Two Steps Back

Today I am having a very difficult day with my self esteem. I have been beating myself up a lot and feeling a bit like a failure. I had been on such a good upward climb I suppose I would end up sliding back a few steps here and there I just had hoped I wouldn't backslide.

You see I started to read Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi. It's a story of her struggle with bulimia and self image. I had heard a few people say they were reading it and it was quite good so I picked it up from the library yesterday and dove in. Now I don't want the people who recommended this book to feel bad because truthfully reading a book like this should be helpful to me. Unfortunately this shows me that I am not "over" my destructive thinking.

This might sound very strange but I have always in a sick and twisted way admired women who are anorexic or bulimic. I have envied their self control and ability to resist eating over a certain number of calories a day. I have been jealous of a bulimics ability to completely empty the contents of her stomach. In high school this is something that I dabbled with. I have never admitted this to anyone before but I would try to not eat or eat as little as possible but the draw of food was far to comforting for me to resist. I loved and hated eating at the same time. Since I weighed a significant amount more than the average high school girl I felt I was pathetic for not being able to control myself. This turned me towards bulimia. I felt like a huge failure at that! I had every opportunity to be an expert bulimic. In the house we lived in my bedroom I moved to the basement bedroom around the age of 13. It had, for a lot of my childhood, been a basement apartment. Complete with it's own kitchen, living room and bathroom. I could spend time in total privacy throwing up as much as I wanted. As much as I would put my finger down my throat I could never get more than a few bites of food to come up. I couldn't even bet bulimia right! I thought about laxatives but I knew in the town I was living in someone would find out if I was going to the store and buying these things so I felt out of options.

I did do some of the fad diets "guaranteed" to drop 10 lbs in one week" sort of things. The scale never moved. Every time I stepped on it I saw those same big numbers 177. I don't think it ever went under 175 and just hearing the other girls at school make comments like "I can't believe how fat I am! I'm 125 pounds." Was enough to keep me in a constant state of self hatred.

One day I remember I was complaining to an adult about how from my perception my parents had told me I was overweight and that I should drop a few pounds and I remember clearly his response. He replied "Well, maybe they just know that you could be a real blond bombshell." I'm sure in his head this was well meaning. I think what he was trying to tell me was that I was attractive that was what my parents were trying to bring out in me but what I heard was "Everyone knows you're fat and maybe you would be pretty if you lost weight."

I have worked hard, especially over the last year to really see myself as a person who's value isn't based on how I look but when there is so many different examples of situations or comments that I need to overcome I know it takes time. I have been attempting to use the serenity prayer as a sort of motto lately and as I got better at accepting the things I can not change I started to work on changing the things I can. What I didn't anticipate what how difficult it would be to draw the line between those. I think of weight as being on the the things I can change. I have been doing quite well at it and feeling for the first time in my life that this is something that is sustainable and healthy. Then the numbers creep into the back of my head. I don't know where to draw the line for my weight loss. I don't know what number draws the line between acceptance and change. What is realistic for me? What do I aim for? With all this focus on serenity and courage I didn't know that wisdom was what I needed most.

Up to this point I have done quite well at detaching the number on the scale with an image of myself. I have used those numbers only to gauge my progress and feel a sense of success. Now reading this book and hearing how someone feels so fat and disgusting at 130 lbs brings me right back to all those feeling of comparison. I can't help but be transported back to those times and thinking how much more than that I weigh. I know logically that for me to be 130 lbs would be completely and totally unhealthy. I know I would need to loose a lot of lean muscle to get to that point but it doesn't stop me from desiring that possibility.

I have considered just returning the book and trying to forget about it but I haven't gotten to the point where she has gotten better and I know that if I don't finish it now I will continue to feel judged by her weight and it's comparison to mine. My only option now is to try and finish as quickly as I can, hope for a brilliant revelation and pray for wisdom.

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