I'm sure you've heard the saying about kids where 'one's not enough but two's too many'... I've got a different take on it.
Cravings becoming binges. My cravings are like this moment where I picture"I. O Fortuna" popping into my head and I'm this ballet dancer being pulled from side to side by two male ballet dancers, fighting over me. It's a love vs. hate relationship. Yin vs Yang. I want it but I hate it. I succumb. What it comes down to is a concept that came into my head when I was starting to stuff cookies into my mouth tonight: "Three is not enough, but one was too many." Three doesn't cease your craving, but one is more than you should be eating at that point. That's when my cravings turn into a binge...
Luckily, that stopped my eating the cookies tonight, and I only ate two. I know it could have been much worse, so I was grateful to be able to stop. Thought I'd share.
27 May 2012
The girl in the glass bubble.
As obvious as it might be on my most recent attempts at blogging, I'll say this: I'm struggling, I'm always anxious, I'm depressed. I have become my outward self: "the fat chick who..." and not "the girl/woman who..." I am stuck in my own head like a bad cassette tape that keeps replaying a five second clip of a song. "You're fat, you're worthless, you're fat, you're worthless." Intellectually I know that I'm not worthless, but the emotional side of me has taken over my brain and I'm just in a horrible place.
This week I think I had my first panic attack. I was driving in the most stressful city in the world (DC), and pulled into the parking lot of my new therapist. Late because of traffic (never going to get used to how bad it is in DC), and there was this guy meandering slowly across the parking lot from my left. I made the decision to park on the right side, so probably left around 5 feet between us and turned / parked. In front of him? Sure, probably. A risk to him? Not at all. I've been driving for more than a decade, and I'm not a moron. He was in no way a risk.
He came up to my car and just started shouting at me about paying attention. I just flipped him the bird and ignored him. So he laid into me. "Oh wow fattie, what a real lady you are. Wow chunky puff, really? Big woman, wow! pay attention, or are you too fat to see??" I mean, this man was at my car window. I just kept saying "F--- off a-hole, go away." My years of compounding PTSD set in and it was all I could do. My seatbelt was still on, and I felt absolutely trapped, filled with rage, angry, sad, disgusted with myself, hating him. Out of control. Who was he to yell at me about my WEIGHT??
He kept threatening to get my car towed, saying that he didn't think I had a parking permit, kept calling me fat and everything like that. I've never experienced this kind of fat discrimination before, it was always just looks from people. But this was something else. I started to get out of my car, because I was honestly going to hit the man. I'm not a violent person, I've never wanted to physically go crazy and punch people, but this was amazing. As soon as I opened the door he walked away and into the building. I got my stuff and left to go in, and by that time, only seconds after him, he was gone. He ran away like a b----!!
I went to my therapist and when she started talking about our last session I looked down at my hands and realized they were literally shaking. Never having experienced this before I did a quick mental check of my body. My breathing was off and I was absolutely tearing up. Heaving with sobs and losing it in a fit of tears, out came the panic attack.
My therapist seemed surprised. I explained what happened and annoyingly she was calm and tried to ask me to repeat what he said. I wanted to just shout "BE ANGRY WITH ME. SIDE WITH ME. STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS!!!" something. But nothing came out. She tried to have my do deep breathing, but that kind of relaxing makes me panic. I get angry. I get frustrated and annoyed. So we changed the subject. It worked within two minutes and I was able to talk about other things.
I got home and surprisingly (as I'd usually just push it down), I told my roommate. She was angry at him, saying 'What a child! Who does he think he is?' and pretty much defended me. That was nice. I actually told another friend and he told me that this man wasn't worth it, because he's clearly not a good person.
When and why did I become 'the fat chick who' instead of just 'the girl/woman'. When did my physical appearance become my identity? A few weeks ago I watched a Lifetime movie (yes, I'm that depressed) about a girl who faked a pregnancy in high school for her Senior Project. One poignant thing at the end of the movie was that people saw her as 'the pregnant girl who COULD have done...' instead of 'the amazingly smart girl who is destined for...' I feel just like that. My whole life I have felt like someone who should be able to just unzip this suit and a thin, pretty, happy, innocent again version of myself would just step out. That would be my life. Problem solved.
My good friend told me today that I need to see 'me' as the person he sees: fun to be around, nice, easy-going, a good listener, funny, charismatic, smart etc. But I see 'the fat chick who has these attributes:.." then they're listed. I don't know if I learned anything from this panic attack. I never want to see that A-hole again in my entire life though. Ever. I heard a quote today 'she has the knowledge, but not the understanding', about a little girl who was overweight who knows that her health will be affected if she doesn't keep changing, but doesn't understand all of the exact consequences.
I have the knowledge, understanding, and many resources to make changes. I am fighting this battle where my intellect is going CRAZY inside of a glass bubble. It's like a 'jail cell' and my emotion is the bars, floors, walls and guard, preventing me from making a change. Keeping me locked up. Keeping me in this "safe" place so that I don't have to live.... Breaking out will make you get cut, hurt, you'll bleed. But I WANT TO!! How do you break out of this proverbial jail? How do you beat this system? I want all of the stuff on the "outside." I want the health, body, love life, and confidence, however I'm sitting in this emotional jail cell bubble with no way out. I know that once I get there, once I figure out how to break out I'll be unstoppable. But today.. tomorrow... who knows...
This week I think I had my first panic attack. I was driving in the most stressful city in the world (DC), and pulled into the parking lot of my new therapist. Late because of traffic (never going to get used to how bad it is in DC), and there was this guy meandering slowly across the parking lot from my left. I made the decision to park on the right side, so probably left around 5 feet between us and turned / parked. In front of him? Sure, probably. A risk to him? Not at all. I've been driving for more than a decade, and I'm not a moron. He was in no way a risk.
He came up to my car and just started shouting at me about paying attention. I just flipped him the bird and ignored him. So he laid into me. "Oh wow fattie, what a real lady you are. Wow chunky puff, really? Big woman, wow! pay attention, or are you too fat to see??" I mean, this man was at my car window. I just kept saying "F--- off a-hole, go away." My years of compounding PTSD set in and it was all I could do. My seatbelt was still on, and I felt absolutely trapped, filled with rage, angry, sad, disgusted with myself, hating him. Out of control. Who was he to yell at me about my WEIGHT??
He kept threatening to get my car towed, saying that he didn't think I had a parking permit, kept calling me fat and everything like that. I've never experienced this kind of fat discrimination before, it was always just looks from people. But this was something else. I started to get out of my car, because I was honestly going to hit the man. I'm not a violent person, I've never wanted to physically go crazy and punch people, but this was amazing. As soon as I opened the door he walked away and into the building. I got my stuff and left to go in, and by that time, only seconds after him, he was gone. He ran away like a b----!!
I went to my therapist and when she started talking about our last session I looked down at my hands and realized they were literally shaking. Never having experienced this before I did a quick mental check of my body. My breathing was off and I was absolutely tearing up. Heaving with sobs and losing it in a fit of tears, out came the panic attack.
My therapist seemed surprised. I explained what happened and annoyingly she was calm and tried to ask me to repeat what he said. I wanted to just shout "BE ANGRY WITH ME. SIDE WITH ME. STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS!!!" something. But nothing came out. She tried to have my do deep breathing, but that kind of relaxing makes me panic. I get angry. I get frustrated and annoyed. So we changed the subject. It worked within two minutes and I was able to talk about other things.
I got home and surprisingly (as I'd usually just push it down), I told my roommate. She was angry at him, saying 'What a child! Who does he think he is?' and pretty much defended me. That was nice. I actually told another friend and he told me that this man wasn't worth it, because he's clearly not a good person.
When and why did I become 'the fat chick who' instead of just 'the girl/woman'. When did my physical appearance become my identity? A few weeks ago I watched a Lifetime movie (yes, I'm that depressed) about a girl who faked a pregnancy in high school for her Senior Project. One poignant thing at the end of the movie was that people saw her as 'the pregnant girl who COULD have done...' instead of 'the amazingly smart girl who is destined for...' I feel just like that. My whole life I have felt like someone who should be able to just unzip this suit and a thin, pretty, happy, innocent again version of myself would just step out. That would be my life. Problem solved.
My good friend told me today that I need to see 'me' as the person he sees: fun to be around, nice, easy-going, a good listener, funny, charismatic, smart etc. But I see 'the fat chick who has these attributes:.." then they're listed. I don't know if I learned anything from this panic attack. I never want to see that A-hole again in my entire life though. Ever. I heard a quote today 'she has the knowledge, but not the understanding', about a little girl who was overweight who knows that her health will be affected if she doesn't keep changing, but doesn't understand all of the exact consequences.
I have the knowledge, understanding, and many resources to make changes. I am fighting this battle where my intellect is going CRAZY inside of a glass bubble. It's like a 'jail cell' and my emotion is the bars, floors, walls and guard, preventing me from making a change. Keeping me locked up. Keeping me in this "safe" place so that I don't have to live.... Breaking out will make you get cut, hurt, you'll bleed. But I WANT TO!! How do you break out of this proverbial jail? How do you beat this system? I want all of the stuff on the "outside." I want the health, body, love life, and confidence, however I'm sitting in this emotional jail cell bubble with no way out. I know that once I get there, once I figure out how to break out I'll be unstoppable. But today.. tomorrow... who knows...
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