Self Examination

I have been thinking a lot about myself lately. I know this sounds kind of self centered, but its not thinking about myself in a prideful way. Just evaluating where I am, the pros and cons of my friendships in my life, the people who irritate me. This was never meant to be a daily blog, and it isn't. It is however a place to capture the thoughts in my head, and I still hold to that initial hope, that it could prove helpful to someone else one day... not that I think anyone reads this! If they do I don't know if I should feel proud or ashamed. I guess it depends on what they get out of it, or if it comes back to bite me later. I know that sounds so incredibly paranoid, but I don't think its out of the realm of possibility considering the person who I seem to be clashing with the most lately.

That's part of my self evaluation. Trying to get myself back on a positive path in any number of ways. I am trying to achieve even small achievements. I think that's a good start. A list of goals that aren't all I want to lose x amount of weight or I want eternal happiness. A couple of years ago for Christmas, the very first year I worked for him actually my boss gave me a copy of the secret. I am wondering if I should read it and try this self visualization thing. Can it hurt?

I feel like I sound ungrateful a lot for the good things in my life. I am really not. I know I have phenomenal good in my life. I have a great job and a great job and right or wrong I couldn't ask for more or anyone better to work for. Particularly when I get into these... unmotivated states.

The people who I truly consider friends online and off are very varied, but are all amazing and provide support for me in many ways whether they realize it or not. I don't always advertise the days I feel my weakest.

I was determined some weeks ago that I was going to try to maintain a more positive outlook and reorganize my life, and to not be afraid. I am making slow progress. I am organizing the closet, making it more organized and categorizing things into bins rather than cardboard boxes. I am even throwing out excess and reevaluating some of the things that I've kept over the years. Transferral to bins is more of a financial issue. I should eventually pare the one big bin into a smaller bin, but its been pared down from two big boxes.

I have a hard time with the stuff from one particular friend, because it meant so much to him to be able to share my life and to be able to send me things to either make my life easier or to help me in some other way. He's tried so often to be there to hold my hand mentally/emotionally and offer support in ways I never had before. It was such a welcome change. Working days has altered that friendship even more significantly than just time itself, but he is still a welcome part of my life, and of my heart.

In other achievements my sister's birthday presents were sent in time to be early, but got there one day after Halloween, which was disappointing since the whole package was Halloween themed and I thought I mailed it in time to get there by Halloween. She said it might have been a problem on campus. In any case that was a win for me.

However it was also a loss for me. Despite my frequent weight gain in the last year I took the opportunity of the treat shopping I did for her to lead to compulsive eating again. Well I would have done it anyway, but it made it so much easier. I also spent too much money. On one hand I was working a lot of shows at the time so it didn't have as much impact as it could have financially. She loved it, and that's what I wanted. AND I got her Christmas present already.

This isn't all I wanted it to be, its just a section of my recent self examination. There, as always is more to come.

Emotional Growth... Or lack thereof

Been a little while since I've written. The PC is back up and running so I have been on that more, and just haven't blogged. Had a little bit of stuff going on. I had another birthday, turned 35. Felt kind of bad about it since I felt neglected. My birthday fell very awkwardly this year, on a Sunday, which altered mail plans for gifts. I had a huge bank shortage that I had to borrow money from people for. Its not been a great time.

Don't get me wrong, I hate being as negative as I have been in my last several blogs, and I know there are a lot of people who have things much worse in the world than I do. I understand that and don't think I have the worst problems. I should just change all of the wording on the page, the descriptive stuff because it is not educational anymore, its just me bitching.

The day of turning 35 was not as bad as I anticipated. I spent some time with the family here, spent a lot of time on the phone talking about the new house with my mom and my sister, and spent some time online with friends.

My eating has been way out of control again/still. I'll do good for a little bit, and then fall right back into the bad stuff. Its frustrating especially when I feel like I have no control over it. I have been drinking more lately. One day a week heavily and occasionally during the week. I don't think that's been excessive, just trying to monitor it so it doesn't become excessive.

I have been posting links to this on twitter, but not facebook. As I gain followers like Holley on Twitter, and I have my family following me on FB I don't know if I should. I don't think people view it regardless, although my family might.

I was on board with my mother selling the house, until she had a buyer. Now I have mixed feelings. Then again I have mixed feelings about the house too.

I'll have to talk about the drama with my dad and my phone number on my birthday, but I'm tired right now. I'll write more soon.

Hate

I don't like hating, its counter productive, but I am so damn good at it sometimes it scares me. My mom talks about admonishing me (aka screaming/possibly striking me) when I said I hated something or someone for that very reason. "It's not nice to hate". She says she feels bad about that now, and in some ways I think she should, in other ways its a valuable lesson.

I hate the way I look and very often I actually hate myself. I ty to do things to remedy this, to break this cycle of self hatred. For two months I exercised every day, either riding an exercise bike, or when I could going on the treadmill at my boss'. I felt good about that other than the days that my ankles hurt from using the bike barefoot considering the history of planters facaeitis (that is so spelled wrong). I have found that I think regular exercise gives me a license to eat more. For the last week I haven't done any exercise at all.

Inside my head I can be terribly mean, beyond my usual sarcasm and cutting remarks. Many times it is with people that I see going along similar paths that I have gone down. Particularly when despite my dislike for someone I've tried to offer the best advice from my experience. That is the benefit of having the experiences that I've had.

I hate my inability to relate to my peers sometimes. I feel like I am lightyears away from them. I am still dealing in real life with feelings of social anxiety and in both my real and online lives my feelings of ongoing solitude even while in a crowd. It's a funny conundrum. The people who seek complete attention all the time irk me, at the same time when I feel vulnerable and share a piece of myself I fell angry if no one gives me that same attention. The problem is always the same, I don't connect enough. I have been rejected by the people in my life, including myself so often that I am afraid of opening up to people, and always keep myself just slightly removed from the group. At the same time the last time I became part of "the group" it felt like they did nothing but tear down other people, and that's not how I want to get my self esteem. Making other people hurt like I have hurt is not helpful.

I don't walk outside because in my head I still hear every taunt about my weight that I have ever heard. It haunts me and still continues to frighten me sometimes. I hate the weaknesses in myself. I hate this lack of control I feel. I hate that I have been so overtly negative lately.

I am a mess lately

Its not a physical hurt, there is an ache in my heart that I have always had, but sometimes it comes back more than others. All the pain, the anger, the loneliness in my life sitting in a ball in my chest. It aches so much that the slightest outside influence can bring me to tears. I have been touched y so much in the last few days in some ways, and in others I feel so lonely, so bereft.

I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going. I feel so lost. I feel like my life is slipping away from me again, and while I'm not mutilating this time, or suicidal I still feel out of touch. I am reading "Breaking Free from Emotional Eating" which is something of a mixed blessing, as well as trying to follow up on the advice that I've been given before, which is to write some of the stories of things that have happened to me down. This blog may wind up a spring board, or a catchment area for a lot of those ideas in the days and weeks to come.

My mother is on my case to make peace with my bio dad and to be duplicitous with my step father. I will not deceive my stepfather - well adoptive father to suit my mother's needs. So much I want to say, and not able to collect the thoughts at the moment.

My mother called me today, she's been having a string of good days since she went back on her MS medication, which is great. I am happy for her. Her doctors swear she's not in alzheimers that all of her problems are due to the MS. That's good, although she's told me her brain is shrinking and my boss (a doctor) has said that's part of dimentia. If there's anything that describes my mother its demented. (sometimes) She likes to talk to me and offer advice about my relationship with my biological father, and tell me how much they're communicating. That's great for her... so she can get her childlike fixation back on him again... and he can break her heart, again. At least this time he can't knock her up. She's in therapy now so she thinks she's this all knowing beacon of light. She had a major breakthrough today because she dealt with the fact that her mother died when she was young and she's had to deal with all the doctors and stuff for her MS herself. The way she talked about it she sounded like her mother would still be doing all this stuff for her. It was really weird. But her breakthrough was about being angry about it I think, and the quack she's going to told her that its made her that much stronger to not have that. That my mother always tells herself she can't, but she always does. She does because she has to like everyone else. We all survive because we need to. To me this is not a breakthrough, and she didn't do everything herself. She's clearly forgotten all that my grandfather did for her. He made it so she didn't have to work for years, be bought her vehicles that she never took care of, gave her (and me) a comfortable home that she subsequently punched holes in the walls when she was drinking and angry... and sometimes when she wasn't drinking. She also is having a breakthrough on how she needs to feel less guilty about having been a shitty mother in so many ways. Because it just wasn't her fault... She did the best she could... and I guess if that wasn't good enough too fucking bad.

I know I am too old to be angry about some of this stuff still. At least that's what I'll be told, mainly by her, but this is the same woman who still talks about her emotionally bereft childhood and the boy that she loved that left her. Its kind of like ok it was 35+ years ago. Get over it. Sometimes it feels like my sister talks to me like a mom. My mother wants me to lie for her and keep her secrets which I have very mixed feelings about. One, I don't like lying to my sister or anyone else that my mother asks me to "cover for her" with. The other is why am I the one who has to hold the secrets, why don't I get to be protected, why don't I get to be the one she's afraid to tell. I am just as angry as everyone else would be, just as disappointed, and more so because I have to lie about it.

Tonight's cake taker was I needed my stepfather's address since he'd recently moved. She gave it to me but asked when I send the card if I could put A. Tucci on it instead of using an address label so his girlfriend might think it was from her. She's fucking insane.

She always seems surprised when I have so much anger at my biofather but doesn't realize a lot of that is the same anger that is directed at her. I am tired of the I have problems with alcohol or drugs whether I see them or not so the things in my life that are fucked up are not my fault. Poor me wah wah. I mean I get like that too, but half the shit I went through, most of the shit I've gone through has been from the path those two have set me on. i can't forgive that easily. And even if I try to forgive I can't forget. I am angry. I'm hurt that he's such an asshole. I hate that he reminds me so much of my past too. That he asked for so much right off the bat. That he wants this on his terms.

In any case, I'm being whiny and I'm tired. My boss is out of town and I keep horrible hours when I don't have to work the next day.

Parents... who needs them

(Warning: I am a whiny bitch tonight)

So when do you reach the point when you stop wanting parents? Well I have parents, and recently I have an abundance of parents. I have my mother, who has Multiple Sclerosis, and it is worsening, and I would love to help her. She just needs to understand that the same way her life did not stop for me when I needed a mother, I will not surrender my entire life to slave to her. I know that sounds bitchy, but you don't know my mother like I know my mother. Even before her illness progressed she used it when it was worthwhile to her. There is very little talking to my mother without screaming first, and there is something to be said for the woman who put me on my first diet when I was 9 years old. There's nothing that belittles self esteem like You'd be so pretty if you just lost some weight. We cannot agree on the level of physical violence in my childhood, although I get told on a regular basis that I was regularly alternately neglected and abused. She denies all of this, and has told me that I have made it all up. There is much more I can say about my mother, that I can continue to say about my mother, but the thing I guess that I still want the most, and the reason that I started writing this is I long to have that mother/daughter relationship that lets me be in the same room with her for more than a day without wanting to throttle her. I love my mother don't get me wrong, but the relationship we had was unhealthy at best.

My step-father is a psychologist. Not only did he have to deal with my mother, but he dealt with my troubled relationship with my mother, often mediating in way we'd never had before. He was a clear help in the physical aspect of my relationship with my mother, often coming between us when she appeared to be gearing for an assault. Still he was somewhat removed from the family, did not truly foster any of my likes, or desires in a nurturing way. When talking about wanting to be a chorus teacher the biting (and what he thought was humorous I'm sure) response was "Those who can't do, teach." A favorite game at family events would seem to be starting a discussion about how many mistakes I had made in my life.

Both he and my mother fostered my loneliness by limiting my access to friends and interaction with people. I was not permitted to much of the things that my peers did. Something that I still cope with. Something that has manifested itself in social anxiety as I've gotten older.

I've talked a lot about my biological father a lot lately. His non presence was a great influence in my life as well. I was not permitted to talk about him often because it might not sit well with my step father or my grandfather who was the guiding male figure in my life prior to my mother getting married when I was 13.

I struggle so much with the relationship with my mother, and the relationships with both of my fathers. My stepfather is still distant, which I can give a lot of reasons for, but it doesn't make it any less hurtful. Our family is just warmer, I'm just a warmer person. He truly does the best he can though I think.

I have been told for ever that my mother was just a poor 19 year old, she was the best mother she knew how to be, that she did the best she could, that she was good to me. I would like to believe all that, but I would also like to feel more bonded to my mother and I just don't. I wonder if its too late to fix that. She currently exhausts me. Everything is about her, it has to be. It always has been that way. She was incapable of being a loving supportive mother because of her disease, because of her own upbringing, but people make choices. At any time she could have chosen to rise above, something I struggle with every day.

I want to be better, I want to learn how to fix myself. I want to forgive the things that were done to me. I want to better appreciate the things that are done for me! I want to be more patient, and to be so frustrated when I am faced with whining and excuses from my parents that make them seem more of a child than I've ever been.

I think I am done whining for now. I was hoping this would prove more cathartic. Perhaps I am not finished with this topic...

Taking Responsibility and other random thoughts

I struggled for a long time with factors in my life. I am a compulsive overeater, I have a history of attention seeking, I have been a liar and a thief and occasionally a twitter stalker. Much of which was to support my compulsive behavior. I have other behaviors too. I consistently look for love in "all the wrong places" and am still always surprised by the poor outcome, but they are my behaviors. I own them, and I control them... more or less. I am responsible for these behaviors. I get sick of the damned victim attitude. I had all this crappy shit happen to me, I am a victim of life, people use me and walk all over me, I had a shitty childhood, no body loves me ENOUGH boo fucking hoo.

The reason I chose to talk about this today is twofold. I have "friends" online, although many of them I don't know if I can call them friend. We have nothing in common, up to and including the fact that I scrape and claw to get to a place where I don't feel like shit daily, struggle with my real life, and try like hell not to take the easy way out and blame the world for my problems. They don't. I will occasionally glance at a twitter page and become infuriated by the ceaseless attention seeking and blame on everyone else. I was that girl. I know how that path goes. I guess part of it is just that my panties are in a twist that when I offer the advice from taking that path that it goes unheeded. Yes, I know that I wouldn't have listened to my mother when she gave advice, but had I had a slightly older contemporary... someone who had really been there...

Second, My mother was here for a visit recently. I know where I got my poor behavior, my attention seeking, my inability to let things go, many of my negative traits. I know that a lot of my positive traits come from her as well however. My mother loves as much as she is able, its just not always adequate. I fall into that trap myself, and with unhealthy people, but once I realize how critically unhealthy they are its too late, I'm in it. I don't like to back down. My mother is an interesting study. (I truly think I missed my calling by not going into some kind of psych.) She will tell me that I should stop blaming the bad things in my life on the past (much of which pertains to her parenting ability) things that I wasn't allowed to do that my sixteen years younger sister is allowed to without the bat of an eye, or just things that happened to me, traumatic or not. However we hear from every moment of her life how her past shaped her decision making. The trauma of losing her mother at 17. Admittedly horrific, particularly after the pain of cancer. The part she glosses over was how wild she was prior to then, that she didn't have the storybook loving relationship with her parents. We hear about how the "love of her life" from high school broke her heart. How that still pains her so deeply. My step-father was in constant competition with this man, that he never met. nearly 40 years later my mother still talks about this love, but my sister should get over her love quickly because it is an inconvenience to my mother. Everything is a secret, her continued smoking is to be kept a secret from my sister to avoid conflict, and yet she then will complain that she has poor relationships with the people around her. And, my mother was diagnosed at a young age with Multiple Sclerosis. That is the big evil in life now, every behavior, whether it was there before or not. I know it sounds like I am an unforgiving witch, and I know some facets of her behavior are affected by her disease, but I am tired of every conversation, every thought, every interchange with my mother being punctuated with "its my disease that makes me this way" when she was this way long before the disease took lasting effect. Everyone has problems completeing a thought from time to time, everyone forgets things, everyone has emotional moments, everyone has problems. My mother gets so freaked out and pissed off over the slightest thing. You can't say anything to her without her getting hostile and feeling attacked or suspicious. Including benign things like "How are you" if she feels there is the slightest bit of a "tone" to your voice she will freak out on you. She will attribute that to the disease now, but I've gotten my ass kicked over the same thing in the past. Granted I may not have always been aware of my attitudes like I am now, but... just once I would like to be able to have a normal conversation with my mother. I am also tired of everything being about me and my sister when nothing has been for me and my sister, but in the retelling it makes my mother look like the good guy. I am nearly 35 years old. My mother tells me she is staying in contact with my biological father to make things better for me. They talk to each other like I am a minor still. She's "loaned" him money - a fact that would make other members of my family livid, but I am supposed to believe its all for me. She's offered him a place to stay and gets jealous when he talks about his girlfriend. But its all for me. And when he disappears again, or he doesn't communicate enough and she gets her feelings hurt its not her fault for opening herself up to him again, it will be my fault or is my fault because she was only talking to him for me. My mother drank heavily, and I would call her an alcoholic until I was like 13. She attributes her stopped drinking to me, that after she literally became a falling down drunk at a wedding I was looking at her with great confusions and concern, but my stepfather (although I think this was prior to them being married) looked at her with utter disgust. What do you think was the motivator there. She doesn't feel that she was an alcoholic though, and she can control her drinking now. (Which is why after she and my stepfather divorced every full bottle of wine and everything else in the house became an empty bottle). I think she's replaced her addiction to alcohol with an addiction to prescription pain killers that she uses for the MS.

And while we're discussing addiction and inability to take responsibility for actions... my "stupid fucking biological" as my sister lovingly refers to him is in the phase of his recovery where he is trying to put his life right with the people that he hurt. That includes me apparently, however he seems to be getting annoyed with the fact that I am not ready to embrace this with open arms. I hadn't heard from him in several days, so I sent him an email, and his response, the man that abandonned me for so many years responded with "I thought you had abandonned me." I was livid. Then proceeds to ask my mother for my phone number! I told my sister to tell my mother to tell him I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. I am tired though of every aspect of shit in his life being attributed to his life of addiction. He chose that life. Yes, I understand that addiction takes over your life, and people need to hit a bottom, but at the same time, you can not wait 30+ years to decide not to be an asshole your whole life.

So I continue to struggle with my one time educational blog or what I hoped would be educational devolving into a place of my whining and railing against the universe, and my struggle to become a better person, to be able to truly love, to truly give of myself before I wind up alone.

Fear and Cycles

I was thinking today what an amazing motivator fear can be, or demotivator. I have fought many lifelong struggles, but at the base of all of them in one way or another is fear. I am afraid of everything, which at times includes a borderline agoraphobia.

My life started being afraid of being abandoned. Having no father, knowing he didn't want to be with us initiated that fear. My mother and grandfather always fought, and while I was the apple of my grandfather's eye, and he was my hero I was in constant fear that I would lose him or my mother.

I have always been treated a certain way because of my weight. Within itself there is a number of fears with that, but I wonder how much of the self defeat with my weight battle is out of fear. While it was negative attention I received it would be better than no attention, than being left. While "You'd be so pretty if you just lost some weight" was deeply hurtful, along with the teasing I received from my peers, and marked the way I continue to look at myself to this day, wasn't that still better than being ignored?

Its not an uncommon phenomenon for people who have the same issues, or similar issues than what I've had to have weight issues. There are any number of survivors of many types of abuse who use this same coping mechanism. Food is something I can control, in theory. I don't necessarily believe that. I believe that there have been very many times in my life I let myself be as controlled by food as any other addict by their addiction. The bigger issue at hand is that I use it to insulate myself, to keep people at a distance. I hate that I look like this, but if I look like this no one will want me. I want to be wanted and loved, but at the same time I am terrified to be hurt, again. If no one comes near me, they can't hurt me. Of course I still hurt, and because I hurt, I eat more to fill in that emptiness, that fear of being alone, and that pain.

I've been to therapy, which hasn't helped, I haven't quite stayed the course due to emotional issues or financial issues to deal with these problems. I have considered OA, but I don't know if that's an appropriate course of action, although its likely far better than doing nothing. Again, its that fear of being rejected even from a support group that keeps me following the same worn tracks.

Family Reunion?

So I know initially I wasn't going to use this about my daily stuff, but the more I think about it I wonder if I shouldn't shed the other blog all together. When AOL was closing their blogs I almost didn't carry it over, but I did. For whatever reason I feel more comfortable here. In any case, after nearly 30 years of silence (other than one unsigned card when I was like ten) I have been in contact with my biological father again. This is a very interesting experience for me. Even more interesting, after years of flak from my family about the amount of time that I have spent on the computer, our conversations and contact have been through yahoo, yim, and facebook. I will have to update you more as I have more details, but this is a new and interesting development that has slightly altered or may alter all my ongoing relationships in my active family.

How we treat each other...

It's been quite some time since I have written anything here. The issue that is most on my mind as of late is an issue that comes up far too often, respecting yourself, and each other. I said early on I wasn't going to use this particular blog as a soap box for day to day bullshit, and I don't intend to start. Like with anything else I think there is a lesson to be learned here.

I have learned a lot over the years about how I want to treat people, and how I wanted to be treated by people. I can easily say that its only in the last year that I've really come to see myself as a person of true value, that deserves to be treated well. Even that, with the issues of depression can be fleeting.

What I don't understand, even when you don't agree with someone's ideas, beliefs, or life is a public call to arms against them. A war cry to defeat an enemy that may not have directly affected you in any real way makes no sense to me. Even if the person affected you directly, than fight them directly. I do not see the need to insight a riot. Perhaps its just being used to standing alone.

Worse than the best defense is a good offense is the rallying of those who have "peaked in high school". People who's best days were truly when they were teens and the only way they can make themselves feel better is to tear down the other people around them, or to summon the same rallying cry to the people who have also peaked in high school. Granted, many of those guilty of this in my mind (taking into account the online community) are little more than high schoolers, which makes it so much worse. What kind of role model is the 20-something bully to the youngsters around them? Maybe I'm sensitive to this because I was the kid who was bullied, but it seems ridiculous to me.

Whats even more interesting is that the people in the community who sing the praises of online respect, that cried the loudest when they were the subject of the attacks are the ones now insighting riots, the ones hurting others. "Respect Online" is little more than a battle cry for those who like to hurl stones then cry when they get thrown back. It makes me sorry and sad to be part of the community, and yet I come back for more, growing more disgusted with them and myself by the day.

What I know is this, when I was briefly the one who was hurling insults, (a brief period I am not proud of), I felt poorly. It made me angrier in general, and made me feel bad about myself. It made me reflect on the days that I had been picked on. I still lapse into the occasional mean moment, as everyone has their weakness, mine comes when dealing with the stupid mostly. (At least in my opinion, and not very respectful) but I can at least be well aware that I don't use my distaste for someone as a rallying cry for mass hate.

We need to treat each other, all of us as unique individuals, that each have value, that each have something to share. Respect online and off is not something to be commanded, its to be earned. In action and in speech. This is what we need to learn.