Greetings family, friends or just "passers by". My name is David Swindler (by name and not character) and this is the beginning journal of my escape from "Fat-catraz". You are welcome to come on my journey and find out what it has been like and what it will be like as I change my body with the help of surgery so that I might escape from the prison I have lived in for so long.
The path that I am choosing is not an easy one. In fact it is probably more difficult than any diet plan or exercise plan I have ever attempted. It requires changing one's lifestyle...for the rest of their life. This is not a diet that you can cheat on and go back to eating any way you want if you get bored. This is a physical restriction of the amount that you can consume and the absorption of the daily nutrients and vitamins your body requires to live. Many people with which I have discussed this surgery have told me that the hardest part is remembering to eat and making sure that your body gets all the nutrition it needs.
Now my mind quickly goes to my roommate from years ago. God love him, he was a very thin young man. He was a handsome man but was convinced that he needed to gain weight in order to feel better about himself. His problem was that he would forget to eat. WHAT?!!!! Forget to eat???? I could not and cannot relate to that at all. Where as he had a metabolism that would digest his food before he ate it, I had one that would digest my meal over a three week period after it had sucked every last ounce of vitamin, protein, fat and whatever else it could. I loved him (still do) and he loved me. And we both felt sad for each other, but given the choice of which predicament in which to be, I would choose his.
I don't believe that anyone really chooses to be fat. At least not at the beginning of their life, or at the beginning of their weight gain. I know I didn't ever want to be fat. I was a fairly normal sized little boy at the age of three. In fact I have pictures that show me as such. But then something horrible and unbelievable and just terribly sad happened to that little three year old boy. A neighbor who would baby sit my sister and me chose to steal my innocence away because he needed some sexual gratification that abusing me would give him. I don't remember this man being mean or violent, I just remember that it didn't feel very good and I didn't like it. Sodomy is not something a three year old should ever have to experience. It was after this time that I started to find some comfort in food. It became a friend that would not hurt me. Something I could enjoy and no one would stop me, after all I was a growing boy.Thank God we did not stay in that place very long and my abuse did not last but for three months. Regardless, it had a life altering effect on that little boy who was me.
When I was just a little older around 4 or 5, I was subjected to another abuse by a family member who had been abused herself. She was only about 5 years older than me but knew too much from a sexuality standpoint for anyone at her young age. I loved her very much and trusted her and allowed her to lay on top of me naked and tell me that this is something that will help her to have a baby later on in life. Now that crap had to come out of the mouth of some sicko that had stolen her innocence and lied to her. She did not realize that this action would have life altering effects on me...but it did.
At about the age of 6 the chubby little boy emerged. The fat had become a way of comfort and perhaps staving off anyone who had the desire to use me for their pleasure. You might be asking yourself where my parents were during all of this. Good question. My father was an alcoholic who would be absent from our family for weeks at a time while he was on a drinking binge. Then he would come home and stay sober and fight his demons of alcoholism and love us and try to be a good father...until it was too much for him ad he would disappear for a few more weeks. I would always miss him terribly. My Mother was the glue that held our family together. She was a nurse and a good one at that. She worked to pay our bills and keep us fed and whatever all mother's do, she was doing it in spades. She loved me and my sister and my father greatly and put up with his drinking and disappearing....but she was growing tired.
The last time I saw my father alive was when he had come home (well it was my Grandparent's home that they shared with us) to get a few things, perhaps some money but he could not stay. My Grandmother would not let him stay in the house if he had been drinking. She always viewed his alcoholism as a weakness not a disease and it was easier for her not to be around it so she would kick her own first born son out into the world rather than let us try to get him some help. Don't get me wrong, she and my Grandad tried for many years to help him but to no avail. I remember having a conversation with him while he was in the bathroom on the toilet and I was just outside the door sitting on the landing of the staircase going upstairs. I remember asking him if I could go with him and crying. He would just tell me that I couldn't go but that he wouldn't be gone long and he would come home and get us all and we would move away into a home where we could all live together. I remember there were tears in his eyes as we said good bye. I was awakened early the next morning by my mother who took me into the bathroom and told me that my father was dead.He had been killed while walking on the train tracks that led up to his brother's home about 10 miles outside of town. His blood alcohol level was .23, approaching unconsciousness. I am not too sure that he didn't just decide at the last minute not to move out of the way of that train. I do know that he believed strongly in Jesus and that I will see him again and hopefully soon.
My mother was a wonderful cook. She was known for her talent as a nurse and for her ability to cook. And she decided whether consciously or unconsciously to appease my needs by feeding me, and feeding me well. Not that she made me fat, she just didn't do a whole lot to stop it from happening. So I began the foundation of the prison that I would continue to build for my life.
(to be continued.)
Way to go! We'll be praying for you.
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