Be Kind

Kindness.  I show it to others willingly, even happily.  One of my life's motto's is "In a world where you can be anything, be kind."  It's really not that hard to be polite and show kindness.  There is so much ugliness and hatred in this world that I choose to show kindness to others.  And yet, I do not show kindness to myself.

I'm actually quite mean to myself.  I would never be friends with anyone who spoke to me the way I speak to me.  My counselor told me I need to become friends with myself.  To show myself the kindness that I show to others. This has been my homework this week, so to speak.  If I were to grade myself on this homework assignment I would be give myself about a C-.  It is incredibly difficult to break old habits and to get rid of that negative self talk.

The boyfriend and I went on a walk this weekend, several actually (yay!).  While we were walking up the hill from our place to the main road I got very discouraged.  Now mind you, this hill is not a gentle sloping gradual slight hill.  This is a hill that knocks the wind out of even the fittest of folks. So, we're climbing up this monster to go get lunch.  I'm heaving, wheezing and very nearly out of breath.  I say out loud something akin to "God (pant) damn (pant) I'm outta (pant) shape (pant pant)".  But what I was saying to myself in my head was far worse than what I said out loud.  "How could you allow yourself to get so fat and out of shape?"  "You're such a loser for being so fat." "Everyone is staring at you, the fat person struggling to get up the hill.  They're laughing at you too."

But at this moment a light started blinking in my head. It blinked "Be Kind", "Be Kind", "Be Kind" over and over in bright red letters. So I pulled in a ragged breath, pointed to myself with my little finger and said out loud "Be kind to yourself. Be proud that you are moving your body. You are doing some good by being out and about." Or something like that, I can't remember the exact phrasing but that is the gist of the message that I told to myself.

It seems so frou frou doesn't it?  To simply be kind to yourself.  It doesn't really seem like it would make that much of a difference in ones life.  And yet, on that beautiful spring day, while I was gasping for breath and feeling like garbage, hearing myself be nice to myself made a gigantic positive impact.  Instead of being crippled by an anxiety attack brought on by my own self loathing I was able to enjoy the gorgeous sunny day. We had a delicious lunch and fantastic conversation.

Please know that I have not perfected being kind to myself.  I am not yet friends with myself.  I'd say we're acquaintances who are bonding. I am testing the waters of trust that friendship is built on.  I am allowing myself mistakes, the room to make them and forgiveness.

Practicing kindness towards myself is a new experience. I'm 39 years old and I've never thought to be friends with myself.  It just never occurred to me.  Be Kind.  It's a new motto that I've added to my repertoire.  I hope it's one that stays.

Eating

I'm not anorexic anymore.  I no longer starve myself.  I feed myself.  And often.  Much much too often.  I never really had a true diagnosis of anorexia.  I had/have what they call "Eating Disorder Unidentified". The definitions of anorexia and bulimia are very specific so if your symptoms deviate at all, you can not be diagnosed with either disease.  And I wasn't.  I was diagnosed as having an Eating Disorder Unidentified.  I would starve myself all day and then binge at night.  I never purged.  I just could never make myself do that. So the calories I deprived myself of during the day would be packed in every night when I binged.

I thought when I was released from the outpatient eating disorder program at the hospital that I would never need the help of any one again for an eating disorder.  I thought that disordered eating was in the past and I could charge ahead with life.  It's funny how one can pull the wool over their own eyes.

I still have disordered eating but it has swung in the other direction away from anorexia into over eating, which, for me, has so much more shame attached to it.  I have gained 100 pounds since leaving the treatment program. And yes, I know what they experts say about not weighing yourself, and size isn't a number blah blah blah but let's face it being seriously under weight or over weight isn't healthy.  And that's what I want, to be healthy.

So, years later my war continues.  I'm sick to death of essentially using food to slowly kill me.  At first I wasn't using it enough so I would slowly starve over time. Now I'm over using it and facing a whole host of issues that comes with being obese.  

Obese.  Now there is a word I never would have thought I could use to describe myself.  But I have to face the facts, I'm no longer just overweight, I am obese. I can no longer do simple stretches like I have done all my life because my fat gets in the way.  I can no longer wander aimlessly about town all day because I get winded so easily. I can no longer just walk up a flight of stairs without getting completely winded and end up breathing big huge heaving breaths.  None of that makes me happy and it does in fact illicit an enormous amount of shame.  How the hell did I allow myself to get to this?

I need to extract myself from living this unhealthy lifestyle.  I do not want to live life this way.  Using food to stuff myself so I don't feel the feelings.  

I've started counseling again.  I hope it works.  I hope I truly listen and learn this time around.