As I step further into this transformation and feel what it is like to take responsibility for myself and make good decisions, my mind takes me back to all the times I have tried this before. I find myself thinking about my past and certain times in my life - wishing I could have found this skill back then, but also just appreciating what is different about then to now.
A few years ago, well, lets be precise, 4.5 years ago, I broke up with Jules. We had been together for nearly 7 years and it was a relationship of highs and lows. Lots of lows, deep lows, especially by the end. Jules used to self harm by cutting herself, and this would happen fairly regularly. She was also an alcoholic and drank at least a 6 pack of beer every night and then went all out on weekends. She also spent a fair bit of time thinking that she would be better off dead. Oh God this is really hard to write. Despite all of this, I loved her very much. She was funny and gave me a sense of protection. She loved me like no one else had before and I lived in hope. I guess over the 7 years I also had become quite entangled with her. I wanted things to change for her, so they could change for me. Every time I wanted to surge forward to a better life for me, it would get a lot harder for our relationship.
Eventually, our relationship ended. Not in a loving and respectful way, but it did end. She went out for the night, kissed another woman and didn't come home until the morning. She told me about it and I left the house, but not before calling her friend because I knew she was going to try to kill herself. Luckily her friend got to her in time and she went to stay with her for a while. I was completely devastated, for so many reasons. We both knew it was the right thing, but it was so hard to actually separate. I had been so used to taking responsibility for her and not for myself. It was so hard for me to let her go.
Our son was 10 months old and it was a week before his first Xmas when it all happened. It took me many months to pick myself up. I functioned in the world, but was so messy inside. I had to sell our house and find somewhere else to live, get a job, organise child care, and work out how to look after a small child 24/7 by myself. I got things sorted, and after a few months, I decided to go the the gym. It was so good. I got a break from my son, I got to have a lot of time to just think and to start moving my body. I had spent a good part of the previous 12 months stuck to the lounge, not doing anything, not having energy or drive. It was such a great thing for me to do. I started to feel alive again.
I still couldn't eat right though. Chocolate was my drug. I had always used chocolate as my friend, but it started getting out of hand after my break up with Jules. About 12 months after starting at the gym, they were having a 12 week challenge. I felt like the time was right to get things moving with my eating and lose some of the weight that I had started putting on again. I promised myself when I started that "this was it!" I was going to get the weight off and keep it off. No more dieting and putting it back on again. I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I was doing it for me and it was really going to work...blah blah blah... Really what was going on in my head was...if I lose this weight, Jules will notice me again and I will show good I look and she will be sorry that she left me, she might even want to get back together... (it's a bit embarrassing admitting this).
I never got to find out what she thought though because a month into the challenge, she took her own life. I thought I knew loss and I thought I had grieved for her, but it was nothing compared to what I felt after she died. Then on top of that, the guilt I felt made it all so much worse. Her new girlfriend blamed me for her death and so did some of her family and friends. I also blamed me for her death. It took me a long time to work out it wasn't my fault. Every day for 9 months I would wake up and have an argument with myself about whether it was my fault and think about what I could have done differently to save her from dying. Even after my breakthrough moment of realising it wasn't my fault, I still held on to some responsibility. It has taken me all of the last 3 years to keep working on letting her go and not be held back by her or her death.
In those first couple of months, the 12 week challenge, kept me going. I was like a robot - go to the gym, eat what they say. I ended up losing 11 kg and dropping to 80kg. But as soon as it ended, it was like someone had taken my safety net away and I was instantly back into chocolate and fried food. Consequently, over the last 3 years I have put on the 11kgs I lost plus an extra 6.
I have done a lot of work on healing myself emotionally. I want so much to lose this weight and never put it on again. I didn't want to start something until I knew I was doing it only for me, and for that to happen I needed to make sure I had really let go of Jules and was only focussed on myself. For the past year I have been lamenting about feeling so stuck. Stuck in the rut of eating chocolate and other fat full, nutritiously disastrous food and wishing it could be different. I had no faith that anyone could offer me something that would change things for me and I didn't have the skills or self love to do it by myself. I was stuck on the lounge, feeling depressed, constantly self sabotaging any attempt to make a change. I felt hopeless and desperate.
I now realise that is how I have felt a lot during my life. I was waiting for someone to come and fix it for me, or worse still, present me with their own problems that I could focus on instead. The one thing I needed to make the change, was leadership. My own leadership. My own commitment to and responsibility for me. I needed a plan and a push in the right direction and I have found that in the 12wbt program.
I am expecting more of this to come up over this journey. More struggles about the choices I have made and the experiences I have had. More struggles with being the leader of my life and reverting back to wanting someone else to look after it for me. But things have changed. My sense of myself has changed, really changed. I know how I'm supposed to be treating myself now, and I like it. My life has a new direction and the momentum is building. Things can't go back to the way they were, it's all different. Bring on the next 8 weeks!
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