Be Your Own Hero

This week has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. People who I thought were my friends and my support turned on me, and it felt like everyone around me had discounted me as a weak addition to the group who was half-assing the workouts. To make matters worse my weight loss this week was less than stellar, which fueled the negative fire from others as well as myself.

I came so close to ending my Thintervention this week because it's hard enough to lose weight, but add my PCOS and the complete lack of support from pretty much everyone else in the group, and you have an almost toxic mix.

The most frustrating thing is that no one really cares about my PCOS or how completely frustrating it is. I worked my ass off this week! I worked out harder then I ever have before in my entire life and it still wasn't enough. To top it off I have to sit through two dinners and discover that the people I had come to care for and support could really care less about me and have no real desire to get to know me.

For 10 years I have been in and out of every doctor's office to try and take care of my PCOS and none of them could give me a straight answer. I was always told, "We just don't know enough about it," and "You have to get this weight off, but having PCOS is going to make that next to impossible." Eating cupcakes and pizza certainly didn't help matters, but that seems to be the only thing that people see with my condition because they would rather mock it than understand it.

I felt so alone  this week and I think it's a blessing in disguise as crazy as that sounds. It helped me really look at myself, and how I got to this point, and how I was behaving towards others as well as myself. I had to delve deeper into my condition and figure out how I was going to take control of it and prove everyone wrong.

The more difficult thing I had to do was confront a family issue that has plagued me for most of my life and has caused a huge problem within my family. It's so much easier to stuff an emotion down with a doughnut than it is to confront it head on. I know that somewhere in her heart my Grandmother loves me, but it's not healthy and it's not unconditional. I was the least favored grandchild and any praise (if ever) I would receive from her would be immediately followed by what was wrong with me.

I wish things were different. I wish that my grandmother wouldn't feed me sweets and then say as I was eating them, "You really shouldn't eat that, you'll get fat." I wish I could make everyone in my family happy and not be the source of discord and distress. I can't change who I am, and I wouldn't. I am an amazing friend, daughter, and young woman. I have had severe body image issues because for the longest time I connected them to familial acceptance, and I never confronted it until now.

It's never too late to change. To be your own hero. I take full responsibility for where I am, and it's with that responsibility that I can take charge of my change too.

If you have PCOS, know that you are not alone. You might be at a dinner like I was and get teased and taunted because people around you don't want to take the time to know about this disorder, but there is hope. People fear what they don't know or understand, and they are more concerned with their ego or being the life of the party than being a true support, and I refuse to get down to that low level because it doesn't serve me at all.

Don't get me wrong, I think that life is a party! Some parties, as we all know, are better than others and this week was a testament to that. Now after having a week of complete emotional upheaval and break through I am ready for the parties to start getting good again. Get the streamers and party hats ready!