I got a message from a friend today that I needed to update my blog as I have much to tell. Well, indeed I do. We are now in Week 10 of Round 2 of 12WBT. My how time flies when you aren't having fun. I hesitate to say that I have thrown in the towel this round but it has certainly been up and down. An utter bloody rollercoaster actually!
In every trial in life there is a lesson to be learned. Trite but true. The lesson I have learned these past weeks is that the mind is a very powerful thing and it takes a lot of strength to beat it. Oh, and organisation is key.
Let me explain. I started off this round of 12 WBT spending three weeks Singapore and Thailand. Not an ideal start but I had planned this trip before I had even enrolled in Round 1. I was not crazy, food-wise, and did a fair bit of walking and some swimming, so came back in okay shape - no loss, no gain. I was pretty relaxed and happy with myself when I got back. That lasted about ten minutes.
On my way back to my house I went to visit my 86-year-old mum. I walked in the door and got a big shock. In the three weeks I had been away she had lost a lot of weight (5 kilos we found out later). She was dizzy and not at all well. She had self-diagnosed and decided that the dizziness was due to wax in her ears. It took me a week to convince her to go to the doctor. Blood tests and scans followed. The resulting diagnosis of 'acute renal failure' meant an immediate trip to hospital. Of course, immediate trip to hospital does not mean immediate
admission to hospital. She finally got a bed in the Emergency unit after several hours sitting in the waiting area. I left her at about 4am still wide awake with the adrenalin of it all. When I went back later that morning she was still in the bed but it had been moved to the corridor along with three other patients. She quite enjoyed it there as there was lots going on, including a high-pitched aria being sung by someone in the Mental Health Unit next door. A full 24 hours after arriving at the hospital she got admitted to a ward. Somewhere in all that her prescription spectacles went missing, never to be seen again. For the next week I was back and forth on a circuit from my home to her house to pick up the paper, do the washing, to the hospital and back again - and again and again. I only have recall in the fog of fatigue of eating hot chips with gravy in the hospital café and topping up on coffee to keep me going. Constantly on the move. No time at all to do much except keep going on the circuit of to her home, back to my home, back to her home, back to the hospital, visits to lost property to try and track down her spectacles (with no success - apparently spectacles often go missing), and making phone calls to various people updating her on her progress, cancelling appointments, making others, and trying to find out what on earth was going on.
I will spare this blog the details of the rest of this saga except to say that amongst all the stress and exhaustion, I had an epiphany. I still had the 'burnt chop' syndrome. I was continuing to put my needs after others' wants, needs and requests. Once again I was running around like a mad woman. I had a mother, who because she was stubborn and refused to let others help (except me, because then she could pretend to herself that she didn't help because my help didn't count) was in hospital, seriously ill and still insisting that she really wasn't sick. It was when one of the many people who came into her room, but never really explained what they were there for, asked her whether she had an help at home and whether anyone made contact with her on an almost daily basis, and she replied, "Oh, my daughter calls me occasionally." WTF? I visited her every day and would often be there for 8, 9, 10 hours. I took her to all her appointments. I paid all her bills for her. I did her tax return each year. I cleaned her fridge. I took her shopping every Sunday. I rang each afternoon if I hadn't been able to get over to visit her. And she was describing it as that I rang her occasionally. I was so hurt. But rather than feel angry, I felt hurt. Profoundly hurt.
So I wrote her a letter. I wrote it in big letters so that she could read it. It went for over 3 pages as a result of my ginormous writing but was really only quite short. I said that I wanted to help and had no problems with helping as I respected her wish to stay in her own home but I was hurt by her telling others that I only visited occasionally. I told her I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. I needed time for myself. And I didn't want to take on the role of house keeper. I told her we had the resources to get in outside help and despite her telling me that it wasn't necessary, I felt that it was indeed necessary and it was necessary for ME. As I needed the help. I said that I respected her decisions but I did not be complicit in her decision to refuse all outside help. And I told her that I would not be visiting every day and nor would I would be doing as much as I had before. I respected her decision and she now had to respect my decision to claim back my life and take care of myself.
And like any obsessive compulsive, I took that to the extreme. What followed was
too much rest and
not enough activity.
Too many rewards and treats because, damn it, I am worth it! So week by week my Wednesday weigh-in became a battle - up in weight one week, back down the next, up the week after. A few good days here, a few bad days there. I had also agreed to edit a book so that also became a useful excuse for sitting around. I did get back into the pool and I did start back in my BodyPump class but after a gap of nearly five weeks without lifting weighs I increased the weights on my bar too quickly and tore a muscle in my arm (well, I think it is a tear - like my mother I have self-diagnosed!). So, as I wrestled with the guilt about my mum, the pain in my arm, and the chaos that was my own house, my life felt like it had become the 3 M's - Mum, Muscle and Mess. And all the drama was in my head. Sure, I had a few practical problems going on (my 3 M's) but the biggest battle was in my head. I was feeling absolutely and completely overwhelmed. I am not someone who cries easily (except in Lassie movies, that is) but I felt like crying. I knew that things needed to change. I had hidden so much of my trauma and turmoil for so long. I decided that I needed to get my head in order, my house in order, in fact my whole fucking world needed to be put in order. In the way these things happen, in the middle of all this muddle I read about an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder trial being run by Swinburne. I decided to apply for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
And for the first time in my life I told some friends about my OCD. At first they thought I was joking. They soon realised I was serious when I told them about the trial I had seen and how I was going to apply to participate in it. So I did apply and after hours of phone interviews I have just been advised that I have been accepted into the 12-week trial. Another 12-week program!
They have described me as a high achieving/high functioning OCD sufferer. What this really means is that I battle every day to function in society. I succeed but it is at a cost. Yes, I have been successful. I have a Masters degree and two other post-grad qualifications. I have held down demanding full-time jobs. I juggled working with post-graduate study while bringing up a child by myself with no financial or other support from his father (but that is another story). I have taken on the caring role for my parents without qualm. I do volunteer work. As they say, if you want something done, ask a busy person. I just keep on keeping on like the Energiser bunny. And to do this I have to fight my demons every single day. There is no day's reprieve. It is tiring and when it is combined with a period of muddle and chaos like I have just gone through, it is utterly exhausting.
So now, somehow, it is now the middle of Week 10 of 12WBT and I say this out loud but not proudly - I haven't progressed much in Round 2. And I take full responsibility. I have taken no measurements except in pre-season. I have not done the fitness tests in Weeks 1, 4 and 8. I have achieved less than a kilo loss. I am not too happy about that but I am not too sad about it either because a loss is a loss - and let's be straight up about this, I have just eaten too much food and too much of that food has been fatty and salty, high energy food. It may be science, but it is not rocket science, and it is not hard to understand: Take in more energy than you expend and you gain weight. Eat less and you lose weight.
Am I doing Round 3? Yes, I am! So, now I have two different but simultaneous 12 week challenges coming up. An interesting time ahead that is hopefully going to make life and all its mess and muddle a whole lot easier in the future. I am excited!
And I will start Round 3 with the same degree of excitement I felt about Round 1 and with a lot more knowledge about myself. I feel good! Now I just have to set those goals, milestones and rewards.
