So, it’s been a while since I’ve written an entry, and to be honest, I don’t really feel like it. To be completely really honest…I’m sick and tired of thinking about all of this. While this does NOT mean I’m qutting, this DOES mean I’m in a very bad mood. I’ve tried to keep myself on the up and up, but lately I’m just so tired and depressed…I can’t fake it ’till I make it.

Yesterday Rachel (bless her) tried to help me sort things out, but I was mostly quiet, trying to think about why I was sick of doing this when it’s been obviously so good for me. We came to the conclusion that a couple of things are coming into play. #1. My job is getting REALLY stressful, and it’s getting to be more than I can handle. Usually I’d eat to cope. This brings me to #2. I am no longer eating to cope anymore (well…trying, anyway…sometimes it just happens, but less often than normal), therefore I’m left with stress and hating my job.

Now that I know this…I hope to begin making some changes. Food is no longer my security blanket, and I refuse to revert back to operating that way. So…I need an alternative. I hope to enjoy the challenge.

I’ve also been contemplating going on meal plans like Jenny Craig or something. But, really…I don’t think that would help me in the long run. My main concern about these changes is to foster a lifestyle that I can maintain for the rest of my life. If I can’t or don’t want to do something until I’m 80, then I’m not going to go down that road. That means…no boxed meals, no shakes, no pills, no bars (as a general rule, although I do eat them in a pinch), no starving, no mad exercing that I couldn’t maintain, etc. I’m doing this the hard way, and I have to recognize this. I have to give myself some slack because this is an overhaul on my ENTIRE LIFESTYLE. This is not going to be a walk in the park…emotionally speaking because walks in the park are included in this new lifestyle.

So…I’m totally and overwhelmingly stressed. Okay. So, how do I deal with this? Maybe I need to bring a pair of tennis shoes to leave at work so that I can take a brisk walk outside for fifteen minutes or something. Maybe that is one way to take a deep breath, and regroup. My weekend excursions into forested areas have become a drug to me, that’s for sure. It’s an awesome way to decompress from the week. So, I’m keeping that. But…during the week…I think short walks during the my work day might be just what I need to cope. I’m going to try.

So…I’m down, but certainly not out. There is a lot of whining and crying coming from my general direction, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve been defeated.

Also, tonight my friend Jane and I are taking my godmother/her grandmother out to dinner for her birthday. I bought a beautiful vase of flowers. It will be so nice to think about someone else besides myself tonight. The place where we are going, Lebanese restaraunt, will have a lot of healthy choices. So…yay!

For the last four days I’ve been practically STARVING. I mean…physically hungry, 24/7. I’ve tried to make sure that I wasn’t just mentally hungry so I wouldn’t overeat. But…daaaaayum!! MAN…I just couldn’t eat enough. This past weekend I didn’t keep a stellar diet, but….that’s def something I’m going to have to work on.

Then I get up this morning, fix my usual yogurt, fruit, and toast…and I’m not hungry. I’m practically choking the food down. WTF, body???

I’ve been constantly amazed by how many issues I still have with my self-image. I mean…I thought I had made significant progress towards the ‘acceptance of self’ instead of ‘self-loathing.’ But I’m finding that I’m still in the middle, faced towards acceptance, but not moving anywhere. Weren’t exercise and a healthy diet supposed to help me get a better self-image? Either way, I am easily discouraged these days when I get on the scale and it’s the same fucking number it’s been for the last two weeks. I mean, the scale isn’t the end-all be-all for me…after all, I’ve been losing inches. Even then, I’m not seeing the progress that I saw in the beginning…which means I have to work harder…which means I have to focus more…which means I have to get my life into order…which means I have to sacrifice my time.

Rachel’s been pushing me, but I’ve been resistant to push myself. I think that is the next big wall I need to break through. I’m not used to pushing myself, making myself do something that I don’t want to do. I hope that I can be patient with myself and not quit. I won’t really quit…I’ve come this far, it would be stupid to quit. But I often feel like quitting.

Anyway. So there are actually two things I need to work on.

A) Eating as well on weekend that I do during the week when I have structure.

B) Pushing myself during my workouts instead of relying on Rachel to push me.

Oh, and…Okay…there will be three things.

C) I need to stop comparing myself to my mother. Just because I came from my mother doesn’t mean I’ve inherited all of her strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps I have hints of those same problems by virtue of being raised by her, and as much as I love her, I am not my mother. This year I’m going to stop clinging to her memory and finally break free. I finally understand what it means to live in the past and why it’s harmful. To live in the past means I’m not living today and I’m not living my own life…and I. Am. Missing. It. So….C) Stop comparing myself to my mother because I’m not her.

I have also come to terms with the fact that I may not be as thin as I wanted to be when I turn thirty at the end of the year. What I will be celebrating is entering my thirties with a healthier perspective about my body, and a healthier approach to food and exercise that will last me FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. My life doesn’t begin at some magical number. It begins now. Life begins every morning when I wake up and put on clothes in a size 24. Life begins when I take that first step outside in the morning and face the world. And my life will begin each morning in the future when I’m a size 12. There’s really no difference except for my body size. Regardless of what I look like or how big I am…I am living my life at this very moment. I’ve spent ten years being deeply depressed over my mother’s death and I’m so upset that I missed my twenties and the feelings of freedom and self-discovery that I could have experienced. Well…I’m not going to miss anymore.

I guess I’m more worried about my grandmother than I admit to being. Last night I messed up and binged, big time. Right off the bat, I don’t know why. Maybe it has nothing to do with my grandmother…maybe it has everything to do with my attempt to discover where this behavior comes from in the first place. Maybe I’m digging up feelings that have lain dormant for so long…maybe I’m not as emotionally healthy as I thought I was. Maybe I’m not ready to let go of my mother this year. There are so many reasons for losing control last night that I don’t even know where to start. And, even though I know I’m not alone…I feel incredibly alone and I’m really scared of losing control of whatever it is I think I have control of. This monster of compulsive eating hasn’t gone away at all, and I know that. I’ve just been able to live with it lurking in the corner. Maybe I need to go back to OA. Maybe I need to make getting better my entire focus for awhile. I envision my life consisting of exercise, making meal plans, going to church, reading books, being with people as much as possible, crying a lot, and becoming a person that I can be satisfied with. And I only want my life to consist of creativity and happiness. Right now I feel like such a failure and a fuck-up. I can put a dozen different acronyms and names to what I’m dealing with. ADD, dysthymia, compulsive eating, perfectionism, daddy-issues, PCOS, being an aesthetic eyesore, utter grief…I don’t see these things as diseases that excuse me from taking responsibility for myself, but I see these things as an explanation as to why I’ve never taken responsibility for myself. The light bulb goes on when I can name these things. Okay, so I have ADD…what can I do to live around that? Alright, so I have dysthymia, what are the warning signs and what I can do to prepare myself for it? Compulsive eating…what are my patterns and what can I do to avoid triggers? And so on and so forth.

It’s when all of this hits at once that I start my old thinking cycles. I fucked up. I’m diseased. I can’t do anything right. My family expects better of me. I’m not perfect. I’m a failure. Maybe I should give up now. I’m going to die alone. No one cares about me because I’m a failure. If only I were [fill in the blank] then I’d be wanted and popular and easy to love. And each of these thoughts spawns other cycles of thought until I’m so tangled up and upset that I don’t know what to do other than zone out in front of the T.V. and eat.

Do you see?  I live in my head…this is my reality…and it’s uncomfortable and hard to ignore these cycles and live in the present. I’m successful off and on, but when things get hard, I withdraw into my mind. And this is the carousel I get on.

This time….however….this time I really am facing this beast by keeping this fucking journal. It’s public, yes, but that’s what I want. It’s a public confession, of sorts, like the way Christians used to do in the early days of the Church. Everyone can know my sins, and I don’t care. Know them. This is who I am. This is what I am dealing with. I’m not perfect and I know it, but it’s no excuse to opt out of living. And this is what I’m doing to hack away at my issues so that I can be the best person I can be. I refuse to hide from myself anymore and I’m making myself as vulnerable as I can. By virtue of being online, there is a sense of anonymity that keeps me from being vulnerable to the core, but at least it’s a start.

There is a lot of hurt in me, just like everyone else has hurt, and I’m the kind of person that, even though I’m passive, I can’t live with this for much longer before I feel that I’ll inflict some serious injury on my psyche. Maybe that sounds like psycho-babble, but it’s the truth.  I have to DO SOMETHING.

The best part of all this angst that won’t go away is that it makes it pretty obvious to me that I need to invest myself in my spiritual life…which I haven’t been attentive to in over a year. And…I miss it. I miss confession, I miss prayer, I miss meditating on spiritual writings…I hate feeling so disconnected with that life because I see the value of those things.

So…there you go. I binged. I feel horrible that my grandma has Alzheimer’s and is in a home. I feel horrible that my family is going through difficult times. I feel horrible that I live inside my head and am not emotionally available for anyone. But, I’m doing what I can, and I’m glad that I haven’t quit!

I’m glad I got this stubborn streak from my grandma. I’m not going to let everything get me down. Life is good and I want to be there for it. Yeah! So…take that, Hopelessness and Despair!