Anxiety/panic attacks are just lovely, aren’t they? Especially when they happen in the middle of classes. *sigh* I had a bit of a crying fit today, which started during Fitness For Life. The teacher was telling us we would have to do a walking program and learn about our resting heart rate and our “training zone”. Well, all of this made me realize something. For the first time since I was 13 (actually, 12, because when I was 13 I had lots of ankle sprains), I will actually have to participate in a P.E. class. Now, that being a fearful thing may make me sound lazy, which I kind of am, but that’s another subject completely.

So, why was I so freaked out? When I was 14, I was diagnosed with chondromalacia and was told not to take anymore P.E. ever again. (I had a doctor’s excuse to drop my 9th grade dance class.) My orthopedist had been leaning on me to stop doing so much since I was 13. That was when I sprained my ankles about 7 times in one year. Later that year, I broke my foot for the first time. I broke it again when I was 14, and yet again when I was 16. The big cause of my breakage of bones and spraining of ankles? Well, my weight, but also, activity. My orthopedist wanted me to lose weight, but he didn’t want me to do anymore damage to my body. So, I’ve been wary of doing too much since then.

Basically, I freaked out today because I realized that I’m going to be working out in class and I’m scared that I’ll get hurt. I’m so scared that I’ll sprain something or break something or that my knees will get worse again. I know I’ve lost 100 pounds in the past year, so it shouldn’t be as stressful as it would’ve been a year ago. I’m still worried, though, because when I first started spraining my ankles, I weighed around what I weigh now (actually less).

Also, I have a fear of P.E. teachers. I know that sounds silly, but I had a bad experience with my middle school P.E. teacher. She gave me a hard time about everything. She would tell me that every problem I had was due to my weight and my ankles being too weak. I swear, if I broke a nail, she would’ve said it was because my ankles were too weak and I weighed too much. So, now I have an aversion to P.E. teachers…especially white, female P.E. teachers. Guess what my Fitness For Life teacher happens to be? That’s right…a white woman! So, I’m majorly intimidated.

Plugs: biscuitbandit, Chelle, Chrissy, Cooky, Jenny, LinLin, Sorrow, StacyRose

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Today in Physical Science, this woman decided it would be fun to talk to me. She asked me question after question after question. Admittedly, the questions were class-related, but it got annoying. She attended the first class and took the same notes as me, so why was she pestering me so much? Well, if that weren’t bad enough, when we were coming back from the 5 minute break we got (since the class is 3 hours long), she asked me what I had answered for the quiz today. I told her B. She’d answered C. She wanted to know why I said B, and I told her that I said B because it was the right answer and it was in my notes. Well, somehow, during this exchange, she decided the appropriate thing to do would be to grab my arm. Now, this may seem like no big deal, but I don’t like to be touched. I mean, I really cannot stand when someone touches me without my giving them permission to do so. So, when she grabbed my arm, I nearly slapped her. It took a lot of self-control for me to keep from slapping her or hitting her or just inflicting some sort of bodily harm upon this woman.

I don’t know why I’m like that. I know that some people don’t like to be touched by other people after they’ve been physically or sexually abused. Well, I’ve never been abused like that. My mom said that she thinks its from the emotional abuse. I guess that makes sense, in a way. I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel a little strange because if someone touches me, I’ll pull away or get really angry or both. (I get extremely upset when someone touches me that knows I don’t like to be touched.) I know that some people are just very “touch-oriented” when it comes to communication, but I’m not.

(Oh, the woman finally quit bugging me when we got to the lab and there was someone else for her to talk to.)

Plugs: Ashley, biscuitbanditmichelle, Ceri, Jenny, Manu, Sarah, Sarah

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So, my first week at A&M is over. And how has it gone? Well, its been very stressful. I had to wait an extra day to get my book voucher, and then when I went to get my books, one of them wasn’t available. One of my classes (Intro to Social Welfare) got cancelled because only 3 people were in the class. Luckily, the head of the Social Work department is letting 2 of us go to the morning class. So, now I’ll have Intro to Social Welfare from 8-9:20 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, which is when I wanted it to begin with. Now, I’ll have Fridays off, as well as Sundays. Woohoo.

You know how my hip was hurting so bad? Well, its not anymore, which is great. Unfortunately, the pain in my hip was masking some pain in my foot. (It was hurting so bad that I wasn’t noticing how bad my foot hurt.) The foot that hurts is the foot that I’ve broken three times. It hurts near the joint where my foot and big toe meet. It has hurt there before…only that was when it was broken (in other spots). Today, the bone next to it began to hurt. I have a feeling that if I had a bone scan done on my foot right now that my foot would have high stress in those two bones. I don’t know if its had enough stress to fracture it, but it feels like it. Ugh…I hope it isn’t broken. That would really make getting around at A&M difficult, not to mention how hard it would make doing Fitness for Life.

All the pain is not helping me try to reduce my Tylenol intake. At the beginning of this month, I’d cut back to 1 Tylenol per night, and I was going to lower it to either 1/2 or none at the end of the month. Since I’ve been in actual pain, though, I’ve been taking it a few times a day. I hope I don’t end up having to start over on my going off of Tylenol.

Oh, and Margaret Hoelzer came in fifth in the 200m backstroke. I had hoped she’d medal, but 5th is good. She made it a long way, which is really awesome, and I’m quite proud of her. She did quite well.

Plugs: Jenny, Manu

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I am so sick of the attitudes of some people on a certain board. One girl on there said that a guy was vile because he weighed around 1,000 pounds. I understand that he’s large and looks different, but to call him vile because of his weight is just, well, vile. I tried to explain to her and to others that this guy was still a human being and that his situation was a bit more complicated than just a “lack of self-control”. She said something about how he’d never tried to lose weight before. Yeah, that’s why on the guy’s website he lists several programs he’s tried. Apparently, she didn’t get that some of us have a little more difficulty with losing weight than other people.

It took me around 11 years to find something that worked so I could lose weight and keep it off. I know that my mom and my doctor had been trying to get me to lose weight since I was probably about 3 or 4, but I was never officially in a dieting program (one through a hospital, doctor or nutritionist) until I was about 8 or 9 years old. I weighed around 175 then and I was just under 5 feet tall. By the time I was 13, I had been on a few other programs and I was now at 225, with my height at around 5’2″ or 5’3″. By the time I was 19, I had been in more programs and I was now at 341.3 pounds at 5’4-5’5″. Now, you can say that I didn’t try hard enough to lose weight, but I tried. I couldn’t stop eating, though. I would lose weight on all of those diet programs, but then something would happen and I would gain back the weight plus some extra. People could say I had no self-control or willpower. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know. I do know that there were nights when I would write out plan after plan of how I would starve myself or how I would exercise 10 hours a day, and I would wake up in the morning and try my new plan and it wouldn’t work or I would get sick or hurt. I tried to will myself to be Anorexic. I know that sounds bad, but I needed to lose the weight and I knew that my life would be simpler if I were an Anorexic than it would be if I stayed as a “fat girl”. People would be more caring and compassionate. People would know I had a legitimate problem. People wouldn’t just treat me like crap or call me vile. I was desperate.

People don’t understand how hard it is to be obese. People don’t understand that virtually no one wishes they were obese. People don’t know the pain and the health problems of being obese and how much time you spend wishing those problems, like the obesity, would disappear. People can sit at their computers or go through life and mock those of us with weight problems, but they will never understand that our situations are not always in our control. People don’t grasp that maybe we need more than exercise and a new diet, or that maybe we’ve tried ten or twenty diets and several forms of exercise. (I danced for 8 years when I was younger, but I still kept gaining weight.) I hope that I never become one of these people. I hope that one day I will be at a healthy weight, but I will still remember what it was like when I was 341.3 pounds. I hope that when I have children one day, I will be able to express to them that just because a person may be larger, that doesn’t make them insignificant or worthy of ridicule. A person is still a person.

Ugh. I just can’t stand it when people automatically assume things about overweight and obese people.

Plugs: Bettina, Birdie, Hannah, Kayla, Lina, Mikey, Stef

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My hip is still hurting today. I had trouble sleeping because of the pain. My mom thinks it might be a ligament, which is not a good thing.

I’m not very nervous about tomorrow. I’m a bit more nervous about going and getting my Book Voucher from the Admissions Office than I am about going back to class. I also have to check and see if I have to do anything special with my scholarship and see if I have any fees that I have to pay. After I get the voucher, I’ll have to actually go buy the books. I’m a little upset that I have to wait until the last minute to get my books. I always like to get them at least a week ahead of time so that I can look them over and get a good feel for the class. I bet that makes me sound like a total geek. Who am I kidding? I probably am a total geek.

You know how I complained the other day about being spoiled for the Olympics by the news? Well, today I’ve accidentally found out the medal winners in certain races and events. I am quite happy with some of the results, but I’m a bit bummed at the results of the other.

So, how was I spoiled? I was checking to see how many gold medals Ian Thorpe had won as of last night, because someone made it sound like Michael Phelps had won more than him and I knew that didn’t sound right. Even if I hadn’t been spoiled doing that, I would’ve been just by going to Yahoo. They had it right there on their main page.

Oh, and on Thursday, I want everyone to root for Margaret Hoelzer in the 200m Backstroke. If you already have someone you’re planning on rooting for or if you don’t pay attention to the Olympics, then I guess you have a pretty good excuse to not root for her. However, if you don’t have anyone to root for, then please root for her. I’m hoping the good vibes will help her to do better. (I know that sounds silly.) Anyways…if you don’t know why I’m rooting for her, its because she and I went to Huntsville High School together (before I dropped out). I didn’t know her, but I knew people who were on the swim team with her (and the coach was my 10th grade homeroom teacher). Another reason I’m rooting for her is that my father and her mother work together. Please just root for her. I really hope she does well. (Thursday, she’ll be racing in the preliminaries/semifinals. If she does well, then Friday, she’ll be in the Finals.)

Oh, Chelle, school on a Saturday isn’t as bad as it seems. I’ve had classes on Saturdays a few times since I started college. I know it sounds sucky, but it can actually be better to take classes on Saturdays.

Plugs: Chelle, Lizzy, Sarah, GQ

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