Losin it in Paradise

“The reason most people fail to reach the finish line is that they confuse a setback with a failure…” Russell Simmons

Okay, I have dealt with enough “setbacks”.  I kinda like that word a whole lot better than failure.  Failure seems so permanent, so hard to get back from.  Whereas setback has a temporary sound, one you can recover from

I am still feeling crummy, but am at work anyway.  Have to be, there is no one else to do it for me.  Thankfully so far it is a quiet night.

I have been trying to think about why I am so hard on myself, yet also so lax when it comes to truly looking after myself.  I will wax, and get my nails done, color the grays and go for botox, but the one thing I want is to lose weight, and I seem to set myself up for failure.  Not setback, but failure.  Almost like I want to fail, I want to remain fat, I don’t want to lose my armour.

A friend said (not word for word) that maybe I need to let go of who ever in my past was so critical and hard to please.  Good thoughts, because now I am the critical one, the one I cannot please.  I am harsh with myself, will give no ground and accept no excuses, from me.  I think of me as senitive, but actually I am defensive.  Gawd forbid anyone critize me ie: DH   I then become a turtle and go into my shell.  Easy to stay in there and justify why I over eat etc.  I read this in “O” and I think I can really relate:  Defensiveness, on the other hand, is the bastard child of shame.  For people who have survived harshly judgmental environments, shame - the sick sense that they’re basically inadequate - dominates the psychological landscape.

WOW

So here you have a perfectionist, a vain person, highly critical of oneself, who cannot bear for others to think of them as less than perfect, willing to settle for less than perfect when it comes to weight.  Why?   Because I was right the first time.  It is indeed armour.  If you are overweight, perhaps no one will touch you, will even see you, so therefore the flaws are not visable.  They are hidden in the fat and safe.  No one will sexually abuse anymore because you are no longer “little and pretty”, no teacher will call on you in class cause you are just the fat kid in the back, so it doesn’t matter if you know the answer because you are invisible .   And because no one even knows you are there, how can you fail? 

But it does’t really matter what other know, inside you always feel like you are inadequate.  Do you know that I am the only one in my family that finished high school?  Went to university?  Is not an alcoholic?  I am the only one who succeeded, but still feel inadequate……..why?

I will go home to Canada (rarely now since mom died) and I will try to visit with my dad, and all he talks about is my brothers.  One who is a drunk and is nothing, and one who is a bully and a very man man.  I have not seen my brothers for almost 6 years because they have always made me feel like I was no one.  Except for the drunk, he always just wanted to get into my pants.   So I don’t go to Canada to see my dad.  In fact I have not called him since Father’s Day because I don’t know how to talk to him.  I feel guilty, but want do you say?   Do you know that I just turned 50!   And not once in my entire life has my father ever picked up the telephone to call me.  Not one single time.  He has never written my a letter, so sent me a card, or phoned to say hi, or ever gotten me a b’day or Christmas present, never, not once in my whole life, and yet I still want him to be proud of me, to love me.

So I need to let go, to put it behind me, and move forward.  He will never tell me, he will never change.  He is an old man now, and I cannot change him, so it is my that must change.   He knew my uncle raped me, and I think he always blamed me, even thou I was only 5 years old the first time it happened.  I think that is when my dad stopped loving me, if he ever did.  I know that is the first time he ever hit me, but was not the last for sure.

Wow, talk about memories that come back in the middle of the night.  Those ones are better left to rest.

But I need to put my turtle shell away, I need someone to be strong enough to try and love me.  But first I have to learn to love me.  Then I can slowly start taking down the shell.  I want this, I want to be able to forgive myself for whatever I think I did wrong. 

And I think I can because I have just had a setback, I have not failed

Posted on September 7th, 2007 by islandgrl
Filed under: General