What Did You Get in Your Bag? A #Fat-Shaming Letter!

Everybody who's ever been an American kid can remember the thrill of Halloween: the excitement of deciding what to "be," the fun of dressing up and showing off to our grandparents and teachers, the excitement of going door to door "in disguise" to get treats from the neighbors.

And remember this part? Comparing the goodies with our friends?

This year, there's a nasty letter circulating on the 'net, that some woman calling herself "Cheryl" purportedly claimed to a radio station that she intended to hand out to those children she deems "moderately obese," instead of candy.

My hope is that "Cheryl" really enjoys cleaning TP and eggs off the side of her house.

What makes the Charlie Brown clip funny, is that we know and trust that adults wouldn't really give some kids candy, and give another child a rock. The inherent unfairness is obvious.


Now, there is some chatter that "Cheryl," and the letter itself, are a prank and it's not going to be passed out to kids after all. This is a good thing.

But here's what I find disturbing and a sign of sickness in our society.

That while most people are in agreement that the idea is horrific and cruel, a minority are openly expressing their support for "Cheryl" and this letter. They think the way to solve childhood obesity is by shaming fat children.

Basically, fat people in our society are treated much like Jews in early 1930's Germany - it was not only accepted, but expected you would harass them. (Mind you, I'm talking about the time before Jews and many other people were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, when they were "only" being spit on and beat up.)

Like Jews wearing a yellow star, or people of color living in a primarily white-skinned community, or those in a wheelchair, fat people never "pass" as "normal" people.

But unlike being a person of color or Jewish, being fat is a choice, right?

Actually, scientific evidence is pointing to many signs that obesity is very complicated. There are genetic factors, environmental factors, links to the influence of various poisons and chemicals that now permeate our bodies in a way they didn't a few hundred years ago. And there is also substantial evidence that people on various medicines "blow up" or lose weight, and it has nothing to do with willpower, diet or exercise. In a poignant rant on my other blog, TL Hamrick said:

As a person who was painfully thin until my early twenties, and struggled (and still struggle) with weight, especially at about age 30, when my PCOS went into full swing. I spent a good part of my 30's overweight or obese, lost weight, kept it off for about 2 years, received a treatment/implant that caused my diet/exercise to fail and gained it all back, plus... and lost it again. Now I am on the too skinny side due to a serious health issue that I am recovering from, and will I ever be morbidly obese again?

I hope not. But... if I am, I will continue my striving for health at any weight, and the body comments? Do. Not. Want.

Shaming People Doesn't Work - But Let's Do It Anyway

Let's put aside medical issues, and all the other reason people may be too fat. Let's accept (for a moment) the premise that there are many people who CHOOSE to be overweight because they are lazy and undisciplined, yada yada. Let's accept the (now scientifically disputed) premise that being even moderately overweight is unhealthy.

Therefore, as a society, we want to help these people lose weight.

What's the best way we, as a society can do this?

Scientific studies (I know, again with the science!) point out that shaming, whether self-shaming or shaming by frenemies and outsiders, not only doesn't work for long-term weight loss, it actually has been proven to have the opposite effect.

Okay. So when we point out to people that a) people are fat for many different reasons, and b) fat-shaming doesn't work, they stop, right?

That Would Make Sense, But No

I have found, though engaging with people on places like FaceBook and various chat boards, there are some people (OCPD? who knows?) who insist on their right to continue bullying fat people, even fat children, because "they are disgusting." Because "it's for their own good."

They express every intention to continue to hate on fat people, even fat children, who are at the mercy of genes, medicine, and parental control, for being fat. While at the same time, they want to assume the high moral ground. They want credit for being "good people," they are deeply offended when people call them even mild things like cruel or "willfully ignorant" or bullies.

But they are bullies.

My ex was like this, too, and that's one of many reasons he is my ex. He thought he was doing me a favor when he would tell me that I would look really good "if you lost another ten pounds" or when, if I dared to eat a modest lunch, he'd curl his lip in disgust and make a comment about me "pigging out again."

Even when I tried to talk to him about how harmful what he was doing was, to me and to our relationship, he could not adjust his settings.

If you are one of those people who feels justified in making negative comments about fat people (or skinny people, or white people, black people, people of a different religion, whatever), it's not because THEY have a problem.

It's because you do.

Have you ever been bullied about your weight?

Are you aware when a fat-shaming message comes out of your mouth?

Your thoughts?

What's Life Like with an OCPDr? Cooking With the Anal-Retentive Chef

Sometimes a video is worth a thousand words.  Anal-retentive is what people with OCPD used to be called.

Thanks to SeeSaw at freeforums for sharing this.

Hulu - Saturday Night Live: Cooking with the Anal Rententive Chef

- Watch more Funny Videos at Vodpod.

Of course, this is hysterically funny - in a four minute clip, seen once.

It's much less funny at all if you experience this every day, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the garage...

I lived with the A-R Chef, who might go into total meltdown mode if he was at the stove, stirring something in a pan, and I dared enter the kitchen and stand at the counter 10 feet away from him, to refill my glass of water.  He would shut off the burners, throw down the towel draped over his shoulder, and storm out.  Then he would sit and smoke and pout, and only when he recovered his equilibrium, could he resume cooking.

If I tried to cook or finish preparing a meal, he usually refused to eat it.  Or he might wait until it was cold, and then complain about how terrible it tasted, cold.  Usually this was coupled with insults to me about what a pig I was, how I seemed to need to eat all the time, and other derogatory remarks about my size and shape.

As I've blogged here before and others have remarked on other sites, sometimes the kitchen reaction seems to be similar to what happens to those with autism who experience sensory overload.  It's not just the person "being picky" or controlling, exactly, it's almost a panic-type response to too much stimuli.

What's impossible for those living with such a person, is knowing what will "set them off."  Sometimes I could go into the kitchen when he was cooking and he would be fine.  He'd make a lovely meal, we'd sit down to eat together, have a pleasant conversation.  Sometimes this would bring tears to my eyes, because it was so nice - why couldn't it be like that all the time?  The feeling of trying to walk on eggshells, of constantly being wary of setting off the next meltdown or tantrum, becomes extremely wearing on the people who share a household with such a person.

I never could remember all the triggers (even if I could, there were always new ones), and so, I was constantly Doing Something Wrong (in his eyes).   It exhausted me - and, I'm sure, it was equally rough on him.  I have friends who are cognizant of their OCPD behaviors, who are courageously battling against them, and I know  they don't like it when they're "that way," either.

Even though I could never go back to that lifestyle, my heart is deeply filled with pity for my ex.  I know he had light bulb moments, from time to time, when he didn't want to be the way he was.

Still, I look forward to the time, when I begin dating again, of having a "normal" kitchen again.  Where I can kiss the cook - or be kissed, if I'm doing the cooking.  Where we can cook together, perhaps even nibble food off one another's fingertips, and if the burners get turned off, it's by mutual consent because we've gone to enjoy some loveplay before returning to eat.  I remember having a happy kitchen like that, once upon a time.

What is your kitchen like?  A happy place, or a minefield?

Has OCPD impacted your kitchen and food prep?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chapt 4 - Decision and Commitment & The Risk of Error

from KRO-Media at Flickr

This post continues with Decision and Commitment from Chapter Four.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

Decision and Commitment

You may think you're simply indicating a willingness to go out again, but as far as he's concerned you're endorsing a lifetime commitment that he is quite frankly not ready to make after only one date... From that day forward, if he spots you on the street, he'll spring in the opposite direction to avoid the grave risk that the two of you might meet, which would mean he'd have to ask you if you wanted to get a cup of coffee, and you might say yes, and pretty soon you'd be enjoying each other's company again, and suddenly a clergyman would appear at your table and YOU'D HAVE TO GET MARRIED.  AIEEEEEEE.   -DAVE BARRY

Next time you're in a restaurant, glance at some of the people studying their menus at other tables.  Most of them are probably enjoying the pleasure of surveying all the choices and knowing they can order what most appeals to them.  Others give no more attention to it than they would to tying their shoes; it's a mundane act that they perform without much thought.  For some obsessives, however, this simple task can be surprisingly difficult.

Alex, a thirty-seven-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep, one day described for me the turmoils he undergoes routinely in this situation.  "I look at the menu and immediately tense up," he said.  "I don't know whether I want an omelette, or eggs and bacon, or something different.  <snip>  I think if I choose this, then I'll miss an opportunity to try something new, something I could add to my repetoire of breakfasts.  But then on the other hand, it might not be good.  And then I will have wasted a choice.  I'll feel angry.  I'll feel like I got ripped off by my own choice.  I will have made a mistake."

from little.toolshed on Flickr 
Seriously, it's just breakfast

 <snip>"I even obsess over picking out a shampoo!" he exclaimed again, laughing.  "They don't make my usual brand anymore.  I spent ten minutes at the drugstore trying to decide what to buy.  When I walked out of there, I was saying, 'Alex, here you go again!  Why don't you just pick one of each and throw away the ones you don't like?  You can afford it.'  But I don't want to throw one away.  I'm obsessed with making the right decision beforehand and not having to deal with making a mistake."

The Risk of Error

Alex, as you can plainly see, harbors the Perfectionist's Credo: I can and must avoid making any mistakes.  Decisions and commitments often are the perfectionist's nemesis because each decision or commitment carries the risk of being wrong.

Some individuals have trouble only with certain types of decisions.  Alex, for example, reports that he rarely has trouble making decisions related to his work.

<snip> Gina reported having the most trouble deciding how her family should spend its vacations.

"I feel I have to plan this time in the best possible way.  Each time we sketch out a possibility, all the but-ifs and what-ifs come up.  <snip>  This has happened before; I can't make a decision in time and I wind up doing nothing, which is worse than any of the potential problems that held me back."

***

I adore Dave Barry.  Sadly, I've heard from some with OCPD that they may avoid dating for this reason - they feel too much pressure, at the end of a first good date, to commit to a second, because think of where that could lead!!  No, a second good date, or even a 17th, does not mean you are obligated to marry the other person.

I can relate somewhat to the concept of looking at a menu and tensing up.  If I am with a friend who doesn't already know I'm a supertaster, my food pickiness can be a source of embarrassment, as s/he may make suggestions on things I might like to try that include an ingredient I loathe.  I might not always want to go into the full explanation with a casual or business acquaintance.

But I do know that even if I order a meal and it's the worst one I have ever had in my entire life (and really, there can be Only One) - so what? I've had many wonderful meals in the past, and unless I am on my way to the electric chair or a plane falls on me, I will get to enjoy many more meals in the future.  Not a tragedy if I pick something and don't enjoy it; I will simply know better than to order that dish in this restaurant in the future.

This is a prime example of "missing the forest for the trees" which is an integral part of OCPD-think - assigning a life-or-death importance to a choice that truly ain't that big a deal.  (Unless it truly is a life-or-death situation involving food allergies.)

Enduring a bad meal, or picking a less-than-perfect type of shampoo, or even a vacation that turns out to be terrible... Learning experiences.  Fodder for future funny stories.

The more that decisions like this are assigned too much weight, postponed until it's too late, etc., the harder they are to make in the future.  While the more you make decisions - even if they aren't "perfect," the easier it gets to make decisions.

Bad decisions can almost always be changed.  Let's say you decide to have the monthly company newsletter printed on goldenrod, or turquoise paper. (I know, nobody prints out hardcopy newsletters anymore, just work with me here.)  After the first month's run, you get complaints that the richness of the color makes 'em hard to read.  So, you switch to a lighter color.

 

You can agonize over a decision like that for weeks, and if you'd decided to go with a lighter color, perhaps second-guess yourself (for many more weeks) that you should have tried a darker color.

It's an important part of growth and clarity as a human being to learn to prioritize the people and the decisions in our lives.  Decisions such as bacon & eggs vs. a sausage omelette, or even deciding when/where to vacation, should not command the same brain-time and emotional angst as accepting a job offer or deciding to have a child.

Image from SheKnows Health & Wellness
Imagine, making decisions can make you healthy AND beautiful!

Making lots of little decisions successfully does open up the path to making bigger decisions successfully, just as lifting lighter weights, over time and with enough reps, positions us to lift heavier ones.

Have you gotten stuck agonizing over unimportant decisions?
How did you get past that - or are you still stuck?
Prove that you can at least make a decision on which Reactions button to click, below.  :-)

7 Reasons Why Relationships Are Like Pizza

1. Hot fresh pizza is one of the greatest things on earth.
2. Cold pizza is most appealing when you're drunk or hungover.
   
3. No matter how many pizzas you've had, the next one will never be exactly the same.
4. The first slice is usually the best.
5. Some people put really strange things on their pizza.
   
6. If a pizza comes loaded with a bunch of stuff you don't like, you can spend eternity trying to pick the crap off, and you'll never get all of it.
7. Even if you love pizza, you need a balance of other things in your diet.
   
   

Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love

Why Relationships Are Not Like Pizza

1. You can find pizza just about anywhere.
2. Pizza doesn't care if you ignore it for weeks at a time.
3. Pizza goes well with any kind of alcohol.
4. Pizza is usually pretty cheap.
5. You can pick pizza up at the grocery store, and put it in your freezer until you're in the mood for it.
6. Pizza doesn't get jealous if  you're splitting your plate with spaghetti or lasagna.
7. If you've had a bad pizza, you don't obsess for eons over why it was bad, and whether the next one will be terrible, too.

How about you?  Have good (or bad) pizza stories?

Got more points I missed?  Share 'em in the comments.

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chapter Two - Self Control & Thinking in Extremes



from aWorldTourer at Flickr
Do you ruminate like a cow?

 This post continues with Self-Control & Thinking in Extremes, from Chapter Two.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.

Self discipline is the mark of maturity, is it not?  We all admire the person who eats and drinks in moderation; who works at maintaining a fit, well-conditioned body; who is even-tempered; who manages to persevere even at difficult, unsupervised tasks.  But in their unconscious quest for absolute self-control, many obsessives carry such solid virtues to self-destructive extremes.

As I think back to my own days in medical school, I remember students who would not only study long hours but would deny themselves even the most legitimate breaks for eating, exercising, talking with other students, or entertainment.  Would reasonable breaks really have caused a dip in their grade-point averages?  Wouldn't an occasional Saturday off have improved the quality of their lives and their personal growth?  The answers are obvious, but there was no way you could have convinced these people.  They were deft at rationalizing their behavior (e.g., "I'm no genius - I need more study time."). 

I call these reason rationalizations because, while they may have been true, there was another, deeper and more powerful force driving these students to such extremes.  Though they probably weren't conscious of it, many feared that if they let their self-control slip just once, they might have less of it the next time, and still less thereafter.  They feared they would ultimately lose their hard-won diligence completely and become paralyzed or helpless, unable to accomplish anything.  Of course this "thinking" goes on somewhere below the surface, where it doesn't have the benefit of scrutiny, analysis, and revision. 

When obsessives lapse while dieting or trying to quit smoking or drinking, they may have trouble moving beyond their lapse and refocusing on the goal.  Instead they're apt to feel distraught over the transgression, and to dwell on it.  And why?  Not because they seriously think that one slip will make them fat, sick or drunk, but rather because they lost control.  They failed to make themselves do what they decided to do, and if such a slip occurred once, who knows where it could lead?

THINKING IN EXTREMES

These examples point up an important characteristic of many obsessives: they tendency to think in extremes.  To yield to another person, for example, may be felt as a humiliating total capitulation.  Similarly, to tell one lie, break one appointment, tolerate a spouse's criticism just once, or shed a single tear is to set a frightening precedent.  One patient told me she couldn't miss a single workout because it make her feel she couldn't trust herself, and that frightened her.

This all-or-nothing thinking occurs partly because obsessives rarely lie in the present.  They think in terms of trends stretching into the future.  No action is an isolated event; each is merely a part of something bigger, so every false step has major ramifications.

Such distorted thinking can cause a host of problems.  I've know obsessives, for instance, who had trouble relaxing and enjoying first dates because they were so preoccupied with the possible remote consequences of such occasions.  ("Would I want to marry this person?")  In all-or-nothing thinking, one's perspective is badly distorted; there's a failure to step back and remind oneself that going out with someone doesn't commit one to any long-term romance.

Another consequence of such thinking is that it aggravates the pain of worry and rumination.  Obsessives tend to envision the worst possible outcome of a scenario and then worry as if such a scenario had in fact come to pass.  Or they will mentally magnify small personal gaffes into something far more serious,  Some of my patients have had trouble sleeping after briefly losing their composure in a therapy group, assuming that others had judged this "emotional lapse" as harshly as they themselves did.

***

Actually despite the song title being "All Er Nuthin'" it's a pretty good look at a couple setting boundaries with each other.  Will Parker won't marry Ado Annie if she continues her, eh, triflin' ways, and she won't have him out cattin' on the town, either.

All-or-nothing thinking - boy, am I familiar with that one!  Ex-boyfriend drove himself harder than anyone else ever would.  When he was dieting (which was most of the time, since he was convinced he was getting fat,) he would skip meals and of course, since I had my own weight and diet issues, he'd accuse me of "lack of control" because in fact I did want to eat more than once daily.  The nausea and headaches I suffered when I went too long between meals were not physical, in his opinion, but because of my lack of discipline.  He thought very highly of his own "self-control" and I'm sure this was anorective thinking, the idea that "I'm in control, I can conquer my hunger," along with disdain for weak-willed sisters like myself who wanted... moderate amounts of food at reasonable intervals.

If I had a dollar for every time he said "pigging out," "heifer," "slim" (with a sneer in his voice), "wide load," or "are you eating again?" kinds of comments, even when I was slim... I could probably pay my rent for a year.  I'm having to work very hard now to silence that voice inside my head, as I work on learning mindful eating.

Another all-or-nothing thing - we couldn't "do" more than one thing in a day.  For example, if we had a family party to attend in the late afternoon, the whole day had to be set aside for showering and grooming for the party.  He could not get his arms around the idea that we could, perhaps, clean the garage or wash windows until 11:00, then still have plenty of time to shower and get ready for a 5:00 party a 30 minutes drive away.  Nope, all or nothing.  Either a day was totally committed to household chores, or it was committed to social activities.  (And then usually the next day had to be spent in emotional recovery from the strain of said social event.)

I've heard a lot of stories about those with OCPD terrified to date, because there are expectations.  What if you're on a date with someone and don't like them?  From what I've heard, it's totally carried out in their minds to being trapped for 12 years in an unhappy marriage.  Or someone who is desperately in need of a job, but is afraid to send out a resume to X company because they're not absolutely sure they want to work for the company, because what if it's a really crappy place to work?  Hello, they haven't even asked you to come for an interview, let alone made a job offer!  All or nothing, distorted thinking, folks.

Katie from Health for the Whole Self posted about Ten Cognitive Distortions adapted from The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns (which will be reviewed on this blog, in the not-so-near future.  Gotta get through Too Perfect, first!)  While her adaptations apply specifically to those grappling with eating disorders, a great exercise would be to apply and adapt them to whatever one's "thing" or biggest weakness is, whether it's body-image, dating, job anxieties...

And ruminating...  ex b-f would chew over some negative thing, over and over and over again.  Not in a positive way, as in, "Let's unpack this, see why it happened, and take steps to try and prevent it in the future," but in a way that usually got him as angry and upset, sometimes even more so, than when whatever unpleasant event first occurred.  I believe that in some cases, as he retold himself the story over and over again, that he embellished details in his mind that made it worse or more painful every time.

In his case, he usually latched onto some awful thing that he believed someone had done to him.

Others chew over wrongs they believe they have done to others, and work themselves into feeling terribly guilty.  Katie had a recent blog post where she believed she'd said something offensive and was having trouble letting it go, until her husband told her to stop being a cow (he meant this with love.)

This is one I tended to do, myself, though as I get older, I'm realizing that... sorry, Ego!  What I say is usually not the most important thing on somebody's else's mind.  So, even if I'm more than usually tactless, I haven't ruined their day or life (unless they're OCPD, in which case, no matter how much care and tact I exercised, I might have said the "wrong" thing anyway.)

Got a self-control or thinking in extremes story?

Your thoughts?

Wolf Woman or Hungry Hungry Hippo?

There's such a difference between knowing something in your head and feeling it in your heart. 

I know that my ex b-f had distorted thinking - about a lot of things, but particularly about food, diet, exercise, body image.  When last I saw him, he was obsessing over being "fat," having put on a few extra pounds around his middle, though at over 6' tall and 160 pounds, no one would accuse him of being overweight.

He would talk with longing in his voice for his teenage days, when he'd gotten down to 95 pounds.  (Of course, he was living off speed and cigarettes then, and it landed him in the hospital, but still...)  Not in the beginning, but after I moved in with him, he made constant derogatory comments about anyone he saw who was overweight - whether he saw them while we were driving, on TV, etc. ( if never to the actual face of an overweight person who happened to be friend or family.)  They were disgusting, they had no self-control (this from someone who would drink to passing out), they looked revolting, all fat people should be shot...

Mind you, when we met, this is how we looked as a couple. 

from Nighthawk News

I was in a "very big girl" stage, and while that didn't matter to him at all during the "honeymoon" period, when we were courting, before that ended I had begun dieting and stepped up my exercising - for me, not for him - and he was very pleased. 

Of course, it wasn't enough.  I got down to within five pounds of my high school weight, and while he would join in the praise around others who would tell me how great I looked, in private, he'd tell me I would look great - if I lost another 10-15 pounds.

Well.  And then his OCPD began rampaging in full about 101 different things, and I became stressed, depressed.  I stopped exercising as much, because he was so jealous of the time it took away from "us," I stopped being as careful about what I ate.  He rationed my food and rode me constantly, at home, about what I should or shouldn't "pig out" on, and I began binging at work during the day.

No surprise, the weight began creeping back up.  I haven't yet regained all that I had lost, over that two years I worked so hard to lose it; but I've regained a lot of it.  And I hate it.  I hate the way my body looks and the way my clothes don't fit and the fact I had to buy another pair of "fat" jeans today because my thunder thighs are about to bust out the sidewalls of my other fat jeans.




I gave myself permission (mentally if not emotionally,) to gain a little weight since the split, but I think now...  part of me didn't think it would really happen.  At first I gobbled up all kinds of "forbidden foods," a natural reaction, I knew (mentally!) to being starved of them/for them for the years I lived with ex b-f.  Like in the story told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a wolf that has been starved in the winter will go on a rampage when spring comes.

I figured once I got used to the fact that I could eat these foods, any time I wanted, and nobody was going to take them away from me, my cravings for them would stop, as Geneen Roth said, and for the most part that's happened.

So I'm trying to be kind to myself and I'm trying to be patient.  I've been learning about mindful eating and taking baby steps towards putting it into practice, the past few months.  



from Master Isolated Images at FreeDigitalPhotos

  I still am enjoying foods I wasn't "allowed" to have, then, but not in huge amounts.  I am not binging at work any more.  I am learning to recognize when I am approaching fullness and stopping then, not eating to the point of being overfull.  I am eating lots of broccoli and salads - because I actually enjoy them, and because I feel good about giving my body foods that are healthy for it.  I'm drinking lots of water and very little (though still some) soda.  I'm still doing regular exercise.  (Though I could be doing more - one can always be doing more exercise - I'm not doing less.)  I'm learning to recognize the pull of emotional hunger and to sit and breathe and acknowledge my feelings, instead of stuffing them down with food.

I know, calorie-wise, even if I'm not counting calories or points or carbs, I'm giving my body less of 'em.

So why am I still gaining weight?!?  I know, in my head, that I am taking the right approach.  I know, from bitter experience, that "regular" diets don't work, long-term.  Been there, done that, got the T-shirts - sized XL to L to M, and back again.  Twice.

But I'm scared.  I think I had this unrealistic vision in my mind, that I would start my baby steps of mindful eating, and as a reward, the Skinny Fairy would come bonk me on the head and I'd magically wake one morning, twenty pounds thinner overnight.  And I still hear my ex b-f's voice inside my head, telling me I'm a disgusting fat pig.

I don't want to be patient with myself.  I want results right now!!  And I want all those horrible, negative messages that I've introjected into my brain, from ex b-f, from magazines, from pop culture, to STFU already.

<Sigh.>  I'm just gonna have to do this the long, hard way, aren't I?  One positive affirmation, one baby step, one STFU to the negative messages, at a time.

Have you ever had to struggle with an issue like this?  Where you knew something, in your head, but it wasn't making it down into your heart where you really felt like you believed it? 

Tell me how you did it (please!) in the comments.

VD with the G-F

So, I was anticipating a rough VD, since it was my first since breaking up with OCPD bf.  And it was rough, in spots, but I tried to be pro-active and not let myself sink into too much unhealthy reminiscing and nostalgia.

Reality is, Valentines' Day with him was no great shakes.  I think once he cut roses from the garden and put them in a vase on the table for me.  He never, ever, sent flowers to me at work, and many years didn't even bother with a card.  More than a wee bit Demand-Resistant to the whole idea of making a fuss over his loved one for a "Hallmark Holiday."

So... I bought my own rose for my desk at work, and am still enjoying it.  (Though I did move it away from that corner where I could too easily knock it onto the floor.  In case that worried you.)

And I decided to get Carried Away a bit for the G-F, with all kinds of good-smelling stuff I wasn't "allowed" to use due to ex b-f's complaints about cologne and scented lotion.  And duckies.  The pink one even lights up! (For those of you thinking I'm both bi and moving waaaaay too fast - I found that while I feel somewhat uncomfortable treating myself well, I can manage it if I treat myself in the third person, like my own girlfriend.)

So, some new stinkum from Bath & Body works, plus I cashed in a gift card and showered g-f in Luscious Kisses from Victoria's Secret.

Over the weekend I knocked out a few chores that had been hanging over my head, which made me feel happy and relieved.  And which gave me permission to enjoy myself, though I'm trying to get past the silly notion that pleasure should be earned.

Worked on eating mindfully.  I fixed girlfriend some of our favorite meals, but tried to focus on appropriate sized portions, and stopping when/before being full, trying to tune into learning how to listen to the body, instead of just eating, eating, eating, because food is sitting there.  And trying to include lots of salad, green veggies, and healthy choices. 

Also bought Valentines' chocolate for her, all her favorites, though a small box.  We haven't inhaled them all yet, but are eating them 1-2 per night, totally savoring and enjoying each and every bite.

This mindful eating business is hard work, and I'm such a beginner, but I trust it's the right way to go in the long term.

Spent a fair amount of time with my favorite dysfunctional couple, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.  Their story is one I've been magnetically drawn to for most of my life.  Talk about an object lesson in 1) Passionate love doesn't always last forever, and 2) It's not usually healthy for a woman to lose her head over a man.

Theories abound on What Went Wrong.  Did either Anne or Henry have a Personality Disorder?  Because things went downhill pretty fast once the "chase" was over and they were officially married.  Much like what happens when a "non" moves in with a person with a PD.  Or were one or both of them simply drunk with power?

Certainly Anne exhibited some wild mood swings.  She was also pregnant and miscarrying during much of that time, and that in itself could account for her being so "highly strung."   Plus just a smidge of pressure from being surrounded all the time by people who hated her guts, and constant demands from those who wanted to use her to further their own interests.  We think about Diana, Princess of Wales, and how she was constantly hounded by paparazzi, but old-time royalty had people around them all the time.  Even the privies weren't private.

from Wikipedia Commons

One interesting novel, Threads by Nell Gavin, takes on the story as woven into a theory of reincarnation.  The idea is that people choose to be reborn into different families to work out unresolved karmic issues, and that Henry, Anne and Katherine had been married, siblings, parents and children in previous lifetimes.  I especially liked the section where Anne was an Egyptian whore, Katherine her young daughter, and Henry a transvestite man-whore who befriended them because he longed for children of his own.

This would explain a lot about 15th and 16th century men's fashion.

Watched some flicks - Carrie Fisher's entertaining Wishful Drinking, and Disney's Tinkerbell which I'd been wanting to see forever, because my favorite artist Loreena McKennitt had done most of the music and the narration.  As the intro ballad wafted me into the story, that's when I did my VD weeping - not sure if it was because I felt so moved by Loreena's gorgeous voice, or a little bit of sadness over ex b-f. 

Although ex b-f also really enjoys her music, and always claimed a love of animation, he was never willing to watch this movie with me, because...   because.  Who knows why? 

Every time I go down that rabbit hole of trying to make sense of the nonsensical, I simply get more lost.  When someone has a mental disorder, things don't make logical sense.   Yet those of us who love them may keep churning past actions or conversations in our minds, thinking we'll hit on some magical insight and we'll really "get" why they think and act the way they do.

I will never be able to understand his distorted thinking, and that's okay.  I don't have to.  I just need to figure out the way I think, and make healthy choices for me.

What healthy choices have you been making for you?

Tell me about it in the comments.