I will survive, hey hey...

We made it through last week's tremendously hot, hot, hot Tastefully Simple party. I earned $65 worth of free product so that was a nice bonus to seeing my friends gathered in my little sweatbox apartment.

Today I started taking insulin for my diabetes. I am still taking all my other diabetes meds so now I am doing two shots a day: one of Victoza and one of insulin. My A1C was up from 6.7 to 8.3 and my glucose numbers are way too high.

I am also dealing with the stress of a work friend who is very ill and in the hospital again. He has been sick for many, many months and hospitalized for almost that whole time. He was improving but now has had quite a setback. I am sending up many prayers for him and his family.

In my free time I am working on making cards and a scrapbook page for upcoming events. I feel like I am slowly making progress with my business although I am not pushing it very hard. It is mostly about me right now and I am okay with that. I am just enjoying the crafting and pure joy of making beautiful things.

Oh, and on the MS front, I was the number one individual fundraiser for my local work and the 39th highest fundraiser in the state. Other than that, I am doing my monthly Tysabri and doing well.

The biggest hurdle I need to clear is the diabetes and obesity issue. Move more, eat better, take my meds, and test, test, test. I'll make it!

A message to my students: 2011

Many years I take the time to write something and then read it to my students at the end of the year. It is my way of saying goodbye and good luck. Believe it or not, there is something inside of each one of you that I like. It is what makes you, you.

I like it when you support one another and work together as a team. I like it when you do your work well and turn it in on time. I like it when you laugh at my jokes or carry my chair in from outside or you tell me something funny, that is school appropriate, of course. I like to see your smiles and hear your laughter.

There are many things that changed throughout this past year. First of all, I am going to tell you a big secret. Listen closely as I say this: I was scared to come and teach sixth grade. It was something new to me after having taught fifth grade for so long and knowing exactly what I was supposed to do and working with people who were my close friends. I was very comfortable doing what I had been doing for several years.

I was so angry when I learned that I had to make a change to come teach sixth grade. But, and this is big, I learned and adapted and eventually thrived.

You did, too.

I made new friends and so did some of you.

I learned new things and so did you.

I learned that some times the thing that scares you the most turns out to be one of the best experiences of your life. It's when you are forced to stretch past your regular boundaries that you find out how far you can really go.

I am going to miss you, yes all of you, even those of you that I yell at a lot. I yell because I care. After you leave on Thursday I will come back to my room and it will seem empty because all of you will be gone. There will be no more basketball or bouncy balls. There will just be silence and all the things left out that I need to pack away.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for summer vacation. I just hope that when you return next year that you will sometimes say hello or smile at me in the hallway. Teachers like that sort of thing. It makes them feel special.

Teachers care about their students, no matter how old or big they get. I remember when I student taught in sixth grade at this very school. Mr. Burridge was a student in that sixth grade class. Now he is all grown up, reeeeeally grown up, and we are colleagues and friends.

It's unusual how life works. You plan to do one thing and sometimes something entirely different happens.

My advice to you is this:

1.) Be kind to one another, even when you don't want to be. You never know how much your smile or kind word or deed will affect someone else.

2.) Take advantage of your time in school to join sports or band and learn new things to the best of your ability. Life is so much easier with a good educational background.

3.) When you leave today try and think of one good time you had with me this year, whether it was watching a movie, reading a novel, practicing and practicing for the state math test, playing Scattegories or another math game, or something else; because, listen closely again, I will be thinking of each one of you and how lucky I was to be your teacher.

What's up?

It seems I have been away for about a week now so I figured it was about time to get back on here. I have a phone appointment in a little while with an MSer who is thinking about making the switch to Tysabri. That has caused me to go back and do some reading of ye olde blog from way back, I mean waaaaaaaaay back. Years back so I can remember what it was like for me in the beginning. I had even forgotten I started in October of 2008, thinking it was in November.

It's a good thing I went back and looked at things. I know this MSer will have some questions for me and I am afraid I will come off as a dolt because I don't remember all my Tysabri history. Now, it's just a part of my routine every month and I have been doing so much better for at least a solid year. What a difference this medicine has made in my life!

I know not everyone has the same symptoms as I do and the same reaction to every medicine. I do know that, for me, Tysabri has been a step in the right direction. I am much better mentally, emotionally, and physically now as compared to when I first started Tysabri. As I look at the changes in my life in the past 6 months: a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, a change in grades at school, and the death of my father, I see that I have had ups and downs but they are normal ups and downs. Yes, my depression did get worse but I seem to be coming out of the tunnel and into the light again.

So what's up? My mood has lifted, physically I am in less pain, and I am enjoying looking forward to the small, positive, good parts of life.

Mixed up

Some anxiety, check!

Some guilt, check!

Some anger, check!

Some depression, check!

Some nervousness, check!

Thank goodness for pre-planning lessons, deep breaths, blogs, Xanax and plenty of sleep. Good things come to those who wait and I am a-waiting. I'm not much in the Christmas spirit right now due to everything going on with my family.

I still can't get over the fact that staying over on Christmas Eve for midnight mass is such a big problem. There is a whole other room with a bed in it. How much could I possibly put people out?

My heart is heavy and saddened by so many things. I miss my Dad. He was the voice of compromise and reason. Now I no longer have an ally in the house I grew up in.

Less than the best

I am publicly, albeit somewhat anonymously, admitting that I am not perfect. I know that and do not claim to be "all that and a bag of chips".

However, I did not know that it could be pointed out to me once more, yet AGAIN, that I am less than the best. By my mother. Whom I love but I deeply wonder about.

I thought that parents were supposed to love their children unconditionally.

I mean, I know there is the messy adolescent stuff (which is when I suffered from deep depression and hallucinations) but I am generally considered by many to be a decent person, a citizen of good standing, gainfully employed, and for the most part trying to do good in my area of the universe.

The recent falling out with my mother has hurt my heart deeply. I know she is in mourning, grieving the loss of her husband of 35 years.

As mentioned before, my siblings and I tried to do something wonderfully special for my mother. Which she did not want. Instead of just explaining that the gift which we had purchased was too meaningful, too much of a remembrance of my dad, too painful, she and I had a nasty phone conversation. There was a lot of yelling and she eventually just hung up on me.

Three days later she called me back, not to apologize because she saw nothing wrong with her behavior, but because she wanted to now explain why she didn't want the gift. Of course, I pointed out that she could have tried explaining that to me days ago but I was told I was *wrong*. That her personal feelings and thoughts are NOT my business and she will NOT share those things with me.

So instead of just explaining herself with a few sentences that I would have totally understood, she choose to get into "verbal fisticuffs" with me. Because she won't share that she is sad. Because she does not have to explain anything. Because once again I can be her verbal punching bag.

Then to make me feel even less of myself, she told me that I am too much for her. That I ask too much of her. That calling to check on her is overwhelming. That spending time going to church and dinner once a week for two hours can be too much together time.

She tells me this, explaining that it is not to make me feel bad...

Is it to make me feel better, I wonder?

Those of you that know me or have read my story know that my parents and I have had a rough go of it. I am the biggest elephant in the room. The daughter no one wanted but had anyway. The ugly one, the fat one, the one who doesn't look like anyone else but my "other" father who I am not allowed to talk about.

I am tired of being the one who puts forth the effort in this relationship. But this is the dance we dance. She sets me up, I take the bait, she reels me in, punishes me, I feel bad and fall apart. Again and again.

I cannot do this anymore.

My own mother wasn't sure how she felt about me spending the night for Christmas Eve so that my sister, my mother and I could all go to midnight mass. She couldn't commit to me sleeping in the extra room. It might be a day where she can't take me so I made the decision for her.

I won't come.

I cannot continue to try and be where I am not wanted.

I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.

I may be less than the best but I am a damn fine human being and it's too bad that someone who should be able to see that can't be bothered to do so.

Remembering

Today is the one-month anniversary of my Dad's death. He went into the hospital on November 5th and died on the 8th.

I am not at work again. The anxiety is too much. It reaches into my stomach and pulls everything out until there is just a sick feeling. A feeling that I can't rid myself of and cannot control, one that makes me physically uncomfortable.

I feel safer in my house where no one else can get to me, no one else can see me. I can cry or just curl myself into a ball on the bed, lying motionless.

I am going back to see my trusty and wonderful therapist that I left behind in May. My need for him was over until recently. I must talk to someone about this anxiety.

He is a psychologist not a psychiatrist so he cannot adjust my meds. I feel like I could pop Xanax as if they were sweet tarts. I do not do this, however. More often than not, I forget to medicate myself. My diabetes is currently in charge of my poor pancreas, not me. I need to do better with that. Need to take care of myself all of the time, not just once in a while.

Some days pass quickly, in a blur, and others drag on forever. Sometimes hours are eternities and others mere seconds.

I still feel all the feelings that come with grieving: sadness, anger, guilt, weariness, and selfishness. It's like they have become entities that choose times to do battle with me, when I am peaceful they strike to remind me that no, not everything is okay.

Five years ago, on December 5th I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis so Monday was almost a double whammy. Remembering Dad, remembering that you have MS and stress is not good for it. Meanwhile stress swirls in and out, like a rogue winter wind. Thankfully, the MS has mostly remained under good control. There have been a few bad days where I was just too exhausted and it all caught up with me.

Thank goodness for remission.

Thank goodness for my many friends who continue to support me during this time of adjustment. How do you ever get over the loss? Yet you do, your life moves on, and you must become in charge again.

Thank goodness for the fact that even though there were years of bad blood and resentment, that those days were pushed into the past safely and securely while a new relationship had been building in the present. Therapy and meds have literally saved my life, saved myself from being a victim of all the bad, and turned it all around until I faced everything head on and said, "Okay, this is my best me and I'm not going to take anything less than the best."

Thank goodness for therapy and meds, truly. Without them I would not be here today, sitting in this room, typing out my feelings, tentatively feeling an ounce better than I was when I started this.

Thank goodness for my Dad who used to throw me in the pool over and over forcing me to swim to survive. I now love to swim and that is one of his many gifts to me. I am a lucky, lucky girl.

Full

Why is it that some of us choose to eat past the point of comfortableness and go straight to full? Is it because we feel we're lacking in some way, that somewhere there is an emptiness that we are trying to rid ourselves of?

For me filling my stomach makes me feel something. I feel when most of the time I just glide through my life on a sort of invisible track, going through the same motions day to day.

I feel full, weighted as if I do indeed exist on this planet. Days can pass now where I sit in my apartment and see no one else, interact with no one else. But if I eat I take up space. I can be seen whereas before I was empty, full of air. I eat to be hidden from view yet I eat to be viewed as well.

How is that possible? How can one be empty and full at the same moment? Simply because what I am filling up is not the part of me that needs support and love. The empty parts of me are the ones that are the most sacred, the most needy, the most deserving. Yet I share them the least.

When will I learn it's okay to be filled with happiness, delight, wonder and self-acceptance? When will I learn that eating does not, will never, can not fill the voids in my life? All it does is make me bigger on the outside instead of on the inside.

Anonymity

Many of you who read this blog know me IRL (in real life). You are old friends and new ones, Facebook pals, or people I work with. Others of you have no idea who I am but you come back to read my words nonetheless. Nowhere on this blog will you find my name or my face.

It's not because I am ashamed of what I write because I'm not.

It's for my own protection, if you will. I keep this blog anonymous to keep myself safe. It's a place I can go where I can write about anything and I do tend to write about whatever crosses my mind, whether it be fabulous, painful, honest or somewhere in between. Sometimes it's nothing at all and sometimes I feel like I've poured myself out for your reading pleasure, like pancake batter on a hot griddle.

I'm not famous or any more special than any of you. I just have the desire and need to write these things down. I like your comments when I've struck a chord. I fear your silence when I hear nothing. Sometimes it's as if I'm holding my breath, waiting to see how you will respond. It's not easy writing about some of the topics that I do, it is scary and worrisome. Yet I cannot stop myself.

Being anonymous in a sense is what allows me the freedom to be so spontaneous and open. Some of my friends have learned things about me through this blog that they did not already know. I share things here that I do not talk about with others.

For example, many of you do not know that I repeated the ninth grade. That particular year was a tough one for me. I spent part of that year in a mental hospital due to severe depression and a suicide attempt. When I was released from the hospital I went to a special school for students with severe emotional issues. I did no work there and at the beginning of the new school year I was back at the regular high school.

I basically was a smart girl all wrapped up in the midst of some pretty messy stuff. I repeated the ninth grade and redid the year that I had messed up. It was tough being a teenager with a past that everyone knew about. I had spent years being with certain classmates and now I had to start to make friends all over again. I was a freak of sorts and some people unkindly went out of their way to make sure I didn't forget that. But I survived and eventually thrived despite suffering with depression, battling an eating disorder, and trying to start over.

Here's something else a lot of people don't know: I graduated seventh in my high school class out of about 185 kids or so. Not too bad for a girl with a lot of messy stuff, huh?

Inner peace and outer calm

Last night I talked with one of my best pals from college. Lola told me that I get crazy and nervous every year at this time. She built me up and made me laugh about my classroom worries. I went to bed and had a school dream but a good one. I don't remember what it was about but I woke up feeling utterly peaceful and positive about the new year.

Then I cleaned my sink this morning and there's something about scrubbing away the smudges with Comet that makes the whole world seem right. After that I cleaned the toilet, filled up a tire with low pressure, and now I am going to do the dishes that have piled up. Accomplishing small chores like these set my feng shui free to do its thing. There's something about cleaning up your space that helps to clean up your life.

I also ate cleaner today and my blood sugar was much better for it. I even felt better by eating healthier.

All around I am going to give myself an A+ for the day.

Into the light

In college, several states away from home, I was very sick with bulimia. There I started real therapy for the first time in my life. I was slightly hopeful. Maybe then someone could see the good in me.

At one time I was so ill I had to go to the college infirmary every day for vitals. Every morning I dutifully showed up. I was a good girl underneath all the "badness". I did as I was told.

Eventually the therapy helped me to realize I wasn't worthless. I never took meds there for depression but that improved also. I got better with someone believing in me.

When I was doing better, years later, the bulimia came under control. Eventually I stopped all the pills and the purging. I went from throwing up every night to nights where I could eat and retain the food like a normal person. I didn't have to excuse myself to go purge any more. I put on some weight once I stopped the bulimia, not much, but I remember my mother saying I looked pregnant. I was so hurt because my family knew of my bulimia but ignored it. They were good at ignoring big problems and making me feel bad about myself.

Now I see a new life, a better one. One not filled with so much anger. One where I can let lots of the past go.

This new life is a strange one. Part of it is better living through pharmaceuticals, part of it is better living through ten years of intense therapy, part of it is self-acceptance, wisdom, and self-love. A lot of it is personal growth.

If I can overcome depression and bulimia, I can overcome anything. If I can adjust to life with multiple sclerosis, I can learn to deal with diabetes. I can learn to control my weight instead of letting it control me.

It's time for the real me to shed the extra weight and let my light shine.

Self abuse

I spent years trying to destroy myself, both overtly and subconsciously. I recall severe depression and self-injury starting in the fifth grade. It escalated from there to hallucinations, overdoses and slit wrists. I was desperate as a young girl to make my pain go away. Suicide seemed like the only viable option.

The first time I was seriously hospitalized I was in the ninth grade. It was like a saving grace, to be away from my family who refused to help me in the midst of all my turmoil. I remember feeling safer but that was not a place where you'd want your child to spend a month.

I was hospitalized again in tenth grade for another suicide attempt and for bulimia. By then I was learning that I was too timid to actually pull off suicide, so I started to kill myself slowly. Bulimia was a way of saying, "F--- you," to my family. It allowed me to scrape my insides raw while looking normal on the outside. I could starve, then binge, then puke it all out. Anger within, exited with food.

It felt good to be in control of one thing in my life. I ran, I starved, I was sick with sores around my mouth. I was anemic. I thought I was fat when I was not. I bought in to what I was told: I was selfish, unlovable, stupid, BIG.

In fact, I was none of those things.

I abused myself because I knew of no other way to survive. There was no help for me, no therapy, only people telling me I was wrong. I was the weird one, the freak, the black sheep. No matter how small I physically got, I could not escape my parents' prying eyes and harsh words. They said I wanted too much when all I wanted was love and acceptance.

Bulimia overtook my life. I lived on diet pills, diuretics, and laxatives. I exercised like crazy, sometimes twice a day. At one time I was doing five thousand sit-ups a night. It took me hours to accomplish this.

It took me years to beat bulimia.

Safety

What makes you feel safe? Is it knowing that you have a home to call your own, friends who keep your secrets, a spouse who loves you no matter what, or a combination of these things?

For me, safety has been being overweight, to be full to the point where no one can see inside me. It meant to be surrounded by and covered with weight so no one could get to my core, the place where the real me survives.

Slowly, ever so slowly, that is changing.

Weight has been a form of protection, a barrier from and for others for a lifetime. To change that takes great courage and introspection. Looking inside and at myself is something I rarely do. What I see frightens me and causes me to want to run away from that.

What do I see when I look deep inside? I see someone who is small and scared, someone needy and wanting, someone desperate for intimacy but so scarred that I run from it when it's offered. I see someone who wants to be less shy and more open, less restrained, happier, and more content with my life. But I haven't known how to do that until recently.

Shining the light on the messy stuff is hard. Working through the weight issues means not just losing pounds but getting my head on straight. My mother suggests weight loss surgery but that would only solve the problem of the pounds not the actual demons I battle. When you live feeling like you are unloveable, that you are not worthy, that you are not enough, it does not matter whether you weigh 110 pounds or 210 pounds. The feelings are still there and the pounds will come back if that is how you deal with things.

Food is slowly but surely losing its hold over me. I have cut down to one small frappe a week. I no longer go to Dunkin Donuts for bagels or cookies. I can order a pizza and it can last for more than one meal. It sounds silly but these are small victories for me. I am doing battle against diabetes, against obesity, against these feelings of being less than I am.

I am slowly winning but this isn't a race, it's just a journey that I need to take.

Secrets

We all have them and they hold power over us. Some are so insignificant that if we spoke them aloud to others they would laugh at us and say, "Is that all?" Others are large, just bubbling below the surface while we keep pushing them down out of view. They are words, thoughts, memories of events that happened years ago or maybe even yesterday. Secrets all have the same thing in common, we need to keep them locked up so others don't see our imperfections and realize how damaged we are.

That's the kind of thinking that comes from believing the Inner Voice. The hard part is not in keeping the secret, it comes from moving past the secret and allowing it to be seen or heard. Power comes from moving through your secrets out into the sunshine, moving past the messy stuff of your life.

Many people have food secrets, weight secrets, life secrets. We're ashamed and saddened and angry at ourselves for our variety of secrets. We push them down with overeating so we stop feeling. We're afraid to "feel" because those feelings might overtake us, wash over us and engulf us in their throes.

What if our secrets get out and people learn what we have done? What if they know we are flawed and sometimes we make poor choices? What if?

The truth is that we are all flawed, every one of us, every single one of us no matter how much good we try to do in this world. The other truth is that we all have secrets.

My blog is a secret from my parents for a variety of reasons. I would probably be disowned for some of the things I have written about from my past. They are not untrue things but rather unflattering and in my family appearances are very important. Ironically, I have a weight issue stemming from years before when I grew up in the midst of a huge secret that I already knew.

I knew that my biological father was not the father of my mother's marriage. I knew that from a young age. I felt I had done something wrong by merely being alive. What an awful feeling to live with for your whole life. To this day I still am unable to deal with these issues and I don't by pushing my biological father away. His overwhelming desire to know me is like a tsunami causing me to run in the opposite direction. This is another piece of messy stuff that I need to work on.

I have talked about many of my secrets here: my weight, my health, my eating disorder, my depression. However, I do not solely focus on the negative pieces of my existence. That would serve no purpose. I try to balance the good, the bad, and the ugly bits. I try to grow from my experiences. I want to share with others that they can deal with frustrating times and come out the other side.

If I can do it, anyone can. All you have to do is take that first step. I'll be here with outstretched arms waiting for you.

Feeling and not feeding

Today I stepped a little outside of my comfort zone and went to a party at a friend from high school's house. I haven't seen him for about twenty years, except for on Facebook which is how the whole party got started. First off, I am shy. Honestly I am. Most people don't know that but I prefer to stay out of the spotlight. I prefer to hide rather than shine. I prefer to feed instead of feel.

What does that mean?

Well, I've mentioned before how I use weight to separate myself from others. Being fat allows you to exist on the fringe of society. People see me, but they don't really see me. Instead they see flesh, poundage, rolls. They can focus on my looks and not focus on what lurks beneath. If they are looking at my fatness then they are not able to see what the Inner Voice talks about: how I am selfish, lazy, unlovable... I listen to those words and cringe and feed.

But not today, not so much.

Today I grabbed my fruit tray and traveled with my trusty and reliable friend BJM to our friend's house. I tried not to worry about the way I looked and who would be there. When it was time to eat I did not gorge myself because I was feeling uncomfortable. I felt the feelings and smiled and listened and occasionally talked. I ate appropriately and did not come home and binge. I shut down the Voice for a while.

Sometimes silence is golden.

Living

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." - Diane Ackerman

This quote defines what most of us do, live the length and miss out on all the good stuff along the way. The good stuff used to mean food but I am now coming awake to the world again. Using your senses and living, really living, and revelling in the world is a fantastic thing. It's what babies do. They explore their environment bit by bit and learn how exciting each new day is with a new set of eyes.

It's time I did the same.

Today I noticed how wonderful it felt to complete little chores I needed to do. I noticed the breeze on my skin and hair as I drove with the windows down in the car. I smelled the pork tenderloin I was actually cooking, for once, in the kitchen. I talked with BJM on the phone and made plans to attend a party with friends tomorrow.

It used to be that my only solace and joy was found in whatever food I could dive into the fastest. I focused my life on the size of my thighs and the amount of cookies I could gobble down. I listened to the Inner Voice and allowed it to consume me as I consumed food with haste.

It is hard to change a lifestyle one has held on to for over 30 years. It begins with small steps, little changes such as telling yourself that you are beautiful because of your smile, that you are intelligent beyond what others know and that is all right, that you are kind and a good listener, even though I can talk quite a bit. I am not so bad.

Did you hear that, Inner Voice?

There are some people out there who think I am rather fabulous and it's about time I did so, as well.

The number

"It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale." (Geneen Roth)

That statement is absolutely true so why the heck do we buy into the scam? We live and sometimes die by the number on a scale. We're embarrassed by it, rejoice in it,or hide from it. A number. One number.

I know that when I follow the healthy guidelines put forth in Roth's book, I feel better. Physically feel better, mentally feel better... I slow down and think about what I am eating, why I am eating, and how I am eating. I now eat with no outside disturbance, no television to numb my pain or pass the minutes as I used to stuff the food down. Now I focus and breathe and do not punish myself for a number.

Do I want my number to go down? You betcha. I don't know what my final number will be. I do know what doctors' charts suggest and what Weight Watchers advises for my height. However, will I ever be a mere 100 pounds again? Not likely, because even when I was bulimic I weighed a little more than that. I've never been naturally thin. I have self-medicated with food or been quieted down with food since I was a toddler.

How can that be? One of my earliest memories was living with my grandparents and crying for my mother who was not home at the time. Apparently I would not shut up. I remember my grandfather yelling at my grandmother to shut me up. She rushed into the room with candy for me, little pieces that needed individual wrappers taken off. I recall quieting down and stuffing down the feeling of being alone, feeling abandoned and lonely. That was probably the start.

I remember being a chubby little girl, a moon face with big cheeks and pig-tails. I used to eat Oscar Mayer weiners raw from the fridge and at times I ate little bowls full of mayonaise. Who does that? How is that okay for a little girl?

I also remember later, maybe around aged five, living with my parents in a trailer. I often did not want to eat all my dinner. I would stuff food in my ample cheeks and go to the bathroom to spit out the offending mess. I would also stuff it into my napkin and, even more sneakily, I would chew food and mash it underneath the table around little ledges that were there.

I also remember times when I would sit at the table until my meal was done, being forced to eat everything on my plate. No wonder I later developed an eating disorder. People often say that ED's are not about food, but they are about the food just as much as the other reasons for having them. I learned to overeat, to eat unhealthily, to eat everything that was in front of me. We can get into that another time.

Today I just want to remind people that a number is just digits strung together. It's not your heart, your soul, your enchanting qualities, your wacky sense of humor. It's just not and that's the way it is.

Happy almost two year anniversary!

This morning I went back to my very first blog post and reread it. I was so smug then, thinking I had such important things to write about, such a good sense of humor, and a somewhat decent grasp of the English language. This is what I wrote at the end of that post:

I recall some saying out there that explains that giving a voice to or shining a light on a problem that is bothering you ends up diminishing that very same problem. So here's my chance, time to share my messy stuff and by the end it shouldn't look so bad after all.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Wow, who knew I was going to delve so deep into life with MS and life that doesn't revolve around MS? I had written so much about my journey with multiple sclerosis at the beginning that I never dreamt I would one day be not writing about it. I'm in remission and doing fine on Tysabri, especially now that we have the payment thing supposedly under control.

Who knew I would write about a new diagnosis, diabetes? I never imagined that I would end up diabetic until a few months ago when I began drinking tons of water, peeing my life away during the day, and watching my eyesight grow hazy as I tried to read aloud to my class. It's okay to be dealing with another disease. It really is; 'tis better to be dealt with than to let it run amok with sugar dripping out of me at an alarming rate. Next up on deck: the diabetes nurse educator on Tuesday.

I've written about work and family and mistreating myself. Now I turn the lens inward again to focus on weight and health. I am not healthy. I am obese. It pains me to say it, t0 type it. Some of you knew me when I was thin and fit, but I wasn't healthy then either. It was all a facade while I purged and ran and took diet pills and laxatives. I was a full-on bulimic for many years, starting in high school and carrying me through college.

I remember "beating" bulimia for the first time after I graduated from college. I had put on ten pounds and my mother accosted me and asked me if I was pregnant. Yes, I was rounder but still slender. Her remark cut me to the core. I was devastated and hurt. I left her house and moved in with my soon-to-be-betrothed shortly after. A huge mistake but one that tried to serve as a protective measure at the time.

That was part of what led me to gaining weight, lots of weight. A hundred pounds! I gained a small person; I gained what I should weigh at five feet tall. I gained the weight until I was suffering underneath it. I am now at a place where there is nowhere to go but down or up. My option is down.

Time to rage against the Inner Voice (this comes from Geneen Roth). The Voice that tells me that I am not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, not enough... The Voice that has held me hostage for many years and kept me cuckolded into thinking that I don't deserve health, I don't deserve love, I don't deserve just being the wonderful me that I am.

I vote for health, for love, for appreciation, for satisfaction, for excellence. It's time to tell the Voice that it is wrong, even if it takes me a million times. It's time to eat consciously with pleasure and for a real taste of food. It's time to lift my head up and say, "No more." It's time to gird myself for the battle of my life for this is a war that has to be won.

I hope that you continue to come along as I fight this battle. It could get ugly, but not any uglier than the non-truths I tell myself on the continuous loop in my head.

I AM ENOUGH!

I am fabulous and kind and intelligent.

I am going to become the me that I have been holding back because I have been scared of going up against all the awful labels.

I am ready world so you better watch out!

Yogurt

I just ate a yogurt, a raspberry cheesecake low-fat one. No biggie, right? Except it was a BIG deal, a HUGE deal if you are inhabiting my body.

I have almost finished reading Geneen Roth's latest book called Women Food and God. And no, there is not a parentheses in the title. It's been both a struggle and an eye-opener for me.

Back to the yogurt, though...

I experienced the yogurt like I've never done before. Yep, I ate it but I felt it and smelled it and savored it and focused on it. I actually turned the TV off while I was eating. That's a biggie for me right there. Then there was the ten-minute process of experiencing the yogurt. Yes, ten minutes. You read that correctly.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I was in the moment and conscious of what I was eating. I was feeding myself something I wanted and taking the time to enjoy it. I felt the texture and the little seedlings that make you think of raspberries. I smelled the yogurt before I even started eating it, felt the silky texture as it glided past teeth and over tongue and down my throat. I thought of my poor esophagus that I mistreated for years when I threw up after almost every meal. I thought about the mistreatment of my body by my own self through food.

There is a line in the book that made me say, "Wow, that is me, too." It's from a letter written to the author after one of her retreats.

The letter writer states,"I keep people out and one of the main ways I do that is by eating."

That is me to a T. I eat for lots of reasons and for a variety of emotions. I eat because I am lonely, I eat because I am alone, I eat because I am a bundle of nerves about my new job, I eat because I feel that I am not enough. I eat to fill up the space between my feelings and the reality.

I eat because I am sick, I eat because I feel good. I eat and eat and eat and it's somehow never enough. The eating isn't the answer but it's not not the answer either. It's time to slow down and rethink my relationship with food. I might finally be able to throw the door open and shine a torch on the dark spaces inside that I've kept hidden. It might just be time for the messy stuff to come out.

Three's a charm

Okey dokey, here I am again for the third day in a row. Woot woot!

I slept again until after two p.m. and then napped again after that. I'm not bothered by that but I could see where some other people would think I am being rather slothful. This is what I get for not taking my Provigil for two days. The fatigue and sleepiness just overtake me and I am out like a light. Even at night I am so tired that I don't make it to where I can turn out the light and put my CPAP mask on before I literally pass out into sleep. I wake up an hour or two later to use the bathroom and find myself zonked out once more with the lights on. It happens every night now...

School is over and I am glad for the break. I need to get myself prepared for a new year in a new grade. Some of you know the story already but some of you do not.

In the simplest version I have been teaching fifth-grade for the past several years. We were not departmentalized and our principal was considering a switch so we would be. There were five teachers at the grade level, with one retiring and one having to leave the grade level to work in another building due to circumstances beyond her control. That left three of us.

We all emailed our boss the subject we preferred to teach in the event of departmentalization. He said the three of us all wanted something different so that wasn't a problem. The original five of us were against departmentalizing and we had explained our reasons. Our boss said he would tell us his decision by the end of the next week.

We were somewhat certain that he would departmentalize us but I had a special surprise coming my way. Thankfully, one of my friends had gotten wind of a rumor that one of the remaining three would be leaving the grade level and she passed that on only to me. So it was not much of a surprise when my boss told me that I was being moved to another grade right before the meeting on departmentalization. I was hurt by being moved and hurt by the fact that I was told about the switch in my room only one minute before the meeting.

We don't always get what we want though. So now I am a sixth-grade teacher who will be departmentalized and teaching a combination of ELA and Math enrichment. I am getting a huge air-conditioned room for the majority of the next year, while my area is under construction. I also get to create my own curriculum that uses skills that reinforce what is being taught in Math and ELA.

It isn't all bad and change is good but I am sad in some ways and mourning the loss of being a fifth-grade teacher with a great team.

Spring Break but I'm not broken

I really wish in some ways that I would find the oomph to get myself back on here regularly, but the reality is that it's just not there. I find that I used to write more when I was depressed, sad, mad, and more MSey.

I feel pretty good right now. I can't believe that I am typing this (don't throw things at your screen, please) but it's the truth.

Am I perfect? Heck no. Am I skinny? Heck no. Am I a millionaire? Heck no.

I remember when I was so sick with symptoms and searching for a solid diagnosis, or rather a neurologist that would give me the MS diagnosis I was certain I had. I remember walking with a cane and being a mid-30-something woman wondering if I would make it across the road before the car coming at me took me out. I remember the all-inclusive depression that hung like a thick cloak around my shoulders. I remember it all and somehow, right this moment, I am past it.

I've gone through it, over it, around and underneath it to get where I am right now. I have a place in my life with meds that mostly control my symptoms. I have supportive friends and family (who'd have thunk that?). I have a job that is winding down in two months for summer vacation. I'm on my Spring Break, finally!

I have 12 days until my MS Walk. Three miles versus me and my team, Team Weeble. We have cool T-shirts and I have personally raised $2040. Go me; I'm so proud that I have been able to do that. I am so proud that I even have a team who wants to walk with me.

I'm also excited about a local MS Self Help Group starting in my area. I went to the first meeting two weeks ago and felt that I was making another positive step. I think I may share my blog addy with them at the next meeting.

I also started Zumba in my little apartment a few weeks back. Talk about a workout! My flab is shaking and I am breathing hard and I'm sweaty but it is awesome for me. Thankfully no one else can see me doing it because my steps are sometimes way off.

I just keep moving though.