Wednesday, September 14, 2011

overwhelmed.

For as long as I can remember i've been...well...lets say husky. It mainly started when I was about 8 or 9. I went through this stage of a few years where I was really depressed, mostly because I didn't have a lot of friends, or any. I got made fun of a lot, and I spent a lot of time by myself and bored. Not playing with other kids meant watching a lot of tv, and developing the unfortunate habit of eating when I had nothing else to do. By the time I reached the fourth grade (easily the worst year of my life) I broke 150 pounds. To this day I can not remember weighing myself and being under 155.

It wasn't so bad in high school, I managed to maintain 175. Life was pretty good in high school I must say, and since I found myself incapable of losing weight I figured that as long as I didn't gain weight either I was fine with that. I would just be me.

Then college happened...

The freshman fifteen for me was more of a freshman 30. I thought that maybe with diet and exercise I might be able to fight off the sudden landslide of bad health I suddenly found myself in. But when the heck was I going to be doing this exercise, and how the heck could I diet when I could barely afford food let alone healthy food.

I now exist at 220 and counting. Tonight I had an experience that sort of let me see how big I was and possibly how I looked to other people. And I just...I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to do because I feel so powerless.

It is so hard to maintain the things that are already meant to be maintained. I have to keep up with five subjects at school, sixteen credit hours four of which are for a foreign language (do the math for homework yourself). That's a full time job by itself. Add the job on weekends that I can't afford to drop. The volunteer time i'm trying to get that will work so well with everything i'm working for in school already. All that I do my best to do for LB, a 140 minute round trip commute every day, trying to maintain relationships with the people that I love so much but never get to see because of all of the aforementioned stuff... then those little things like laundry, sleep, showering...I CAN'T DO IT!!!! I can't go to the gym every day or run every morning or do curl ups before bed, or pull ups...ever...There's no way to incorporate it into my schedule, there's no room. There's no way for me to make the time because there's none to be made.

I wish I could say that I just wanted to be healthy but I know that that's not true. I want how I look to be different. I'm tired of being the big girl, even if it's only in my own brain. But i'm so lost as to what I could even do about it. Everything I do has a prioritized purpose behind it. I've given up things like theatre and my clarinet and having regular tv shows to watch every week because they can't be kept.

So I look at myself and I look at the scale and I look at my jeans and how they've grown and all I can feel is despair. There is no hope for me...i'm only going to keep gaining and i'll never be able to lose anything and i'm going to be unhappy with myself for the rest of my life.

And then I get mad at myself because I know that those aren't good thoughts to be having. I know that the bible says that my beauty needs to come from the inside, but no matter how hard I wish that outer beauty didn't mean anything to me it still does. And no matter how mad parents get or feminists or social justice activists get about the unrealistic standard of beauty set by our media or how vehemently they tell us that we're all beautiful and we need to be accepted for who we are I will still see the rest of the world step aside or bend over backwards for the skinny girl. And I don't want special treatment, but I don't like being treated like a lesser.

When I was a kid everyone was supposed to be beautiful and we were supposed to accept and love ourselves no matter what we looked like. Then I got a bit older and we were suddenly supposed to not "take any more of these excuses" and put our nose to the grindstone and fix it.

Then there's the whole God thing. Sometimes I wonder to what extent he cares about this issue. I know that he loves me, and cares for me, but if I focus so much of my attention on my weight wouldn't he just say "You're missing the point. Focus on others and the tasks I have set before you, and trust in me. You shouldn't be so worried about something so skin deep." ?

So...I guess what I'm trying to say in short is that I am dramatically overwhelmed by everything. I just want to have a separate life or a time turner. I've played the game before though. The more I focus on me the more depressed I get. I just have to have a life serving others or I won't be able to function. And I complain about how busy I am but I need it that way too. The less I have to do, then the less I do at all, and the more I find that I am actually not doing anything and that makes me feel even worse about myself.

For the record, any of you reading this who are bigger or weigh more than I do and are getting mad at me over that I'm sorry. I feel your pain. Every time a girl thinner than me complains about her body or her weight all I want to do is scream at her and tell her how much I wish I looked like her. That she needs to shut up and realize how good she's got it. I have no delusions about how blessed I am. I know that I am completely and utterly blessed. Having the friends I have, the family I have, the God I have, the education that I'm getting. Life compared to like...well tons of people is pretty sweet. But I can't help but feel hopeless.

I don't know if I want too much, or if I shouldn't be wanting what it is that I want. I don't know if I'm making excuses or making things too complicated. I don't know how much is my fault and how much is my circumstances. But mostly I don't know what to do about it. I don' t know if there's anything that I can do about it. I'm stuck.

Even if I was a healthy weight and size I'd probably be complaining about something else right? Something like my homework load and how I don' t know how to handle it all, or my money issues and how I don't know how i'm going to be paying back my student loans, or something else. But I'm not a healthy weight and size and whether its trivial or not it weighs most heavily upon my heart at this moment in time.

the end.

2 comments:

  1. Sara,

    More than anything, I find myself saddened by the hurt I "hear" in your voice. The "bad boxes" that are obviously swirling around in your head are working hard to take away the "peace that surpasses all understanding."

    You're not alone - not just in the battle for a healthy weight but in the battle against negative, downward-spiral thoughts. Don't let those thoughts win. They are not more powerful than our God. He wants you to experience peace.

    I'm praying for you now. I'm willing to pray with you if it would be a blessing.

    Your brother,
    Pete

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  2. thanks pete. these issues are ones that unfortunately are some of the hardest to get rid of simply because of the world we live in. even when you try your darndest to live in the Kingdom sometimes lies of the world filter through to our ears and we hear everything the media has to say about what we should be instead of what God has to say about who we should be. but i'm going to be okay. i know so long as i follow God then i'm going to be okay even when it comes to the parts of my life that i don't care for. i'm okay most of the time but sometimes there are moments.

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