246.4lbs

My first week on the Gundry Diet has been going well.  Since starting on Monday morning, I have lost almost 3 pounds so far this week.  Let me tell you, it's been a LOT easier than I thought.  The first couple of days were a bit hard because my body was getting used to no carbs and no sugar so I kept getting hunger pangs all day long.  And Wednesday I was feeling a bit tired and a little depressed.  Other than that, I have been feeling great and love seeing the scale go down.  I've been following the diet to a tee and the only blip happened on Valentine's dinner when I had a little too much red wine.  I tried stopping at one glass, but when you get me with my family and we start talking and laughing, there is no stopping.  I had almost a whole bottle to myself!  But it was Valentine's Day and I was able to stay away from the pounds of chocolate that my son brought home from his class Valentine's Day party and, other than wine I consumed, I stayed on the diet and ate a very yummy dinner of poached black cod and steamed veggies.  The next morning I saw a slight gain on the scale, which I expected. 

Something interesting happened this week.  And the timing couldnt have been more perfect because I was planning on writing a post about this dude today.  So, on Wednesday morning I woke up to a private message on my FB from an ex that I hadn't spoken to in almost 13 years.  

Today I suffer from severe low self esteem, self doubt, and social anxiety.  I believe that there are a few people in my past who have caused this, and this ex is one of them.  We'll call him Boyfriend #1 (Let me say that I've had boyfriends before this but I will call the two i'm about to write about Boyfriend #1 and Boyfriend #2 because these are the 2 boyfriends that completely destroyed me.)

When I was 21 years old, I was a senior at San Francisco State University.  I was partying way too much and not taking school seriously.  Around that time, my Dad was laid off of from a job he had been working at for more than 20 years. Because my parents could not financially support me (I was working as a waitress part time to pay for my food and spending money, but I needed help paying rent), and because I wasn't exactly doing well in my courses, we decided that it would be best for me if I withdrew from school and moved back home.  Although I knew it was the best decision for myself and my family at the time, I felt really bad that I quit school and was back living at home when my college friends were moving on to graduate and get awesome jobs.  I felt TERRIBLE about myself.  So I came back, got another waitressing job, and continued to party.  I drank alot.  I smoked a lot of weed.  I felt like a total loser.  So I drank more.  And I smoked more.  At a time when I needed someone to pick me up and help get me back on track, my mom decided to do the opposite.  She kicked me when I was down.  I remember her calling me a loser and telling me I would never amount to anything.  I already felt like a loser inside and was so scared about my future so to hear my mom confirm my feelings broke my heart and sent me spiraling.  

It was around this time that I met Boyfriend #1.  He was the new waiter at work and I had actually gone to high school with him, though we were in different social groups and I really didnt know him too well.  He was really, really cute.  A blonde, blue-eyed boy, and I've always been a sucker for that.  He was very popular with the other girls we worked with, but he zeroed in on me.  And I was completely flattered.  In the beginning, our relationship was strictly physical, which I was okay with.  I suspect he was seeing other girls at the time, which I never questioned him about because my self-esteem was already low and I wanted him any way I could get him.  I became obsessed.  Boyfriend #1 was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  There were days where he could be the sweetest person in the world, telling me he wanted a committed relationship with me and that I was so pretty, so smart, so funny, blah blah.  Then the very next day he would be reminding me we weren't in a committed relationship and that he liked other girls, including some of my friends.  He would tell me I was chubby.  He would tell me I was ugly.  We would go out to bars together and he would openly flirt with women in front of me.  One time he actually left with another girl.  Yes.  Yes......Yes.  And the next day he called me (and I actually answered) and he completely gas-lighted me, telling me I was crazy and manipulating me so much that by the end of the conversation I was apologizing to him for making such a big deal about his cheating on my basically in front of my face. 

He told me I was trash and would never amount to anything (mirroring what my mom was telling me at home) and that no man would ever want me.  He would call me on nights we werent together just to tell me he had just had sex with another girl.  The next day, he would beg me to come over.  When I did (which I always did), he would hold me and tell me how beautiful I was.  

My self esteem was at a 6 when I met him and then at a 2 when, a year later, I decided to finally get rid of him.  One day he called me up and told me that he was trying to have sex with one of my good friends and asked if I could give him her number.  I hung up the phone and severed all ties with him, including quitting my job at the restaurant we both worked at.  I got a job working at an office in downtown L.A. and my life was starting to come together.  And then I met Boyfriend #2.

He was from the East Coast and had moved to L.A. to "start a new life".  I met him on Hollywood Boulevard.  I thought he was really cute, and had a cool Ecko sweatshirt on at a time when Ecko sweatshirts were cool (this was the early 2000s).  We exchanged numbers and went out on our first date later that week.  He was really sweet at first, made me laugh, seemed like he came from a good family.  Red flags were he did not have a job, smoked even more weed than I did, and told me he had been diagnosed as clinically depressed and had violent episodes in the past.  Being that I was trying to get my own life going on the right path at that time, I should have run the other way.  But I didn't.  I saw a hurting soul, just like me.  And I thought I could fix him.  Oy.

The first couple of weeks were great.  I introduced him to my family and friends and they seemed to like him okay.  However, about a month into the relationship he became a totally different person.  He became angry and volatile.  He would pick fights with me out of nowhere.  He began picking at my appearance and personality.  He started putting ideas into my head that my friends did not like me, that my parents were ashamed of me.  I tried to break up with him about 3 months into the relationship but he completely broke down in front of me and told me he needed me and he was so alone in California without his family.  I felt bad, so I continued the relationship.  It just got worse.  Nothing I ever did or said was good enough for him.  I remember one day I bought a new little dress that I thought I looked hot in.  I remember looking at myself in the mirror while I was waiting for him to pick me up and I was so excited for him to see me in this cute little dress.  He walked into my room and I stood up, so excited and smiling, to show him me in this dress.  He just stared at me with a blank expression.  So I asked him how I looked.  And he said, "You need to shave your upper arms."  I was stunned.  

That year, during the holidays, I gained a bit of weight.  Let me just tell ya.  I was 23 years old and pretty much in my prime.  I believe I weighed about 130 pounds at the time, tops. And I have a larger frame.  I am not a small woman, so 130 pounds on my body is thin.  I believe I was wearing a size 6 at the time.  After noticing I had put on a couple pounds, I made the horrible mistake of asking for his opinion on my weight.  "Do you think i'm fat?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, without hesitation. "I only like really skinny girls so you need to lose a lot of weight."

This went on for almost two years, friends.  Yes.  I stayed with this heartthrob for almost TWO YEARS.  And it only got worse.  It only got a lot, lot worse.  He never hit me, but he said things to me about myself and my appearance that I'm still trying to get past today.  He was a horrible, sad, angry person.  And one day I was sitting with him in his apartment (that his parents paid for because he didnt have a job) and I looked over at him.  At that moment, I really SAW him for what he was.  He was an ugly, skinny, broke, uneducated, and uninteresting person that completely hated himself.  He was mean.  He was hateful.  He was a total and complete loser.  And I wanted nothing to do with him anymore.  So I broke up with him, right then and there.  While he crumbled to the floor in fake tears begging me not to go, I gathered all my stuff and walked out. 

Two years later, I began posting on the fan forum of an underground, Bay Area hip hop group I loved.  One of the other posters there was a guy from Sacramento that went by the  user name Messiah916. I thought his posts were funny and he, apparently, thought my posts were funny too.  We began private messaging eachother little by little and eventually, I gave him my phone number and we began to talk on the phone.  It was just friendship at first because, I mean, he lived in Sacramento and I live in Los Angeles. But we spoke daily and texted pretty much nonstop for more than a year.  I told him everything about myself, my family, my thoughts.  I told him everything.  He did the same.  We were best friends.  On February 9, 2009 I took a deep breath, called him up, and told him I loved him.  He told me he loved me too.  Six months later he moved to Los Angeles to be with me.  A year after that we were married.  Now 8 years later we have a beautiful almost 6 year old son.  My husband, Josh, is everything I ever dreamed about.  He has seen me at my best, and loved me.  He has seen me at my worst, and loved me. I have told him things about myself that I've never told anyone...my darkest, hardest, saddest thoughts.  And he held my hand.  He encourages me to write.  He encourages me to seek therapy.  He encourages me to speak up.  He listens to me and he believes in me.  And not once in the 10 years that I have known him has he put me down. Not once.  

Me and Josh in 2009, just a couple months after he moved to L.A.

I have married my soulmate and because of that, I feel blessed.  However, I am still suffering from self-doubt and low self-esteem.  I have so much built up resentment and anger inside of me from years of being treated like dirt by people that I loved and trusted. It has negatively effected every aspect of my life, including my weight.  But also, and more importantly, my role as a mom and wife. 

So I've started therapy and have rehashed so many terrible memories from my past.  And BOOM!  Boyfriend #1 decides to reach out to me.  Oy, friends, it was a big mistake on his part.  I was so close to deleting the message and blocking him.  But I knew it would always bother me if I didnt seize the moment and tell him how his actions and his treatment of me negatively effected my life.  So I did, in not a very nice way.  I let him have it.  I told him he was a scumbag and took advantage of my trust and need for acceptance.  I told him he was a terrible, terrible person. And I reminded him of the time he told me that I would never be good enough for any man, and I sent him a picture of my husband and I are on our wedding day.  I told him he was wrong.  

Not even two hours later, he responded.  His response was heartfelt and he seemed humbled by my response. He told me he was a different person now and that he truly felt bad for the way he treated me because I didn't deserve it.  He said that I was actually a really important lesson in his life and that I had "taught him so much about love and friendship", which is why he was reaching out to me.  So that he could mend things between us and let me know that he was truly sorry for how things went down between us and hoped we could be friends.

I read the message, deleted it, and blocked him.  Because I don't care how sorry he feels now....that guy deserves no part of me.  Not even my forgiveness.  

My therapist told me that one of the things she hoped to accomplish during our work together is to help me learn how to tell people to fuck off when they try to hurt me or put me down.  That is something that is so hard for me to do for SO MANY REASONS....

More on that next time....