Hello hello! It is I, your humble Tofu Fairy, here to let you in on what has been going on, briefly, in my life over the last 6-7 months since I posted anything of a personal nature on my blog (other than reviews of one of my fav jewelry makers and some coupon codes..I mean come on! LOL)! I really don’t know where to start, so I think I shall just make a list. Pardon the bluntness, but I just need to get some shit off my chest! Imagine that? LOL
1) My dad died on 12-25-12. I am still coming to grips with what this means to me but, overall, since his death, I have found more peace than I have had in years. He and I had not spoken in over 9 years (his choice) and he died due to complications involving his liver and kidneys from years of alcoholism. It saddens me that he chose his alcohol over me and I can’t lie and say that it didn’t hurt; however, as a food addict myself, I know a little something about addiction and know that being in the throws of it is horrible. I can only imagine what an addiction to something that alters your state of mind so drastically would do to a person’s priority meter.
That said, I did feel shame and anger and a myriad of other bad emotions when he chose to die without healing our relationship. I could have reached out to him, I know, but after 20 years of chasing him and forcing myself into his life, I chose to honor his choice not to be a part of mine 9 years ago. I have no regrets with that choice. His death also brought me relief. Relief from having to worry about him, relief from hoping he would change his mind and decide he did want to be the father I remembered from my childhood, relief from all the pain that hope brought me, and relief from the tiny amount of guilt I still harbored over the way things ended between he and I.
You see, 8.5 years ago, after fighting with him on Christmas Eve of 2003, receiving various drunken phone calls from him both at home and at work, I wrote him an ultimatum letter. I spilled my heart out to him in a 7 page, single spaced letter. The letter was rough toward him. It was also pleading and heart-felt in its want to have a relationship with my father that was based on a 50/50 give/take rather than a 100% me chase him theme. I vented all the pain and frustration, confusion and anger, love and hate I had experienced toward and with him over the past 20 years of our relationship (since my age of 11, when my parents divorced, to the age of the letter, 31). In the end, I gave him an ultimatum. He could either meet me half way and be the father and friend to my daughter and friend, or he could choose not to be a part of my life. I never heard from him again, so his choice was obvious.
From what I now know about the way he lived his life those 9 years we were apart (per a cousin on that side of my family), I can honestly say that it was his loss, not mine. I did not want to be the 11 year old little girl monitoring her father’s beer count at the bar again. NO THANK YOU!
Anyway…getting back to the RELIEF issue. After he died, I requested a copy of his will from the courthouse in his home state. I had been communicating with my cousin and my step-sister and feared that his newest wife (not the step-sister’s mother) was not executing the will properly. I knew that I was not owed anything and, even if I was, I did not want it. But I was very upset with how his new wife was treating my step-sister and just wanted to be sure everything was kosher. The will came and I was floored. My dad had written me out of his will in January 2004. This was a good 6 months prior to me sending him that ultimatum letter. I had NOTHING to feel guilty about at all! He had made his choice to have nothing to do with me months before, right after our argument on Christmas Eve! With that knowledge, all the guilt and any shred of regret I had about coming 100% clean (I shared secrets about my religious beliefs and sexuality in that letter as well) to my dad vanished and I felt this weight lift off my chest. I was free. Totally free of so much baggage that I did not even realize I was carrying.
Over the past 6 months, I have healed immensely. I still think of him and have my good pre-divorce memories of him, but I no longer worry that I did something wrong, or that I could have done something more. I have found a sort of peace and I know that time will continue to heal this nearly 30 year old wound.
2) I have been off my meds! LOL This month marks the 1 year anniversary of when I finally weaned myself off of the psych meds I had been taking since 2005. I can’t tell you how much my life has changed over this last year. It is insane! I have rediscovered emotions and sexual awareness. I have also made major strides with my food
addiction (see #3).
It took me months to get used to simply feeling again. I don’t think I realized how numb the meds were making me. They saved my life, so don’t misunderstand me. I would take them again in a heartbeat if I found myself back down in that dark place I was in 2005, pills in hand, ready to end it all. But I knew I was ready, hoped I was ready, to be “normal” again. And I was right. Is it easy? NO! Do I still have bad days and panic attacks? YES! But am I OK? YES! I have
rediscovered my sexuality, am enjoying things more than I have in years, and am crying at the drop of a hat again. Welcome back to the real me! LOL
May I also highly recommend Hyland’s Nerve Tonic to anyone with anxiety/panic disorder! This homeopathic remedy is amazing and makes me feel almost as good as Xanax used to make me feel, but it is 100% natural and has ZERO side effects! I found this stuff by accident after trying a sample of their Restful Legs for my RLS (that stuff works great too!). I discovered that being off all the psych meds really amped up my RLS and was desperate for some relief. Anyway, long story short, try Nerve Tonic! I am not being paid or being given any freebies to say this! Hyland’s doesn’t even know I exist! LOL
3) I’ve lost nearly 60lbs! Yep…Six-OH! Since June of 2012, I have been working really hard battling my food addiction. I have to say that the psych meds I was on (Zoloft and Xanax) really exaggerated my already horrible food addiction and I didn’t even know it! I used to obsess to the point of panic when my next meal would be and what we would eat. I would eat MASSIVE amounts of food (think a whole 16 inch pizza with pop and chips as an example) at one sitting. It was SO insane.
I honestly do not 100% know how much weight I have lost, as the scale I have only goes to 425lbs and I errored it out a LONG time ago. I am basing my weight loss on a starting weight of 426lbs and I am down to 367.6lbs for a total loss of 58.4lbs in a year. I am so proud and amazed and just fucking happy about the weight loss. It does pain me not to know the EXACT amount of weight I have lost, but I try not to fixate on that and to fixate only on what I DO know. My clothes are falling off me! LOL I LOVE IT! I want to lose at least 200lbs more. If I did that, I would be the weight I was when I first met my partner at the age of 16 and I would be a size 13, able to pretty much shop in any store I want.
I can NOT imagine having that freedom again after 21 years. Watching the changes in my body has been…interesting. I am under no delusion about what I will have to go thru once I reach my goal weight: skin removal surgeries and a breast reconstruction. I used to find the scars people got from having these surgeries disturbing and thought that I would hate the thought of the large scars. But as I continue to lose weight and as I see the journey before me to the finish line, I have to say I will wear the scars with pride. They will be my battle scars.
Years of pain, loss, insecurity, and anger and all the other emotions that created my food addiction when I was 11 years old are being healed with each pound I lose. Every pound on my body is a physical representation of those emotions, those issues, that baggage from my childhood when I learned to cope with my feelings by shoving food down my throat. Will I cure my food addiction? No. I won’t. But I am learning to manage it and to FEEL things rather than “eat” them away and cover them with fat. The scars that will be left after these inevitable surgeries will be my new physical representation of a battle fought hard and won. I can’t wait to have scars all over my body!
I will keep you posted as more weight comes off. I weigh myself once a month and, as long as the scale goes down and not up, I am happy. I have had some set backs along the year. I gained weight for two months and realized I had hit my first plateau. It was time to kick it up a notch. The next month, I lost all I had gained and almost 2lbs more! As someone who has battled her weight since the age of 11, this is the first time it has truly felt real to me. When I gained that weight back, I did not throw in the proverbial towel. I did not quit, as I had in the past. It made me want to try harder and that is a first for me. This time I know it’s for real! as Donna Summer once sang! LOL Yes…I am that old!
SOOOOOOOOOOOO there you have it! The main reasons for my absence on here! There are other things stewing in my world as I type this that I will share with you in my next post! Until then…later gator! xoxo
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