27Jul2009
Filed under: Life
Author: Kelly
My body feels tired. I can’t quite pinpoint it, but I feel like my limbs are made of lead … something in me screams each time I think about moving my body. My stomach feels ten times fatter today, my arms look like they should be dimply thighs. In two days dresses I ordered are going to arrive that aren’t even going to fit my fat ass, yet all I can do is reach for another tootsie roll.
Why am I so unhappy with myself?
May 2004. I had brand new baby twins, just three months old. I was lighter than I had ever been, back in a size 12 and going down. We had a new house. And I was celebrating my wedding anniversary with XH who bought me premium tickets to Aida, one of my favorite Broadway shows. I dressed up in a black dress for our night out, and I hated the lumps and bumps that the clingy fabric seemed to accentuate. I wore tight control top panty hose, and on top of that, some body shaper-gut sucker thing. It wasn’t just uncomfortable - it downright HURT. I had to sneak away during intermission and take it off in the bathroom. Instant relief. Later, I remember sitting next to him, and I can’t recall what was said prior to him saying this, but he bent to me and whispered in the middle of the show, “I just want you to be happy with yourself.” In reality, he didn’t care if I was 245 pounds or 145 pounds, he just wanted me to be happy with myself.
I just want to be happy with myself.
Just a few months later he found his new GF online and decided that the house with the backyard wasn’t what he wanted after all, gee whiz.
I am tired of being unhappy with myself.
I lost the weight. I maintained the loss. I had the surgery (well, most of). And I am still not happy with myself.
It’s not the fat at all, is it?
lindat
July 27th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Honey. It never was the fat. FaT was a shield, and now that shield is gone.. You have to deal with why you put that up in the first place. What’s really eating you? That is why therapy is a good idea for you, since you still are struggling. You though the weight loss would make you happy. It didn’t. You thought the plastic surgery would make you happy. It didn’t. And I am really afraid that is part of why you may be taking up with R again… to find something to make you happy.
For most of us, the food wasn’t what we really were hungry for when we ate and got fatter and fatter.. it was something else. Food was just a panacea. Stay with the therapy.
To use another food analogy, this is like the layer of an onion.. you have to keep peeling to get at the center of it.
erinlynn
July 27th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
goodness kelly, how this rang true to my chubby little ears. and lindat’s response only makes that ringing louder. you are both so absolutely right. it isn’t the fat. it will never be the fat. when the fat is gone, something else becomes the obsession and then something else and something else and so on, all efforts to block whatever it is that you (or me, or anyone) aren’t ready to deal with.
I agree with lindat in that therapy is a great support and tool to help discover what that thing may be. keep on peeling and hopefully soon, you’ll reach the answer. best of luck and know that you are not alone in this feeling.
paperskin
July 27th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Sometimes it is hard to just be content. We always feel like we should be striving for something. But, we really have to look at all we do have. You have 3 beautiful children, you have a house, you have your health, you have your friends, you have a job.. You have so much more than most people on this earth have, and sometimes we have to look at all we do have, and stop looking at what we don’t have. The glass is more than half full.
kotapaint
July 28th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Fat is often the by product of unhappiness. Stay with the therapy not the tootsie rolls. For many of us Rejection/Abandonment/”I wasn’t good enough” is a problem in childhood, relationships, etc.– even though consciously we don’t think we feel that way. I think then many of us become “helpers”, “pleasers”, etc. (makes us great employees, but it is exhausting…) Which in turn makes it difficult to take care of ourselves, because we are too busy taking care of everybody else whether its family, work, volunteering, etc. Not that those people/things aren’t important, but many of us do them to the exclusion of taking care of ourselves. And I also believe PS’s idea has some merit! I know sometimes I need to just BE and be content…:0 For what it is worth, there’s my 2 cents… (((hugs)))