Earning my doctorate degree in acting. Hanging on and playing my role until I can get myself in the position I need to feel comfortable with my exit strategy. I’m sure I’m suspected. I’m sure all of the current road blocks we’re strategically planted. I’m sure it’s all a ruse just to delay my intentions, to make it harder, to make me second guess myself, to keep me roped in. News flash. Nothing will work. It might stall, it may derail temporarily, but when my mind is made up, nothing will shake me from my course. It may take me longer to get there. And that is why it sometimes takes me longer to make my mind up with larger life decisions, because once I do decide, I don’t turn back. I see it all, plain as day. There is no pulling the wool over my eyes any longer. Even if I occasionally falsely accuse, I live no longer in naivete. I call your shots before you make them. I predict your moves before you make them. You read like a faithful old book that I’ve read a thousand times. One day I will step in to my new life. I’m on the path. My eyes see through the veil to the other side. I can see all obstacles in my way, but I can still see the other side. Because my eyes are real.
He might have saved himself by the bell that rang 3 hours earlier than my proclaimed deadline. Thus, my last post was written a bit prematurely. But it gives me more time to plan and get my proverbial sh!t together which will only put me in a better place anyway in the long run. The only way I want to leave on the emergency plan is if I’m backed in to a corner. Because I will leave on my terms, with my dignity in tact. I am finally standing up for myself, and as shallow as it might sound, I will not let him believe that he is leaving me under any circumstances. I need to do this for my own assertiveness building tool kit. I need him to know that I’m the one calling the shots and that I have the upper hand for the first time in this relationship.
It’s amazing to me that now that I have turned the tables and am basically pulling a him on him, that he doesn’t even know how to handle it. He seems pretty certain that I’m cheating on him. He thinks it’s ok for him to stay out all hours of the night and for the first time I’m not questioning him or wondering or worried about where he is. And now when I stay out with no checking in and things don’t seem to add up in his mind, I get the third degree when I come home. It’s hilarious to me that all the years he gave me reasons to be suspicious and I would act paranoid, he’d act as though not trusting him was an act of crazy making on my part. And here we are on the flip side and who is crazy making now? Him. When I have been 100% innocent in all that I do. Sure, some of the things that I am doing right now do seem out of the ordinary for me because I flipped a switch and some of them might sound a bit off, like the fact that a music groupI started subbing for is called “Hotel Paradise Orchestra”. But I swear, I couldn’t make this crap up if I tried. But this all gives him rise to be on alert that I am cheating and to be amping up the mindgames. And just because I am playing along, doesn’t mean my resolve has weakened.
I might be worried about the process of how everything will shake out, but I have never felt stronger and never been more excited or felt more ready to feel free. I can’t wait to get to the other side. They always say that you will keep repeating the same pattern until you learn your lesson and until you finally break the pathology. And this pathology that I have lived for 40 years will finally be broken for good. I can say with complete authority that I will never end up in a situation like this ever again. I can see this a mile away now. I am on to these people. I am strong enough now to stand up for myself. I won’t let anyone bring me down ever again.
I might always be an empath, but I have this neat little switch inside of me. And when I see with complete clarity someone or some situation for what it truly is in its full gory, painful details, I’m completely done and just don’t feel the good stuff anymore. And I don’t feel the hurt anymore. Annoyed, irritated, stung, empty maybe, but no more tears, no more knots in the pit of my stomach, no more love, no more longing, no more desire.
I look younger and thinner and more beautiful than I have in years. He thinks I strut around the house looking good and knowing I look good for the first time, probably in our whole relationship, because he always made me feel bad about myself and made me feel not good enough. For the first time, I found the confidence from inside myself and haven’t looked to anyone else for the validation. Probably all the more reason for him to think I’m cheating as well. Oh well, guess he should have appreciated what he had while he had it. Guess he should have made me feel loved and made me feel beautiful. Guess he should have made me feel like I was more important than all the other stuff he puts above me in his life. But he couldn’t, can’t and won’t. Because he’s a sociopath. And that will never change. It can never change. And that has nothing to do with me. I am worthy of so much more.
You’ll be finding this out in the near future. The plans have been made and the facilitation is being finalized. I am reclaiming my life. I have learned to love myself. Even when those who were supposed to didn’t. I am worthy. I am good enough. I deserve better…
No. Wrong. Maybe that is the amount that understand you from your warped point of view. I probably used to be included in that number. That was when I played IN to your game rather than PLAYING your game. Now, I am actually THE only person who truly understands you. But you’ll never see that. Because I see you better than you see yourself. You’re so deep in to lying to the world that you also lie to yourself. I do have a natural gift for seeing through people’s layers of bullshit and seeing through to the core of what they’re trying to hide. It’s as if I have x-ray psyche vision.
I’ve said it for so many years now. The hypochrisy has been reaching the levels of what I grew up around. You KNEW how much I hated that. And you condemn him for that character traits too and still. And yet. And yet. Here you are doing it too. How do you not see this? How do you not see that the same things you yell at and about your daughters for, you do. How can I sit here and try to create good habits in them when you are setting a bad example ALL over the place?
For all your bravado, and all your talk of defending my honor, I sit here and can only come up with one time that you did so where it was not motivated by some other self serving motive. And that was the time you called and reemed out the clarinet repair man who had my clarinets for over a month and I was at his house trying to catch them at home to pick my clarinets up and they weren’t home. And even then, there still could have been the outside motivation of being worried that you might have to buy me a new set of clarinets. The time you told my mom off to tell my dad off the night of my bridal shower it was because of the things he had also said about you and because at that point you may have thought you had nothing to lose because I had been told I was being cut out of their will if I married you. It hurts like hell that you still haven’t gone next door and had the conversation you swore you would have in defense of me. Even having an AR 15 rifle pointed at me (granted it was by a cop), as I innocently walked my students out one morning thanks to the next door neighbors isn’t enough to motivate you to action over words.
All of the questions, all of the oddities that weren’t adding up, all of the confusion, all of the anger, all of the emptiness….it is all starting to synchronize. I can’t believe I missed it all this time.
To be loved unconditionally. To have someone defend me. To be wanted. Apparently these are all too tall of an order for pretty much all of the biggest key players in my life. When I finally have all of those things in place within myself, look out world, because I will be a completely indestructible force that no one can wreckon with.
There are many qualities about my personality that I consider to be highly unique and rare. Qualities that I don’t come across in many people, and if I do come across any of them, certainly not all of these qualities wrapped up in to one person. And while I’m incredibly proud of who I am due to these qualities, it also causes me to feel very lonely in this world, and makes relating to others much more complex.
-I am extremely empathetic. I feel so deeply for living things that I went flexaterian (part time vegeterian-eat meat when I’m out at restaurants, other people’s houses etc..) because I feel guilty eating animals. I am empathetic with people I am close to and my mood is easily shifted by others because I pick up on their energy waves and synch to them.
-I have a sort of psychic energy intuition gift where I can sense the truth about people. I can tell whether someone’s a good or bad person within minutes of meeting them. I can tell when there something wrong with people I know, even those I’m not that close with. I can tell by looking at them, hearing them speak, sometimes just by their demeanor. I can read people’s psychology and what they are up to many times. I often know more about a person’s intentions and real character than they know about themselves. This is all a gift and a curse.
-I admit when I am wrong. All the time.e, every time. If I am confronted by someone who says that I upset them, did something wrong, calls me out on hypocritical behavior, heard me say something about them behind their back that I was not able to say to their face etc…I never attempt to deny what I have done, and I apologize for my behavior. I do often try to explain why I did what I did, and often people try to tell me that I am passing blame by doing this. But they are misconstruing what I am saying. Perhaps it is because too many people in this world DO pass blame that it is a common defense mechanism to use that as a default setting. When I try to explain my mistake, I still have apologized and taken complete ownership of what I have done. And anyone who knows me knows that I am CONSTANTLY working on myself and that as any true apology should be, I follow my apology with changing my actions in the future. My explanation that follows my mistake is to try to give that person a little insight in to my headspace. But somehow that ends up getting turned around in to me placing blame. Because if their actions are mentioned anywhere in my explanation…God forbid they take ANY responsibility for their own actions too. Which tells me that their main goal in confronting me is to place blame on me rather than to heal a relationship, which should always be a cooperative and two way street. If and when the shoe is on the other foot, I accept what is said to me and I adjust my actions accordingly. Which is why my head resides in a constant state of guilt, more than most people in this world.
-I am a peace keeper and a people pleaser. I don’t like conflict. I fear conflict. I’m sure this is a result of the conplex-PTSD of my birth story and childhood and my abandonment issues and constant desire to feel loved and wanted. While everyone else has no problem with a random lurch whenever they are even the slightest bit irritated, I withhold almost all of my pain inside. Meanwhile, also being continuously affected by everyone else’s issues that they take up with me. And many people read me like a book and see that they can take less responsibility than a person should for their own life, because I will end up heaping it all upon myself and they can continue to unload on me as if everything were my fault. When in all actuality they should be equally, if not more, responsible for half the situations they place upon my shoulders.
Once upon a time I used to have a voice that I used more frequently. While I’ve always been scared of conflict, I didn’t seem quite as afraid to speak up as I am now. Years and years of attracting all the wrong people into my life has torn down my self esteem and caused me to constantly question myself and how I perceive the world. It is hard to trust myself when it has seemed like the majority disagree with me or believe my way of thinking is skewed.
I am starting to gain more confidence in my perspective through the lens of other people as of late. This is helping me see that I am not as crazy as others have caused me to feel for the majority of my life. I may have over-emotional responses sometimes, but somehow it seems that there is a very distinct dichotomy within me. Even if I have a knee-jerk emotional reaction, I am able to still see the raw information from an intellectual level and process it as such. I have been allowing my heart (emotions) to rule the roost as a monopoly. I need to let my head (intellect) start seeping in a little more.
I can see through people and all the games they play. They may think they have me in a trance, under their spell, but make no mistake. I am only operating out of a mixture of love and fear, but ignorance is never bliss in my world. I could be a private investigator if I wanted to. I am a truth seeker. People in my world are only getting away with things because I have been too scared to take the risk of changing the roles or changing the paradigm and my life’s course. I do care about the people in my life and constantly feel empathetic towards their struggles as well. But at some point I am going to love myself enough to put myself first. And many of the people in my life probably won’t like that version of me because they have gotten very used to getting their way.
This has been one of my favorite songs since it came out. I feel it is a wonderful representation of who my soul is and how it is represented by my personality.
Monday, August 13, 2018: My adoptive dad’s 75th birthday. The one with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
I dial the phone for my obligatory birthday phone call. He will be up to visit next weekend so we can celebrate in person. It’s his 75th, so it’s normal that he would want to celebrate a special birthday with his only daughter. But it always amuses my friends that this is not an out of the ordinary affair. Every single birthday of my parents they fly up to celebrate with me. But, I digress…
The phone call goes pretty smoothly for the first 3/4 of it. Things have been fairly normal between us for the last month and a half. But I’m always on eggshells, knowing it’s only a matter of time before he pulls some sort of head game tactic on me. And that day he decided to give himself a birthday present and pull the trigger again to the war he declared inside my head when I was 3 that I have been fighting ever since.
Nearing the end of the conversation he begins to tell me of his visit with his niece from the end of July. A niece that I reconnected him with due to people from his family finding me via Facebook in search of information for a family history geneology project. He had lost touch with her for quite some time and when I reconnected them, they began to visit with each other in person. She and I remain friends on Facebook.
He told me that she spoke so highly of me and sung my praises and gave me compliments. As he began to recite one of the compliments she gave me, within the same breath he also passed along the fact that he apparently disagrees with her complimenting me. He said, “She said that you were so smart….but whatever…ok (in a gutteral, disapproving tone)”.
It really is a double entendre to me. He says it as if he doesn’t agree that I’m smart. When in all reality he does think that I’m smart. This is him trying to make me feel that I am not because my intellect scares him. I scare him. I intimidate him. I am his worst enemy. Because I am only one of two people in this world who has ever dared to stand up to him and has not been cut out of his life. The other one has backed off because her mother has asked her to. But I don’t. I play his game back to him and I see him for everything that he is, and no one else does. Everyone else falls pretty to his charismatic spell. And he doesn’t know how to handle me because I am the only one he can’t control. I am the only one he can’t keep under his thumb. And he doesn’t know what to do with that. I am a good actress and even though he has affected me deeply and destroyed my self esteem through and through, he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know how afraid of him I’ve always been and still am. I don’t really let that show.
But since he made his little insidious remark, even though I can sit here and intellectualize all of this, it still rocks me to my core. Even though it is, in a way, an actual compliment, that he thinks of me as smarter than him that he has to stoop to that level to insult me in order to try to keep me down, it hurts that he cannot love me the way I deserve love from a parent.
People with NPD are of course by definition not capable of feeling and showing love. And victims are always told that we should not take this personally. But my dad was capable of loving his dead boyfriend (while remaining married to my mother, leading a double life and forcing us to maintain his secret identity to the world). So why not me? Why am I not good enough for him to love?
Is it because men are not programmed for unconditional love of a child the way women are? (Though I never received this from either of my mom’s either, but that’s a topic for a different post). Is it because I’m adopted and he just wasn’t able to relate to me because I’m different than him genetically?
I’ve been binge watching the TV series “One Tree Hill” and they depict three parental figures that seem to have NPD. Each one of them are more overt than my adoptive dad ever was and do more heinous things than he ever did. But each of them at some point in the show has some sort of epiphany with their child, where they realize they mistreated their child and we’re not a good parent and they genuinely feel sorry for what they have done and try to make up for it in their words or deeds. While they may end up reverting back to their wicked ways again at some point, each of them have at least one huge point of redemption where they truly realize themselves and admit it to their child. My dad will never see himself and will never have that epiphany. And that leaves me with alot of questions. I know the tv series characters are fictional, but do narcissists have at least one true epiphany moment? Even though I have flat out told him who he is, he has not come to terms with it or made any sort of apology or admitted to any wrongdoing. And this will never change. Of that I am 100% certain.
My song of the day is Karma Chameleon by Boy George and the Culture Club
This was my favorite song for a period of time when it first came out. I used to think it was come-a come-a come-a come-a come-a chameleon. I didn’t even know the word karma. My parents never corrected me. They sang it the same way. They didn’t know either that it was karma. I don’t know if they even knew that word back then. My dad loved the song too. He had a weird obsession with Boy George. That should have tipped off my mom something was a little off, especially years later when he had that same type of weird obsession with movies like the Bird Cage, and To Wong Fu and Tootsie…He wasn’t a drag queen, but he did end up gay…
Karma Chameleon
Desert loving in your eyes all the way
If I listened to your lies would you sayI’m a man without conviction
I’m a man who doesn’t know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go
You come and go[Chorus:]
Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon
You come and go
You come and go
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dream
Red, gold and green
Red, gold and greenDidn’t hear your wicked words every day
And you used to be so sweet I heard you sayThat my love was an addiction
When we cling our love is strong
When you go you’re gone forever
You string along
You string along
[Chorus]
Every day is like survival
You’re my lover not my rival
Every day is like survival
You’re my lover not my rival
I’m a man without conviction
I’m a man who doesn’t know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go
You come and go
I feel like my life is in a constant state of emergency. And it is always such mainly due to the choices that everyone else makes that is in my life. And while I do take responsibility for making the choice for who I married which brought some of those people in to my life, and every day that I choose to stay married, I guess is also my choice, but there were choices that I didn’t make at the beginning of my life that shaped who I am. I did not choose to be taken from my birth mother. I did not choose to be put up for adoption. I did not choose the narcissistic parents that raised me. And all of this impacts, every day, how I react to my environment and the people that are in it. And yes, I know that no one chooses who they are born to. At least we don’t make those choices here on Earth. However, people who experience a normal birth with their parents, do not come in to this world with trauma from the second they were born, or even before that, from the moment they were conceived.
I have been traveling down a very independent spiritual path which began mainly once I reached college. There was always something inside of me that knew the religion(s) I was being taught and raised by when I was young weren’t the ones for me. When I made my confirmation at 13, I cried as I walked down the aisle, not because I was happy or moved, but because the priest had told us that confirmation was now our decision as opposed to Baptism which was our parents decision. But I still felt at 13 that it was my parents decision, because I was highly controlled by my parents at 13. There was no way I could tell them at 13 I didn’t want to be confirmed in the Catholic faith and that I didn’t really agree with what I was attesting to. I began researching many of the different religions when I reached college. I wrote all my research down in a large text book sized book with blank pages that I called a Book of Shadows, after the sacred book of Wicca.
I abandoned the research for a while after I filled the book and just did my own thing spiritually/religiously for a while and just floated about. Recently I began to seek more again in that realm and to read more on the topics again.
On my point that I made earlier about the fact that we don’t make our own choices about who we are born to, at least not while we’re here on Earth. I was alluding to my newly gained knowledge regarding the Akashic Records. While I don’t know much about the topic yet, it is something I intend to explore. Many of those that I have been in conversation with about spiritual topics speak of the fact that we/our souls write our own script and contract (in the Akashic Records) before each life time on Earth and that we do choose our own path, no matter how hard that may be to accept, that we may have chosen a hard path for ourselves for a specific reason. This is a hard nut for me to swallow as I have struggled a lot in this lifetime. And it feels as though the way that I have chosen to love my life in terms of my virtues and actions are not in karmic relation to what I am dealt. I am told that karma is built up over multiple lifetimes though. This is also a very difficult nut to swallow. It is hard to continue living a virtuous life in this lifetime when it doesn’t seem as though I will reap any benefit from it in this lifetime. I feel as though I am destined for a constant life of hardships this go around. It is hard to continue to live for the advancement of my soul to raise to a higher level for the next lifetime or dimension or plane when I won’t remember the experience as the person that I am right now. Somehow I know people make good with themselves for the idea of life in Heaven or whatever it is they believe for the afterlife. And maybe it is selfish of me to want to get some sort of reprieve within this lifetime. It is hard for me to look around at those for whom life sometimes seems so easy.
I have always been afraid of death. And I still am, but my soul and earthly psyche is exhausted. I am weary of all of this pain and struggle and horrifying stuff I keep experiencing and witnessing on Earth. I am mentally more and more ready to leave this Earth as each day passes. I am ready at age 40 to step off this Sick Cycle of a Carousel for good. This entire reincarnation journey. I hope I am awakened enough that I am close to the end of my path and ready to ascend the final staircase to Nirvana or Heaven or the highest astral plane, or whatever the final destination may be.
In my newer research studies of religions and spirituality, I have come upon another new term as well. Starseed. A starseed is defined as someone who originates from another planet or star/celestial body but resides here on Earth. This concept is one that is difficult for me to grasp as I was raised by very closed minded parents who are very conventional and poo-poo anything that is esoteric in nature. I feel as though I need to keep my mind open to things that I cannot know to be untrue. Especially when the characteristics of those who are defined as a Starseed fit who I am to a tee. There are very few qualities that do not describe me. Here are the traits of a Starseed.
From a young age, you have had an inherent wisdom that usually comes later in life for other people.
You’ve been told you’re an old soul and you agree. You feel ancient to the core
No matter where you are, you always have a feeling of homesickness. You know what home feels like, even if you can’t express it, and you know that your house is not it. This may even lead to depression in some cases.
Even as a child, you have always felt different, as though you are unique and others cannot understand you. You feel divided from the world — as if it is a constant battle of “them” vs. “you.”
You often feel morally superior to others, regardless of education or social stature.
Your sense of empathy is overwhelming.
You feel different from those around you, however, you have a natural inclination to relate to their struggles.
Your physical body is an enigma to doctors. It functions differently than everyone else’s and the medical world struggles to understand it. This may manifest itself in ways as small as a lower than average body temperature or inability to withstand heat.
You are incredibly intelligent, but bored easily by traditional academics.
You have had a paranormal or psychic experience. You may have seen a ghost, heard other’s thoughts, had dreams that became reality, etc.
You feel as though you have a purpose or mission to fulfill, but struggle to find what you want to do with your life.
You lack the passion or intrigue to truly devote yourself to one area and understand the banality of life.
The physical limitations of your body often frustrate you.
You feel as though you should be able to do more but are vexed by your restrictions. This is because Starseeds remember far more freedom in their physical form.
Your dreams are vivid and exceptional, and waking life never seems to measure up. Often, your dreams will seem other worldly — as though your mind has created a completely separate universe.
Others are often wary of you or feel uncomfortable in your presence. People instinctually know that you are different, but struggle to verbalize why. You may even feel isolated within your own family.
You have very few friends, but those who are seem to understand you without need of explanation
Animals trust you and are naturally drawn to you. You understand them to the point that it feels as though you can communicate. The same is true for babies and small children. They find you fascinating and seem mesmerized in your presence.
You are interested in spirituality but see the divine beyond books and religion. You may not be able to put it into words, but you have a deep understanding that spirituality has always been an intrinsic part of you.
You are drawn to metaphysics and the science behind other worlds.
You can feel who people are without them ever saying a word. You see beyond the external façade and instinctually know when they are lying. You may seem rude in conversations because you know what the other person is going to say before they’ve even started. People think you are disinterested, when in reality you are frustrated by the pace of the conversation.
From a young age, you questioned the ways of society and still feel perplexed as to how other’s don’t see its mistakes.
Though your dreams are exceptional, you’ve always had trouble sleeping.
You have a natural ability to make others feel better – whether through medicine or your words. Strangers will often open up about their problems without even realizing it.
People’s first impression of you is often aloof or cold, however, once they get to know you, they consider you to be one of the most loving people that they know.
You avoid large crowds and find it hard to handle people in large doses — even friends. To you, people are overwhelming and their emotions and actions seem chaotic.
You have an ability to emotionally or spiritually grow much faster than those around you. Your sense of morality keeps you grounded, even when presented with emotions that are difficult for others to handle.
The older I get, the more solitary I feel in my plight in life. And yet I feel like all I am made to do these days is to serve others. And this is weighing me down and stifling the greatness that I know of inside of me. There are so many things I want to accomplish in life that have gone on the back burner because I am burdened by dealing with everyone else’s “stuff” in life. It feels like my life’s direction is hardly ever due to my own needs and desires and path. And even though I might not be the bread winner, as always, that is one of the driving forces as to why my own pursuits take a back seat. My role as a woman and mother is another reason that I become the responsible one for everyone else and have to be the self sacrificing one. And the fact that I take responsibility for my actions and deal with my problems instead of trying to escape them furthers my stuckedness. And right now the only vision I have to shift my priorities is to abandon my current life path altogether. And that is much easier said than done. But I have been making real steps towards this instead of just imagining it in my head and talking about it. It feels as though it will be a when rather than an if at this point. I’m scared and I’m sad, but I don’t know how else to fix things anymore for everyone. And I need my 40s to be better than my 30s. I spent 10 years stuck in a holding pattern, and my souls signature is better than this. The world deserves all I have to offer, and there is so much more that I have to put out there that I haven’t been able to with where I’m at and I won’t be able to if life continues this way. Working on finding my power.
Sick Cycle Carousel
By: Lifehouse
If shame had a face I think it
would kind of look like mine
If it had a home would it be my eyes
Would you believe me if I said I’m tired of this
Well here we go now one more timeI tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how low I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this[CHORUS]
So when will this end it goes on and on
Over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it won’t stop
Till I step down from this for goodI never thought I’d end up here
Never thought I’d be standing where I am
I guess I kinda thought it would be easier than this
I guess I was wrong now one more timeI tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how long I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried yo beat this
[REPEAT CHORUS]
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick sycle, yeah
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle, yeah
Food is my vice. Despite the chaotic and emotionally traumatic roller coaster of a life I have had to survive since day one on planet Earth, the only vice I have truly had is food. I have dabbled with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs and have never become addicted. So I can even say that I don’t have an addictive personality, it’s not that I can say no and never try things. I have even tried things and then never become addicted and had it been a mind over matter situation and chosen to not become addicted to any of those substances, ever.
But food/sugar. That’s another story altogether. I have struggled with it for as long as I can remember. I would struggle to stop at just 3 cookies. I could scarf down an entire bag of double stuf Oreos all by myself in one sitting. And I always knew that I ate primarily out of boredom or for psychological reasons. But I could never get a handle on it. The only time I seemed to be able to get a grip on it was when I was sort of forced via pain and working out when I started karate. Pain because I had braces that they were trying to get two years worth of work done in one year, so I got them double tightened each time, so I could barely eat for days after each orthodontist appointment. My senior year of high school was the best my body ever looked due to those two things. I have a big build. When people say some one is big boned, that isn’t a cop out for some people. I was truly the skinniest I probably could ever be as an adult that year, and I was still a larger size in women’s clothing. I will never be a size 0 or a size 2. It’s physically impossible for me.
That’s my graduation picture from high school, at the lowest weight I’ve ever been in my fully grown body. It’s now a pipe dream that I know I’ll never achieve again.
My husband pointed out when I got my non-identifying information from the adoption agency when I put in to search for my birth mom that it had reported on there that when I was in foster care that I was becoming irritable and the doctor recommended for the foster parents to put honey in my bottle….so….let’s analyze this a moment. I’m irritable (probably from the trauma of being ripped away from my mother and not knowing who these people are that are “taking care of me” and who knows how much they were cuddling me and giving me the emotional side of what a baby needs to thrive) so the doctor says to placate me with honey (something sweet)……fill the emptiness, the longing for what’s missing with sweets….hmm, no wonder I’m addicted psychologically to sweets.
Whenever I’m bored or feeling empty, lonely, unloved, unwanted, fearful, angry, self conscious, anxious….you name the negative emotion….I feel a snack attack coming on….
Until recently. With my life spiraling out of control, once again, without warning and with me working on self love and having worked so hard for 6 months to work my way out of a 3 year depression, I was not about to let myself slip back in to another one. So I began to cling to one thing I knew I could control, regardless of how psychologically hard it has always been for me, I knew I COULD physically control the food that goes in my mouth, or doesn’t. I put on 15 extra pounds while I was on an extra anti-depressant to get out of my 3 year depression. I was on that med for 6 months and gained those 15 pounds all within that time frame. And I wasn’t happy at the weight I was at prior to those extra 15 pounds. So now I was SUPERBLY depressed about my weight. But I was finally able to come off that medication in January of this year.
After coming off of that, starting my ADHD meds again (which also help me shed some weight), upping the dosage on one of my migraine preventative meds (which also helps me shed weight as well), starting to take diet pills and finally starting to become OCD over controlling what I eat, I am finally down the 15 pounds I had gained. I dipped down one extra pound earlier this week but put it back on in the past couple of days. The method I have been going g with has been to watch very carefully what I eat for many days in a row and then for a couple of days (typically weekends) to not count anything. I often gain back a couple of pounds during those days but then they come right off and then I lose another one or two during the week as well. So it has been working pretty well for me and has actually been keeping my metabolism tricked so that it doesn’t ever go in to that starvation mode since I am eating pretty well one or two days during the week. So even though the scale weight goes up a couple days a week, I am consistently losing weight week to week, which is the important part.
It has become something I am now OCD about and something I want to prove to myself and others that I can control and also something that I can have in my back pocket in case I ever have it thrown in my face if things ever get ugly in my life that I am not able to control my addiction. Since I have had my addiction my entire life, and we will always be exposed to sugar, I will always be tested with my addiction the rest of my life. I will never have the opportunity to fully walk away from it and stay away from it, which is easier once you kick it fully. I need to do this to help empower myself so that I feel I have a stance to take if and when I am ready. More likely when. I have been taking almost daily pictures of myself in the raw to help me with my analysis of my body image, to help me accept myself as I am and to know what I want to change. I am going to be completely raw and brave and post a collage of those selfies here of my daily selfies in different outfits over the time frames that I’ve been trying to lose weight so that I can see how I look in different outfits and know myself and help myself to become more comfortable in my own skin. Most of them I am not posing and dont have makeup on and don’t have my hair done etc….these were strictly for body image, not facial image. So I’m being very vulnerable in doing this.
2 more weeks until I get on a cruise ship and am surrounded by women in bikinis where I will feel self conscious, even though I made a point in telling my husband I don’t want to go on any excursions that make me have to be in a bathing suit or be around people in a bathing suit. But there are pools on the ship. It’s not like I can avoid being around beautiful bodies in bikinis sitting by the pool that I can never look like and never measure up to, or down to technically. This world just sucks for people like me who have to work so hard to even look somewhat average, and still know that I can never compare to so many of the other women out there and that it’s just yet another area of my life that I can never be first choice in to anybody. Classic Adoptee theme, always second best (if that), constant rejection feeling, always feeling unwanted….
My song of the day…Unpretty….by TLC…I don’t feel the exact lyrics, especially since they talk about feeling too skinny, that’s clearly not my problem, but still many of the lyrics and feelings of it resonate with the theme of my post…
One day at a time 