Your Future Is In Another Castle

My last post was about a month ago and I think it's safe to say that it wasn't exactly the happiest of blogs.  But, wallowing in self-loathing and frustration was never really my style, so I thought I'd see what life looked like outside of my pity party.  So I chopped all my hair off and life was magnificent and everyone lived happily ever after.

Okay, that's a bit of an over-simplification, but it's not entirely a lie.  Here's what happened: I started to really think about what was making me feel so awful about life, thinking that I could sort it all into Stuff I Can Change, Stuff That Doesn't Actually Matter All That Much, and Stuff I Can Do Exactly Fuckall About.  I realized a strange thing during this process... very little falls into that last category.  Sure, I can't reverse global warming and I can't make all the morons realize that gay marriage isn't the end of the world and I can't make Nathan Fillion and Natalie Portman simultaneously fall madly in love with me.  There are things about the world around me over which I have no control.  But I can control a hell of a lot more than I give myself credit for.  And, as soon as I accepted that little fact, I felt like I'd gotten another life.

Warning: consumption of brightly-colored mushrooms will, in fact, give you the opposite of more life.

Realizing that my life is almost entirely up to me was hugely helpful in getting myself out of the hole I'd fallen dug myself into.

Hate your job?  Start throwing around applications for places you might hate less.  Learn a new skill that could be beneficial to your quest for new employment.  Find something redeeming in the job you have now that makes it more tolerable for you to remain there.

I'm displeased with my job.  But, until I find a new one, I've got two choices: be miserable five days a week or find something to enjoy about my job while remaining optimistic about employment elsewhere.  I'm going with the latter.  Not only am I still attending bartending classes, but I'm also actively applying for other jobs.  Meanwhile, I've been giving some thought to something that first occurred to me when I was a wee lass.  There was a time, somewhere between the desire to be a princess and the ever-popular (if not somewhat vague) desire for fame, that I said I want to be a cop when I grow up.  It's a thought that pops up every few years, like career Whack-A-Mole, and it always gets hit with the mallet full of logical reasons why that wouldn't work for me.  But those reasons are disappearing and I find it's a thought worth considering before sending it retreating back into its hole. 

Tired of being fat?  After accepting that results will not come overnight, stop eating so much and go to the damn gym.  Can't afford the gym?  Make the world your gym.  Find a staircase near you and run up and down for twenty minutes a day.  Don't want to go to the gym because you think everyone is judging you?  Get over yourself.  No one cares what you look like or what you're doing.  Everyone is just there to exercise.  If you feel that this isn't the case at your gym, get a less douchey gym.

I'm still fat.  I may not be Jupiter-sized anymore, and I'm proud of that, but I'm still overweight by most standards.  Instead of resigning myself to my Pluto-sized status and continuing to feed my depression with ice cream and pizza, I hit the reset button and started over.  I'm back at the gym on a more regular basis, which I feel really good about.  As for eating?  There's an app for that.  I didn't want to go back to the same repetitive diet that, while successful, was making me a sad panda.  But I do need something to help me keep track of caloric intake.  So I found an app called Lose It! that I've been toying with for the last week or so and it works for me.

Didn't attain a goal you'd set for yourself and worked really hard towards?  Figure out where you went wrong.  Maybe you didn't try hard enough, maybe you didn't give yourself enough time, or maybe it was just the wrong goal for you.  Something didn't go the way you thought it was supposed to and that sucks, but you can try again.

I had to give up on Slave Leia.  The realization that I was simply not going to be able to do it was heartbreaking.  But it was also a tremendous relief.  As soon as I admitted it, I felt better.  Had I continued my course of salads and sit-ups, I may have accomplished the feat of donning the gold bikini by July.  However, I would have done so as a depressed anorexic.  A costume wasn't worth hating myself over.  Comic Con means too much to me to spend it unhappy.  So, for this year, Slave Leia is out.  But that doesn't mean I can't wear something a bit sexier than I have in years past.  So, in two weeks, I'll be resembling this:

Dragons sold separately.

Don't like the way your hair looks?  Get some scissors and cut it off.  Then promptly go to Supercuts and sheepishly request that they fix the mess you made when you thought you were being all defiant and badass.

Not that I would know anything about that scenario...

I'd love to go on and on about how my hair was a symbol of my depression and cutting it off was some sort of meaningful gesture about freeing myself from the grip of sadness.  That's all very poetic and lovely.  But, the truth is, with Slave Leia out of the picture, I no longer had any reason to keep growing my hair.  So, one day, in the span of about ten minutes, I decided I didn't want my hair anymore, bought some scissors, put it in two braids, and cut it off.  It's an unbelievably satisfying and liberating experience.  I recommend it.  As for the braids, they've been shipped off to the good folks at Locks Of Love to provide wigs for the cancer kids, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Is my life all rainbows and sunshine now?  Of course not.  There are still things that get under my skin.  I still have to fight off some residual, nonspecific sadness periodically.  But I'm getting better.  I'll always be getting better.  Because what happens when you've maxed out your ability to level up?

And I'm not ready for that yet.  Not even close.

Global Whining

Fair warning: this is me right now.

Before I begin, I should say that this has all been said before, far better than I could ever hope to explain it.  To read it from someone whose skills with words far exceed my own, go here and here.

I'll wait.

Okay, so now that you've read those, it's my turn. Since my experience is through the filter of someone whose blog is primarily about weight loss, I'll start by saying that being on a diet is an excellent time to get hit with a big ball of depression.  Instead of contemplating cutting and suicide, you contemplate Dominos and Taco Bell.

Goodbye, cruel world

Sometime, about a week ago, I got home from work, took one look at my treadmill, and experienced all manner of emotions, ranging from unadulterated sadness to serious rage.  The same thing happened when I went to the kitchen to construct my dinner salad.  I didn't want salad.  I didn't want to run.  I didn't want to do sit-ups.  I wanted a goddamn, mother fucking Twinkie.  I chalked this up to general fatigue... boredom with my diet and exercise regimen.  So I went out and slaked my lust for empty calories, vowing to get back on track the following day.  But something had started to gain momentum inside me, something far more unpleasant than cravings for baked goods of questionable nutritional value.  Tuesday afternoon, I went shopping, but couldn't get as excited about fitting into smaller sizes as I had in past trips.  Wednesday morning, I had a job interview, which may or may not have gone swimmingly.  I honestly don't know.  Because it was at that point that I genuinely stopped giving a fuck.  Thursday morning, I woke up underneath an insurmountable pile of apathy.  I told everyone that I was just tired, but what had happened was that I simply did not care.  I felt like Earth's gravity had increased, like I was in one of those centrifuge rides at a carnival, going full speed and even moving my arms required vast amounts of strength. 

I drove home and sat in my driveway for a little while, not going inside partially because I wasn't sure I possessed the energy to do so, but also because I didn't want to deal with people.  It exhausted me to even consider the idea of carrying on a conversation with anyone in my family.  Especially my mom.  She can spot something wrong with one of her children from miles away.  Unfortunately, this is paired with the fact that she is the most judgmental, least empathetic person I've ever met.  Everything I've ever done or wanted to do, everything I've ever gotten excited about, she will find something about which to be critical.  It's like she tries to suck the happiness out of my plans.  She'd probably tell me that I'm going about being depressed all wrong.  So I was confronted with the unpleasant task of trying to carry myself as though everything was rainbows and sunshine.  It's an interesting thing that happens when you try really hard to look normal... you start to look as abnormal as possible.

I'M FINE, I SWEAR! LOOK AT HOW FINE I AM!

So that happened.  I gorged myself, in a failed attempt at making myself seem like I was okay. I went to my bedroom, full of regret and self-loathing, feeling like Jabba the Hutt.  I hated myself for eating so much.  And then a weird thing happened.  I wanted to punish myself, so I went back into the kitchen and ATE SOME MORE.  I wasn't even hungry.  If anything, I was already sickened with the amount of calories I had poured into my gaping mouth that evening.  But it seemed like the thing to do.

What happens after these unfortunate events to someone in my state of mind is this: you get stuck in the infinite loop of suck.

You tell yourself that your life could be way more awful, so you have no business feeling bad about how it is now.  Add a tablespoon of stress eating and a dash of lethargy, bake for 24 hours, and you've got a big serving of Welcome Back To The World of Being a Fatass.  The last time I was at the gym was Monday night.  I keep telling myself to go after work, but I lack the energy or desire to do so.  I also keep telling myself to stop eating things that are bad for me, but I just don't care anymore and, I'm pretty sure that, if I see a salad right now, I'm going to turn into She-Hulk.

MADIGAN SMASH!

But of course, all of that just makes me feel worse about things.  I don't feel like I deserve to feel bad.  So I feel bad about feeling bad.  And then feeling bad deprives me of any energy, so I don't exercise and then I feel bad about that.  And then I throw back a whole mess of comfort food in an attempt to make myself feel better, but then I feel bad for being a hungry, hungry hippo.  And somewhere in my brain is an angry little person who, apparently influenced by TV shows where the teenager gets caught smoking and is made to smoke the whole pack as punishment, yells at me, "Oh, so you like that ice cream?  Here!  Eat half a carton if it makes you feel so good!"  And then I go to bed with a stomachache because my system has gotten used to plants and lean meat and doesn't know what to do with all this sugar and fat and processed food.  And then... say it with me... I feel bad.  And that little tune has just been playing on repeat for the last few days.

I don't know what to do about this.  Even if I did, the level of apathy I have about everything would prevent me from doing it.  I nearly called in sick to work this morning just because I really didn't want to get out of bed.  I'm not overcome with pain or sadness... it's just that I cannot make myself care about anything going on in my life.  It would probably suck more if I could be bothered to give a fuck.

Worst. Blog. Ever.