Life Is A Beautiful Struggle: Attitude Is Everything

*WARNING: This blog post is extremely personal, very deep, and contains information that may be difficult to read about my past year. If you are easily bothered, you may want to skip this one. Seriously. (This means you, Mom, and probably Memma, too. Love y'all.) <3*

Recently a comment was made to me about my journey. The person reflected that I somehow managed to be upbeat about my journey, in spite of the fact that it has been a bumpy road along the way. She commented that I always presented a positive attitude, and how that impressed her.

The truth of the matter is, it wasn't always that way. When I fell off the map in the beginning of 2012, I fell off the map because I entered a deep depression. My life was completely chaotic, and I succumbed to the chaos. I was not positive or upbeat about anything. I felt like my entire world was crashing down around me, and in some ways, it was. I had a lot of "bad" things happen in a very short period of time. I became utterly overwhelmed. Somehow, I totally began to lose myself. I quit trying completely with my weight loss. I gained back nearly 30 pounds of the 60 that I had lost, reaching a weight of 281 pounds. Some days, I just didn't think that I had the strength to face the day.

During this period of time, as I continued to falter and barely stumble my way through my life, I began having daily thoughts of suicide. When I say daily, I mean everyday, a good portion of the day. I began being convinced that my family would be better off without me, and none of my friends would miss me. I felt like a total failure in the game of life. Not wanting to put my family through any further emotional trauma is the only thing that kept me from driving my car into a tree at 120 mph. My internal monologue was so bad that I was afraid to mention my thoughts to anyone. I was certain that if I did, I would be chastised, whether publicly or privately, for being "attention-seeking" and not serious. And for the record, to this day, I continue to have trouble with expressing pain for the fear of people judging me for it and assuming that it is false and only for a "show" or attention. I'm working on it.

I began laying awake for hours at a time at night, which lead to me being completely exhausted during the day. I spiraled to the point that I was truly barely living my life. I focused every ounce of energy I could muster into continuing to provide a beautiful world for my babies. They were my salvation.

I finally started talking to my husband about the things that I was thinking and feeling. I talked with him about my feelings of inadequacy. We spent many a night on our front porch talking through my pain. He began to push for me to talk to someone about what I was feeling. I pushed back, stating I had it under control. It definitely was not under control. I finally caved and went to a psychiatrist, but I did not feel comfortable discussing the depth of my depression. She diagnosed my generalized anxiety disorder, and gave me medication. The depression continued.

One night, during a fit of sleeplessness, my thoughts were wildly out of control. My husband was sleeping beside me. I went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of dark liquor out of the cabinet (I think it was whiskey, but honestly I don't fully remember).  I went into my bathroom, and pulled out my medication. I sat in the floor with a handful of pills and a bottle of liquor, crying, for over an hour. I finally convinced myself out of the floor, put the pills and liquor away, woke my husband, and told him to please place the medication where I couldn't access it for awhile. I told him what happened. I cried. He held me. And I went for help the next day.

After a lot, and I mean a LOT, of work and soul searching and facing some personal demons, I am so glad that period of my life is over. Today, I am the happiest I have been in probably more than a decade. I feel so much more like ME than I ever thought I could. It was THIS WORK that has allowed me to start succeeding in my weight loss journey.

For me, and in my opinion, for a large majority of the people out there, weight loss is 95% mental and 5% physical. It requires conquering the demons in your life to free you to the point that you can start overcoming the food. In all honesty, my life is still difficult. I continue to face a lot of the same stresses and grief that I was facing a year ago. Life continues to happen all around me. The difference - that which has made ALL the difference - is accepting that life is going to happen, and the way I react is the only thing that I can control. No matter what comes my way, I will be ready to face it however I need to. It's not to say that I'm always a bucket of sunshine and rainbows. I do get sad/mad/frustrated/hurt. However, now I have the tools to not allow myself to become completely overwhelmed by life and to move forward in a way that is healthy.

You will find that I am now an extremely positive person. It's how I work. I have found that being positive, bubbly and upbeat is what allows me to push through when I have had a bad day, and not get so bogged down that I am drowning in pain. And by finding that side of myself again, it has allowed me to focus on my health in spite of my world around me. It has given me the strength to not make emotional food choices, to hit the road when I'm sad instead of hiding in my home, to reach out to others instead of trying to carry a too heavy load on my own (and failing).

It sounds like such a cliche, but I can honestly say that in all sincerity, a positive attitude is exactly what has made all the difference in the world, both in my journey and my life. I feel amazing, and I will do everything in my power to continue to feed that in every way possible. What happens to me does not define who I am. Life is too short for it to not be beautiful.