I would like to talk about Dr. Jack, but this morning was the first day I was alone at home and honestly? I lost it. I am talking curled in bed and my pillow needs to be washed and dried as it is soaking wet. From every cell in my body came gut wrenching pain.
I am okay now…..That was needed, therapeutic because now emotionally, I feel better. Physically I feel beat up, but I took a shower, prayed a lot, read a little, and just breathed. I am okay now… I am going to try to make it through the day without going to the cemetery. I don’t need to do that every day. He isn’t there anyway. Sighhhhhh…. seen a lot of death, and yes, I will still be talking about things that happened, but for today, I got some of that out. It’s okay…..
I wanted to do a blog about Dr. Jack and all he did during this difficult time but emotions are still raw and I can’t even write a sentence about the things he did without getting filled up…. another day…..
So let’s talk about food and my body. I lost control. Not totally but somewhat. It’s not like I sat with a carton of ice cream or ate a pizza, it’s not like that. This last two weeks is a blur. I ate things I usually don’t, not awful things, just things I don’t normally eat. It was a crisis situation and my head was not focused. I know everyone here understands that. I don’t know if I ate, when I ate, or how much I ate. I didn’t do a single exercise and I know I ate things that are processed, things I typically avoid, and it has caught up to me. I am achy, I feel a bit symptomatic.
But that control loss isn’t the total blame of Sara losing the baby. The truth is it kind of started a while ago and it just escalated the last two weeks. Reallllyyyy escalated. That’s honest.
It’s been a rough set of months, I was trying to map it but it almost started in September and went on from there. I ate well…. but the stresses of my life have really taken their toll. Each month, I promised myself that the next would be better but it wasn’t. The stress would build. I am living proof that stress holds weight. And that allowing what others do to us, have an impact on our body and mind. Hardest habit ever to break.
It isnt that I ate poorly, because I ate really well, but I often ate later in the day than I like to, not on the great schedule and way I was doing before. I know I was hungry, not for food but for a lot of other emotions and rather than get those, I filled with other things. I beat on myself something fierce, I took onto myself what other stuff thought about me as what was true even though I know it wasn’t. Self care? Ehhhh… not so much. I pushed and drove myself to the point I am embarrassed to tell anyone. And all along, Dr. Jack kept reminding me that this would have an effect. I believed him, but it didn’t stop me.
This last week, I ate for the sake of eating, not out of hunger and certainly not out of nourishment, but out of wanting to numb myself from what was excruciating pain. I didn’t write anything down. I didn’t care. Mostly because I didn’t have time, but I could have found a moment to write a few things down, but the truth is I didn’t want to….. I would have to look at it if I did and I didn’t want to. If I didn’t write it, then it wasn’t real. That’s how my crazy head operates. See? It’s not just you.
The food monster has been my companion a long time, he often likes to jump into action when I am stressed and vulnerable. He owned me the last two weeks, but he has subtly built himself into that position the last ten months or so. Little by little…is my weight up? Hello! Yeah… but it’s okay..it’s not tons and it’s fixable.
Today, I am in control. It’s taking a little to get my groove back, and it will be an ongoing process. I did not drink enough yesterday but I felt in control when I ate. I did not fill myself for the sake of filling myself, but ate as much as I know is good for me. That’s progress. Did the sugar monster scream? He has every single day for months, despite not giving in. I get it, sugar is like a drug to me, and like an addict, I am stressed and I wan some. But I didn’t give into him.
I am working on the stress, not the stress of the baby…. that’s a process of grief that needs to run its course. I accept that. It comes in waves but the ripples get easier each time. Today was a huge one but that’s okay, I am a grieving grandmother and I needed it as much as anyone else needs it. I needed to lay here and let fly. I have tried to take care of my daughter and her husband, to take care of all of our family, and today, I needed to take care of me.
That was today. What I need to do in my regular every day life is I need to stopppppppppp letting the stress of others become my stress. Or to allow what they say to me have any bearing whatsoever on me. That’s something about forty years overdue. I need to change this game. And no one on this planet can fix that for me, I have to go it alone. I need to make the balance of my life be in line or I can say hello again to my Hashimoto symptoms, and I am never going back there.
So what’s the plan?
- Get my eating habits back to what they were three weeks ago. Keep track. Be conscious of all that enters my body. Write it, write it, write it. My meticulous journal has a week and a half gap…. it’s okay… no beating on myself about that, Dr. Jack wouldn’t like that,
- Get a good stress plan going, one that is also conscious of not taking on everyone else’s stresses, and not letting others dictate how I am feeling. Dr. Jack told me this story once about how people dump their stuff on you and now you have the monkey on your back. My problem is I am carrying an entire freaking rain forest! So here is to giving back the monkeys, no longer the world’s zookeeper!
- Follow a better self care method. And I am being serious here. I need to take care of ME! There needs to be a balance. And putting myself last on the list if at all, is unacceptable. The truth is I am not taking care of me as best as I would someone else and that is also unacceptable. That cannot go on. There needs to be time scheduled for that.
- Schedule fun…. somewhere I stopped having any. I don’t know how that happened but I don’t have any. I don’t do anything I enjoy anymore. Little by little I stopped.
I did learn a valuable lesson from the baby…. life is really a lot shorter than I think. And I spend an awful lot of time worrying and putting energy into things that really don’t matter. Beating on myself for every little thing and not taking time to enjoy my life, driving myself with work and work and work is not right! Numbing myself with food or work to not feel anything else? Unacceptable.
So this is the summer to work that all out…. change the game…… life is going to happen in the midst, but my go to plan of self inflicted punishment is not going to fly anymore. I have to fix this….. one way or the other I have to fix this.
You read this all the way to the end… because you know I am not the only one like this. So don’t let me go it alone. Make a written commitment to yourself too! I will keep you posted on my progress, keep me posted on yours.
Hugsssssss, thanks for being my cyber friends! I pray for you all, in thanks, for being my friends here.
Chris
Chris, first let me say it pains me to know how hard you are on yourself, because you are one of the finest human beings I know – you are awesome! But I also know extremely well what that’s like. By the time I got to the end of your post, I had tears in my eyes. You’re right – many of us do the same. We burn the candle at both ends, worry and stress about things outside our control, and then collapse in a heap of exhaustion after pushing for so long. I have gained all the weight back that I lost last year. Since school ended Monday, I can’t get motivated to do anything, not even stuff I typically enjoy. I feel shot.
Your post spoke right to me and I want you to know I’m out here in the struggle with you, trying to figure out how to get going again and how to finally break this cycle – for good! I am with you! You’ve inspired me to at least do some journaling today to figure out how to pick myself up and get going again. Thank you for bravely sharing your journey with us!
Hugssssss…. I love you! Want to say that… we started out aquaintences and are truly friends today. So as friends, let’s go in it together. As Dr. Jack always tells me, baby steps. The last two days all I focused on was writing things down including my feelings and eating good things that made me full. I am not going to extremes, just slow and steady. Today I got out of bed, did some Pilates breathing and sat down to write, meditate, pray. It’s tough, I can’t get this little guy off my mind, I can’t stop worrying about my daughter and son in law. And I do push myself like I would no one else.
Many times during the day I just stop and do nothing but be conscious of breathing. Stop all the chatter in my head. Slow down….
Be good to you too…. you are such a wonderful person with a huge heart. Forgive yourself and I will forgive me. And both of us, let’s slowly move off this place and onto something better. This last year for a lot of reason was hard. The baby’s death was the topping off of it…. I am cut of tough stock, but this has been the hardest experience of my entire life. Helpless to help my child who was helpless to help her own. Hugs….. love you! We are getting through this, both of us.
Chris, this hit home for me. Over the last year I have lost control. I too have committed to a better version of me. I’m taking one day at a time, and I won’t beat myself up if I get off track a bit. Here is is to putting our needs first, because if I don’t take care of me who will.
Amen to that…. it’s so easy to just say forget it, I have too much stress. But I seriously don’t know how I could,have gotten through this much without my good health. The struggle is awful but like you said, who is taking care of you? I tell myself daily, I have to love myself as much as I love others. I have to…. it’s sooooo easy for me not to! I have a 60 year habit to break of that. Thanks for being in here with me, that means a lot to me. We, you and I, have a lot of reasons, I know you understand what I mean…. we can do it. Hugggggssssss