Self Worth/Love

And now we come to yet another thing that has been mulling around my head for... well... for years!

Self worth, self love, be kind to yourself, body positivity, body acceptance, loving your body for what it does for you, etc. All of that jazz.

I have spent my entire life hating me. Who I am. What I look like. Things I've done. 

I have said things more cruel to myself than I have ever had someone else say to me (and I've had some pretty cruel things shouted at me by strangers). More cruel than I would even say to my worst enemy.

In fact today I lay on the couch thinking about how I am a complete and utter failure and then, just to make myself feel worse, I got up, grabbed a tube of red lipstick and marked all of the bits of my body I don't like. Red lines and dots everywhere. I looked like those diagrams of cows you see in the butcher that tell you where each cut of meat comes from. In fact, I thought that to myself and then I actually said "but no-one wants such a fatty piece of meat".

Really. Really. Really!?

Is this how I am going to spend my whole life?

I lost my job last month. I was working there for almost 8 years. It was welcome in so far as it was really time for me to move on but also it turned out to be unwelcome because not only did I have my confidence trounced on for 90% of the time there but I was effectively told (without actually being told) that my role was unnecessary.

No matter how you dress it up, it hurts. It hurts where I was already hurting. 

Sure I understand that the role was made redundant and not the person... me... but it still smacks.

I've decided to take a little time off to write which is why this blog is slightly more active than it has ever been and I'll properly start the job hunt in January. However, I spend most of my days being afraid that I'm not a good writer so I'm wasting my time and then creeps in the thoughts of "What am I actually good at!?" and then suddenly I'm down the rabbit hole of berating myself for not being good enough.

I try and try and try and yet I'm still sitting here feeling like nothing I have ever done has hit that sweet spot of perfection (Look, I know perfection doesn't exist and yet still we all search for it...).

I'm tired. Really tired. And struggling with dark days/weeks/months. I still get out of bed and hope and try but it is getting harder to see that bright light at the end of the tunnel.

I've taken on the expectations others have for me and elevated them to a level that no one could ever reach. See? The rational side of my brain sees that, acknowledges that and ignores it.

I spend most of my time feeling like I've let people down. Other people. Not myself; although that happens more often that I would like it to. Always fixated on what other people think I should be doing and how I should be doing it. Losing myself in the process...

Then there's the body stuff. I have been above what is considered a "straight" size (that's a phrase I just learned) for most of my life. I have had every insult there is about being bigger from people I know, strangers, and, mostly, from myself.

I have diaries that show how I've bullied myself from the age of 9. Weight was always top of my ranting; ranking even above romance which is shocking!

I settled in relationships where my weight was commented on by my partners. My first ever long term boyfriend even told me that he was breaking up with me because he was less attracted to me because of my weight. Things like that stick with you.

I don't look at other people and see their weight. I see their beauty, their smiles, their eyes, the way they hold themselves. I could write the most beautiful poetry on these things alone.

But when it comes to me. I can't see it.

I joined WeightWatchers in 2012, not long after my daughter was born. I will never forget stepping on
the scales that first day when the "leader" said "Oh! We'll have to take it slowly with you!". Shame. I still cringe when I think of that memory. 

I don't blame her. She was doing what she was paid to do. Over a year and a half I lost weight until I got to the 3rd goal they set me (yeah, they lowered my goal weight twice over that time). That goal felt good. Just as good as it did to feel hungry because I set my mind to the idea of hunger being a good thing. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, they said.

Christmas 2013, an old friend came up to me to tell me he had met up with people we went to college with and told them "Have you seen Shivvy? She got hot!". There it was. Affirmation.

I was running 60-70km a week. I was walking 10km a day. I was eating maximum 900 calories a day. BUT! I was hot! I was noticed! 

Then came what I now know to be an eating disorder. I gained weight because I started to allow myself to live life a little. I freaked on the scales. Morning and evening I was checking. The morning weigh would determine how the day go and the evening weigh would either congratulate me or send me spiralling into starvation or overdosing on laxatives.

One time in work, someone said to me "OH! Your face!". I stood there confused. "It's so bloated!!" I tried to laugh it off by saying "Haha! I had pizza last night. Maybe that's it." Little did I realise that this seemingly innocent conversation would begin what some colleagues called "Face watch". They would take turns guessing whether I had eaten pizza or not the night before depending on how bloated my face appeared...

That really didn't help things.

The skinniest I've been in the last 3 years was when I was diagnosed with depression. Of course I was skinny, I paced my apartment because I couldn't bear to go outside and the only food I ate were peas... supplemented with laxatives.

Lockdown hasn't helped my body image but I have a little more time to try and take the time to learn to love who I am. It's a work in progress.

I haven't taken anything silly in the last 5 months. My therapist recommended this great book called "The F*ck It Diet" which has helped me deal with realising cravings are ok and cheese is not the devil! But as I said, it is a work in progress. 60% of the time, I'm ok. Then that 40%... Pfft, that 40% is difficult to say the least. 

As I write this, I actually haven't even eaten today. I went for a bath after drawing the lipstick lines all over myself, had a glass of wine, did my make-up and spent 2 hours poking and prodding my rolls in front of the mirror. 

They're me. They're me trying to cope with all of the craziness in the world right now. They're me trying to forget about calories and restriction. They're me celebrating every time I go to the chemist and I don't buy laxatives.

Fuck.

I don't even really know what I'm writing anymore.

But I do know that I'm not writing this so that I can get compliments from anyone who may read it. I'm writing this more for the people who think I am insanely confident and have my shit together.

I'm not and I don't.

Life should be for living. And life should be enjoyed. And no matter how tired I get, I will never ever stop trying to get to a point where ok is good enough, where other people's opinions of me don't matter, where I can look in the mirror and thirst myself every single time.

I am me even if I don't know who that is and whether or not I like it, I gotta learn to love imperfect, flawed me.