Responsibility

A new coffee shop today. This is the first moment I've had truly to myself for a couple days. Ahhhhh. It was my birthday yesterday so the weekend has been filled with wonderful people, fun activities and lots of food. I think for the most part, I've done pretty good as far as my food has gone the last couple days. Last night felt a little bit mindless (super yummy!) but I tried writing it all down this morning and other than the fats, I think I stayed pretty close to my meal plan. I am trying to accept that I ate outside my meal plan without feeling too guilty and worrying about gaining weight. I've been sick and haven't been working out so I'm pretty nervous about weighing this week.

Thursday with Doug was difficult this week. I had been doing a lot of self blaming throughout the week and feeling pretty down on myself. I blame myself often for "screwing up my life" by not getting help sooner or for choosing maladaptive behaviors or really for any mistake I have ever made or am currently making (maybe even ones I have yet to make!). Therefore I believe this (the me that is in pain) is all my fault. Doug calls my continual need to blame "hyper responsibility". This doesn't give me a lot of room for success. In fact it pretty much sets me up for failure.

Doug has said on a couple occasions that I developed my maladaptive behaviors as a coping mechanism because I didn't know any better at the time. I counter that with at some point I have realized these maladaptive behaviors were not working for me but it has taken until now to "take responsibility" and do something about it. Doug says I'm a smart, bright person and that if there was anyway I could have figured out how to cope effectively I would have. I counter that with, if I'm so bright why didn't I get help sooner?

To tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure what our solution was to this type of thinking. There was so much being discussed this week. I guess I'll have to have him refresh my memory next session. This was just a small part of therapy this week. I swear my "hour" went really fast. We also discussed a comment made by one of my sisters. She and I were discussing doing something, I don't recall exactly what but it involved putting myself out there in a very visible, public way. I said, that would be like a nightmare to me. Her comment was (roughly) "under no circumstances do you ever want to be seen. If you could blend in with the wallpaper you would".

First of all, this comment was in no way made in a mean or condescending way. It was more matter of fact which I think is why I realized she's totally right. My immediate reaction was "I do that because of the weight". But later as I was journaling about it, I wondered if I put on weight so that I can do that. I wondered if the weight was subconsciously put on to help keep me invisible. Sadly, ironically, I have wished for years that my true self could be "seen" or known. So guess what, I blame myself for making myself invisible. Nice little circle, huh?

We did discuss this on Thursday and it sort of was a segue into some deeper more tender self beliefs I'm not ready to throw out here just yet. Doug did say that blending in with the wallpaper has to go. It was a coping mechanism that is not working for me anymore and I need to work on avoiding that behavior. It's keeping me from living by my values, desires for a happy life. The thought of trying to stay out of the wallpaper is super freaky to me.

I think my symptom use has mellowed out a bit and now it seems that we are spending a lot more time on how I've come to be who I am in this life and how I can repair, heal, change myself to live a more fulfilling life. I suppose this is the new chapter I've entered. It feels good to start a new chapter but it seems to be a pretty delicate, painful one. I'm interested though to see where the story goes...