"D" Is For "Deficient"

Wednesday 11-2-11
What am I really lacking?

It looks like I will be receiving a lot of phone calls and paperwork to fill out in the weeks to come, courtesy of the team of specialists being called upon to consult on my various health concerns.  This afternoon the surgeon's office called with my lab results from the blood they drew last week.  It was a shock to learn that I have a vitamin D deficiency, and a fairly substantial one.  They are recommending that I come in for an injection, which I have scheduled for next week.  As much cereal as I consume (always with skim milk, thank you very much) a vitamin D deficiency comes as a surprise.  I am doing some research on my own to see if my medication for acid reflux has anything to do with this.  So, I lack some vitamin D.

When I came home from work, I found that a large manila envelope came in the mail from the sleep center where I will soon be spending a night to determine if I have sleep apnea.  I'm betting that I have it just from the answers to the questions on the first page of the NINE pages of forms I need to fill out for them.  As I have mentioned in a previous post, I snore like a lumberjack, or so I have been told.  And my energy is not what it should be.  So, apparently, I am also lacking some sleep.  Well, Duh.

It makes me think about what I've been lacking in my life that has brought me to this place of pursuing surgical intervention for my lifelong weight problem.  I have always been an emotional, or stress, eater.  Seeing it in print like this, it looks like I eat emotions and stress...which, kind of, is what I've been doing all along.  Of course, I've been eating my stress and my emotions with large side orders of ice cream and pizza.  The yummy foods make the emotions go down easier.  And the emotions I've eaten have always been prompted by some shortcoming or inadequacy of mine, some failure...some deficiency. 

"Those 5 A's on your report card are really good, but what's the B for?"

"You won the contest, that's nice.  Did they give you any money for it?"

"You have such a pretty face..."

"You're lazy and trifling."

"Can't you be more like (fill in the blank)?"

For most of my life I have felt like I didn't quite measure up to the standards of the people who mattered most to me.  This blog is not meant to be an airing of all my dirty laundry, but I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I have lived the stereotype of the fat girl stuffing her sorrows down with food.  It's why I'm here. 

It's sad to be overfed and starving at the same time, but this is what emotional eating really does.  Ice cream and pizza can never feed the parts of me that are truly hungry.  My value as a person does not come from how I look or what I do or any of the other exterior packaging.  It has taken me 47 years to realize that my value comes from being a beloved, forgiven, understood child of God.  There is nothing I can do to make Him stop loving me.

Would I like to have unconditional love from other people in my life?  Of course.  Has eating my emotions gotten me anywhere closer to gaining their approval and love?  No.  Will getting healthy and shrinking maybe get them to finally love me and embrace me for who I am?  It doesn't really matter anymore, because I'm not doing it for them.  And the truth is, if someone can't appreciate me fat, then they probably won't appreciate me any other way, either.