I feel sorry for a lot of people. Women trying to loose weight in paticular. I don't feel sorry for them in that patronizing, pity sort of "Oh you poor, poor thing" way, but like, "Man, I know exactly how you feel and I'm so sorry that you have to go through that pain."
I feel sorry for them. And myself a lot of times.
I was reading a journal that I hadn't read in a long time. It was a woman who, like myself, is (possibly was, she hasn't updated in a few months) trying to loose weight. At first when I started reading through some of the entries that I had missed in the last few months, I started to feel badly that I hadn't paid more attention to her and to her thoughts and feelings that she was going through. I looked at the dates and realized that it simply was too late to show her that hey, I was out here at a time that she needed someone and reached out. That made me feel like crap.
Then I really started looking at everything she was saying. She was sooo hard on herself. Her expectations were super unrealistic, but not in that sort of "trendy" anorexic way. (Please do not email me about anorexia or other eating disorders. I know that not all people suffereing are doing it to be trendy.) This woman was really in despair because she hated herself.
She hated herself for being human, for simply having the need to eat just as we have the need to breathe. She hated that she had no will power and compared herself to everyone around her and always coming up so short and feeling so small. I almost want to cry right now because I was just like her. In my heart, sometimes I wonder if I'm not still her.
She had familiar behaviors that I find common among women. She tried everything to loose weight. Severe food restriction which always lead to hunger filled binges. She tried completely shutting herself off to people regarding her weight loss journey. In order to avoid what she felt was the sabotage of other's judgements, she chose to hide her goals to be thinner. I know that feeling myself. Hide yourself, your goals, your wants, your hopes so that no one in the world will know you failed. No one can judge you, no one can give you that look of dissapointment. All you have to contend with is the self dissapointment, the self-hating dialogue that goes through your head all day long, the fact that you are unable to look at yourself in the mirror because you just can't stand who you are anymore. You failed your diet, to loose weight and to be anybody else but you. Oh yeah, that's much better than any other judgements people around us might have if they knew we were trying to loose weight, right? Riiiighhht.
She tried shaming herself into loosing weight. Even watching things on TV that made her realize how she might look to other people and what she might look like if she gets bigger. That in turn made her hate herself even more when she had that need to eat later that day. That need to eat again, just ruining everything for her. Then came the insults, condensending lectures, name calling, despair, and blackness. Not from anyone around her but herself. I know all to well every twist and turn of that path. It's definitly not the road less travelled...for a long time in my case, and I'm pretty sure hers too.
Women try to motivate themselves out of shame. They try and punish themselves into loosing weight. How many have found the most horrid picture of yourself and used it as motivation to not eat (or at least pig out) so that you wouldn't ever be that "hideous" again? *raises her hand*
How many women out there feel the need to punish themselves for ever letting thier bodies get into such a state of completely and utter ugliness? *raises her hand*
How many women are sooo sure that they have had a gain, that they continue to almost nibble on everything in the house consistantly so that when they do step on the scale it only reaffirms what they just *knew* was already true in the first place. That in a way they sabotage thier own selves just to be right? *raises her hand*
I have gone down that road myself and it doesn't work. If you shame yourself, berate yourself and hate yourself for being the way that you are, when you do have a very small lapse or hurdle, your world will come crashing down on you. It can't stand up to that type of failure because you have torn yourself down so much that the foundation of your soul is gone. The essence of who you are, what makes you strong and worthy and important has been ravaged by the internal dialogue of self-mutilation.
I know that seems kind of strong to say. We think self mutilation are people that cut themselves and can't stop but words cut and we all know they do. They cut deep into who we are and they sting. They will tear you down inside and when you walk down the journey of weight loss you have nothing but cracked pieces of a person that you are trying to build self esteem on. It's no wonder why I felt like I was doing nothing but crumpling under the weight of my attempts to loose weight.
There is no room for hatred of myself in this body anymore. I can't expect myself to be strong if I rip myself apart by hating who I am. I can't expect to grow if I don't have a good place in my heart to plant all the things that I want to flourish inside of me. As corny and metaphoric as it sounds it is true. If you want to succeed at loosing weight you have to love yourself enough to allow yourself to stumble sometimes. You have to love yourself enough to pick yourself up and learn from mistakes. You have to love yourself enough to try as many times as you have to to make it. Try, try, try and try again.
You have to be a friend to yourself. Sunshine gave me this piece of advice and I try and pass it on whenever I can, and as much as I can because I have found it to be so true. You have to be your own best friend. Not because you're so lonely and don't have any outside friends, not because you need to make friends with yourself so that the ones that you have don't dissapoint you, and not so that you can exclude everyone else from your life and just be friends with yourself to ward off complications that relationships can bring. This isn't about anyone else. This is about taking care of the inner person and showing them compassion, understanding, respect and encouragement at a time that they really need it the most. Guess what? You have to love yourself enough to be that friend too.
Maybe that is the hardest part of loosing weight. It is not about the food. It isn't. Let me say that again. It.is.not.about.the.food. It is about the person inside who deserves to be loved, to have a friend that speaks softly and with compassion, and who deserves someone that will take care of them physically and emotionally.
I'm going to be that person for myself. I'm going to try and give myself nutrient rich foods because this body deserves more than junk to keep it running smoothly. I'm going to try and be a friend whenever I stumble, because the last thing I need and want is a critical voice. I'm going to love myself enough to know that I'm worth getting something fantastic like achieving my goals. I'm not going to tear my soul down because it is a betrayal of who I am and who I am to those around me.
I'm going to take care of myself because my son deserves that from his mother. He deserves a mother who, by example, will show him that believing in himself is the first step to conquering and achieving anything he wants in life. He deserves a mother who cares about herself enough to not kill her spirit with words and her body with food.
My husband deserves a wife who will share his life with him for as long as he can possibly have with her. He doesn't deserve to watch me wither away in a sea of despair, fat, food and excuses. I made a vow to be committed to him and our marriage in sickness and in health. I don't want that to mean that he has to watch me deteriorate in weight related sicknesses and then take care of me bearing the burden of my unhealthy choices. That part of the vow is not what I want him to have to live up to, you know? I want us to share our lives in health.
I don't want to feel like a cow when I learn that someone else is on such a restrictive diet that my "healthful" lifestyle seems so insignificant. I felt that way this week when I saw my friend. She had always been thin but in the time that I have seen her she's dropped to 100 pounds and is so tiny and petite. After loosing 60 pounds I still felt like a whale next to her. I won't allow myself to feel that way again. It is me that allows those thoughts and feelings to enter my being Only I can stop it from affecting me.
This entry/rant/manifesto/affirmation/whatever you want to call it/ is so long and I never intended it to be but right now I just want to weep for myself, for the girl who's journal I didn't keep up with and for all the other women and men who have ever emotionally sunk into themselves, finding that the foundation of thier spirit and soul was ravaged and torn and couldn't ever be able to hold them when they needed it most.
I want to weep for having endured that pain and I want to weep for knowing that I don't have to endure it any longer. I have shed another layer off my body from the inside out. Slowly but surely I can repair the damage that has been inflicted to this being by the woman in me who didn't know how to love myself. I didn't truly know how worthy of it I was.
5:48 a.m. - 01-21-03
Recent entries:
New Playground - 03-14-09
- - 02-25-05
Parting is such sweet sorrow....but not just yet. - 02-23-05
I'm still here.... - 02-18-05
A loss to much to bear - 02-09-05
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