On Intimacy and Trust (P2, D15)

Good loss yesterday, very small gain today, but it's all evening out to just over a pound per day, so it's okay. It's a little bit of a bummer that I lost almost 14 pounds in the first week and it's taken me another whole week to lose another 3.6, but it is what it is. I'll report my weight and weight loss today and then get on to what I'm thinking about today. 

Day	Date	Weight	Daily Change	Total Loss
Day 1	11/1/2010	229.6	n/a	n/a
Day 2	11/2/2010	225.6	-4.0	-4
Day 3	11/3/2010	221.6	-4.0	-8
Day 4	11/4/2010	218.6	-3.0	-11
Day 5	11/5/2010	218.6	0.0	-11
Day 6	11/6/2010	216.4	-2.2	-13.2
Day 7	11/7/2010	215.8	-0.6	-13.8
Week 1 summary: down 13.8#
Day 8	11/8/2010	214.8	-1.0	-14.8
Day 9	11/9/2010	215.4	0.6	-14.2
Day 10	11/10/2010	213.8	-1.6	-15.8
Day 11	11/11/2010	213.6	-0.2	-16
Day 12	11/12/2010	215	1.4	14.6
Day 13	11/13/2010	213	-2.0	-16.6
Day 14	11/14/2010	212.2	-0.8	-17.4
Week 2 summary: down 3.6 # this week; 17.4# total

Today's topic: on sharing one's navelgazing with unsuspecting friends and family.

I have not shared this blog with many of my "in real life" friends or family. I have worked out a pretty good system in the last 10 or 15 years of life where I give the illusion of intimacy with friends by being willing and open to talk about the facts of my life without giving much away about what really moves me, for good or for bad. In high school, my friends called me the ice queen (I was actually very proud of that title; I thought it was bad ass) because I kept all my cards very close to the chest. I think I have remedied that, but not always in a truly meaningful way.

Having postpartum depression twice cured me of some of my hesitance to let people in. The first time, I was very isolated (geographically, and with a few exceptions, socially); the second time, I let people in and I let people take care of me, and it was a transformative experience. It was very scary to show people that dark, black side of me, but I did it. And not only did people not like me less, they seemed to like me more. Letting people help me through the postpartum period took several friendships to a whole new level.

But the food stuff, the binge eating, the overeating is all still a secret from almost everyone I know. It's funny, I always thought the thing I would want to keep secret is the fact that I'm doing this crazy fucking diet, but what I really want to keep secret is what got me here. 

So here's what has me thinking about the subjects of intimacy and trust this week.

1. My best friend from middle school (commenting on this blog as Kristoise) is the scientist who helped me research this diet. She knows I've struggled with weight and self esteem my whole life. She knows what I look like. She knows I was considering this diet out of desperation. We have been friends for (OMG, I can't even believe it's been this long) almost TWENTY years. But I still didn't want her to read this blog because I didn't want her to know "my number" and I've never shared with her the true depths of misery this food/weight stuff has caused me in my life. She struggles with body image like just about every woman on the planet, so she gets it to some degree, but she doesn't get the shame part.

When I finally decided to share this blog with her and she read this post , she wrote to me "I never knew about any of the binge eating, and then I think what a horrible best friend I must have been to not have known." See, that's fucked up. It is ME that never shared this kind of thing with my oldest best friend who knows just about everything about me. If she doesn't know, that's on me, not on her. It is me that is the bad friend for not letting her in on this sooner, considering it is a major, major part of my life.

2. My friend Z is someone I adore and have been building a strong friendship with for some time. She is very sane and clear-headed . . . no drama. I have joked to her that I need some level of drama and revelation of inner turmoil to feel like I really "know" someone. I am only half kidding. I have been waiting for her to make some big reveal that will take the level of intimacy in our relationship to the next level. Then it occurred to me that I could provide it. I told her about this diet last week and gave her the tiniest insight into my historical struggles, but I did it in a way that felt very scary and vulnerable.

She doesn't think the diet is a great idea on it's surface and was honest about that, but as she has seen that I am still feeling strong and healthy and am not wasting away like a cancer patient, she has become more supportive of ME, if not more supportive of the diet. I told her, she (sort of) disapproved, and you know what? We are still friends. She still likes me, even knowing I am someone who has to resort to crazy diets to control crazy behavior. And I still like her, even though she was honest with me about not loving this plan. Our friendship survived some serious vulnerability and getting real.

3. My friend G was over at my house for lunch the other day, and noticed that I was eating plain chicken and spinach instead of the delicious turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwich (mmmm, so delicious) I had bought for her and our friend K to split. I really did not plan to tell G or K about this plan, but decided on a whim that I would open up about it to them, two tender, gentle, loving, and hilarious midwives in training who would surely not give me shit for doing what most people (including possibly me) consider to be a fad diet. But I definitely emphasized the detox/cleanse aspect of the diet rather than the weight loss aspect. It feels safe to say I want to detox and eat healthier, it feels scary to say I need to lose 60 pounds to two people who don't need to lose a single ounce. 

We talked about it awhile, they shared some of their own stories, and G mentioned gently that she'd never seen me eat unhealthy or drink too much or overindulge in any way and she'd always seen me eat as healthy as I was that day (skinless, boneless chicken, raw spinach, and an orange). She talked about the difference in body type and metabolism as the reason, but the real reason is that I fucking eat like shit and can eat a whole sleeve of cookies at 10:00 at night without even thinking about it. Some days, I will go to 7-11 in the morning on the way home from preschool drop off and buy 4 candy bars and eat all 4 in one day.

G has never seen me do it (despite a fair amount of time spent together), and she doesn't know I do it, because I'm too ashamed and I keep it all a secret. But G is an awesome and amazing woman that I feel so, so drawn to. And while I'm sure she doesn't need or want an hourly report about how many candy bars I've eaten, it seems like if we are going to be really, really close friends, which I would like to be, she should know what my deepest, darkest struggles are.

4. I adore my mother-in-law. She is really an amazing woman. She is also a Weight Watchers leader and a big believer in the WW program--she lost something like 60 or 70 pounds on it more than 10 years ago and has kept it off. And this woman did not go from fat to normal. She went all the way to thin and fit and has stayed that way all these years. She's probably a 4-6 at age 58! She and I talked about the HCG diet last summer and agreed that it was a terrible idea--too low in calories, too low in nutrients, faddish in its "gimmick" for success, and guaranteed to cause a huge regain once the diet is over. I agreed with her. I was training for a triathlon at the time and felt like I had things under control, even if I wasn't anywhere near the weight I wanted to be.

But then I got hurt, fell into desperation about my weight for the 456th time in my life, changed my mind, and decided I had nothing to lose. But I haven't told her I actually started this diet we both agreed last summer is a terrible idea. I'm afraid she'll be mad, I'm afraid she'll disapprove, and I'm afraid she'll be disappointed in me for not being able to achieve long-term success on Weight Watchers which anyone in the world would agree is a healthier and superior way to lose weight than 500 calories a day combined with a homeopathic remedy. These fears are not based on her actions in any way, they are based on MY crazy brain. I love my MIL and want to really know her, and I want her to really know me. I guess that means I should send her this blog, right? The thought is terrifying.

5. Another dear friend of mine, M, has been confiding in me about her painful struggles with infertility. She and her husband have been trying for something like a year and a half to have their second child, and are just coming up against obstacle after obstacle. For a long time, she went through the pain and frustration without telling anyone. But I was one of the first people she talked to about it. Now she's opened up to a few more, but it is still very, very private for her and her husband, who I am also close to. M and I have been getting closer and closer, and it was such a huge honor to me that she is sharing this part of her life with me.

Last week, we were riding somewhere together, and she asked me what was new. I was thinking, "only that I'm on a crazy new diet and have lost 13 pounds and feel like my entire worldview is transforming!" What I actually said was "nothing."

M is very thin, very in touch with her body, and has a very healthy relationship with food. She doesn't even begin to understand the drive to binge eat, the way it feels to sit in a chair that is too narrow, or the way it feels to walk into a room when you're the biggest one there. But you know what she does understand? Feeling like there is something everyone else can do that you can't do. She understands feeling broken, she understands feeling jealous, she understands the feeling of having a problem that no one can fix, no matter what you try. She has bared her soul to me. She has cried to me and told me things no one else knows. Who the fuck am I to keep my stupid diet and weight problems a secret from her? It is almost an insult to her because it implies that my struggles are more secret, more painful, more damaging than hers, which is total horseshit.

So I told her. And I did it because I love her and she trusted me, and I owe her that trust and intimacy in return. Our friendship can only go so far without my willingness to share the scary, black shit in my head and heart with as much freedom and care as she shares hers.

So that's what I'm thinking about today. They all know about the diet except my MIL; the next logical step would be for me to share this blog with those people. My brain immediately starts to say "they aren't interested in this level of minutia, they'll think I'm a totally self-obsessed navel gazer, blah blah blah." But here's the truth. I may not be interested in alcoholism or spousal abuse or anorexia. But if I loved someone who was going through it, I would want to know, because I would need to know it to really understand them. So everytime I try to talk myself out of sharing this stuff using the excuse that no one cares about this but me, I have to kind of call bullshit on myself for that.

But, look, here's the truth of it. These are secrets I have kept from almost everyone MY WHOLE LIFE. It's feeling good and brave and safe to stretch and share with these people and a few others (my husband, my mom, my brother, another friend who really gets it, and a group of women in my hometown who are also doing this HCG thing under the same guidance as I am). I don't think they think less of me. I don't know they they all recognize what a big deal it is that I'm sharing it, but maybe it would help if I sent them an ecard that said "the fact that I share my dull, boring neuroses with you is a sign of how much I love you!"

Anyway, enough on this topic today. That's what I'm thinking about. Stay tuned to see if I can continue to stretch this "sharing" muscle or if it's done stretched as far as it goes. You will be able to tell if you ever see more than 3 people ever leaving comments. :)

You want to know what's really hilarious? I am so terrified at the idea of even contemplating the vulnerability involved in sending this link to anyone other than the 3 or 4 safe people who already have it, that I really want to go eat a huge ice cream sundae to calm myself down. Yeah, that would be productive.