My name is Jonathan. I am 29 years old, and I am trying to do something with my life instead of nothing. As I begin this website, I am living in my dad’s trailer in Southern California and doing nothing I consider significant with my life.
I got out of the military at 25 years old. I had spent almost half of my six-year contract dealing with very bad depression and anxiety and had gained a lot of weight and was miserable both physically and mentally. I couldn’t do my job as well as an airplane mechanic and I knew every day I was being judged for my performance and how I looked. How could someone be so fat in the military?
I know they didn’t understand it because how could they? I don’t understand it myself.
So, I spent those years failing my physical fitness tests, resenting my job, going to nutritionists, therapists, psychologists. I would hate myself and rot in my dirty apartment with trash up to my knees. No showering, no washing my uniform. I still remember the day I walked into my therapist’s office and he told me bluntly, “Jonathan, you smell like absolute shit… when is the last time you showered?” That was how little I cared about anything, including myself. I was walking around in a uniform I should have been proud to wear, yet I was disgracing it and myself by smelling like a piece of dog shit.
I kept trying to understand what had brought me to this point of what felt like no return. Yeah, I had been sad before, but that is part of being human. Everyone gets sad. This felt different. I searched for some hidden explanation—a forgotten trauma, something from childhood, anything that could make my behavior understandable.
The most likely cause was a combination of a few things that happened prior to this conversation with my therapist. For example, I wasn’t a fan of my job; I missed my mom, brother and friends as I was stationed across the country. I also had recently lost a lot of money in crypto investments when my wallet key was accessed on a sketchy exchange. Around this same time, I also broke up with my girlfriend and had my first deployment to the middle east. I am 6 foot 2 for reference and went from 190lbs to 245lbs in six months after these events happened. When I came back from my deployment, I was having very bad chest pains that caused me to have to go to the ER. After 3 days of being hospitalized the cardiologist’s conclusion was, I have undiagnosed anxiety. It was then that I was referred to the mental health clinic to figure out what was going on.
I wasn’t completely clueless about what triggered me as I just mentioned above things that I suspect put me on this path. One thing that I am certain of is that food is a problem for me. I overeat because of my mental health, but a large part of my mental health problems is because of my insatiable want to consume food. It is a vicious and shameful cycle.
The food is a dopamine shot of salty and sweet goodness that goes straight to my brain and comforts me but has the side effect of thickening my waistline and clogging my arteries. When I’m sad, the immediate pleasure of food beats the long-term pleasure of feeling fit, light, and in control. I think it’s similar to why people use drugs. I keep stuffing food into my mouth to satisfy the person I am in that moment, without caring about the person who has to live with the consequences later. It’s a quick, numbing high—something to quiet my mind now, even if it makes my life worse afterward.
Reading this out loud just reminded me of when my doctor sent me to see an endocrinologist because of how miserable my free testosterone numbers were. I checked in then briefly sat in a chair in her waiting room that I couldn’t comfortably fit in, so I decided to stand up awkwardly in the corner waiting to be called in instead. Once I was, I sat in the patient room and had my blood pressure done, nothing out of the ordinary as my blood pressure was surprisingly good for someone as out of shape as me. The nurse left, closed the door and I waited for the doc. It was a standard doctor’s office with the infographics on the wall and the cold white interior. She had her doctorate from St. Petersburg on the wall. I was in Tampa, so I thought it was from the neighboring city of St. Petersburg, Florida.
She came in, a tall lady with a thick Russian accent, oops wrong St. Petersburg lol.
She was very economical with her words. She demanded that I lay down and drop my pants so she could check my balls. As she examined me, she dictated a stream of medical jargon and codes to a remote medical scribe on her iPad.
I sat there quietly and probably awkwardly and she finished up. Her words to me were a lot less complex. She simply said, “You are killing yourself with a fork.” I think deep down I already knew this, but it hurt more coming from someone else, and kudos to her for doing it so poetically. I think I was around 340 lbs. at the time. I am 6 foot 2 for reference. They wanted a copayment, but I explained that I was in the military, so it was going to be covered by them. It was awkward since I was having money issues from compulsive spending, so I followed up by just saying I didn’t have any cash or cards on me anyways.
So, I left the office feeling sad and did the only logical thing someone would do after being told he was killing himself with food: I went to Popeyes and bought two of their new chicken sandwiches.
Fucking pathetic…
As time went on, and my uniform got tighter the more uncomfortable I would get. I would buy a larger uniform until the next time I was due for a new uniform purchase, I had realized there was no longer a bigger size. I sort of panicked but luckily at this point in my career I had volunteered for the night shift position handing out tools for the aircraft maintenance rather than doing the maintenance myself. This meant I would be in a cushy chair for most of the shift behind a counter like a glorified security guard of the tools during a shift with as minimal people as possible.
Because of COVID, fitness tests were cancelled indefinitely. This news broke about a month before I was scheduled to take mine. The relief I felt when I heard the cancellation was euphoric. The reason was simple: failing too many fitness tests could get me kicked out, and I had already failed my previous one. This single change bought me valuable time but was a double-edged sword.
Without another fitness test hanging over me, I convinced myself that I no longer needed to lose weight. I was also working the night shift, away from most of my usual coworkers, which made me feel as though I could hide from the people who knew me. I found comfort in my own degeneracy.
No one could judge what they could not see.
So, I kept spiraling.
One day, after sleeping for fifteen hours on a weekday, I woke up and looked around. My bed was a mess. Trash covered the room, the toilet was filthy, and I could barely see myself in the bathroom mirror.
This wasn’t a surprise to me. I had been living like this for almost two years. I just didn’t have the mental capacity to care. This time it was different though. Maybe I was tired of it? I had glossed over my living conditions for so long that me taking a second to acknowledge it and take it in was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
My paranoia was at its worse too. I woke up frantically to check my phone for missed calls and the fear that someone would knock on the door and see the disgusting lair I had created for myself.
I lost all composure and broke down. I called my first sergeant and told him that I needed help. It was humiliating to admit it and to cry on the phone to another man I barely knew. Looking back, it must have been obvious to everyone around me that I needed help. My body, my uniform, my performance, and probably my smell had already told them.
Maybe I will share the rest of this story but for now this is all I feel like sharing. Thank you for taking the time to read this far.
SION 