I am not yet where I want to be

For those of you who are long time readers of this blog, you might have noticed I’ve not been doing my Friday “self esteem” stuff lately.  There’s a reason for that.

I don’t think what I have to say on self-esteem or my recovery process (which is what Friday’s had morphed into) is worth anybody reading about.

I’ve been having a tremendous amount of growth lately.  At least, that’s what my therapist tells me, and people around me.  I’ve been working hard, and am facing my demons (even the demons I never wanted to face and the demons that were so small I didn’t even know they were there).  I’m working my way through triggers with Tai Chi I didn’t think were ever going to be there.  Or maybe I’d told myself I’d already taken care of these issues.

So, yes, I’ve been kicking butt and taking names in my recovery.

The thing is, I can see where I want to be, and I’m not there yet.

I’ve come so far in my recovery.  In the span of a couple years, I’ve learned more about self-acceptance than I ever had my entire life.  Yes, therapy for 19 years (going on 20, oy) has laid the foundation, but even though I had the knowledge, I never had the beliefs to go with the knowledge.  In the past couple of years, the beliefs have started to happen. 

But, it’s not linear.  I want to go from Point A (I’m scum, everybody hates me — and rightly so, I might as well take myself off the planet and stop using up air that people who are worthy of it could be using) to Point Z  (I’m great, I have talent I use, I’m secure in my abilities and able to take correction when it’s warranted, and I can tell the difference between somebody who’s really giving correction versus somebody who’s just being critical) by going through Points B, C, D, E etc.

It doesn’t work that way.

So, all these new found beliefs, the ones where I can say “I’m an artist” without feeling like I’m lying (for example) are wonderful.  Unfortunately, they also are still in their infancy.  It’s still very hard to say, “I’m an artist” without hearing the voices in my head sneering at me that what I do isn’t art.  And even if it was art, it’s so bad nobody would want to buy it.  (The fact that few people are buying anything right now leads credence to the voices.)  It’s hard for that poor little, newborn belief that I’m an artist, and a good one at that, to hold it’s own against the long term entrenched feelings.

It’s like that in accepting my body.  In Tai Chi, there is a long wall of mirrors in the dojo.  It’s there so people can make sure their form is correct as they do the exercises.  I look in the mirror as I’m doing the exercises, and, as long as I can concentrate on what I’m doing, I’m okay.  The minute Sensei has me stop (to teach me the next part of the exercise or whatever), I see a fat lady staring back at me.

Yeah.  “Fat” isn’t a four lettered word and I really do believe that.  But mirrors have never been my friend, even as a child, when I was skinny and saw a “fat, ugly person” staring back at her.

I can see where I’ve been.  Ten years ago, I couldn’t have looked in the mirrors at all.  The fact I can look in mirrors is immense progress.  The fact I still see “fat woman” (as opposed to “woman, who happens to be fat”) shows me how far I’ve yet to go.

Physical healing is not linear.  I learned that after my knee surgery.  I’d have good days and bad days, with my knee progressively becoming better and stronger.  Yet even six months after the operation, I’d still have really bad days.  If I know healing isn’t linear, why do I think emotional healing is linear?

Maybe it’s because I think that, after almost 20 years in therapy, I should be done by now.  Yes, I know better.  I would tell any other person making these same statements, that they just are where they are, and that they have come so far.  That life is a process of learning and healing and dealing with things, and it’s never done until we’re dead.

Good words to tell others, huh?  I guess it’s much easier to give that advice than it is to take it for myself.

Julie and Julia

Ove the weekend, I went to see the movie Julie and Julia.  

The movie follows two women, Julia Child and Julie Powell, as they experience similar difficulties in life.  Julie Powell decides to blog about working her way through Julia Child’s french cookbook.  524 recipes in 365 days.  The movie then intertwines the stories of Julia Child (as told through her own memoirs) and Jule Powell.

One thing I really liked about the movie was the way they did a passing nod to the whole size issue, and then dropped it.  In the beginning of the movie, Julie goes to have lunch with “friends”.  It’s the “dreaded Cobb Salad luncheon”.  As Julie is sitting in the restaurant, ignored by friends who are too busy with their own lives and success to have time for her, she takes a bread stick and starts nibbling on it.  One of the friends, on the phone talking upper 6-figure business with her assistant, pulls the bread stick out of Julie’s hand and shakes her head. 

In another scene, Julie complains about putting on weight, and her husband looks at her like she’s crazy.

And that is all that is said about dieting or weight for the whole film.

Even when we see her friend Sarah, played by Mary Lynn Rajskub (who is definitely not Hollywood skinny in this film), there are no fat jokes.  The not-skinny friend doesn’t make any self-depreciating comments about her weight or anything.

Truly, for a movie that has food and peoples relationships around food (dinner parties, learning to cook, enjoying life) as a theme, it was surprisingly neutral in it’s portrayal of weight and weight issues.

The plot of the movie itself was awesome.   As a foodie, I loved watching about both Julia Child’s life and how she went into cooking, and the struggles of a modern woman trying to cook all of Julia Child’s recipes.  The scene where Julie cooks lobster is the best, in my opinion, of the whole movie.

I definately give this movie a thumbs up.  It’s engaging (at least to a foodie like me it was), and best of all, no mention of how butter or eggs or anything was bad for a person.

A diversion

This may be triggering.  Please don’t read if you could be triggered by discussions of rape or other abuse.

A Glitch in the Matrix

*Note:  There are a few responses from my previous post that haven’t made it out of moderation, because I want to address them individually.  Please bear with me.

 

I’ve been going to Tai Chi for three weeks now.  It’s been good for me.  My body feels stronger.  I feel more relaxed when I’m done with my lessons.   I’m developing better balance (even though I did stumble last Saturday morning).  My stamina is improving.   All of these are wonderful things, and all things I wanted to have happen.

The problem is how the act of exercising is triggering some of my old dysfunctional behavior.

I tried to talk about it to my husband last weekend.  I told him how I was having difficulty with this.  Not with the exercising, but in keeping the exercise balanced.  I am having trouble just doing my Tai Chi. 

For the last two weeks, my thoughts stray to more exercise.  After all, my body loves exercise.  It responds quickly (in added strength, et al) to even a minimum amount of exercise.  So if a little bit is good, then more is better, right?

Yes, I’m going back into old thought patterns.

When I was a child, besides feeding me a subsistence diet (because of how “fat” I was), my parents also insisted I do a lot of exercise.  Even when my stamina ran out, I had to do more exercise.  Even though I didn’t have the muscle ability (due to not having enough protein, fat, carbohydrates, or calories to support muscle growth), I still had to do exercise.  And when I didn’t do enough, or didn’t “improve” fast enough, I was ridiculed.

As a teenager and young adult, I did incredible amounts of exercise, though nobody ever believed me (because by that time I really was fat).  In high school I walked 2 miles round trip to school, did high impact aerobics during P.E. every day, and then did two hours of high impact aerobics at home every night.  During summer vacation, I’d get up at 5am so I could walk 4 miles a day (or more).

In the past couple of weeks, I keep catching myself making plans to wake up at 6am to take the dog for a two mile walk.  The plans continue with doing yoga once the dog is sleeping (after being wore out from the long walk), and then riding the exercise bike for a while (starting at 1/2 hour and working up to 1 or even 2 hours a day).  All the while keeping up with my Tai Chi.

Can you see how this isn’t right?

Conall was concerned because I might be pushing it too much on the exercise, but he didn’t see how the compulsion was building.  Somehow, I couldn’t put into words that it was a compulsion. 

It wasn’t until talking to my psychologist today that I figured it out.  Exercise was always something that was done as a punishment for me being “fat” and “ugly”.  As a child, my parents told me I was so fat they had to starve me, and I had to work out endlessly to work the fat off.  As a teenager I had completely bought into the “I’m too fat thought” and punished myself for being so “bad”.

As much as I have been working on accepting myself where I am, it seems there’s still some of that old programming in existence.

At this point, I don’t know what I’m going to do to counter this.  I love Tai Chi.  I love the strength and balance it’s giving me.  I don’t want to give it up.  But I also see the compulsion that’s starting back up.  I don’t want to go back there.   If I exercise, I want to exercise because I love it, not because I’m punishing myself.

I really thought I was over all this stuff.  Guess I get to work on another layer of that onion.

I know I’ve been out of the loop for a while…

A friend today told me about an article on Yahoo.com.  It’s a regular blog done by a person calling herself “Hungry Girl”.  Today’s installment was about how caloric certain fast food restaurants food really are, and why one should resist eating those things.

She reviews hamburgers and says things like:

You may as well have an actual steak if you’re going to consume this many calories!

 

You know that annoying ad campaign with the surgeon who thinks about bourbon all day long? Yeah, it’s funny, but the idea of a medical professional (actor or not) chowing down this monster burger makes us cringe a little.

Why would that make anybody cringe?  Sometimes, a doctor may just want a burger.

If the thought of adding coffee syrup to a Wendy’s Frosty is enough to send you into a full-on swoon, brace yourself. And if your dreams are speckled with chocolate-covered toffee bits, prepare to pinch yourself. As good as this all sounds, it comes with a hefty price tag. This shake has more calories than the Triple Stack burger, which has three beef patties and three pieces of cheese. Fantasy OVER. 

Does anybody REALLY think that an ice cream shake with added syrup and candy is going to be less than 100 calories?  (Or 200, in the case of the book she wrote and is hawking on her blog?)

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I went to a link for a different post she made, and read this (about making a sandwich out of low cal/low fat ingredients instead of full cal/full fat ingredients):

Now that meal will only cost you about 415 calories. MUCH BETTER!

In many places I’ve seen (and I’ve not really looked that deeply into her blog), I keep seeing the idea that eating “costs” a person.

Now, I know I’ve been off the diet cycle for a while, but I just have to wonder:  If you are invested so much in how much every bite of your food “costs” you, how do you even have the ability to enjoy what you are allowing yourself to eat?

Eating is not just about fuel.  If it was just about the fuel, we’d not have the taste buds like we do.  If food was just supposed to be about keeping us alive, why are there so many varieties, which all taste different, and of which we generally need a mixed amount of to keep our bodies healthy and running?

It just doesn’t make sense.

I mean, if it truly was just about fuel, we could plug ourselves in at night to recharge.  Or all of our “fuel” would grow in pellet form on pellet trees, and all of it would be uniform sizes, and each pellet would have all of the day’s requirement of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fat, carbohydrates, and calories.

You know, kind of like in that movie, Soylent Green.  Oh, right, I forgot, those daily crackers weren’t grown that way…

Busy week is not good for posting

It’s the week in between two trips, and it’s busy.  Last week was a nice hotel weekend, which only meant I had to get packed and out of the house.   This coming weekend is an SCA event, which means a LOT more planning and preparation.  I have to buy food so we can cook a couple of dinners at the event, but then also make stuff we can bring along that will be both quick to eat, and full of protein, carbs, and calories.  Oh yeah, and they have to be easily stored for three days in a cooler with ice.

Up til that last requirement, I could do just about anything.  But since I need to think about cooler with ice, it gets a bit harder.  So, things scheduled to be made this week (and are being made) are things like cinnamon rolls for breakfast and quick snacks.  Hard boiled eggs I can put, shelled, into a bag in the cooler when we need a protein pick-me-up.  I’m making hummus (a chick pea and tahini spread or dipping sauce) to go with veggies and flat bread.  Oh yeah, and I need to make a trail mix that all my friends affectionately call “crack”.  Because, it’s just so good when you need something fast, portable, and that has a good mix of carbs, protein, and fat.

In between all the getting ready for the event craziness that happens, there’s also the new Tai Chi class, as well as the usual every day stuff that needs to get done.  It would also be a good thing for me to make a veil too, if I can find the time before the weekend.  (I burnt my head, in the male pattern balding area this past weekend at the Renaissance Festival, and I really don’t want a sunburn on a sunburn.)

Tai Chi is going well, even for as few classes as I’ve had.  It’s helping my balence and my stability, especially on my left leg (the one that had the operation).  The only issue I had at all was today, when we were trying to find a Gi (Gee?) that fit me.  The sizes are not “normal” sizes, and so they started me out trying on a size 6.  It didn’t fit around the waist, not even coming close to closing, much less having the double breasted look it’s supposed to have.  So we tried the size 7.  Again, no dice.  Finally, we tried the size 8, the largest size they had.  It at least closes in the front, although the pants don’t fit me.

As I was trying the clothes on, the Sensei said something about how I shouldn’t become discouraged, as after a little bit of time, I’ll lose weight and the Gi will fit much better.  I looked at him and told him I doubted it, but that was okay, I have sewing skills and can get a pattern and make myself a Gi if I need to.  He insisted that regular exercise would help me tone up and lose weight.

I didn’t want to get into it.  I just didn’t want to deal with discussing my history of exercise and how it never helped me lose any significant amount.  The discussion was starting to eat into my private class time, and I’m there to do Tai Chi, NOT to argue fat acceptance or how my body works.  So I finally told him that I was there for the mobility, flexibility, and strength benefits, not the possibility of weight loss.  If I lost weight by exercising the three days in class, kewl.  But if I didn’t, it was no skin off my nose, as I wanted the mobility, strength, and flexibility benefits of the exercise.

He started to say something else, then changed his mind.  He let the issue of weight drop, and respected the goals I set for myself.  I’m really glad he didn’t push it, as I would have had to ask for my money back then, and would have found a different dojo to learn Tai Chi.

I don’t know if there’ll be another post this week or not.  If not, I’ll see you all next week, and maybe have some pictures of what I do when I pretend to be from another century.  Or, knowing how I forget to take pictures, maybe not!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Okay, not on a jet plane, but Conall and I will be gone for a few days this weekend and next.

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to take time for ourselves, and there’s been a lot of drama around here lately.  So these two mini-vacations are definitely needed and welcomed.

I might post tomorrow’s Saturday fluff, as I am taking the laptop this weekend.  It depends on where we end up and if the hotel has internet capabilities.  Next weekend, however, there won’t be any posts, as we will be all the way in the middle of the mountains, in a gorgeous campground, pretending to be lords and ladies in the middle ages.

Or pirates.  Whichever.

(Although since we regularly play lords and ladies, playing pirates will be way cooler!)

Tai Chi, Day Three

I’ve started taking a Tai Chi class, offered at a local Karate Dojo in town.  This Dojo offers two group classes and one individual class per week as part of it’s package.

I wasn’t so sure I was going to like it, when my friend (who’s going for the Kenpo lessons) invited me to go.  I’ve tried Tai Chi videos in the past (in the 1990’s when there still was videos), and just didn’t like how slow it was.  I have been looking for a way to introduce a bit more formal exercise in my life again, so thought I’d try it.

I love it.

Maybe because there’s other people, it doesn’t seem as slow as I remember it from way back in the 90’s.  Or maybe, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowed down a bit, so it seems about the correct tempo.  I don’t know.

What I know is that this is something that’s both fun and challenging for me.  My muscles let me know I’ve been working out after the hour long group sessions.  You wouldn’t think standing in “horse stance” for forty five minutes would be so hard.  Errr, yeah.  Just shows how out of shape I have allowed myself to become.

The other thing I noticed is that this exercise is having another, unforeseen benefit:  it’s grounding me more into my body.

With having to remember so many things at once — standing in horse stance, walking in half moon, then the arm movements, oh, and don’t forget the deep breathing — I’m having to be very aware of my body.  It’s a new and unusual experience for me.

I’ve spent a good part of my life trying not to feel my body.  I dissociated a lot, for many different reasons.  This is part of the reason I still don’t know when I’m hungry (or conversely, when I’m full).  I just am not that in tune with my own body.

Yesterday, during the private lesson, the instructor and I were working on my deep breathing, opening up the diaphragm.  The progression of sensations astonished me.  First, I never realized how shallow I normally breath.  Then, as I was breathing into the diaphragm, the muscles around it became sore.  I was able to use that as a metric for a little bit on if I was breathing deeply or not.  Until I just dissociated from my body again.

This is both frustrating and thrilling at the same time.  I had a part of the lesson where I could use my body to tell me if I was doing something correctly or not.  I had a part of the lesson I was able to actually feel the feedback my body was giving me.  This is definitely progress for me.

Being able to inhabit my body more fully and dissociate less is a good thing.  Even if I wasn’t getting any other benefits from Tai Chi, this would make it worth it.  Of course, the benefits from the exersizes, such as increased strength and balence, are nice too.

“I Envy You”

Thursday night is fighter practice and social night for my local SCA group.  I don’t fight, but I do socialize while Conall practices his fencing.  When we are at our winter site (indoors) I bring my lace or jewelry making supplies and do that.  When we are at our summer site (outdoors) I bring the puppy, which precludes bring lace or anything else to work on.

Thursday night has also started to be called “pie night” by Conall and me, and a few friends who know us.  After fighting for two hours Conall is usually ready for a snack so we go to a restaurant that sells desserts (among other things).  We don’t always get pie.  Sometimes we get soup.  Sometimes he gets a full dinner and I just sip my diet soda.  Sometimes, we get pie.  But we’ve made the habit of calling it pie night.

Last week, I was talking to a friend, and Conall was finally done with fighting.  He was hungry, and ready to go.  My friend said, “Oh, that’s right, it’s pie night, isn’t it?”  I replied it was, and then she said, “I envy you.”

My first thought was to invite her to come with us to the restaurant.  “I’d go, but I’m watching what I eat.  I want to lose a few pounds.  My pants have gotten too tight this week.”

I didn’t say anything then.  In fact, I didn’t know what to say.  She envies me because of the perception that I can go out and get pie every week, and not care about my pants becoming too tight.

There are so many things I’d wanted to say, but were inappropriate to the venue.  Also, I don’t even know where to start.  I started this whole journey to accepting myself because no matter what I did, I couldn’t lose weight.  I got tired of starving myself and exercising incredible amounts, and still being the object of scorn and ridicule.  I eventually started to accept myself at whatever size I am without being condemning of myself (much — hey, it still happens occasionally) because what’s the sense of hating myself?  If I’m going to be this size no matter what I do, no matter how much or little I eat, then why hate on myself and hide myself?

But to find out that somebody envies me because I can eat what I want, when I want?  That’s something I really have to adjust to.  And something I wish I could help my friend understand.

I Love My Doctor

Yesterday, I had to go to visit my doctor, and while the reason wasn’t a good reason, and the outcome is not as positive as I could wish, I have to say the experience was very good.

I’ve written in the past about my problems with doctors, how they look at me and attribute everything that is wrong with me to me being fat.  And how that’s made me reluctant to go to the doctor at all.

There are four doctors in this practice, and I’ve seen every single one of them since October of last year.  All the doctors are professional, competent, and best of all, compassionate.

The first thing the doctor said to me yesterday, trying to put me at ease (because the problem really is worrisome), was “You’ve not been back to see me in a while.  Don’t you like me anymore?”  She said it with a smile, and it was obvious she was teasing.   We talked a bit about my problem, and then she asked me when my last mammogram was.

I know I gave her the deer in the headlights look.  I admitted I never had one, and she took my chart (which she had in her hand) and proceeded to pretend to hit me over the head with it.  (No, she never touched me, and it was absolutely done in a teasing manner, and while maybe unprofessional, it was okay.)  I told her “hey!  Hitting the patient isn’t allowed!”

So, we discussed why I’ve not had a mammogram and my reluctance to even go to doctors.  I was totally honest with her, and told her that now that I’ve found a practice that doesn’t make everything about my weight, I’m finding I’m more willing to do what the doctors say about preventative practices (like the mammograms). 

She asked me what my experience had been, and I told her the truth.  I told her about how, in the past, when I’d go to doctors concerned about my amenorrhea, and stating I wanted to do what I could to become pregnant, how many doctors would just put me on the birth control pill to get me a bleeding every month.  About other doctors who, upon hearing that I couldn’t become pregnant no matter what, told me to lose weight, and when I didn’t, said I obviously didn’t want to have children.  I told her about how most times, everything I said about what I ate, how much exercise I did was was taken by the doctors to be a lie. 

As I talked to her, I watched her face.  There was anger in her eyes.  Genuine anger FOR me.  She asked when I was diagnosed with PCOS, and I told her 1998.  She asked when the amenorrhea started.  When I was 15 (1982).  She asked did nobody ever try and find out why there was amenorrhea when I young, married, and wanting children?  I told her no, they just all blamed my weight and said I wasn’t trying hard enough to lose weight.

She really was angry on my behalf on how I’d been treated all these years.  Especially when she found out that the first time I was told my weight was what caused my amenorrhea I only weighed 160lbs.  She confirmed something I’ve known for a long time:  being 40lbs over “ideal” weight wasn’t a cause of my amenorrhea, and the doctor (and subsequent doctors) should have looked harder for the real cause.

It was refreshing to hear a doctor say that. 

We then continued talking about why I went to see her yesterday, and we’ve discussed the next steps.  In that discussion, she talked “mean” to me (and even said, “I’m going to be mean now, if I scare you, good!  I want to scare you!”) but I could tell it came from her caring, from her compassion.  She’s one of the doctors who feels she is in a battle with death and disease.  She knows, eventually, death will win, but she absolutely hates it when death wins and it didn’t have to. 

I have doctors now who I can talk to, who listen to me and believe me when I tell them things.  Who value my input as the person who lives in the body.  Who see our relationship as a partnership:  they have the medical knowledge to figure out what my symptoms mean, I have the intimate relationship with my body to know that this or that thing is wrong for me.  And who know that keeping death or disease at bay for as long as possible takes both of us doing our jobs.

These people are definitely keepers. 

And I can absolutely say that I will be much more likely to listen to them, and follow any advice they give me.  After all, I know they are working with me to try and help me be as healthy as I can. 

I am so lucky I found this practice.  It only took my whole adult life to find them.