Monday, October 13, 2014

So much has has happened since I last wrote on here, and nearly all of it good. But for some reason I feel the need to come back here. Does anybody read this anymore? I doubt it, but maybe that's why I'm here.

Although I know I'm loved, at the moment I feel quite alone. I lost a lot of weight last year, which I would have done anyway, but the weight-loss was accelerated by the wedding, and I don't think I lost it slowly enough for it to be sustainable through harder times. I injured my back so that I could barely exercise in a sufficient way for months, but managed to control my weight with diet. And then the stress hit.

Jolly bhaiya died on my Indian wedding day, and while so many other people were more affected by his death on that day, it took 2 months for anyone to ask me if I was ok. I didn't even notice that no one had asked me until mum asked me on the phone, and I realised her question was too late - I was ok now, but I hadn't been. I wasn't close to Jolly bhaiya, but he was still my first cousin and it hurt. I felt guilty, sad, responsible, angry. But I didn't tell anyone these things, I just kept it in and dealt with it internally because I hate burdening people with my emotions, but I had already started turning to food to help me deal with my emotions again.

It took me a couple of months to feel 'normal' again, but by this time, I had started the final stretch of writing up my PhD. By now I was stress eating on a regular basis, was no longer cooking and had lost my habit of exercise. I was still doing activity, but no where near enough to combat the amount I was eating.

And I piled on the weight again. I handed in my PhD, and I lifted up my head to see what was going on around me. My PhD supervisor was telling me to go to the gym, and saying how he had put so much weight on when writing up his thesis. I had to put my big jeans back on now. Mum saw me in slightly baggy clothes and told me how big I looked. I saw colleagues and friends notice my extra weight - just a glance here and there, but I saw it. I saw it everytime they looked at my body because I am thinking about my body before anyone has even thought to look at it.

Putting on weight, especially weight that I had recently lost, crushed my self-esteem. What's worse, I was still stress eating, but now because I had put on weight and felt out of control. I've started to control it again and ramped up my exercise, and I was starting to feel better about myself, that it was possible to do it again.

And then, well, I asked T to spend a little more time with me. I had basically neglected him while writing up my thesis, and understandably he had filled his time with other activities. But I was back and he was still sitting on the computer with his back to me watching Breaking Bad. Things had slowed in the bedroom department (further crushing my self-esteem) and I felt like our lives were becoming too separated. I didn't bring it up in the right way and his response was defensive and accusatory. And then the words 'and I'm disappointed that you've let yourself go' came out.

And I fell apart. I couldn't handle that from him. I needed his support more than anyone, and my request to spend more time together was, I realise now, a request for help to help myself. But instead, he basically made me feel worthless. That I had let him down, myself down. I could barely hold it together, but I told him that it was a cruel thing to say. We sort of made up after that argument, but I was still hurt.

The next morning when I was doing the exercise DVD I had been trying to do every morning, I stopped halfway through. I had lost my willpower. I realised that I was no longer doing this DVD for myself, but instead I was now doing it because someone else wanted me to look good. I don't know about anyone else, but all that made me feel was 'not good enough'. I can only push myself through difficult things (this DVD is hard!) if I am doing it for myself. But I wasn't doing it for myself now, it had become about making someone else happy, even if that someone else is my husband.

T came home with flowers and an apology that day, but I can still hear him say those words and look at me in the way that he did. His apology was heartfelt, and I believe he meant it so I accepted it. But I don't feel any different. I feel like my battle to lose, what in the end is only a stone, has put me into a different social category, where I don't seem to know anyone else. I know there are weight-loss clubs out there, but it's just not my thing. Ironically I feel that if my family, friends and hubby didn't care about my weight, I would be happy and I wouldn't be overweight. But they do care, always have cared and always will care, and that is something which I haven't quite come to terms with. Maybe that's naive of me, but that's how it is. I know he supports me, but now I doubt where it comes from - if it's from a kind place of support, or from a colder place of embarrassment about having a bigger wife.

So while I come to terms with it, I feel alone. I don't know anyone else who struggles with their weight and is made to feel by their loved ones that being bigger is not ok. I know there are thousands of people out there who have this experience, but I don't know them and I am not close to them. Stupidly I'm too embarassed/un-used to being frank about my deeper emotions to my friends and colleagues, which I guess is why I have this blog.

Just writing this all down has helped, and who knows, maybe one day I'll show this to T. For now I just have to crack on with my weight loss for myself, with support or without it.