I have started this blog twice already this week and each time has been very different and yet some how the same. I'm hoping that this time will work a little bit better. I'm having a hard time finding my voice for this blog. It feels like I'm trying too hard and although I want to pour my heart and soul out there, I guess it is easier said then done. I will keep trying though and with some more practice I know things will get easier and better.
I just got home from watching the movie Dear John. I went to it because I wanted to watch a movie that would make me cry. I know it seems like a weird way to choose movies but for me it is a release. I have never been very good with my emotions. I learned that crying just eggs bully's on and that if you fake a smile and pretend you don't care they usually go away. It's a hard lesson no kid should have to learn and it is a hard lesson to unlearn. Instead of feeling I know that I turn to food. Any emotion really I deal with by using food in some way. For example Monday when I was frustrated with work I came home and self destructed with a box of cookies (which i'm sure I'll pay for on my weigh in tomorrow, but hopefully the exercise will balance it out some). I have been learning new ways to deal with things like frustration and stress by doing things like exercise before I eat but other emotions are harder, things like that pesky loneliness that comes with being single. Over the last year that I have been working on losing weight the one thing I have noticed is that I am growing more emotional. I do not think that it is because I'm suddenly developing these feelings but I think for the first time in my life i'm finally letting myself feel. My paper journal is full of emotions that are being written down rather than being eaten. I know that it is a good thing to let myself feel but there is still a part of me that feels like I'm just letting the bully in. So sometimes the easiest and safest way to let myself feel is by going to a movie I know will make me cry. It frees my brain and lets my emotions out.
I suppose in the end whatever helps me deal with emotions and feel them rather than ignore them and feed them with food is probably a good choice. It is truly funny how the brain works though sometimes, or maybe just how my brain works. I view everything in two lights. One is the smart educated person that knows the answers and wants to problem solve and the other is the person who is scared of the bully's. It is two sides of my brain that are sometimes hard to reconcile together. Of course ever since high school i've always said i'm a walking contradiction (like a solar powered vampire) so really that is nothing new either. I guess it just shocks me how much more I'm noticing it now. I'm assuming it is because I am not only spending more time thinking about myself, trying to find answers to my life, but also because I am learning how to feel again. In the end I know all of this will work to my advantage and help me in the long run.
The good news in all of this I will weigh in in the morning and be able to put this week behind me as crazy as it was. I get to look forward to flying out to surprise my mom for her 60th bday on Saturday and get to have a few days away from home and work. I'm very much ready for a vacation and surprising my mom. It has been a long time since I was excited about visiting with my family, it feels pretty good.
A journey in accepting myself for who I am now while working on making myself into the person I see in my future.
It's so hard to get past a history of being bullied. I was always told that it would make me stronger. But who says that being strong is unequivocally a good thing?
ReplyDeleteHave fun with your Mom this weekend!
Good work, journalling your emotions rather than eating for the wrong reasons. And the comments about bullies have been instructive. I suppose everyone gets bullied at first. But after I learned to fight back, they learned that I'm _much_ scarier than they are, but that I'll leave them alone if they return the compliment. Take good care and blessed be!
ReplyDeleteBullying is a horrible way to have to experience any stage in one's childhood. I was bullied and so was my brother (though I was much luckier than he was). We both had to physically fight back to get them to back off. I know I recovered quicker than my brother did, but the mental scars are still there for both of us I think. They just manifest themselves in different ways.
ReplyDeleteI know that I am an emotional eater (stress, depressed, etc.) I am trying to figure out other triggers, but the more I read and talk with you, the more I am coming to understand myself as I take a page from your book, so-to-speak. As you continue on your journey, there will be things that will be uncovered that you didn't even know were there, or were buried so deeply you thought they were gone. But you're not alone! Keep writing to help yourself, and thank you again for letting us see you.