Firstly, sorry for a bit of upfront drama. Under another name I’m a semi-active member on the forum and I’ve posted pictures of myself. At least one person in real life follows my progress on there. I want to post about something related to keto that is a bit personal and don’t want it to be traced to me. I’ve made a second account, I’m on a VPN and I’m using a different browser to normal. Admins, please delete this topic if it’s inappropriate.
Keto has been amazing for me and I’ve really improved my health, lost weight, and gained a lot of other benefits as well. There is a bit of a dark side to keto for me though. Keto has made me much more lucid and rational in my thinking, less clouded and much more aware of what’s going on around me. Why is this a bad thing?
I’ve been in a deeply unhappy marriage for years. My spouse really doesn’t seem to like me, and over the years has picked away at my self-esteem. Being overweight for so long didn’t help either. But gradually I lost friends, I got disconnected from most of my family (who live far away), and my spouse would always be there to make me aware of my shortcomings, my mistakes, and my bad decisions. For years I would think it was all true, that only my spouse could be this honest with me, and that I was a real loser. I’d even find myself remembering things happening differently only for my spouse to fiercely argue that I was wrong about what I was recalling, an action that made me severely doubt myself and my own memory for a long time, which I now know in hindsight is ‘gaslighting’ and so on. I had become an emotional wreck, a shell of my former self, quick to tears and lonely as ever. Only my spouse could show me what I was doing wrong with constant lectures and warnings, even in public. We have kids, and I saw me needing to pull myself together for their sake.
What does this have to do with keto?
Keto, strangely, seems to have given me almost all of my confidence back that I’d given up on years ago. I remember things well, even things I had previously forgotten. I am extremely calm, to the point of it being strange to me. My spouse shouts in my face regularly, really loud, and to keep the peace I’d have to stand there and take everything, not responding in any way, then they’d feel vindicated and I’d get five minutes of peace again. I’d often run off afterwards and burst into tears in a room by myself. Now I am calm as ever, and for the first time in years, I can see my spouse for everything they are. They are desperate, hypersensitive, rough, nasty, and false. They are volatile, aggressive, cruel, childish, and stubborn. I have been picking up so much confidence recently. I can clearly see for the first time in years I am in a situation that can be fixed, a marriage that I can move on from and that I am not a fatally flawed human being. I have kids who need me to be strong and happy, and not weak and sad in a failed marriage.
I don’t plan to log back in to this account or reply any further on this topic. Again, it might seem like drama: I apologize. I feel happy that there is somewhere I can temporarily vent that perhaps others might be able to understand. I think it’s amazing how my way of thinking completely changed just by my way of eating. I don’t know what my next steps are now, but I need to remove myself from this stressful environment and find a way my kids and I can thrive.
Good. That is a huge thing.
) For me, progress is slow. There is an easily identifiable course, but my continual identity doesn’t rapidly replace - it’s the alteration of one small quantum at a time.