Am I Worth This? (Pt 3)

Ok, this may be the one that you don't want to read. It is not going to be graphic or anything, but if you don't want to be confronted with the truth that Matthew and I have sex then you need to know that I am going to go in that direction. It is time for me to sort through that aspect of my downward spiral.

So I am in the midst of this cycle of eating and feeling bad about myself. I cant really even be honest with me about what i am doing to myself... How can I possibly be honest with what I am doing to Matthew? Please understand that I love my husband more than my own life, but how can I think that means very much when I treat my body (and in doing so, my own life) with such disrespect? If there is one person in this world who truly accepted my for who I am, no matter my size, it was, and still is, Matthew. I know that he wants me to be healthy, and he wants me to be happy, and he knows that I am neither of those things. It was only until recently that he has really expressed any desire for me to lose weight, and that was only because he knew that I wanted to and he would support me no matter what. This isn't the problem.

The problem lies with me. If I couldn't love myself, how was I to expect that anyone else could love me? If I was disgusted by how I looked, how could he not be? So when he told me that I was pretty or sexy...I didn't believe that he meant it. I flat out didn't believe him. So I would laugh when he said it, or would brush it off as nonsense. It hurts me to think about what that was doing to him. I mean if every time I said something, the person I loved basically called me a liar, I would just stop saying it. And so he did. There was a wall between us that my insecurities and self hatred built up. Last month, on our 10th anniversary, the wall that I constructed, that I had built brick by self hating brick pushed him away. He said it wasn't me, and that he needed a break...but I knew. I knew what I had done. I let my weight come between me and the one person who never cared what I looked like. I know that I have been going through this transformation for a couple months by that point, but it was all outward. I didn't dare take the risk to open the floodgates and examine the deeper wounds...

That is why I have started this series, to examine those things that have brought me to the lowest place of my life. I thought he was going to leave. I had pushed him away one too many times. I didn't blame him, but I also wasn't going to give up without a fight. So here I am trying to find out why I am so convinced that no one could possibly love me. The logical part of my brain knows that that is not true, but logic didn't get me to 286 pounds. There I said it. Out loud. Now you know. 14 pounds shy of 300. That is where all this self loathing has gotten me. To a point where I didn't want my husband to touch me. To touch this disgusting body. I would cringe. Cringe when my husband would touch me. How did I expect a marriage to survive that? It wasn't. It wasn't surviving, it was barely even a marriage. We were roommates. Roommates who had a kid together. I wasn't happy and I guess I was hellbent on making sure no one else was either.

I am happy to report that a month later, we are doing much better, because I feel better about myself. I am proud of the work I have done so far. And it isn't even that I look better... to be honest, I don't really even see it yet. I look in the mirror and I still see the same person I always saw. But it is the way I FEEL. When I push on and do 3 miles instead of just 2. When I am satified with a piece of salmon and some asparagus instead of cheesey pasta and 3 brownies, one after supper and two more when no one was looking. These are things that I am proud of. And though I can't stand in front of the mirror and look myself in the eye and say "I am happy." or "You ARE beautiful." or "I am SO worth this!" I can say "I am happier." or "I feel better" or "Yes, I can do this" and those are huge steps forward, and tiny steps away from the others.

I am ok with Matthew touching me. I have even learned to let go of my insecurities and enjoy it again. I know he is still leery that I will push him away again and patch up the wall, but I am tearing that down brick by confident brick, because I don't need to protect myself from him. I never needed to, I only THOUGHT I did. What I needed protection from was myself. So I am going to tear down this wall, bask in the figurative calories burned while I do it, I am going to grab on to his hand and hold on with all I am and take him along with me on this journey. I know he will pick me up when I fall. I know he will celebrate my victories, and he will help me to see that my setbacks aren't so bad after all. He will push me when I want to give up and he will love me even when I cant find the strength to love myself. And in the end, he will be there to show me that I was worth it all along. I just needed to see what he sees.

Maybe I am starting to.

Am I Worth This? (Pt 2)

So I left off with control. I went back and read a little bit of what I wrote and I found it interesting. I think that is the beauty of free writing, you just start writing, not really knowing where the topic will take you and eventually the truth will find its way out. I made a comment about not feeling like I have control over my life, and that comment surprised me. I don't really remember writing that. Anyway, the truth of it struck me. Somehow, during this journey, I want to find the power to take control of my life. I am so ruled by my emotions! Usually, its ok because my feelings about things are usually correct.

This self hatred that I have developed is leading to other even less desirable feelings that i have not experienced before. Jealousy for example. I don't consider myself a jealous person, but I sure as hell am now. I hate that too, but I do not have the confidence in myself to trust that my husband wont leave me for someone prettier than me. That people have the shoes I want to be able to wear or the haircut that I cant pull off and I am jealous, and I hate the way that makes me feel. The logical side of my brain tells me to be happy with what I have, and longing after the things you cant have will not make me feel any better about myself. In fact, it makes me feel worse. Its that vicious cycle again. When I can buy that pair of shoes that I LOVE and not have to worry about them not coming in wide-width, that will be a glorious day for me and a detrimental one to my bank account! I want to look at myself with pride. I want to look at me and think, you look good. You did that. For you. And after 37 lbs lost I am starting to say that to myself. "You look good today." or "Hey, that picture is pretty good." Instead of "None of my clothes fit right" or "God, I look huge in that picture." Its a nice change.

I am hoping that I get to a point when I can be happy because of the work I am putting in. I want to feel proud of myself, and the changes I have made. I am starting to feel better. I feel good physically, better than I have in a long time. I feel more attractive which has made a difference between Matthew and I, which is a separate post which may be TMI for you so I will post a warning first. Not really detailed or anything but I imagine you don't really want to think about our private life, but it is a major issue and I will need to work through it just like everything else and like I said before this is more for me than it is for you. Anyhoo, I am hoping that there will come a day when I can truly say, "Yes, I am worth all of this work. I am worth loving. I am worth respect." And the only person I need to hear me say that, and believe me when I do, is me. I want to be able to say those things to me and I want to know that they are true. I'm not there yet.

Am I Worth This? (Pt 1)

This is a post that I have been going through in my brain for awhile now. It is going to be painful and it is going to take awhile to get it all out. There will be things that may surprise you and may not. I don't know. No offense, but I don't really care. This one isn't for you, its for me. Its for me to get this out of my head. I guess I could go to a shrink, but Blogger is free. There will be parts to this. I don't know if I will wait to publish it until I am done, going back and adding things along the way, or if I will publish it in parts entitled "Am I Worth This" which is the front runner at the moment. So I guess we'll call this Part 1. Its about what I think has brought me to this point. Subsequent entries will explore certain aspects in depth, but this is my jumping off point.



It isn't like I have never dieted before. And I have gotten some results, but never lasting. I have never been thin, maybe when I was a kid. I wish I knew what my BL "Trigger" was, but I haven't found it. Or maybe I don't want to admit to myself that it was a constant feeling of inadequacy. There is an Inadequate Personality Disorder that I am going to be doing some looking into, but I digress. I don't believe that it was any one's treatment of me that made me feel this way. Though I know there is one person who feels that she needs to carry that guilt, no matter what I may say. I never really knew my place. My siblings are both very intelligent, and I never felt like I could compare with that. I know now that if I hadn't limited my myself in thinking that I wasn't as smart as them than I would have seen that by doing that I prevented myself from reaching my true potential. I also think that I limited myself to being the fat, funny friend because that is where I thought I belonged. There was a time, I can remember it, when i felt pretty. And then I got sick. And I wasn't anymore, in my eyes. Now I was defective in a new way, a way that I had no control of. But isn't it funny how I have been able to cope with this invisible disease, this force over which I have no control, but it is the thing that I can actually DO something about that i allow to make me a victim? So It is this feeling that I can never be good enough that keeps me trapped in a body that I have come to hate. I shouldn't hate this body, its my only one, but look at how I have treated it! I am trying to find the strength to believe that I am more than what I have pigeon holed myself into. I know I could be more, but I don't really believe it yet, because I just have never known anything other than this:



I will pretend I am happy and as long as I can convince other people that I am happy than that means that I am.



That's a lie. It is a lie to myself, it is a lie to everyone around me. it is a lie to my family. I haven't been happy for a long time. And it has taken its toll on everything around me. Especially my marriage, but I don't want to get into that, cuz there is no reason to at this time. The only true joy I have had in my life had been Hayden. He saved me from the black hole that I was falling into. I will explore my Mommy feelings and that black hole more in depth, but for now I will just touch on it because I am getting bit off track from where I was wanting to go.



I have been developing and festering this growing self hatred for a long time. And as I got more unhappy with myself, I gained more weight, which made me feel even worse. It was a classic downward spiral into a hole I didn't know how to get out of. I don't remember ever feeling this badly about myself. I was always ok. Never good, but ok enough that I could function. I didn't think that I was pretty, I didn't FEEL pretty. I had a hard time taking compliments because I didn't believe them to be true, from anyone, including Matthew. How could that not take a toll? I ballooned. More than I had ever done before, and I knew it would just keep going. I didn't know how to stop it. I wanted to jump off this run away car but I couldn't get myself to unfasten the belt and jump. Every time I tried something would push me back and I would give up again.



I wont say that in 4 months my self image has changed. Not completely. I have had to do a lot of looking inward. If BL has taught me anything its that there is a reason for being this overweight. Most people are NOT this overweight. And finding the trigger is part of the process. Finding that thing or things, that led you to this place is the only way to keep from going back. So that is what I am trying to do here, is finding my trigger, my reasons. I know that those feelings of not being good enough are definately part of it. Not good enough to take care of, not good enough to be loved, not good enough to be truly happy. Why? Why cant I be healthy? Why cant I be loved, mostly by me? Why cant I be happy? I can be if I allow myself to do so.

A lot of this also seems to be about control. I don't want to be a victim to my weight. I don't want to be a victim of my unhappiness. While I realize that these issues will still be here even when I DO lose the weight, and so this isn't a magic spell that will make me happy, but it is a process in discovering what it is that is preventing me from believing that I deserve everything that I want. I want to find control. I want to have power over my decisions and what I do or do not put into my body, and I don't feel like I have had that kind of control before. I think that is what is so great about the Bugg. It gives me the knowledge to be more aware of what goes into and out of my body, and having that knowledge gives me the power to exercise a bit more or eat a bit less or whatever the case may be.

Ok, That is enough for now. I have so much more to say, but I need time to sort my thoughts.

Milestones

So I got my 30 pounds last week. We were away from home for the weekend but we brought the scale along. I lost 3 pounds last week and got my 30 lbs lost. This week I lost 5 lbs. and that took me under 250. I debated on whether or not to proclaim that cuz I know y'all can do math and figure my starting weight, which I am pretty ashamed of, but I am not ashamed of my progress, so I dont want to hide how far I have come, and since my plans do not involve ever seeing that numer again, I think its ok. And given the emotional weeks I have been having lately, 8 pounds in two weeks is pretty awesome. I love walking, and it is making a huge difference in making my calorie burn. I can definately tell the days I do not walk, and I get kind of bummed when I dont get to go. It has become my "Me Time". I am doing this for me, otherwise I would have quit by now. That’s the difference this time, I think. When I work out its my time, its for me. Its when I can leave everything else for an hour, or whatever, and its just for me. That’s why I like walking cuz I can get out and I have my iPod on and its just me, for me, about me. Not Matthew, or Hayden, because for every other waking moment I am doing everything for them, because they are my family and that’s what I want to do. But for that hour I get to be selfish, and you know what, I like it! So here is to another new week. A new milestone to reach. And maybe, just maybe, some new pants, too.

Walking

I have started walking in the evenings. I really like it and it is an easy way to burn calories. We'll see how it goes when it gets hot out, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Thanks to walking I am hitting my calorie burn basically everyday. And I am getting my step target in too, shockingly. I have come a long way. Today, for example, Matthew had class stuff to do at the college so he wasn't here, and Hayden was tired and whiney. So I laid him down and let him chill for a bit, which seemed to help his mood immensely, but instead of using Hayden as an excuse to NOT go walking, we went together. We saw lots of cars and every truck we saw was "Daddy's Truck" The Old Emily would have used that excuse to not do it, but today I was truly disappointed when I thought Hayden's mood would prevent me from going for my walk. This week has been very emotional and stressful so I dont have real high hopes for the scale, but I think that decision makes up for any possible lack in my goal or the scale this week. Which as I previously mentioned I have retracted as an official goal and downgraded it to an added bonus.

I think that setting goals like 3 pounds in a week, is too much pressure on me. I think it is unnecessary pressure on me. So if I don't make the 3 pounds I will be a bit disappointed but I think it would be ok. I just don't think the best thing to do is to unnecessarily put additional pressure on myself. Or put myself in a position where I could fail at anything additionally. Does that make any sense. I think that the journey I am on right now, this path to discovery shall we say, is not ready for additional pitfalls, especially ones I have created. It is an invitation to become discouraged.

Week 11

I lost another 2.8 pounds this week. I guess I didn't realize that it had been only 11 weeks. I mean that's not even three months yet! So I am pretty happy about the 27 pounds I have lost. I mean I guess its in perspective now. I thought it was going so slow, but I am really proud of myself right now! I have learned a lot this last 11 weeks. One of the big ones is that it is ok to eat. I can have cake and I can have pizza, but that doesn't mean that I have to eat 5 slices of pizza or 3 pieces of cake. I understand the role of food a lot more. I mean, I always knew that my relationship with food was super screwed up, but now I understand a little better. That stuffing my face full of food isn't going to make me feel better about myself. I know that if I want to spend my calories on a food then I want that food to be worth the calories I spend on it. It makes me appreciate good food that much more. I want to eat the things that are good for my body and not just eat it because I want to stuff my stomach full. I can enjoy eating for the joy of eating good food rather than just hiding behind sub par food. Hiding. I don't want to hide anymore. I want to be proud of myself, of what I am doing. For myself, but also for my family. I want Hayden to appreciate good food, healthy food, not just easy food. It is taking a lot of work with him...but I know it will come. He will eat his veggies, he already loves fruit and chicken. We are working on the veggies. And I am also learning that I can be proud of myself. I can accept compliments (though that is still VERY difficult). And there isn't anything wrong with that. I will be a better mommy, I will be a better wife, but first and foremost, I will be a better Me. 11 weeks is not a very long time, but it feels like forever since I started because of everything that I have already accomplished.