a page of self-realization of a womyn who is sinking in the troubled waters of grief, depression, self-harm, cutting/scratching & eating disorders
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Risks & Trust
Taking risks is a really challenging thing for me to do. Tonight at cardio core bootcamp I found myself saying "I can't" it's the first time since I started the program that I used the word "can't" and I feel defeated that I thought that way. And it was over the stupidest thing, skipping with a rope around the track. After a few steps I trip on the rope. I lose the coordination. And I get frustrated, so I start walking. I don't understand how it is that I can't remember how to skip while moving? I used to do this all the time in elementary school, for a while I was even part of the skipping club. I'm realising now that it my attitude might have been affected by what I had eaten during the day before bootcamp...or lack there of. A peice of banana bread, a juice, and a frapacino in the morning. Shit. I forgot to eat enough.
While I was waiting for the class to start I was reading my current book, "Fat is a Feminist Issue". It's really interesting and talks about compulsive eating and not eating with ways that a womyn needs to look at it in order to begin to overcome the disorder. So anyways one of the womyn in bootcamp asked me what I was reading, so I told the group. They all laughed at me. I always thought that all of them were either about my size or thinner than me. Once again, I was wrong. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten that reaction I don't think.
Each day I'm confronted with the choice of taking a risk, whether it be trying a new thing at work or attending bootcamp or meeting new people. One of the biggest challenges I face with this is trust. I don't have a big level of basic trust that I can believe in, yet, so trusting that things are going to be fine and I will be able to succeed in a new task, is really hard. Sometimes I even find this hard when I'm with a group of people and I don't know everyone very well. How can I tell if they are all going to be nice to me? How do I know that they aren't complete assholes and are going to treat me like shit or make fun of me?
And when I take a risk, I often forget that I'm not alone and that God is seeing me through my life. That's hard for me to remember whe I'm distacted by the element of fear that I have of the risk. Everyday I rmeind myself that I can trust God. And I can trust myself. I'm not sure which is easier though, trusting God or trusting myself. (not to mention trusting other people!)
Need A Lifeguard? We Have One that Walks On Water!
As seen on the roadside sign for Abbotsford Christian Assembly. It's a good reminder for me to read this kind of thing, especially after the day I had on Tuesday. It wasn't like a really awful bad day, it was just challenging. Roadside theology isn't always something that sits right with me depending on what the sign is saying. The sinking feeling comes and goes, but I hadn't remembered to think of Jesus as a lifeguard, who did infact walk on water. This whole journey through darkness and depression I tried to see the Christ light ahead of me, and friends told me it was there during the times I couldn't see it. But how awesome is it to think of Jesus walking out across the troubled waters that I'm sinking in to hold onto me and not let me completely sink, and eventually pull me out to the service.
A few days ago I went to the beach with a friend and her kids. We played in the sand and walked in the ocean. I walked in the ocean...the water was only upto my knees, but still I was in the ocean. I can't remember the last time I was so fearless to stand that far in the water. And I didn't freak out. And I've been staying at this house that overlooks the ocean for the past month, every day I spend lots of time looking at the ocean and the USA on the other side of the bay. 2 years ago when I first visited my friends at this house I could hardly sit on the porch facing the water, it was too scarey for me.
At one point during Bootcamp I began thinking to myself I'm just going to quit and I won't go on the hike at the end of summer. But then Kelly the instructor encouraged me to keep going and helped me make it through the hill running. Unfortunately on Wed. night Kelly was in a car accident and has a serious concusion, I'm hoping that she'll be back on Monday at bootcamp. Please pray for her healing, she is an inspiration to so many people in the bootcamp program and at Mission Community Services where she works with the preschool/daycare programs.
This afternoon I had a real low moment, abdominal pain, crying, the whole melt down bit. It didn't last very long but it really affected my day. I just didn't get everything done as soon as I had wanted today. It was a feeling of being alone, sad, unwanted, and left out. I can't figure out what brought it on and it hasn't completley gone away yet. Basically all of the friends that I would phone to distract me or make me feel a bit better are away right now or they weren't home. It just shows to go how I can be fine for days, and then all of a sudden I get depressed.
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers~ M. Scott Peck ~
How true is that quote? Finding different ways and truer answers is such a big part of what I've been trying to do. Different ways so that I don't have to be feeling like shit all of the time and pretending that everything is great. So that I don't have to worry so much. So that I don't hurt myself (as much). So that I can live my own life and not base my life around mom or dad.
I looked at condos this weekend. I was terrified to do this but it wasn't so bad. I want to move out of Dad's house even though it is the hardest thing that I've ever done. It was pointed out to me that if I am his primary relationship that's not healthy for either one of us. I stopped by there yesturday for 10 minutes and he watched me like a hawk as I gathered a few things and followed me around the house telling me about irrevelant things. That really make no difference to me. But I guess he doesn't have anyone else to tell about his day. Which I feel sad about because when I move out what's going to happen to him?
When I move out I'm leaving dad, I'm leaving mom and I'm leaving my house. Even though of course I know that she left me long ago in that house so really I haven't been with her for over 21 years.
I'm challenging myself physically. I've started cardio core bootcamp, it's 5 nights a week for 1 hour every night. My goal is that I can go on a 3 day hiking trip by the end of August. This somethign that I've never done before and it's going to take a lot of work to be able to do this. Not to mention that I have to eat enough so that I can make it through the bootcamp. I felt like I ate so much yesturday, even though really it was about 1500 calories including the food I ate after bootcamp. And I know that that's not really enough but it's way closer than I usually I am. By the time I went to bed I just felt so fat because I had eaten so much.
When I first told a colleague about my eating disorder in January she told me that it is a demon inside of me that I need to fight. The Devil has tried to reach me again in a way to strengthen that demon.
I've gained 5 pounds in the past few weeks and I'm pissed off about it. I look so fat and yet I've been trying so hard to pretend infront of most of my friends that I'm doing way better with eating. And one of them admitted that I look better than I did in January. She said that she didn't want to say anything, she told me then that I looked like I lost weight and that I looked good. But the other day she told me she didn't know what to say at that time because she didn't want to tell me that I didn't look good. No wonder I'm so confused with the reactions and comments of people towards my weight. And I found out from her that I weighed less than she did up until a month ago, and now we weigh about the same. But I'm not sure how this can be because she is so much more skinnier than I am. She always has been, and there is no way I will ever be as skinny as she is.
I'm not sure where I went wrong in the last 2 or 3 weeks. Maybe I've had more junk food than I did before. Or did I binge too much without purging a couple of times. I know that beyond the way I eat, think about food, and see my body there are other things going on that are causing me to be so fuckin' critical about myself.
I saw a weight-loss reality show on TV where a woman who is 23 was trying to get into shape and lose weight because she wanted to look more like the models in magazines. I admit that I compare myself to the images in magazines but then again I compare myself to everyone! The weird thing about the woman on the TV show was that she didn't lose very much weight but was able to gain some muscle in 3 months and look like the pictures in the magazine. I totally don't understand this because she was much bigger than me.
I recently saw the Devil Wears Prada, a great movie, I saw it twice with different friends and highly recommend it to anyone. But beware the evil media images of super skinny models are at the core of this movie. Nigel (the art director for the magazine) states that size 4 became the new 2, and 2 became the Zero. Further more that 6 is the new 14. Later on in the movie a champaign toast is made to celebrate that Andrea has gone down from a 6 to a 4. Not to mention throughout the whole movie Emily is trying to lose more weight so that she can fit into more of the model clothes describing her diet as not eating anything except for a cube of cheese when she feels like she's going to faint. And when she is told that she looks thin in a dress, she says thank-you, I'm just one stomach flu away from my ideal weight. All I have to say is thanks for the encouragement! I guess the devil really is in this movie, it is making eating disorders a goal and a norm of young womyn professionals. It tapped into the demon which is within me and made it stronger. This movie is pro-annorexia, even though it has tried to make a bit of a farce on the fashion industry.
He can't stand the fact that I'm going to leave the house. If he had his way I would never leave, I would depend on him forever and I wouldn't be able to live anywhere but with him. He got mad at me again today when I mentioned going through my things and donating some of them. And once again he made me feel stupid for talking about leaving. All he ever does is disagree with me, doesn't listen, gets angry about everything inlcuding things that I have nothing to do with and he rubs in my face some of the activities that he's included in that I'm not part of any more by my choice. He has controlled my life for long enough. I've never actually been his wife but that's the role that I've filled in his life after she died...his housemate, companion, person he talks to, dependent on health insurance, etc. He's been my keeper for too long.
And yet...
I can't imagine my life without him being really involved with it. It freaks me out to think of living on my own, making decisions that he'll have no influence on, and that I won't have to "report in" with him anymore. What's going to happen to him if I'm not living with him? If anything bad happens to him it seems like it would be my fault because I'm not there. I've been told that's not true, I'm not sure if I believe that. I feel guilty about wanting to move out and at times I'm upset that I am other times I'm upset because of his reaction to it.
No wonder I'm freaked out about ever having a relationship with a guy when this is what I've faced my whole life with my Dad.
My body doesn't like me. I've gained a few pounds over the last week and it's obvious because my body doesn't actually like me that it would put on weight. I know that I've been eating way too much for me lately and it's just getting revenge on me. I've had stressful days thinking about everything with Dad and his reaction to my buying a place. I know that it lead to some overconsumption of food...not to mention the drinks from tonight when I was out at the pub. Mind you right now I feel completely guilty about all the junk I drank and ate tonight, probably at least 2000 calories and that was just when I was out, that doesn't include what I ate earlier today. So in reality I was over what the recomended number of calories is. That really was a stupid thing that I did. I guess Dad does know what he's talking about when he calls me stupid.
I felt so dumb tonight while I was out and we were all talking about shopping for clothes and sizes and stuff. It was just a bunch of girls and as they pointed out to me several times I'm tiny compared to them. Once they told me what sizes they were wearing and I thought about what size I was wearing I understood that I was smaller than them. But one of them I totally thought was thiner than me. As it turns out she's 3 dress sizes bigger than me. And the other day I thought one of the women I was around was about my size and then she started to talk about losing weight. I told her she didn't need to and I was being sincere. Then she told me what she weighs and I realized that she weighs more than 30 pounds more than me.
I don't fuckin' get it. Why can't I tell differences with out having quantitative proof? That makes me fell really stupid. If I can't tell the difference in size of people in comparison to me by looking at them, how will I be able to know if a condo looks good or not? And if I don't always know who I can trust and who I can depend on then how will I ever have solid relationships in which I know that they will always be there for me no matter what. My own parents haven't even proved to be trusted like that.
