That time where everything turned on a dime in a month and threw me for a loop...
The past two months have been an absolute whirlwind, and not always for the best of reasons.
In the middle of July, which was supposed to be my big ‘post to Insta every day, and two blogs a week’ push I got told my role at work was being disestablished. My role and the role of my closest work colleagues were being merged into one role and we would have to fight it out against each other for it. The role really looked to have more of a sales focus than my current role so already I went in feeling like I was on the back foot, and let's face it, change is hard and it mentally and physically hurts.
Close to the end of the month, after an interview panel presentation that I worked literally around the clock on, I found out I wasn’t successful and just like that I was out of a job and leaving a place that I LOVED. Like the type of love where I woke up every morning so so happy to go to work, even when it was frustrating me or I was mentally exhausted because every day presented a new challenge for me to grow from. Now suddenly that was being taken away from me, I found myself with 2 months notice ahead of me and the daunting task of finding a new job.
To say I didn’t take it well the first few weeks is a total understatement. I still showed up every day, put on a brave face, supported my friend who was my replacement to give him all the help he needed to take over from me, ensure my team didn’t feel too upset or lost and put the company first.
In private though, I was a fuckin mess!
As much as I love what Gastric Sleeve surgery has done for me here is one area where I’m not loving it quite as much.
Since the surgery, the fabulous art of wallowing in my own self-pity has been sorely limited and over the past 2 months, I’ve needed it.
As any self-respecting person knows to truly perfect the art of wallowing it requires several things-
-Your Pajamas or the rattiest old pair of sweatpants matched with an oversized t-shirt or hoodie (more than likely with some type of food stain present)
-Sad depressing music played loud to drown out your tears
-Eating your own body weight in potato chips, chocolate and ice cream (preferably dipping said potato chips INTO the ice cream) to be consumed while ugly crying and reaching a full sobbing crescendo. Next level is wearing said hoodie back to front so you can fill the hood with potato chips to ensure maximum ease of shovelling chips into your face.
Now I’ve heard a crazy rumour that eating one's body weight in bad food as an emotional response to external and internal situations is like “bad” and stuff.
Go figure.
The first two-three weeks were unbelievably shit, won’t lie. I jinxed myself by starting to look at doing serious planning for a trip for the hubby and me to Paris to FINALLY fulfil my life long ambition to get there. Every time in the past when I have started seriously planning for a trip for us to hit Europe (Paris specifically), I get made redundant. My role disestablished. Kicked to the curb with no passing go and collecting $200. I swear, no joke. Three times I’ve started doing serious planning for this trip, three times I’ve been made redundant.
What do you know...it happened again.
In the past, no matter how much of a health kick I was on, how disciplined I was at sticking to a specific eating regime, if I hit these times of extreme emotional distress out would come the emotional eating coping mechanisms. It was painfully ingrained into me, usually topped with a side of serious alcoholism. (Although I would argue I’m less of a serious alcoholic and more of just a happy, great fun alcoholic).
Since surgery for the most part I haven’t felt the same urges BUT that is not to say I haven’t been perfect. I have been pretty lax in fact with my approach to junk foods and carbs. In the prior 6 months saying no to things was super easy, since the news broke that I would have to go into a death cage match with one of my best friends at work for the one role that combined both of ours to see who would be successful, saying no wasn’t top of my tongue like it used to be.
There was ugly crying, it is a necessity and it was joined with a small amount of emotional support eating...its just in way way waaaaaay tiny doses compared to what it would have been a year ago.
This concerns me.
That fact that I still have those thoughts that cry “I have a sad, broken void in me, must now fill it with food” is not the best approach to life. As my stomach starts to allow over the years an increase of food quantity I worry that I’ll just push my weight back up again. Already, I’ve begun looking at what are some of the ways I can combat it.
My usual go-to is the gym. On a particularly bad day being in the office as part of my notice period (I tried sticking around to finish delivering out a project I was midway through...can we say masochist) I found myself at the gym 3 times in a single day. Total overkill and pretty true to my usual form. Find something that helps and then overdo it until I'm broken. I scaled back to once a day those first three weeks while I was still working out my notice and it helped somewhat.
As time passed and I found myself becoming less and less occupied with things to do at work during those first two weeks that was when it started to go a bit more downhill for me. I work in Operations for two reasons. One - I love it. I feel completely at ease being dropped in the middle of a maelstrom of craziness and having to make sense of it all and keep things in order. The other reason is that focusing on all of that chaos around me helps to keep my OCD tendencies under control. I’m not diagnosed OCD, but I am diagnosed with OCD tendencies. Without the level of work to focus on I started becoming obsessed with things like our bed must be made perfectly each day. I’m talking PERFECT, like the duvet needs to hang at an even length over each side of the mattress and all four pillows must be lined up evenly. God help my husband the one time he moved a pillow off the bed because he wanted it in the lounge for his back. It made the bed uneven and I about lost it. Thankfully he’s super understanding of me and just went and got one from the spare room instead.
I would find myself awake in the middle of the night polishing the faucets in the bathroom cause I couldn't stand any sign of a watermark, moving things around on shelves so they were lined up symmetrically and being obsessed with any crumbs or marks that ended up on the kitchen counters.
It was at that point I told my boss I wasn’t coping and needed to go on gardening leave because even trying to be the ultimate professional and work through my notice period was actually damaging me mentally. Luckily he was all good with that and totally understanding.
Almost from that day everything changed.
I had several interviews a day lined up right after that, was offered a contract role for a few months to buy me even more time to find the perfect new permanent role and my OCD calmed down almost immediately.
Weirdly, by having all this free time until I started my contract role I found it even harder to get to the gym though. I need chaos to better plan my life, without it I felt like I got nothing done. Actually that's a lie, I rewatched all six seasons of Downton Abbey ready for the release of the movie. I went and saw that this weekend, SO GOOD, although my only criticism was that it needed a lot more Matthew Goode.
When it came to eating I did discover that structure and routine is my saviour. Without it, I would snack which I hadn’t done since surgery. While I was working I had perfectly planned out meals that I stuck to religiously; without a daily work structure, I slipped. Cue the alarms right now. I didn’t even think it was possible that my brain could still go into that mode.
I’m back to working super hard to stay in my lane of structured meals and reverting back to being super strict about when I stop drinking (30 mins before a meal) and start drinking again (30 mins after) and now that I’m back working it’s been so much easier to return to the gym on a regular schedule.
Last week was my last week at my contract role (I was only there for four days before I got offered a dream role for me...opps, soz) and today is the first day officially in that new role. It feels good in my brain to have structure back, even if it is crazy busy chaotic structure (my favourite kind of structure).
As super sucky as it was going through this in the beginning, I can honestly say this has now been the best thing ever. I’m leaving advertising which I have wanted to do for a while now and challenge myself more than ever before, I learned a lot about where I mentally am now six months after surgery and I have placed a new set of challenging goals in front of me to focus on.
At the time it was so hard to see the possibilities in front of me, I was too busy going through the stages of grief, but now, the future looks bright and I’m running fast towards it (now with a lot less weight on my frame holding me back).
