Where did I go wrong?

Good grief, it's been a really shit summer!

I came off my diet with a vengeance and put back on 2 stone. I'm incredibly jealous of a good friend because she managed to stick to her plan and has now lost 92 lbs. 92 lbs is barely a dent in what I need to lose overall but I didn't even manage that before I tripped myself over and managed to grab failure with both hands.

I think I'm back on plan. Today is day seven. But yet, once again, things with the youngest daughter are getting into my head and taking precedence. We found out that she hasn't completed work from her previous year of school and is going to fail at least one of her subjects. That doesn't even take into account the rest of her school report. The only thing she is passing is P.E.

So we're spending our evenings basically standing over her whilst she completes the components needed. And we get no thanks, no appreciation - in fact, we get resentful and attitude. And all of that makes me want to have MacDonalds on speed dial.

I attended some counselling over the summer. But it turned into yet one more thing that I was putting a face on for - trying to pretend I was more together than I actually was. So I stopped that. Family Support has turned out to be a bit of a bust for us. The focus is on the youngest, which means that it's all about how we can make her do the things she's supposed to do. Everyone involved bends over backwards trying to find ways to make her understand how important all of this is regarding school work and life, and she nods and smiles, or cries, apologises and says she is going to change. Then leaves the room and completely forgets everything she said.

It's so completely frustrating and I make myself even madder because then I spend time trying to figure out where I went wrong. My older two kids are great. I mean, okay the eldest is part of a church that sometimes seems almost cult like. And my middle daughter has taken over far too much responsibility including being my carer, some finance of the house, the pets, the youngest. It's not fair and I know it adds to her stress and anxiety and I wish I could do something about it.

But none of that explains why the youngest acts the way she does. Why she doesn't expect a single, solitary thing from her Dad but expects that me and her sister will do absolutely everything for her, put up with all of this, and do it with a smile on our faces and a song in our hearts. I spend so much time feeling like I could scream that my chest hurts.

Everything hurts. And sometimes I wish it would all just go away.

Figuring out me - unapologetically?

I can't be the only person who struggles with this.
How do you work out who you are, and what you want, without feeling like you need to apologise or add qualifiers or explain your thought processes so that you don't offend people?

I'm really struggling to work this out.
Example.
My family are coming up to Birmingham this weekend to celebrate my birthday with me. We're going to Cadbury World.
Do I want to go to Cadbury World? No, not really. I went a few years ago with friends from college and it was fun, but I don't think it's changed that much.
So why are we going to Cadbury World? Because when we were in Edinburgh, my cousin's girlfriend suggested it.
Well, if you didn't want to go, why did you agree?
Excellent question. The answer? Because I feel guilty about everyone travelling all the way up to Birmingham, just to see me. My dad will drive approximately 400 miles in one day, just to spend some time with me, and I figure if everyone is going to make such an effort, they should get to do something fun. Enter Cadbury World.
Of course, going to Cadbury World adds another layer of guilt. It's costing people about £17 each to go. On top of a meal out. So I feel guilty about people travelling up to see me, and agree to a fairly expensive day trip, and then feel guilty about them having to spend so much money, just to visit me.

Logically speaking, that's madness, right?
It would make so much more sense to have said no to Cadbury World, so I'd only feel guilty about them travelling up to see me.
Why do I feel guilty about them coming up to see me?
Because it's something I can't often do in return. They meet up every other month or so, for birthdays and Easter and so on, and I can't usually make it. This is for a variety of reasons:
My anxiety makes it difficult to travel.
I'm a carer at home, and don't really have a back up, so have to leave my mum on her own.
I'm not really on anyone's way to my Grandad's place in Feltham, so have to make my own way down. Train tickets cost a lot, and coach travel takes forever.

I do this a lot.
Feel guilty over things that I don't have a lot of control over, and then overcompensate by doing things I don't want to do, or going places I don't want to go to assuage my guilt. I then feel guilty for the added hassle that the thing or place causes.

How do I stop feeling guilty for everything?
That's a genuine question. This pattern of behaviour is one I replicate a lot, because feeling guilty for things, even things out of my control, is something I'm used to.
So how do I get un-used to it?
How do I figure out what I want, and not feel guilty, or like and inconvenience, or a burden?
How do I work out how to say what I want, politely but firmly, and stick to it?

Because this birthday thing? It's never going away. I have a birthday every year, and it's going to keep coming up.
Wanting to spend some time on my own at home, is something that's probably going to continue. I would have no problem with my mum or sister wanting to hang out on their own for a while, so why do I feel guilty for wanting to do the same thing?
Wanting to watch a certain TV programme shouldn't mean only watching it when everyone else is asleep or out of the room, so that I don't bother them with what I want to watch. I mean, sure, some stuff people aren't interested in, and being sensitive to that just makes me not a dickhead. But watching my TV with the volume down low, when I think people are asleep so that I don't subject them to my stuff isn't normal. And it's not something that other people feel the need to do, is it?

I would love to understand why my guilt button is so overinflated.
Is this a female thing? I've read articles stating that women feel the need to apologise more than men, that we're brought up to trivialise our thoughts and feelings, and instead focus on everyone else.
Is it an anxiety thing? That would make a lot of sense. A bitch of a mental illness, convincing you that your wants are an incovenience to other people and that you should just thank your lucky stars that they even want to be around you.
But even if you work out the root cause, how do you work around that? How do you unlearn that negative thought process and start living a more healthy one?

Answers on the back of a postcard, please...

I'm shrinking

I'm shrinking.
I can feel myself doing it. Not on a physical level, but a mental one.
Part of it is next weekend. I'm scared, I'm anxious, I'm freaking out, but I promised to go, so I'm just bottling it up and compacting it and compartmentalising it, until it's this brick of negativity in the back of my head. I'm stuck in another country with people who care about me, but don't know me. People who miss me, and so I feel like the biggest bitch ever, because I'm dreading being trapped with them for a weekend.
What's scaring me? The plane. The travel. Being in an apartment with my dad, my sister, my cousin and his girlfriend. A day with no plans but to spend time together - God, how I hate that phrase. Then more time together. Then a meal together, where someone, usually my dad, will invariably make a comment about how much I eat. Then another day of time spent together. Then a plane home.
But I promised to go. My airfare is paid for, it's Granddad's 80th birthday, I have to go.
So I shrink. I turn it all inwards, and panic silently, so that no one sees it.

At home, I can feel myself doing it.
It's like she needs all the oxygen in the room, all the time, and so I shrink so that I take up as little as possible. I feel as though my time is not my own, because it is eaten up by appointments and meetings and everything else. Sometimes, I feel as though I am not mine.
So I shrink, to keep as much of myself mine as possible.

We have more stuff to get through this week. Parents evening, a vet appointment. I have to pack, she has to pack, we have to be ready.
I should be looking forward to next weekend, looking forward to the break. But I'm not, I'm just ... So caught up in my head that I can't think straight. I'm worrying, because me not being home means that she has to manage everything here. I know, realistically, when I can think that way, that things will likely be fine. But that quiet voice in the back of my head keeps asking, but what if it's not?
I don't want to say any of it out loud, because I don't want to project my fears, make them real. I don't want to make her worry about it more than she already is. I don't want her worrying about me more than she already it. I hate worrying people. I hate it.
They worry because I am anxious, and them worrying makes me anxious.
It's a vicious cycle.
So I try to shrink, hide it and keep it in that brick, so that no one worries.
But I worry, so I shrink, and I shrink because I worry.
I'm stuck.

This is NOT a diet blog....

....and I have no intention of it turning into one. But I don't actually do much - as you may have gathered by now - so it makes sense that I let you know what I've actually been doing since 31st December 2018.

Many, many years ago, I lost nearly 7 stone following a VLCD called the Cambridge Diet. For all sorts of reasons - including an ex who hated me losing weight because it made insecurities pop out of the woodwork - I never actually reached my goal.

Anyway, I started seriously following my version of a VLCD at the end of December. It has had to be my version because I can't afford to follow one with a Counsellor, and Lighterlife is expensive AF if you go through the programme. So I've been buying my stuff from Exante, Superdrug who do Lighterlife Fast and Slim'n'Save.

My first week I lost 35lbs. No, your eyes are not deceiving you - I lost 35lbs in the first week. Complete food replacement, three products a day. The ONLY reason I lost that much weight is that I am a complete and utter camel and hold onto water like there's a drought planned. That, and I have (had) over 250lbs to lose. So that was an incentive to keep going.

It hasn't been easy. Obviously Da Boss and Monster-teen have to eat. And there have been times when I have wanted to rip the food out of their hands and shove it down my throat so that I looked like a snake with undigested food shapes sticking out! But on the whole, I have managed to stick with it. Periodically I have needed vegetables because on a VLCD, you don't *ahem* create a lot of waste. So sometimes constipation can be a problem. Having the odd meal of meat/veg gave my body something to gather up and expel.

Then I have had some problems with the ready-to-drink shakes. I have no idea why - as far as I'm aware, I don't have any sort of dairy intolerance. But every time I had one of the ready to drink shakes, I had a MAJOR explosion in the bathroom. Like, OMG, I need a hazmat suit and a CDC team to deal with this. Fortunately, I have finished nearly all of the RTD shakes so that shouldn't happen any more.

Last week was week 8. Monster-teen went to visit her dad. And I went down with the mother of all viruses, including a hacking cough that made me think my eyeballs were going to explode out of my head, and my brain was shaking in my skull. Everything hurt like you wouldn't believe. So I ate. All week. Mostly one meal a day - pizza one day, tagliatelli another day, MacDonalds one day. I planned a couple of times to get back on track and then wanted food - it was very Arianna Grande: I see it, I like it, I want it, I get it. (Apart from the complete fail by UberEats that we won't discuss but that almost made me cry!) I haven't managed to kick this virus completely - still coughing a lot, headaches are still bad. But better than I was.

 But today, my order arrived from Slim'n'Save, and I'm back on just the packs. I weighed in and have been fortunate enough to only put on 1lb which is a complete miracle if I'm gonna be honest.

My knees are bad again - I think it might be time for another steroid injection. I'm not looking forward to the actual injection but by God, I'm looking forward to the relief.

I've now lost 53lbs in 8 weeks. I'm very proud but also completely terrified. I haven't been this successful on a diet in years. Quite possibly a decade. I can't actually see much difference in myself. But yeah, it's been messing with my head just a bit.

So that's me. I'm trying to keep track of things on Instagram Chutney Spires which is a daily log of what I'm eating and how I'm doing. And I'm kinda hoping to use this place for the headstuff. But it's definitely not gonna be a diet blog.

Oh yeah. I missed my MRI because of the virus but it's been rescheduled for March so that's happening. I don't know why, but I'm scared they're going to say they can't see anything wrong. Like somehow, the MRI isn't going to see the arthritis etc and they're going to label me a fraud. Does anyone else ever have that stuff go on in their head?

Happy New Year!

Don't act all surprised that we're well into the second week of January before I'm writing that!

Okay, how do I catch you up? No shock to anyone, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes back in September. Just over the edge of, but enough to kick me into the next level of medical attention. That means Dietician, eye checks, foot checks, you name it, they want to suddenly check it because I've gone from level 44 to 48.

The Dietician - I am not really a violent person, despite what this blog might have you believe. But I wanted to kill her. At our Doctor's surgery, they know I use a wheelchair. So imagine our surprise when the appointment with the Dietician was upstairs. Through two heavy fire doors to get to the minuscule lift, then out of the lift we were basically re-enacting the 'Friends' "PIVOT" scene in order to get round the corner to go through two more fire doors to get into her office. Where I promptly fainted - exertion, stress, whatever.

She did everything but flap her hands and go 'oh dear, oh dear'. Then she asked us why we were there. Once we explained that we had been sent following a diabetes diagnosis, she proceeded to give us (no word of a lie) two print outs of diets you can find for yourself on the internet, which just so happen to contradict each other on the advice they give you. When it came time to weigh me, she had to go and find some scales which were dead (needed new batteries that she didn't have any spares of) and her manual scales showed me as 20kg heavier than the ones in the Dr's office had less than two months previously.

She knew nothing about VLCD diet plans - I had to find the products I've been using on her website for her to have a read - and she said she couldn't give advice on them as she didn't know about them. Obviously she can't know about every single diet out there - I wouldn't expect her to - but considering the Government are considering funding people who have Type 2 Diabetes to follow them in an official capacity, you would think she would have at least heard of the plans.She then said I needed to be booked in for bloods before we could talk any further - which seemed fair enough. I stated that any future appointments would need to be in a downstairs room to which she replied 'well she can't promise that' (like, WTAF, does she seriously expect me to go through this every time I have to see her?!) so I said well if it's not downstairs then I won't see her again. She kinda looked relieved!

Booked ourselves in for bloods. Letters received giving me dates for my Diabetes review, telling me where I can go for appropriate eye tests, etc. Need to have recent blood test results from no more than three weeks (I believe) in the past. Well that doesn't gel with the blood tests the dietician has booked us in for. Umpteen phone calls later, it turns out that no one at the surgery has any idea what tests she has booked me in for, they make no sense to the blood team, the receptionists, none of them. But they don't want to cancel them in case she has a reason for it. I swear, I thought I had boiled my brain, the sheer amount of steam coming out of my ears following these conversations.

Anyway, had my Diabetes review this week. Because of Christmas, my numbers had gone up a little BUT they are still in the green so Diabetes nurse is happy with me and wants me to keep going on the weight loss front. Giggled my way through the foot check (very nice man put up with me snorting, giggling and hiding in Stripes' teeshirt to muffle my sounds) and that was quite possibly the nicest trip to the Dr's we've had in years!

Hmmm, this is gargantuan as it is, and I haven't filled you in on LM yet. I shall write more once I've recovered! If you made it to the end, well done you!