If You Need to Cry, Then Cry

I needed to cry, and now I'm done. I don't know if I'm really that done, I just think I'm tired of doing it. And my eyes are puffy.

Today--well yesterday by now--has been a real roller coaster of emotions. Scared--Worried--Joyful--Excited--I've been through a whole bunch of them, and mostly with my friend Jen.

I talked about Jen in another post, but that was only a tiny glimmer into one of the longest friendships I've had. We've known each other since kindergarten, went to the same grade school & high school, stayed friends through 20s and now 30s, and we're really more like sisters, or even better, really. I don't know that there's anything about me she doesn't know, and she tells me the same. Have you ever seen those little signs: You Will Always Be My Friend, You Know Too Much. Well, that's us. Actually, I have a couple of friends who need that sign....

But truly, we've been into some wild things. We both got divorced about the same time. We hadn't talked for quite some time, but one night I called her out of the blue--something quite uncharacteristic for me as I am bad about calling people--she was busy so I said, "I just wanted you to know I got divorced." And she said, "Me, too!" I think we went out partying that very weekend and many thereafter. I plead the 5th about any details....

So anyway, since New Year's we've both been going through a lot of soul-searching, realizations, and just down-and-out God-things; you know, things that happen that only God can make happen. We've had all sorts of conversations about this world and our place in it, about being better and helping others become better. We've had some very serious religion and Bible conversations, it's been truly amazing. (I'm working on her about the astrology thing.)

But the last couple of days Jen has been dealing with a relationship situation. And it got scary tonight. I don't want to go into specifics, because frankly it's no one's business and not my place to put it out there. But tonight it was scary. We cried together and prayed. The situation got resolved and she was safe. But in all of it we grew even closer together, and more importantly closer to God.

God has plans, and we don't see it. His Word says that all things work together for good for those who love God. He never promised us a rose garden. I think that's one of the problems with religion today, and believe me, I have a lot of problems with religion that gets too religious. It's not about man's rules and rituals, it's about God and His love for us. But anyway, look at a lot of the men in the Bible who followed God: John the Baptist was beheaded, Peter was crucified upside down, John was boiled in oil.... Sound like roses? God's promise is not for a perfect life on earth. His promise is that if we believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we will be saved, and spend a perfect eternity in bliss with Him. Life with God is no guarantee of life without suffering, it's a guarantee of a heavenly afterlife.

I know I suffer. Jeesh, do I sometimes, more than I think anyone should have to. The pain gets overwhelming. But, I know there's a purpose. Perhaps on this earth I will never know, but someday I many find out that somebody else saw how I dealt with it and so found comfort. Maybe it's here simply to make me stronger. I don't know. Like I said, I don't understand His plans. But does my pain make me love God any less? No. It's not His fault there's pain in the world. Man brought that on himself. Why me? Well, why not me? Like Mother Teresa said, I know God doesn't give me anything I can't handle, I just wish He didn't trust me so much!

But Jen and I really talked about this tonight, and about what it truly means to have God in your life. And when God-things are happening to you, how can you deny that He is working? He definitely brings people and situations into our lives to remind us of who He is and what He's capable of, and that has to be just the tip of the iceberg of what He can do. It's been so cool to watch Him work in our lives and those around us. He's watching over us. And in learning all of these things about Him, we desire more and more to share that love with other people.

Well, I need to quit for now, my headache is back. I believe I'm getting these headaches more frequently and with more severity due to the Tramadol. I used to get migraines pretty bad and often, but hadn't had any for quite some time. But since I started on this fibromyalgia medication I've had quite a few of them, and they're getting more intense. I don't think they're helping with the pain either. I've been shaking, too, but I'm not sure if that's from the med or from low blood sugar. I'm hoping the doctor's office calls me tomorrow and tells me what to do. As hard as it was to get used to the side-effects, I'm sure the withdrawal will be very pleasant as well. Ah, pharmaceuticals, how are they poisoning us? I'm going to take those on, too. But later....

:) Jan

Woo Hoo! I Lost 4.3 lbs.!!!

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

I must say I'm very proud of me. Yes, I messed up here and there, no, I didn't stick to the rules exactly, but I did the best I could and got results!!!

Yes, I ate at Applebee's for lunch and I just celebrated with pizza and a sugar cookie, but I Pointed them out, so there. Thankfully the menu has Weight Watchers Points on some foods and the pizza is in my little WW book.

And hey, I'm so proud of Eve, too! She lost 3 lbs. this week and she lost 4+ last week. Wow. She's lost 41 pounds total. I'm so glad to have her as my WW buddy! I know I must be accountable and I need encouragement.

I'm, of course, leery of celebrating too hard. I know me, I know my past with food and addiction. I know what evil lurks inside me when it comes to my food obsession. It truly is an obsession, too. I hate it, but there you have it, I have a food obsession and addiction.

If there is food that is left over from a meal, I obsess about it. If there is one piece of pizza left, I will obsess about it until someone has eaten it, or I eat it myself. It cannot exist, someone has to eat it. And don't even think about leaving the melted cheese stuck to the box! If there's something special, like party foods, dips, cookies, whatever, if it's something I don't usually eat, I obsess about it. I need to eat all I can. What, like I won't ever get it again? Just in case it's my last chip with dip on earth I need to chow down on all of it? What if they stop making it??? I wish I could tell you that I have some rational thoughts while I'm doing it, but I don't. I simply am driven to do it.

All addictions are the same. Does an alcoholic think about the actual consequences to their drinking while they're searching for their next drink? No, they have one thing on their mind, getting that alcohol. It's the same with sex addictions. They are not thinking about anything but having sex or getting their porn. They are driven to fulfill their need for sex. I am driven to eat. We're all the same, all addicts are the same. We're trying to fill a hole inside of us with something that makes us feel good.

I think my addiction is pretty lame. Of all things on this earth that I could be addicted to, food? That's so weak. Only a weak, pathetic person would be addicted to food. I think all addicts must think this way. But I do hate my addiction and think it shows how weak I am.

I know why I have it, though, so for that I am thankful. It's a long story, which I will probably elaborate on eventually, but, for as long as I can remember I have had panic attacks. My mom said she can remember me at about 9 months old gagging when she would take me somewhere new. Now, I was not diagnosed as having Social Anxiety Disorder until I was about 24, so I lived with "getting nervous" over two decades with no explanation as to what was really going on with me. New situations made me nervous and unfortunately I had enlarged tonsils, and whenever I got nervous I would gag, and often times vomit.

This made for a very unhappy life for me, as well as for my family. It seemed that everywhere we went I threw up. We went out to dinner, I ate, I threw up, my father got very angry with me and made me feel horrible about it. My mom and brother were annoyed because I made going out so difficult. I was miserable because I had no way of controlling it. As my brother once complained, "She ruins everything." That's exactly how I felt, too.

I threw up every morning before I got on the bus to go to school for the first several years. I threw up almost every day at lunch--kids would sometimes tease me that my spaghetti was worms or would open their mouth so I could see their partially chewed food, you know how rotten kids can be--but I threw up so much that they eventually made me eat alone in the classroom by myself. I remember doing that until about 3rd grade. I threw up throughout the day or week, depending on the situation. I felt so ashamed but I couldn't control it.

From all of this I learned two things: food is my enemy, food is my comfort.

I would get up in the middle of the night when I was little and I would eat. I can vividly remember what the refrigerator looked like at my height--I couldn't see past the 2nd shelf up. I would eat anything I could reach: raw hot dogs, cheese slices, baloney, and Parmesan cheese out of the palm of my hand. Once I was satisfied, I would go back to bed.

Nobody ever knew I did it. I told my mother about it recently and she was shocked. She had no idea I did anything of the sort. It was my secret time. It was my time to control the food instead of it controlling me. It was a time when nobody was around so I could be completely relaxed and enjoy myself. So, in trying to control the food, it ended up controlling me.

I was a pretty skinny kid until I went to kindergarten. But once I got into that daily routine of vomiting and the shame and ostracism it caused, I turned to my nightly binges to somehow satisfy my craving for acceptance and love, and just to be normal.

I know it's been a roller coaster with food. When you take all of that into consideration, how I couldn't keep from throwing up, how I was belittled or cajoled because I got sick all the time, how I just wanted to be accepted, and then throw in the molestations and the simple fact that I just wanted my father's unconditional love, there's no doubt in my mind why I have always been driven to lose weight, then, when a man enters the picture.

It's such a tangled web, but bottom line, I see it. I see how I obsess about it. I can see the long and tumultuous relationship I've had with food. I can see how my relationships have affected me and how I view weight loss. It's truly incredible to me to think that something as basic as food can rule my life if I let it.

4.3 pounds, yee haa, that's a little bit of my life I just got back and I'm going to fight this week for even more!

:) Jan

Horoscopes

Well, today is my best friend Pablo's birthday. And I can't help but think back to when we met...gosh, now that would take a 10,000 word post at least, we'll get to that sometime. But anyway, when we met I remember asking when his birthday was and what his "sign" was. He told me he didn't believe in it, but I was really into it. I thought it was somehow fate that we had come together since we're only 4 days apart--and a year, but let's not dwell on the fact I'm older.

Anyway, I've been thinking about that today, about how obsessed people can be with astrology. One of the longest-held and best friends I have is Jen. I truly love her, we have been through so much together since kindergarten! We have done a lot of stupid things together, too, but I won't get into that here either! Jen is really into astrology. She puts a lot of stock into how astrology really dictates how a person is, who they are and how they act. I used to put a lot of stock in it, too, as well as many other occult studies.

For a lot of people astrology is simply something fun, reading their horoscope from the Sunday paper just to see how accurate it was. That's how it started for me. I simply thought it was cool how "accurate' it was sometimes. That grew into getting books about it, and studying out charts, figuring out rising signs and moon phases. It was a slow progression full of justifications.

"God made the planets and stars, so surely it's OK to look at this stuff. He made them, so He must have made astrology, too."

"Why does astrology have to be of the devil? God is much more powerful, so this power must come from Him."

These are the kinds of justifications that people would and will tell me in order to make looking at astrology OK. And unfortunately I believed it, or at least accepted it in order to do what I wanted.

The Bible says not to mess with astrologers or any other 'Spiritualist'. Not because it's more powerful than God, because the devil is already defeated and he knows it. But because the devil knows our interests, our weaknesses, ways to tempt us, he knows us better than we probably know ourselves. He's studied us from the beginning. God tells us not to mess with that stuff because He wants to keep us from pain.

How could astrology hurt? Well, I suppose if it was truly just something fun to do, not something to potentially draw us away from God, it wouldn't be of any consequence because it's not real. But, the danger is that people put stock into it and start looking to the astrologer for answers instead of God, they make it their god. God tells us in the Ten Commandments to have no other gods before Him, and astrology for many is a god. It was a god for me.

I nearly lost my soul forever playing with fire in the occult, things that people do every day and never even think twice about. I am not overreacting here, I am testifying to personal experience with this dark realm. All it took was a taste of astrology to get me much deeper into occult practices.

Please be careful in all that you do. Think about the things you read, the shows you watch: how many people watch Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Most Haunted? These were some staples in my TV diet. I had to delete channels from my TV in order to curb the temptation. I have to avoid books, magazine articles and internet sites that may tempt me.

I pray that all of you at least think about what I've said. And don't take my word for it, take God's Word for it. There are plenty of scriptures that tell you not to meddle with this stuff. I'm reading Jeremiah 27 right now:

"'So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers...They prophesy lies to you...They are prophesying lies to you, I have not sent them,' declares the Lord. 'They are prophesying lies in my name. Therefore, I will banish you and you will perish, both you and the prophets who prophesy to you.'" (NIV)

That's one of many. Do a study and search them out. You can use a concordance online to search for specific words in the Bible. You can view the Bible online as well. I just found a good resource for all sorts of Bible study: www.crosswalk.com. It's worth it to at least know what the Bible has to say about it, don't you think?

So, that's a little bit about astrology from my experience. I have a lot to share with you about my experience in the occult, the lies the devil told me in order to get me there, the lies I decided to believe in order to stay there. I pray this helps you. Let me know if you have any questions about this; I'd be happy to share more with you.

:) Jan