Category Archives: Frustration

Just Weight – Featherstone Returns

Intro: After a long, long hiatus (or period of forgetfulness, or distractions, or what have you), I am revisiting this project. My original topic (fitness trackers) has long been abandoned. New theme to be determined…soon.

It’s been one hell of a year. Emphasis on hell. Maybe I’ll delve into the hell part at a later time, but today’s focus is on weight and emotional eating and the fallout from terrible grief.

Last year, I embarked on a significant weight loss journey with great success. I mean, really great success. (I did Ideal Protein, which is a fantastic program. You should try it!) I never felt deprived, I was in control, I was powerful. I looked pretty good, too, which is something I haven’t been able to say about myself in, oh, well, over 20 years. Control over what I chose to eat. Control over emotions (hence, emotional eating.) It felt awesome, and boy, was I smug.

The first two months of 2016 weren’t bad. There was promise. New job, big plans for the year. Started the year thin(ish) for the first time in…anyway. Then, I lost my Dad. My brother and I lost our Dad and my mom lost her husband and my kids lost their grandfather and it was sudden and painful and to say that it is sad is understating it immensely and it’s been seven months and it still hurts and sucks and I miss my Daddy so much and I can’t process it and YES, that was the worst run-on sentence ever and it still is, but I don’t care because it is still so painful and raw and I don’t see how I am ever going to be the same. Oh, and that’s the hell part of the year.

But this is about weight and how I absolutely fell apart – or, more accurately, blew up. It shouldn’t matter so much, but we all know it does, and it’s talked about every day in some way or another in some media outlet or another. The mirror doesn’t lie. I now have to face the fact that, aside from a few days or weeks here and there over the past seven months, I channeled my grief into a smorgasbord of carbohydrates. I know better. I’ve done better. If you look at me, though, you don’t see a grieving person. You see Jabba the Hutt.

I started Weight Watchers in August, and had a tiny bit of success for a few weeks. It’s a great program, and I am not here to put it down, but it’s not for me. Too permissive. Too slow. (One week, I lost 0.2 pounds, which I attributed to the fact that I went home and changed into leggings before weigh-in.) What turned me away for good, though, was the first meeting in which I spoke out loud, about six weeks in. I opened up and shared my loss and my struggle with emotional eating and even that I had lost a pound that week despite thinking I’d fallen hard off the wagon. Silence. OK, let’s move on. Then someone announced that they only gained 1/2 a pound that week, but they tracked every day, and the room erupted in applause and I am pretty sure that person got a sticker. That was also my last meeting.

I guess I am saying all this because I have to face it head on and course correct and all sorts of other clichéd expressions. I also need to put it out there because I have been avoiding people like the plague, people I love and care about and miss terribly and need desperately but I don’t want you to see me like this.

Now it’s out there.

We get to erase the slate and reboot soon, and I plan on taking every advantage of that. Stay tuned.

Robin Williams and Me

From the output of my fitness tracking devices, one might perceive that I have spent a little too much time not being active.  With my best day over the past week being 6,077 steps on the Jawbone, and 6,571 steps on the Fitbit, one might be right. (The Jawbone reported 965 steps last Wednesday. Really, 965. I mean, several trips to the bathroom should add up to more than 965 steps, yet here we are. Small consolation, though: the Fitbit logged 4,812 steps. Same wrist.)

What do we think about people who sit around all day? Have we ever looked at someone who was overweight and thought, they’re lazy, they have no self-control, don’t they know what they’re doing? They aren’t even worth looking at; they’re the only still acceptable punch line. We see the outside, but we cannot see what’s happening on the inside. Maybe that person who hasn’t taken any steps just can’t, that day, take another step. Perhaps the act of getting out of bed and putting on a brave face is simply too much. And maybe they already think they aren’t worth looking at.

Yesterday’s passing of Robin Williams brought forth a slew of social media posts along the lines of:

  • Reach out if you need help
  • Don’t give up
  • I’m here for you
  • It’s never that bad

I read these posts with a mixture of heart-swelling gratitude and a scoop of fuck you. Hey, I know these posts are genuine and kind, and I am really not knocking the sentiments. It’s just…well, what would really happen if someone (I) started a conversation like that? Would people laugh derisively? Be repulsed? Would the handful of people who care suddenly not care any longer? On paper, things couldn’t look better. I work in a field I enjoy, and get paid semi-OK for doing so. The man I love and I share a home, and we bring to the party four awesome kids. We’re healthy. We’re reasonably attractive (well, he is, minus the “reasonably”). We appreciate a good pun. My parents and brother are nearby and supportive. So what, Emily, what could possibly be the problem?

Robin Williams is the epitome of a guy who had it all. Smart, successful, funny, adored. Three kids. Money.  Fame. I could go on, but we know, especially now, that these don’t conquer the depression. Underneath a sparkling veneer like his or that woman over there or maybe yours or even mine lives a colony of demons, each one with its own mantra: You’re no good, you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re stupid, your friends don’t even like you, you’re a terrible person, why bother anymore, you suck in more ways than anyone can ever describe. On a good day, they’re quiet, and you can see the sunshine, and you know you’re loved, but on a bad day, you can’t see beyond the darkness in front of you, and you wish everyone would disappear while simultaneously holding you tight, keeping you safe from yourself. And then on the worst days, you don’t even care that it’s dark or that anyone’s around or not. You’re numb. You can’t see past your own wish not to wake up.

Robin Williams, who brought so much light into people’s lives, couldn’t see beyond the darkness. He will be missed and mourned. He can also be a reminder – you simply don’t know what’s happening underneath, and you don’t know when people need help.  I’ve lost a bunch of people I once held dear because, in large part, I never let on what was happening underneath. What the next step will be will be determined at some future moment of clarity. Right now, I share the grief that the demons’ victory has caused.