Right now, I’m fighting the urge to binge, so I’m writing about it instead.
I got triggered by a consignment store, of all things. (Although, I think this has been bubbling under the surface for a while. More on that in a mo.)
About six months ago, I cleaned out my closet and put everything that didn’t really fit into a trunk. A couple of weeks ago, I felt strong enough to go through the trunk, so I got out all of the clothes and sorted them into keep, donate, consign piles.
I’ll admit it: I kept a few nice dresses that don’t actually fit me right now. I just couldn’t part with them. But I got rid of everything else.
Or, at least, I planned to. I took a big pile of nice clothes to a new consignment store near our house — probably 20+ items. The lady took six.
Some things were too summery, which is fine, but I was surprised she didn’t take the lined wool pants or the black cashmere turtleneck, given she was looking for fall/winter clothes. I tried not to feel judged.
Anyway, I paid my $12 fee to set up my consignment account and went on my merry way. Until the next day, when I got a call from the store owner, saying that she didn’t agree with the gal’s assessment, and I needed to come pick up four of the six things because they were “too summery.”
Well, that kinda pissed me off, but I hauled my butt back over there this afternoon to pick up the items: two long-sleeve blouses, a cotton sweater, and a boutique skirt. (Seriously? Too summery??)
And I put them back in my trunk with the rest of the pile of clothes that don’t fit, and started to cry.
I don’t know, there was just something about the combination of the clothes (read: ME) being rejected, combined with the fact that they are all clothes I used to wear, and like and feel good in that no longer fit, and it just all came crashing down.
~*~
Two weeks ago, I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I knew I was overweight, and over where I want to be to feel healthy and happy, but I wasn’t beating myself up about it. Overall, I was feeling pretty positive, like I could make the good changes and achieve the goals I set for myself.
And then I got on the fucking scale.
My therapist told me to throw it away months ago, and I couldn’t do it. There’s a big part of me that wants to email her and say, “You were right. YOU WERE RIGHT!”
Stupid, fucking piece of shit scale.
It said a number I didn’t want to see.
And at the time, I thought I handled it pretty gracefully. I said, “OK, well, that’s not what I want, but it’s just a number. It’s a starting place.”
And then I proceeded to have a downward spiral ever since.
I stopped exercising.
I started eating all kinds of junk food.
And I let the owner of a consignment store influence my self-worth and send me on a crying and almost-binging jag. (So far, so good; it’s hard to eat and type at the same time…)
I am going on a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime vacation in four days. I am going to eat pasta in Italy, fish in Greece, tapas in Barcelona.
And I’m probably going to feel fat the whole time.
All because I was stupid enough to step on the stupid ass scale.
And I didn’t even REALIZE it. I didn’t realize I’d been triggered until I was sitting in my car, trying not to let my 4-year-old see me cry over the fact that my clothes don’t fit, because I’m trying to raise her WITHOUT all my food and body image baggage, and we are worth more than our clothing size or the number on the FUCKING SCALE.
I’m just so tired of feeling like a failure. I’m so, so tired of this roller coaster of weight loss and weight gain. I’m so sick of it. I’m so done with it.
And I feel so lost because I do NOT know what the alternative is. I do not know how to say fuck it and give up caring how much I weigh — GOD, I wish I did.
I’m so tired of letting myself down.
And so I’m not going to binge. I’m going to cry, and rant, and publish bad words on the Internet and hope that makes me feel better.
Because I honestly don’t know what else to do at this point. But at least I’m better enough to know that ice cream isn’t going to fix it.