I don’t know if I’m more crestfallen or more furious about my actions right now. Either way, I can hardly write today. Yes, I fell off. The minute I quit doing my workbook. I’ve gained back five pounds. The only thought that keeps me from going crazy is that I weigh twelve pounds less than I did five weeks ago.
It’s hard to contemplate beginning a diet again. It’s like purposely opening an old wound. It hurts! I feel like a soldier on a battlefield. I have been trampled over by the enemy, left for dead. I feel the life slowly oozing out of me; I am bleeding all over. It is extremely difficult to breathe. I wish I were dead, at last, and all would end.
Shakespeare knew exactly what I mean when he wrote, “To be, or not to be. That is the question.” Ah, yes, Hamlet’s soliloquy was a marvelous example of how I feel: Is it worth it to go on living? Death may be the unknown, but surely it is better, or at least easier, than this present feeling of lying on the battlefield. Actually, it’s not the lying on the ground in pain and misery that is so awful, it’s the knowing that I have to get up.
The first day of dieting is like raising my head up a few inches. No one can imagine the agony. Yet tomorrow I must inflict more intense pain on myself as I struggle to lift my shoulders off the ground. In a week, I can be on my feet. But if I do get on my feet—and possibly take a few steps—will I ever be able to run? Or will I fall back down again?
My alleged “buddy,” Debbie, will help me for a few days and then get too busy and forget. She will do nothing for me unless I initiate it. I’ve been trying and trying. I have to soup myself up and then drag her with me. Well, this time I will lose ten pounds before I talk to Debbie about it, and if she doesn’t want to come along with me, I’ll do it myself. I’m not going to try to drag anyone anymore. It slows me down too much.
Allen, too, is of little help. Oh, I’m sure he wants to help, he wants me to be thin. You’d think a man would give his wife the daily fifteen minutes it takes to help her lose that saggy roll of fat that hangs between them every time they embrace. Especially when his wife begs for his help. I think if I were in bed with cancer, he would talk to me fifteen minutes a day. He would somehow make the time. If I were an alcoholic, he would devote himself to my recovery. Oh, but I am sick, depressed, and miserable to live with, so why won’t he help me now? I’m screaming out for help!
January 11, 1992. As I read and reread my diary, I find myself shocked at the pain I feel from its pages. Life is so full of hope for me right now that I had forgotten much of the horror. I’m thankful for these recorded pages, so I may read and always remember—with a passion—that I never want to feel like that again! I know that it is no coincidence that when I am rereading my diary periodically, I lose weight.