Waking up from the Fairy Tale

Growing up I spent a lot of time by myself.  I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, and there was a big age difference between me and my brother and sister.  I struggled at an early age with depression, anxiety, and obesity.  My entire childhood seemed to be wrapped up in the idea that if I could only lose the weight my life would suddenly be different.  I would suddenly have my own “Happily Ever After”! 

The good thing was that as a child and still today, I had a very active, vivid imagination.  I learned from an early age how to escape.  Day by day, I drifted further and further into my own imagined fairy tale.  In my own world I was thin, beautiful, popular, and happy. In my fairy tale I was the star basketball player, a singer, a writer, and everything was possible.  With each new diet, I would tell myself as soon as I lose this weight everything will be perfect.  I kept telling myself that then the fairy tale would turn in to reality.  I remember filling notebook upon notebook with plans and stories about what my life would be like when I lost the weight, when I graduated from college, and when I finally met the love of my life.

With each unsuccessful diet, I detached myself more and more from reality and spent more and more time in my fairy tale. On the outside, I continued to go through the motions. I graduated from college, got my Master’s Degree, became a licensed therapist, and began a successful career.  I realize now, however, that there was always a certain level of disengagement.  I always felt disappointed by the real world.  The fairy tale was better. In the fairy tale, I didn’t have to pay bills, deal with people letting me down, deal with me letting others down, and deal with my weight.  The fairy tale was safe.  

In some ways my life was like having a 24/7 movie playing in my head and I was the star.  When the realities of life did seem to creep into my thoughts, I numbed myself with sweets and other junk food, and returned back to my fairy tale.  In 2008, I feel like the best blessing that could ever happen to me occurred, I met my husband.  Suddenly there was something in the real world that I wanted and the fairy tale began to lose its appeal. 

I realize now that over the past six years, I have been slowly waking up from this fairy tale that I had created in my head.  The problem is that all the time I spent living in my dream world, kept me from dealing with the realities of the “real world”.  I let the bills pile up, the weight pile on, the apartment stay dirty, and the career become unsatisfying.  Nothing in the world ever seemed enough in comparison to the fairy tale.  That is as I mentioned above, until I met my husband.

The waking up process, however, has not been an easy one.  I woke up this morning feeling disillusioned by life.  The only way I know how to describe it is that it as if I have been living in one room of this big huge house my entire life.  In this one room, I have made sure that everything was neatly decorated, cleaned, and well maintained.  In the meantime, however, the rest of the house has become dusty, dirty, and damaged because of years of neglect.  In some was this is what I have found in the waking up process.  I have found a mess.

Looking back I realize there were times when I tried to wake up and spend more time outside of the fantasy land.  I would start to lose weight and feel good about myself, but the realities of the mess I had created from not being in the present was too much for me to handle.  I didn’t want to have to worry about the dishes, the debt, the career, and all these emotions. It was much easier for me to escape and just put out the necessary fires that came up along the way. 

For me I am realizing that the biggest part of recovery is learning to stay in reality and in the present.  A wise friend of mine says that when you don’t know what to do, to just stand still.  That is sometimes the hardest thing for me to do right now.  It is hard to stay still and look around you and see life for what it really is.  It is hard to see the mess you created while in la..la..land.  Even with an amazing marriage and all this hope for the future, I still find myself struggling with life.  I still sometimes want to run back to my fairy tale land.  I still feel dissatisfied by my job, overwhelmed by the weight I have to lose, and the debt I need to repay.  I still struggle with depression, and anxiety. 

So for today, I promise to just keep breathing, to do what I can do to continue cleaning up this life that I neglected, and most importantly to just keep in the present as hard and uncomfortable as the present may be sometimes.