I'm lying on my bed after yet again feeling defeated at my failed attempt to get a grip over my life. Let me take you back 20 something years ago when consciousness kicked in and memories started to form.
I was raised in a bottom-middle class family (assuming it's the opposite of an upper mid, meaning we did have money in savings and debit but just about enough to get through the month kinda starving and not ending up homeless). My mother didn't work and my poor father woke up at 6am every day and came home at 7pm then crushed at 10pm to wake the next day and repeat.
My poor mother didn't have it easier either. You'd think a staying at home mother doing it full-time would be easy, but she was torn between us and our grandmother, helping both sides and maintaing each afloat with what she had in might.
This means that sometimes even mom couldn't wake up on time to fix us breakfast, lunch was always something sloppy, and some days we did skip dinner for this and that. Sometimes it was the lack of money, other times the lack of time, and so on. The point is that food for us was a fucking luxury. And I'm not even exaggerating. When we see food on the table on a plate ready to be eaten, I remember drooling all over it and nom-nomming it with all the passion I had in the world.
My mother was a great cook, which made the issue even worse, and I remember the days when we would get treated to something sweet and "fancy", nothing extravagant, think Oreos or some ice cream. We used to think the stuff was rich people's food. And I still remember the happiness I had whenever I ate this sweet food.
So you can see, my relationship with food was turbulent from the get-go. I don't wanna blame it on the parents and I love them for trying the best they could, but we were taught that food was scarce and we stayed hungry the majority of our time when we were kids. The parents didn't care and my relationship with food started getting bad around that time.
Throughout the years and up until I graduated from college and moved abroad, for 20 years of my life, that was all I knew of food: it's scarce, it's expensive, it's hard to make, so better eat up lest it'd vanish. You never know. The next day we might not get food. I was conditioned to consume food whenever it was available in the fear of lacking it another time.
When I moved out of my parents' and now I was living on my own, working part-time, as a student, food became a bit less scarce and a bit more difficult to attain. I remember when I moved abroad I was 93kg (205lbs) standing at 176cm (5'10) as a male. I wasn't the skinniest, I was overweighed, but not to the point of not being able to move. I was cooking and eating outside and snacking all the time and the turning point for me which what has sent me in a endless loop of self-loath for me was finding a part-time job in Starbucks.
Picture this. I woke up every single day at 7am (made me appreciate my father more), go to university or to Starbucks, work/study my ass off, finish with that I had in the morning, eat whatever, go to university/Starbucks, get off at 7-8pm, only make it home by 9pm and crushing at 10pm. Doing this for 4 months straight made me shed 15 kilograms (33lbs), and I went from 93kg down 75kg (165lbs) and my entire world transformed, for the better.
People now started noticing that I existed. For the first time in a very long time, I wasn't so fucking lonely all the time. People were nicer to me, girls showed more affection and gave more attention, people started listening to what I had to say, everything I said no matter how controversial it was, was well received and heard. I lost my virginity at the age of 22 and I had a girlfriend. I had a social circle and all was going well and no matter what anyone else tells me. It was all because of weight loss. It was all because people found more attractive and appealing to look at, and coupled with my somewhat energetic personality, people liked me and liked being around me.
It felt nice. You know, to have friends and be liked.
I maintained that state of things for 2 consecutive years. They were the 2 years when I was the most socially active, had a great and optimistic outlook on life and things were going very well. I liked myself and I loved having friends. It was going very extremely well until the pandemic happened.
I know you might be thinking I'm blaming my miserable sad failed of a life on things and claiming to be a saint, but the pandemic with its lockdowns and isolation completely destroyed that younger more optimistic guy inside me. And more importantly, it made me fatter.
Having nowhere to go and absolutely fuckall to do, I slowly but steadily regressed back to the state of things before my life transformed. I started playing videogames more, and this is the worst part, I started eating almost exclusively only junk food. Literally, quite literally, all of my friends left the fucking country. Everything in the city was shutdown for almost a year, and I was only gaming, eating junk food, and sleeping. Do I lie to you and say that I didn't enjoy it? I absolutely did. I actually had a blast. I met so many people and formed so many dear memories. Did I also mention that I started smoking cigarettes?
Since exactly September 2020, I've been on this lifestyle and I really can't seem to break free no matter how hard I've tried. I'm feeling extremely defeated. I think I've hit a new low of desperation. I'm the loneliest I've ever been. No one shows any affection towards me, no one asks me out, no one cares, to them, I'm just an average looking dude who looks kinda fat but ugly. No one asks how I'm doing, and no matter how hard I've tried to form meaningful connections with people, they never seem to reciprocate. Do you know what this reminds me of? My life pre the transformation. It was exactly like this. Because I was overweighed, no one seemed to care back then, and now no one still seems to care.
I've been saying and lying to myself that everyday is the last day of quitting cigarettes and quitting junk food and gaming and doing stuff that help me. But in the moment, I'm just fucking defeated. In the moment, I just think yeah well fuck it. The urge is so strong, so defeating, so crippling, that my body moves on its own and goes out and buys the shit. I'd eat it, watch a YouTube video or play some games, then I wallow in my sadness and desperation. Over the past few months it's gotten particularly worse. I've cried myself to sleep more times than I'd like to admit, and every single day, I'd have healthy food sitting in my fridge but I decide I'll buy junk food instead.
I'm an addict. And it's so strange. It's very strange. The days I actually get it right, the days that I don't smoke or eat something trashy, I feel so energetic and so sharp between the ears, I feel like I could whatever I want, to the point that I start feeling UNCOMFORTABLE. My body registers this new state of affairs as something unusual. It starts to panic. I get lightheaded. I get a headache, but I feel x100 better than eating junk food or smoking.
I don't know, man. I'm just extremely sad and desperate to get back to how I used to be.
Sorry for the vent. Thanks for taking the time to read. I wish you all the best.
