Changes

It’s been five months since I was last here. If that doesn’t classify as slack, then I don’t really know what does but in my defence, it has been an eventful few months. Since I last blogged my sister got engaged, I spent my birthday in hospital with Andrew and his dodgy heart. Oh yeah, I also admitted to others, and probably more importantly, myself, that I have an eating disorder - and it took a brand new pair of amazing high heels to make me realise it.

I used to drag Andrew out shopping a lot, poor guy. He’d walk from store to store, watch me pull out numerous things from the rack, admire copious pairs of shoes and never complain. To be honest, I thought he never paid attention to anything I liked... and then one day I came home from work to find a pair of insanely gorgeous heels that I had admired the weekend before on our bed.

I called Andrew to thank him and tell him what an amazing husband he was, then I hung up the phone & I cried. Not over the shoes, over the guilt. Such an intense guilt that he does that for me (and that he actually pays attention because I only mentioned how much I loved these shoes once) and that here I am, doing these things to myself. I decided right then and there that he didn’t deserve this - a self-loathing wife who has almost zero energy day after day because of some little gremlin planting ideas in her head.

I decided I would ‘get over this.’ It’s not that easy. Just like you look back and don’t know how you ended up there, you don’t know how to get back to where you were. I just want to put that out there right now because I know what you’re thinking “it’s all in your head”. That’s the problem right there! I never in a million years thought I would be one of those girls with ED. Not. A. Freaking. Chance. But, I am. And I am certainly not one of the only ones. It’s a sad, sad fact but hardly surprising given the enormous amount of importance in the media surrounding diet and lifestyles and weight. One of my friend’s reactions was “oh I’ll just force feed you McDonalds” Ooookay, fabulous idea, can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself! Why didn’t I ask you to do that ages ago?

So my winter was spent losing 4kg here, putting 2kg back on, trying on everything in my closet on and deciding it all makes me look fat and that I must diet ASAP followed by days of suffering from exhaustion and never ending headaches, feeling bad about the effect this is having on my daughters and reminding myself that weight does not define me and so on and so on. And just when you think you are doing so well, someone makes a comment about what you’re eating, how this or that has x amount of calories or you try and squeeze into that skirt and it just. won’t. fit. That’s when that little gremlin jumps out from behind that bush and bites you in the ass again. You’re on the slippery slope to the bottom after you worked your way *almost* to the top. You’re back where you started. You think you’ll never make it and then your husband decides you need a trial separation.

So here I am - the one who would never have an eating disorder, never be part of a broken marriage, amidst those very two things.

It’s funny how you can be surrounded by people and feel so very, very lonely.

Now I feel slightly better.