It is so weird to feel joy and excitement about life. I thought I would have to settle for contentment since it was better than apathy and much better than depression. My analytical mind is trying to figure out what is different and how can we maintain this level of happiness. This of course takes away from actually enjoying happiness.
I have made a number of changes over the past six months that really helped. First the diet which I already hyped on in my last post also I have changed my routine ever so slightly and it has gotten me out of a rut. I have to admit being off a lot from work really made me look at everything very closely. Once I got over the shock and fear of no business and the question "will I ever have another customer?" I could see the possibilities that free time can give you.
Silly I know but anyone that had a commission based job during the recession understands where I am coming from. I have to admit for a few days I felt gripped with fear but then I remembered that I made it through that time regardless of the situation and that I would be taken care of even though I don't know exactly how at this moment.
Once I got over the fear I could see once again my part in being stuck and where like the program says "If you always do what you have always done then you will always get what you always got." When I was sick with depression and thyroid meltdown I lived in survival mode and got use to just making it. I only had the energy to do what had to be done and was willing to just maintain. I got use to not wanting for more and accepting that feeling okay was really good enough. Bad habits were formed.
This kind of thinking and acting is just a habit and something your mind gets accustomed to and tries to pull you back to in the event you want to make a change. Making changes is not only uncomfortable but also goes against our primal genetic code or lizard brain. So when you are making changes the voice inside is like "I don't like this. I would rather have a bag of tortilla chips." Who can fight that?
For me I just negotiate with that voice - telling it not to worry we will go back to the chips one day if we really want to. Sounds crazy but let's face it the voice is not our friend when we are scared to do something different. The chips in my case represent the millions of good times I have had at Mexican restaurants with friends and it was the first food I bought when I left home a sixteen. Doritos.
What if life will never be as good as those memories? What if the future holds better times than those? I think I have accepted that happiness isn't consistency but finding joy in today knowing that tomorrow we will face whatever comes. We have to do that anyway so why ruin today.
I am back to being busy at work and missing that freedom I found from being caught up and having to use my imagination to fill my days. I had forgotten what that was like and hadn't experience it since I was in school for design and off for the summer. Being busy again I can appreciate both work and the security it gives me and also the ability to have a life outside of work.
If you want to get out of a rut start by changing just one thing. It can be as small as taking a different route to work or eating lunch at a different time. You brain will hate it but you will feel a little inspired. Baby steps at least that is what worked for me.
Monday, January 28, 2019
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Clarity - Change the things I can
The clarity that I am feeling right now is astonishing I can't say that I have ever felt like this before in my adult life. I feel like I have step back and I am taking an inventory of someone else's life. My mind is very clear and I feel a sense of freedom.
I am giving the credit to couple of different things first sadly I have given up sugar and most carbs. I started this the first week in November and have lost about ten pounds. You have to know me to understand I am not into to suffering or restriction of any kind and have not been on a diet since my husband urged me to go to Weight Watchers when I was 27 and weighed 120 pounds.
I weighed a lot less than that after he left me and I wanted to disappear all together. He cooked massive meals for us and was 6' 4" and weighed 170 pounds. He came to bed with milkshakes every night to keep weight on. This was me trying to be perfect so he would continue to love me.
Anyway my point is I don't chase after anyone else's ideas of a quick fix I prefer to start out with small changes and see if I can integrated them into my life. I also think the stars must be aligned to be successful with any change you want to make in your life.
For me this means picking a time when I don't have too many balls in the air already. Starting in November just before the holiday and a visit from my family maybe wasn't great timing but I had been abstaining from sugar and carbs a few weeks before they got here. I ate three Krispy Kreme donuts during their visit but I didn't beat myself up about it.
Krispy Kreme donuts have been a family tradition with me and my sister since she got her drivers licence at 16 and we drove to downtown Atlanta at 11 o'clock at night on a Saturday to get hot donuts. My grandmother in tow begging us not to go and offering us frozen donuts from her freezer. This was the one and only bonding times we had after my mother died. My father was out finding us a new mother.
With clarity today I can see how much my beliefs about myself have shaped my life. I always knew I was too much and how even before my mother died I never felt really comfortable just being myself and I decided that spending time alone was probably best for everyone. When she got sick being invisible was re enforced. I learned to be fully self supporting declining all outside contributions.
I didn't mind really I had a lot ideas and things I wanted to do and not having anyone looking over my shoulder gave me that freedom. I did have friends but my life was chaotic with hospital visits and church meetings and I learned to just manage myself.
When Daddy remarried I thought things would settle down. My sister went off to college at 17 and I was left with a completely new chaos to manage. I conformed to the circumstances I was given wearing the clothes that were chosen for me - eating the food that was fixed for me and spending the weekends with my new cousins. I did everything I could to just blend and not attract any attention but I felt like a target. Things could be going smoothly when my new little sister would call attention to me and start picking at me and before I knew it I was in trouble for something.
I think my point is that I have also worked hard to be invisible and just do what it takes to get the job done without attracting attention. In my relationships and my jobs I have moved mountains that no one really even knew were there and then resented not being appreciated. With my history and being taught to be humble at all times this has made me the invisible woman.
I have realized in just the last few weeks that I need to be a better promoter of myself at work and even in my personal life. I am seeing that being anonymous has shaped my life and maybe doing something different is worth a try.
This post has been all over the place I admit but I think the clarity of my new eating and supplement plan plus the down time I have had this past month has given me clarity. I heard a line in a movie recently "one small adjustment to make our life work." I actually wrote it down because it resonated so strongly with me.
I love that the progam open my eyes to the fact people can change if they want to. We are not stuck with who we are or who other people told us we were this is only in our minds. We can choose to do the work and be who want to be and find happiness and joy.
I am giving the credit to couple of different things first sadly I have given up sugar and most carbs. I started this the first week in November and have lost about ten pounds. You have to know me to understand I am not into to suffering or restriction of any kind and have not been on a diet since my husband urged me to go to Weight Watchers when I was 27 and weighed 120 pounds.
I weighed a lot less than that after he left me and I wanted to disappear all together. He cooked massive meals for us and was 6' 4" and weighed 170 pounds. He came to bed with milkshakes every night to keep weight on. This was me trying to be perfect so he would continue to love me.
Anyway my point is I don't chase after anyone else's ideas of a quick fix I prefer to start out with small changes and see if I can integrated them into my life. I also think the stars must be aligned to be successful with any change you want to make in your life.
For me this means picking a time when I don't have too many balls in the air already. Starting in November just before the holiday and a visit from my family maybe wasn't great timing but I had been abstaining from sugar and carbs a few weeks before they got here. I ate three Krispy Kreme donuts during their visit but I didn't beat myself up about it.
Krispy Kreme donuts have been a family tradition with me and my sister since she got her drivers licence at 16 and we drove to downtown Atlanta at 11 o'clock at night on a Saturday to get hot donuts. My grandmother in tow begging us not to go and offering us frozen donuts from her freezer. This was the one and only bonding times we had after my mother died. My father was out finding us a new mother.
With clarity today I can see how much my beliefs about myself have shaped my life. I always knew I was too much and how even before my mother died I never felt really comfortable just being myself and I decided that spending time alone was probably best for everyone. When she got sick being invisible was re enforced. I learned to be fully self supporting declining all outside contributions.
I didn't mind really I had a lot ideas and things I wanted to do and not having anyone looking over my shoulder gave me that freedom. I did have friends but my life was chaotic with hospital visits and church meetings and I learned to just manage myself.
When Daddy remarried I thought things would settle down. My sister went off to college at 17 and I was left with a completely new chaos to manage. I conformed to the circumstances I was given wearing the clothes that were chosen for me - eating the food that was fixed for me and spending the weekends with my new cousins. I did everything I could to just blend and not attract any attention but I felt like a target. Things could be going smoothly when my new little sister would call attention to me and start picking at me and before I knew it I was in trouble for something.
I think my point is that I have also worked hard to be invisible and just do what it takes to get the job done without attracting attention. In my relationships and my jobs I have moved mountains that no one really even knew were there and then resented not being appreciated. With my history and being taught to be humble at all times this has made me the invisible woman.
I have realized in just the last few weeks that I need to be a better promoter of myself at work and even in my personal life. I am seeing that being anonymous has shaped my life and maybe doing something different is worth a try.
This post has been all over the place I admit but I think the clarity of my new eating and supplement plan plus the down time I have had this past month has given me clarity. I heard a line in a movie recently "one small adjustment to make our life work." I actually wrote it down because it resonated so strongly with me.
I love that the progam open my eyes to the fact people can change if they want to. We are not stuck with who we are or who other people told us we were this is only in our minds. We can choose to do the work and be who want to be and find happiness and joy.
Monday, January 14, 2019
It feels so weird - Seeing for the first time
I never really realized that my life has really been my work until now. Since we haven't been very busy I have had a lot of time to see what it would be like not to work. I will say not to work in a driven fashion even during the recession when there wasn't any work I still spent all my free time trying to get work living at the office scheming on how to bring in more business.
This is different because it isn't a crisis unless I make it one. I am getting an opportunity to work to live instead of live to work. What it would be like to not work 50-60 hours a weeks. My mind at first was very unhappy very restless looking for a crisis of any kind to get it's teeth in. Perusing the past for anything that would make me feel insecure or critical about myself and decisions that got me where I am today. The kind of loop that I can get into easily when I need to fill time and I am restless.
I have been reading Dr. Amen book on healing ADD and the seven types. I could identify with two one with the loop of bad thoughts the other the "I am bored" mantra. He gives examples and then combinations of natural supplements or pharmaceuticals that he has used with success with his patients.
I have started taking a couple of different things. Not really long enough for them to make a difference but I do think that the Keto diet has already geared me toward better nutrition and better mental function. His book does address the alcoholic brain and adult children of alcoholics.
This is beyond belief to me that my emotional patterns are caused by the composition of my brain and that there is something other than talk therapy that can help. Sure meds have been an option for a long time but combinations of diet exercise and amino acids as an option is something different. He said that they doctors are lumping all ADD together and prescribing the same thing for everyone. Which actually make some people worse given the part of the brain affected.
I have avoided medication because the people I know that have been on it don't seem any better and they usually go through a bunch of different ones. I like the idea of using the brain scan to determine what part of the brain has been shows up a problem. We all can't get brain scans but we can see ourselves in the different patients he describes.
It is nice not being a slave to my emotions and really feeling so clear and less fearful. The better I eat the better I feel This might seem logical but when your mind is acting out you don't really make good choices about food or anything else really. For me it seems everything is blown out of proportion and I am just surviving.
I am not sure this will count as related to recovery but it is where I am now. I feel like I am seeing for the first time not just surviving. It feels so weird.
This is different because it isn't a crisis unless I make it one. I am getting an opportunity to work to live instead of live to work. What it would be like to not work 50-60 hours a weeks. My mind at first was very unhappy very restless looking for a crisis of any kind to get it's teeth in. Perusing the past for anything that would make me feel insecure or critical about myself and decisions that got me where I am today. The kind of loop that I can get into easily when I need to fill time and I am restless.
I have been reading Dr. Amen book on healing ADD and the seven types. I could identify with two one with the loop of bad thoughts the other the "I am bored" mantra. He gives examples and then combinations of natural supplements or pharmaceuticals that he has used with success with his patients.
I have started taking a couple of different things. Not really long enough for them to make a difference but I do think that the Keto diet has already geared me toward better nutrition and better mental function. His book does address the alcoholic brain and adult children of alcoholics.
This is beyond belief to me that my emotional patterns are caused by the composition of my brain and that there is something other than talk therapy that can help. Sure meds have been an option for a long time but combinations of diet exercise and amino acids as an option is something different. He said that they doctors are lumping all ADD together and prescribing the same thing for everyone. Which actually make some people worse given the part of the brain affected.
I have avoided medication because the people I know that have been on it don't seem any better and they usually go through a bunch of different ones. I like the idea of using the brain scan to determine what part of the brain has been shows up a problem. We all can't get brain scans but we can see ourselves in the different patients he describes.
It is nice not being a slave to my emotions and really feeling so clear and less fearful. The better I eat the better I feel This might seem logical but when your mind is acting out you don't really make good choices about food or anything else really. For me it seems everything is blown out of proportion and I am just surviving.
I am not sure this will count as related to recovery but it is where I am now. I feel like I am seeing for the first time not just surviving. It feels so weird.
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Mama's head - Making changes
I have always had a love hate relationship with the past and often wonder is the constant reminiscing really helping or hurting me.
When I started my journey first with counseling and then with Al-Anon I constantly spewed my story out to anyone that would listen. I had kept it in for so long I just really wanted to be heard. I also wanted to hear myself. The steps and slogans simplistic as they are helped me to first hear the thoughts in my head and then decide to change them from negative to positive.
The program slowed me down enough to take an inventory of my own beliefs and where those beliefs came from and whether they applied to me now. In my mind this was a total miracle that I could choose who I wanted to be and that I wasn't just saddled with this broken idea of myself. Bad genes.
I could see that I was only a victim in my mind. Sure other people gave me sympathy and love but that also kept me in my story. I knew at the time that was what I needed and it felt really good to have people acknowledge my pain. The truth was that I really just wanted the people that hurt me to acknowledge that my feelings even existed and to say they were sorry.
This deep want has stayed with me forever. It comes from the child in me that is still hurt and is still saying "what about me? don't I matter?" I didn't miss out on this when I was a child it was just that the sickness and death of my mother ended me being the center of the universe rather abruptly. Because I became my own parent I didn't know that this would happen to me eventually even if my mother had lived. I wanted to be seen again and have the loved the way my mother loved me.
I have been writing about my childhood and put together a timeline of the what was happening. All the really great memories - big Easter egg hunt - giant birthday party with 50 kids - MS - Carnival all happened while my mother was sick the MS carnival five months before she died. My mother trying to show me her love and fulfill all my wishes.
Because my Daddy thought if we all had faith and only said positive things God would heal her. She couldn't say "hey you know I might not get better so lets just spend as much time together as possible." My daddy was losing the love of his life and his mind could not accept it so we couldn't acknowledge what was right in front of us.
I understand that now maybe more than ever. While writing about her I am becoming more of an adult about my childhood. I didn't know the dates of those events were the last year she was alive. She was really sick and weighed less than 90 pounds at her death. How desperate she must have been to give us what she thought we wanted.
I had a dream this weekend that I had just her head. Not like a gross horror movie but life in the Wizard of Oz when Dorthy was looking at the glass ball. The head was smiling and talking and I took her to a party with me and everyone freaked out because she didn't have a body. When I woke up I thought "this is my own head" she gave it to me and I can take it wherever I want.
I have always felt like an outsider. Early in Al-Anon I felt like I belonged until I started to feel like talking about our pain and suffering was really keeping us in our story and stuck. The story was a habit that can define us. There has to be a point when we just want joy and we have to put away the idea that without our story we are nothing.
I am not dismissing my story and I am planning on writing a book about it but it doesn't have to define me now. I want to feel free to pursue joy everyday even if being totally open to a new life feels really uncomfortable. My mind is really freaked out and is constantly looking for a familiar distraction. Just like writing here.
I heard a scientific evaluation of this process. This is my version - You have habits and routines that you create and rely on for some period of time. Your brain imprints these routines physically and then when you try to make a change it totally freaks and makes you feel unsettled. We don't like it and are more likely to go back to auto pilot and the thing that we know because it calms us.
I saw this happening today. I have been wanting to visit a church nearby today. The service didn't start until 11 but something in me did not want to do this and I ended up watching TV church like I have been doing lately. Now here I am writing about doing something new instead of doing something new.
I have had a few breakthroughs this holiday season. I have been uncomfortable a lot but I didn't run towards anything instead I just sat with it until I had an awakening. The thing with my mother is a big awakening for me to see that she wanted to grant me any wish I wanted since she knew she would not be there for me. I can appreciate that now.
The moral of the story is that we have the power to change our minds. We can do this both through reasoning things out and by taking care of ourselves physically. These months without carbs and extra sleep have been astounding to me. The clarity I have has been really surprising and motivating to me. Today I am looking for joy.
When I started my journey first with counseling and then with Al-Anon I constantly spewed my story out to anyone that would listen. I had kept it in for so long I just really wanted to be heard. I also wanted to hear myself. The steps and slogans simplistic as they are helped me to first hear the thoughts in my head and then decide to change them from negative to positive.
The program slowed me down enough to take an inventory of my own beliefs and where those beliefs came from and whether they applied to me now. In my mind this was a total miracle that I could choose who I wanted to be and that I wasn't just saddled with this broken idea of myself. Bad genes.
I could see that I was only a victim in my mind. Sure other people gave me sympathy and love but that also kept me in my story. I knew at the time that was what I needed and it felt really good to have people acknowledge my pain. The truth was that I really just wanted the people that hurt me to acknowledge that my feelings even existed and to say they were sorry.
This deep want has stayed with me forever. It comes from the child in me that is still hurt and is still saying "what about me? don't I matter?" I didn't miss out on this when I was a child it was just that the sickness and death of my mother ended me being the center of the universe rather abruptly. Because I became my own parent I didn't know that this would happen to me eventually even if my mother had lived. I wanted to be seen again and have the loved the way my mother loved me.
I have been writing about my childhood and put together a timeline of the what was happening. All the really great memories - big Easter egg hunt - giant birthday party with 50 kids - MS - Carnival all happened while my mother was sick the MS carnival five months before she died. My mother trying to show me her love and fulfill all my wishes.
Because my Daddy thought if we all had faith and only said positive things God would heal her. She couldn't say "hey you know I might not get better so lets just spend as much time together as possible." My daddy was losing the love of his life and his mind could not accept it so we couldn't acknowledge what was right in front of us.
I understand that now maybe more than ever. While writing about her I am becoming more of an adult about my childhood. I didn't know the dates of those events were the last year she was alive. She was really sick and weighed less than 90 pounds at her death. How desperate she must have been to give us what she thought we wanted.
I had a dream this weekend that I had just her head. Not like a gross horror movie but life in the Wizard of Oz when Dorthy was looking at the glass ball. The head was smiling and talking and I took her to a party with me and everyone freaked out because she didn't have a body. When I woke up I thought "this is my own head" she gave it to me and I can take it wherever I want.
I have always felt like an outsider. Early in Al-Anon I felt like I belonged until I started to feel like talking about our pain and suffering was really keeping us in our story and stuck. The story was a habit that can define us. There has to be a point when we just want joy and we have to put away the idea that without our story we are nothing.
I am not dismissing my story and I am planning on writing a book about it but it doesn't have to define me now. I want to feel free to pursue joy everyday even if being totally open to a new life feels really uncomfortable. My mind is really freaked out and is constantly looking for a familiar distraction. Just like writing here.
I heard a scientific evaluation of this process. This is my version - You have habits and routines that you create and rely on for some period of time. Your brain imprints these routines physically and then when you try to make a change it totally freaks and makes you feel unsettled. We don't like it and are more likely to go back to auto pilot and the thing that we know because it calms us.
I saw this happening today. I have been wanting to visit a church nearby today. The service didn't start until 11 but something in me did not want to do this and I ended up watching TV church like I have been doing lately. Now here I am writing about doing something new instead of doing something new.
I have had a few breakthroughs this holiday season. I have been uncomfortable a lot but I didn't run towards anything instead I just sat with it until I had an awakening. The thing with my mother is a big awakening for me to see that she wanted to grant me any wish I wanted since she knew she would not be there for me. I can appreciate that now.
The moral of the story is that we have the power to change our minds. We can do this both through reasoning things out and by taking care of ourselves physically. These months without carbs and extra sleep have been astounding to me. The clarity I have has been really surprising and motivating to me. Today I am looking for joy.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Space - Spiritual Awakening
I had a lot of time on my own this holiday I didn't feel like forcing my plans on the universe and decided to just let life it's natural course. This decision left me empty and a little panicked that my life has become so small. This is just my mind working against me. I decided to try to just relax and accept things the way they are instead of wishing them to magically be different.
When the anxiety of being alone comes to the surface the first thing I want to do is blame myself. I blame where I am on all the bad decisions I have made. Choosing the wrong people to love or picking the road less traveled spiritually and alienating myself from my family.
If only I had done things differently my life would have ended up like one of those holiday TV movies. This thought is about about control I tried that route when I was younger. I was still abandoned by the people that were suppose to love me. At that point with the help of the program I decided to let go and just go where ever life took me. I was happier by far but in the end I was left again. At that point I decided there was something wrong with me. Another lie I told myself.
This is just life and you just have to deal with it. I feel I am ready to enjoy life again and feel another shift happening. With work being slow right now I decided to clean out my office after five years. It was so busy when I started and I have had my head down learning. Where does the time go?
I cleared out all those old files some where I had invested so much time and paperwork in people that never came to anything. This is a little disheartening but I am seasoned now and have a different process for handling customers and purging my files. Ironically the first person I waited on yesterday I had been to their house two years ago and now they are ready. I still had that file. Funny.
Doing nothing is really scary but it can bring on an awakening. Getting past the doer in me is hard with the list of things that I want to do along with with the things that need to be done. I felt frozen even after lecturing myself daily about all the valuable time I was wasting. I did do a few things like baking cookies for the office and on Christmas day going to a friends open house and then to an Al-Anon meeting. It was my home group location and it felt good.
The meeting was on the 12th step and it did give me an opportunity to see just how many awakenings I have had over the years. Some in your face awakenings and some revealed slowly over time. Awakenings require you to step back from your situation sometime willingly and other time by force it seems we have no choice.
Today I am feeling good. Just writing this has made me trust the awkward space between me and myself. It is sometimes ugly being me and I have hurt myself and other people trying to figure things out. It was never intentional or personal just like the people that hurt me. We are just trying to make it through life the best we can even if it isn't always good enough. It is what we have at the moment.
I can see I needed this empty time to evaluate where I have been and where I want to go and make choices in that direction. I don't micro manage my life anymore and I don't let my life run me either so I have come to middle and I can make decision today to my life a little better.
When the anxiety of being alone comes to the surface the first thing I want to do is blame myself. I blame where I am on all the bad decisions I have made. Choosing the wrong people to love or picking the road less traveled spiritually and alienating myself from my family.
If only I had done things differently my life would have ended up like one of those holiday TV movies. This thought is about about control I tried that route when I was younger. I was still abandoned by the people that were suppose to love me. At that point with the help of the program I decided to let go and just go where ever life took me. I was happier by far but in the end I was left again. At that point I decided there was something wrong with me. Another lie I told myself.
This is just life and you just have to deal with it. I feel I am ready to enjoy life again and feel another shift happening. With work being slow right now I decided to clean out my office after five years. It was so busy when I started and I have had my head down learning. Where does the time go?
I cleared out all those old files some where I had invested so much time and paperwork in people that never came to anything. This is a little disheartening but I am seasoned now and have a different process for handling customers and purging my files. Ironically the first person I waited on yesterday I had been to their house two years ago and now they are ready. I still had that file. Funny.
Doing nothing is really scary but it can bring on an awakening. Getting past the doer in me is hard with the list of things that I want to do along with with the things that need to be done. I felt frozen even after lecturing myself daily about all the valuable time I was wasting. I did do a few things like baking cookies for the office and on Christmas day going to a friends open house and then to an Al-Anon meeting. It was my home group location and it felt good.
The meeting was on the 12th step and it did give me an opportunity to see just how many awakenings I have had over the years. Some in your face awakenings and some revealed slowly over time. Awakenings require you to step back from your situation sometime willingly and other time by force it seems we have no choice.
Today I am feeling good. Just writing this has made me trust the awkward space between me and myself. It is sometimes ugly being me and I have hurt myself and other people trying to figure things out. It was never intentional or personal just like the people that hurt me. We are just trying to make it through life the best we can even if it isn't always good enough. It is what we have at the moment.
I can see I needed this empty time to evaluate where I have been and where I want to go and make choices in that direction. I don't micro manage my life anymore and I don't let my life run me either so I have come to middle and I can make decision today to my life a little better.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
I am too much. - Feeling and Food
It scares me when I have too much free time. I have worked hard to try to un-clutter my life and do things that feel authentic to me instead of running scared and filling each moment with something. When I was grieving the loss of the life I thought I would have with the people I thought I would have it with I packed my life with any kind of distraction possible. Only when I stopped did the healing start.
Being on my own has given me the opportunity to really wallow in my aloneness to a point of narcissism some might say but it does have healing power. While writing about my childhood I was able to see why I get stuck. It triggered something pretty core to who I am. It has made me see that since the very beginning I have been too much or at least this is the impression I got somewhere early on. I was ADD and my parents were offered medication which they declined. Then my mother got a terminal diagnoses of cancer and I was still a hand full. In my writing I did stay out of the way as much as possible since I knew I was a problem. Spending hours and hours in our basement alone.
Yesterday I was fighting some version of depression. Not the deep down version I experienced years ago but the kind where you just don't have the desire to do anything in particular and since I have deliberately downsized my life I could go with it. It felt pretty awful and my negative inside person wanted to run and also point out how this was going to be what the rest of my life looked like so I better get use to it.
I have learned to trust these days and instead of listening too carefully to that voice I decided to get up make myself a healthy dinner that included steak and big salad. I then went back to my room and watched all the TV I wanted without guilt.
I chose a few different movies at random and was able to pick out phrases that I could relate to. In the movie "To The Bone" about younger people with eating disorders one character said "I don't see the point of life". I recognized this as depression a emotional thought that the brain holds on to that is get worse without food. When I was depressed I didn't eat and when I did it was crap. My thoughts were bad and they repeated over and over. In never linked the food to my feelings.
I thought about when I was stuck the kinds of paralyzing thoughts the kept me there for a long time. I couldn't see a solution to the problem. I didn't want to be where I was but I couldn't change that so I totally shut down. In the movie the doctor says "she has to choose to decide that things can be different." This is what happened to me one day while in a catatonic state sitting on my the floor of my porch a voice said to me. "You are doing this to yourself."
It was a turning point for me. I was choosing to listen to the voice that was telling me that my situation was my fault. I was left because there was something about me that was not lovable. I had proof because everyone that I thought loved and cared about me had left me. Being me was "too much".
This is my core belief about myself that keeps me isolated. I use to do everything for everybody to earn my keep. When I had my meltdown I stopped doing for others and everyone ran away. This only proved my point that I wasn't enough just as I am. Relationships built on what I brought to the table and when I didn't have anything to bring there were only a few left there.
My sister once told me during a Christmas visit to her house that my husband left me because I was too much. This was a few years ago and after that visit I slipped way back into depression.
I am happy today. You probably thought this was a sad post but after withdrawing yesterday I can see that my belief that I am too much has plagued me most of my life. It is the source of my pain. I might be too much sometis and just like everybody else. I can decide that I am who I am and way I was made.
I can accept myself as I am and not worry how you might feel about me. I always do my best even when it might not be good enough it is all I have. As far as my sister saying I was too much for my active alcoholic husband well he was definitely too much for me in the end. He could charm the world and come home to emotionally abuse me. That was too much.
My gift to you is this holiday is to decide to take care of yourself. See yourself as good enough to be taken care of physically as well as spiritually. Eat well and lay off the carbs and fat is good for you.
Being on my own has given me the opportunity to really wallow in my aloneness to a point of narcissism some might say but it does have healing power. While writing about my childhood I was able to see why I get stuck. It triggered something pretty core to who I am. It has made me see that since the very beginning I have been too much or at least this is the impression I got somewhere early on. I was ADD and my parents were offered medication which they declined. Then my mother got a terminal diagnoses of cancer and I was still a hand full. In my writing I did stay out of the way as much as possible since I knew I was a problem. Spending hours and hours in our basement alone.
Yesterday I was fighting some version of depression. Not the deep down version I experienced years ago but the kind where you just don't have the desire to do anything in particular and since I have deliberately downsized my life I could go with it. It felt pretty awful and my negative inside person wanted to run and also point out how this was going to be what the rest of my life looked like so I better get use to it.
I have learned to trust these days and instead of listening too carefully to that voice I decided to get up make myself a healthy dinner that included steak and big salad. I then went back to my room and watched all the TV I wanted without guilt.
I chose a few different movies at random and was able to pick out phrases that I could relate to. In the movie "To The Bone" about younger people with eating disorders one character said "I don't see the point of life". I recognized this as depression a emotional thought that the brain holds on to that is get worse without food. When I was depressed I didn't eat and when I did it was crap. My thoughts were bad and they repeated over and over. In never linked the food to my feelings.
I thought about when I was stuck the kinds of paralyzing thoughts the kept me there for a long time. I couldn't see a solution to the problem. I didn't want to be where I was but I couldn't change that so I totally shut down. In the movie the doctor says "she has to choose to decide that things can be different." This is what happened to me one day while in a catatonic state sitting on my the floor of my porch a voice said to me. "You are doing this to yourself."
It was a turning point for me. I was choosing to listen to the voice that was telling me that my situation was my fault. I was left because there was something about me that was not lovable. I had proof because everyone that I thought loved and cared about me had left me. Being me was "too much".
This is my core belief about myself that keeps me isolated. I use to do everything for everybody to earn my keep. When I had my meltdown I stopped doing for others and everyone ran away. This only proved my point that I wasn't enough just as I am. Relationships built on what I brought to the table and when I didn't have anything to bring there were only a few left there.
My sister once told me during a Christmas visit to her house that my husband left me because I was too much. This was a few years ago and after that visit I slipped way back into depression.
I am happy today. You probably thought this was a sad post but after withdrawing yesterday I can see that my belief that I am too much has plagued me most of my life. It is the source of my pain. I might be too much sometis and just like everybody else. I can decide that I am who I am and way I was made.
I can accept myself as I am and not worry how you might feel about me. I always do my best even when it might not be good enough it is all I have. As far as my sister saying I was too much for my active alcoholic husband well he was definitely too much for me in the end. He could charm the world and come home to emotionally abuse me. That was too much.
My gift to you is this holiday is to decide to take care of yourself. See yourself as good enough to be taken care of physically as well as spiritually. Eat well and lay off the carbs and fat is good for you.
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Accepting each other - family - So much alike
I spent a few hours on the phone with my sister last night. Our lives have ended up very different and now that we are older we are trying to narrow the gap between us. We have the same genes but had very different life circumstances.
She wanted to never make waves and I was born making them. At first I wanted to be like her but when realized it would never happen I was free to do what I wanted. I remember even now one time coloring together she stayed perfectly in the lines and how beautiful her page looked. My page was terrible my hand always slipped and there was the crayon outside the line. Once that happened my interest in coloring for the moment died and I left the page half done.
I really didn't understand that she was four years older and that her motor skills were ten times what mine were or that she had four more years of practice than I did. I yearned to be just like her because my parents really loved her. I knew this because they constantly said wonderful things about her. She was always respectful to them, she kept her room spotless, she had straight A's and practiced her piano lessons for two hours a day. She was perfect.
I am not saying they didn't love me because they did. The fact that they loved me despite my constant questioning of their authority, messy room, a report card that was celebrated with some "B's" mixed in with "Cs" and the fact that I refused to practice the piano. I never understood why girls were expected to play the piano. Even with that I was still loved not praised but loved anyway.
My sister now says my mother wanted to be a concert pianist. I can see now why my sister pushed to become the perfect piano player my mother imagined her to be. Especially after my mom got sick. My sister was old enough to see that things were not going well while I was told not to worry and I didn't.
While she was being perfect I was exiled to the basement where I built cites out of cardboard with stores and restaurants. I also held art classes there for the neighborhood kids with art supplies stolen from school. I only charged a small fee for the class. I loved art and often won contest at school. My dream was to decorate the bulletin boards at school for the holidays but you had to have grades like my sister's to be chosen. Art wasn't considered a talent like piano in our house but it made me happy.
With our effort to get to know each other my sister and I have found that we are the same in a lot of ways. The death of our mother made us different from other kids we knew a bond we are only sharing now. Ironically who we were as kids reversed when we became adults. When my dad remarried I had to learn to keep quiet and do what I was told perfectly. This was what was needed to be loved in the new household.
My sister's desire to be perfect left her when my mother died. She stopped cleaning her room, playing the piano or even ironing her clothes. With those perfect grades she got scholarship and left for college the summer my father remarried. She stopped trying to fit in and blazed her own path ultimately becoming the youngest female lawyer in her state.
Today we are more comfortable in our own skins and don't worry too about what other people think. The work ethic that was instilled in us by both of our parents has made us successful in whatever we have done professionally. Emotionally we are still a little too self reliant living in that fortress we built so many years ago. Today we are trying to be a little freer and happier and accepting of each other.
She wanted to never make waves and I was born making them. At first I wanted to be like her but when realized it would never happen I was free to do what I wanted. I remember even now one time coloring together she stayed perfectly in the lines and how beautiful her page looked. My page was terrible my hand always slipped and there was the crayon outside the line. Once that happened my interest in coloring for the moment died and I left the page half done.
I really didn't understand that she was four years older and that her motor skills were ten times what mine were or that she had four more years of practice than I did. I yearned to be just like her because my parents really loved her. I knew this because they constantly said wonderful things about her. She was always respectful to them, she kept her room spotless, she had straight A's and practiced her piano lessons for two hours a day. She was perfect.
I am not saying they didn't love me because they did. The fact that they loved me despite my constant questioning of their authority, messy room, a report card that was celebrated with some "B's" mixed in with "Cs" and the fact that I refused to practice the piano. I never understood why girls were expected to play the piano. Even with that I was still loved not praised but loved anyway.
My sister now says my mother wanted to be a concert pianist. I can see now why my sister pushed to become the perfect piano player my mother imagined her to be. Especially after my mom got sick. My sister was old enough to see that things were not going well while I was told not to worry and I didn't.
While she was being perfect I was exiled to the basement where I built cites out of cardboard with stores and restaurants. I also held art classes there for the neighborhood kids with art supplies stolen from school. I only charged a small fee for the class. I loved art and often won contest at school. My dream was to decorate the bulletin boards at school for the holidays but you had to have grades like my sister's to be chosen. Art wasn't considered a talent like piano in our house but it made me happy.
With our effort to get to know each other my sister and I have found that we are the same in a lot of ways. The death of our mother made us different from other kids we knew a bond we are only sharing now. Ironically who we were as kids reversed when we became adults. When my dad remarried I had to learn to keep quiet and do what I was told perfectly. This was what was needed to be loved in the new household.
My sister's desire to be perfect left her when my mother died. She stopped cleaning her room, playing the piano or even ironing her clothes. With those perfect grades she got scholarship and left for college the summer my father remarried. She stopped trying to fit in and blazed her own path ultimately becoming the youngest female lawyer in her state.
Today we are more comfortable in our own skins and don't worry too about what other people think. The work ethic that was instilled in us by both of our parents has made us successful in whatever we have done professionally. Emotionally we are still a little too self reliant living in that fortress we built so many years ago. Today we are trying to be a little freer and happier and accepting of each other.
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