So I've been reading all your responses to my last posts, and I've got to say, this is one heck of an intersting conversation for me.
Am I seeing a counselor? Yes. She's one of the main singers in the "have the surgery!" chorus; she's convinced that I'd be much less-depressed if I lost weight and thus, liked myself better. The problem with that, though, is what seems to be my underlying "logic": if I lose weight, others will find me more attractive, and therefore I will like myself better. That's a perfectly accurate statement of my thought processes, and it overlooks the elephant in the room:
Why, exactly, do I base my opinion of myself on what others think of me? Particularly potential partners? Why the hell does that even MATTER??
But it does. That's the bitch of it; since I have been able to remember, the opinion of potential love interests has absolutely superseded my own opinions in nearly every way. I'm talking five, six, ten years old: my self-esteem was absolutely entangled with whatever my latest crush thought of me, or if he thought of me at all.
First of all: Yes, I know that's sick. Well-aware of that, thanks. :)
Secondly--and much more interesting to me--WHERE DID THAT COME FROM??? (There are times I feel like, if I could answer that question, I would be able to understand every stupid decision I've made in my entire life--especially the financial ones, but there have been plenty of others as well.) What, exactly, happened in the first four or five or six years of my life that taught me:
--it is more important what some little boy thinks of you, than what you think/know about yourself
--your accomplishments are only valid if some male thinks they are valid
--anything you can do, or be, or think, unless it is given the proper degree of recognition and approval by a male, is invisible and beneath even your own notice?
And it can't even be just some random guy, or even a guy in a position of authority: even a teacher or a boss or a supervisor, people whose judgement of me should have an effect on how I perceive myself and my accomplishments, even THEY don't matter in this Bizarro Gladys World. Only the opinions of potential Princes Charming; only the judgements of men in whom I feel a romantic/sexual interest--those are the only ones that count. Average Joe need not apply.
The intelligent, logical, rational, well-read and well-educated feminist Gladys knows that every single one of those beliefs I've listed above is bubbling, festering, noisome, malodorous bovine excreta of the purest form...
...but it's clear from situations past and present that intelligent, logical, rational, well-read well-educated feminist Gladys is NOT ruling the emotional roost here.
And yes, it would be VERY much worth my while to get rid of that ridiculous backwards belief system...and I would, too, if I had the slightest notion how to go about it. I think it may be the root of much of my unhappiness, my apathy, my inactivity...nearly everything. If a woman succeeds in the forest, and there's no man there to hear her, does she make a sound?
So: apparently I am carrying around some bad mental wiring, some old misconnection that tells me if no man wants me, I am worth nothing; if no man wants me, my accomplishments may as well not exist, and even if there IS a man who wants me, if he does not recognize those accomplishments as worthwhile, then they lose their worth to me as well.
What a fucked-up world-view. And I haven't the slightest notion of how to un-fuck it. If my mind was a computer, I would recommend a total rebuild--wipe the hard drive, reinstall a clean OS, andadd back all the data piece by piece, without the bad files. Unfortunately, that's not an option here... as this makes quite clear, science doesn't fix everything. Instead I'm left with the disquieting knowledge that I may actually be one of the most screwed-up people I know, and not in that cool, interesting screwed-up sense--I mean, in the sense of "Wow, that's seriously, seriously lame."
Lameness aside, though, it's easy to follow the rest of the road all the way straight down: if the only view that matters is the view of the guy who's interested, and there's no guy who's interested, then I am basically invisible and in order to be a useful contributing member of society, I must attract a male. Barring a fluke like JP, that will be impossible given my current appearance and weight; ergo, a)my current physical attributes render me worthless; b)I will only become worthwhile again once I lose some weight.
Again: what a fucked-up world view. I'm gonna call it a night. Thank you, all, for helping me think this whole thing through.
Showing posts with label epiphanies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label epiphanies. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Follow-up
So on the bus on the way home from downtown, I was thinking (or trying to--there was this trio of friends, two girls and a guy, and the girls had two of the WORST laughs I've ever heard in my life, and they were having one of those nights where EVERYTHING is funny)...Anyway, I was trying to figure out what, exactly, I think is wrong with me. I don't mean little details, like "I'm disorganized" or whatever; I mean the fundamental thing that makes me dislike myself so damn much.
You know what I came up with?
I dislike myself because I'm fat and ugly.
(Spins, stop snarling. I can hear you all the way in Chicago. I'll explain it.)
If I take a reasonably-realistic look at my inner self, I come out better than average. I'm intelligent, I'm creative, I'm funny, I care about other people, I'm not mean-spirited (much), I'm reasonably moral...Yeah, I have some flaws, but for the most part they're outweighed by the good qualities.
If I look in the mirror, though, everything goes directly to shit.
To begin with: There are large-sized women who still look good. They take the time and make an effort to look good, and many of them have a sense of style that enables them to do that. (Then there are the ones who wear super-tight t-shirts that don't all-the-way cover the belly...but I digress. Man, the things you see on the CTA--seriously. When you can see three inches of flesh between the bottom of the shirt and the waistband? You need to go a size up. Sorry....) Anyway. There are larger women who look good.
I am not one of these.
I have never, NEVER had a sense of style. When I was young, we had school uniforms, which choked out any sense of individuality (we weren't even allowed to wear striped socks.) Other than uniforms and jeans, though, my mom made many of my clothes, and bought the rest. And of course, she made, and bought, the clothes SHE wanted me to wear. They were sensible and serviceable; they were not attractive, by any means. As I got older, I would go shopping with my friends, but I always felt uncomfortable in wearing anything attention-getting. (We'll get to the "why" of that in just a moment.) On the rare occasions that I did want to buy something trendy, for the most part it was shot down by the clothing-buyer: Mom. I tried to balance what I liked with what was in style and with what my mom was willing to pay for; most of the time I came out looking like a damn train-wreck. And being an only child, with no older cousins or anyone else in my life to point me in a different direction, I had only my own likes and dislikes to follow--and again, I was always uncomfortable in clothes.
And why was that, you ask?
From the time I was three, I have fought against my weight.
Wait: no. There's more to that sentence.
From the time I was three, I have been urged by my mother to fight against my weight.
That's far more accurate. From my earliest days, I can remember being cautioned against taking second helpings, or eating anything I enjoyed. If I ignored her exhortations, I would be likely to hear the following: "Well, go ahead, but when you get older and you're fat, don't blame me!" (Would it be ridiculous to bring up the fact that SHE COOKED THE FOOD? She chose the menus; she chose how much to cook. But if I ate it, that was MY fault.)
But here's the thing, see--She talked about "when you get older" but it was very clear she thought I was too heavy from my very earliest days. And as I have said before--I have pictures of myself throughout my childhood. I had a little tummy, like many children do, but in no way could I have been considered "overweight", "obese", or even "chunky". I was at the high end of normal. I don't recall ever hearing a doctor say anything about losing weight, when I was a child.
And yet it was a constant theme. She bought me diet books when I was nine; took me to a dietician when I was 15. Hearing over and over and over that you have a weight problem--what do you think that's going to do to a child's mind?
I have a witness to all this, see. Debbi's family had the same issue, only worse; her little sister was the cutesy little skinny thing, and Debbi was the normal-sized child. And like me, all Debbi ever heard about was "fat fat fat". I have pictures of Debbi from this era as well; if I didn't care about my anonymity, in fact, I'd post one of them, a picture of the two of us standing together, taken when I was eleven and she was ten. We look like normal little girls.
Flash forward twenty-five years. Before her gastric bypass, Debbi weighed over 300 pounds. I currently weigh 260. That doesn't JUST HAPPEN. That's not just "the American diet". That, my friends, is the product of hearing the same drumbeat, pounded into your head, over and over and over. "You're fat," "you're fat," "you're fat," becomes, after the five-millionth repetition, a perfectly good justification for that second donut, or the fettucine Alfredo, or the pint of Heath Bar Crunch after a bad day. "What does it matter? I'm already fat." And eventually--eventually, yeah, you are. (Both Debbi and I have agreed that, especially beginning in about junior high, food became a rebellion for both of us. I remember sneaking off to the 7-Eleven and buying tons of candy, then going back to my room and snorking it all down while listening to the radio. Neither of us had a weight problem then, though; there are other pictures of us, at 16 and 17, and we still look perfectly normal.)
There's more to this--lots more--but I'm stopping here for now.
You know what I came up with?
I dislike myself because I'm fat and ugly.
(Spins, stop snarling. I can hear you all the way in Chicago. I'll explain it.)
If I take a reasonably-realistic look at my inner self, I come out better than average. I'm intelligent, I'm creative, I'm funny, I care about other people, I'm not mean-spirited (much), I'm reasonably moral...Yeah, I have some flaws, but for the most part they're outweighed by the good qualities.
If I look in the mirror, though, everything goes directly to shit.
To begin with: There are large-sized women who still look good. They take the time and make an effort to look good, and many of them have a sense of style that enables them to do that. (Then there are the ones who wear super-tight t-shirts that don't all-the-way cover the belly...but I digress. Man, the things you see on the CTA--seriously. When you can see three inches of flesh between the bottom of the shirt and the waistband? You need to go a size up. Sorry....) Anyway. There are larger women who look good.
I am not one of these.
I have never, NEVER had a sense of style. When I was young, we had school uniforms, which choked out any sense of individuality (we weren't even allowed to wear striped socks.) Other than uniforms and jeans, though, my mom made many of my clothes, and bought the rest. And of course, she made, and bought, the clothes SHE wanted me to wear. They were sensible and serviceable; they were not attractive, by any means. As I got older, I would go shopping with my friends, but I always felt uncomfortable in wearing anything attention-getting. (We'll get to the "why" of that in just a moment.) On the rare occasions that I did want to buy something trendy, for the most part it was shot down by the clothing-buyer: Mom. I tried to balance what I liked with what was in style and with what my mom was willing to pay for; most of the time I came out looking like a damn train-wreck. And being an only child, with no older cousins or anyone else in my life to point me in a different direction, I had only my own likes and dislikes to follow--and again, I was always uncomfortable in clothes.
And why was that, you ask?
From the time I was three, I have fought against my weight.
Wait: no. There's more to that sentence.
From the time I was three, I have been urged by my mother to fight against my weight.
That's far more accurate. From my earliest days, I can remember being cautioned against taking second helpings, or eating anything I enjoyed. If I ignored her exhortations, I would be likely to hear the following: "Well, go ahead, but when you get older and you're fat, don't blame me!" (Would it be ridiculous to bring up the fact that SHE COOKED THE FOOD? She chose the menus; she chose how much to cook. But if I ate it, that was MY fault.)
But here's the thing, see--She talked about "when you get older" but it was very clear she thought I was too heavy from my very earliest days. And as I have said before--I have pictures of myself throughout my childhood. I had a little tummy, like many children do, but in no way could I have been considered "overweight", "obese", or even "chunky". I was at the high end of normal. I don't recall ever hearing a doctor say anything about losing weight, when I was a child.
And yet it was a constant theme. She bought me diet books when I was nine; took me to a dietician when I was 15. Hearing over and over and over that you have a weight problem--what do you think that's going to do to a child's mind?
I have a witness to all this, see. Debbi's family had the same issue, only worse; her little sister was the cutesy little skinny thing, and Debbi was the normal-sized child. And like me, all Debbi ever heard about was "fat fat fat". I have pictures of Debbi from this era as well; if I didn't care about my anonymity, in fact, I'd post one of them, a picture of the two of us standing together, taken when I was eleven and she was ten. We look like normal little girls.
Flash forward twenty-five years. Before her gastric bypass, Debbi weighed over 300 pounds. I currently weigh 260. That doesn't JUST HAPPEN. That's not just "the American diet". That, my friends, is the product of hearing the same drumbeat, pounded into your head, over and over and over. "You're fat," "you're fat," "you're fat," becomes, after the five-millionth repetition, a perfectly good justification for that second donut, or the fettucine Alfredo, or the pint of Heath Bar Crunch after a bad day. "What does it matter? I'm already fat." And eventually--eventually, yeah, you are. (Both Debbi and I have agreed that, especially beginning in about junior high, food became a rebellion for both of us. I remember sneaking off to the 7-Eleven and buying tons of candy, then going back to my room and snorking it all down while listening to the radio. Neither of us had a weight problem then, though; there are other pictures of us, at 16 and 17, and we still look perfectly normal.)
There's more to this--lots more--but I'm stopping here for now.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Yeah, That's Kinda What I Thought
I hadn't been in my doc's office five minutes today when she suggested that I go back onto anti-depressants immediately. "I haven't seen you like this in a long time," she said. "And since nothing happened to precipitate it, it sounds like this is just the depression talking--something biochemical, which can be fixed."
I'm not thrilled about it, of course--the side-effects are Not My Favorite Things--but I'd take the weird dreams and the muscle twitches any day, over feeling like this. I was in the grocery store today, and the background music started playing a Gin Blossoms song with significance to me from long ago--normally I could have handled it, but I pretty much had to stand there for three-and-a-half minutes staring as hard as I could at the orange juice, just to keep it together. I'm usually waaay more resilient than that.
It was a beautiful day today--sunny and "warm" ("warm" by Chicago standards--a whole balmy 40 degrees!) so after I dropped off the I-Go car, I went for a walk around the neighborhood and stopped to get myself a sandwich. I'm trying to like this neighborhood--there's certainly nothing to object to about it, other than the appalling lack of grocery stores--but I don't feel the level of attachment to it that I felt about West Garfield Park, or even Rogers Park, for that matter. I actually feel less-safe here than I felt in the 'hood; I was safe there because I was different, because any attempt to mess with me would have brought the wrong kind of attention, but here...here, I'm just another probable University student, or wealthy Hyde Park homeowner. Just another white person, not to put too fine a point on things, and it's been my experience that where people of widely-disparate socioeconomic status live in close proximity, it's much more likely for the tensions to erupt. In the 'hood I was "the white lady", true enough, but it was obvious from the way I was living that I wasn't wealthy by any means...although "poor" for me was "well above average" for most of the neighborhood. I always felt bad about that, especially since it wasn't because of anything I'd DONE differently--it was because of how I was born, who I was born to, and what my parents were able to do for me. If I'd had anything to do with it, maybe I would have felt better about it.
But back to the neighborhood...It's a beautiful place. Come spring, when I can explore more, I'll probably learn to love it. But right now, with ice and slush and doggie-poopsicles everywhere, gray old snow and construction and bare trees...I think you have to love a place already, to find beauty in it during the last few weeks of winter.
I had a bit of an epiphany last night. (I realize that any epiphany experienced in the midst of an episode of depression is....suspect, to say the least, but this one makes sense anyway.) Part of my unhappiness, even when I was much younger, has been the constant awareness that in the end, there's not going to be much left from my life when I die. The things that mean everything to me will not mean much to anyone else; even my closest friends will only understand bits and pieces of it. Somehow I've insulated my life so completely that there is literally no one who knows everything about me; I get the sense that that isn't the case for most people. I feel like most people have one or two friends who could, in case of emergency, know who to call and what all the names in their little phone-book meant--or even just basic stuff like how they spend their time, what an average day is like, what shows they'll stay home to watch. I don't have people like that in my life. A lot of it is because of distance; Firefly, who knew me the best when we were younger (and probably still does) lives far away, and I realized the other day it's now been five years since I've seen her last! And Debbi, who lives close by and who I've known longer than anyone, has a lot of friends; besides that, there was a gap of about five years where we didn't talk at all, from the end of college til I was about 25, thanks to some misunderstandings and miscommunications.
Most of all, though, I think it comes from the way I've lived my life. The last new friend I've made is Tim; he and LJ are the only people I've kept in contact with of all the people I've met since college. That's not entirely been my fault; there have been some people I've tried to keep up with, like the Brit, or Stella; they just haven't wanted to keep in touch with me, for whatever reason. But mostly, it's just been a case of not making any new friends, and I think I understand why, a little better.
I have been living my life not with the intent of enjoying myself, or accomplishing something great, or creating something--I have been living my life with the intent of staying out of trouble. I'm sure the roots of this are back in my childhood, but I can pin down the adult manifestation of this to the point at which I moved back home, after JP died and my addiction was first exposed. From that point on, my relationship with my mom has been a subtle but constant rebuke--I don't know how much of it is her doing and how much of it is mine--to everything I believed while I was with JP. (I realize also that the things I believed with him were obviously there inside me to begin with, or else he wouldn't have recognized them--they wouldn't have been there to BE recognized. But since our relationship was the thing that enabled me to really express them for the first time, that's the point of reference I use.) Since I moved home, since she took me back after all my opposition and rejection of her values, somehow the message has been sent and received: See? This is what happens when you try to stand out. This is what happens when you try to be "different". (Ignored: the fact that I wasn't "trying to be different"; I was being me, and making some poor decisions at the same time.) Ever since then I've been trying to keep out of "trouble"--"trouble" in this context meaning "any situation that results in drama, conflict, opposition, tumult, or anything other than perfect calm". Well, last night I realized: the more "trouble" I stay out of, the less I actually DO. In trying to avoid getting hurt, in trying to avoid drawing any attention to myself, in trying to avoid conflict and drama and inconvenience, the way I'm "supposed" to...in trying to do all those things, I'm basically doing exactly NOTHING. I have no conflict or emotional upheaval, true--I also have no happiness, no activity, no accomplishment-- no point to living, basically.
I don't know how I'm going to handle that knowledge, what I'm going to do about it. Right at the moment, I think I'm going to wait and see what the meds do, and try to force myself to do the things I "want" to do, but have no motivation toward (the main manifestation of this depression right now--I have a million things that I want to do, and no impetus to move in that direction). And I'm going to try to keep this new understanding in the front of my mind--that I have to stop trying to make up for being myself--something that wasn't wrong for me to do in the first place. I've largely been able to accept my own mistakes--I'd say "forgive" but I'm not sure I've done that, entirely--but I have this pervasive sense that my mom, at least, has forgiven them, maybe, but still hasn't accepted them. I have to stop living as though that's MY problem.
I'm not thrilled about it, of course--the side-effects are Not My Favorite Things--but I'd take the weird dreams and the muscle twitches any day, over feeling like this. I was in the grocery store today, and the background music started playing a Gin Blossoms song with significance to me from long ago--normally I could have handled it, but I pretty much had to stand there for three-and-a-half minutes staring as hard as I could at the orange juice, just to keep it together. I'm usually waaay more resilient than that.
It was a beautiful day today--sunny and "warm" ("warm" by Chicago standards--a whole balmy 40 degrees!) so after I dropped off the I-Go car, I went for a walk around the neighborhood and stopped to get myself a sandwich. I'm trying to like this neighborhood--there's certainly nothing to object to about it, other than the appalling lack of grocery stores--but I don't feel the level of attachment to it that I felt about West Garfield Park, or even Rogers Park, for that matter. I actually feel less-safe here than I felt in the 'hood; I was safe there because I was different, because any attempt to mess with me would have brought the wrong kind of attention, but here...here, I'm just another probable University student, or wealthy Hyde Park homeowner. Just another white person, not to put too fine a point on things, and it's been my experience that where people of widely-disparate socioeconomic status live in close proximity, it's much more likely for the tensions to erupt. In the 'hood I was "the white lady", true enough, but it was obvious from the way I was living that I wasn't wealthy by any means...although "poor" for me was "well above average" for most of the neighborhood. I always felt bad about that, especially since it wasn't because of anything I'd DONE differently--it was because of how I was born, who I was born to, and what my parents were able to do for me. If I'd had anything to do with it, maybe I would have felt better about it.
But back to the neighborhood...It's a beautiful place. Come spring, when I can explore more, I'll probably learn to love it. But right now, with ice and slush and doggie-poopsicles everywhere, gray old snow and construction and bare trees...I think you have to love a place already, to find beauty in it during the last few weeks of winter.
I had a bit of an epiphany last night. (I realize that any epiphany experienced in the midst of an episode of depression is....suspect, to say the least, but this one makes sense anyway.) Part of my unhappiness, even when I was much younger, has been the constant awareness that in the end, there's not going to be much left from my life when I die. The things that mean everything to me will not mean much to anyone else; even my closest friends will only understand bits and pieces of it. Somehow I've insulated my life so completely that there is literally no one who knows everything about me; I get the sense that that isn't the case for most people. I feel like most people have one or two friends who could, in case of emergency, know who to call and what all the names in their little phone-book meant--or even just basic stuff like how they spend their time, what an average day is like, what shows they'll stay home to watch. I don't have people like that in my life. A lot of it is because of distance; Firefly, who knew me the best when we were younger (and probably still does) lives far away, and I realized the other day it's now been five years since I've seen her last! And Debbi, who lives close by and who I've known longer than anyone, has a lot of friends; besides that, there was a gap of about five years where we didn't talk at all, from the end of college til I was about 25, thanks to some misunderstandings and miscommunications.
Most of all, though, I think it comes from the way I've lived my life. The last new friend I've made is Tim; he and LJ are the only people I've kept in contact with of all the people I've met since college. That's not entirely been my fault; there have been some people I've tried to keep up with, like the Brit, or Stella; they just haven't wanted to keep in touch with me, for whatever reason. But mostly, it's just been a case of not making any new friends, and I think I understand why, a little better.
I have been living my life not with the intent of enjoying myself, or accomplishing something great, or creating something--I have been living my life with the intent of staying out of trouble. I'm sure the roots of this are back in my childhood, but I can pin down the adult manifestation of this to the point at which I moved back home, after JP died and my addiction was first exposed. From that point on, my relationship with my mom has been a subtle but constant rebuke--I don't know how much of it is her doing and how much of it is mine--to everything I believed while I was with JP. (I realize also that the things I believed with him were obviously there inside me to begin with, or else he wouldn't have recognized them--they wouldn't have been there to BE recognized. But since our relationship was the thing that enabled me to really express them for the first time, that's the point of reference I use.) Since I moved home, since she took me back after all my opposition and rejection of her values, somehow the message has been sent and received: See? This is what happens when you try to stand out. This is what happens when you try to be "different". (Ignored: the fact that I wasn't "trying to be different"; I was being me, and making some poor decisions at the same time.) Ever since then I've been trying to keep out of "trouble"--"trouble" in this context meaning "any situation that results in drama, conflict, opposition, tumult, or anything other than perfect calm". Well, last night I realized: the more "trouble" I stay out of, the less I actually DO. In trying to avoid getting hurt, in trying to avoid drawing any attention to myself, in trying to avoid conflict and drama and inconvenience, the way I'm "supposed" to...in trying to do all those things, I'm basically doing exactly NOTHING. I have no conflict or emotional upheaval, true--I also have no happiness, no activity, no accomplishment-- no point to living, basically.
I don't know how I'm going to handle that knowledge, what I'm going to do about it. Right at the moment, I think I'm going to wait and see what the meds do, and try to force myself to do the things I "want" to do, but have no motivation toward (the main manifestation of this depression right now--I have a million things that I want to do, and no impetus to move in that direction). And I'm going to try to keep this new understanding in the front of my mind--that I have to stop trying to make up for being myself--something that wasn't wrong for me to do in the first place. I've largely been able to accept my own mistakes--I'd say "forgive" but I'm not sure I've done that, entirely--but I have this pervasive sense that my mom, at least, has forgiven them, maybe, but still hasn't accepted them. I have to stop living as though that's MY problem.
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