Weight: 9st
Listening to: The telly
Reading: Break No Bones- Kathy Reichs
I had lots of ideas about what I was going to write about today. I thought about mental health, I thought about food advertising, normative body portrayal in the media and body shaming. I even thought about writing about what I was eating. I actually promised my group leader Debbie I would do that and I promise, my next post (which will be in a few weeks, I'm not just not blogging from Spain I'm doing nothing).
Then I decided to write about something that I've talked about a lot this week, but can't seem to grasp myself. Self esteem.
It is an unquantifiable thing, different to find for everyone. I can't remember any time in my adult life that I've ever felt good about myself for more than a day or so. I put on a good face on and I front it out a lot of the time, so I seem like a confident person. I am not. Ever. Yes I put up selfies now, but look for anything older than the last six months you will find one or two a year when I change my hair dye.
My self esteem at my place is directly related to how close to target I am, and how I feel is based heavily on my competitive nature. Every outfit I wear, I might look good, but I always know someone else will look better. If someone 'beats' me, I'm happy for them, but disappointed that I didn't do better. I struggle to find positive affirmations in every day, but could probably find a thousand failures. If I don't think I'll be good at something, I don't start it so I don't have to fail.
It stems from a thousand things, from being told from an early age that everyone expects you to be less than them because of your disability so you have to do better. Never a truer word has ever been spoken. Many people who meet me for the first time, particularly if I'm in the wheelchair for travel, speak to the person I'm with. I will pay for things and cashiers will attempt to hand back the goods and/or change to the person I'm out with. I am nearly 30 years old, I have a degree and a mortgage and strangers don't trust me with my own change.
It comes from being fat (there I said the taboo word). For five years before lighterlife I had only two mirrors in the house, and I kept them both covered. I refused photos of myself, flipped away from shows about weight or weightloss, in case I recognised too much of myself in shows that revelled in fatness be it fetish or fix. I never watched anything about beauty, because I felt I could never be beautiful. I shopped online, because standing in front of a mirror in a changing room made me weep. I still tend not to watch things about love, because I would never expect anyone to love me and it makes me sad to think on it.
Don't for a second think that I don't know that most of the self esteem issues that cripple me are my own 'fault'. I could have stopped eating badly at any point, and I even asked my GP for help, which was shrugged off as my disability meaning I couldn't exercise. That response to my, at one point open beg, for help being ignored was to feel as if no one else cared enough to help me why should I care about myself. I ate more and more, and my self esteem grew lower as I grew wider and I ate more. It became a downward spiral. Knowing my eating habits would be disapproved of and if I was honest, knowing it had become a problem, I began to hide my takeaway packets and pizza boxes.
I wish I could sit here and pinpoint the reason I decided to change on my own destiny. I wish I could tell you the shining moment that came up and smacked me in the face and told me to change. There was no epiphany. I sat on my sofa after another pizza big enough to feed a family of four, my third that week and realised that if I continued in the way I was, that I would die, either through bariatric illness or by my own hand when my level of self worth became so low again there was no point going on.
The decision to change is a tough one, and everyone who embarks on a big change is incredibly brave.
I am working on all of my issues. Setting my own inner targets, that are manageable for both my weight, the book and my work and don't set me against others. I am trying to see my own 'beauty' and control my competitive edge and anxiety. It's hard, and I don't know if I'll ever get total control, but I will forever strive, to be the best that I can be, not better than everyone else can be, because I don't need to be and maybe if I'm lucky, someone will love me, because I'll learn to love myself.
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| Today's Moo's pic |
