Fighting My Way Back

Part of me has been hiding from the reality of what is…I mean I often say it is what is but then here I have been hiding from what is.
   I don’t own any mirrors in my home. My daughter has one attached to her dresser but I never go in there, I am afraid of my reflection and what I truly look like. Mentally I am somewhere else, I am what I once was or something better than what I am. I don’t feel that big…don’t think I’m THAT big. But posting the videos and seeing myself is a reality that hit me hard mentally.
     My God, I am a huge disgusting beast of a human and no wonder I have so many issues. I could not believe what I was seeing and actually had to turn away a few times. The reality and the secrets of my struggles on top of the visual package was devastating.
      It is what it is and what it is ain’t pretty. Suicide enters the mind…No hope, tired of the struggle and tired of the fight but I push all that back. It is what it is…but not what it has to be.
       I’m hurting about it but have to do something about it. Hang on, pull up and find a way.

Fighting takes a lot out of you. I have been fighting all my life. I didn’t have training it was just thrust upon and I had a choice fight or die. I mean that literally. I have been used and abused since childhood by the very people that were suppose to love me. Abused in every way possible, mentally, physically, sexually, pyshcologically. Lied to, betrayed…hell the man I knew as my father wasn’t even my father. I found out when my mother and he was arguing one day, a month later he was murdered. I didn’t meet my real father until I was 27.
I grew up in the streets. A church boy was soon turned into a street thug. I use to get jumped and beat, not just at home but in the streets as well till I began studying the martial arts.I studied and practiced faithfully. Practiced fighting multiple opponents because that was my reality and it was a necessity that I could defend myself. I had no choice, I had no protector and life showed me that I could depend on no one but me. no one was going to care or love me as much as I could. So I fought to survive.
I was homeless at 17, lived in a vacant building.Yet I went to school and church. I got caught eating scraps from the trash at a coney island and the guy gave me a meal, I asked for a job and he let me wash dishes for him everyday and gave me one free meal. I survived…it was all I ever knew how to do. Pray, buckle down and do what needed to be done to survive.
I shed tears and I hurt but I learned to swallow the tears and bury the hurt. I stuffed it down inside of me and just kept pushing it down and away, I forgot about it, ignored it…didn’t want to fight anymore. just wanted peace. Until a day came in 2000 when it all burst-ed out. I got hit with to much, too soon, right on top of each other. No time to duck and roll, bob and weave, couldn’t regroup or recover. I was out. I lost both parents, my brother, my nephew, my business, my child molested, my family torn apart, I was robbed and I snapped. Too much…couldn’t figure out how to fight all of that. I hid, I didn’t leave home, I alienated  myself. I created a small circle that I could survive in. Straying away from that circle resulted in extreme panic attacks and abnormal reactions.
          It took time….2 years, to start to come around and expand that circle. I prayed often..argued…God and I had issues. I wanted answers and only he had them. I needed to be restored and only he could do it but he seemed to be busy elsewhere. We are on better terms now, not perfect but better.
Now I feel like that old champion fighter, you know once so promising but now not so much but what lives inside his head and heart lies to him about what his body is capable of? My body reminds me how bad off it is right now but you know what? The choice is the same as that day when I was getting the living crap beat out of me and I laid on the ground bleeding and the persons hurting me wasn’t stopping. Fight or die. I’m tired of surviving, tired of accepting scraps, tired…of not living.
I’m back in training…I’m Fighting. 

(HealthDay News) — Obese people who think health care workers aren’t as sympathetic to them as they should be may be right.

A new study suggests that doctors don’t have as strong an emotional connection with overweight patients compared to slimmer ones.

This bias might have real health effects, researchers at Johns Hopkins University said. Overweight or obese patients who experience bias may simply ignore advice to change their lifestyle to lose weight, the team said, and it may make them more likely to be dissatisfied with their care.

“If you aren’t establishing a rapport with your patients, they may be less likely to adhere to your recommendations to change their lifestyles and lose weight,” study leader Dr. Kimberly Gudzune, an assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine at the university’s medical school, said in a university news release.

For their study, the team analyzed recordings of visits that more than 200 patients with high blood pressure made to 39 primary-care doctors. Weight made no difference in the amount of time doctors spent with patients or in the weight counseling they provided, the researchers found.

However, the doctors used more words and phrases that showed concern, reassurance and validation of patients’ feelings when they were dealing with people of normal weight, compared to those who were overweight or obese, according to the study, which was published online recently in the journal Obesity.

Previous research has shown that patients are more likely to follow medical recommendations if there is a sense of empathy and bonding from their doctors.

“Some studies have linked those bonding behaviors with patient satisfaction and adherence, while other studies have found that patients were more likely to change their dietary habits, increase exercise and attempt to lose weight when their physicians expressed more empathy,” Gudzune said. “Without that rapport, you could be cheating the patients who need that engagement the most.”

Gudzune said doctors should be mindful of negative attitudes and make an effort to bond with overweight and obese patients.

“Patients want information and treatment, but they also need the emotional support and attention that can help them through the challenges that accompany weight loss and the establishment of a healthy lifestyle,” she said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases outlines the health risks of being overweight.

SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Medicine, news release, April 22, 2013

  Well, I ended up in the hospital again yesterday..goes round 2. Not feeling much better today so shooting for tomorrow. At least I went quicker this time. uuurggghh.

   I been down and a little lonely, I spoke with my sister in New York the other day. I haven’t been back to New York since my Dad died, they’ve never seen my youngest daughter or my son. They don’t know how bad I’ve gotten. I’m embarassed but I miss the family there and what has always felt like home to me, NEW YORK. I need a recharge and fusion of love.
   I plan to visit them when the kids get of school and hope I can raise the money for the road trip. I hope to get myself healthy in the next couple of months….I can’t lose all the weight but I’m hoping I can get rid of the cane and maybe lose 90 to 130 pounds in 4 months.
    A big challenge huh? I know. I drop out of school thinking I was going to focus on living and getting healthy but has made little progress in that regard. Mentally I am broken…sorta lost and the stress is really the source of my ailments of late. Being fat causes so many issues and oozes into my kids lives as well. 
     I’m worried my son is starting to get a little heavy because he doesn’t have availability to enough excercise being with me all the time. I have to make things more accessible for him to to run and play. Sorry Dad I am I haven’t even been able to teach him how to ride a bike and he’s outgrown the bike and training wheels.

These last for weeks have really piled up on me and has taken a toll on my body. The doctor’s warned about my stress levels and it’s effects on my body. I have been known to break out into hives, throw up or other weird things that they say is my body’s way of dealing with stress.
      The blog itself started to get a little stressful as it seemed all of a sudden I found myself defending posts or explaining one thing or another. A few unpleasant conversations here and there and even more realizations of people’s understanding or lack of came to light and gave me new things to ponder. Sleepless nights and too many things to battle and I ended up in the hospital after suffering progressively worse chest pains for nearly a week and a half.
       I thought it was just stress, then I thought it was gas, I self medicated eating tums like gum drops, a whole bottle in two days, which can’t be healthy either. A half box of  alka seltzer and two two litters of Vernors and while I did a lot of belching the pain wouldn’t go away.
        So I finally went to the hospital. Turns out my lungs were so swollen they were pushing against my ribs and chest, I have Bronchitis, a upper respiratory infection and am suffering dehydration. So a breathing treatment, codeine laced cough syrup, an inhaler, antibiotics and hopefully in five days I will feel better.
        The stress and the obstacles are a lot harder to treat or get rid of so I will take my five days to heal and hopefully work out a plan mentally to keep pushing forward. I choose to pray because it comforts me and hopefully God will lead me in a direction that I need to go. If anyone reads this and also believes in God…say a prayer for me and my family as well.
         I pray for peace of mind, body and heart and ask that God please cover me and protect me. Help me heal and mend all things broken within me and strengthen me where I need to be strengthened so I can be a healthy and worthy human being again.
-Amen