found out that he was going to Mass at midnight with his family. He took me that evening because he was a good person who understood that I didn't want to be alone.
After that I broke up with my boyfriend.
This last year however has really thrown me over the edge.
In early 2014 a sibling came to me with the secret that she had been cutting herself. A while later she came to live with me and stayed for 2 months. While she was here my Grandmother, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer the summer before, had to move in with my parents because she could no longer be left on her own and she did not have the money for an assisted living center.
I saw her on a Friday after she had been there for a few days. I had my youngest with me. I showed her pictures and tried to help her figure out Facebook on her phone. I vowed to visit her more often. Have her out the house more.
On Tuesday she was gone.
I felt a tremendous amount of guilt when she died. Did I talk to her enough? I could have visited more often. I could have learned how to sew. I could have listened more attentively to her stories about her family and her life. Now I would never get the chance to do those tings. To apologize and make up for the lost time. I got too busy and that was the lamest excuse I had ever heard myself give.
3 weeks later, my father tried to kill himself.
I felt lost. I felt like I didn't do enough to help. I didn't notice that he was suffering so much. I was so scared he was going to die.I was also angry at my mother for not noticing his pain. I was angry at her for being angry at him. For making it about what he did to her instead of telling him she loved him and was there for him. I still haven't completely forgiven her for the things she said that day and the days after.
He lived and so far shows no sign of permanent damage to his body from the medications he took.
In July My brother got married. It was a wonderful thing and I was so happy for him. It was a bright spot and I had hoped it was the beginning of good times and fresh starts.
The week of his wedding my cycles came back(yes, I am talking about girl stuff here, get over it.)I was bummed because 1)I had hoped to make it to my daughters first birthday before having to deal with that again and 2) it was the week of the wedding and bad timing.
It wasn't too bad and I was grateful.
Until the next week.
I started feeling sick so I took a pregnancy test which came up positive, albeit faintly. I figured that it was the tail end of a very early loss-I have had 2 of those in the past. So my husband and I decided to retest in a few days when it would most likely be negative.
We were wrong. It got darker.
It turned out that the bleeding I had experienced was implantation bleeding, not my period. We were pretty shocked. Getting pregnant before my first postpartum cycle? Yep, just great.
I was excited nonetheless and looked forward to my first ultrasound where we would find out our due date. I was experiencing some pain but I passed it off as nothing important.
The day of the ultrasound came and I was worried that I would not be far enough along to see anything and would have to come back.
How I wish that is what would have happened.
Instead they found the baby in my left fallopian tube.
I went from waiting excitedly to catch a glimpse of baby #6 to being in a small room listening to a Doctor tell me how I was going to kill my baby.
Surgery or a shot.
Either medication would get shot into my body that would destroy any rapidly growing cells i.e. my innocent baby, or I would have to have surgery to scoop out that tiny little life that could not possibly survive where it had implanted itself.
I felt horrible.
Yes I know that I had no other choice. I know that I myself could end up dying if we didn't take action.
Knowing that did not make the decision any easier for me. I still felt sick, disgusted and angry.
My husband and I opted for surgery. I was praying, and begging God to let it be a mistake. Or at least twins. One baby made it right? That is what I thought and the hope I clung to while I laid in bed that night. When I woke up the next morning after sleeping terribly, I still clung to that hope. As I was being wheeled into the OR, feeling my conscious mind slip away, I prayed that I would find out that one baby implanted in the tube while the other made it safely to the uterus.
When I woke up those hopes were dashed.
They had cleaned out my otherwise healthy looking tube and informed me that my right tube looked good as well. I was supposed to come in for a few more blood draws to ensure that everything had been removed. I did so until I started bleeding again. I assumed that if my period started that meant the HcG was gone.
A month later I paid for that assumption.
My husband was a couple hours away and unable to get home quickly.
I had to call my parents to come get me and help with my kids. I was bleeding again and in a lot of pain.
My Dad rushed me to the ER where I waited a ridiculously long time to be seen. Luckily, while the Doctor himself seemed rather uninformed about ectopic pregnancies and their complications, the Ultrasound tech saw the fluid (read: blood) in my pelvis and knew I would need surgery.
Luckily my husband arrived shortly after I got the news that my tube had ruptured and I had been bleeding internally.
I was rushed into surgery where they removed the tube.
I felt so broken.
I felt as if I had failed somehow. Again.
I was scared about getting pregnant again.
What if I lose the other tube?
So far I haven't gotten pregnant again, but each and every time I am waiting for my period to come I am thinking about it.
Half hoping I am pregnant and half praying that I am not out of fear of losing another child.
All the while, my parents marriage deteriorated rapidly.
The day before Thanksgiving my mother asked him to leave.
There was a lot of things that happened with my parents between his attempt and him leaving. Too much to put here, just know that it sucked for everyone. I got in an argument with my Mother for the first time since I was married. It was not pretty. Our relationship has not really recovered either.
The holidays got infinitely more complicated. Birthdays too.
My parents do not get along. There have been custody issues. Money issues.
I can control none of it and yet I feel like i am expected to do something. Anything. My Mom used to call me wanting me to go to my father and try to convince him to help her more. She insisted he was hiding money and that he didn't care if his children were homeless and hungry.
She told me that I may have to take the kids for her or they might end up in foster care.
I am not poor but I'm not rolling in extra money either. I don't have thousands of dollars sitting around available to help my mother out. I felt powerless. Useless. I understood that my Dad was not well off either. His paychecks disappear and not because he is going golfing or gambling. He pays bills, child support, taxes, and some food. He doesn't have a secret stash of money under the mattress that he is greedily hiding from his family. I knew that and yet my Mother would not listen. I got hung up on, called a liar and now one of my own sisters refuses to talk to me. Every message on Facebook and every text message has gone unanswered.
This last May I lost my Aunt. Another person I didn't talk to or visit nearly enough. Now she lived in So-Cal so it isn't quite a simple drive to visit, and I did see her once in 2010 while we were driving through to AZ. I kept in touch with her on Facebook but the majority of it was fairly indirect. I spoke with her on the phone a few times here and there.
But I could have done more.
I should have done more.
Now there is nothing I can do about the past and what I could have or should have done.
Thinking back an all of that craziness. The losses, the stress of years of issues bubbling to the surface and tearing my family apart...I can understand why I feel broken. I have tried unsuccessfully to bury my feelings and to suppress the need to take a break. I had hoped to be there for my siblings and for my parents, to be their rock and their mediator.
But I can't.
I didn't cause the problems.
I am not the sole solution.
I can help a little, but I have my own family to take care of. I can't spend hours on the phone listening. I can't pass messages back and forth. I can't make my parents get along. I can't make them do what I want them to do.
The relationship I have with my Mother is forever changed I think. Her decision to kick my father out the way that she did has left me feeling shocked and betrayed. Like if I don't live up to her standards on her timeline then I am subject to getting kicked of the island as well. Of course that has already happened in many ways. Because I don't agree with her we don't speak much. Don't get me wrong here, I don't blame her for wanting things to change in her marriage and her life. I don't feel angry about the fact that she wanted my Dad to fix himself or leave. What upsets me is how it was done. The words, the timing, and the attitude.
I have been trying to keep it together, trying to keep myself from crying about all the things that have happened lately.
Normally I would pray but even that part of my life has fallen to the wayside.
I go to Church often times for the sake of my children and my family that would ask too many questions.
I struggle to believe in God and Heaven. I know that I can't be angry at God and then doubt his existence without being completely illogical, but its where I am at right now. 2 family members have died, my Catholic parents are going through a divorce and no one seems to be very forgiving and merciful. I lost a child I really wanted. I have had miscarriages and those were sad but I understood why they happened. This last time made no sense. I had no risk factors for an ectopic pregnancy and no real warning that it could happen. Why did God let this happen? Why is He letting all of this happen? Tough questions I don't have the answers to.
I know that I have so many positive things in my life.
Healthy children-5 of them.
A wonderful husband who does everything he can to show his love for our family.
In-laws that are supportive and helpful and positive.
Grandparents who have been there for me when I needed help and support.
MY parents have been good to me and I know that they are going through tough times right now and that human nature is a total bitch. IT is difficult to overcome your own problems and not drag others into it with you. I am sure I am guilty of it myself.
I have a beautiful home.
A nice car.
But there are moments and days when I feel sad. Not good enough. I feel anxious and stressed.
I want it to stop.
I want to be happy. I want to see the joy in my life. I want to feel it in my heart.
I want to have control again. I don't want to be a slave to my emotions. I want to be able to put the sadness and stress aside and eat a meal with my family. I want to be able to deal with my emotions and stress in a healthy way. I want to let go of the things I cannot control and embrace the things I can.
I am taking steps to get help with all of that.
I am hoping that if I take it one day, one problem at a time that I can accomplish those things and more.
I want my faith to be strong again.
I want to enjoy food again.
I want to look at a plate of food and not feel sick and stressed.
I want to be healthy.
I want to be confident in myself again.
I want to live in a way that my kids can emulate me.
I want to be an example of what to do, not what NOT to do.
I can do these things. I will do these things.
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