workingonmywellness

[workingonmywellness]

thoughts on what I see of myself

the following contains some pretty negative self-talk about my body, so if that doesn't feel safe or fun for you right now, scroll on by!

I hate my arms. I see them, every day! I don't spend a lot fo time looking in the mirror, because I don't like what I see really at all. I've gained a chunk of weight this year--I don't know how much because I don't weigh myself because that way lies madness. But, just in the regular course of the day, I see two parts of my body pretty frequently: my arms and my belly.

My belly has been getting bigger and bigger, and my anger and resentment has just grown with it. I don't want to look like this. I don't want to /feel/ like this. The fold of my stomach makes me so goddamn angry. I wasn't like this! I was smaller once, so I know it's possible. COVID and lockdown really fucked with me, and I'm still trying to engage with life outside my house more and more everyday. Im starting grad school soon, and that will at least force me out of the house, as opposed to my remote job, where I roll out of bed to my desk.

I haven't been great with hygiene recently** (**or ever) (except for when I worked at Lush one christmas lol). But the fact that I don't like engaging with my body surely doesn't help.

I'll see my arms a few times a day and get so....angry. I hate the way the fat on my biceps droops and curves, the way it flops. There's too fucking much of me, and it's so frustrating.

I want so badly to lose weight, to eat more mindfully, to engage with activity and fitness in a healthy way. and. it hurts my soul to feel this way. I feel it poisoning my mind, my heart. and I just want. I want to start over. I want a clean slate. I know that's not how life works, how any of this works but. God.

I don't want to feel like this anymore. I want to be free of this.

[workingonmywellness]

Dysregulated at the function

My therapist wants me to give myself exposure therapy. I get very distressed when I see pictures of myself from right now (my current weight) because i don’t like the way I look. And I’m having a hard time because I don’t want to be okay with my body as it is. I want my body to change. I want to be smaller, and have an easier life. Life was easier once. I dont. Fuck me sideways. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. And I think I’m making steps in the right direction! Snacking less, trying to work with my hunger cues, trying not to be so goddamn afraid. I don’t want to be anorexic again, but I don’t want to binge again either. This middle path bullshit is hard.

[workingonmywellness]

I love revoking people’s access to me like actually no you don’t deserve to know me anymore :-)

[workingonmywellness]

weight loss plans promise that if you do this hard thing at first, you’ll eventually find freedom and health. like you’ll get used to eating that way and maintaining that workout schedule, you’ll break your “junk food addiction”, and retrain your habits, etc etc. that’s bullshit. diets progressively strip you of control, causing increasingly intense backlashes against the restrictions, like binge eating and despair. the people who “successfully” chronically restrict what they eat and maintain a rigorous exercise schedule? they have eating disorders.

but any non-diet approach - intuitive eating, eating competence, or for eating disorder patients, full refeeding - is what’s really going to deliver on that promise. these are very hard at first. terrifying, even. they require huge amounts of energy, concentration, and commitment. but then, when you get the hang of them and let them have their full effect, you will increasingly experience a relationship with food and your body characterized by freedom and health, with compounding benefits 

[workingonmywellness]

recovering from recovery

hi i’m mel and I’m working on my wellness. I’ve been noodling on this for years—literally years—and now i’m doing something! I have a ~20 year history of struggling with eating disorders (they start us young!) and after gaining a good deal of weight, I’d like to lose some without spiraling into relapse.

I should warn you, I’m going to talk about my recovery on here pretty explicitly, including numbers like weight and inches. If that’s triggering for you well. As much as I crave your attention, I wouldn’t wish the special kind of hell I’ve been navigating on anyone.

I’ve run the gamut on eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, and ultimately, binge eating disorder. I have ADHD, but wasn’t really treated for it until right after college. That’s cool, because it wasn’t like it made school enormously more difficult or anything :/

Today was tricky: it’s the fourth of july (boooooo) so I was at a family party with my wife. Family parties = lots of food for grazing. I’m working on being more mindful about what i’m eating without being restrictive or setting up a fucking Rube Goldberg machine of justifications on why and what I can and can’t eat. I’ve wasted enough of my life on that. I spent most of the day grazing on snacks and meals, trying to be mindful without torturing myself into analysis paralysis.

Part of the problem is I’m bigger than I’m comfortable with. I suppose that’s been true for most of my life: I’ve felt “fat” since I was nine or ten years old. Too big, too squishy, not strong enough or fast enough or good enough or correct. But now I weight about 285 lb. I’m not sure because i only weigh myself at the doctors office. My wife has a scale at home but it doesn’t fuck with her head the way it does mine. I’d like to get down to 200. Which feels totally reasonable! I think. I know it’ll take a long time to do sustainably and healthily.

I’ve been struggling with thoughts or desires to just slice off my tummy or the excess of my thighs and arms. Not literally, but like in a liposuction kind of way. I know that’s not feasible right now - I don’t have the money right now frankly. Also it wouldn’t fix the ultimately twisted and corrupted way I see my body.

my wife posted pictures of me in a June wrap up post on Instagram. And I saw myself on the feed and it just made me so…angry. Frustrated and scared and sick. I’m not happy with my body. I talked to my therapist about it, and she told me to ~sit with my discomfort~ and that would ~help me learn to accept the reality I’m living~. Boooooo!!

I know she’s right. But that doesn’t make it suck any less.

I’m keeping a food journal. I was hoping it could be an app, but they all suck ass for people in recovery so pen and paper it is. At least I have fun pens!!! I forgot it at home so I just ate today without recording it which felt fine! I only started keeping the journal last week. But it still felt wrong. Part of it is a desire to punish myself for eating, which is not very groovy. I don’t know how to get rid of that.

Sigh. The horrors persist but so do I.

I just wish I could persist with a little bit less of me.

One time, in high school when I was struggling with anorexia, I was talking to my mom. And she did a double take and was like, ‘oh! you’ve lost weight!’ and O was like ‘yes! I have!’ and she was like ‘I love you! now there’s less of you to love!’ and she sounded so goddamn happy. that altered my brain chemistry in a way there’s no coming back from. I mean it happened 15 years ago and i still think about it at least once a week.

I think that’s what I ultimately want: freedom from food stuff taking up so goddamn much of my brain space. not thinking about the mistakes I’m making or bad choices or wrong things. I just want that part of my brain to shut up.

Well, maybe letting it talk here will make it a little easier for it to be quiet during the life I’m trying to live.

xoxo

mel