This is one of the tough times, and I admit that I didn’t see it coming — and my Inner Walt is screaming at me that I’m not good enough. The screaming is pretty loud today. This is why it’s important that I keep this blog; because I need to talk my way through crisis times like now. I know what makes sense, and the inner voice doesn’t. Still, inner voices don’t listen to logic.
A couple of things have happened. First, let me get it out of the way: no weight loss this week, but with Thanksgiving on Thursday after two weeks of big losses, I didn’t expect it. That’s not the reason I’m struggling.
I’m floundering, and I very much need to get back to being in control and not allowing those inner voices to rule me. I know I can grab back that control.
The first issue is thanks to smart phones — and social media. Someone I love dearly just recently got a smart phone. She’s doing what’s normal with it; she thinks it’s okay to take videos and post them. She posted a couple of me; one just this morning, and I assure you that while I know it’s not on a service that anyone I know uses, I am absolutely and positively mortified to know the video even exists. I had one hell of a drinking binge yesterday (another issue entirely, but it didn’t help) and today, I look like death. She took a video of me playing with a dog.
Maybe no one else thinks twice about that video, but I feel I look grotesque. No make up, no shower, Jabba the Hut-like, incredibly fat, morbidly fat, and I am mortified that it’s out there for ANYONE to see. I am truly fighting with myself over this, because unfortunately, that’s who I am at this moment in time, and I really need to love myself as I am. This is a horrible trial for me, even when I’m at my best.
Do I leave that video, knowing that it is me at this moment, and I will improve, or do I ask that it be taken down? I don’t know. I’m trying hard to just leave it alone and understand that at some point, I’ll look at it and forgive myself — but not now.
The other is a discussion I had with a dear friend last night. We were talking about vacations. We took our last vacation with them in the summer of 2012. It was after that when I piled weight back on, to the tune of 100 pounds exactly. My friend doesn’t realize or understand that I’ve put on that much weight; the eyes of friends are mostly blind when it comes to stuff like this… except what she said hurt me. And bothered me. Once again, it didn’t help that I drank too much and at least I filtered what I felt instead of saying it aloud.
Essentially, we were talking about vacationing again next summer — and I told her that were we to go again, I’d have similar physical limitations to what I did the last time. While I think I can lose at least another 30-40 pounds, I won’t be at the point I was last time. For me, weight never goes off as fast as it comes on.
Still. She inferred that if I actually tried harder, it wouldn’t be an issue for me.
Tried harder.
It might as well have been my father, telling me you’re not good enough.
She meant well. She just has no idea what it’s like for me to fight the battles I fight. I immediately started questioning myself, and haven’t stopped. Am I trying hard enough? Could I be doing more? And while questioning isn’t a bad thing at all, the result of the two of these things combined made me feel like losing 30 pounds wasn’t good enough. Like I had no right to be proud of that.
Because — so what? There’s so far to go, and nothing has improved to the outside world, so why try, if you can’t be good enough?
I know I have to squelch those voices in order to succeed, and I know that in fairness, no one else knows what baggage I have or how I punish myself over the silliest of transgressions. I knew when I started this journey that it would take years to lose this weight and regain my strength and my dignity. I am barely three months into it. This is just the beginning, and the things I have ahead of me should require hard work, dedication, and not be easily won or accomplished. Easy victories rarely require lessons to be learned.
Still. That voice is screaming at me.
It doesn’t help, either, that I’m on Day Three of a four day “cheat” — and I will have to go through at least a couple weeks of detox to pay for four days. I’ll remember this at Christmas and New Year’s, though they don’t tend to be as much of a “food holiday” as Thanksgiving.
I need to remember how I’m feeling, right at this moment, and throw this level of anger back at the saboteurs when the next challenges come; and I know they will come. I need to grab back that control and stand for my own dignity. (And I think I’ll start with asking nicely for those videos to be taken down, because it is an issue for me, and punishing myself by leaving them out there doesn’t pay heed to my own control over myself.) It’s not that I’m hiding from who I am; in retrospect, I wouldn’t want my hungover unshowered self to be immortalized in video if I were 125 pounds. No one may see those videos… or any number of people might.
As for the other issue, I need to be careful to remember others’ perceptions — but in the long run, do what’s right for me. If that means changing something for my betterment, then I should consider that. But if it means feeling demeaned because someone else doesn’t truly understand that their comments are hurtful, I need to separate those comments from me and not give them the power to potentially derail me.
Because this is the bottom problem: this attitude makes me want to give up, as if the progress I’ve made to this point doesn’t matter. Logically, I know it matters. I know that losing 30 pounds is a good start toward where I want to be, and I have to work through this stage of my health in order to accomplish my goals. Giving up solves nothing; it just flings me back to that starting point, where I felt so horrible about myself that I didn’t even want to leave the house. Those days can never, ever happen again.
I have to remember, and I have to let logic win this battle and tell the inner voice to be quiet. After all, this hate I feel for where I am, right now, just intensifies if I don’t move forward with my efforts to become healthier; I just stay at this weight (or higher) and keep right on hating myself. And that’s no way to live.
Giving up does not make things better. It just makes them easier in this moment, and there’s a huge difference.