One Year Later...

Preface: this kind of rambles.  I usually write a blog, then proof it, then sit on it for a few days while editing.  This is more so like a stream of conscious thought today.  Sorry if it gets off track or is harder to follow...

This morning was set to be a some sort of serendipitous end to 2017: the year of the shit bag.  One year ago today, I *finally* agreed to go to the hospital (after several days of my husband begging me to please go to the ER).  I ended up in emergency surgery, septic, almost dead, and with a shit bag.  I was in ICU for two days and stayed at the hospital a total of 8 days on all kinds of antibiotics and monitors.  That emergency surgery that morning saved my life.

Fast forward 11 months to last month, when I had the shit bag reversal surgery.  My final follow up appointment with my surgeon for the reversal surgery was set for this morning.  The closure to the story was coming exactly one year later almost to the hour.  In some sort of ironic twist of fate, I received a phone call this morning that my surgeon would have to reschedule my appointment because he was called into an emergency surgery.  I told the woman on the phone that I completely understood.  I understand in a more meaningful way than most people would.

When I woke up today, I was laying in bed thinking back on the morning of December 27th, 2016.  That morning started in excruciating pain, though it had been getting progressively worse over the preceding 6 days.  I remember telling my husband I would go to the hospital, but that I needed to take a Percocet just to make it to the car.  It did nothing for the pain.  I guess it is no match for your torso basically being full of infection and your organs struggling to stay alive and functioning.

I must have looked pretty bad because I didn't have to wait in the emergency room.  When they took my blood pressure and it was 80/50, everyone appropriately started freaking out.  A lot of it is a rushed blur of events in my memory, but I remember specific things very vividly.  The fact that I can sit here and recall things and not be completely overwhelmed with emotion speaks to the fact that I have spent the past year doing a lot of self care.

I wish that a year ago, waking up in the ICU feeling angry, scared, defeated, embarrassed, disappointed, frustrated, sad, and so many other emotions, I could have seen myself sitting here now.  More than anything, the thought I kept having at the time was "I can't do this" and I really just wanted to give up.  But I have always had the philosophy in life that everything happens for a reason.  I was just having a really hard time coming to terms with why that (of all things) would happen and why it would specifically happen to me.  Looking back on everything now, I know the reasons it happened the way it did and the lessons I needed to learn in the past year.  Got it.  Loud and clear.  Don't need to learn that one again, thanks.

I have enough clarity now to know that probably the only reason I didn't die is because my husband and I had gastric sleeve surgery in 2014.  Last December, my body was in the best health condition it has ever been.  We were eating better, taking our vitamins, walking 2 miles every day, I was doing yoga every week, and in general taking care of myself.  My nana died of sepsis; but I lived, and with no major complications or organ damage.  My guts healed while I had the shit bag and now a year later this Humpty Dumpty is back together again.

I think one of the big lessons I needed to learn was that gastric sleeve surgery had helped me to resolve a lot of health issues, but it did nothing to help my unhealthy relationship with food.  Spending a year working from home with my desk sitting ten feet from my kitchen was something for which I was unprepared.  I don't think I had allowed myself to admit that I ever had binge eating disorder until my kitchen was staring me in the face daily.  I truly had no control over my eating and was skipping drinking any fluids so that I could eat instead to accommodate my tiny tummy.

Admitting that I have binge eating disorder and starting down the path of treatment with a therapist was something that I didn't even realize needed to happen until I was put into this situation.  I have been continuing my path with my therapist to work through these newly recognized issues with food.  Apparently I am not alone as she has started a support group specifically for people who have had gastric sleeve (or bypass or lap-band) and who continue to struggle with binge eating disorder.  I guess it is easy to deny that there is a problem for your entire life until you literally cannot binge without huge consequences.

I have only been to one group so far, but I do think it will be helpful.  I also think that returning to an office work environment away from my kitchen is going to be a very important tool for me to continue my work with this issue.  I guess working in an office was probably the biggest reason I had done ok with the eating since the surgery in the first place.  I limited the amount of food I had available at work.

I never really thought about it that much before now, but prior to surgery that was one of the reasons I ate at restaurants or brought home take-out so often.  Once it was gone, it was gone.  I was able to fool myself into thinking a restaurant portion was the right portion.  Of course, most American restaurants actually serve two to four portions on a plate, but if you are in denial you can convince yourself of a lot of things that aren't true.  It was a very small way to control what I was eating.

In the back of my mind, I knew if I went grocery shopping and brought home a bunch of food that I would eat it all.  I had no control.  If I made a frozen pizza, I ate the whole thing.  If I made a box of macaroni, I ate the whole thing.  If I made a pot of spaghetti, it may take a day or so, but I ate the whole thing.  I would go back to the fridge over and over until it was all gone.  I never thought of it as binge eating disorder, but that certainly is what it was.  This year has proven that I will still do the same thing if given the opportunity and capacity.  I will even skip drinking anything just to be able to eat again instead.

I know that having the gastric sleeve surgery was the right thing for me to do.  I know that I would not have been capable of losing weight on my own.  I know that sitting here almost four years post surgery, I am still learning things about myself and my eating.  But I am trying.

I have made a resolution with myself that I am going to continue this work on my eating disorder and regaining control of my diet until it is finished.  I am not calling it a new year's resolution or anything like that because I know that it's something that won't be finished in a year.  It will be a lifetime of work.  But maybe that is why new year's resolutions don't often stick with most people: because they fail to recognize they need to do the work for the rest of their lives.  I think my take away is that the work is never done if you have an issue like this.  

When things like this happen, they show you without a doubt what and who is important to you, and who is really there for you no matter what.  I know I wouldn't have gotten through it all without them.  So, although I am not seeing my surgeon today for my official closure, I am putting this year to bed.  I survived.  It is finished.  But I am not.

Thanksgiving...

The holidays.  The holidays have always been kind of a stressful time for me.  When I was a kid, it was the coordination.  Mom's family, dad's family, step-mom's family, step-dad's family... there was not a thanksgiving where I only had one thanksgiving dinner.

Sometimes, it was the thanksgiving day shuffle.  Sometimes, it was celebrations on different days.  Sometimes it was two celebrations in the same day in different cities.  As I got older and could drive myself, it became immensely easier on everyone else.  Not necessarily for me.

There was still the shuffle between households, between meals.  There were always multiple meals.  First thanksgiving of the day, they can't understand why I don't eat more of their food.  Second thanksgiving of the day, same story, only it was after having already consumed a ridiculous amount of food at the first one. 

I always said I was going to grow up and have my own thanksgiving, and whomever wanted to come to me was welcome.  Oddly enough, the size of our family celebrations has dwindled in the number of people, yet not the number of meals as grandparents have passed away and new traditions are made.

Then my husband and I got the gastric sleeve.  Thanksgiving for the past three years has been a dance of careful choices because I literally cannot overindulge anymore.  You really figure out what your favorite parts are if you can only choose to eat those items.  Especially when you can only have about a teaspoon of each thing, depending on how many you pick.

I have always been kind of annoyed with thanksgiving.  I always felt endlessly obligated to attend.  Once Nana died, I also took over half of the cooking for that celebration.  The shuffle also needed to include coordination of the food I was bringing as well (and cooking it the day of).  I don't know how many times I have helped my mom clean up the kitchen from her meal, then immediately started cooking again.

This year, thanksgiving takes on a different meaning for me.  I literally just got out of the hospital.  I wasn't sure I would even be able to help my brother and sister-in-law with direction on what I usually make and bring.  I actually made the dressing the weekend prior to surgery and took it to my mom and my sister with instructions for freezing it, thawing it, and baking it themselves.

And here I sit on thanksgiving eve, thinking about all of the family thanksgivings of the past that I attended, probably begrudgingly at the time.  I think about my grandparents, and uncle, and step-grandparents, and great-grandparents and all the holiday celebrations I spent with them in houses full of other kids, grandkids, aunts, uncles, cousins and step versions of all of them.  And I feel guilty that I cannot do the grand tour of thanksgiving tomorrow.

*IF* I feel up to it, I am going to go to my sister's where she is hosting thanksgiving in the house I just rebuilt.  I am not going to brave the ride to Hernando for the other half of the family tomorrow.  I honestly only really have the energy for doing things a couple of hours at a time.  I still have stitches in my belly.  I am still on a semi-restricted diet.

But I guess it is hard for me this year because I have so many things to be thankful for.  We never had some silly family tradition of going around the table and naming things we were thankful for when I was a kid or anything (though I had friends who did that).  I was always rushed from one place to the other, maybe I just missed that part.

I don't think I would have enough time to really put into words what I am thankful for this year.  Thankful that I lived.  Thankful that I recovered with very little long-lasting damage to my body from sepsis.  Thankful I was able to have the shit bag reversal surgery, and that I survived that too.  Thankful my job let me work from home in a really trying part of my life.  Considering it was part of the reason I was able to heal, I guess I am even thankful for the shit bag.

But the most important piece of the puzzle is that I am thankful for the people I have in my life.  My friends have (probably uncomfortably) indulged me with regaling poop stories for the better part of a year.  My family has accepted that no matter what their current tribulation was, my response was going to be, "I have a shit bag; I win."  So many of them also put time and effort into helping finish the house without a complaint.  My coworkers have worked around the fact that I have been a remote employee with hardly any guilt trips; though I bribe them with baked goods whenever I go to the office.

I have an amazing surgeon.  I think I surprise him with my attitude about the whole thing.  And with the compliance with whatever he asked of me.  I was cared for by some truly caring nurses, CNAs, medical assistants, and housekeepers at the hospital.  The ones I felt really helped me the first time I was there in December and January, also remembered me when I returned last week.

And then there's my husband.  I call him my bacon.  It took a long time in this life to find him.  I think I was most scared about maybe not surviving all of this because it wouldn't have been fair to us.  My time with him would be over.  Only 6 years?  That is a drop in the bucket of time.  He has been so patient with me.  He tries harder than I do to make sure I take care of myself.  He is my safe spot.  To say that I am thankful for him would be a gross underestimation of how I feel.

I am thankful to say I am a survivor of 2016 (a lot of people weren't).  I am thankful I have made it through 2017 as well as I could manage, one day at a time.  I am thankful for puppies, and kitties, and elephants, and cupcakes.  And for the first time in a long time, I am thankful that I am still here to participate in what I have always called "forced family fun".

“I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can’t feel anything but gratitude—for every single moment of my stupid, little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure; but don’t worry….you will someday.”

~American Beauty

Just/Only

When I was in grade school, I remember a teacher (I believe it was in sixth grade) saying that she didn't want to hear us say "just" or "only" as a minimizer.  

"But, I just need one extra day for my project."
"I only asked if I could borrow a pencil."
"I just want to have class outside."

My cousin used to do this to the family when she was asking for an expensive present.  

"It's only $300."

The words don't diminish what you are asking of a teacher who deals with 12-year-olds all day long, nor does it make the $300 any more affordable.  The word is however an attempt at minimizing what you are saying.  I am not sure why it stuck with me.  But I found that I tried to eliminate it from the language I used.  I never wanted someone to think that I was attempting to disguise what I was truly asking of them.

It most recently came back to the forefront of my thoughts because of a comment from the nurse practitioner working with my anesthesiologist for my surgery last week.  They are trying a new protocol for post-surgical recovery utilizing an epidural port that stays in for the first few days after surgery instead of having a pain pump.  This means that you see your anesthesiologist every day rather than only immediately before your procedure.

I saw her (the nurse practitioner) every day of my stay.  She made rounds before the doctor came in so that the anesthesiologist would be prepared to just go ahead and make adjustments when they got there.  She was very informative and thorough and had answers to all of my questions.  She and this team have been working on this new epidural protocol for months to perfect it.

Essentially, the thought is that taking narcotics after surgery slows everything down.  That is why it is hard to get everything restarted (bowel and kidney function, etc).  In addition, it makes people unable to sleep, itchy, crazy, stupid, clumsy... the list goes on and on.  Lastly, there is a pretty big opioid addiction problem in the US at this point.  

The epidural only deadens a specifically targeted area of the body without the rest of these side effects.  I think it is pretty ingenious.  And although I was incredibly apprehensive about not having the pain pump with some pretty big incisions, I can say that it worked better than the dilaudid pump ever did.  I enjoyed the fact that I wasn't out of it and could actually sleep.

Which brings me to the point of this blog.  On the last day, I asked this nurse practitioner a question and she gave me an intelligent explanation (like she had to all of my other questions).  And she followed it with, "but I'm just a nurse practitioner."

It didn't even register to me at the time what she had said, or the implications of it.  I woke up at 4 am two days later at home in my own bed and the statement ran through my mind suddenly again.  I'm just a nurse practitioner.

How many times have I as a woman in a professional capacity been the most knowledgeable one in the room and minimized myself exactly in the way she did with that one statement?

"But I'm no expert."
"I'm just the setup person."

I think I have effectively eliminated this from the language I use regarding what I ask of other people.  I don't want to misconstrue or minimize what they will need to contribute.  But I have not done the same thing in the language I use about myself.  I still minimize myself, or my knowledge about something, or my experience.  I know I am not the only one because I hear it from women in my industry (and in general) all the time.

I wanted to go through my hospital record, find her name, and send a card of thanks for the very thorough and informative care I received from her.  I also wanted to tell her, "Don't ever say you are just a nurse practitioner."  You should never minimize what you do or what you know.  Be the expert in the room and own it.

The only "only" you should ever give yourself is in, "I'm only human."  And it is not ever a minimizer.

Final Countdown...

Well... the final countdown is here.  In about 12 hours, I will be in pre-op getting ready for the colostomy bag reversal surgery.  It seemed like this day was never going to arrive.

I feel like my entire life has been on hold for the past 10 months.  I know that people live with colostomy bags that are permanent and have productive and happy lives.  But I also know that I haven't lived the life I wanted to since it was put in.

I realize that opting out of the bag would have been a death sentence for me.  I was mostly dead when I went to the hospital that day last December.  Having the stoma allowed my body time to heal all of the damage from the bowel perforation.  But all of that doesn't really change how much it sucked.

I feel like I have done a pretty good job of keeping my spirits up about the whole thing.  There was a lot I had to let go of and I have tried not to complain too much.  It could have been worse, I could not be here at all.  But the timeline I had in my head for finishing the project house was no longer possible.  Moving to Colorado like I wanted was not going to happen.

I couldn't go to yoga because the doc said I wasn't allowed to work out my abs with the stoma in place.  I understand why, but it had become one of the ways I was trying to take care of myself and my own sanity.  Baths weren't really advisable.  The bag gets soaked and the adhesive is more likely to break up sitting in water (rather than the exposure from a shower).  Hot baths were my other go to for self care prior to this happening.

At the end of the day, I tried to turn to food as some form of comfort as it has always been that for me in the past.  Since I was unable to continue on the healthier path I was trying to maintain, the old crutch reared its ugly head.  I can say it is a challenge to self-medicate with food when you are post gastric sleeve surgery.  I managed to do it even if that meant not drinking any fluids all day just so I could eat instead.

I guess in a way, I had replaced food with these other activities in my life.  The yoga, the house, walking with my husband every day, a good long soak in the tub: they were all things I was doing instead of eating.  I probably shouldn't be surprised that I have gained weight over this past year.  Of course that's the opposite thing I wanted to do after going through with the gastric sleeve.

At this point, I am ready to get the reversal surgery over with.  But I am scared.  The last time I was in the hospital I nearly died.  You know, I never really thought much of worrying about surgeries before then.  Facing your own mortality is very sobering.  I just always assumed I would be fine, no matter what I was going through.  My solace going into this one I guess is that it cannot possibly be as bad as it was last December, and I survived that.

I am going to be in the hospital for about a week and at home recovering for another six weeks after that.  My return to work date is 01-02-18.  As much as I have benefited from working from home over the past 10 months dealing with the shit bag, I will be glad to go back to the office for a variety of reasons.  

I think it will be most beneficial for me to not be working at a desk that is 10 feet from my kitchen, for example.  I want to get back to the regular routine of life.  I don't think I necessarily took it for granted before, but I definitely appreciate the mundane, yet happy moments of regular life.  Just going to work, going for a walk, planning a vacation, taking a bath... so boring, yet so glorious!

I was actually thinking to myself earlier: what if something goes wrong and this is the last day you are alive?  I spent it with my husband and my pets.  I cleaned the house and washed the sheets.  I am happier than I have ever been in my life and I don't believe I would change anything.  I have always been authentic with my feelings with the people around me and I think they all already know that.

Tomorrow we are kissing this Mary good-bye... and saying hello to the one that poops out of her butt again.  Welcome back, old friend... try not to shit your pants...

#MeToo

So there is a hashtag that people are using on social media (variety of platforms) #MeToo.  The point was for people who have been sexually assaulted or harassed to express this to shine a light on just HOW MANY have experienced it.  It brought to the forefront the fact that this affects everyone, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you live.

It called to mind one of my first lessons in the sexualization of women, particularly in the workplace.  When I was nine, I helped my mom pick out a halloween costume.  At the time she worked at Holiday Inn corporate headquarters as the secretary to a manager and they always dressed up for the holiday.

We found a super cute unicorn costume.  It came with a headband that had a white unicorn horn with silver sequins spiraled around it, and silver tinsel hanging down the back like a horses mane.  The main part of the costume was a simple white tunic.  It wasn't short, no slit, not low cut, so it was 100% work appropriate.  

I LOVED her costume and I was so excited that I helped her pick it out to wear to work.  I remember her coming home from work that day and I couldn't wait to hear about how everyone loved it as much as I did.  But she seemed frustrated.

I kept pressing because I wanted to know why in the world people would not have liked her costume.  And that day was the first day I learned about how it doesn't really matter what you do or wear as a woman, if a man wants to change the narrative, he can.

The words spilled out of her as if she had been holding them in not only all day, but all of her life.  She had tried really hard to pick a costume that the men at work wouldn't have comments about.  A lot of times the women would receive comments if they wore something deemed too "sexy", not only from the men but also from other women.  She didn't want to come across to anyone like that because she was married and it was inappropriate.

She thought that we both had done an excellent job picking her costume because it wasn't revealing, it was an innocent character (childlike even), and overall was cute but not "sexy" at all.  And despite putting this much time and effort into NOT being sexualized for her costume choice, she said she got the same comment all day long:  

"It looks like somebody's horny."

She had to explain to me what horny meant.  She was so sad and frustrated.  My mom was homecoming queen, beautiful, petite and blonde.  I would venture to say that she was sexually harassed a lot more than I ever have been just because she inhabited this idealized body.  And despite her efforts to NOT be, was still placed squarely in a sexual role.  At her job.  By her superiors.

My second lesson came when I was about twelve.  My dad took me to get ice cream at the Sno Cream Castle at Getwell and New Willow.  I was walking down the sidewalk back to my dad's truck with my ice cream cone, and this dude slows down in his car to yell obscenities about me licking my ice cream.  Dad chased his car down the road screaming about kicking his pervert ass.

I was oblivious as to why he said the things he did or what they even meant.  I was twelve and went to private school.  I didn't learn the true mechanics of a blow job until I was embarrassingly older.  Dad didn't explain to me what any of it meant.  But he did have to talk to me about predators that day.  I still played with Barbies and had no boobs, but eating an ice cream cone looked like I was sucking dick?

I know that rape in particular is about power and control, not sex.  Sometimes rapists don't even climax.  For this reason, whether you are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, you can be a victim of sexual assault.  If anything, this hashtag campaign demonstrated that.  Nothing about you as an individual matters if the motive is power and control.

Sexual harassment comes in a slightly different package.  Less about power and control, and more about degrading and objectifying, particularly in response to rejection.  As a fat woman, I feel like this has happened fewer times to me than to women who live in bodies that fit the traditional mold of "attractiveness".  Don't get me wrong, it has happened, and I was actually kind of confused.  But I am sure I have experienced this far less than my peers of average size.

Here's the thing, the vast majority of my friends posted the #MeToo hashtag.  None of them could be put into a certain category of attractiveness, body size, class, color, intelligence, education, or creed.  There was no model of overtly risky behavior, no reason for any of it except that some other person thought they had the right do that to them.

It is powerful to give your experiences a voice to be heard.  To quote a musician I recently met at a show in Nashville, "If you don't tell your story, who will?"

I am so tired of trying to explain to disbelieving men that other men act like animals who have no control over their actions.  It's like, "well I would never do that, therefore you must be exaggerating."  So in addition to my childhood lessons above, I offer the personal experiences below.  Some of these stories I never told anyone, not even my Nana, because I assumed they wouldn't believe me.

I have been groped on a packed subway.  There was a lot of commotion so my friends and I all got off at the next stop.  When I told them what was going on, they shared that it happened to them as well on the same train, at the same time.  Some dude was literally sticking his hand between all of our legs and sliding his hand back out to rub on everything.

I have been "checked" on multiple occasions.  I was wearing pretty elaborate costumes and I guess someone thought I might be a drag queen since I was with my gay friends.  Instead of asking me if I was a girl or not, they just checked me for a "tuck".  I would be happy to explain this to my straight friends if it doesn't make sense, but essentially they verified with their hands if I was a girl or a guy.

The power went out at a bar I was in, so I walked over by the bathrooms where the only emergency lighting was because it seemed like the safest place.  Some asshole planted his hands on either side of my face, started sucking on my neck, and ground me into the wall with his pelvis.  I slid down the wall to get out of his pin.  I had never seen or spoken to him before.

After my grandfather died, Nana had a male caretaker/live in companion.  I remember when I would call and talk to her on the phone he would yell out things in the background like, "Tell her to get her legs out of the air, we need to ask her a question!"  I told her it was really weird and uncomfortable, she didn't really get it either but brushed it off and said he was joking.  I was leaving her house on Christmas, told everyone good-bye, and he was the only one who followed me outside.  I said "Merry Christmas" and gave him a hug because he was like family and he forced his tongue down my throat.  I spent the last years of Nana's life trying to avoid him without telling her why.  I was a virgin at the time.

I could give you countless examples of harassment that occurred particularly when I was doing the online dating thing.  Men who met me for dates who assumed we would be having sex just because I agreed to meet them for coffee.  Men who were disappointed that I didn't show up dressed "more sexy" because my halloween costumes were (note: they had stalked my other social media accounts that were not at all attached to my dating profile).  Men who thought it was cool to expect sex from me, but didn't want to be seen in public with me because I was too fat.  But, there are far too many examples of the depraved behavior that comes from a mostly anonymous internet profile, so I am going to skip all of that.

I have never been raped.  I was never touched inappropriately as a child.  On a by the book, criminally charged basis, I have never been sexually assaulted.  But if you read the above paragraphs and weren't a little disgusted by the behavior involved, I really have to question your humanity.  I didn't put out to any of these men that I wanted to be touched or that I was ok with any of it.  Actually, in every situation, my consent wasn't even a question or a consideration.

The narrative often includes some idiotic commentary regarding bad decisions that women make that put them in situations like this.  About drinking, or what they are wearing, or being too attractive.  So riddle me this: how is it that a morbidly obese woman who was made to feel the opposite of sexually attractive (if anything), wearing normal clothes, doing the same thing that all of her peers were doing, made a bad decision that resulted in this?  What was it for me?  That I chose to ride a crowded subway?  That I was in a bar with a group of people I knew?  That I was in New Orleans for halloween with my friends?  That I decided to attend MY FAMILY CHRISTMAS GATHERING???

I don't know how this changes.  Sometimes it feels like it is impossible to even convince anyone that there is a problem.  I look at the experiences I have had and even I think to myself, "well, it could have been worse".  Yeah, it could have been worse.  

"Well, you weren't raped."
"Maybe they just didn't know how to approach you."
"You're too intimidating so they have to act more aggressively."
"He was hot, I don't know why you didn't just go along with it."

It could have been worse, but do we really want to live in a society where that's our standard?  

Body Confidence In Costume

I have been cleaning out my closets recently (both figuratively and literally).  Working through the food issues has not been easy and I only feel like I have just started.  I feel similarly about my actual closets.

My brother and I have been living together since 2006 and we moved into this house in 2011.  Since then, we have both gotten married, adopted several pets, and acquired a lot of stuff.  My sister-in-law is about to add another chicken nugget to the family (or baby nugget lol).  A household with 4 adults, 4 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 baby is just not in the cards for the Joyce clan.

Alas, it is time to move out.  I have been diligently trudging through the absolute nightmare condition of my sewing room.  I haven't had much time for sewing projects since I have been working on the house for the last two years.  Prior to that, I did a booth at the Cooper-Young Festival that essentially took all of the creative out of me.  I made a lot of cute shit that a lot of people really loved, and very few actually purchased.  I guess everyone gets a good, strong failure every now and then.

I don't really want most of the stuff anymore, and I want to downsize a lot before my husband and I find our little nook to move into.  Fortunately, my sister is all about some free art/crafty supplies.  I feel less guilty about getting rid of stuff if it will go to someone who will actually use it, and she is super stoked about free shit.

In any case, it came to the question of my costume closet.  She said in no uncertain terms that she would never wear any of those, and that I had some big ole balls to wear all of it so confidently like I did.  Maybe that is something that comes after you hit 30.

At the time I started making costumes for myself, it was out of necessity.  They didn't actually make cool costumes in plus sizes in the early 2000's.  And I didn't just need cool costumes, I needed fabulous ones.  The period of my life where I spent a lot of time with my gay guy friends was in full swing.  Since I can sew, I made my own.

I think this was one of the first costumes I made for myself.  There were other ones before this that I just kind of put together, but this is the first one that I put a lot of time or effort into. 

Halloween 2004 - Beer Wench

It started kind of a thing that we did at the time (my best friend and I).  We didn't really need a reason to dress up.  Most of the time if we were going to Backstreet, we were wearing "theme night" clothes just because it was fun.  I am sure it was also a way for me to stand out, yet hide myself behind a facade at the same time.  Since I was at a gay bar, it wasn't like some dude was going to hit on me anyways.

Around the same time, I had started doing Nutri-System and working out more.  The changes in my body brought more confidence and the costumes followed suit.

May 2005 - Moulin Rouge

June 2005 - store bought Playboy Bunny

By halloween of 2005, I had lost 80 pounds and was experiencing some full-on self-confidence for the first time in my life.  That first halloween after I lost weight and had been working out and building muscle, we went as sexy leprechauns.  I made both of our costumes.  

I will say this: I searched high and low for a sexy leprechaun costume I could just buy.  Since I had lost weight, I figured I should be able to find something.  When I say there was nothing available like this at the time, I am serious.  There were several years in a row where I would decide to be something, hand make my own costume, then all of a sudden two years later that costume was on the market.  I probably should have been a costume designer.

Halloween 2005 - Sexy Leprechaun

Looking at this photo now, I have to agree with my sister about my big ole balls for wearing it.  But I felt good about myself and about my body and I didn't care who saw that.  The next several years went through many iterations of costumes for a variety of events (Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence, Halloween, New Year's, etc). 

The fact that I made these myself only added to my street cred at the time among my friends.  They didn't care if I was still fat or not.  I had some mad skills with my sewing machine, and the more outrageous the getup the better.

But, it was a double-edged sword.  I got a lot of attention for what I was wearing.  When I was in the company of my gay friends (or really any time I was in New Orleans), it was overtly positive.  But outside of that, I got a lot of flack/scorn/ridicule for wearing these among straight people specifically.  

Don't get me wrong, my *friends* loved them (gay or straight).  But strangers are not kind to fat people no matter how many hours they spent sewing a custom-made costume.  It was almost this attitude of "there's a reason they don't make that in YOUR size" or perhaps "fat people don't deserve to feel sexy".

I will say this, the more I made these and wore them, the less I cared what anyone thought about my body.  I put myself out there in a pretty vulnerable way, but I really enjoyed making these and showing them off.  I noted the photos if they were store bought costumes.  The rest, I either hand sewed all of it, or I started with a base (like a corset) and made the rest from there.

Halloween 2007 - store bought Sailor Girl

Mardi Gras 2008 - Mardi Gras Float
Note: I actually had the flu

Halloween 2008 - Queen of Hearts (the rabbit and hatter are strangers lol)

Mardi Gras 2009 - store bought Flasher

Mardi Gras 2009 - with the NOLA PD

Mardi Gras 2009 - Mardi Gras Bead Dress

Halloween 2009 - Blind Melon Bee Girl

Mardi Gras 2010 - Moulin Rouge (again)

Mardi Gras 2010 - Candy Snatch

Halloween 2010 - store bought Masquerade

Halloween 2010 - store bought Flapper

Halloween 2010 - Schizophrenic Ballerina

Mardi Gras 2011 - store bought Devil

Mardi Gras 2011 - I literally went as a Drag Queen
Someone literally asked me if I was a real girl.

Halloween 2011 - Ursula the Sea Witch

Southern Decadence 2012 - Trailer Trash

Southern Decadence 2012 - you really needed both photos for the full effect

Halloween 2014 - store bought Flo and Mayhem

Halloween 2015 - store bought Day of the Dead

Christmas 2015 - store bought Mrs. Claus
My sister asked us to wear something nice for a Christmas card.

Halloween 2016 - Bee Girl (again) and Devo Guy

The past few years since my husband and I got married, I haven't really put a huge amount of time into hand sewing anything.  The Cooper-Young thing really drained my creative energy for a long time, and the house drained the actual energy.  I don't think we are actually going to do anything this year because my surgery is on November 1st and we have a lot to do before then (and no costumes at this moment).

I hope that once life is a little more settled down, this is something I can go back to doing for both of us, because I did truly enjoy it.  Though I always fit in in New Orleans, it is hard to find an appropriate place to wear something so elaborate in Memphis.  There definitely is a lack of appreciation for things like this here.

I don't really get the apathy probably because Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year.  I always kind of cock my head to the side with a very confused look when adults say they don't dress up for halloween or that it's something for kids.  Why?  It is the one day of the year when you can be anything you want.  

If anything, I have always felt like I am stuffed into this very plain shell for all of the other days of the year.  Halloween is probably the day I get to dress the way I would prefer to every day.  It would be kind of hard to show up at my bank job dressed as a saloon girl.  I mean women in this industry hardly get any respect anyhow.

Looking back over these, I see two things.  I see the evolution of my costumes in a variety of places and events with different friends.  It brings up memories of trips taken and a lot of fun times.  I think you can see in my face in each photo that I am enjoying myself.  Secondly, I see the evolution of my body.  Although I started in my sexy leprechaun costume at one of my lowest adult weights, I gained all of it back over the period of time these photos were taken.

I see the confidence in my costuming soaring in the forefront, but the confidence in my body declining in the background.  I definitely gained a "I don't really give a fuck what you think of me or my body" attitude over the course of these 10+ years.  And at my core, I think I wanted to wear each of these and force my sexuality onto people whether they wanted to see me that way or not; whether they thought a fat girl should express herself like that or not.

I don't know that I will ever wear these again.  Some of them are too big now anyhow.  I haven't really figured out what to do with them at this point.  Mostly because I honestly don't think most fat girls have the balls to wear them like I do.  Perhaps, there is a drag queen costume charity that needs some bling.

These are definitely some of those things that are hardest to get rid of when you are trying to simplify your life.  So much time and effort went into each one of them from designing to actually creating them.  It's not something I can just throw away mostly because there are still pieces of me woven in.

"How's Your Eating?"

*I have decided I will refer to my therapist as ST from now on (super therapist, duh).*

ST: How's your eating?
ME: Well I thought I was doing better because I was drinking more, but then I got some kind of bad news about some people in my family possibly having some health issues and I haven't been drinking enough like I should.  And then I got on a scale and realized how much weight I have gained since I almost died and I almost died a little inside.  So...
ST: So... how's your eating?
ME: Not good.

Our prior session (to this one) we talked a lot about attachment styles.  To make a long story short, there are four attachment styles: secure, and then three types of insecure attachments - anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant.  You can do your own research about attachment theory if it is interesting to you.  The essential gist of it is that you learn your attachment style as a very young child (less than 2 years old) and it take a lot of undoing to change it.

If you have a secure attachment as a child, you tend to identify with the following statements: "It is relatively easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I don't worry about being alone or others not accepting me."  This kind of attachment forms in this early development period for children and is the ideal.

For me, I identify more so with the anxious-preoccupied attachment style.  The textbook characteristics are as follows:

People with anxious-preoccupied attachment type tend to agree with the following statements: "I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like", and "I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don't value me as much as I value them." People with this style of attachment seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their attachment figure. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on the attachment figure. Compared to securely attached people, people who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to have less positive views about themselves. They may feel a sense of anxiousness that only recedes when in contact with the attachment figure. They often doubt their worth as a person and blame themselves for the attachment figure's lack of responsiveness. People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, emotional dysregulation, worry, and impulsiveness in their relationships.

This is 100% related to why I tend to try to put myself into roles in relationships (note family, friends, lovers, et all) where I am the nurturer/rescuer.  I tend to be completely insecure in the attachment to others unless I am going above and beyond to prove I am worth it because I don't find that value within myself.

It's a lot to take in that you have been doing something your whole life that you think is related to one thing, and it is pretty much something else entirely.  I always kind of thought to myself that the root of my insecurities about relationships was due to my insecurity about my body and the way I look.  I thought myself unworthy of love and therefore went above and beyond in relationships as some sort of weird fucked up way to make up for being the fat girl.  

It is a little mind blowing to come to the realization that it actually has more to do with attachments that were formed as a very young child and that I have just been repeating the same behavior over and over again.  It is not completely unrelated to the food, however.  Because I do tend to form insecure attachments with people, I formed a very SECURE attachment with food.  Whatever I thought or perceived I was not receiving from people, I got from food instead.  Which just compounded the issue of being insecure because of being fat.

The good news is that forming secure attachments with people can be just as therapeutic in reversing this process as actual therapy work can be.  The fact that I now have some very secure relationships will help me heal myself just as much as ST will help me otherwise.  I think that is promising.

But, it doesn't change my love affair with food.  This process will take unlearning my very secure attachment to food as well.  I'm not sure how you do that after 40 years, but I am willing to try anything to change the pattern of behavior.

I do have some building anxiety about the hiatus in the progress that I am certain I will see fairly soon.  I am set to have surgery on November 1st and I won't be going anywhere (ie. no therapy sessions) for the duration of recovery.  I am hopeful that I can continue some work in this regard, but I know this is a huge expectation of myself.  Obviously, if I could do this on my own, I wouldn't be going to therapy in the first place.

I feel like I am just starting to scratch the surface of the issues I really need to deal with, and then there is going to be this extended break from any progress at all.  I am hopeful that even if I am not fully recovered from surgery, I may be able to schedule an appointment after a few weeks and my husband can drive me.  I know that dealing with the holidays only makes things more complex (if anything).

Note: feeling a little defeated about the food, my weight gain, my progress, and everything that goes along with all of it at the moment.

My Nana

It occurred to me upon rereading some of these posts that my nana (and her influence over my life) possibly seems kind of negative to someone reading this blog (and not living my life).  I don't feel like nana ever did anything intentionally to hurt me.  If anything, she loved me unconditionally.  I don't think the majority of people have actually experienced truly unconditional love.  I feel lucky in that regard.

I don't believe there was anything she wouldn't have done for me if I had asked her to and she could have made it happen.  I think if I had showed up to her house with a dead body in my trunk, we would have both struggled, but she would have helped me bury it.  There were times when I was not a model granddaughter; but if you asked her, you would never know it.  She above all, always showed me and told me that she was proud of me.

But the fact remains that every person is a product of the shit they themselves have survived.  You have to own your shit, work through it, and move forward.  My nana was a part of a generation that really didn't believe in therapy.  Owning your shit to them meant suppressing your emotions, not talking about things, hiding/lying about embarrassing parts of your past or family history, etc.  

How many people do you know of (in your own family or otherwise) who have some shady parts of their family history that have been glossed over by years, distance, or outright lies?  From criminal activities, to unwed mothers forced to adopt out their babies (or abort them), affairs, men raising children they don't even know aren't theirs, the list goes on and on for the people in that generation.  Maybe if my nana had been able to heal some of her own wounds, pieces of our relationship would have been different or healthier than it was.

I feel that nana never healed from all of the miscarriages she had trying to have a baby girl.  She probably had a pretty high level of PTSD and unresolved grief from all of those experiences that led her to be overprotective of me.  She manipulated situations in my life if anything to keep me closer to her.

She was never shown a lot of affection as a child (one of twelve) and grew up very poor.  She told me stories of kids on the school bus making fun of her for having cardboard in the bottom of her shoes.  She was probably made to feel worthless by them and others in her community.  She was never made to feel special as one of many children.  In fact, being second to oldest, the responsibilities of caring for the younger kids fell on her shoulders as a child.  They didn't even remember what day she was born (she spent a lifetime thinking her birthday was the day before it actually was).

This is the only photo we have of her as a child

She also told me stories about a male family member (I don't recall if it was an uncle, grandpa, whatever) that used to wait in the barn for her (or her sisters or cousins) and try to catch them to molest them.  She said she was too fast and always got away.  But what an overwhelming feeling of not being safe at your own home.  I asked her if she ever told her parents.  "They never believed us," was all she responded.

When she left home as a teenager, her father told her not to come back.  She said it was a full ten years before she ever visited them again.  By that time she was married to my grandfather, and my dad and uncle had already come along.  How rejected she must have felt as she made her way out into the world as a teenager without family support to back her up if something went wrong.

This appears to be taken prior to leaving home

My nana was married once before my grandfather.  This would be one of those family secrets that gets swept under the rug.  She came home from work one day to find her first husband in bed with her cousin.  Another round of rejection and abandonment to add to the list.

But my nana's generation would say that the appropriate response to all of that was to suck it up and get over it.  There was no therapist to work with her to convince her of her value as a person.  There was no one to help her through the rejection, the PTSD, the grief, any of it.

My nana showered me with so much love, probably because she never felt loved as a child. She was always buying me things, probably because she never experienced that as a child and felt neglected.  She was always feeding me when I came to her house, probably because she went hungry when she was poor.  She never created healthy boundaries, probably because she never felt she deserved the love she received in return.  She was overprotective of the life she built with my grandfather, probably because she didn't have that security before.  She was always telling me how proud she was of me for being so smart, probably because she never graduated high school.

Nana was a flawed human being, just like everyone else I have ever known.  She made what she thought were the best choices with the information she had at the time.  She never had the opportunity to own her shit (or work through it).  She used coping mechanisms that a lot of other people use.

Taking a step back from your life and your relationships and really taking a hard look at your past is not an easy process.  It would be easiest for me to just continue to use food as my coping mechanism and carry on whether I gained all the weight back or not.  It would be easiest to continue to berate myself for perceived failures and just insist on trying harder over and over until I kill over from doing so.

It's always easiest to stay the same.  Change is hard.  But I am trying to own my own shit.  And, I am trying to place the shit back where it belongs when it isn't my own.  Do not misconstrue this for blame.  I do not blame anyone for my shit.  If anything, I overly blame myself for shit that isn't even mine.  

But there comes a time when you have to realize that you cannot spend your life looking for someone else to blame for your own shit.  You just have to accept it as a part of you, change what you don't like, and move forward into a different and healthier phase of life.

If anything, the only thing I fear at this point in this process is that it may be hard for other people in my circle to accept new expectations and boundaries that I need to create for myself.  I hope that there will be a level of understanding that I am trying to end a family cycle that has gone on for long enough, and we are all at point of needing to take responsibility and own our own shit.