Debbie’s Journey
From my heart to yours I know how it feels to be this stuck. Struggling with your weight and self esteem, Taking blow after blow, feeling trapped inside your own body and mind. But now I have discovered the key to becoming unstuck and I have taken this blueprint and designed Debbie Huxtons Mind Diet especially for you. I have been where you may be now. I have lived real life and know the struggles you face. I have heard the clichés and taken the criticism. I’m here to take you through this process one step at a time.
My turning point really began on December 4th, 2007, I was slumped in a ladies changing room with several outfits, that didn’t fit, that I didn’t want, and that I would never buy.
Going through the motions of trying to find something suitable to wear to a Christmas party I knew I wouldn’t go to. I had a wardrobe full of the stuff already. I had gone through this process so many times before that it was routine now. Why did I do this to myself time after time after time?
It had become a torturous, almost sadistic ritual; being given an invitation to something, someone had felt sorry enough for me to invite me to. Receiving the invite and feeling slightly better for the simple fact that at least I had been thought of even out of pity, but knowing that even when I was accepting the offer, I was never really going to go. I would plan what I’d wear, knowing I would never wear it, and unconsciously start preparing the excuse I would give nearer the time to relieve myself of the embarrassment of having to attend a social event. No need to feel uncomfortable mingling with a crowd of people who would expect me to be my happy bubbly self, when on the inside I was a crumbling wreck, just trott out another excuse about childcare problems or work commitments and stay home. Where it was safe. With my friends Ben and Jerry.
My life had become one massive contradiction, saying one thing, while feeling another, pretending everything was great when it was anything but. The very facade my life had become was killing me, slowly and silently. Emotionally and mentally I was dying, and a few short weeks later I would find out that physically it was even worse. The fact that I was actually well on the way to killing myself would become my reality.
I was trapped in my own body, a helpless victim of my unfortunate genetic make up, my heavy bones, a slow metabolism, and a hectic lifestyle that meant I had to eat what I could when I could, the cards life had dealt me were all conspiring to increase my weight, and decrease my happiness despite my best efforts to the contrary.
But that wasn’t the truth.
The truth was that it was my mind that was holding me prisoner. Somewhere deep down I desperately wanted freedom from the turmoil that was raging in my being. Each day a new battle to face or more likely the same battle to face again. I felt like life had chewed me up and spat me out. I used to be so strong, coping admirably with all that life had to throw at me, receiving compliments on my high spirits and stiff upper lip, but I had somehow somewhere along the way become my own worst enemy. I was fighting me, and no one else. I had been listening to the advice of others, well meaning and not so well meaning, for too many years, and had become fearful of living MY own life, always worrying what others might say, think or do. So I hid and I dodged, and I made excuses, but I felt utterly rejected, beaten by the world, and as my breakdown in the fitting room graphically demonstrated there was now nowhere else to hide. Nowhere left to run. I slouched on the bench afraid to open my eyes, wanting the ground to open up and swallow me whole.
Over the last ten years a series of events that were outside of my control had come at me one after another, conspiring to drag me down into the depths of depression that I now inhabited, dealing out body blow after body blow. As with so many people today I was busy nurturing others with whom I shared the traumatic events, encouraging them to feel good about themselves and raising their spirits, but forgetting to do the same for myself.
Except I hadn’t forgotten.
It was deliberate, because when you focus on helping others it lets you off the hook. You help others deal with their problems so that you don’t have to deal with yours. But it takes it’s toll, slowly, incipiently it takes its toll. My own feel good gage was now at an all time low. The tank was empty. So the engine spluttered. And then stopped.
Looking back on that time in my life I was hoping that someone would help me, that they would do the same for me as I did for them.
I had started to become resentful. I knew I had no right to expect others to make me feel better, but surely if I was helping them they should help me too, but if I’m honest now I knew they wouldn’t. It was all just a charade to excuse me from the responsibility of sorting my own life. A diversion. I never voiced my inner most feelings of sadness, resentment or fears to anyone, it all stayed inside me and as my emotions had become self-contained and confined to my own head space they had turned inward and started to attack me.
Don’t get me wrong I’m no Mother Theresa; it was pride that kept them there. What I didn’t verbalise, the self-loathing, the denial of the situation and the sheer size of the problem I needed to confront, was building up inside me like a volcano, and more often than not would have a mini eruption. I would lose my temper easily over mundane things, being snappy and curt, but the one thing that was really out of control was my bingeing and overeating, which led to me feel tired and unwell, physically, and mentally, all the time.
It had become an utterly overwhelming vicious circle, the more these behaviours took hold the worse I felt, the worse I felt the more I binged and the angrier I got. In my mind I had created a reality where I believed everybody had this expectation that I was strong and could weather any storm and if I didn’t then I would lose face, be a failure or become less of a person in their eyes.
Needless to say I never went to the Christmas party.
My Christmas was however spent over indulging, (because that’s what everyone does) leaving the usual aftermath of guilt and misery. I spent the lull between Christmas and New Year in London with my children, taking in the sights, and as planned momentarily forgetting the inner turmoil that was raging inside me. The torture soon returned though, and where else but at the home of English torture. The London Dungeons were about to reveal more than just the history and peril of yesteryear, they were about to administer a mental punishment to rival any of their gruesome medieval exhibits, and land hammer blow number two to my crumbling façade. Every group visiting the Dungeons was invited to capture their visit in bold Technicolor, as a photo souvenir, to emblazon the memory on glossy paper forever.
Of course we took part in this exploitive exercise, as with the kids growing up so quickly, it was like someone had pressed the fast forward switch on my family life. Matt was now eighteen, Jemma sixteen and Saranne eleven, and coming through what we had come through over the last ten years we took every chance to capture these fleeting family moments, even though deep down I hated the thought of seeing my image on paper.
The operation was fairly painless, a bright flash, a smile and a wave towards the counter where we would retrieve our wonderful souvenir. The deed was done and what was presented to us by way of a souvenir photograph felt more like two hot pokers being stuck deep into both of my eyes. As I choked back the salty tears which reflexively threatened to betray my fragility for all to see, my mind raced again. Who was that woman in the photo? I didn’t recognize her, the impersonator from the changing room was now stalking me. Blow number two was struck and I withdrew again into the dark.
We left the scene of the crime a few hours later and drove to see a family friend, which I knew would lift my spirits at least a little, but this visit was to continue the trend, and be the final straw, the straw that broke the camels back.
The straw that broke me.
We reached the house and I extracted myself from the car and trotted up the path to the front door, certain that this warm lovely lady who had watched me grow up would greet me with the warmth and love that I so dearly required. I rang on the bell and waited with a smile as this lady who had known me from birth approached the front door, masked by the frosted glass panes that separated us. The door swung open and she looked puzzled as she studied me carefully, before finally speaking.
‘If it wasn’t for your lovely smile, I wouldn’t have known you, what have you done to yourself?’
I stood, statue like as my smile evaporated. I had no answer, but her question was what I needed to confront. What had I done to myself? How had I got to this point, where I felt so unhappy, hated the way I looked, and my friend didn’t even recognise me. You may think this lady, a close family friend, rude for being so blunt and tactless, but her greeting was the final blow to my pantomime, breaking asunder my carefully crafted illusion forever, and for that I will be eternally grateful for her honesty.
Her words changed my life.
It was now New Years Eve, a time to make those resolutions filled with good intention and promise that are usually broken just weeks, if not days later. As 2008 dawned I knew I couldn’t go any lower and resolved to change. The little voice that had squeaked to me in the changing room three or so weeks earlier was speaking again. Time to change. Time to change. Everything. This time there was no going back. I drew a mental line in the sand and then simply stepped across it.
My journey of rediscovery had begun…and yours can too.
I can teach you which foods to eat and which to avoid, which ones make you fatter, and which make you leaner, when to eat, and how often, which supplements to take and how and when to exercise, I can teach you how to get the weight off you belly, off your hips, off your thighs and your face, but until you take the weight of your mind it’s a battle. THE ONLY REAL DIET REQUIRED IS THE ONE FOR THE MIND, and this is what my mind diet is all about. Once you have this ‘healthy thinking option’ in place you will never need to diet again. And you’ll change your life from one filled with hurdles disappointments and dead ends into one of opportunity, growth and true lasting freedom.
