Boy am I looking forward to a time when a week goes by without having to pay so much attention to my emotions and behaviors. Perhaps that'll never happen but it sure would be nice to have a break from all the heavy stuff.

Group was good this week. One of the activities in our book was to stand in front of a full length mirror and describe what we see, what we think about it and how we felt. Then of course we shared all that wonderful information with the group. It's tough to tell everyone that. Easy for me to do and write it down, tough to admit I'm pretty cruel to myself.

We also discussed our body image history. Each phase of life, what our bodies were like and what types of events could have had an effect on our body image. We were all able to relate to each other's experiences which for the most part were similar in nature even if our experiences were different. For me, being overweight my entire life there was quite a bit of teasing growing up. From what I've read in my book teasing by itself may not have been all that traumatic if my self esteem hadn't already started to diminish.

I guess at this point, it's not entirely important for me to know why or when the bad body image developed. Right now it just needs to be dealt with and squashed. With what we've done in group so far, Doug says there should be (and there is) a hightened awareness of the negativity I put on myself relating to my body. I am to try to work on choosing to think of something, ANYTHING else positive when I notice I'm saying negative things to myself.

I did catch myself a couple times and was able to change my mind. It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. I told Doug that I felt a resistance to this assignment and another one that is similar. We have more mirror work. This week when I'm standing in front of the mirror, Doug wants me to try and get angry with Ed or my body image instead of attaching to the negative emotions and thoughts that are sure to come up while I'm standing in front of the mirror (some of it naked - ugh!).

When I told Doug I felt resistance to his assignments we of course had to try and figure out why. This ties in with why it's so hard for me to let go of all this negative, self denegrating inner talk. We're getting at something, a new issue! Oh gee...the excitement, I tell ya. I guess it's not an entirely "new" issue but one we haven't focused on. In response to the assignment and my hesitation, it appears to me that if I try breaking down my beliefs I feel like I'll lose the safety net I've built under me. The net that keeps me from letting people hurt me - which also keeps people from getting near me. So my new issue to delve into is emotional safety.

Doug says it makes sense given my history which he and I have been discussing over the past year that I would do whatever it takes to protect myself. If I tell myself I'm nothing, well then, no one can say anything worse of me. It's complicated for me to explain as I am really just trying to understand this myself. Doug says, which sort of alarmed me, that if if I don't break away from this behavior, my eating disorder and my depression will get worse. I suppose that might mean I'm treading water in the meantime?

Lots of work to do with the body image group this week and lots of new ideas and thoughts on my recovery for me to ponder. I think this is effecting my food in that I'm paying less attention. I'm not binging, I'm just not being mindful of my meal plan - eating what I chose regardless of whether or not it fits in the plan for the day. Ugh! This is why I say, it'd be nice to take a vacation from the heavy stuff. Doug sort of did that this week as we didn't delve into one of the assignments he gave me last week that provoked some seriously deep emotions. Something to look forward to next week, I guess!