The blogger formerly known as Adventures of a Cornfed Farm Princess...

Some of you reading this blog have been around a long time - long enough to remember me when I was blogging/Facebooking as Adventures of a Cornfed Farm Princess.  Some of you are new, and only know my page as Teapots and Tiaras.  I'm equally glad ALL of you are here!

So for those of you who know a lot of my story, this will either be a refresher or old news, but since there seems to be a lot of new people, I thought I'd share how this page came to be, and a bit about myself and the mission I once again find myself taking on.

When I started my page on Facebook, I was a miserable ball of anger and assholey behavior.  That isn't me being mean, that's me being honest.  If the lovely women who took me under their wings at the time weren't too kind to be that brutal, they'd tell you the same thing.  I was AWFUL.  I somehow had the random, incredible good luck to stumble across two FB pages:  I Want A Dumpster Baby (now I Got A Dumpster Family) and Tripping While Standing Still - and the amazing, strong, talented, funny, beyond kind women behind those pages were lovely and generous enough to take on the challenge of being my friend.  I did not (and sometimes still do not) make it easy for them.

My page started because at that time (nearly 3 years ago now!), I weighed nearly 450 pounds, and I had just started swimming every day, and in telling a story from my pool time to Tripping, she graciously invited me to guest post that story on her blog.  She and Dumpster Mama encouraged me to start a page of my own, and I suddenly found myself surrounded by and encouraged by and loved by this amazing community of people who accepted me as-is, even knowing all my flaws.

I wish I could say that I stuck to that and succeeded and am now living at a healthy weight - but the truth is I am still nearly 450 pounds, and I'm trying once again to do something about it.  I started walking and doing Weight Watchers on August 2nd (not a Monday! lol) and I am trying my best to just take each day as it comes.

You may be thinking "Holy shit, she's huge" - and you'd be right.  I have that reaction to myself in the mirror some days ;)  Or you may be wondering "How does someone let themselves go that far?  Why would someone let themselves stay that big?" - again, valid.  Or you may be thinking "Well, you just need to eat less and move more" - and, again, yes - although for me, it's not *quite* that simple.  To get this big and stay this big, there has to be a huge emotional disconnect, and getting to the bottom of that is the only way to even *start* to lose weight.

To understand why I am the size that I am - and please note that I didn't say "why I am *who* I am", that is one major change that I've made, understanding that how big I am and who I am are not the same things at all - anyway, to understand, we have to back up a little.  Put our behinds in the past, as Pumbaa would say.  :)

Until I was 5 years old, I was tiny.  Scrawny.  Wore small toddler clothes because I was too skinny for kids clothes.  Then my dad left.  And never came back.  We had to move.  My mom had major surgery, with complications that nearly killed her.  When she recovered, she went back to college on a more-than-full-time schedule, meaning she was at school all day and doing homework all evening.  My world was upside-down, and I retreated into books to avoid the turmoil in my real world.  Reading is fantastic - but I gave up playing outdoors, sports, any and all hobbies besides reading and watching tv.  And of course, what goes better with a book or a movie than a snack?  So now I was sedentary and eating more.  The weight began to creep on.  I went on my first diet when I was 10.  Low-fat, low-sodium, low-flavor, but high in kids making fun of my lunches at school.  I hated it and would sneak treats.

When I was 12, my sister left home.  This was not done in typical "growing up and moving out" fashion, but in a traumatic, "got thrown out for stealing and drug use" way.  I was devastated.  My sister was my idol.  She was everything I wasn't.  Charming, funny, thin, gorgeous, and much older than me.  I would've called her glamorous.  She'd also been a 2nd mom to me when my own mom was so sick.  So to have her leave that way, with no further contact, was brutal.  I retreated again.  Food and books became my friends again.  I am the classic, text-book definition of an emotional eater.

The following year, my mom's mom got very sick.  We moved back to mom's hometown to be closer to grandma.  I started weight watchers and lost 80 pounds and was at a healthy weight (and felt great!) for the first time in a long time.  Then, within the space of 3 months, two things happened.  My grandma passed away, and I was sexually assaulted.  I was grieving the loss of my grandma, and the assault just broke me.  It stole my soul.  The light in my eyes was extinguished and I was just a shell.  Somewhere, subconsciously, I knew that the only way to make things right was to retreat again.  I gained back the 80 pounds easily - much more easily than I'd lost it, of course - and then kept right on going.  It wasn't anything I ever consciously thought or verbalized, but I knew that if I just kept getting bigger, people would leave me alone.  I wouldn't have to get close to anyone just to lose them, I wouldn't have to worry about a man wanting to touch me...nothing.  This fat body has served as a better suit of armor than you'd think possible.  It still does.

It isn't easy being this big, but it is familiar and comfortable.  It has taken me until the past couple of years to get beyond my abject terror of men.  To get beyond thinking who I am and how big I am were the same thing.  To realize that being alone is easier, yes, but it is also lonely and miserable and joy-stealing.  I have made a ton of forward progress, and I feel like this time I'm ready.  Who knows if that's true?  But I hope it is, and I'm operating under the assumption that it is.

Workouts (right now, that's 1/2 mile walk each day) are hard for me.  Beyond hard.  Besides being this big, I have two massive abdominal hernias (imagine two heavy bowling balls hanging, unsupported, off of your stomach), arthritis, and PCOS which causes chronic fatigue and pain.  I'm fighting an uphill battle on roller skates that want to roll backwards, basically.  Weight loss is hard enough, and then I add all these things on top.  It sounds pathetic to me that all I can do is 1/2 mile before I'm DYING.  But I keep telling myself that it will get better, easier, and I will get stronger.

Mostly, I want you to know that you can do it!  Whatever IT is.  You can fight back - and we're in this together.