Traumatized March 30, 2010

I am beyond traumatized.

By myself.

Today and tomorrow I have to take part in a class about giving presentations. Day 1 was daunting. I’ve never been comfortable in front of a crowd – I don’t even go to big GTGs – or public speaking, so this was a daunting enough exercise in and of itself. But to add insult to injury, we were filmed today. Three times.

Part of my homework tonight is to review the DVD and rate myself. It’s horrible. Horrible. And.I.Don’t.Even.Have.The.Sound.On. I don’t even care how I sound. I cannot bear to look at myself. I don’t think I got more than 30 seconds in to each presentations before I shut the laptop. Literally just slammed it shut and shoved it aside.

I’m bigger than I ever realized and I know I’m big. It’s horrible.

And I even wore something I felt was “flattering.” I wear my weight in so many ways I never realized. The way I walk…the way I carry myself…the compensations I make for my size and how I try to hide it. I waddle. I’ve never seen myself in that way before. Sure I look in the mirror everyday, but I’ve become so oblivious to myself that it doesn’t even resonate anymore. This was such a slap in the face. I want to just crawl in hole and hide.

Maybe someday I’ll look back at this day and see this as an “aha” moment or something like that but I can’t stop crying or feeling like crap. Intellectually I know that I have a really, really, really long way to go. I knew looking at that video would suck. But, damn, seeing that visually represented and understanding that person is *me* and having to confront that hurts way more than I ever thought it would. It makes me sad to see what I’ve done to myself – no one else to blame. Me. I did this. And it sucks to admit that and try to figure out why. Why? What the hell is wrong with me that I did this to myself?

Waiting for the Mothership to Take Me Home January 14, 2010

As we’ve discussed previously, I have a few addictions. One of the healthier ones I have is magazines. Lord do I love me my periodicals – everyone one that comes into my house is like a present waiting to be unwrapped by my squee-ful self. God Bless Amazon’s recent $5 holiday sale – got a lot of new subscriptions as Christmas gifts and I treated myself to some new ones to “explore.”

Like Harper’s Bazaar.

Sweet Jesus.

Have you seen this magazine? I fully admit that I’m more frumpanista than fashionista and I. do. not. get. anything related to high fashion or style or what-have-you. But I’m trying new things and why not learn and so, hello, Harper’s Bazaar.

I wish I had a video of myself flipping through this magazine. I felt like an alien sent here on an anthropology mission. $7,000 butt-ass-ugly shoes that cannot POSSIBLY be structurally sound for, you know, walking? $4,000 for a “dress” comprised of fisherman’s nets? Models with sullen, sunken faces and flattened hair that more resemble the twin girls from The Shining than anything remotely “hot model” (I mean, models are supposed to be hot, right??).

To provide context, I provide Exhibit A, subtitled “The Fuck?”

Harper’s Bizarre is more like it. And the PURSES! Half the ads in this magazine are purses and while I can appreciate that, like shoes, purses are some girls’ “thing” but let’s be real, here – 85 pound girls in stilettos carrying bags the size of an SUV is just unnatural. How do they ever find their lip gloss in those things? (Although I *did* kind of like a Prada bag that was only as big as a VW Bug. So, perhaps it’s possible there is *some* hope for me after all.)

Of course, I suppose I could have avoided this entire debacle by just looking at the cover. Miley Cyrus. Enough said.

Beam me up, Scotty, this planet’s not for me.

Week From Hell January 10, 2010

A week into my Happiness Project and…

I’m not all that happy at the moment.

It has occurred to me on more than one occasion this week that I’m following a premise created by a person who is a self-employed, stay-at-home writer. Someone who, unlike myself, does not have to contend with snowy, slippery and sloppy commutes, department directors who are batshit insane, and exhaustive projects that make little to no sense, and can be thrown 180 degrees into the opposite direction – at the very last minute, mind you – by said batshit director. By comparison, no wonder the author’s happy. Even my husband told me last night, “This week hasn’t been very conducive to your happiness project.” No shit, Sherlock.

Whew. This last week has been one of the roughest in recent memory. I was in bed Thursday and Friday by 9pm, just completely mentally and physically exhausted. I even managed to fall twice on Friday for an added dose of excitement and humility – funny how a group of people saw me slip as I stepped off the train but only one person came over to help me. Oh well.

Putting a positive spin on it all…this week from hell makes me better appreciate the fact that most of my time and work experiences are, by comparison, really good. This week gave me several opportunities to assess what’s going on around me and think about how to apply my commandments/themes to deal with them more effectively (“find the prize”). By being really present with how stressed and anxious I was feeling (“notice things”), I was able to think about how to make myself feel better (“love myself”) – such as get more rest. That presence of mind also enabled me to have a refreshingly blunt conversation with my immediate manager about all of the dysfunction swirling around (“be courageous”). As a result, she was equally free to vent and I feel like that benefited our relationship. We’ll see.

Now I just need to focus more on the “Let it Go” part of all of this.

Oh For the Love of… October 18, 2009

Christian Louboutin – a designer of gorgeous but ridiculously-priced shoes – thinks Barbie is too fat. Specifically, that Barbie has fat ankles. Remembering, of course, that if Barbie morphed into a real-life woman she wouldn’t be able to menstruate thanks to her unnatural physical proportion.

Are there no more pressing issues to worry about these days?

Oh yes, the Ralph Lauren photoshop controversy.

Honestly. How in the world does a normal girl have a chance for any self-esteem in this world anymore? How does a fat girl ever hope to feel like a “normal” woman when the world has no idea what one looks like any more?

Seriously…Just Lose The Weight August 17, 2009

I have not blogged in a while. This is both a product of being crazy busy at work (translate: consumes all of my time) and also not being productive at my weight loss goals. A dear sweet friend called me out on it tonight (thank you, K) and here I be.

Sometime last week I was 348 pounds. I think you know what’s been going on since I was last here. Or hell, since I’ve been here period.

But today I need to talk about something else. I frequent an online community that has a subpart dedicated to sharing weight loss journeys. In one of the threads, I found this gem:

I will admit, I went on a FB tyrade today. I was out at a festival tonight…and looked around. I saw maybe 5 people who I would consider ‘skinny’…and maybe another handful of people who I considered ‘fit’…the rest of the people were overweight. Ranging from a little blub blub to morbidly obese.

I know I am going to piss a lot of people off with this….
with all the health care debate out there….I don’t want to pay for diabetes, heart disease, and chronic pain induced by overweight individuals. I would guarantee you that if weight, pounds, fitness, was taxed….people would be a lot more cogniscent about what they do to their bodies.

I apologize to all of those (which I know will be many) that I piss off in this post…..but with the health care changes…accountability needs to become a forefront.

I realize I may be giving up my card by posting this………….I am tired of women using disease, age, hormones, pregnancy, etc as an excuse to put on the pounds.

I made my own excuses and now I’m putting a stop to it before it becomes a health issue.

Feel free to be mad at me…but decide if you are truly mad at me or mad at your own problem….and what are you doing about it.

First, I delight in her spelling errors. Second, this truly pissed me off, not necessarily because I was mad at her for her tone, her statement, etc. (especially IN a weight loss forum) but also because it made me wonder if she were right.

Is weight loss really just as simple as “just lose the weight?” Maybe I’m sensitive/defensive, but I don’t believe it to be so. And whether the rationale behind why it’s so difficult is seen as an “excuse” or not, that’s really not in my control. But still…I can’t get this out of my mind.

If weight loss were as simple as just losing the weight…none of us would be fat. Fat people endure so much, sacrifice so much. We’re a tough lot. We do “hard” every damn day of our lives.

I would never tell someone who’s depressed to simply snap out of it. I know there’s more to it, just like there’s more to obesity than Krispy Kremes and couch potatoes. I hate the inference that it’s a simple equation. I suppose for some it is, but it’s not for me. It’s insanely complex, and what works beautifully for me one day is a vast mystery the next. And I hate it.

And I hate that other people think I am CHOOSING to be this way as if I liked it. I think most of the time, the decisions I’ve made (or not made) that have contributed to my condition were not necessarily made by conscious choice but rather by denial or default. Who would CHOOSE to be a 348-pound woman?

Know what sucks? July 29, 2009

When you have forgotten your lock combination because it’s been sooooooo long since you were at the gym. Doh! I eventually figured it out, but that was a very frustrating 45 minutes that I will never have back again.

Dumbass.