“The judge gave my mom custody of my kids. She was right to do that. My mom has them now. I just couldn’t be the mom I needed to be for them at that time. And anyone who met my ex could tell he was bad news. I was over four hundred pounds and I didn’t leave the house. The depression got me so bad; it ate me up.
I kept eating so I wouldn’t feel depression tearing at me. I was making it stronger by eating, but I didn’t know that at the time.
I told my Carson therapist about it all. I’d been to plenty of bad therapists at other places, just awful. I guess the difference was that she was listening for me. She was listening to help me out of it all. It took about a month of sessions to tell her the whole story.
But after I told her everything, it just hit me hard and I woke up worse than ever, all torn up inside. And then, she was at my doorstep! I had missed my appointment and I’d shut off my phone.
“We’re going to take a walk together,” she said. I couldn’t believe she was there.
I told her I can’t.
She said, “I’m not giving up on you. I can help. Let’s go for a walk.”
I lost over two hundred pounds. She got me walking and I just kept walking and the pounds came off. It was really hard there sometimes but I kept thinking ‘I’m not going to give up.’ I remember I told her I would never, ever go to the skills group. But she never gave up on that, either. She would ask, “How about today?” She finally walked me down the hall into my first one, after all my ‘nevers.’ I loved that group. It changed everything. She changed everything so that I could change everything.
I have friends now. I go to barbecues and we talk and hang out. I have a good boyfriend who believes in me. I went back to school.
I’m doing everything I can now to repair with my kids. It doesn’t matter to me how long it takes. And it is going okay. I was just at my oldest daughter’s graduation. She is going to know I am here; I’m not going away. I can feel she feels it. Everything good I do, my therapist is inside of that.”
Story by JAC Patrissi
