This isn’t a post I have been wanting to make. But I know that I need to so that you all understand why I feel I need to go through this cleanse. Especially since I have my husband asking me why am cleansing right before the Thanksgiving and my friends asking why am cleansing before other big events with food.
This is an issue that I haven’t spoken to have for almost 4 years now. It’s the reason I feel like I need some sort of control in my life the moment. It all goes back to right after the birth of my first child who is now five.
My son was born with a brain injury. He lost oxygen during birth and was in the NICU for 30 days. The first two weeks was him recovering. And the second two weeks was just waiting for him to be able to eat on his own. He was able to take a bottle he just wasn’t eating what they thought he should be eating.When we finally took him home it was with a G tube (despite the face that we didn’t want him to have one). I was bound and determined to get him to eat on his own. I was pumping every 2 to 3 hours. I fed him every two hours from a bottle. I fought tooth and nail to get his G-tube removed.
I became obsessed with his feeding. I knew at any point in time when was last time he ate how much he ate and when he needed to eat next. I thought about it constantly. I had doctors telling me he was close to failure to thrive. I supplemented with formula, with goats milk, and when he was six months old I started feeding him baby food with butter. He continued to not gain enough weight. (Later after joining an online support group I discovered that there was a growth chart for children with CP. While he was failure to thrive on all normal growth charts he was in the 50th percentile for CP kids). For almost a year I obsessed about his eating and his weight. After two months he had his G-tube removed, at six months he was starting to eat baby food, and at a year the doctors finally left me alone. he now eats just about anything that any other kid eats. This obsession though was very unhealthy for me. So much so that I chose to seek help. I was having panic attacks before doctors appointments. I was stressing constantly. I even had to pullover to the side of the road and cry for 10 minutes in order to go on.
So what does that have to do with me now five years later? A couple of friends a few weeks ago decided to take it upon themselves to have a “intervention” with me over baby O’s weight. Now granted he was a little underweight, which I knew I was already and was working to correct the problem. the way in which they went about addressing the situation was very unhealthy for me. I told them I was stressed, I asked them to stop, but they continue to press on. I didn’t realize how unhealthy it was for me until a week ago when I had a complete meltdown him over the baby not wanting to nurse. I realized that I had been showing signs of PTSD ever sense the intervention. And I had become as obsessed with the baby’s eating habits as I was with my oldest child. I was having trouble functioning on a normal level especially with my family. I decided I needed something to feel better about myself. I have been wanting to redo this cleanse for a while and realize I had to do something now to resolve the situation. I am also seeking the help of a professional again, but this is something that I am doing for me right now, and it feels good.
