Mourning as part of recovery

Hi All,

Even though I hated being at my top weight, the excess weight did serve some large purpose in my life. Not very healthy or productive purposes for sure, but it was part of who I was and part of how I navigated relationships, intimacy, responsibilities, sexuality, and life in general. It was a good excuse for not participating fully in life. It reinforced my convoluted desire to isolate. It sort of legitimized my depression and low self worth in some weird way that I can't really put into words. On one level I want all those things that "normal" people have, but the thought of attaining them someday is overwhelming. It's like I have to change every concept I've ever had about myself. This is one of those areas where the daily meditation of step 11 seems essential to me. I use some of that time every day to rebuild my internal picture of a healthy whole me. I know on one level a happy healthy and free Dave is my higher power's will for me, but it takes some work every day to not lose the deeper feeling of it—the inner knowing in my gut.

I believe we need to do the work of mourning even if we are mourning losses for things that weren't good for us. I don't think I could have ever stayed sober if I didn't mourn the loss of my drugs and booze—the loss of a way of life. Mourning made it all more real and helped propel me forward into a new life. I think it's like that with my weight now. It's hard work to find healthy replacements for those parts of my routine and my life that I'm in the process of giving up. Mourning helps that process just as if we were mourning the loss of a loved one. It's a necessary thing that helps us to move on.

One of my biggest problems is that I've spent so much of my life finding ways to numb or deny strong feelings. And mourning is a feeling process. So what I've been attempting to do lately is to really get into it and spend some time each day trying for all my might to feel what I am feeling. To plow through the depression and touch the pain and chaos underneath and see if I can make friends with it.

I think the feelings may also be biological in some way. Fat isn't just fat for those of us who are seriously obese, it's not only part of our identity, it's physically part of our body. Our systems have supported it and have acclimated to it for a long time.

One of the things that I'm dealing with now—mourning—is the lost time and potential... all the lost years. Now that I can actually feel some sense of having a future, the fact that I put my life on hold for so many years with my disease feels a lot more intense and real. It hurts a lot more now than it did a year ago. I just have to have faith that it will get better. Other people have done this before and lived through it.

One of the things Cathie sent me for my birthday was a butterfly pin. It's beautiful. Doing the kind of healing, change, and growth work we are doing is huge. We have in essence engaged in the job of remaking ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. A true metamorphosis.

Love, Dave