I WAS KILLING MYSELF

I was killing myself.  There is no other way to say it. I can't rationalize or sugarcoat it. At the end of the day I was making choices that were leading to an early exit from this world.  I knew better but I couldn’t seem to stop what had become a runaway train.  Seven years ago I weighed over 600 pounds, was addicted to nicotine and drank way too much alcohol.  You take all of those things, shake them around in a bag with some anxiety and you get a person that was on the brink of death. I was drowning in a pool of depression, poor choices, addiction, hopelessness and laziness and I was choosing to cope by engaging in doing all of the things that were killing me.  I would overeat, chew tobacco, drink and watch television all night long, sleep for a couple of hours and head to one of the most stressful jobs on the planet as a middle school principal.  The absurdity that I was leading students and staff to be their best and expect them to confidently and proudly follow me and achieve excellence was ridiculous at best.  

I had reached a point where I was a prisoner to myself.  At work I would camp out in my office because walking around our building left me incredibly out of breath and standing up for 5 minutes made my back hurt.  I would purposely walk a ridiculous route around the building to avoid 10 steps because walking up the stairs was difficult and I was so out of breath I had to take a break when I got to the top of the steps.  I couldn’t fit in most chairs, couldn’t use a seat belt, couldn’t get on a plane, couldn’t keep up with my grandkids, couldn’t look myself in the mirror and traveling and leaving the house was painful and embarrassing.  Again I knew better I had been an athlete and I had lost tremendous amounts of weight before but had gained it back.  Food had been my go to since my father died when I was 7 and when my mother passed when I was 38 things got really crazy.  I didn’t want to die but I had become so disgusted with myself I didn’t see the point in trying anymore.  It would be easier just to dig a deeper hole and hope that the end came swiftly and with as little pain as possible. 

What changed? Why am I here today? I finally got scared.  I had an incident where my heart felt like it was skipping beats and I was sad and felt bad for my wife being stuck with what I had become.  This prompted a visit to the doctor, but it still didn’t elicit much change, however it was a start.  One morning I woke up and was getting ready for work. I looked in the mirror and without thinking about it this phrase came out of my mouth “how can you lead other people if you aren’t even leading yourself?” This was the moment when things began to change and I started to become committed to truly changing my life.  I went back to the doctor and started the process to have bariatric surgery.  This was something I had always been against before because I thought it was cheating.  I hadn’t seen it as a tool to change my life, it was a support that I desperately needed and I would find out that it wasn’t easy but it most definitely would change my life.

Something nobody tells you before bariatric surgery is that you have to say goodbye to your old self and that is harder than you may think.  My identity had become ingrained in food, it had become who I was, how I coped and one of the only ways I knew to make myself feel better.  This brings a lot of fear and anxiety particularly as you move closer to your surgery date.  My surgery almost didn’t happen because of my fear and overconfidence.  I had started to lose weight already and had lost around 90 pounds.  I thought I could do this without surgery. I thought “I don't need to give up so much. I know what I’m doing now.”  Thankfully I had what I call my beached whale moment.  Family vacation 2020 Gulf Shores, AL the final moment of clarity came on July 6th.  I had waded out into the surf and fell over and it’s important to understand when you are as obese as I was getting up off the floor is a huge chore let alone a sandy beach with waves pounding you in the face.  I tried to get up once, twice, three times a total of seven times I tried to get up and I literally thought I would drown on the beach that day in less than a foot of water.  Eventually I crawled to an area where I wasn’t in danger of drowning but was still struggling to get up.  I looked toward my family on the beach and they were laughing and I don’t blame them I’m sure it looked funny. The thing that struck me was the people around them laughing with their phones out filming my struggle. This was the turning point that solidified my decision to have surgery.  I was struggling and all I could think about was all of the things I have accomplished in life and the love I have for my family will not be what people know or remember about me it will be a viral moment of a morbidly obese person drowning on a beach because he was too fat to get up.  From that moment on I never looked back and thank goodness the videos they took never went viral.  

After the surgery I was committed to eating better. You have no choice, it forces you to address your eating habits and with that comes a new clarity and relationship with food and yourself.  You begin to address your real issues that are at the root of your problems and start to develop new coping mechanisms that are healthier and more satisfying.  For the first time in my life I began to put myself first and began to truly invest in leading myself.  This change in my life released me from a prison I had been living in.  I was truly living for the first time in over a decade experiencing life traveling, exercising, enjoying nature and celebrating all of the gifts I had been given but taken for granted.  By taking this leap and being fully committed to myself the people around me were lifted up as well.  I was better for them and I had the energy to lift them up when they needed more support.  I wasn’t fully available or capable of doing this when I weighed over 600 pounds.  

September 28th will always be more than just the day I had bariatric surgery; it will be an unofficial birthday or more appropriately my own independence day.  Kris Kristofferson’s song “Me And Bobby McGee” has a line that sums up my decision to have bariatric surgery: “freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” I had reached a point where I had nothing left to lose and I desperately needed freedom. Six years after surgery I weigh 300 pounds less, have run half marathons, marathons and ultra marathons, started a run streak that stands at 1612 days and started my own business. It doesn’t matter if we are 16, 46 or 60 we can change the course of our lives by learning to lead ourselves.  Have a great week, light the WICK of leadership and don’t ever forget when your commitment is greater than your feelings you get results.

Jovestickel.com  -  @Jovestickel -  Principalstickel@gmail.com