Life Anesthesized

It's been encouraging and intimidating for me to read the life events that have been shared so willingly and trustingly on your blogs. Yesterday, I decided that I should share a little more about myself. My mind is a strange place because today, all of a sudden, I couldn't remember what I wanted to post about. I usually have a good idea of what I want to say and discuss. But not today. My doctor put my brain into perspective for me last week, by telling me that I live an anesthesized life. It's amazing that I'm not an alcoholic or drug or anything addict. I definitely get a high off of sugar, but I don't think I'm clinically a food addict. I do love endorphins from running for sure. However, I just turn off. I always thought the times I was doing really well, it was by my own doing. Turns out, I have learned to anesthesize my life. Zone out. Nuetralize any feeling. ANY feeling.

How does this affect my weight issues? I'm not sure. I've had two major weight gains in my life. The first I can directly correlate to depression. The second I can directly relate to medical problems. To be honest, my eating issues actually started out as anorexic tendencies. Well, actually anorexia. I've had two major rounds with it. The first as a teenager, in an effort to control the one area of my life where I had an influence. The second was after my first marriage (and first major weight gain), once again in an effort to gain control over my life. I believe this is why not dieting is so important to me. I do not want one extreme or the other. Just balance.

I'm going to try to be brave here and talk about some of the things from my past that bother me. First, I had a very controlled childhood. Think "Mommy Dearest"... different, but the same. I have recently come to understand that I was raised by a narcissist, and all the fun that goes along with that. On top of that, nothing short of perfection was expected of me. And, I was told that it was supposed to look effortless. Just a little pressure. I never felt as if I lived up to any expectation. I learned to compete only with myself, and set the bar so high that no one could reach it. I learned to dispise myself, to feel worthless, and to seek control in my own life wherever I could possibly eek it out. This set the tone for the rest of my life. Until now.

Secondly, I am haunted by a memory. Sometimes I think it's close to post traumatic stress disorder. For the sake of the other persons privacy I'll be gender neutral. Here goes. I found a person very close to me hanging. From the ceiling. This person was heavy for me, and I when I found them, I was trying to push this person up (to relieve the airway pressure) as I attempted to remove the noose from around their neck. As I was able to release this person (not easy to do), I lost my hold on them. We were at the top of a long flight of polished wood stairs. This person fell down the entire flight of stairs. I can replay the whole thing in my mind. Stair by horrendous stair. I know it's not my fault, but the guilt of not being able to catch this person haunts me. At the time, I was a volunteer for our local emergency department, and was able to fly with life flight with my loved one to the trauma center. I remember looking over the city and thinking about this person dying. Surreal at the time. This person survived. There's some obvious traumatic brain injury sequalae, however most people wouldn't know that something this horrible happened. It makes me sick to think about it. I have knots in my stomach right now. I plan on talking about this in therapy tonight. Yup, one year of therapy, and I've not discussed this.

I live a life anesthesized.