Continue to let go Justin...you have to let it go.

Many of my blog posts deal with my views on relationships, chivalry, love, romance, and other related topics. Among those, there have been posts where I confess secrets from my past in an attempt to finally let go of those demons. This will be one of those posts. What I am about to reveal has been a secret that I have never shared with a single soul. Friends and family that I am closes with have no clue about this. And before I proceed, I want to apologize to all of them for not allowing them to help me when I definitely needed the support. I have never been one to share my feelings or let people in, emotionally, past a certain point. But I assure you I am doing my best to be better about not closing myself off and allowing others to help me just as I do for them. 

Before I get started, I want you all to know that it took me a while to muster up the courage to share this story. I am not the first person to deal with this and will absolutely not be the last. Also, I know there are many people that have had similar experiences but are in denial and will likely never admit to dealing with this problem. Hopefully after reading this you will find it within yourself to face your issues. 

With all that said here it goes…In college, around my sophomore year, I struggled with very intense self-image issues. Thinking back to those days, I remember absolutely hating the way I looked. My body, my face, everything…I hated it all. No matter how hard I trained with my teammates, I always felt like I was putting on weight. My weight would stay consistent and in a good range for my position but I felt as if I was gaining at least 10lbs a day. I had young ladies that were interested in me and would tell me that I was attractive. Despite their flattering comments, I never agreed. In fact, the more I heard it, the more I felt unattractive. I am a good guy so I just figured they were being nice and saying nice things although they really felt I was ugly. Every day, I would wake up and look at myself in the mirror with the deepest form of disgust for what I saw. 

In order to “fix” myself I started forcing myself to throw up multiple times throughout the day. Anytime I would eat, I soon follow it up with making myself vomit to get all the food out. Now, I understood all the health risk associated with this type of behavior. In fact, I was helping other student-athletes work through similar problems. I wish I could express to you the hatred I had towards myself as I told a friend how dangerous their actions were and then I go home and make myself throw up. It was bad, very bad. Soon I stopped eating all together. In my mind, no food intake would force my body to lose weight. Within a given week I would maybe eat one actual meal. The rest of the time, I drank water to help satisfy the feelings of hunger or I would eat a few pretzel sticks. But if ate too many pretzels I would make myself throw up. From about early August to the beginning of October, I lost nearly 50lbs. I was always tired and had zero energy. However, my life had to go on as normal so no one would catch on to my problem. When my coaches and teammates started to recognize the weight loss they obviously asked me what was going on. My common excuse was that I just didn’t have an appetite. My strength coaches would actually sit at meals with me and watch me eat a plate of food they prepared. I would force it down, appease them all, and then head home to vomit it up. Sometimes I would feel so disgusted, that I couldn’t even make it home to throw up. I would simply pull around the corner into an empty lot and throw up there. My way of somewhat keeping them off my back was to not let my weight room numbers drop nor allow my performance on the field to be affected. I would put in extra time in the weight room to make sure I was constantly getting stronger despite my severe weight loss. That in turn allowed me to continue my high level of play on the field because I would simply out muscle my opponents. I will admit, on a daily basis, while working out I felt as if I was going to pass out. I was so weak most days but I had to push through in order to keep my secret. One day we had to max on a certain lift but I was getting light headed from just stretching. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I passed out. I went to the bathroom and passed out in the stall. Once I woke up, luckily only a few minutes had gone by. I threw some water on my face and walked out the bathroom as if nothing happened. I then went to my bar, loaded my weights, and proceeded to record the highest max of the day. The entire time I felt as if I was going to faint yet again. But I forced myself to push through that wall and ignore those feelings. The more I pushed through, the easier it became to do it every day. Being in class, at practice, in meetings, or during games, I always felt like passing out. My vision would get hazy and my body weak. Regardless, I had to push through. No one could know what was going on. Honestly, after a while, living this way felt normal. I had become so good at “disguising” the truth that I just seemed to convince myself that I could go on like this forever. Plus the skinnier I became, the more defined my face was, and the better looking I looked…at least to myself. I still had issues taking compliments from people because I thought they were just being nice to sweet ole Justin. 

This behavior went on for nearly a year. Again, I had no intentions of giving it up. It wasn’t until one day I was in my room having just made myself vomit that I realized I had to change. As I was sitting in my room, I felt a sharp pain in my chest that would come and go. After about 5 minutes, my heart started to flutter and I had a cramping like pain in my chest. With this, I couldn’t breathe either. It was like I was suffocating and being stabbed in the chest all at the same time. My limbs started to go numb and vision was blurred. This lasted for nearly a minute but it felt like hours.  My entire body felt like it was shutting down. I hope you can imagine the fear I felt as that minute passed. Naturally I thought I was dying. I was alone in my room and my roommate had no reason to come in to my room. Therefore, it would have been hours until someone found me, whether I had just went unconscious or actually died. Can you understand the anguish that would have caused my family and friends? Especially my mother!!  Makes me emotional just thinking about it.

Honestly, I’m not sure what happened that day. It could have been a heart attack, a mere loss of breath, a heart flutter issue, etc…It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is on that day I understood that incident as being a direct result of my poor health habits. The food deprivation, forced vomiting, and making my body exert itself when it clearly did not want to, were all destructive behaviors that led to that day in my room. I don’t care what anyone says, in my mind, that’s what caused it all. Admittedly, things didn’t change overnight. However, I made a committed and conscious effort to slowly get myself better. Slowly, I started realizing that I was not as “ugly” as I saw myself to be. Also, I was not gaining weight with every bite of food. I still do not know where those thoughts came from in the first place. I had always been a very secure person. But something changed and I hurt myself in very harsh ways. To this day, I have times where I am not happy with the person I see in the mirror. These occurrences are rare but they still happen. However, I think back to that day in my room and remember how awful of an experience that was for me. This helps me push those negatives thought away and get back to my secure and extremely self-confident way of life.

As with all my post in which I reveal the darkness from my past, I do not want anyone’s sympathy. I merely want to let go of these things that weigh on my heart day in and day out. Also, I trust no one judges me for the things I shared in this post. It may seem a bit foolish for a collegiate football player to deal with bulimia and self-image issues. But believe it or not, I am not the only one. Many people, especially athletes battle with similar problems. However, many will never admit it to themselves, much like I did not do for a long time. For those of you in denial about your problems, my hope is that this blog will help you finally face the truth. Trust me, it feels so much better to get it out. Please, no more hiding from what is real and no more pretending it didn’t happen. Face your past and even your present to help provide yourself with a better future.

Here’s to a better you…and me!

Justin

Oh you're shy? Well its time to change!

I have been going back and forth with a friend about the need for her to put aside her nervousness and go after this guy. This friend has many great attributes but yet constantly lets her shyness keep her from putting herself in position to be with guys that she is interested in dating. Therefore, to that person that has amazing qualities but let’s their shyness get in the way of being with that special guy or girl, this blog is for you. I am confident that you will find some sort of motivation to push past your personal barriers and go get that person you want. 

Let’s start with discussing why you’re shy about interacting with someone you’re interested in romantically. Here are some common questions the timid person is likely to toil with:  What if they turn me down? What if they don’t like me? Am I good looking enough? Are they too good for me? Can I really make them happy? Do they like my body? What will their friends think? Do we have anything in common? What if they find someone better? Will they treat me right? Will my friends like them? What if my family doesn’t like them? Is there really a future for us? 

These are all valid questions. But you know what, none of it matters! The time you’ve wasting over analyzing the situation, that other person, who you know isn’t good enough, has just got the date. The moments you let slip by without opening your mouth and telling that person how you feel…well I hate to tell you this but you just missed out…again! Stop worrying about what ifs and just go for it. The worst thing that can happen is that the person doesn’t feel the same and turns down your request for a date. Guess what, that is actually good news. You’re an amazing person by nature. Everyone around you can see that. In fact, your presence alone just screams out “I’m a great person.” Therefore, they can already sense that you’re a good individual before you even open your mouth. If they turn you down, it’s their loss. They have just missed out on a great opportunity to be happy. Its ok, I assure you. Just think, now you have eliminated someone not good enough for you and continued to clear the path towards the person you were meant to be with. And despite how “real” your feelings are for that person that turned you down; if they don’t have reciprocal feelings then things weren’t as “real” as you thought. You should be glad they were honest enough to turn you down. Imagine the hurt you would experience had they accepted your date out of pity with no intentions of things going anywhere. So while you have dreamed up this beautiful night and future for the two of you, they are merely trying to make it through the date with as little awkwardness as possible. Don’t do that to yourself. Again, allow the path to clear for that special person; that person who wants you just as you do them. 

Don’t let your shyness dictate your happiness. There is no valid reason for you to miss out because you “don’t know what to say.” Or the excuse,” I just can’t do it, I’m really too shy.”  Stop it!! You do know what to say. I know you’ve practice that moment over and over and over again. You have already mapped out exactly what, when, where, and how it will be said. You have also imagined how that person will respond. So it is complete nonsense to use the excuse “I don’t know what to say.” Think about this, would you rather hide behind your shyness and be lonely or step up and go get what you want?! If you really want to be with this person, nothing will stop you from giving yourself a chance to be with them. If you really just cannot put aside your shyness for this person, then maybe you need to reevaluate whether or not you legitimately want to be with them. If these were legit feelings, your shyness would be a non-factor. 

I am speaking from a place of experience. This shy person constantly missing out and always over analyzing, this was me for a huge portion of my life. I was the guy that could never get it right. I always lost to the other guy, when it came to girls. I was always destined to be in that horrible place called the friend zone. I could never tell the girl how I felt but I made myself a great friend because at least I got to be around them. I had to suffer through watching them date terrible guy after terrible guy, knowing I was the one that could make her happy. Yet I never said anything because I was “too shy.” In my earlier years of college I had enough. There was a girl that I cared for deeply and was certain that we should be together. However, I could never get the nerve to tell her how I felt. Every day, we hung out and talked…but the simple words “I. like. you.” never came out. I would listen to her talk about the qualities she wanted in a guy and knew I was all of that and more. But no, my shyness and fear of what ifs kept me from going down that road. Well the one night I finally got up the nerve to tell her how I felt, I get a call as I am going to her house. The call is from this girl and she is telling me that some dude just asked her out and she really likes him. To make it worse she thanked me for being such a great friend and for listening to her vent about her ideal guy. Now, take a second and imagine how you would feel if in this situation. After nearly a year, you are finally going for it and just like that another person is in the spot you’ve dreamed about. And your guy/girl is thanking you for it!! In case you’ve never experienced this, it hurts badly! After I dealt with the hurt, I decided never again. My shyness was done determining my romantic life’s fate…done! Not another girl that I was sincerely interested in would go without knowing how I felt. Now whether they feel the same or not is out of my control so I don’t worry about that. I just cross the bridge that presents itself once they know. 

So to all you shy folks out there reading this, you have to change or you will continue to come up short. I know it’s uncomfortable but consider the alternative…a life filled with continued loneliness and unfulfilled desires. The choice is yours. 

Here’s to the new you. 

Justin