On Babies and Bathwater
Monday, October 03, 2011
Warning: long and rambling self talk, so you do not have to read this. I might feel better if you didn't, actually. I'm publishing it to be accountable to and honest with myself and only myself for how I feel, and how I deal with those feelings.
This morning I realized consciously that I am draining the pleasure out of certain parts of my life, the physical part, by getting too caught up in food tracking and calorie burn tracking and point collecting, and to an extent working out, and even looking at myself in the mirror and getting dressed in the morning. I just want to get away from my body right now. I want it to not exist at all so I will stop feeling this way.
I feel myself tempted to just throw in the towel and forget the whole thing. Can you tell I have problems with moderation? Because I'm always seeking something, at one end or the other. And I feel like this came out of nowhere almost. That I was doing well, and feeling good, but I'm cracking. And if I'm honest with myself, I've felt the cracking for a while.
I'm anxious and scared and I hate myself right now. Right now at this moment. I know it won't last. But I am going to accept that that's how I feel right now. Maybe when I'm done writing this, I'll feel differently. I don't know. But right now I am angry with myself. Angry for not working out this morning. Angry because now I'll be fat again. Angry because I can't do anything or stick to anything and I'm angry that I'm judging myself. Judging the judging. And I just want out. Out of the whole cycle and anything that reminds me of it. And I looked at SP this morning and I wanted to stab my computer screen. And now I'm at work, crying, hoping no one will notice.
I adore my sister. She's kind and introspective and intuitive. But she's tiny. She's 5'3" and probably 110 lbs and is just so darn cute. She doesn't judge me. I know that the judging comes from myself. But even though I've lost 34 lbs and am normal by every body weight/proportion whatever scale, I feel huge next to her. I feel ugly next to her. We went and got pedicures and I hated that there was a mirror in front of us. I hated that her feet were little and cute and she picked a cute nail color, and my feet are huge and ugly and I picked an ugly nail color.
I don't trust what I tell myself. I don't trust what other people tell me. I don't know what's right or what's true or what I'm supposed to be doing. I am so angry and so hurt and so tired. I thought I would write it all out and be introspective and come to some conclusion and some sort of answer or at least direction but I feel lost. I don't know where I am and I don't know where I'm going. But I write that and I know it's not true. I know where I am. I know where I want to be. I am working on learning how to get there. I just had to get that out. I just had to express that scream of helplessness and loneliness.
I know other people have been where I am. I know that. But I feel like I don't have the right to express it, or ask for help, or expect someone to want to help. Because I have spent so long telling myself that I'm useless and worthless that there is still a part of me that hangs onto that. That is afraid to reach out, that feels like I can be strong for others but I can never ask anyone to be strong for me. That if I even ask, they will just say no because who wants to waste time on me?
Please let this be the way. Please let this pain and anger and sorrow and fear lead me out of it. Please let experiencing this, and learning to live with it in this moment be the way that I can exist with it and deal with it and accept it and finally move on to where I can deal with it more healthily in the future. There is no escaping hurt and anger and frustration. So all you can do is be in the moment with it. I want to look at it, acknowledge it, study it, and not be defined by it. It is my deepest instinct to turn that pain back on myself. To hate myself. To KNOW that if I was different, if my body was better, if my face was more perfect, if my hair was thicker, that I'd finally be happy, and I wouldn't feel pain and hurt and rejection and frustration and disappointment.
Isn't it amazing what we tell ourselves? Those things are what I've been telling myself and BELIEVING. Wow. Seeing it in words helps take away the power of it, because it's patently untrue. None of those things would bring me the kind of happiness, peace, wisdom and acceptance I want.
I understand that the problem I have with my own self-view when I'm with my sister is in my own head and heart and I'm sure even if I was 120 lbs that I'd find a way to make myself feel bad. Because that's just my pattern. The pattern I want to destroy.
I have to be completely honest with myself about my experience. That getting to peace is not an easy path all the time. Just like losing weight and getting fit is not. There are bumps, some larger than others. But EXPERIENCE them. ACCEPT them. BE WITH them. Because they are not in the way. They are the way.