Go deep.

I was not a pretty child.

My sister was lovely with her dark, shining hair and blue eyes and creamy complexion.  My hair was mousy and permanently frizzed up on the back of my head.  I wore glasses,   and had freckles and a crooked, too-big nose. Even my grandmother referred to my sister as “the pretty one” and me as “the smart one” (My poor sister, getting that message, the one that says she’s as dumb as a bag of hammers).

In addition to being a homely child, I was also the target of my father’s rage.  Something about me inspired him to new heights of cruelty.  I knew I wasn’t pretty on the outside, and his actions made me suspect I was ugly on the inside, too. 

As I grew up, in high school, college, and early adulthood, I craved approval.  I wanted to be cherished, to feel loved and valued in a way I’d never known, and so I compromised myself to feel wanted. 

And then I married.  And I didn’t act out in ways to get male attention anymore, because my husband paid attention.  But then he took a job and moved away, and that’s when I spiraled into really serious obsessive behaviors.  And as I got skinnier and skinnier, I got attention, so much attention.  At first, it felt like love.

But you know, that attention wasn’t about me.  The attention was again about how I was meeting the expectations of everyone else, how I was changing myself to meet their needs, to be pleasing to their eyes.  I had to betray myself to be acceptable.  To be loved.

Today was a hard day and I found myself more than once looking at my body with disapproval.  But changing my body will not make me different or more valuable or more loved.  And it’s a betrayal of my spirit to talk about my body instead of talking about what’s really bothering me, about loneliness, and fear, and sadness, and emptiness.

What’s that saying, that you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge?

I think it’s time to get really honest.

Two minus one equals one.

I just dropped my husband at the airport an hour ago.  He won’t be home again for three weeks.

I hate this.

We had a lovely weekend, and I still revel in the pleasure of going out to eat with him and not having to discuss what I “can have.”  We just go, we eat, we enjoy, we don’t have to let my disordered eating be a third wheel on our dates.  Love that.  Also love that I didn’t feel like I had to come straight home and get on the treadmill to pay for my weekend food sins.  Instead, I went to the grocery store, came home, packed my lunch for tomorrow, ate some leftover pizza, and am now having a lovely rum-based cocktail and distracting myself with the internet. No punishment, but just a touch of self-pity.

The week after he leaves is always hard for me, and will probably be doubly difficult this week because it’s my lady-time, which makes me six different kinds of crazy.  But hey, at least it’s just a four day work-week for me, and he’ll be home again the three weeks, and I still have quite a lot of my cocktail left. 

I’ll be okay.

Body Language.

I am an anxious person.  I’m prone to fits of panic, waves of anxiety that roll over me and pull me under.  I was medicated for a while and that allowed me time to learn new ways of talking to myself that didn’t involve cruel words and threats of harm.  But eventually, I stopped the meds because I felt too flattened by them and wanted just to see how I could cope now that I recognized normal.  And I mostly cope fine.

But when the panic and anxiety comes, it’s almost unbearable.  Tomorrow I have an appointment I’m incredibly nervous about.  I was trying to find something appropriate to wear and spent 2 hours tonight shopping and did not buy a single item of clothing.  Because…wait for it…I’m too fat.

GOD. 

It’s like such a stupid default setting in my head.  I’m freaking out about this appointment, I’m feeling nervous and unprepared and twitchy, but I don’t talk to myself about any of that.  I don’t address the feelings.  I instead focus on the fact that my thighs make pants fit weird.  I call myself fat, I kick myself for the handful of candy I ate today, I despise myself for letting myself go.  

I talk to myself in body language because it lets me avoid the real issue.

The real issue?  I don’t want to go to this appointment tomorrow.  I regret agreeing to, I realize now that it is not a direction I want things to go, I am annoyed with myself for being rash.  I wanted to come home tonight and have someone here to talk things through with me, but my husband doesn’t live here.  And that pisses me off on a whole other level. 

He’s not here to support me, to make me dinner and give me a foot rub and reassure me.  He’s not here to give me a hug.  And I’m so angry about that.  I feel so abandoned by him.

The week after he comes home for a visit is always like this.  But this time it’s magnified by the anxiety that overwhelming me.  Tonight I essentially hung up on him when he called.  Because I have nothing to say that isn’t angry.  Because I’m so sad and scared and panicked.

So, I call myself fat.  Because that’ll fix things, right? 

 I just want to stop hurting myself because I hurt.  I just want things to be easier. 

Weekend.

My husband is coming home this weekend.  In fact, he’s driving right now and is about 4 hours away. 

This will be the first weekend he’s been home (we saw each other the first weekend in May, but we weren’t here at home) since I’ve stopped dieting.

Oh, my poor husband.  He’s been very kind and patient with my years of dieting and he’s always tried to gently nudge me away from the least healthy of my behaviors.  He’s one of those hummingbird-metabolism people and doesn’t really understand what it’s like living in a body that doesn’t burn everything up, but he’s tried to understand and I appreciate that.

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with him without having the food and exercise anxiety I used to have.  I don’t have to worry about squeezing my workouts in around his visit, no getting up at 5:45 so I can work out before he’s even awake.  No worrying about what I can and can’t eat.  There can be spontaneity.  We can go out for pancakes, or make a big pasta dinner together, or share dessert.  We won’t have to talk about what I “can” have.

It should be fun.  Now if I can just stay awake the four hours until he gets home…