never_quit’s BodyBlog

I’m sick! Bleah. I’ve slept most of the day and I’ve had about a million gallons of hot tea. So here I am surfing through different profiles and I found a new ‘friend’ who hasn’t had any beer in 8 months despite watching football with his friends and the ensuing peer pressure (beer pressure?! LOL!) . This of course brought to mind my father and how different things would be if he had been able to actually stop and look at his life and try to make positive, healthy changes for himself. Things would be different for him of course (he’d probably still be alive) but things would be very different for me too. I wouldn’t feel guilty for concentrating on myself and trying to improve all aspects of my life: mind, body and spirit. When I stop to think about it, not one person in my family-not one-has ever tried to become a better person in terms of health, neither mentally nor physically. Wow, when I look at it from that perspective what I’m doing and what I have done over the past seven years is actually absolutely amazing! It’s funny how uncomfortable it makes me to write something positive about myself. But damn it, this is the place to do it! My brother is 18 years older than me and he drinks. He said to me, "I’m not an alcoholic, I don’t drink every day like dad does." and my dad always said, "I’m not an alcoholic, I only drink beer, not hard liquor like my dad did." Hmmmm…. It’s a frickin’ miracle that I didn’t turn to alcohol as a coping skill! I wonder what the difference is? Of course I have turned to lots of other unhealthy coping skills, but I’ve also always actively tried to improve myself. The turning point was when I read a book called, "Adult Children of Alcoholics". I recognized so many things in myself, things that I had always seen as personal failings rather than learned behaviors. I’m a survivor! What I learned to survive my childhood was all necessary, but once an adult-those same survival skills are no longer needed. You don’t just unlearn them automatically though! I learned to be invisible and not to call attention to myself. I learned to be super hyper-sensitive to my dad’s moods so that I could anticipate trouble and head it off at the pass. As long as everything that upset him was my fault and I tried to fix it, life was great. It’s sad really, he couldn’t cope with his own guilt, so he drank to feel better, which made him feel more guilt, so he drank, etc. I can understand it of course, but what I can’t understand is blaming the people around me or taking it out on the people around me. Of course, that led/leads to my own downfall in that I take it ALL on. And I internalize it-whatever is wrong is my fault and I need to fix it. Of course, this was all subconscious. It took me several years of therapy to be able to get to the point of realizing this. Once I realized it, I was amazed how obvious it was and why didn’t I realize it sooner? And then I would beat myself up for being so dumb…but wait! I was doing it again! See?! So I realize that once I can recognize when I go back into that mode, or play my old tapes as my therapist says, that is when I stop! I stop and I write or I think about it and make a conscious choice of whether or not to take on the guilt burden. I’m breaking 30+ years of learned behaviour that was reinforced over and over again so I keep reminding myself that-instead of getting mad that I can’t just DO IT! It’s a constant struggle but I am LIGHT YEARS ahead of where I was 7 years ago.

7 years ago I had been with my husband for 12 years. Now I know that it was a textbook co-dependent relationship. Of course it was, I went from living with my father trying to anticipate all his needs and keep him happy and be whatever it was that would make him happy, to a husband-and doing the same thing of course. It’s all that I knew how to do. Granted, I was happy and loved him with all of my heart-but there was no "me" really. After 12 years of living with him-living FOR him really-he left. Just like that-left a voice mail that said he wasn’t coming home and never did. I was DEVASTATED. To this day I don’t know how I survived, yes I do…I’m a survivor. I started seeing my therapist because I simply couldn’t function anymore. The whole reason for my life had just left me. So I kept seeing her-twice a week-and when I told her that I didn’t believe in myself she said that she would believe in me until I could do it too. And slowly, slowly I started unraveling my past and seeing how I came to be where I was. I started actually being able to identify my emotions, and stop and think and decide if it was "old stuff" or not, and how to change it if it was! Financially things were so precarious-I was about a dime away from being homeless. In a way I did with my last boss what I did with my dad and ex-husband, but with some key differences. One, obviously at work you have to make the boss happy or he fires you! He kept demanding and I kept giving more and more-but there were many good differences. I would throw up the white flag and say I needed help, and I actually got it! I got an assistant and things I needed when I asked. Ultimately, I realized that the situation itself was never going to change though, and I finally did what was best for me. I silenced the voice that said it was my failing and that I just needed to work harder. I finally realized that no matter how hard I worked it would never be enough and made the right choice. Part of not making that choice sooner was in large part because I was so scared of being in trouble financially. I also learned that sometimes you are stuck in a less than ideal situation, but as long as you are moving towards your goal and there is an end in sight..it is doable!

So, compared to all this losing weight is totally doable (is that a word?)! I can and I will and I have a PLAN! And I have motivation and encouragement HERE! Life is good-life is GREAT! I got married this summer to a wonderful man who supports me 100%, heck HE was the one that has been begging me to quit my job and go back to school to become a music teacher! He is as motivated as I am to work out and get in shape and live a healthy lifestyle. I am truly blessed

Now-back to bed with some theraflu!

food log

Theraflu

campbells cream of mushroom soup 250/18

echinacea tea

theraflu

1/4 cup almonds

ginger tea w/ honey & lemon

theraflu

Marie

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.