Made a wrong turn, once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that’s alright
Welcome to my silly life
In my lifetime, I’ve made quite a few wrong turns. As early as I can remember I looked for ways to make myself feel better about who I was: I abused my body to feel better about myself. I lost my virginity before I even knew what it meant to have one. Instead of playing with barbies I was playing with boys because they gave me the attention I so desperately sought and never received from a mother who had no idea what it meant to even be one. I began smoking before I even hit 5th grade because it gave me a sense of belonging with the misfits I began to hang out with because they understood me better than I was understanding myself. Instead of spending hours outside on a playground or playing on a soccer team where parents are suppose to lovingly watch you interact with kids your own age, I was spending hours inside my mother’s bar sitting on the last bar stool closest to the back door (in case someone from the liquor board came in), interacting with adults who showed me that wasting away doing nothing all day but drowning your sorrows was where my life was headed.
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss ‘No way, it’s all good’, it didn’t slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I’m still around
In my last year of junior high I began a “relationship” with a women who was twice my age (I was 15) and twice as fucked up mentally as I was. She said she loved me. I believed her. I believed a lot of things people said. I was gay bashed and ridiculed by my classmates but I was loved and when you’re a kid trying to figure out your place in the world that was all that mattered.
High school led to a path of self destruction that would live with me for most of my adult life. I began to find comfort in food in ways that I didn’t find before. I found what I was looking for: Control. Bulemia and I became up close and personal friends. I didn’t eat because I was hungry or looking to hide an emotion I couldn’t deal with. I was eating because I could. It helped me feel emotions for a short period of time and then when I was ready to take control, I made myself throw up. I was making myself sick upwards to 5 or 6 times a day. In those short minutes of leaning over a toilet bowl, life became clear.
You’re so mean, when you talk about yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead
So complicated, look happy, you’ll make it!
By the time I was one year out of high school, I was a drug addict. A meth head. Tweaker. Speed Freak. Now I didn’t need food and bulemia to feel in control. To feel beautiful. To feel loved. I found it in my new little friend: Crystal. We were the closest of friends. She never let me down. Always there for me when I needed her and even when I didn’t need her. When I wanted to end the relationship, she wrapped her arms around me and said we would be together forever.
But then my mother got sick. The one person I had been looking to for love, guidance, understanding, and a little help to survive in a world I didn’t very much like left me here to fend for myself. I was 20. I was lost. I hated everything about me. I hated everything about her. I hated everything.
Filled with so much hatred…such a tired game
It’s enough! I’ve done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, I’ve seen you do the same
For the next 20 years of my life, I survived to the best of my ability. I moved away from my hometown. My brothers. My drugs. I left it all behind because this was not the life I wanted to lead any longer. I really was trying to dig my way out blood and fire. I couldn’t give up the bulemia (or it couldn’t give me up) but everything else I left behind and never looked back. The bulemia got worse but I was in “control” and when you’re just a kid trying to make a place in the world, a little control goes a long way.
The whole world’s scared so I swallow the fear
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer
So cool in line, and we try try try, but we try too hard and it’s a waste of my time
Done looking for the critics, cause they’re everywhere
They dont like my jeans, they don’t get my hair
Exchange ourselves, and we do it all the time
Why do we do that? Why do I do that?
My environment changed. I put myself through school and finally graduated college at the ripe old age of 30. I was in a good relationship (or so I thought) and for the first time in my life I was a “functioning” adult. But the voices in my head that told me I was worthless were loud and clear. I was my worst critic. I didn’t like anything about me. As the hatred for myself grew so did my body. Instead of making myself throw up because I wanted to be in control I was throwing up because I wanted to feel pain. I would eat until my stomach hurt and then purge until my throat bled. It was no longer a love relationship I had with bulemia. It was pure hatred for who I was staring at in the mirror.
270 pounds.
40 years old.
Sad.
Depressed.
Morbidly Obese.
Enough was Enough.
In hindsight when I look back on my life I am lucky to be here writing this blog post this morning. A deck of cards was dealt to me that came with a few extra jokers but I played the hand dealt to the best of my ability. I survived the first 40 years of my life to finally begin living what could possibly be the next 40 years. All of those childhood desires to love who I see in the mirror are finally being sought after. It hasn’t been easy. Some days the light at the end of the tunnel seems so far out of my reach but it shines brightly and it has yet to fade away. Instead of turning away from my potential and the life I am supposed to lead, I run towards it every time I strap on my running shoes. Every time I think I can’t, I find the will and the love to know that I can at least try my hardest and if I fall short it just means to get up, brush myself off, look deep within myself and know that I can.
Every time I feel less than perfect…
Pretty pretty please, don’t you ever ever feel
Like you’re less than fuckin’ perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you’re nothing, you’re fucking perfect to me.
Pink tells me otherwise.
Tara, You are a strong, strong woman to pull through all of that. Stop beating yourself up and stop looking back. Just live in today and know that you are perfect and beautiful and you don’t need outside validation. Love yourself already!! Look at the accomplishments you have acheived. You rock girl. Beautiful post!
Big hugs to you, Tara. I think you’re perfect too. I see so much of my own story in yours, and I look to you for inspiration. I’ve been watching your LCJ since early last summer–I believe it was a week when you were feeling really frustrated & taking a break, just before you hit Onederland–and the transformation even just since then has been unbelievable. I will start crying if I go on so I’ll stop here. Mwah!
T – you are AMAZING! Thank you for sharing such an intimate part of your story. I feel closer to you right now, my story is similar. I am not brave enough to write the whole story out. Thank you for sharing and being so brave!
I love ya!
much love, jen
Your story made me tear up. You are such a strong and beautiful woman. Having gone through all that and being where you are today, that is a huge accomplishment. You are an inspiration and I hope you will be able to live in the present more and realize how wonderful you truly are. Others see it, why not yourself?
MWAH! LOVE U!
I am proud of you and I am honored that you shared the details of your life. You are right where you need to be, right now. And in the next moment, you will be right where you need to be. And so on. Keep on keepin’ on.
What a powerful testimony to the strength of the human spirit. I’m so glad to know you and be a part of your amazing story!
I’m with Pink . . . you ARE absolutely fucking perfect!!!! Much love to you.
do I have to say it again? I fucking love you. xx
I hope someday you will be able to appreciate just how awesome you are. Keep loving yourself and lacing up those shoes!
Your journey has been quite an amazing one – you continue to fight because, you still have fight left in you. What you have been through lady, should be a testament to many….that we are perfect just as unperfect as we are.
Wow, that was a tough one to read (for me). I am in that pit of self-loathing at the moment, have been for quite some time now. I finally decided it was time to see a naturopathic doc (as these conventional ones don’t know crapballs) and brought all my old blood tests- she takes one look at them and tells me I have lupus. The psychotherapist there isn’t sure that he wants to treat me because I will run……he asked why I can’t trust anyone. I didn’t have anywhere near the struggles you had growing up, only parents who never said they loved me, much less showed it. Tara, kudos to you for keeping up the good fight- or whatever BS name they give to it. I only wish you blogged more often………
Please don’t take this as a downer post, I just really commend you for fighting and I look forward to reading your posts!
🙂
Another awesome, honest post that I can relate to on so many levels. Thank you and know that while we’ve not met, I believe in your path. Thank you for your honesty; it inspires me.
I have goosebumps… yes, again. Everytime I read your posts I get so much from them. I just love you to pieces. I know I”ve never met you, but your raw emotion is so easy to connect to. I’d love to see Pink read this. I would be willing to bet that this intensity is what she is all about. You are an amazing woman. Not because of the struggles, but in spite of them. The struggle doesn’t define you. The power to overcome does. XOXO
as I always say your posts are ones I read.
reread
reread
and REREAD.
Im with Pink as our HUGE IMPERFECTIONS make us all as PERFECT as we are and need to be.
xo
blue and gold thinks your pretty cool as well.
Your writing moves me in ways that I can’t quite explain. I hope that someday soon you see all that you offer to the world, because it’s HUGE. Perfect, even.
(And if you haven’t already, you really should think about writing a book – you have the best writing style and such a strong story to share).
No one is perfect. All the images on magazines that you encounter in the grocery stores are photoshoped and manipulated creating impossible standards for every women around the world.
[…] Yep, that’s you. Yep, that’s a half marathon. Yep, you did it 103 pounds lighter. You’ve continued to work harder than you ever give yourself credit for. Over the last year, you’ve ended some relationships, started some awe inspiring relationships. You made a birthday wish come true and set up some serious goals for the next coming year. The one important thing you learned while living through these stories is that life isn’t going to change unless you change. You didn’t want to be depressed or reliant on medication to get you through the day. You didn’t want to sit around wondering what it would be like to be an athlete, you went out and made yourself more of an athlete than you ever dreamed. Even on days you feel like giving in and giving up you realize there is perfection in your imperfections. […]
I can relate to much of what you have written in this post. I constantly looked to my mother for love and acceptance and still do at 32. I’m never going to get it. I don’t believe she’s capable of giving it. I don’t know if her mother is not giving it to her or what. It’s a sad situation.