One of the things that has been hardest for me while on methadone has been the weight gain that often accompanies it. For the past four years, this has been my biggest battle. Some days, I find it nothing more than a slight nuisance, while on others, I find it utterly soul crushing. I know many women on methadone suffer from this identical problem, and I know many that also stop treatment for this fact alone. As hard an adjustment as its been, this would never influence me to return to past bad behaviours or habits.
This weight gain many a time has ended up messing with my selfconfidence, especially as I had never, ever had a weight issue until I started MMT. It has been a pretty big adjustment just on its own, and there are so many days that I've allowed this to influence my overall mood. When feeling particularly frumpy or unattractive, it was so much easier to sit around all day in my baggy black tshirt and drawstring pants with unwashed hair and an unmade face. After awhile, it became easier and easier for me to use this as an excuse not to do much more of anything else.
About two weeks ago, I decided that I had had enough. No more. Just one more thing I was doing to remain a victim in one way or another that I needed to put an end to. It was now or never. As much as I wanted to return to my pre-treatment weight, I know that this was not something that was going to happen overnight so I decided to take a different approach than anything I had attempted prior. A large part of how I was feeling was a direct result of not really having anything appropriate to wear to flatter my current shape so pretty much the only way to fix this was to start over from scratch - I needed an entirely new wardrobe! So far, I had been resisting buying much of anything convinced that one day I would be able to fit back into the clothes that were hanging in my closet. In the meantime, I had been trying to stuff my size twelve body into my size eight outfits with disasterous results.
Shocking indeed, that I never seemed pleased with any of my outfit choices or would be forced to put on yet, again, the same tshirt and pair of pants. Although it actually took me three full days to finish, I went out shopping and bought all brand new things - I literally replaced everything, everything except my socks! I got all brand new underwear. I bought myself a new raincoat and two new hoodies, as well as a new pair of sandles and runners for the summer. I got five new pairs of cargo pants and four new pairs of shorts. I got eight semi-dressy tops/blouses plus four dressier types of tshirts.
I've put all of the new clothes in the closet in the spare room and left all of my other clothes in my closet in the bedroom - we each have our own closet in the bedroom. Now, when I go to put something on, it is much less of an ordeal as I know that whatever I end up picking out will fit me properly. No longer will there be piles of discarded items as I struggled to find something to wear for the day! Already I feel a thousand times better about myself, not to mention so much more confident.
In some ways, I am mad at myself for allowing vanity to get the best of me, but it has and after four years, I know that this wouldn't go away on its own. I wasn't prepared at all for how much this weight gain was going to affect me. I'd been fortunate enough to go through my life never having a weight problem, so it was never an issue I had been forced to deal with. I didn't realize quite how lucky I was until it was too late. I think what has made it more of a struggle for me to get on top of this was the timing of my decision to start MMT. This just happened to occur while in my midforties, which is a time in a woman's life when her body starts to undergo a number of changes as it is. So the two combined together were a toxic combination indeed.
