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sabinetzin) wrote2021-01-09 12:57 pm
sabinetzin) wrote2021-01-09 12:57 pm
The weight
So here's some stuff that's been going on in my life, and I wanted to share it because it's important for me to be open, for the people who can't. It's also a thing I am quite certain many people went through during lockdown and are also struggling with. I want to provide my story so that people see what can happen and that it can turn around.
Basically, I starved myself during lockdown on accident, and I'm trying to pull out of it.
This started well before lockdown, actually. As is well recorded, I have bipolar disorder, and like anyone with a mental illness can tell you, almost every psych drug either suppresses or stimulates appetite. Most critically for this story, in 2019 I went back on Depakote; Depakote is a major appetite stimulant, and I was ravenously hungry literally all the time. I ate SO many dried cranberries it was ridiculous. I didn't gain as much as I did the last time I was on Depakote, but I did gain.
But it wasn't really working as an anti-mania solution, so in early 2020, right around the time lockdown started here, I went on lithium and Seroquel. The lithium didn't really help, because for the first two or three weeks it left a terrible taste in my mouth, and all I wanted to eat was Jolly Ranchers. That went away, but I did not know what an appetite suppressant Seroquel was. (I should mention often these drugs will unpredictably have either effect, so someone else might find Seroquel to be an appetite stimulant.)
Combine this with the fact that I am not at all an emotional eater; when I'm depressed or upset, I don't eat. Also, it was lockdown, and all the days blurred into one with no differentiation between hours. So I was mentally not in a great space, and my appetite was nil, so I just... quit eating. It wasn't a hard transition, to be honest. I've got a history of undereating, and this was just the ultimate expression of that.
So over the course of 2020, I lost 30 pounds.
Now, if I'd meant to do that, it would be a great achievement, but boy oh boy, I didn't. I didn't even notice it happening until we went back to business casual for work and none of my clothes fit. It was a bad scene.
In all this, I eventually went off the Seroquel for unrelated reasons. And without a medication telling my body how to control hunger, whether by making it insistent or by making it nonexistent, I am at a state where I just don't know how to eat anymore. The only times I reliably eat are when I'm at work, because I eat a Clif bar in the morning and I eat lunch at noonish. I don't eat because I'm hungry, but because it's time to eat. I also have no idea what to eat; it's like over the course of a year and change, I completely forgot how to feed myself.
I feel like this is something a lot of people, maybe some of you, have gone through through the course of quarantine. It was so easy to lose track of time, and not everybody overeats when they're stressed or depressed. For me, this doesn't have a body image component, thankfully, but it would be easy to get that tangled up in it too.
But!
I decided something had to be done about it, because it's making me very upset. After some poking around, I found out that Amwell (a telehealth service that many insurances and employers provide) will let you visit a dietician for cheap. So I got myself set up with a provider, conveniently for after work on Friday.
I was of course deeply worried going into this. When you're fat, you know to distrust doctors, especially ones who deal with maintenance-type issues; it's less likely you'll get fatshamed after breaking your arm than at a diabetes screening. I was so afraid she was going to think 30 pounds was a good start, that it was of course a positive that I'd lost weight, because I'm fat.
My mother has been very unhelpful in this. She used to lead Weight Watchers. That's all that really needs to be said about that.
But it actually went really positively. She really listened to my concerns; she very much was on the side of "starvation is not great, actually." She said it was likely that because of how it happened, my body reserved fat and started burning other tissues that it should not have been, which explains some things. It was such a relief to feel heard and validated when I was expecting to be both shamed and praised (for something I am fucked up about).
So she's setting me up with calorie and protein requirements, as well as a meal pattern (not quite a meal plan; along the lines of "for an afternoon snack you need these nutrients, here's some things that have them"). She asked me whether weight loss is a priority for me, and I said no, which I could tell was kind of a relief to her, so she's writing it for weight maintenance. If I lose a few pounds in the process, mostly because I eat too much fast food and need to cut it out, so be it; I don't mind losing weight if I can be in control of my body.
I know it's been hard, and it's been hard in a lot of ways that are unexpected or invisible. But I am hoping for me, and for you, there is a way back to a more satisfying, more healthful way of life. Keep all your fingers and toes crossed.
(And if you do have Amwell, Bridget Mahoney is a rockstar)
Basically, I starved myself during lockdown on accident, and I'm trying to pull out of it.
This started well before lockdown, actually. As is well recorded, I have bipolar disorder, and like anyone with a mental illness can tell you, almost every psych drug either suppresses or stimulates appetite. Most critically for this story, in 2019 I went back on Depakote; Depakote is a major appetite stimulant, and I was ravenously hungry literally all the time. I ate SO many dried cranberries it was ridiculous. I didn't gain as much as I did the last time I was on Depakote, but I did gain.
But it wasn't really working as an anti-mania solution, so in early 2020, right around the time lockdown started here, I went on lithium and Seroquel. The lithium didn't really help, because for the first two or three weeks it left a terrible taste in my mouth, and all I wanted to eat was Jolly Ranchers. That went away, but I did not know what an appetite suppressant Seroquel was. (I should mention often these drugs will unpredictably have either effect, so someone else might find Seroquel to be an appetite stimulant.)
Combine this with the fact that I am not at all an emotional eater; when I'm depressed or upset, I don't eat. Also, it was lockdown, and all the days blurred into one with no differentiation between hours. So I was mentally not in a great space, and my appetite was nil, so I just... quit eating. It wasn't a hard transition, to be honest. I've got a history of undereating, and this was just the ultimate expression of that.
So over the course of 2020, I lost 30 pounds.
Now, if I'd meant to do that, it would be a great achievement, but boy oh boy, I didn't. I didn't even notice it happening until we went back to business casual for work and none of my clothes fit. It was a bad scene.
In all this, I eventually went off the Seroquel for unrelated reasons. And without a medication telling my body how to control hunger, whether by making it insistent or by making it nonexistent, I am at a state where I just don't know how to eat anymore. The only times I reliably eat are when I'm at work, because I eat a Clif bar in the morning and I eat lunch at noonish. I don't eat because I'm hungry, but because it's time to eat. I also have no idea what to eat; it's like over the course of a year and change, I completely forgot how to feed myself.
I feel like this is something a lot of people, maybe some of you, have gone through through the course of quarantine. It was so easy to lose track of time, and not everybody overeats when they're stressed or depressed. For me, this doesn't have a body image component, thankfully, but it would be easy to get that tangled up in it too.
But!
I decided something had to be done about it, because it's making me very upset. After some poking around, I found out that Amwell (a telehealth service that many insurances and employers provide) will let you visit a dietician for cheap. So I got myself set up with a provider, conveniently for after work on Friday.
I was of course deeply worried going into this. When you're fat, you know to distrust doctors, especially ones who deal with maintenance-type issues; it's less likely you'll get fatshamed after breaking your arm than at a diabetes screening. I was so afraid she was going to think 30 pounds was a good start, that it was of course a positive that I'd lost weight, because I'm fat.
My mother has been very unhelpful in this. She used to lead Weight Watchers. That's all that really needs to be said about that.
But it actually went really positively. She really listened to my concerns; she very much was on the side of "starvation is not great, actually." She said it was likely that because of how it happened, my body reserved fat and started burning other tissues that it should not have been, which explains some things. It was such a relief to feel heard and validated when I was expecting to be both shamed and praised (for something I am fucked up about).
So she's setting me up with calorie and protein requirements, as well as a meal pattern (not quite a meal plan; along the lines of "for an afternoon snack you need these nutrients, here's some things that have them"). She asked me whether weight loss is a priority for me, and I said no, which I could tell was kind of a relief to her, so she's writing it for weight maintenance. If I lose a few pounds in the process, mostly because I eat too much fast food and need to cut it out, so be it; I don't mind losing weight if I can be in control of my body.
I know it's been hard, and it's been hard in a lot of ways that are unexpected or invisible. But I am hoping for me, and for you, there is a way back to a more satisfying, more healthful way of life. Keep all your fingers and toes crossed.
(And if you do have Amwell, Bridget Mahoney is a rockstar)