And I Was Not Lost Or Found

Still losing weight...in fact, for a few brief hours, until I ate a doughnut, I had lost HALF of myself. From 317 pounds down to 158.4...literally half of what I used to be. I've fluctuated back up to 162 pounds, which is only 2 pounds away from the fake weight I'd lied about when I was 15 and getting my learner's permit (they let my fat 190 pound ass put down 160 lbs and it's stayed on my license like that for 2 decades now). And despite all the weight lost, my skin isn't even too saggy--in fact, if you don't look at my thighs and stomach, I look like a "normal" 160 pound woman.

BEFORE (317 lbs or so)

NOW (160-180 lbs)

So why do I still want to kill myself so badly?

I always thought that by now, losing weight, getting down to a healthy size, fitting into sexy size medium dresses and strutting in 6 inch stilettos, turning heads, on the arm of my boyfriend, the literal love of my life and best friend and everything I ever hoped for in a man, with me looking exactly how I always wanted to look, I thought by now my life would be perfect. I would be happy. My depression would just...disappear.

Boy, was I wrong.

I spent last weekend trying to find anything in my truck that would get through enough skin to open the veins in my wrist. I only managed to mangle myself with my house keys, leaving a bloody raw mess with me very much alive, just annoyed and in pain. Trying to gnaw my way through with my teeth was even more painful, and it's also probably why now, a week later, that wrist is oozing pus and throbbing with pain. It's a good thing my parents still have all six of my guns (they removed them after my suicide attempt and subsequent mental institution stay back in May) because I just didn't have the courage or energy to find another way to kill myself. So I gave up, came home, and lived another day.

Depression is a funny thing. Not, like, funny "ha-ha" obviously. But people look at you and think, well, you're doing better than XYZ people, you aren't homeless, you have people who love you...if you are considering suicide, you are a selfish, worthless, self-centered piece of shit. And everyone close to you wants to make depression and suicidal thoughts about themselves. Like, "Oh yeah, nothing I do for you is good enough, why do I even try? I gave you XYZ and you weren't magically cured, there's obviously something wrong with you!" Yes. Yes, there is something wrong with me. It's called fucking depression. It doesn't mean I don't love you...it just means I hate myself more.

I have heard several times lately what a pathetic loser I am, and all I can say is, you think I don't know? Trust me, I'm much more disgusted by myself than you could ever be. But thanks for the extra salt in that wound.

Right now, this isn't my usual annual seasonal depression, or even the trauma that comes with making it through September (the anniversary of the deaths of my favorite dog J, my best friend Rob, and my good friend from college Monroe who finally killed herself in 2010 after also suffering decades of depression). No, right now it's very specifically because I can't find a job and I am FUCKING BROKE. Like...BROKE BROKE. No savings, checking account overdrawn, no bills being paid. My unemployment benefits ran out weeks ago. If my boyfriend wasn't paying for the mortgage and utilities, I would absolutely be homeless. My parents lent me $1,000 in May when I got out of the mental ward, and made it clear that's all the help they would give me. I cashed in my 401k, emptied my piggy banks, plucked the quarters out of my cardboard state quarters map. I have sold every book and movie I own that's worth anything. I've sold my high school jewelry supplies for the scrap prices. I'm selling off my prized Funko Pop! Vinyl collection piece by piece on Ebay, along with everything else I own of any value. I donated plasma until it made me so sick and my veins were so bruised and blown I couldn't donate any more.

And yes, I've been looking for work. I submitted more than 750 applications now. SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY JOB APPLICATIONS AND I STILL DON'T HAVE A FUCKING JOB. I've gone on every interview I've been invited to, and taken every phone interview offered. I've updated my resume and cover letter and professional recommendations literally thousands of times. I've updated LinkedIn, Behanced, every career website that exists.

So...I'm just a fucking loser.

No one wants to hire me. For anything. So now I'm desperate. Like, considering nefarious activities desperate. I have never felt like such a loser.

When I was a kid, I was really fucking smart. Like, bizarrely smart. Pulled-out-of-class-for-free-periods-cuz-I-already-knew-everything-they-were-teaching smart. When I took the IQ aptitude test for the gifted and intelligent program, the principal told my parents that my score was higher than any other student they had ever placed. I sailed through high school, got into every college I applied to (with scholarships). After college, I was immediately hired making $45k, way more than almost every one of my friends, and when I moved to another company, I was literally asked to apply for a promotion within, like, six months. From there I rose through the ranks until I was managing a department with 70+ subordinates and a $60 million dollar budget. I bought a truck. Bought a house. Started collecting stupid shit, like 80s toys and antique mantilla combs, investing tens of thousands of dollars feathering my nest, stocking my many closets, accumulating shoes and purses like we used to collect pogs back in the day.

Then my company got bought out, my job was eliminated last November, and my world came crashing down. I had finally found a boyfriend who I can actually see myself being with until the end of time, and suddenly I became not a partner but an albatross. My severance ran out fast, then the 401k (assisted by my much-needed purchase of a Macbook and an amazing Caribbean cruise), then my unemployment. Throughout it all, I was sort of idly eating my way through the days, but thanks to the gastric sleeve surgery last July, I was still losing weight. Not much at first, not nearly what I'd expected: in the first 3 months after surgery, when most people lose the majority of their weight, I only dropped maybe 50 pounds. I was discouraged and just resigned myself to being one of the people who gastric sleeve fails. But I kept losing, slowly but surely, and by the time my cruise rolled around in January, I was  down to 195, under 200 for the first time in the adult life, and rocking two piece swimsuits on the beach and wandering around with a wisp of cloth from a beachwear stand in Cancun. My weight fluctuated, as it does, but when I was admitted to the psych ward in May, I was down to 175. I didn't expect to lose any more after that, but over the past few months, I've slowly gotten down to 165, then briefly under 160. I'm at 162 today, but hoping that my forced starvation diet will get me down to 155. That is solidly under half of what I used to weigh, and it would be a "normal" weight according to the stupid fucking accursed BMI chart that's haunted me since my 5th grade physical exam when the doctor pointed out for the first time that I was considered "overweight" and on my way to "obese". Never in a million years did I think then that I'd eventually sail way past "obese" straight to "morbid obesity" and stay there for an eternity.

But...now I'm almost "normal". I look like a normal person. When I get dressed to leave the house, I check myself out in the mirror and barely even consider if my stomach is "hanging out" like I always obsessed. I even stopped wearing corsets and waist trainers because I'm more comfortable without them. Right now, I'm wearing a medium black camisole, no bra because my boobs are so small now, under an XXL hoodie that just barely fit when I bought it, and it's literally hanging to my knees. I have on Gap jeans, real jeans, no stretch, size 12, and they could definitely go down a size or 4. Plus socks pulled up to my knees, when before they barely fit around my calves, and giant purple Italian Moon Boots keeping my legs warm--when I originally bought them, I had to cut the inside lining to get them to pull up high enough to not look stupid, which left them still bunched awkwardly, but now they don't even touch my calves even with jeans tucked inside. I have a dainty ring, size 6.5, the kind I could never wear before because the thin band would have been lost in a roll of fat, even on my finger. This entire outfit is just plain and comfy, but a year ago would have been too tight and uncomfortable to even wear.

Yet...yeah, I'm still fucking depressed.

I believe I've shared this on here before, but: when I was a little girl, every wish I made, every time a cardinal landed and I got through the alphabet or when I saw the first star in the sky, I made the same wish. I wanted to grow up to be thin and beautiful and to find a knight in shining armor. I didn't even need a prince, just a knight. Now I am, if not thin and beautiful, at least approaching normal and decent to look at. And I certainly found a prince, a man willing to rescue this fucked up damsel in a great deal of distress. It seems my dreams came true.

But yeah. I am STILL depressed.

I am hoping things will be better once I get a job, once I'm pulling my weight and don't feel like such a loser. I'll have insurance again and can get back on my psych meds, which will definitely help. Hopefully I'll keep losing weight, at least enough to say I was "normal" at one point in my life.

Even then, though, there's no guarantee that my depression is gonna go away. I've mentioned before, I first seriously considered suicide at age 9. My mom was diagnosed with lupus, they said she wouldn't live to see me finish 5th grade, and I decided that I wasn't going to live without her. She was lucky and stuck around (she's still sick but also still alive, thank god) and so did I. But the thoughts never left. 25 years of suicidal thoughts don't just disappear because life is going well. And when life is NOT going well, there's not much I can do. So I read. I write. I shoot my bow and arrow. I have as much sex as possible. I try to find reasons to live.

Each job rejection makes it that much harder.

But I'm still here.

And I'm going to try to stay.

As hard as it is.

When I Was Crazy

Well, kids, I finally did it.

I lost my fucking mind.

Honestly I could have gone crazy at any point and it would have surprised no one, but I REALLY went crazy this time. As in, I slit both my wrists open and then stuck a loaded .45mm Glock in my mouth. My mom got there just in time, and I spent a week as a psych patient at the mental institution, total Girl, Interrupted style. But I'm still here, I'm out of the awful relationship I was in, and I'm still losing weight (my weight has actually been on the BACK OF MY MIND a few times lately, which is crazy for me to say, after nearly 30 years of it being front and center of my thoughts every second of every day...but now I'm 174, from 314, so I'm feeling kinda badass).

Anyway, I'm very lucky to be alive. I had already texted my mom asking her to send someone else (they were already arranging to send me to the crisis center) because I didn't want her to be the one to find the body. She got there just in time, for a very stupid reason: my wifi was being wonky and I was trying to Google the best place to shoot to make sure I was gone in one shot (literally).

I mean, the gun was in my mouth. The clip was full, the chamber loaded. My finger was on the trigger, tears pouring down my face, slobber all over the gun.

My Beretta. 22 (not the Glock my mom found me with).

But it's really surprising how much wiggle room there is with a big ass Glock in your mouth. Really. Was I supposed to shoot at a slightly upward angle, intending to sever my brain stem? Or slightly downward, for the spinal column? Certainly not straight back and chance missing both, right? Or would that be best? Anyway, I had questions...so I was trying to Google the best method, with the gun in my mouth and my shaking finger pressed right on the trigger, but the wifi wasn't reaching because I was in the back yard. My sister was a former biohazard remediation/crime scene cleanup technician and I didn't want anyone to have to deal with my body indoors, especially since I have so much stuff. There would be hair and skull fragments and blood and brain bits on everything, and I would have felt terrible. Or I guess I would have felt nothing? But the point is, I wanted to prevent a mess and therefore couldn't Google fast enough before my mom walked into my yard and I just couldn't do that to her. I couldn't let her watch me shoot myself. I took the gun out of my mouth long enough to cry out for her to please turn around and go back inside, but she came and took the gun and held me as I collapsed.

I'm doing much better now. The psych ward really did help. I wanna write later about how fucking crazy it was, but I'm glad I was there. I was still determined to kill myself, I just didn't want my mom to see. But the triage unit at the psych ward made sure there really were not many ways to kill yourself--no plastic bags, nothing. I spent my first night there sobbing but trying desperately to hold my mouth closed and pinch my nose shut and suffocate myself. It's true what they say, though--it's super hard to do that, because your body will let go at the last second and you'll gasp for air. I guess sometimes your body's primal desire to live sometimes overrides your mind's desire to end it all.

Glad I sucked at suicide, and now I can truthfully write about a mental hospital because I've been there, done that. But it does still scare me how quickly and completely I could become crazy. I have been off all of my medications since I lost my job and insurance in November, and that's after a decade and a half of constant anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pill combinations. Then my boyfriend and I had a couple pretty crazy fights a couple weeks ago. He had unexpectedly moved in along with his 18 year old son, which I had not wanted, but he was being sued by his landlord and then waited until the last second to find a place, so he ran out of time. They filled my garage with all of their stuff and then suddenly I was sitting, depressed, on the couch all day with two grumpy dudes instead of just one. They both just sat there getting high, watching television, and letting me cook them every meal. But he would get upset if I made ANY plans at all--I always included him, but he didn't want to leave the house. So then I couldn't leave the house. I was becoming more and more isolated from everyone, I was completely broke but hadn't even looked for a job because he liked me staying home with him, and because he said he'd pay some bills if he moved in, and then he started making me feel ugly and unloved too. I was wearing a cute new size Large black off-the-shoulder skater dress and feeling super super cute. When I got up, I flirtatiously flashed him my lacy underwear. His response: "Red and bumpy, just how I like it."

Wow.

I'm fucking sensitive, and burst into tears. That pissed him off, and so he started to go into why it wasn't a big deal because I have plenty of other flaws anyways, like still being fat and flabby.

Double wow.

He never got to see me at my heaviest, 317, but we did meet when I was still around 220. I lost almost 40 pounds in the time we were together, and he still had the nerve to call me fat and flabby.

He really hated me being happy, but got annoyed when I was depressed. He kept offering to help with money but he never did, even though he's been staying here basically full time since October. He knew I was struggling with money but then he picked up a cocaine habit! So then every single day he "needed" to do a bunch of coke so he could "work". He worked from home (my home) in data, but only did about an hour's worth of work a day. Then he spent the rest of the day stressed about work, but just watching tv and getting high. So yeah, I wasn't getting any money, and his coke use didn't taper off when his kid moved in. So I finally broke down and asked him to please at least get the kid out of my house, because I already wasn't feeling very loved or supported. He was furious and we fought hard and he basically dumped me. That's the first time in this ordeal that I started trying to cut my wrists, because he'd pulled me into this weird half-life existence where he was my entire world, and so if he left my entire world was gone too. Hearing over and over from him that I'll never do better than him eventually made me believe it.

Anyway, then we had a couple more crazy fights, make-ups, fights, make-ups...he went through my iPad and freaked out about an old message to an ex he thought was too flirty. Then he went through my phone while I slept and found a text from six months ago to another friend who happens to be an ex, he thought it was flirty also. So I then woke up to broken glass where he'd shattered the photos I'd had printed of us and framed, and most of his good stuff moved out, along with my weed. At this point, my friend brought me a shit ton of Kolonopin, so I was taking like 5 full mgs at a time and don't have much memory of the next few days. I know he threw all my patio furniture into my pool and broke my photos, I took a hammer to his shitty giant CRT televisions (who even uses those anymore?), and then like a freaking crazy sitcom, the cops showed up, I was trying to just get my weed back from him, which he TOLD the cop (ugh idiot...), then he tried to drive away and ended up hitting me with his car and running me over, I broke his window, he broke my toe and rolled my ankle...and then he was gone, and I was left with glass everywhere, a bloody foot, and more Kolonopin. Nothing happened with the cop, which I guess was good, but then the next two days were spent in stupid Facebook wars between my friends and his gigantic ex-wife of 20 years, and with me cutting my wrists deeper and deeper but I just couldn't push hard enough. He told me because I had an ingrown hair I has pulled: "Your pussy looks like a 14 year old girl with acne." Also, "There's a reason you don't feel attractive and it has nothing to do with your appearance. It's because of the empty hole in your heart where you should have a soul." Ouch. And every other evil thing you can say to a very sad, lonely, broken girl with really low self esteem who's been systematically brought under your psychological spell and will believe anything you say...No one loves me, I don't matter, I'm a fat and flabby and worthless slob, I'm lazy and disgusting and he can see why that one ex once told me he was disgusted by me (so glad I told him that really hurtful story)...

So then, well, it finally ended when my mom took the gun away and had me locked up for a little while. So yeah. That's the story of how I went fucking crazy for a little while.

I am staying strong. I would love to have him here to hold me so it's not easy to say no. But I am. I'm still a little shaky and getting used to my new meds, but things are looking up. Already in the 48 hours I've been out, I've done more work on my resume than I did in the previous six months, so I can start working soon and get out of this house and get out of my head a little.

I always said I wanted to write a book, but that I couldn't write about being fat until I was close enough to normal size that I could talk about being fat without being embarrassed. But I also always felt that my story needed a brief crazy spell. And I got it. Guess I can write my book now too :P