Insanity

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So I guess there's a thing with me and winning that I wasn't aware of.

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Obviously I like to win, but I didn't know it was obvious. This all became apparent to me when

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I was at my friend's wedding. They announced me as a bridesmaid and as I come out all of my friends

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were chanting and they've been doing it ever since. I'm not kidding. They will start yelling,

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Gina never loses. Gina never loses. Now I don't like to lose. Maybe that's why I was

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and selected by God to be delivered these special situations and look, I was honored.

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But in these particular situations, winning was just not even a possibility. And

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it I had to sit with that the loss many times. So no. Do I like to lose? Of course not. Who likes

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to lose? Can I lose? Yes. I've done it a million times. Are my friends making fun of me? No,

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they weren't. They're my friends. They love me. They think I'm fucking awesome because I am.

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Anyway, the point is, Gina does not like to lose. One day I spent 30 days doing a workout

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about that was called Insanity. And I'll tell you one thing. They did not lie about the name.

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Welcome back to your favorite fucking podcast. I'm your host, Gina Sullivan,

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and you are listening to Daddy Tissues.

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Okay. So where we left off, I had finally made out with Superman all over Philadelphia,

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the man I've been obsessed with since high school. The next morning I got up, drove him and his

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roommate back to their house. He let me in, showed me around for a little, and then I got back in my

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car and left. That's all I remember. Guess what? I didn't hear from him again. Are we shocked?

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No, of course not. But this time it wasn't detrimental. Yeah, I still wanted to talk about

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with him. Absolutely, because look at him. But I wasn't as sad because I convinced myself I

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didn't even like him anyway. The whole person I thought he was was the person I had made up in my

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head. And it wasn't necessarily him because what are the chances? What are the chances somebody has

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the perfect face, the perfect body, and the perfect personality? This isn't heaven, right?

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We are on earth. Reality is reality. You can't have your cake and eat it too. And in my situation,

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I didn't even have the fucking cake because he wasn't calling me and there was no way in hell

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I was calling him. So I went on with my life, being 24, 25, whatever the hell I was at that time.

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I probably dated some other guys. Can't remember anybody worth talking about. Obviously,

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they weren't that memorable. Remember, back then, there wasn't Hinge, Bumble, or Tinder.

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You actually had to meet people in person like an animal. Anyway, we will get to that in another

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episode. But it was winter and I was working, going out on my friends, doing my thing. And this

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was the time of the year I usually would train for the Broad Street run. 10 miles in Philadelphia.

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Me and my friend Wendy Waterhouse did it every year. Getting up at five in the morning,

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running outside in the freezing fucking cold. Why? Why would I voluntarily do that to myself?

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Well, as it turned out, I had some issues. I was obsessed with my body. I don't even know why we do

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these things. I was obsessed with working out and my body and eating and it was just a thing.

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I looked back at pictures of myself from that time and I would die for that body now. Back

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then, I thought I was fat. And I was determined to be perfect because I had a checklist. Get the man,

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get the house, get the money, have the kids, look amazing, make everybody think you've got

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the perfect fucking life. I don't even know why. Because who the fuck am I trying to impress

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here? I have no idea. But I wanted these made up people to look at me and say,

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holy shit, look at Gina. Who did she marry? Where does she live? What kind of house does she have?

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What kind of dog do they have? Which is hilarious because I didn't even want a dog.

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But I wanted to win because Gina does not lose. And one of the biggest things on my checklist

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was being skinny. Boobs, blonde hair, tan, hot, and preferably not smoking marbled

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lights. That's what I wanted. Being skinny was number one. What society does to women these days

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is ridiculous. What started out was a day that I didn't have to diet,

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became a Sunday binge day. Okay. All week I'd barely eat. Lunch was a yogurt and some strawberries.

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And on Sunday, holy shit, I would eat everything I could fit into my body. I would wake up,

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breakfast, ice cream, candy, cookies, McDonald's, whatever the fuck I wanted. Because Sunday

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was the only day I was allowed to eat those things. I just didn't know how to do balance.

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It wasn't a thing I did. I did extremes. I would eat until I was physically sick.

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And my brain would keep telling me there was more room for food. Gina, what else can you eat?

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It's still Sunday. What else do you really want? What do you love that you can't have for a whole

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another fucking week? Eventually, it wasn't just Sundays anymore. I started doing it at night.

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I'd be in bed at 10 o'clock, exhausted, and suddenly I'd start thinking about food.

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Peanut butter and jelly, bowls of cereal, Oreos, Snickers, and I'd get up and eat.

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Bowl after bowl of cereal, PB&J after PB&J. Sometimes I'd get back in bed and my brain

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would tell me to get up and eat more. And I'd be half asleep. But I would do it,

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even when I was already sick.

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Hiding the wwrappers in my trash like I was hiding a dead body.

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The next morning, I'd wake up and I would have to pay. I would need to find a way to make up

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for everything I had just shoved into my body. So I would run seven miles sometimes,

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taking laxatives. I'd be running going, you know what the fuck do you do this? I didn't understand

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what was happening to me. I felt completely out of control, complete Insanity. Now,

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on top of all of this, I was doing workout videos. I had my people,

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Jillian Michaels, Tracy Anderson, and Shaun T. Shaun T had this workout called Insanity.

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That was the actual name because holy shit, it wasn't insane. I was killing these workouts.

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I was a badass bitch. So I decided I was going to complete the 30 day program of Insanity

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and because I was also obsessed with the scale, getting on multiple times a day,

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I made myself a rule. I was not allowed to weigh myself until the 30 days was over.

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Not once. This was a big deal. I was also getting ready to go to Jamaica

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for my friend's wedding and I wanted to look amazing. So I had some more motivation there.

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So for 30 days, I did the workouts. Meanwhile, I'm still binge eating on Sundays

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and then at night and taking laxatives, still running, still hiding wrappers, but

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in my head, I was being disciplined because I would run that shit off, get those calories out,

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and I was doing everything else right. I knew when those 30 days were over,

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that scale was going to reward me. I'll never forget this day. It was a pretty big day.

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The 30 days were over. I was in my apartment on the river with my balcony. It was my final workout.

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For some reason, my mom was there. My son was with his dad. My roommate wasn't there.

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It was just me and my mom. So I go into my room, went to my bathroom, step on that scale,

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look down,

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same number, the exact same fucking number.

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Not up one, not down one, nothing. I lost it.

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I walked into the living room and just started crying, hysterically crying. My mom is looking at me,

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Gina, what's wrong? What's wrong? I can't even answer her.

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And then she looks at me and goes, are you pregnant?

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In her defense, the last time I cried like that, I was pregnant. But no, I wasn't pregnant.

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I was devastated and I was embarrassed to even tell her why I was crying like that because

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there are people in the world dealing with real problems.

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And here I am crying my fucking eyes out over the bathroom scale.

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But to me, at that very moment, it was everything. I had failed.

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Gina never loses. Right? Apparently, Gina had just lost to a fucking bathroom scale.

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It was like, Shaun T was my daddy and I was trying to make my daddy proud.

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And I fucking failed.

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My mom looked at me and said, Gina, I think you need to get some help.

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She wasn't wrong. It's fucked up. So I went to a therapist. I started telling her everything,

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the depression, the anxiety, the Sunday binges, the peanut butter and jellies,

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or use, the running, the laxatives. And this woman looks at me and says, Gina, you're bulimic.

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And do you know what I said?

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I fucking wish. I fucking wish. I'm serious. That's what I said.

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Because in my 25-year-old brain, bulimic meant skinny. And skinny was my dream.

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I thought she was a fucking idiot. I didn't throw up. I hated throwing up.

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bulimic is not something I did. I was like, I get to fucking tell people I'm bulimic.

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This is amazing. But then they're going to look at me and go,

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nah, you're not bulimic because you're fat. And I was not fat. Not even a little bit.

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Let me just put that out there. And then this woman explains that bulimia

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is not just vomiting. Bulimia is when you binge eat and then you try to compensate for it in other ways.

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Laxatives, excessive exercise and vomiting. I'm sitting there thinking,

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wait a minute, laxatives, check. Running seven miles with a menthol on my mouth, check.

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Oh, I'm a fucking professional. A professional fucking bulimic.

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Looking back now, that's heartbreaking. Because I didn't understand how badly I was hurting myself.

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I thought I was being disciplined. I thought I was working toward a goal.

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I had no idea what I was doing to my body.

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And apparently the eating disorder wasn't the only thing I had going on.

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That was just the first thing on the list. Depression, anxiety, OCD, ADD, ADHD, ABC fucking day,

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whatever the fuck else. Is there a rewards program? Do I get a free diagnosis after the fifth one?

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Because at this point, I feel like I should be getting some kind of VIP treatment.

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The more I learned about myself, the more I started thinking about my family.

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My dad, his brothers, my cousins, so many talented, amazing people who struggled with mental health.

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And I started wondering why. Genetics, generational trauma, something chemical.

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I don't know. But I've seen it throughout my family. And it makes me sad. I think about my grandmother.

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My grandma on my dad's side. She was an amazing woman. She cooked like nobody's business.

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She would sew. Her nails were always perfect and beautiful. And she was incredibly talented.

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At some point, she stopped leaving the house.

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She would say she was sick last minute, all the time. My dad would get mad at her.

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And then my dad became her. They didn't want to leave the house.

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I totally get it. I totally get it. There have been days when I physically could not get out of bed.

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I know what it's like to not want to fucking see people and not talk to anybody and not leave your

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house. I think about what she might have been going through. You never really know what somebody

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else is dealing with. You don't know what it feels like inside their body. You don't know what it

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feels like to wake up every morning and live inside their head. And that's why I try not to judge

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people. Because I have family members who struggled with addiction. And I've lost some family

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members to addiction. I think they were just trying to get some kind of relief from the pain they were

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feeling. I don't know. I can't speak for them. But I understand wanting to just feel good.

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And just wanting to feel happy. Because life is hard enough when you feel good.

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Imagine trying to raise children, work, pay bills, and take care of everybody

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when you're struggling just to get through the day. It's a lot. There are some days when

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you just don't want to even be awake. There has been pain where I just wanted to sleep through it.

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Like just sleep through until it was over. Getting out of bed was the hardest thing to do.

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Brushing my teeth, showering, forget about it. I get it.

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Anyway, back to the therapist. Because I've taken you through the entire family tree.

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You're welcome. So I started taking medication and something happened.

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I wasn't feeling sad, but I wasn't feeling happy either. I felt numb, frozen,

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and I fucking hated it. Because I want to fucking feel. I want joy. I want excitement.

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I want to love people. I want to experience life. And at that time, on that particular medication,

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I didn't feel like myself. One day I was going out for a run and I forgot to take it.

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And I remember feeling good that day. And I went, oh, I know why because I didn't

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fucking take that fucking pill this morning. So I decided I wasn't going to take it anymore.

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And I just quit. Quit the therapist, quit that medication, and just did not go back.

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Because feeling like that wasn't an option. Maybe it was something I should have discussed

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with the person prescribing it. I'm telling you what I did, not what anybody else should do.

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At the time, I just knew I hated feeling numb. So I stopped and I went back to my crazy ways.

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Now remember Superman? Of course you do. How could you forget this beautiful bastard? Back then,

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Facebook was the thing. Wow. One day, about six months after our makeout session,

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out of nowhere, I get a notification. A friend request from Superman. Mind you,

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I have been stalking Superman's Facebook for months, obviously. But I had never sent him a

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friend request. Absolutely not. He wasn't calling me. I wasn't calling him. And I certainly

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wasn't sending him a fucking friend request. So naturally, I ignored it. Not because I didn't

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want to accept it. Oh, I wanted to accept it immediately. But no. He was going on ice.

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That bitch was staying in the icebox.

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Called my friends. You're not going to believe who fucking friend requested me.

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And I left that request sitting there.

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Just long enough, not too long, let's not get carried away. Then I accepted it.

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Real cool. No message. Nothing. Then one day, I see him put a post up.

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Something on Facebook. And this post reads, does anybody have an extra Broad Street run number?

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I'm sorry, what? Because remember my friend Wendy Waterhouse? She had gotten into the

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Broad Street run lottery. But she hurt her knee. So she wasn't running. She had a number.

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Superman needed a number. God, is that you? I called Wendy out. And I told her the plan.

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You got to give me that fucking number. So then I messaged Superman. Real casual.

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Hey, I have a number for you. Then the conversation started. We arranged how he was going to get this

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number. And at the end of the conversation, he tells me, I'll have a barbecue after the

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very calm, very casual internally. Holy fucking shit. I had now had an invitation to Superman's house.

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How was I going to go there after the Broad Street run without actually doing the broad

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street run? Because I wasn't running the Broad Street that year. I hadn't trained. I hadn't entered the

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lottery. But now I had to do this fucking run. Because I was going to that barbecue.

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And I wasn't running 10 miles by myself. Wendy couldn't run because her knee was busted.

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I needed somebody who would agree to run 10 miles with me in basically a day's notice

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with no training. Who the hell would do that?

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Oh, I know exactly who would do that. Honestly, we should have called this woman

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Superwoman because she was the kind of friend who was down for whatever. And when I say whatever,

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she came up with the whatever. It was her plan. She did the plan. Tammy Takedown, one of my best

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friends. Now, I need to tell you a little story about Tammy so you understand exactly what kind of

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woman we're dealing with here. This is one of my favorite people, favorite memories of my entire

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life. So we're going to go back. Remember, Coolio? Of course you do. The one I told you about in

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Who is Vicky, the one who kept cheating on me with his step sister. Well, one of the times we were

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broken up, he started hooking up with another girl. Now, we're broken up, which obviously means

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he was not allowed to date anybody else. That's just the law. I don't make the rules.

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This girl, we're going to call her Rihanna, which was very close to her real name. It was

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something like that. Rihanna worked at this pizza place. And this pizza place had a giant

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glass window across the storefront like most pizza places do, which as it turns out,

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was a very important architectural feature because one day me and my friends decided that

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we were going to pay Rihanna a little visit. Now, my roommate Tiger Eyes had this black

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convertible that her rich daddy bought her. We all pile into Tiger Eyes's convertible,

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top down. We pull right up in front of the pizza place. Tammy gets out of the car, walks into

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the pizza place like she's going in to order some pizza. She asks if Rihanna is working.

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When they ask who she is, Tammy says, oh, I'm her friend. Tammy comes back outside.

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And instead of getting into the car like a normal behaved girl, we start blasting a very

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appropriate song, the explicit version, full volume. She positions herself right in front of that giant

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glass window and starts doing a striptease to the song that we all know.

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My neck, my back, lick my and my

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neck. You know what I'm talking about. That song. Loud as fuck.

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Tammy is doing her dance, taking it off in front of the pizza place, in front of the entire

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fucking world. And we're sitting in the convertible going, oh my god, there are children in there.

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Music blasting, watching this fucking woman put on a performance for Rihanna,

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for the customers, for anybody who happened to be driving by. And the whole idea was to get

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Rihanna fired. Did it work? I have no fucking idea. We never followed up. Honestly, that might have

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not even been where she worked. The point was the show. And Tammy delivered. Tammy always delivers.

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And to this day, that is one of my favorite fucking memories because that's Tammy.

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If you needed somebody to do something, Tammy's your girl, which brings me back

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to the Broad Street Run because now you understand why when I needed somebody to run 10 fucking miles

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with me with basically no notice, I know exactly who to call.

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Go, Spusters. No, I called Tammy and I told her what was happening. I told her what was up.

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Hey, do you want to go around 10 miles tomorrow with me? You only have a couple hours because

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I want to go to a barbecue at Superman's house. And Tammy, she was in. Of course she was.

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Because apparently I surrounded myself with women who were just as fucking ridiculous as I was.

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So now the plan was set. Tammy and I were running the Broad Street Run.

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10 miles, no training. And afterward, I was going to Superman's barbecue.

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But there was just one more little logistical issue. Tammy couldn't come to the barbecue

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and I wasn't going to that barbecue by myself. No fucking way. Grab your daddy tissues and I'll

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see you next time, my queens.