When you stumble, make it part of the dance...

 

I feel like a failure.

This has been the thought running through my head for the past few months.

I feel like a fraud – even though, deep down inside, I know I’m not.

Why do I feel this way?  Because I’ve gained my weight back – not all of it, but most of it.

You see, the last few months have been pretty hellish for me and in true me form, I bottled it up and pretended like it wasn’t there – I didn’t let myself feel those emotions, I put a lid on that box, and buried it deep.

But apparently, this isn’t the way to cope.  Funny that!

You see – the last few months I’ve lost some exceptionally amazing people in my life.  Last August, my Aunty, and more recently my father in law.  Losing my father in law was incredibly difficult – since the day my husband and I met 10 years ago he’s lived with us.

He was there from day one.  Through moving into our first official home together, through 3 pregnancies, births, first holds, Christmas’, Easters… you get my drift.  He was there.  My husband was his carer as he was a very ill man.  Every night, I cooked his dinner, helped wash his plate and say Good night.  He was there every morning to wish me a Good Morning.

When my Aunty passed away, it was a really busy time in my career with Plexus, and I was (un)fortunate enough to be able to tuck away those emotions from losing her, hide them away so that I could get on with life – I mean, I have a huge business to run, 4 extremely busy children, a husband and so on.  I grieved, and then kept myself busy with life.  I bet you’ve done the same, am I right?

I didn’t realise that I was eating my feelings though.  With every emotion I felt I subdued it with food.  At first it didn’t seem like the weight was coming back.  A KG here, 500g there – it’s all good, I have this under control.

Then it was Christmas – and we’d just moved into a house with a pool.  Yay I thought, I’ll move the few kg’s I’ve gained back by swimming – and the first week or so I did manage to drop a KG or 2.  But I’d gained a little bit more over Christmas – Christmas food, the parties, the drinking – oh my! I’d gained 5kg.  I’d stopped taking my pink drink because I thought what’s the point with all this food/alcohol around – boy was I wrong!

January 15^th is a day I’ll never forget.

It started off so normal – I had an appointment with my beautician to make me pretty, came home and said hello to my FIL on the way through – new nail polish in the mail, yay!  Painted mine and the girls nails.

Then around 2pm my husband called me out of the office.  He was white.  And shaking.  He said he thought his dad has passed away and needed me to go check.  I opened his bedroom door and just KNEW instantly in my heart that he was no longer with us – but I checked his pulse and watched for breathing anyway.

He was gone.

Our whole world shattered right in that moment.

This man had been an incredible support system for us, he’d been the father of the most amazing man I’d ever met in my life – the most incredible father in law, loving, caring grandpa and he had passed away.

I called 000 and told them he had passed away and she instructed me to look for vital signs.  (pleasebare with me – this part of the story gives more information to my present thought process)  Of course there were none – it was obvious he’d been gone for an hour or so.  She then told me to lay him back in his arm chair and start resuscitation.  I couldn’t lay him back so she told me to do chest compressions – 600 or until the Ambulance arrived – she would stay on the phone until they were there.

Now, he’d signed a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) form and I knew this so I argued with her.  I knew he’d been gone a little while and knew that the compressions were not something he wanted!  I’m not proud but I did yell at her to listen to me as she was so forceful, but I broke and started compressions.

It was the single most hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.  Watching him, so peaceful, no longer in pain, or struggling to breathe, knowing he absolutely did not want this was breaking my heart.  After 10 minutes, the ambulance still hadn’t arrived, and I finally broke and said I’m sorry but I just cannot do this any more, this is NOT what he wanted – I put my hand on his heart and felt it slowly stop beating again – the compressions had made it beat, and I felt it stop.  I rubbed his head and said I’m sorry, and I walked outside, and broke down.

That night – I had nightmares.  I’d gone against his wishes and whatever it is that controls dreams knew that, and night after night I continued to dream horrible dreams about trying to push life back into him.  I started bottling things up, I started getting so angry with myself, I ate.

And I ate.

And I started drinking – drinking helped me forget, even if just for a little while.  The pain didn’t seem so bad.

I started wondering if I could have done more – what if I’d kept going with the compressions?  I knew that he’d been gone awhile (I wont go into detail but we just knew) so bringing him back would have meant probably being on a machine the rest of his life – but yet I still blamed myself.

The kids didn’t handle it well.  My eldest daughter went into a rage, screaming and throwing things – my other kids asked what seemed like an endless list of questions.  It was so hard to see them not understand. 

The funeral day arrived – I ate, I drank – I pushed those emotions away.  Bottled them up.  I put the lid on that box again and buried it deep!

But something was different.  The lid kept coming off the box.  I drove myself into a deep depression, I was erratic, emotional, I wasn’t sleeping – I hid my emotions from my family (I felt guilty for feeling the way I did! It was my husbands father that had died, yet he seemingly was coping okay whereas I was falling apart – so I hid it)

So I drank.

I figured I was doing really well – putting on a brave face for the family, hiding my tears by crying in the shower – I mean I’m a mum!! Mum’s are supposed to hold everything together and be strong for everyone when sh*t hits the fan, right?

Then I snapped.  And by snapped I mean I went nut ball craycray.  A few things over the course of a weekend sent me on a huge downward spiral and by the Monday (this was about 3 weeks ago) I had an emotional breakdown.  I cried like I don’t think I’ve ever cried in my life.  I sat at our back table, sobbing – trying to explain to my husband what was wrong with me. 

I did the ultimate social media no no – I took it to Facebook! I express my anger, my sadness, my deep lingering depression that I’d finally come to realise that I had and told everyone that enough was enough.  I felt like I’d/we’d had no support from ANYONE since the funeral – no one seemed to care so I told them so!  I felt like I was at the bottom of a very deep, dark hole and there was simply no way to climb back out.  And every day, the hole was deeper, and darker.

I quoted Marilyn Monroe – If you cannot handle me at my worse, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best!

The next morning I took myself off to the Dr and asked for help.

I’m not sure at what point I realised I’d gained almost all my weight back that I’d lost, but I knew the reason for it.  I am an emotional binge eater – and I’m not proud of it.  But I’m going to learn from it – and change it.

The reason I’m telling you all of this?  Well, it’s because I want you to know that I failed.

I’m a failure.

But with help from my Dr., my incredibly supportive husband, and family and friends I am now making the decision to get healthy again, emotionally and physically.

Yes I’ve put back most of the weight I lost with Plexus but I know that with a little effort from me, and my pink drink I’m able to get back on that horse and continue with my journey.

My father in law, he loaned us the money to join Plexus way back when and he’s now the basis for my new goals.

1   To get healthy again – lose weight, feel better about myself and not feel like a failure and a fraud.

   Succeed with this business and be honest with myself.  He had the faith in me, us, and in Plexus otherwise he would not have lent us the money to take this journey, and I’m dead set when I say my new goal in life is make sure that he is proud of us!  It means work, and a lot of work – it means sweat, tears, a lifestyle change, late nights, long phone calls and emotionally charged posts such as this one (so very hard to write!) but I’m going to do it.

I want to make sure that I can stand up tall and tell the world that I am fighting against obesity, fighting against emotional eating and I’m doing it the right way and in a way that will make my FIL proud of me.

I’m not a failure.

I’m not a fraud.

I’m human.

I’m back on track – loving life, and determined to make it.  I. Will. Not. Be. Stopped.

Me (26 weeks pregnant) My FIL, and my husband on our wedding day <3

If you’d like to see how I’m going, and what we’re doing check out www.facebook.com/plexusslimaustralia