Chronic Lessons: 140.0 lbs.
San Diego, CA (April 20th)
The morning San Diego sky is gloomy; a fitting reflection of my morning routine. I spend the previous night laying on the bathroom floor downing a slurry of medications hoping one will calm my flare. I’m hungry, but afraid that the next meal I eat will trigger another multi-week flare. But I have to eat, because the only thing I fear more than food is my next daily task.
In nothing but my underwear, now having eaten food that has likely just made me sick for the day, I work my way towards the corner of my living room and face my biggest enemy.
The scale.
The previous evening I was 142 pounds which means I had lost nearly 10 pounds in the past 2 weeks and 30 pounds since the disease began. I know that after a night of not eating, the results will only cause pain, but I step on the scale and the scale begins calculating:
140.0 lbs.
This is the least I have weighed since the disease began. Depression begins pooling up inside my thinned out body. A year ago I was close to achieving my goal of 175 lbs. and as I stand on the scale today I’m a haircut away from being below the 140's.
The number on the scale is small but the results weigh me down like steel shackles.
I shuffle back to the bathroom and begin to shave my face and look in the mirror and see my new body. “How much more weight will I continue to lose?” I turn on the shower and the steam begins to fog up the mirror and provides a thin layer of support for my self esteem. I shampoo my hair and run a bar of soap across my body and reflect how much less there is to clean.
When I step out of the shower my first instinct is to rush back to the scale. I theorize if I step on the scale when I’m wet with a towel it will likely pack on the few additional pounds I desperately crave:
141.0 lbs.
As I look down at the meager results water begins beading at the tips of my uncut hair and splashing down on the scale. I know I need to step off soon because with each droplet that hits the floor my artificial weight withers.
In many ways, the relationship I have with the scale is an abusive one. I return to this glass square every morning praying I see a good result, that this time will be different. The results never change. You know what they say about the definition of insanity.
Today I am deciding to break the cycle. No longer will I continue to check my weight because ultimately it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t impact my self-worth and maybe I shouldn’t care what people think anyway. It’s just a number. A temporary point in time that will continue to fluctuate and hopefully one day stabilize again.
Closing Thoughts
As I write this I probably weigh less than 140 pounds. Maybe I had this revelation now because I’m scared to see my weight dip further. Maybe I’m not learning a lesson and this coping mechanism will fail as I continue to see my body wither in the mirror on a weekly basis. All I can hope for is that as each week passes, I’m a week closer to true remission and that number on the scale will one day make me as happy as it used to.
