I try to be as transparent as possible in my blog, sometimes it's hard, as it often sounds like I'm complaining rather than just talking through things in my head and releasing them on paper. And sometimes I just sound pure crazy. I have been a journal-er my entire life. In 6th grade our English Teacher required us to write, which I hated then, but eventually realized how easy it was to just get it out - on paper and then it was over! Well, in most cases it was over. After re-reading some old journal entries, I actually lied in them, yup, lied, I don't know why. I always wanted to be cooler than I was so I often made things up to make myself sound cooler, but...no one read it but me, so I was trying to fool myself? Delusional I am. I've often thought about sharing some of my old poems and journal entries and stories that I wrote as a pre-teen/teen because some of them are hilarious (not ha-ha funny but 'I feel sorry for that girl' funny.)
In a recent conversation with my husband I actually said "I'm in a constant state between denial and delusional." The good news, I've actually gotten past guilt. I'm not sure what's better, denial and delusion or guilt. All seem to lead to one common place - I have no will power. Okay, that doesn't even make sense, AT ALL! But the truth is, I'm beginning to really dislike myself (I'm currently working on deleting hate from my vocabulary, we were never allowed to say it as kids and I just don't like the word), I'm not myself at all anymore. I haven't been able to finish a blog post in a long time, I delete my facebook status updates probably 10 times a day without ever posting them, I am DREADING the idea of going to church tomorrow and then a picnic after because I can't get away with wearing sweat pants or gym shorts and a baggie stained t-shirt. I actually have to put on jeans and a nice top. I don't have one pair of shorts or capri's that fit me so I have to wear jeans everywhere, which, in case you don't know the entire country is having an insane heat wave. And most of the shirts I own are also slightly too small. And let's not even talk about nursing bras, which are usually the most comfortable bras on the planet, nope, not at all, it makes me look like I have three sets of back boobs... And, YES, I'm too cheap to buy any new stuff, and well, we're a very big family on one income so my clothes needs are usually the last ones taken care of.
Just the other day my husband took a picture of me and my gorgeous baby girl, which should be a good thing, it's not. I'm so great at taking 'self portraits'. I mean I should get paid for it, it's one of my best talents. So I can make myself look pretty amazing, but, I was at a bad angle and well, my face was HUGE! I honestly looked like a gorilla, that is how huge my face looked. I think I had probably 2 side chins. Even my eyebrows looked fat, I was purely disgusted by it. I know, I know, I'm being really hard on myself and I'm a 'pretty' girl, but it's gotten beyond looks at this point. I have zero confidence, zero motivation, zero energy, zero lots of things. And I think about how terrible I feel (and look) that it consumes me, all the time. I'm either thinking about food or thinking about how I can avoid working out.
The working out, isn't actually the hard part to me, yes, it sucks working out when I have lists and lists of things to do or I have one more kid crying or whining while I'm trying to work out, but I can typically get at least a 30 minute work out in 5 days a week. I would like to be a jogger/runner again, so that is the hard part, most of my working out has to be inside because I have my kids 24/7, but whatever a work out is a work out. The eating, it's the eating that's really doing me in. I eat, all the time. I tell people "I'm just so hungry", it's not really true. Yes, I am hungrier than I used to be and nursing does make women hungrier than normal, but I'm really not as hungry as I like to tell people. I'm not really sure if I'm bored (which seems completely impossible), or I'm stressed or what I am. I don't know why I do it, I don't know why I can't walk past the pantry without eating a cookie. Yes, get the out of the house, would make perfect sense, but I also believe that I need to learn to do this in the midst of temptation and just life.
So, that's where I'm at, I slowly keep gaining weight, I quit weighing myself a couple weeks ago because I thought I had an okay week and gained 4 pounds - which equals about 14,000 EXTRA calories that week, which is totally impossible (and that's if I did no exercise, which I did work out that week....so....) and it destroyed any bit of confidence I was starting to feel. I'm getting jigglier, which is so gross, my clothes look terrible, even my 'go to' fat clothes looks hideous right now. I even gave up wearing make up unless at church because I've lost pretty much every ounce of confidence I've ever had. I really don't know what to do....I dont' want to give up, this I know but it almost seems like I have without actually saying I have.
I do know this, there will be quite possibly FOUR super important people I love soooo much getting married in the next 3 months to 18 months (give or take) and the thought of looking like this makes me want to tell each of them that I cant' be in their weddings (I've always wanted to be in a wedding!!!) so....do you think that realization made me do something different today? No... WHY?!? UGH!
P.S. My husband would be proud, I just hit the 'spell check' and not one word was spelled wrong. I guess it's a good thing there's not a grammar check!
Oh Dawnie...I love you just the way you are..I know that's not helping you with any kind of boost of confidence..but truly you are an amazing person..but I do feel your struggles..
ReplyDeleteLooks like I'm up late with ya...I have to say you sound pretty down here. You are, of course, allowed to feel that way, but I'm hoping this is just a little speedbump on your road. I'm concerned about the "disliking [yourself]"- I know you have had postpartum issues previously, so if that is a portion of what you're going through then hopefully you know how and where to get critical support if needed. I really hate to see you beat yourself up here, because you don't deserve it. I mean, think about it: you're (according to your post) maybe overweight--sorry, you grew human beings, that's completely normal as a person--it's "allowed", plus you probably still have some hormonal settling to do so if things are out of whack, f**k it, they're out of whack. I do understand that feeling pretty is a nice confidence boost: there's sort of a cyclical thing going on there with appearance and self-esteem. That "I feel great, I'll wear a fab outfit, which gives me even more confidence, so I look even better,' versus 'I feel terrible, why bother with clothes and makeup, then dressing down oh I look worse than I thought" interaction. When I taught undergrads, the advice I gave them (and used myself) when they were anxious about exams was to dress up, not wear pajamas. It always made me (and some of them) feel more competent and on top of their game, which translated to feeling sharper and (hopefully) doing better on exams. I get how easy it is to fall into the Pajama Spiral, though, and this is without kids, so there's that. I guess it's pretty easy for me to give that advice, though--I'm sure you've thought of that yourself and you're just trying to work through the muck of it all. Take a deep breath, sweetie--one bad day does not a life make.
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