What does it take?

Ah the question for which, if I had an answer, I could retire comfortably on a nice island surrounded by staff to service my every need...

What does it take?,  more importantly what are we willing to give?

When I take a trip the first thing I do is map out my route.  I prepare the car, ensure the dogs are taken care of, mail service is arranged, my bags are packed, then get in the car and head out.

When I need a new outfit, I take a look at sales, go to a few stores, try on a few things and make my selection.

As dinner time quickly approaches one takes the time to assemble the ingredients for a nice home cooked meal.  Follows the proper steps to ensure they have a well balanced meal.

EVERY day we all make decisions that impact us.  We know the wrong turn, the wrong size or the wrong sequence of ingredients will drastically affect our trip, our clothing, our meals.

Why then, with the certain knowledge that cause and effect are intrinsic, do we find ourselves repeating over and again those same mistakes that bring us pain, heartache and emptiness?  Do we honestly feel that one day magically the same choice of behaviors will somehow produce a different result?

I am seven months post weight loss surgery, I feel better than I have in years, I am beginning to shop in the regular women's section of a store for the first time in well over two decades, pushing away from the dinner table was beginning to be easy, food didn't have the same allure it once did.  Why then two days ago did I suddenly begin to inhale food?  Where did my new found satiety go?

What am I doing?  What am I searching for?  What am I afraid of? What does it take?

I Got a Job!

I was hired this week to help coordinate a large Expo.  How exciting to begin something new!  Worry over starting up my old brain was not justified as it seems to be working well, and feels good to be putting some very underutilized skills back to work.  Can't begin to say how many hours I have logged in the past few days and the smile on my face as I crank out the workload is such a pleasant change from my previous day to day.

Then fast forward to tonight...I open my facebook page only to be greeted by the offer to confirm my employment by my employer...never had this happen before and seriously I felt as giddy as a teenager.   Silly how something like becoming an employee again can make someone feel.  It was like I was being recognized again after feeling like a "nobody" for so long.  It is NOT that I feel that stay at home Mom's aren't important because I vehemently disagree with that but in my case...my "stay at home mom" status was long ago used up.  Seriously my "baby" turned 21 this year!!

So my journey takes yet another twist and I could not be happier for it.  This week also I broke a VERY long plateau in my weight loss journey so that too feels amazing.  So nice to feel excited for a new day, excited for the future and excited to be alive.

Surviving

I am a survivor of childhood abuse.  I was raised to never speak of it, to remember the good and let the bad go.  I was to love him, understand him, be kind, patient, grateful...

How does one do this in actuality?  How do you lick your wounds alone and in silence? For me...I ate.  I ate away the disappointment, the lack of support.  I stuffed in the certain knowledge that indeed perhaps my father was right, I could never be smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, basically that no matter what I ever did, said, believed or felt, I would never be enough.

Recently the pain of memories long repressed have reared their ugly head again. In my adult life I have sought out counselling about a half dozen times.  Each time I leave stronger, more confident, part of my perpetual tape recording of unworthiness cut.  But like an onion the effects of abuse are layered, one can not wish away a layer prematurely.  Our wonderful minds sometimes don't allow us to peal away more than we can handle at a time.  Rather we peal away to the raw nerve of our innermost pain until we can no longer peal away for that time.

With my weight loss surgery I am forced to deal with my actual issues as stuffing them away conveniently with donuts and soda just is no longer in the cards.  I have tried!  Not a good idea post surgical weight loss.

I went back to my counselor in the past two weeks and since my first time there with her was for an issue with my children we never got to delve into my own past.  I was asked to write down a few items from my childhood that I felt might have left an impact in my life and to quantitate each event.   I sat down and within minutes I had three pages of memories but was unable to place an order of importance on each event.

Which is worse, being beaten until blood dripped from your back and legs or seeing your sibling similarly  beaten? Which has a greater impact, your brother being murdered or not eating day after day until you no longer felt hunger? Never knowing what might set him off, a look, a spilled glass of milk, constantly being on your toes to remember your manners for it wasn't just yourself you could endanger but the beating of your sibling or mother.

What we wouldn't have done to have a place to go, a bed to sleep in without the fear of being found. But sadly for us that was not to be. Today I attended a luncheon for a local shelter, I sat and listened as one after the other spoke of the good that came out of their stay in the shelter. How do we mend?  Where do we mend?  To whom do you turn?

This I know, we must never stop trying.  We can't begin to know the pain and suffering of another individual. Happy well adjusted people do not over eat to the point of morbid obesity, alcoholics aren't thirsty...we are all searching for what ever is missing.

My greatest fear is that my father was right.  I will work everyday to prove that he was mistaken, that I am pretty enough, strong enough, able enough.  I am enough.

Alone Again...Naturally

Not so very long ago I dreaded being alone, that is where I did most of my eating.  My children have now all flown away and my husband is married to his job.  I spent many a day, week, month or year pretty much alone anyway, even surrounded by my family I kept alone, well within the confines of those walls that I so meticulously built. Growing up in constant abuse teaches one to  keep quiet and do your best to blend.  It was my desire always to be a wallflower, never dreaming of grand plans, never desiring the best of life, just learning to hope for enough.

I am blessed to have found a husband that truly does accept me for who I am, not asking more of me than I can give.  He has certainly lived through some pretty bleak times with me and never wavered in his commitment to me or our marriage. He too has walls, tall ones with some pretty sturdy material that even after 25 years of marriage I have not managed to weaken.  Seeing him through the years never feel good enough has caused me a great deal of pain but strangely enough it has of late taught me not to do the same.  His constant feelings of inferiority have been overshadowed only by my own.  As this surgery has given me fresh perspective and renewed hope I now see that these feelings are overdue to be challenged.

Now seeing my father as a lost and scared individual causes me to revisit my abuse and recognize it in a different light.  There isn't an excuse for abusing a helpless child, there never will be, but now as an adult it is easier to view the experience as being perpetrated by a sick individual whose own personal needs were never addressed and met.  Gone is the hate that once firmly gripped me, gone is the terrified girl that so often hid in a closet praying to escape that days beating.

We come here alone, we leave here alone, we gather experiences, hopes, enlightenment and if we are lucky we gather peace.  So at this junction I can say proudly that being alone is no longer scary, it is no longer something to fear.  Alone is where I now recharge, it is where I listen, it is where nature whispers to me, it is where I have begun to disassemble all the walls that have for so many years protected yet prevented me from living.  As my years of fat begin to melt something new and exciting is emerging, I can't wait to get to know that lady in the mirror a little better...alone, naturally.

Another week, come and gone.

It's Friday...again.  Just another week, nothing good, nothing bad...quite a bit of nothingness, sort of like my life the past few years.  One day stumbles into the next.

If I break it down then perhaps I could say that this week was better than a month ago.  I went to the gym 5 times this week.  Water aerobics 4 times and cardio one. I missed one day because I never went to bed the night before.

Insomnia, my most steadfast companion, had other plans for me.  Perhaps it was four different times that sleep was attempted but mostly clock watching was the activity of the night. I am mostly glad that I don't own a gun because there are nights...I'm just sayin' I know a sure fire way to clear my sinuses.

Okay, the highlights of my week...more exercise. I would like to say less eating but who am I kidding?  Cleaned house, did laundry, ironing, took care of FIVE dogs, wait a minute, surely I have not just listed all these activities under my HIGHLIGHTS of the week, how sad that ironing would make my list of highlights.  I REALLY do need a life.  Well, I did start my book again.  Since the great computer crash of November 2009, that ended up netting me a wonderful new surprise Christmas gift of a new computer, caused me to lose the entire book.  I am now forced to retype the entire book.  I made it to page seven. 

Typing out the book is actually pretty good for me.  I don't like to relive my story but it is good for me.  Gratitude abounds for the decision to write this down while it was still fresh in my mind. I hope it is published one day.  If my story can help just one person it would have all been worth it.

I think the most complex part of being raised by an abuser is that one never really knows what exactly they feel.  Your family is still your family no matter how they treat you.  Hate is strong but love is stronger.  Anger hurts...everyone.  It just doesn't have a place in my life.  I choose to be happy.  I choose to seek peace.  I have peeled away those that would seek to hurt and destroy who I am.  To those that seek to surround themselves with negativity, I say simply...I have no room for this energy in my life. 

The old me said that I should be steadfast and unwavering in my relationships, I was taught that we do what is right because it is right.  I no longer hold that to be true.  Certainly all relationships ebb and flow but when you find yourself losing who you are it is best to step back and question.  Being born into a family should be a blessing not a life sentence.  We must all choose our paths and family has strong and everlasting ties that should be honored and esteemed but never at the cost of self.

This week I did find a bit of myself.  I am preparing my office so that I can have a quiet place to work, I set up a budget to get a better handle on finances, I worked out at the gym and spent far less time in front of the TV, I cleaned out a section of my closet.  One day, one task, one step...forward.  I am not looking back.