Videos, Ovaries, and the 300lb Girl in the Room
This is a tough, personal post that was really hard to write - at one point I even thought of not actually publishing it, but it feels like it's something that just needs to get off my chest...so here we go!
Over the last few years I've had to dodge a question that I would get asked quite a bit. I just never had a good answer for it. I also didn't think anyone would understand the answer I did have and I'd end up spending a bunch of time trying to explain things to people who didn't really care. Most of all I didn't want to sound like I was making excuses.So what's this burning question?"How come you never make videos? Why don't you have a YouTube channel?"It's horrible to say it and in fact finding the exact words to make it make sense to someone other than myself isn't easy. So let's start with this.
Several years ago, around 2011, I was diagnosed with PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I had spent about 3 years prior becoming increasingly frustrated with my health and my body to the point where sometimes I found myself wondering if I had some horrible mental health issue about a distorted body perception that I didn't understand or maybe I was going through early menopause. After some research I came across PCOS as a possible concern. So many of the symptoms fit my issues at the time. I made a doctor appointment to see what was what.A week later I was off to the hospital for an exam. I've never been as scared as I was the day I had to go for my first ever transvaginal ultrasound to have my ovaries checked out. As I went through the godawful procedure the technician kept making it very clear that she couldn't tell me anything or answer any questions {not that I had any at that point but if she kept bringing it up I was going to think I should be asking some}.When she was done she told me to get dressed and I could leave, that my doctor would have the results in a few days and would be in touch. She left and I got up to walk to the bathroom to get dressed. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the screen for the ultrasound machine was still on and pictures from my exam were on the screen. I couldn't help it. I had to look.What I saw were several pictures of little eggs {my ovaries} with purple dots all over the pictures noting what looked like black holes all around each one. Black holes is basically Jess-speak for cysts. And they were everywhere.
It took a month to get in touch with my doctor {they said they lost my number...how is that even possible}. When I did talk to someone - a nurse, not even my actual doctor - she told me, kind of coldly over the phone, that I had PCOS and that I would need to see a gynecologist next. I get a referral from the doctor's office and I call to make an appointment. Then I find out it will be a month and a half before I can get an appointment there. I ended up not making an appointment because I was moving back to Boston and I figured I'd just deal with it when I got home.I've only ever had a few really painful cyst bursts in my lifetime. And at the time I had no idea what it was {I just thought it was bad cramps} and found out later through all of this what it was. While the images from the ultrasound looked terrible it turned out a lot of the marks were past scars and it wasn't as severe as my hypochondriac, ill-informed self thought from looking at eggs decked in purple dots on a little screen.So how does this tie into the video thing? I mean, it's not like my ovaries are going to be on camera saying hi!It has to do with body shame.The symptoms and effects of PCOS vary from person to person and naturally every woman who deals with this has her own experience. She has her own level of symptoms and deals with her condition in her own way. Of course, for me, I'm ruled by a very bull-headed Aries nature which has it's ups and downs.
The symptoms that affect me the most are a whacky menstrual cycle, which has also caused me to often suffer from low iron levels, facial hair growth, and the biggest problem {no pun intended}, a weight problem. For me this has manifested as a gradual weight gain over the last handful of years with a near impossible ability to lose any of it. Regardless of how much I do to change my diet or lifestyle I may, at best, lose 20lbs.On top of the whole PCOS thing right around the same time, I'd had a pretty nasty ankle injury {which I talked about in a guest post on the Wild Sister blog} that left me with some permanent nerve damage in my left leg. If I walk too much or do anything too strenuous on my feet my ankle swells up so it looks like there's a baseball sticking out the side and I can't feel my leg from hip to toe. Pas bon!As I keep gaining weight and as life becomes a little more tricky every day, physically and mentally at times, I find myself not terribly interested in being in front of a camera - to be honest most days I have no interest in being in front of people.And then this happened...A "friend" said to me "nobody wants to take life advice from a fat person" and I think that wedged into the back of my brain more than I thought.
So I've been hiding in many ways. Hiding because I've been ashamed at having reached my heaviest weight in my life and being horribly uncomfortable in my own skin. Ashamed that I haven't got the magic touch to fix it. Ashamed that the more weight I've gained and the more my body changes and has gotten out of hand the less confident I feel in my message of change and spiritual empowerment because it makes me feel like I don't have control over my own life.I am slowly on a path of personal healing and change. This is truly the first real step - sharing what is hurting inside and getting in the way of my life so I can let it go.I can hear some of you and what you're thinking...But you could get treatment...There are surgical options...Just go vegan! There are treatments and I've talked to a few doctors about them but they aren't always the answer. There is no cure for PCOS only symptom management. You can take hormones and medication but they don't work for everyone...and I had a bad experience with birth control hormones in my 20s. Lifestyle changes like diet and exercise are the best things to do. Even losing the 20lbs that I usually lose is helpful but there's no guarantee that I'd lose much more. That's up to my body.Surgery isn't always an option and it isn't for me. My case isn't serious enough to warrant it.
Being vegan may be helpful but not necessarily a fix. I've been vegan, I've been vegetarian, I've even done a brief dance with being raw. All of these have resulted in the usual 20lb loss which is normal when you go through that kind of diet change. {Did you know the average person carries 10lbs of waste at any given time? Yikes!}I've been reading Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet off and on. I also have her Crazy Sexy Kitchen and Crazy Sexy Juices books. I'm hoping to do a 20 day cleanse soon once I know if my husband and I will be moving again soon {we're looking to buy something in the next few months}. I know that I, personally, can't concentrate on that sort of transition while packing and preparing to move.Either way, it's time for some serious changes but it pains the control freak Aries in me because no matter what I do there are no promises. I just want to be comfortable in my body, even though I know that means I'm going to have to readjust to a different body, one that isn't like it was a few years ago but hopefully one that is different than what I have now.I'd like to think that healing needs to start elsewhere, mainly from within. Learning to accept that if nothing ever changed and I remained 300lbs with a busted ankle and a leg with nerve damage and an increasingly troubled lower back, can I be OK with me? Do I have to hide from the world if that's just who I am?I keep trying to remind myself "I am not my body" but it's hard.Maybe instead I just need to see myself fat with possibilities, ideas and knowledge rather than just fat with fat.Maybe I can take my problem leg and sore back as messages from my body that my time for running around and being in a constant state of movement and transition is over and it's time to just settle down.One of the shamanic practitioners I work with gave me a message from spirit a few months ago that was interesting. She said she was told that if I didn't have this body I wouldn't be doing the world I'm doing and that what I'm doing is very important work. That made perfect sense because it's very true.But over the last few years the weight has come on my face has changed and over all I feel like a big blob that's a weird version of my former self. Doing things like videos are really difficult because I'm forced to really deal with this stuff even more. And besides, "nobody wants to take life advice from a fat person." It's hard for me to see one person on the screen who isn't at all the person I see in my head - in my head I'm still 200lbs and fairly healthy. And admittedly 15 years younger.I have no answers to what's ailing me right now. Instead I just feel the need to share the real story behind a struggle that I've thus far kept private. We all have something we're struggling with and right now this is my struggle.And now you know why I don't do videos, and why my Instagram account is full of cat pictures. :)