My Story

       Memories that stay – I was a normal girl until the fifth grade.  I started packing on the pounds at an incredible speed.  The next year, sixth grade was very much my worst year of school.  I was bullied so bad I cried home every day.  Boys chased me and hit me in the head with rocks.  The next year after that I was in middle school.  I was isolated and had only three good friends.  I was different because of my morbid obesity.  It made me an easy target for most kids. I was too sensitive to others opinions of me and I remember dreaming if only I could wake up skinny all my problems would be gone.  By ninth grade I had started smoking on and off, thinking it would make me “cool”.  I also believed it would make me lose my appetite which was insatiable.  I would eat constantly and never experience full.  I was an emotional eater, happy sad, angry, glad I ate and ate and ate. Growing up fat affected my social skills.  I did not interact with other kids who were deemed normal.  My best friend was skinny as a rail and never cared that I was fat.  My other best friend was my dog Lady, whom was always there for me.  My last friend was books.  I swear I read every single book in the school library by the time I graduated.  The library was my sanctuary, my hideout, my oasis.  No one judged me there.  Through all this I became very good at making up stories and really lived in a dream world for many many years to escape the seas less taunting that was unrelenting.  Hey ya Fat Fuck!  Look out it’s a Whale! How do you fit Kersten into an elevator…Grease her hips and throw in a Twinkie.   There are so many things said to me that I learned how to shut down and I lost my spark.  I believe I was only made to feel bad about my weight a hand full of times by my dad.  Looking back I see he did it with love and was just trying to get through to me.  But then my heart hurt because I believed it was outside of me that caused it, my fatness.  I was not in control, it was gods fault, it was moms fault, and it was never my fault.  When I graduated high school I was easily the larges person in the school, I topped the scales at 340. 

        I don’t think I have ever worn a size eight or smaller.  At my heaviest years into an unhappy and abusive marriage I hit 365 pounds.  That has become an important number for me.  365 days a year, daily.  What if I looked within myself for 365 days?  I could commit to 365 days to change my life forever. Until one day after being married nearly seven years I could not take it anymore.  I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.  My first marriage was one of the weirdest, sickest, cruelest experiences of my life, which I hope and pray to God to never ever repeat. 

        It all started in college.  I found a great study helper called minithins back then it was strait ephedra.  It kept me up and burned the calories off.  I believed it was normal.  I graduated college in Seattle and moved back home to Wasilla Alaska at a svelte 180 pounds.  I was young and smoking hot.  I was on top of the world and wearing miniskirts to work as a cashier at Spenard Builders Supply.  That is when I met him, through a mutual friend. I was a very insecure girl never having had attention of men before; I was easily smitten by a playboy who flattered me.  I had never been the one to be chased before and it felt amazing.  I wish I had been stronger and had more self-esteem because he was like a parasite, once he got in he destroyed me.  No one else had seen it of course.  He came from an affluent Oilfield family who had more money than sense.  He was brought up to be entitled to the life of luxury.  I was not raised anywhere near that way.  Every one seen a very happy couple from the outside.  But behind closed doors it was a constant physical and emotional roller coaster.  I never knew what I was going to get next.  I was called names, so I ate.   I went back to my old friend food.  He had affairs, I ate.  He drank, I ate.  I packed the weight on to hide myself, who was hurting and desperately cried out for help and found I had no voice to let it out.  I quickly gained back all the weight I lost and more and more and more.  There became so many things I could not do, take a bath.  Sit in a car.  Ride my bike, shop at the store.   I couldn’t tie my own shoes and I could go on and on.  I experienced physical joint and bone pain.  I could not breathe at night when I laid down.  One day I just got sick of it.  I had enough.  I started taking care of myself.  I started physically fighting back with my now ex.  I had had enough.  The drinking got worse he was up to a fifth a day.  He could not hold down a job.  We never paid our bills.  I felt like I was living in hell.  I felt like I just couldn’t be dragged down anymore.  On one day very soon after I started to take my life back we got into a horrible fight and I just blurted out “I want a divorce”.  I didn’t want to leave him and was immediately scared after saying it.  It was too late he was waiting for an excuse to leave; little did I know he was already sleeping with a coworker in Anchorage.  So he left.  He went immediately to her picked up the phone called me and told me he would never be back.  I remember everything turning black and tilting.  I felt death.  It was like nothing I have ever felt before or since.  Days and weeks of crying.  I went back to the same job where I was forced to see them together.  It was a mess and very uncomfortable for everyone. Friends took sides, not ever knowing the true side of him and the abuse I endured. They only had seen the funny drunk man.  I was alone and heart broken.  I really never thought I would get over it.  I went back to my old ways.  Slowly I started to refocus on me.  I learned to love myself, I could be ok alone.  It did not last though and I found myself turning to drugs to ease the pain.  I was trying to find myself and I only found trouble. 

      That is where I choose to end the story many horrible things happened for the next three years.  But through all that I did quit drugs. Quit smoking; quit drinking and left Alaska as a better person than I have ever been.  Healthy and happy I swore off men.  I got my Certificate of Personal Training and Drove tour bus across country on my own for the first time in my life at thirty two years old.

       Three years have gone by since I took a leap of faith and God has carried me into the arms of my soul mate and best friend.  I am so happy now knowing I had to go through all the hard times to bring me to who I am today.  I am a wife a mom a business owner and I wake up happy and excited every day.  I have forgiven those who have hurt me in my past and moved on.  I look forward to every single day and every single new experience.   I love life.