Barking Mad

Constructive Destruction - Finding a Phoenix Amongst the Ashes

I Want to be The Biggest Loser

I have applied to be a contestant on NBC's The Biggest Loser. 

I am morbidly obese enough, and to such a degree, to make me an ideal candidate for The Biggest Loser.

OH.MY.GOD.

I don't believe I'm actually putting this out here for my tens of readers - and well OK, the probably one thousand or so more that I emailed and asked for support, encouragement, prayers, and wishes for good luck.

The actual decision to do this was made a while ago; the day I sat on the toilet seat and it broke and ended up breaking open a damn of anger and feelings I have, for too long, buried. 

For those who follow me on Facebook, you already knew that I was going to apply for the show.  For some reason it wasn't as hard to admit it out there (probably because I know that as someone who posts status updates like, "...thinks she could definitely meet her weight loss goal if she had to pedal to use her computer." and "...just read a list of 100 Things to do Before You Die' and was surprised that 'yell for help' wasn't one of them!" that there aren't too many people reading what I have to say anyhow!), but putting the words down here...well it's been difficult, to say the least. 

I've worried almost incessantly about what you'd think of me if you knew there was more to me than just the floating head-shots that I post...that are all I ever post! 

Like this...

 

...and this...

 

Or even this one...

 

I have never, ever, online anywhere, posted a full-length body shot of myself.  Especially not out here in Bloggywood where, on the rare occasion, the catty-ness level surpasses that found on The Real Housewives of New Jersey/Orange County/New York/Atlanta.

Being a photographer, I know how to tilt my head and angle the camera in order to not capture my four bulging chins and my neck encased in so much adipose tissue as to make it barely discernible as neck.  I wear enough make-up to put a clown to shame and I spend a lot of time arranging my hair so that it hides as much of my face-fat, as possible.  I don't PhotoShop pictures of myself, but I certainly don't put enough out there to show how really big I am. 

Living With the Constant Fear of Being Rejected Because of How I Look

Up until now I've been in abject fear of the reaction and the disgust.  It's one of the biggest reasons I became a recluse and refuse to go to any sort of conventions like BlogHer, Blissdom, Mom 2.0 or any of the other ones. It's also the reason I do my grocery shopping as late as possible - so I don't have to deal with the stares of all the people, looking at what the really fat lady put into her shopping cart.  I didn't want to see the shocked and horrified expressions on your face when you finally meet me face to face. Until recently I've been so completely consumed by worry over what everyone would think of me. 

As women, we judge one another so harshly and often times we are so cruel to one another because of how we look.  I didn't want the friendships I've formed out here, some very close, to dissolve because I was not the person you'd built me up, in your head, to be.  Because I've been living through fear-tinted windows for a very long time, I didn't realize how these thoughts did a huge disservice to all of you...the people I'm afraid to meet and interact with.

A Very Heavy Burden

Let's be honest...you all know I've been candid about my issues surrounding my weight, especially the struggles I've had with it since The Very Bad Thing happened more than two years ago.  You know that as a result of that, I developed an eating disorder, bulimia.  Despite being bulimic, I still managed to gain 125+lbs [on an already morbidly obese frame] in less than two years time.  Obviously, bulimia was more of a control tool than what I had insanely thought it could be...a means to lose weight, or at the very least, help keep me from gaining more weight.  In the end, it just made me sicker and helped shove me deeper into the abyss of depression I was drowning in.  The bulimia was controlling me...not the other way around. 

Although The Very Bad Thing was one of the worst, most devastating, humiliating, demeaning and foul things I have ever been through, it opened up wounds that had never really closed and forced me to deal with them.  Going through what I did in the aftermath of TVBT nearly destroyed me in almost every way possible. In dealing with other hurts and issues from my past, I was forced to tear away the veneer of the past twenty years, and really deal with what was eating me and in turn, making me eat. With the help of a wonderful psychiatric team, I have been doing the work of tearing myself down so that I could prepare to build myself up again.

Over the past three years out here, I have laid bare the deepest wounds and scars on my heart and soul...the loss of my two-year-old son, Joshua.  What I haven't told you is that while I was merely overweight after his birth, and then the subsequent birth of my twins (who were only six months old when I lost Joshua), after he died, I went into a tailspin that left me eating nearly everything in sight, rather than grieving for my son.  It was so bad in fact, and started so early after his death, that I remember very vividly driving from Joshua's burial to the wake and thinking about the food that had been catered by good friends of ours; thinking about how I couldn't wait to eat and eat eat...It was far easier to think about food than it was to think about laying that precious little boy in the ground. So I buried myself in food, and in turn, in fat. 

I Insulated myself with mounds and mounds of food.  It was more than comforting.  It was a friend who wouldn't leave me, wouldn't die on me. I wouldn't have to bury it and mourn it's loss or absence in my life. 

I didn't grieve Joshua's death...rather, I ate. And ate, and ate. 

From the moment Joshua died, I blamed myself. I think, on some level, I also thought that all the eating would put an early end to my pain and I'd sooner, rather than later, be with my son again and be there for him the way I obviously had failed to do the night he died. In doing so, I've been dying a slow and horrible death.  Very simply put, for almost twenty years, I have been slowly and methodically burying myself alive under all of this fat. 

However...the old me is under there, dying to be the new me!  She's there...can you see her?

 

I am Giving Myself Permission to Live Again

That's all changing though!  The day I sat down on the toilet seat and it broke under the strain of my weight was the day I began to live again. It was the day I finally got angry and said ENOUGH! 

It was the day I broke, into a million little pieces and cried, and yelled and screamed for everything I've lost.  I broke myself so that I could mend myself.

It was the day I decided I wanted to live, genuinely wanted to live! 

It was the day I told myself that no more were people going to tell me, to my face, that I had such a pretty face but was too fat to be truly beautiful!

It was the day that I saw myself not solely as a morbidly obese woman, but saw the real person I am inside...the wife who adores and loves her husband, the mother who strives to make amends for past mistakes and works very hard to prove that she's worthwhile as a parent!

It was the day that I took all of my clothes off and looked in the mirror...actually looked at myself and saw the woman buried deep inside, begging to be let out in order to live her life and prove that she's more than just a mound of jiggling flesh, packed tightly into unattractive clothing, hidden under hundreds of excess pounds!  

It was the day that I decided hiding from the rest of the world in an effort to avoid the cruel snickers and accusing stares wasn't doing me any good and that in order to live in the world, I needed to start living in the world!

It was the day that I decided to make good on my promise to Gareth that I'd give New York a chance, and the people of our new little town, and start to integrate myself into society once more.

It was the day I finally gave myself permission to love myself again and to live my life and celebrate the person that I am and never ever let another human being make me feel less-than for being more-than what is considered ideal or perfect!

It was the day I decided to love myself enough to take care of myself!

**********

I choose The Biggest Loser because I know it will give me the best chance at reclaiming my life in a manner which I'll find comforting.  Yeah, I know...how can parading around, with my flab hanging out, in a sports bra and bike shorts, on national TV, being weighed weekly in front of millions of viewers, be comforting?   

I'll be there with other people, waging the same war, under similar burdens who have traveled their own roads that led them to the place where they realized they needed to make some intense and extreme changes in order to reclaim ownership of their lives, and stop living to eat and start eating to live! I know I'm up to the challenge and I'm so ready for the hard work.  I also know that I can't do it alone...that I need help, I need to be pushed and I need guidance from people who know what they're doing and have proven it time and time again.  It gives me added incentive to reach out to the folks at The Biggest Loser because our personal health insurance coverage doesn't so much as cover anything remotely connected to weight loss.

All of this brings me full circle...to you, my readers and friends.  I'm asking for your support and encouragement.  I'm asking you to stand behind me as I move forward and reclaim what I've let others take from me, and what I've given away freely...my life.  I fully intend on at least getting in front of the show's producers and going through whatever paces they put me through.  I hope that you'll all be there with me, cheering me on as I work hard to enjoy the life I've been so richly blessed with.  When I first started working on the application for the show and thinking about my video submission, I thought, "What the hell, I've got nothing to lose!"  But see, I do...I have everything to lose - my life if I don't do it, and all this weight if I do, do it.

And yeah...I don't just want to be on The Biggest Loser...I WANT TO BE THE BIGGEST LOSER!

  

P.S. To follow my adventures (keeping my fingers crossed that I get chosen for season 10 of The Biggest Loser), you can follow me on Twitter ... Barking_Mad

 

Feeling Good, Despite Feeling Like I Have ADD

Photo by me

"Birds flying high
You know how I feel
Sun in the sky
You know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by
You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me..
And I'm feeling good....

There are so many things that I have been wanting to post about but so far they remain as half-written posts in a burgeoning draft folder that more resembles a bird cage, packed with hundreds of brightly colored birds - some a little darker than others whilst some so bright that they are almost blinding.  Vivid violet parakeets and navy blue nightingales all beating their wings at the bars of the cage with nary a single space left between them.   That's a little how it feels to be in my head right now too. 

...Fish in the sea
You know how I feel
River running free
You know how I feel
Blossom in the trees
You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me...
And I'm feeling good....

So much going on and I can't slow it all down long enough to sort it out and just let it flow into cohesive words that form sentences and paragraphs. 

The thing is, I feel like I'm starting to see shreds of light at the end of the tunnel.  It's far into the distance but it is there.  I have to squint to see it sometimes, but it's there dammit!  I feel it deep inside my soul.  For the first time in a long time, I feel it.  Despite other people in my line of sight trying to blot it out, I see it.  Despite nagging fears and feelings of self-loathing, I see it.  I am fighting hard to not let go of it. 

...Dragonfly out in the sun
You know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all out having fun
You know what I mean
Sleep in peace
When, the this day is done
And this old world
Is a new world
And a bold world
For me...

On that note, can I ask a favor of you? 

Please be patient with me whilst I begin the process of sorting out all of this and start dealing with..., well - me.   My posts might be dense with substance and emotion or light and airy - sort of like my brain sometimes.  The point is, I'm just beginning to feel again and it's an overwhelming process.  But to begin the hard work of healing, I must feel these things.  I have to allow myself to feel them.  Some of them aren't pretty and are from the foul bowel of the hell I've been living in.

I have a lot of work ahead of me.  If I want to survive, and please believe me when I say I do, if I want to spend the next years living that dream I had, rather than spending it wondering how long until I actually sit in that icy cold bathtub full of water and do what I very nearly did last year, or continue to stick my finger down my throat until my heart and my body simply can not keep pace with the destruction, then this hard work of putting myself back together, must be done.

This "feeling good" thing is very new to me.  Some days it's not there, but some it is and I  am just barely in the embryonic stages of it.  I still have to give myself permission to feel good, to feel positive and to feel this fleeting sense of hope; hope that I will survive and come out of this - whole, and well and healthy. 

Even on the days recently when I haven't been completely "feelin' it" there is still that glimmering strand of light that I see in the distance.  I just have to keep reaching it and believing that I deserve my place in the light.

...Stars when you shine
You know how I feel
Scent of the pine
You know how I feel
yeah, freedom is my lie
When you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me..."

The below video is Muse performing one of my favorite songs, "Feeling Good" (the lyrics above) live at Wembley Stadium in the UK.  It's a cover, and I can't recall who originally wrote and sang the song, but this is by far my favorite version.  I plan on heading out today for a little bit to do something for Jan and I am going to blast this song, police be damned.  And for those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you'll know what I'm talking about.

This is my anthem!

Catching the Blush

I took this photo of one of the hydrangeas on the lone hydrangea bush that survived my prune-a-thon when we first bought our home back in July of '07.  I had no idea that I was whacking away at one of my favorite flowering plants.  I think I might adore hydrangeas even more than my oft beloved tulips. 

As we were walking back into the house from collecting Geronimo after our first [failed] attempt at walking him, I happened to notice that the plump hydrangea blooms were blushing.  Yes, they really were beginning to blush. The most amazing pale and hot pinks were just beginning to spread over the hundreds of tiny petals.

We had two tiny blooms in September of '07 and they were both solid white.  There were only scarcely more blooms last year and not nearly as healthy as this year's.  Like the blooms from the late summer of '07, all of them were white. 

This year, my hydrangea plant, despite being hacked to death by a mad woman with a black thumb, has a few more blooms yet, and they are beautiful.  Lush, heavy with petals and starting to blush and turn into something so beautiful I can not find the words to give weight to the heaviness of how truly gorgeous they are.  The above and below pictures barely do them justice.

In many ways, these flowers are symbolic of so many things in my life right now.

It's hard to believe that they survived very nearly being pruned to death by someone who didn't have a clue in hell as to what the plant was, or what she was doing to it.  I've no doubt that it was healthy and thick with a bounty of blossoms to offer in the years before I discovered it.  Now, here it is, on the rebound, healthy and lovely.  I look at it and see the same things I want to see in myself.

The hydrangea has survived a lot.  It survives a lot.  It goes through winters when it's buried under mounds of frozen white snow and crystal clear ice.  It's pounded by the angry winds of winter Nor'easters and then pelted by the relentless rain of early spring storms only to have to suffer through the heat and humidity of New England summers.  Most importantly, it survived my abuse.  OK, so it wasn't intentional, but I almost killed it.  Yet here it stands, in all it's amazing glory, blessing me with it's most exquisite presence, like some sort of beacon in having faith that what once was, can be again.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and am instantly repulsed by what I see...by what I've become, what I've let myself become.  If I don't cover the mirror, I end up sticking my finger down my throat and trying to bring up some of the ugliness from inside. 

In the end, it doesn't work.  It just makes the ugliness even worse.  In the end I should look back at my hydrangeas and realize it takes time, but eventually the beauty that's always there resurfaces.  It isn't forced or hastened.  With time it comes.

When I noticed the blush I thought to myself how nice it would be to walk by a mirror one day and catch the same sort of beautiful blush...something I wasn't expecting but was amazed and happy to see.

I really hope it's still in there and that I haven't damaged myself so badly that it's impossible to resurrect myself and catch my own beautiful blush. 

The Real Cost of Bulimia

If this post comes across as rambling or incoherent, please cut me a little slack as I'm writing this in the midst of a firestorm of anger.  It's literally seething from every pore in my body.  If anger gave off a scent, I would no doubt smell of sulfur and brimstone.   To the very core of my being I am awash in the red hot lava of fury, rage and and am about to boil over with torrents of resentment.

And I also want to make it crystal clear that I'm not writing this to elicit sympathy or to persuade anyone to throw a pity party in my honor.  I'm writing it because I need to get it out and being honest about this is the only way I know how to do that.   The other reason is that maybe someone out there, someone reading this is going through something similar and punishing themselves the way I am.  Or thinking about it.  Maybe you know someone who is battling with self-image issues or a weight problem and they think bulimia is a way to handle it.  It's not!  Dear God it's not.  What it is, is a living hell that leads to other problems.  Take my word for it...listen to me when I tell you that if I don't get this under control, it's going to kill me; sooner rather than later.  It also takes a tremendous toll on the people around you.

To what do I owe this anger?

Me!

Take a good look at the picture.  That's me.  The red area around the corners of my mouth?  It's a bacterial infection caused by the bulimia.  It's also under my nose, underneath my eyes and on my eyelids.  Apparently the bacteria can be transmitted to other parts of my face if I touch my face after getting rid of whatever I've eaten, or in the event that I drool in my sleep...which, OK, I have been known to do occasionally.

It's painful as hell.  I feel like someone has taken a blow torch to my face and then it begins to dry out and my face resembles this...

 

I first noticed it a few weeks ago and thought I had an allergic reaction to some makeup or moisturizer.  It eventually dried up and went away.   And then it came back last week with a vengeance and the pain was so bad that it forced me to make a doctor's appointment.  I try to avoid my family doc at all costs as she's the nicest person on the face of the earth and tiptoes around my nasty little habit, yet at the same time is very direct without being judgmental about making me aware of what this is doing to me. 

After nearly 30 minutes spent in her office while she looked in her online reference manuals and amongst her thick desk top tomes,  she finally consulted with another partner in the practice who specializes in teen-pediatrics  and both concurred that what I had going on all over my face was the result of a nasty bacterial infection due to my bulimia. 

They spoke back and forth for a few minutes and agreed that while treating it with oral antibiotics would probably be the quickest and least painful course of treatment...for someone without bulimia; due to my dirty little tendency, I would probably be better off using a topical anti-bacterial gel.   Both physicians told me that it would likely get worse before it got better and that the gel could be excruciating to apply.  They also mentioned that most insurance carriers didn't cover it.  They weren't wrong about that.  They also understated the pain this stuff would cause when I applied it.  It's like taking a blowtorch to already-scorched skin. It brings tears to my eyes.  So much so that I'm terrified of applying this stuff to my eyelids.  I don't think I can handle the pain.

Do you know what the most painful part of this entire thing is?  I brought this on myself and now because of all my issues, I'm causing my family immense financial strain.  

We have always taken great pride in having a financial "cushion" to fall back on in the event of an emergency.  Due to doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and outpatient clinic appointments and the co-pays that go with it, our cushion is gone.  We've also had three other things happen in the last few months that are draining us financially.  I won't go into detail in regards to those situations, but suffice it to say, the hit we took due to those instances would not have been so devastating had it not been for my downward spiral.

Having Gaby in Montessori for as long as we did due to my inability to care for her - MY OWN DAUGHTER!!!! -  was another financial drain.  Don't get me wrong, she loves it and misses being there full time.  But we thought that having her home more often with me would help me.  Now I'm not so sure. I love her to death and seeing her smile is one of the best parts of my day. But who needs to see their mom go through something like this?  I know you might be sitting there saying to yourself, "Audrey, take her out those two days and save that money!  It should be obvious!"  Well, if I take her out, I have no place to put her while I'm going to my various doctors and other appointments.  Believe me, I have thought about it.  I've thought about taking her out of Montessori altogether and stopping treatment because at this point, the financial toll it's taking is potentially going to cost us our house...and IT'S ALL MY FAULT!

The toll this is taking on our family isn't just financial.  No, not by a long shot.

I can see the strain in Gareth's face and I can hear the stress when he lays next to me at night and doesn't think I'm awake.  He strokes my hair and rubs my shoulders and he sighs.  It's the most agonizing sound a wife can hear her husband make.  He wants his touch to be the salve the heals my broken soul.  He's never once complained about any of this.  But I know that it must weigh heavily on his mind and heart.

My relationship with Meaghan is at it's all time nadir.  She hates the monster I have become and takes it to heart that she can't make me laugh.   The last few days have been extremely tense around here as she and I no longer talk.  Our disagreements have reached epic proportions and I fear that the ever deepening chasm between us will not be bridged before she leaves for Basic in November.

I feel badly for Matt.  He's walked into a situation he knows barely anything about but I'm sure it's obvious that we're stretched tight financially as we aren't able to replace the Volvo that we gave to Meaghan once she got her license, the same one he was going to use once she left for Basic.  It's been a great car, but with almost 200,000 miles on it, it was bound to die at some point.  And die it did.   I don't know what Matt thinks about me at this point.  He was privy to the screaming match Meaghan and I got into Saturday night.  It was so bad that Gareth had to take Gaby to another part of the house altogether so that she wouldn't be traumatized by the volley of shouts and f-bombs.

All of this takes an even deeper toll on me.  I feel so guilty.  We worked our asses off to get into this house.   But I am honest enough to admit that we should have waited for something smaller in Cape Elizabeth.  But no...I had to have this house.  At the time we could easily afford it.  Then once we were in and settled our little town reassessed property values and our property taxes shot through the roof.  OK, no biggie.  We'll tighten our belts.  Then my younger son Zack had a crisis at the exact time The Very Bad Thing happened and well...it all started to go to hell in a hand-basket.

Now we're at a very scary place where we want to fight like hell to keep our house but ultimately it's going to mean making a decision between continuing my treatment or making mortgage payments.  Yes, we've been to our lender, to various gov't agencies, etc, and for a handful of reasons we qualify for nothing. Not a damn thing.  The other kicker in all of this...our house has lost almost $100K in value since we bought it in July of '07 and it's only going to get worse with our area's major employer, a naval air base, closing soon.

There are so many other negative aspects to this disorder, not to mention it's just plain foul!  I go through toothpaste and mouthwash at alarming rates.  I have sores in my mouth.  The enamel on my teeth is being eroded away by the stomach acid.  I cry every time I do it - it's my body's way of reacting to the violent forces involved in making myself force my food back up.  I'm terrified someone is going to hear me do this and that causes even more anxiety.  And now?  Now there are some foods I can't even handle any more that automatically come back up.  This isn't a fun way to live...not at all.  And to ice the cake.  I'm still obese. Bulimia is not a solution.  It just creates more problems.

So you see, the real cost of bulimia is much more than financial.  It's mental, it's emotional, and it's certainly physical.  It affects every fucking aspect of my life and I hate it.  What I hate most is that I created this monster and I have no idea how to kill it before it kills me.  And that my friends, that makes me hate myself even more.