MONDAY AFTERNOON: I got really into GeoCaching last week and found my first, stuck beneath a doggie tin (where you deposit doggie waste) in front of the house. Looked for another one today without luck. It's an addictive hobby, it's hard, it's active, it's fun, and after the initial $40 investment for the software and $30 a year for the website, it's free. There's one on top of Turtlehead, Peak, will re-sign that one and take a picture on Thursday.
I was looking into the mirror and it's getting harder and harder to reconcile that person with "Old Debbie." It's not that I don't know who I am, it's that there's so many internal and external changes that happened pretty much in 11 months so far that you look at yourself and you are almost looking into a stranger. You change and you hope you still like yourself at the other end. There's a strength that's developing in me, and I'm not used to seeing that strength. I'm not someone who can be pushed around anymore, and that scares me a little.
Take Miriam. Elementary school teacher I just found on Facebook. Part of me wants to ask her Why. Why didn't you stand up for me. She wasn't like Gladys, who actually PICKED on me, nevermind not defended me. I have good memories of Miriam, like she was a kind teacher. But the rest of my life at that point still sucked. And part of me wants to ask, Didn't you see anything? What if I was in front of Gladys, all 140-lbs 32-year-old me? What if I had a chance to ask why? Do I even want to? Is it a truer test of strength if you can walk away from your past and just keep on with the present?
There's two camps. One, like Freud, says that you have to "fix" your past to move on, that you have to come to a resolution with it. The other says to just leave the past behind and just move on. I waver back and forth, I've never been able to make a firm decision either way on which way is the better way or the "right" way.
It's a weird feeling, the feeling of being strong. I haven't entirely warmed up to it yet. You look into your eyes in the mirror and you see someone you can't push around. And I'm not used to that looking back and me and it doesn't feel familiar. See, and the thing of it all is, that I picture myself being face to face with someone who actually picked on me in the past, and I really hope if that moment comes that I just turn around and walk away. Not because I'm weak, but because I'm strong. I really don't want to become a bitter person and I certainly don't want "revenge." People do the best they can. If someone picked on me, that was filling a need they had.
When you are a child adults are supposed to stand up for you. And no one did for me, and I wasn't able to do it for myself because of how young I was. But then you reach an age where you naturally start standing up for yourself but by that time, you're so beaten up you pretty much give up on fighting back and let life happen to you. No one really teaches you to stand up for yourself, so you never really learn.
Then you start working out, and find out that you actually CAN do something. And other people give you the feeling that they believe in you, and you are successful at one thing, then another, then another, and you slowly start believing in yourself. And then you meet someone else who seems to accept you for who you are, and that would have been helpful all alone, but it's even more helpful now, because you're not ever sure who you are anymore. You are rediscovering yourself. Well, not really rediscovering. You are getting to know yourself, period. And you find yourself in an environment where you don't have to be second-guessing yourself all the time and you are safe to probe around and figure out who you are and act that way. You find yourself being "safe" in more and more places.
And it's a combination of that, confidence and safety, that creates strength.
TUESDAY EARLY MORNING: So we're doing flag mountain tomorrow. And for the first time ever, I'm scared of boot camp. I had some butterflies that first day, but this is cold clammy fear. It's a steep hill and first we have to go up but worse we ave to go down. And I'm scared to death. Of course I'm going to show up tomorrow, skipping it would never enter my mind, but I'm terrified. I've dubbed it Flag Mountain, because we're taking a piece of cloth stuck to a pole, putting our names on it, and planting it on top. I mean, how significant, right, I can have my name up there and conquer the mountain. They should wait until I get back down to plant it.
I've been to Flag Mountain once before, I found. It was that time we dragged tired up a mountain. On the way down it was so steep, I went down on my butt. And we only went up part of the mountain, the easy part.
So yeah, scared. It's a weird feeling to be scared of boot camp. I'm not even scared of jumping off a cliff into the rocks below for Jagged Edge, which we're doing in late July. I'm not scared to jump off a cliff but I am scared of going up and down a mountain. Go figure.
What needs to happen is that I need to slip and fall, which I haven't done yet, so that I can see there's no big deal to it. I think the fear is psychological and stems from my dad pulling me down mountains when I was little.
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: So I posted on FaceBook how I was scared of Flag Mountain and Eyes challenged me to do it half an hour up and half an hour down, and that was it. She said the C word. There's something about someone challenging me to something that turns me on fire. So I get to Mission Hills, sign the flag, and I was very nervous. And when I get nervous I ramble. And we were starting the hike and I kept looking at the floor, I was so nervous. And I started slow and as I progressed I got faster and faster. And then I saw them, at the top of the hill. And something happened. And I ran. I ran through rocks going up and a mountain top towards them. I mean actual running, through a rocky terrain up a narrow trail at the top of a mountain. And up mini-hills, and down mini-hills, and scrambling up rocks, and just running. And I was free. And I was figuratively and literally on top of the world. And the switch turned and I was completely free. And I got there. Not in the half an hour and not in the half an hour down, but I made great time compared to me and I lost the fear of rocky inclines. It's gone.
Going down was quite the experience. I went down every which way. Bearcrawling backwards most of the way because I wanted to go down FAST, and that was the fastest way, on all four backwards just sliding down the mountain fast. And I went forwards standing up, and sideways. It was the most awesomest thing ever. And, for me, I went down that mountain FAST.
It's one of those things that you know will change your life but you're so wiped out from the experience you don't have the energy to figure out HOW it will change your life.
We hadn't had enough adventures for the day so we went GeoCaching and found two. I went down in reverse through The Loop - down the rocky hill instead of up, the first half of The Loop. By now I had these huge calluses in my feet because hiking shoes are not for running. So it was slow going down. But next time we do The Loop, I am throwing myself at it. Next time we do ANY kind of hill, that hill is mine. I was going down that mountain, and it was mine. And that's an awesome feeling. So the going down The Loop was slower because my feet were just killing me by then, and I tried to ignore the pain as best I could. I want that hill when I'm good and rested, I'll show it who's boss. I've learned to BOTH go up and down hills. I can move quickly (or quicker) through them now.
There's two things that REALLY helped. First, HIKING SHOES. They DO make a difference. Who knew HIKING SHOES would be so awesome for HIKING. Like NIGHT and DAY. THAT amazing. Caps amazing. I am never hiking without hiking shoes again, going to keep them in the trunk of my car along with the weight vest and a mat. Anytime, anything, anywhere. And the second thing was the CamelBack, those water backpacks. Allowed me not to carry my water bottle and I used my hands A LOT. Gloves helped as usual. It would have hurt without gloves. I got enough scratches left even WITH the gloves.
So we did the reverse of the first half of The Loop and a total of about 2.5 Towers hills, and we found two GeoCaches, my #2 and #3, and I am now totally and completely addicted to them. Dru found the first one and me the second one.
It was a good day. Debbie Out. Tomorrow I'll write more about looking into a stranger's eyes. As a starting point, mom told me yesterday "They changed my daughter." She can sense it, just like I can. SOMEthing changed, what that something is, it's too early to tell. Debbie Out for real now.
SATURDAY MORNING: Wednesday was uneventful. Thursday I went to Turtlehead Peak in remembrance of dad's first Dad's Death Day Anniversary. I wanted to go by myself first to be able to grieve in peace and second because I needed to get over the fear of getting lost and being alone in the mountains (and was able to do both). I think I'm ready to move on with my life (not that I didn't before, but I found a kind of peace now that I'm over the first year of him dying.... if I'm not looking straight into his picture, I'm OK. If I look into his face I get a little choked up, not ready for that yet).
Once I get to the top, I think I found the GeoCache. Books and goodies inside. It isn't until I GET HOME that I read a post that that box is not a GeoCache, the GeoCache is hidden under a tree and not out in the open. Who the hell leaves a fake GeoCache 50 feet away from the real one 2.5 MILES UP IN A FREAKING MOUNTAIN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?!?! But I'm not bitter.
I'm going back next week Sunday and finding the real one and putting stickers all over THIS box saying THIS IS NOT THE REAL GEOCACHE. Watch me.
So I'm sitting up there all alone and signing the fake GeoCache book and someone comes up and asks what's that a log book? And I say yes it's a GeoCache. And she says A GEOCACHE really?!?! And I get all excited and say YES!! Are you into GeoCaching?!?! And she says no, but my friend is into it BIG TIME!! And then I hear a voice, Is that Debbie?!?! And who comes walking up to the top of Turtlehead Peak other than Michele. We were both like NO FREAKING WAY.
At one point she turns to one in her group of four and says, That's Debbie, and the other person goes, I know, I've seen her picture on Facebook
Just think of the timing in order to meet somebody you know on top of the peak.
When we went down I was able to go much faster since I'm not alone anymore. Not complete, but I'm mostly done with my fear of hikes.
On Friday Eyes substituted a morning boot camp and I went. This week's boot camps have been hard on me, just physically, I haven't been "there" there. Other than Turtlehead Peak, Flag Mountain tomorrow, the 10K, a Zumba, and 50 laps in the pool, I haven't done any extra exercise other than the 5 boot camp sessions. I guess my body needed a rest (and if you read the blog regularly you know that's NOT sarcasm).
So the first one was at 6a and then the regular 9:30a one. And my body was all there for 9:30a. I needed that. I needed one good boot camp session. It keeps me going strong. I can make it through what I call a sucky boot camp week performance-wise and be all refreshed by one good one.
We did towers and the warm-up was the loop. I've gotten sooooo much better at hiking, that now I can get to the top WITH the group (and even ahead of some instead of far behind in last), and then we're talking running, which is my thing. So I'm getting better at my weakness and at my strength. But if I can keep people in my line of sight, I can easily overtake them once we get on pavement (I still lose some ground running on rocks but it's getting less and less and once we get on pavement, it's mine). And I think running today's 10K at the pace I wanted instead of at my pace is going to help me figure out some mental running things and break free of a running barrier that we all have that ties us down to the ground.
I'm glad I had that session. Now I'm good to go all hardcore on Monday. We went up the hill, down the hill, some running, up the hill, down the hill, and I was first because Dru wasn't feeling well, so I was really second. I'm down on myself a lot and I like it because it just drives me harder and harder each time, but I was thinking that I don't think I'm that fit but look who I'm measuring myself against - the cream of the crop. So I think in boot camp we're all in the top 10-25% of fit people, and I'm middle of the pack in that (last of the pack when it comes to the top - Eyes, Jill, Dru, Sara if she ever comes back), and almost there when it comes to others. You have to learn to figure out who's underperforming based on their true ability, because for one reason or another, some people don't run as fast as they can, so you can't even base their running ability on how they run in boot camp. And of course you can't base it on how they look, you have to base it on how they run. We inherited another good runner who seems to come a lot and who's ahead of me but who I can overtake on one of those special days, whenever the next one comes. I have to have that click moment to overtake her, it's not an everyday thing, but it's doable.
Today I ran a 10K.
Course was 10.14K in 1:00:21 watch time (1:00:12 official time). If you divide time by seconds and multiply by 10K, that's 59:31 for the 10K. I did right under 28 for the 5K, beating my previous 5K time. 6.3 MPH (10K is 6.21 miles). Hot and hilly. Beat my previous 10K time by way over 10 minutes in a month and 11 days, or almost 10%. Second 10K.
On the 10K today I tried to keep a 10K/hr pace because I wanted an hour or less 10K (which I did), and I felt like fainting the whole way through. I didn't go at my pace, 10K/hr was definitely above what I could do physically, but I wanted it. And I thought that I always SAY I want something I don't know I can finish, and here it was, and I took it. I felt like stopping sooooooo many times, but there were only two ways I was going to stop: At the finish line, or fainting. You have a determination that overtakes everything and you WILL do it no matter what. I was not going to stop. My mind takes over. And it's as hard for me as it is for anybody else and I have the same self-doubts as anybody else, but for some reason sometimes I can tap into that inner strength we all have and make magic happen like today. Because for me, a 10K in under an hour was making magic happen. I ran an hour at a pace faster than I could handle.
Tomorrow we go to Flag Mountain again just for the hell of it, nothing better to do. I can't wait, I'm going for time. That mountain will be mine. I take no prisoners lately. I'm doing something, I'm going for it. I'm beginning to realize that there's a point where you become "free" physically.
MONDAY OF NEXT WEEK: I want to wrap the week and then move on. I was sooo much more tired this time from everything I did during the week that I was a lot slower, but made it up and down in 2:03:46, counting the time spent on top. I want to go back and do Flag Mountain many more times. I want to go back next week and take tons of pictures and then go back the week after and go for a better time and just keep going. It's fast, it's hard, it's fun, and I know where it is. Do it enough, and you get better at it. But I need a good pair of hiking shoes. $150 will do it. Saving up to it. I'll do enough hiking that they'll pay off for themselves. Went to IHOP afterwards and had some pancakes, eggs, and turkey bacon. I love that place.
That's it for this week. On to the seventh. Debbie Out.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 24th, 2010, through Sunday, May 30th, 2010.
I wrote a lot of stuff this week on Facebook so I'm just going to copy and paste over. May 26th, my birthday, June 3rd, dad dies, July 3rd, I start exercising. Boom boom boom. Lots of stuff this week to port over.
This is an old note from the 15th of May:
It struck me the other day when I was talking to somebody that I've changed so much and so quickly that people think this has been me all along and this is who I am. And I thought what better way to show the difference than to describe what my life was like just a year ago.
Why? Because people seem to be inspired by change. And if by knowing how much of a change my life has gone through is able to inspire somebody else, then telling the story is worth it. Maybe I'm also trying to explain what going through this whole thing has been like.
I thought we'd start with elementary school. I was the one they picked to bully (and that went up all the way to the workplace, really, it never really stopped). I was never really part of the group. One of my earliest memories was when I was 6 years old or so and we all sat in a group, the whole class with the teacher, and went around trying to figure out what was wrong with me. My first grade teacher would pinch me and pull my hair. On a private bus I accidentally poked someone on the ear with an errant pen and I was the only one without ice cream. During camp someone's pajamas went missing and I was blamed and I had to skip the search for a ghost which I really wanted to go to and then they found the pajamas inside the person's bag and then a bunch of people made fun of me for being too scared to go on the ghost search. I went on a religious group overnight sleepover and in the morning we were going out to pick up new members and go out to eat or something and my shoes went missing and I was made to stay behind by myself in the house.
I'd be sitting down and someone would come and start kicking a soccer ball against me over and over again and I'd let them. I'd try to leave the room to get a teacher to stop the teasing and I'd be dragged to the floor by my lab coat.
One of the most significant events in my life happened in fifth grade. I had an argument with someone in third or fourth grade, and I think there was pushing back and forth; I don't really remember and I was never the kind of person to shove back even if shoved. Her cousin was in my grade and next thing I know, the younger cousin is telling everyone I shoved her so hard I knocked the wind out of her. So a bunch of fifth and sixth graders corner me in front of the bus (on school property, and I could have sworn I saw at least one administrator looking) and proceeded to kick, pinch, and berate me. When they finished I went into the bus and I cried. The bus driver, who had been sitting there, said that it was a shame. You think?
That was the last time I ever cried in public. I was never going to allow myself to cry in public again.
I was too fat to run so I would walk in P.E. around the track while everyone else ran, and as early as fifth grade if not earlier I would pray to G-d to let me be happy one day, and that if I got a sign that I would, I would put up with anything.
In college people would leave anonymous comments in my website's guestbook about what a disgusting pig I was. They didn't have to, I myself have looked in the mirror and called myself a loser.
My life was defined by fear. Fear of not being liked, fear of making mistakes, fear of life. I spent 31 years eating and watching TV. I'd spend 4-5 hours a day laying on the couch watching TV. My daily diet consisted of pizza rolls, hot pockets, large pizza, bagel bites, cheese sticks, etc.
Been suffering from depression since at least fifth grade. On therapist 31 or so (because of a few minor things, like losing a dad, having to adjust to a new body, psychological changes of losing 75 lbs, wanting to change the inside as well as the outside, etc.). I always felt I wasn't really living but just existing until my real life started. I think it did.
My life would have been so different if I could take this Debbie back. I probably would have gotten suspended a couple of times but no one would have ever dared to pick on me again. Life would have been an adventure. But I like two quotes I've come across. The first one is that you cannot change the past but you can rewrite your future. The second is that life DOES have do-overs. If you need an example, here it is.
I want to briefly touch on what my dad dying did to me. June 3rd, 2009. I talk to my dad on the 2nd at night, tell him "Talk to you tomorrow," and hours later he's dead. Slipped down the stairs at home, hit his head, and died. Great physical and mental shape. Something like that breaks you. It's like there's a hole poked in your soul. You can mend it, but you'll always be able to tell something happened there. I went to Venezuela never expecting to go back. And it's like I picture my life having two timelines and this is a weird alternate one I was never supposed to be on. I had never gotten overwhelmed. When I was there, I'd get overwhelmed and I'd have to step to the side and just breathe because life itself was just too much. I got to enjoy bathrooms a lot, because they were small and quiet. I never saw my dad dead because Jews don't do that. The only proof I have that he's dead is that he hasn't called me since. New Debbie would have opened that casket. Touch him one last time, try to poke him to get him to wake up.
It's really like G-d came to me one day and said, Here, have this new life, where everything as you know it will change. You'll be stronger, better, both inside and out, you'll find a strength and a love of life you never knew existed and you yourself will change. Oh, yeah. Your dad? Not a part of it.
If I had to choose between a five-minute visit from my dad and all this, I wouldn't know any of you. Just to tell him one last time that I love him, that I'm sorry for broken promises and all those times I didn't call and for not being the perfect daughter. Just to hug him and touch him one last time.
And you really have something happen TO you instead of you MAKING IT happen, and you try to explain that to people. You think I chose any of this? This is as far from anything I ever would have chosen. So when people ask me what made me choose to change my life and exercise..... I didn't. I had no choice in the matter, all I could do was hang on for dear life while all this happened (and keeps happening).
And when you wake up one day and you get handed over pretty much a new life, you are really in awe that you get to live out this life. You wake up and go, Really? I really get to live out this life? This is really mine? I get to keep it?
And you develop a fear of losing all of this, of going back. Because one day you wake up and go to the gym and never stop and the cravings stop and never come back and you don't understand why or how it happened, and you're scared of losing it all and having to go back to who you once were, and you want to get as much of this as you can because you never know how long you'll have it for.
This is the best way I can explain it: Imagine the most delicious [insert your favorite flavor] ice cream [or most favorite food] in the world. No calories, no fat, you can eat as much as you want, and it's a bottomless container, and you don't know if it will ever run out, so you eat and eat and eat in fear of the faucet of ice cream shutting off, if you will. That's why I exercise four to six hours a day, because there's always the fear that tomorrow the drive will be gone and I'll be in bed again and I want to get as much ice cream in as I can before it's taken away from me. Because remember, none of this was a choice.
On trips all I'd want to do is lay in bed reading. Now my motto is Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. I like my music when I work out because it motivates me but sometimes I skip the iPod because I want to be in the moment, I want to experience life happening.
And you know, life isn't perfect. I still have many goals to go. But it has started, and the changes have started happening, and it's all the good kind of uphill from here (although is there a kind of bad uphill? ;)).
Do you know how ironic it is that my dad dying was the event that set off the best year of my life? That's something I have to live with the rest of my life. That it really feels like he died so that I could live? That he would have been my biggest supporter and no matter how many triathlons I finish he can never see any of them, I can never give him any of this?
The depression comes and goes and Old Debbie would lay in bed. New Debbie gives it the finger on the way to boot camp.
So next time I say thank you for believing in me when my whole life it seemed most people didn't, all of this is what I'm really saying thank you for.
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May 26th:
I've always wanted to go skydiving. Old Debbie wanted to do a lot of things. New Debbie does them for her. So what better day than today, my birthday? My first birthday after I got my second lease in life.
I get there early, straight from work. Bad move, since I got there so early I had time to think. And then I get nervous. And then I ramble, to the point that the people who work there are telling me (jokingly) to shut up lol Filled out a bunch of forms about how this could result in injury or death. About how we were about to be inappropriately groped in private places (I almost put "Only if you're hot" next to my initials). Then into a room where we watched a video about, what else, how we could die or be injured. Then we had to show how we could fold our legs into ourselves from a sitting position and .... I couldn't. They wouldn't budge. I'm thinking are you freaking kidding me, this is one of the hardest things for me in boot camp, I wish I would have practiced harder. The instructor is looking at me like are you freaking kidding me which was kind of cool because it means I at least look like I should be able to do it. After everyone left the room I was able to do it (and was able to do it easily when it counted, up in the air). Then we practiced the banana, laying on a round rolling soft round chair thingie, head tilted back, legs folded back, arms first tucked in front then at 90 degree angles out.
True to what I was told by a staff member, you go from fear to gung-ho back to fear back to gung-ho and up and down and up and down and I want to go already and I want to go home. Then it was time to suit up and get the harness on. Then we watched the first wave go (I was in the second wave). Everyone's chutes opened. Whew. Seven of them. Perfect landings. Then we went inside to get our instructors (tandem jump). I went to talk to the first wave, specially the woman, and they all said it was amazing. Then I hear "Debbie!! DEBBIE!!" and run to find my instructor. Since I took so long getting to him we were last on the plane..... first to jump. And they told me the worst parts were the ride up in the plane, the tugging when the chute opens, and the landing. But as we were going up, all I felt was peace. It soothed me to look down into the ever-disappearing ground. It brought me peace.
And I started thinking about my dad. For those of you who don't know, on 6/3/09, we got a call that he slipped down the stairs at home (in Venezuela), hit his head, and died. I had talked to him briefly six hours before and the last words I ever said to him were "Talk to you tomorrow." He was in great physical and mental health, 69-years-old. And I've been hiking and if you think about it, you can slip and die. It's possible. Specially hanging from rocks in the middle of nowhere or going downhill. And then this. But he died at home. If you gotta go, you gotta go, and hiding from life at home isn't going to protect you (not that he was doing that, just saying). And I wasn't afraid. I think it was my dad's time to go and G-d took him that way to remind me for the rest of my life to never keep from doing something out of fear. Fear can never again be a deciding factor in my life. Anything, anywhere, anytime. And I was not nervous. I pictured myself going over the side of the plane falling, and I felt peace. And then it was time to go, get clipped to my awesome instructor, goggles on, and off the side of the plane we went. And then I didn't stop yelling until we hit the ground. But yelling helps me deal with fear and nervousness :) It won't stop me from doing something, it just helps me get through it. That's going to be a funny video once I get it in a couple of days, and should make for some good pics. Your face feels like it's being plastered. And then the chute opened, and it wasn't that bad of a pull. But then the freaking TURNING began. If there's something that I didn't like about the jump, it was turning in circles, I hate that feeling of just one side of your body is falling down and being pulled back. I steered the parachute a bit. Then he took it back and he braked it a bit and we did a perfect landing. I think we ended up in our butts but I felt him land first, my legs folded after all. The ascent was perfect, the pull of the parachute was nothing, the landing was phenomenal, just a tremendous rush and experience, and afterwards I was shaking so bad a staff member had to put my tip in the envelope, I couldn't get the bills in. When I landed I literally kissed the ground and got dirt inside my mouth. Crunchy. Could still feel it an hour later.
Can't wait to see the video and pictures. And once you jump out of a plane, everything else pales by comparison. Once you go on "extreme" adventures, everything else pales in comparison. And you need more more more each time, something harder, tougher, badder, bigger. Once I actually DO something, it's like meh. The Sprint Triathlon didn't even feel like a challenge because I overtrained (64 laps instead of 32, 28 miles instead of 19 on the bike, 10K instead of 5K). What I love is the feeling of having to push, the feeling of having to meet a challenge. Once I meet it, it's no longer a challenge and I lose interest. I thought about jumping more and I think what I'm going to do is get my 25 tandem jumps in, then do a jump by myself, then not jump again, because I have way too many other things I want to do. But I do want to jump by myself one day.
It was an amazing experience. And when I was signing up I was able to claim I was height and weight proportionate and it felt good, and then I realized I probably wouldn't have been able to go skydiving before even if I wanted to because of the weight.
I think that's why I'm starting to warm up to how my body looks and feels now, because it's not keeping me from doing what I want.
Highly recommended experience, I will definitely be back to do it again one day =)
Don't be afraid of life. Embrace it. Do what you want to do. And you know what I was thinking on that plane and going up to the plane? It actually would take ACTION -NOT- to do it... i.e. walking away. If I just followed the person in front of me I wouldn't even have to think, I just had to keep moving forward and just follow orders to go through the experience. Don't hide from life, live it. Don't be scared of things. Or be scared but do them anyway. That's what I do.
Debbie out.
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A way to beat depression?
If you haven't heard before, I've suffered from depression since at least 5th grade, so that makes it about 22 years by now, or over 2/3's of my life. 30 or so therapists, group therapy, support groups, medication, the whole shebang, and nothing. What do you do? In my case I just learned to live with it the best I could, and it was something that came and went and I had no control over how often and for how long and to what degree, the only thing I could do is wait until it left and then just go on living.
When I started exercising on 7/3/09 it went away almost completely for a few months (I can remember 2 "episodes" in that time) and just came back a couple of months ago. When you have chronic depression you never really think it's gone for good because it always comes back and you don't want to set yourself up for disappointment. But when it came back a couple of months ago, I was Exercise Debbie as opposed to Old Debbie, so I couldn't react to it the same. So I started ignoring it. If it came, I'd talk to it out loud, say I didn't have time for it, and just ignore and go on with what I was doing.
Then 5/22/10 came around. A boot camp extreme challenge. And after it was done and we were walking a rocky trail back to the cars, something happened to me. I'm not sure what it was or what it means or what changes it will bring. I just know something happened. And one of the things I knew from that point forward is that I could never be depressed gain. I don't know WHY, I just know that I can't be depressed ever again. Sometimes through this whole fitness journey I just "know" things. I don't think I can, I know I will. And there's a huge difference. I went from six minutes of running to half an hour of running based on what a person said on Facebook, and when I started that half hour run, I laughed out loud, because I KNEW I was going to do it, and it felt great to know that at the beginning of the run.
So I've felt 2-3 depression episodes coming these past few days, and I just put my foot down and said "no." I refuse. Literally saying out loud, no, I refuse. No. No no no no no no no. Just no. You can't come at all. And me personally I think ignoring something and refusing something -- like night and day, completely different, even though outwardly they have the same appearance. I refuse to be depressed ever again.
I've learned two things these past couple of days. One, it helps to shut your brain off and just go sometimes. We think too much. Just set it aside and just experience life instead of thinking about life. Feel the earth beneath your feet, the wind in your hair, the sun in your face.... FEEL life.
Second, sometimes it's harder to give up than to go. When you're at the edge of the "figurative" cliff, isn't it easier to just jump than to turn around and walk all the way back to the car? Sometimes it's easier to accomplish something than to back away.
And I don't know why mention those last two points, but I think they have something to do with the whole "no" thing.
Start making life happen instead of just letting life happen. Take the reigns and start directing your life. You can be anything and do anything. Have you ever wanted to do something? What's the difference between you now and you doing that something? Is it just taking action? That's a huge thing, taking action. What's stopping you? Picture yourself doing it, and just do it. Because there's really nothing stopping you. Just fear, self-doubt, but all of those are in your head, and all of those you can say No to. Refuse to be a victim. Refuse to let life happen to you. Anything you don't like, you actually have the power to refuse, to say no. I refuse to be weak anymore, to have fear control my life, to be depressed, to be anything less than everything I want to be. And there's no difference between you and me.
In the blog I wrote that people say to just turn the depression off, to turn the switch, and I said that I had been dealing with it for 20 years and I hadn't found a way to do that, so that if they knew how, please share. So I figured I'd do the same.
How long will this last? I don't know. Will this actually work? I don't know. Will I ever be depressed again? I don't know. I just know I refuse, and I have the power to say no and to make my life whatever I want it to be. And that's what I want to share with you. Grab that power and say no to your thing, because we all have our thing. Refuse your thing. Control your life. Make your life.
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Written Sunday:
9th day depression-free. Just say No! Fifth straight day of writing at least 300 words a day. More and more I realize that anytime you see anybody who's overweight, depressed, isolated, weighted down, etc. .... that's not a lazy, unmotivated person. That's someone who had Life happen to them. It happens to all of us. Go talk to them and find out what their story is.
I think while learning to listen to my body first because of the food and then because of the exercise, I found a way to listen to my soul ;) I've learned quite a few things on this journey, I'll write them up one of these days. But I think if you fine-tune your senses in order to capture more of you, you can't help but pick up on others' signals also.
And I actually used those same exact words in either a blog entry or my last Note here.... make life happen instead of letting life happen to you :) We can refuse to be victims of circumstance.
Writing this on Saturday of NEXT WEEK. On Sunday mom came back from Venezuela for two months, so straightening up a bit. Did a spin class with Dallas, felt good, might start incorporating an hour spin class here and there. Set up the treadmill at 10 miles per hour (six-minute mile), grabbed on, and jumped on. BAD IDEA, but ONE OF THE if not THE funnest idea I've had for a while. Was able to hang on and then was able to jump back out. It could have been ugly. Do NOT try this. Let me be the crazy adventurous one. Ok, that's kind of selfish, but trust me, NOT something you want to try. That's about it for Sunday. Debbie out.
This is an old note from the 15th of May:
It struck me the other day when I was talking to somebody that I've changed so much and so quickly that people think this has been me all along and this is who I am. And I thought what better way to show the difference than to describe what my life was like just a year ago.
Why? Because people seem to be inspired by change. And if by knowing how much of a change my life has gone through is able to inspire somebody else, then telling the story is worth it. Maybe I'm also trying to explain what going through this whole thing has been like.
I thought we'd start with elementary school. I was the one they picked to bully (and that went up all the way to the workplace, really, it never really stopped). I was never really part of the group. One of my earliest memories was when I was 6 years old or so and we all sat in a group, the whole class with the teacher, and went around trying to figure out what was wrong with me. My first grade teacher would pinch me and pull my hair. On a private bus I accidentally poked someone on the ear with an errant pen and I was the only one without ice cream. During camp someone's pajamas went missing and I was blamed and I had to skip the search for a ghost which I really wanted to go to and then they found the pajamas inside the person's bag and then a bunch of people made fun of me for being too scared to go on the ghost search. I went on a religious group overnight sleepover and in the morning we were going out to pick up new members and go out to eat or something and my shoes went missing and I was made to stay behind by myself in the house.
I'd be sitting down and someone would come and start kicking a soccer ball against me over and over again and I'd let them. I'd try to leave the room to get a teacher to stop the teasing and I'd be dragged to the floor by my lab coat.
One of the most significant events in my life happened in fifth grade. I had an argument with someone in third or fourth grade, and I think there was pushing back and forth; I don't really remember and I was never the kind of person to shove back even if shoved. Her cousin was in my grade and next thing I know, the younger cousin is telling everyone I shoved her so hard I knocked the wind out of her. So a bunch of fifth and sixth graders corner me in front of the bus (on school property, and I could have sworn I saw at least one administrator looking) and proceeded to kick, pinch, and berate me. When they finished I went into the bus and I cried. The bus driver, who had been sitting there, said that it was a shame. You think?
That was the last time I ever cried in public. I was never going to allow myself to cry in public again.
I was too fat to run so I would walk in P.E. around the track while everyone else ran, and as early as fifth grade if not earlier I would pray to G-d to let me be happy one day, and that if I got a sign that I would, I would put up with anything.
In college people would leave anonymous comments in my website's guestbook about what a disgusting pig I was. They didn't have to, I myself have looked in the mirror and called myself a loser.
My life was defined by fear. Fear of not being liked, fear of making mistakes, fear of life. I spent 31 years eating and watching TV. I'd spend 4-5 hours a day laying on the couch watching TV. My daily diet consisted of pizza rolls, hot pockets, large pizza, bagel bites, cheese sticks, etc.
Been suffering from depression since at least fifth grade. On therapist 31 or so (because of a few minor things, like losing a dad, having to adjust to a new body, psychological changes of losing 75 lbs, wanting to change the inside as well as the outside, etc.). I always felt I wasn't really living but just existing until my real life started. I think it did.
My life would have been so different if I could take this Debbie back. I probably would have gotten suspended a couple of times but no one would have ever dared to pick on me again. Life would have been an adventure. But I like two quotes I've come across. The first one is that you cannot change the past but you can rewrite your future. The second is that life DOES have do-overs. If you need an example, here it is.
I want to briefly touch on what my dad dying did to me. June 3rd, 2009. I talk to my dad on the 2nd at night, tell him "Talk to you tomorrow," and hours later he's dead. Slipped down the stairs at home, hit his head, and died. Great physical and mental shape. Something like that breaks you. It's like there's a hole poked in your soul. You can mend it, but you'll always be able to tell something happened there. I went to Venezuela never expecting to go back. And it's like I picture my life having two timelines and this is a weird alternate one I was never supposed to be on. I had never gotten overwhelmed. When I was there, I'd get overwhelmed and I'd have to step to the side and just breathe because life itself was just too much. I got to enjoy bathrooms a lot, because they were small and quiet. I never saw my dad dead because Jews don't do that. The only proof I have that he's dead is that he hasn't called me since. New Debbie would have opened that casket. Touch him one last time, try to poke him to get him to wake up.
It's really like G-d came to me one day and said, Here, have this new life, where everything as you know it will change. You'll be stronger, better, both inside and out, you'll find a strength and a love of life you never knew existed and you yourself will change. Oh, yeah. Your dad? Not a part of it.
If I had to choose between a five-minute visit from my dad and all this, I wouldn't know any of you. Just to tell him one last time that I love him, that I'm sorry for broken promises and all those times I didn't call and for not being the perfect daughter. Just to hug him and touch him one last time.
And you really have something happen TO you instead of you MAKING IT happen, and you try to explain that to people. You think I chose any of this? This is as far from anything I ever would have chosen. So when people ask me what made me choose to change my life and exercise..... I didn't. I had no choice in the matter, all I could do was hang on for dear life while all this happened (and keeps happening).
And when you wake up one day and you get handed over pretty much a new life, you are really in awe that you get to live out this life. You wake up and go, Really? I really get to live out this life? This is really mine? I get to keep it?
And you develop a fear of losing all of this, of going back. Because one day you wake up and go to the gym and never stop and the cravings stop and never come back and you don't understand why or how it happened, and you're scared of losing it all and having to go back to who you once were, and you want to get as much of this as you can because you never know how long you'll have it for.
This is the best way I can explain it: Imagine the most delicious [insert your favorite flavor] ice cream [or most favorite food] in the world. No calories, no fat, you can eat as much as you want, and it's a bottomless container, and you don't know if it will ever run out, so you eat and eat and eat in fear of the faucet of ice cream shutting off, if you will. That's why I exercise four to six hours a day, because there's always the fear that tomorrow the drive will be gone and I'll be in bed again and I want to get as much ice cream in as I can before it's taken away from me. Because remember, none of this was a choice.
On trips all I'd want to do is lay in bed reading. Now my motto is Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. I like my music when I work out because it motivates me but sometimes I skip the iPod because I want to be in the moment, I want to experience life happening.
And you know, life isn't perfect. I still have many goals to go. But it has started, and the changes have started happening, and it's all the good kind of uphill from here (although is there a kind of bad uphill? ;)).
Do you know how ironic it is that my dad dying was the event that set off the best year of my life? That's something I have to live with the rest of my life. That it really feels like he died so that I could live? That he would have been my biggest supporter and no matter how many triathlons I finish he can never see any of them, I can never give him any of this?
The depression comes and goes and Old Debbie would lay in bed. New Debbie gives it the finger on the way to boot camp.
So next time I say thank you for believing in me when my whole life it seemed most people didn't, all of this is what I'm really saying thank you for.
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May 26th:
I've always wanted to go skydiving. Old Debbie wanted to do a lot of things. New Debbie does them for her. So what better day than today, my birthday? My first birthday after I got my second lease in life.
I get there early, straight from work. Bad move, since I got there so early I had time to think. And then I get nervous. And then I ramble, to the point that the people who work there are telling me (jokingly) to shut up lol Filled out a bunch of forms about how this could result in injury or death. About how we were about to be inappropriately groped in private places (I almost put "Only if you're hot" next to my initials). Then into a room where we watched a video about, what else, how we could die or be injured. Then we had to show how we could fold our legs into ourselves from a sitting position and .... I couldn't. They wouldn't budge. I'm thinking are you freaking kidding me, this is one of the hardest things for me in boot camp, I wish I would have practiced harder. The instructor is looking at me like are you freaking kidding me which was kind of cool because it means I at least look like I should be able to do it. After everyone left the room I was able to do it (and was able to do it easily when it counted, up in the air). Then we practiced the banana, laying on a round rolling soft round chair thingie, head tilted back, legs folded back, arms first tucked in front then at 90 degree angles out.
True to what I was told by a staff member, you go from fear to gung-ho back to fear back to gung-ho and up and down and up and down and I want to go already and I want to go home. Then it was time to suit up and get the harness on. Then we watched the first wave go (I was in the second wave). Everyone's chutes opened. Whew. Seven of them. Perfect landings. Then we went inside to get our instructors (tandem jump). I went to talk to the first wave, specially the woman, and they all said it was amazing. Then I hear "Debbie!! DEBBIE!!" and run to find my instructor. Since I took so long getting to him we were last on the plane..... first to jump. And they told me the worst parts were the ride up in the plane, the tugging when the chute opens, and the landing. But as we were going up, all I felt was peace. It soothed me to look down into the ever-disappearing ground. It brought me peace.
And I started thinking about my dad. For those of you who don't know, on 6/3/09, we got a call that he slipped down the stairs at home (in Venezuela), hit his head, and died. I had talked to him briefly six hours before and the last words I ever said to him were "Talk to you tomorrow." He was in great physical and mental health, 69-years-old. And I've been hiking and if you think about it, you can slip and die. It's possible. Specially hanging from rocks in the middle of nowhere or going downhill. And then this. But he died at home. If you gotta go, you gotta go, and hiding from life at home isn't going to protect you (not that he was doing that, just saying). And I wasn't afraid. I think it was my dad's time to go and G-d took him that way to remind me for the rest of my life to never keep from doing something out of fear. Fear can never again be a deciding factor in my life. Anything, anywhere, anytime. And I was not nervous. I pictured myself going over the side of the plane falling, and I felt peace. And then it was time to go, get clipped to my awesome instructor, goggles on, and off the side of the plane we went. And then I didn't stop yelling until we hit the ground. But yelling helps me deal with fear and nervousness :) It won't stop me from doing something, it just helps me get through it. That's going to be a funny video once I get it in a couple of days, and should make for some good pics. Your face feels like it's being plastered. And then the chute opened, and it wasn't that bad of a pull. But then the freaking TURNING began. If there's something that I didn't like about the jump, it was turning in circles, I hate that feeling of just one side of your body is falling down and being pulled back. I steered the parachute a bit. Then he took it back and he braked it a bit and we did a perfect landing. I think we ended up in our butts but I felt him land first, my legs folded after all. The ascent was perfect, the pull of the parachute was nothing, the landing was phenomenal, just a tremendous rush and experience, and afterwards I was shaking so bad a staff member had to put my tip in the envelope, I couldn't get the bills in. When I landed I literally kissed the ground and got dirt inside my mouth. Crunchy. Could still feel it an hour later.
Can't wait to see the video and pictures. And once you jump out of a plane, everything else pales by comparison. Once you go on "extreme" adventures, everything else pales in comparison. And you need more more more each time, something harder, tougher, badder, bigger. Once I actually DO something, it's like meh. The Sprint Triathlon didn't even feel like a challenge because I overtrained (64 laps instead of 32, 28 miles instead of 19 on the bike, 10K instead of 5K). What I love is the feeling of having to push, the feeling of having to meet a challenge. Once I meet it, it's no longer a challenge and I lose interest. I thought about jumping more and I think what I'm going to do is get my 25 tandem jumps in, then do a jump by myself, then not jump again, because I have way too many other things I want to do. But I do want to jump by myself one day.
It was an amazing experience. And when I was signing up I was able to claim I was height and weight proportionate and it felt good, and then I realized I probably wouldn't have been able to go skydiving before even if I wanted to because of the weight.
I think that's why I'm starting to warm up to how my body looks and feels now, because it's not keeping me from doing what I want.
Highly recommended experience, I will definitely be back to do it again one day =)
Don't be afraid of life. Embrace it. Do what you want to do. And you know what I was thinking on that plane and going up to the plane? It actually would take ACTION -NOT- to do it... i.e. walking away. If I just followed the person in front of me I wouldn't even have to think, I just had to keep moving forward and just follow orders to go through the experience. Don't hide from life, live it. Don't be scared of things. Or be scared but do them anyway. That's what I do.
Debbie out.
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A way to beat depression?
If you haven't heard before, I've suffered from depression since at least 5th grade, so that makes it about 22 years by now, or over 2/3's of my life. 30 or so therapists, group therapy, support groups, medication, the whole shebang, and nothing. What do you do? In my case I just learned to live with it the best I could, and it was something that came and went and I had no control over how often and for how long and to what degree, the only thing I could do is wait until it left and then just go on living.
When I started exercising on 7/3/09 it went away almost completely for a few months (I can remember 2 "episodes" in that time) and just came back a couple of months ago. When you have chronic depression you never really think it's gone for good because it always comes back and you don't want to set yourself up for disappointment. But when it came back a couple of months ago, I was Exercise Debbie as opposed to Old Debbie, so I couldn't react to it the same. So I started ignoring it. If it came, I'd talk to it out loud, say I didn't have time for it, and just ignore and go on with what I was doing.
Then 5/22/10 came around. A boot camp extreme challenge. And after it was done and we were walking a rocky trail back to the cars, something happened to me. I'm not sure what it was or what it means or what changes it will bring. I just know something happened. And one of the things I knew from that point forward is that I could never be depressed gain. I don't know WHY, I just know that I can't be depressed ever again. Sometimes through this whole fitness journey I just "know" things. I don't think I can, I know I will. And there's a huge difference. I went from six minutes of running to half an hour of running based on what a person said on Facebook, and when I started that half hour run, I laughed out loud, because I KNEW I was going to do it, and it felt great to know that at the beginning of the run.
So I've felt 2-3 depression episodes coming these past few days, and I just put my foot down and said "no." I refuse. Literally saying out loud, no, I refuse. No. No no no no no no no. Just no. You can't come at all. And me personally I think ignoring something and refusing something -- like night and day, completely different, even though outwardly they have the same appearance. I refuse to be depressed ever again.
I've learned two things these past couple of days. One, it helps to shut your brain off and just go sometimes. We think too much. Just set it aside and just experience life instead of thinking about life. Feel the earth beneath your feet, the wind in your hair, the sun in your face.... FEEL life.
Second, sometimes it's harder to give up than to go. When you're at the edge of the "figurative" cliff, isn't it easier to just jump than to turn around and walk all the way back to the car? Sometimes it's easier to accomplish something than to back away.
And I don't know why mention those last two points, but I think they have something to do with the whole "no" thing.
Start making life happen instead of just letting life happen. Take the reigns and start directing your life. You can be anything and do anything. Have you ever wanted to do something? What's the difference between you now and you doing that something? Is it just taking action? That's a huge thing, taking action. What's stopping you? Picture yourself doing it, and just do it. Because there's really nothing stopping you. Just fear, self-doubt, but all of those are in your head, and all of those you can say No to. Refuse to be a victim. Refuse to let life happen to you. Anything you don't like, you actually have the power to refuse, to say no. I refuse to be weak anymore, to have fear control my life, to be depressed, to be anything less than everything I want to be. And there's no difference between you and me.
In the blog I wrote that people say to just turn the depression off, to turn the switch, and I said that I had been dealing with it for 20 years and I hadn't found a way to do that, so that if they knew how, please share. So I figured I'd do the same.
How long will this last? I don't know. Will this actually work? I don't know. Will I ever be depressed again? I don't know. I just know I refuse, and I have the power to say no and to make my life whatever I want it to be. And that's what I want to share with you. Grab that power and say no to your thing, because we all have our thing. Refuse your thing. Control your life. Make your life.
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Written Sunday:
9th day depression-free. Just say No! Fifth straight day of writing at least 300 words a day. More and more I realize that anytime you see anybody who's overweight, depressed, isolated, weighted down, etc. .... that's not a lazy, unmotivated person. That's someone who had Life happen to them. It happens to all of us. Go talk to them and find out what their story is.
I think while learning to listen to my body first because of the food and then because of the exercise, I found a way to listen to my soul ;) I've learned quite a few things on this journey, I'll write them up one of these days. But I think if you fine-tune your senses in order to capture more of you, you can't help but pick up on others' signals also.
And I actually used those same exact words in either a blog entry or my last Note here.... make life happen instead of letting life happen to you :) We can refuse to be victims of circumstance.
On Saturday I went to the drag races at the Speedway. It feels good to move around and do things and go places and experience new things instead of sitting at home watching TV.
Writing this on Saturday of NEXT WEEK. On Sunday mom came back from Venezuela for two months, so straightening up a bit. Did a spin class with Dallas, felt good, might start incorporating an hour spin class here and there. Set up the treadmill at 10 miles per hour (six-minute mile), grabbed on, and jumped on. BAD IDEA, but ONE OF THE if not THE funnest idea I've had for a while. Was able to hang on and then was able to jump back out. It could have been ugly. Do NOT try this. Let me be the crazy adventurous one. Ok, that's kind of selfish, but trust me, NOT something you want to try. That's about it for Sunday. Debbie out.
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