Still Looking for My Antediluvian Baby

Song I am singing to myself as a self-soothing mechanism on this stressful day at work:

I don't have the opening monologue memorized, for those who were curious, I just do the musical parts.

Wins and Fails

Today was a mix of wins and fails. I tend to be a very black and white thinker ... usually I'd let the fails be all I focued on; the positive things I do never matter unless I've done everything right. This attitude has prevented me from achieving much of anything in my entire life, and it's time I started working on it. Let's get a rundown on the good and the bad.

Wins:

• I went grocery shopping and have got enough food for the week.
• I did a fair bit of walking, which was unplanned, and improved my mood.
• I spent time with my grandmother, and helped my family by walking and feeding the dog and feeding the cats while they were away at a party.
• I made my mom a mix cd which she really enjoyed.
• I left my brother his favorite peanut-butter filled pretzels from TJ's on his pillow while I was over my family's house with a note that said "I <3 U."  (He's 14, I was trying to speak his language.)
• I was cordial to my mom's husband, which is a struggle (I may or may not get into that on this blog).
• I left my roommate a small gift with a funny note.
• I worked on planning a surprise party for my other roommate.
• I meditated this morning.

Fails:

• I didn't do my stretching exercises (I am hoping to do them later though, they really help me feel less tense/rigid).
• If you knew the last time I'd showered, you'd vomit in your mouth (another thing I plan to do later ... not vomit in my mouth, I'm going to shower, in case that was unclear).
• I've been festering on bad memories all day instead of completing the thought/memory and then letting it go, as my therapist and I have discussed. I've just been in a shit mood, and I realize that unproductively focusing on so much past negativity and pain has been a huge part of the reason why.
• I stuffed a brownie down my gullet that I saw in the fridge without really tasting or enjoying it. In that moment I was unable to control my behavior. The loss of control is what bothers me, not that I ate a brownie. I'll eat 12 fucking brownies if I want. I just hate the feeling of not making the choice. Also, I like to enjoy my food, and I didn't even TASTE this bitch.
• I didn't complete my MSW applications as I had intended to, and just don't have the energy to do it tonight.

I am going to attempt to give myself some credit for my positive accomplishments, and do my best to rectify what didn't work out. This is a new strategy for me, hopefully it'll yield some new results.

Come Undone

Yesterday I felt like someone wanted to destroy my sweater, and held the thread as I walked away.

To explain that more clearly: I became unhinged after skipping my 2 mile walk and having a binge Wednesday night. I just lost it. I couldn't go to work the next day, I felt completely incapacitated. I stayed under the blankets most of the morning, wanting to just hide from the entire world. I felt as if all the good work I'd done in the last 2 months in terms of learning to stay calm and keep my emotions separate from my actions was slipping away from me, that these abilities would soon be gone, and I'd be back to square 1.

But I did something about it. I ate breakfast, then a chocolate chip cookie, then lunch, then did pilates, then went for that 2 mile walk I missed the day before, then went to therapy. I came home and made dinner and ate until satisfied, took a shower, read for a while, and went to bed. I made it through the day. And today I came to work. I became unhinged and it didn't turn into a 6-8 week cycle of depression and self-destructive behavior. I got back in the driver's seat. I slipped and I got back up. This is new terrain for me. I think it's a combination of my meds and the other positive things I'm trying to do for myself in my life (see my list in my first post), but I feel stronger as a result of this. I'm trying to look at this as a lesson - everyday is just one day. And crazily enough I actually feel proud of me. This is something I rarely feel about myself, so it's kind of a big deal, so I'm going to say it again: I feel proud of me.

It Don't Come Easy

This love of mine keeps growing all the time, but you know it don't come easy.

While I have nothing but love for Ringo, I prefer George's demo.

Fat Acceptance

Do you know what I like? Fat Acceptance. I feel like the only way I'm ever going to be comfortable in my own skin is to accept the body I have right now at this very minute. This is a daunting task. So many years of messages from media, family, and friends, and they all can be reduced to this simple motto: "skinny is pretty, fat is ugly." Fuck all that. I am doing things to make my body feel physically stronger and healthier, because it's something I want for myself, but I have no interest in dieting. That whole cycle is an epic waste of time and a collossal source of heartache. Once I am able to lose my anxiety around food, feel in control of my consumption, and stop bingeing, my weight will stabilize where my body wants it to be - lighter than I am now, heavier than I am now, who can say? Whatever it is, I will need to work on accepting it. It's not easy. It's a challenge to love what you've been conditioned your entire life to hate - a fat body.

I used to read all these blogs where people would post their daily oatmeal breakfasts and every morsel of food they'd consumed all day and every bit of marathon training or Bikram Yoga they'd done (not that there's anything wrong with that, just not appealing to me). I realized that I just don't have any interest in a lifestyle that's that extreme.  Slowly, I have moved over to reading FA blogs, and WOW, they make me feel like I'm normal, as opposed to lazy and self-indulgent, as some other "healthy living" blogs often do.

To Be Clear, I've Never Kept One Fucking New Year's Resolution In My Entire Life

So like I said, I've never kept a single fucking New Year's Resolution in my entire life. Maybe this year will be different?  Hopefully?  Hmmm.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, yes?  Well, with past resolutions, they've all revolved around  complicated lists of various tasks I'd need to complete in order to be good, worthy, etc.  In essence, I'd be attempting to become someone else.  Fuck all that.  Even if I could pull this off, which I've proved time and time again that I can't, I'm starting to think that maybe I should get around to accepting the fact that I'm going to be me for the rest of my life.  Every.fucking.day.  And I am stuck with me every.fucking.minute without any breaks!  Might as well call a ceasefire and start getting along with myself or else the rest of my life is going to just be a long painful mess (as, I'll be honest, it has been so far, for the most part).  So my resolution for this year is simple: Be Kinder To Me.  (See what I did there?  That's the name of the blog.)  I like it because it's simple.  Generally by February, if I have bothered to make resolutions, I've either abandoned them or actually forgotten what they were.  Like, umm, pretty much everyone.  I've been working on this "being kind to me" thing since November, so I've got a good two-month head start on the process.  Truth is, there's something depressing about the New Year to me, it's a reminder of failures past, so I feel like it's less of a resolution and more just something I want to do for myself right now.

But what does "being kind to myself" actually mean?  Indulging my every whim?  No, that blog would be called "Spoiling Me" and the last thing I want to be is a Paris Hilton wannabe without the millions of dollars.  It recently occured to me that I would never in my life dream of treating anyone the way I treat myself.  To others, I'm generally polite, respectful, a good listener, I don't minimize their problems .... I'm not too much of a douche is what I'm getting at.  To myself, I am a cruel, nasty, neglectful c-u-next-Tuesday.  Herein lies the disconnect.  So, if I had to sum up what my plan for kindness is, let's bullet this bitch out:

• Taking Care Of My Body.  My physical condition is poor.  But dieting and punishing exercise regimens have gotten me nowhere.  I am also neglectful about going to doctors and dentists and stuff, because I get scared, I'll be honest.  Anyway, here's the new idea:
• Intuitive Eating.  No more dieting or even thinking about dieting.  No food is off limits.  No foods are "good" and no foods are "bad" - food is now morally neutral territory.  No guilt about eating any particular food is allowed (that last one's going to be tough - 27 years of programming is hard to erase, but I'm going to try).
• Exercise. I'd like to be physically stronger. I also live in a 4th-floor walk-up and would like to not nearly pass out when I get home from work every day. The thing with exercise is that, well, I don't like getting sweaty. I refuse to do anything that's painful, I've caused myself enough pain over the years. Here's what I enjoy: pilates, walking, stretching, swimming.  I have been doing the pilates, walking, and stretching for the past 2 months, and it has felt good. As for the swimming, I am thinking of joining the local Y and going in the mornings before work.  I recently bought a bathing suit for this purpose.  This is huge for me.  I haven't been swimming in like 10 years and it was my FAVORITE thing to do growing up, and I allowed myself to be shamed into stopping because I was insecure about my weight.  My motto with respect to swimming is going to be, listen, I'm fat.  If you don't like it, don't look at it.
• Sleep.  I've been working on this one for years and I've mostly got it covered.  I need enough sleep EVERY NIGHT.  I need to wake up and go to bed at roughly the same time every day in order to function properly.
• Going for a physical.  Please kill me right now.  This I don't want to do.  I haven't had one in about 11 years.  I don't like to be looked at or touched, AT ALL, and I have a fear about those stupid gowns not fitting me.  I have to do it though.  I need to make sure everything's ok and stop living in ignorance about what my overall health picture is. I think to myself, if I had a child, would I let them go 11 years without seeing a doctor?  NO. So why do I treat myself with such neglect? I can't allow it any longer.
• Going to the dentist.  Bastards.  I went and spent thousands last year, like wiped out my entire savings and tax check, on work I needed done.  This year I need 2 wisdom teeth pulled, and also am going to make sure I get a cleaning every 6 months.  And, if it kills me, I will brush twice a day (easy) and FLOSS daily (harder).  This has to be done so I can do my best to avoid painful and expensive surgeries the future most likely holds (my entire family has dental problems despite having good oral hygeine).
• Respecting My Body.  No more nasty inner-monologue comments will be tolerated.  I would never make crude remarks about someone else's weight or body and I don't feel I deserve my own relentless abuse anymore. I don't love my body, that I can confess, that will take time.  But, for now, I can at the very least respect it.  I am luckily an able bodied person, and every place I ever went, everything I ever accomplished, my body was right there carrying me through it, even when I was a total abusive bitch to it.  Even when I starved it, binged to the point of being sick/comatose, and mutilated it with razor blades, my body took the beating and healed without my even asking it to.  It's sort of miraculous, when you think about it.  So thanks body, for putting up with my shit and barely even complaining!  You're a trooper.
• Taking Care Of My Mind.  I've had some serious struggles in this area.
  • Seeing my therapist.  I go twice a week and will continue to, though it's rough on the pocketbook.  I have a ton of issues that I need to get resolved.
  • Seeing my psychiatrist.  I've battled mental illness for years and never had any results with any medications, so I stopped with psychiatry and looked to therapy to help me put things together.  I had small successes but with me it was always, two steps forward, two steps back.  I could never seem to maintain any progress I'd make in any area of my life.  I was recently diagnosed as having bipolar disorder.  I have a host of other problems but a mood disorder seems to be the central organizing problem.  The medications my new psychiatrist has prescribed seem to be helping, and no antidepressants in the past ever did. It's a real revelation.  It's been hard to accept, but I also feel hopeful that now that I know about it, I can address it appropriately and make some headway with things, at last.
  • Meditation.  Nothing too serious with this.  My attention span is too short anyway (despite the ever-increasing length of this post).  Just a few minutes before work with deep breathing and making intentions for the day - being kind to myself being first on the list every morning.
• Taking Care Of My Spirit. This might be tough ... I'm agnostic.
• Find a career that's meaningful to me.  Pretty self-explanatory.  I plan on applying to get my MSW for Fall 2011.  I want to help people.  It's important to me to give back, and I think this might be a good way to do so.
• Have fun every once in a while.  I need to find a hobby or something I do just out of enjoyment, that's just for me.  Maybe this blog will be a part of that.
• Be kind to others.  I want to be a better friend, daughter, sister, and employee. I want to go the extra mile.  I want to do the right thing even when it's hard. I want to give even when it hurts. Kindness to myself would be meaningless without paying it forward to others. 

So that's my spiel.   Here's hoping that 2011 will be different for me, and anyone else who for whatever reason might have come across this.

More to come.

PS - How effing cute are those penguins?  Srsly.