This didn’t get posted. It’s from around the end of April.
No one wants to hear you’re successful at losing weight unless they’re on a diet. I saw it advertised on tv and was interested. I expected one more diet - hopefully a healthy one. But I really didn’t think I had another diet in me. Then surprise! Paul McKenna.
I came to share and no one was interested. Some criticized it. But Paul McKenna has a web site set up where we can encourage each other and share our wonder. It couldn’t be easier. Diets don’t work. This does.
I may need to go back and take a look at posts, but pc lately seems really negative to me. Maybe it started with the “what do you look like” thread. I felt lonely here after that.
Maybe this is a phase for me. I hope so. PC has been really good to me.
May 15th, 2008
What makes someone rebel against a perfectly good plan that works and promises a rewarding outcome? I’m embracing the four golden rules; they’re working. I don’t go near a scale; I know myself. But others have and are pleasantly surprised. Granted, I feel great…better than before. This alone is worth the effort. But at my doctor’s appointment, I hadn’t lost what I felt I had lost. That undid all the belief and positive thinking I had gained and I spiraled downward.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know what my weight was when I began. So I probably did lose, but I can’t prove it. I must have been punishing myself for not losing more by going on a binge. That meant eating when I wasn’t hungry, eating in front of the tv, and not stopping to feel if I was full.
Okay, I’ve rationalized that one week out of the rest of my entire life isn’t a disaster, but I haven’t been able to get back the belief that this will eventually work. Before I didn’t think it mattered to me how much and how fast I was losing, but evidently it does.
I’m out of sorts. I want to listen to my positive programming cd as I drift off to sleep, but my husband insists on his routine, which is to have the tv on while he falls asleep, then wake up when I try to turn it off and insist he isn’t sleepy. When I tried to listen out on the sofa, I was well into the cd and very relaxed when the cat jumped right on my stomach.
I wonder if I’ve crossed over some kind of frustration threshold. My husband recently told me that he knows when he’s “busting my chops,” but he does it anyway because it’s fun. In other words, he intentionally frustrates me. For fun. Double binds me for fun. I’m an adult. I should be able to find some way to rescue myself, shouldn’t I? A direct approach makes him mad. My mother knows how to respond to his kidding; she’s passive-aggressive herself.
“You’ve crossed a boundary” doesn’t work. It’s only a challenge. A gauntlet. A dare to up the ante.
I listened to my guru telling me to imagine my slim self, to see what that looked like, to feel what that felt like. I could almost see it, but I tried to feel it and it feels the same as now. It will probably add the jealousy factor to his teasing. As my energy increases, so will his.
He sounds like an enemy, but he isn’t really. He says I am his world. I hate that. That’s how ….. I can’t go on like this. This is the loop of despair with no answer and no hope. Maybe I’ll try to modify his behavior with the squirt gun like I do with the cats.
May 15th, 2008
We don’t usually answer the phone unless we’re expecting a call. The people we want to hear from have our cell phone numbers. So I heard my sister saying she was in the area and wanted to come by and say hi.
Was it just last weekend that she had another excuse to come to my home? I need to do something because I’m feeling like a victim. She’s damned me for every way I’ve tried to tell her how I feel. How dare I send her an email. How dare I send her a note. But why do I have to pander to her comfort zone? She always wins on the phone. I don’t want her poison injection.
The choices as I see them are: I do nothing and live in fear that she’ll just show up or I send her an email telling her I don’t want to see her and she makes herself crazy, ends up in the hospital and I have to bail her out.
She just isn’t getting it. I have to hurt her to get through to her. Of course, that will just ramp her up until she’s in the hospital again, calling me to give her a ride home.
I’m going to do it. I’m going to send her an email and tell her we just don’t want to see her right now. Maybe I’ll tell her I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Just stop calling. What I really want to say is please stop making up reasons why she has to come here. Maybe I’ll say I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you aren’t taking the hint. Most people would get it by now.
I’m tempted to say something like my husband is embarrassed to be around her. That might make her stop flirting with him in front of me. Boy, I could really use this time to tell her his parents don’t want to be around her. Of course, that could backfire on me. She could write them to apologize and they wouldn’t even know what she was talking about. Did I mention that? She wants my inlaws and my husband, too.
I have never done anything like that. I’m just not sneaky enough to get away with it. But, how much is too much? She ruined Thanksgiving. Should I tell her this? Would you want someone to just come out and tell you what they think?
Any thing I do is going to be wrong here. I just need to figure out which is the least bad of the choices. Oh, and there’s this…the greatest thing a man can do is lay down his life for his brother. So God’s ready to damn me too.
April 19th, 2008
I don’t think this got posted last wee.
On Friday, my sister lost her house key. She wanted to come up and get the spare she’d given to me. She waited until night, so I couldn’t overnite it to her. She wanted to come over Saturday. Oh, and how about going to lunch? Notice that she didn’t lose her car keys?
First I said ok. Then I got really angry. After stewing about it for a while, I phoned her and said I was going to overnite it to her so she didn’t have to make the trip. I hoped the UPS store was still open at 7 pm. It wasn’t. I felt a little panicked. I went to the post office, where they have a self service station for after hours.
Their “overnite” was going to cost sixteen dollars and wouldn’t get there until Tuesday, so I sent it priority for four dollars. I felt pretty nervous and guilty. And then, I told myself that it wasn’t my problem that she had lost her key, but she had tried to make it mine. And now that the key was in the mail, she couldn’t use it as an excuse to come up. Plus, I wasn’t the one who lost her key. I’m not her savior.
She texted me on my phone on Saturday to say it hadn’t come. I really needed some support, but I couldn’t risk getting negative feedback at the forum. As I kept trying to write an entry and erasing it, I realized I was in a victim mentality. I was hiding and she was threatening me.
I didn’t want to talk to her so she could send her poison to me. But I realized that I probably have the tools to recover from it. And if I don’t run, she can’t chase me. So I answered the email she wrote asking for a tracking number. I told her there was no tracking number and I’d sent it priority, so it was on the way. She received it on Monday.
I’ve been thinking about some things. One time I didn’t want to meet her and go shopping. She called me from a mall that was near me and asked if she could come by. I said ok. She came in the afternoon and stayed until dark. She finally left. The next week, my mother called me accusing me of something. “Did your sister come over and you didn’t invite her to spend the night and it was late?”
Today I realize that this is a big reason why I don’t do things with my sister. I would be ok with the first day, but I just don’t have the emotional energy to be with her overnight. And I’d been operating under the dread that I “had” to invite her for the night, because my mother yelled at me. (My sister acts all surprised and oh how nice when I have invited her to spend the night).
Another thing I think about is the time I sent her an email telling her that I don’t appreciate her hitting on my husband when I don’t feel like talking to her. She loathed me after that. I was just learning how to express my feelings so I didn’t have to be angry all the time. So a while later, I called her and she was all formal and distant. I asked her if something was wrong, and the dam broke. How dare I send her an email so that she would have it to read over and over. That was an unforgivable thing to do. She accused me of all kinds of things. Since that, I have avoided telling her anything. And avoided her.
She was a mean bitter person who made her family miserable. Her husband finally left her when her sons had grown. After faking it and saying she had all kinds of friends, when she became alone, she told me I was the only person she had to talk to.
I’m tired. I have to stop for now. I tried. I really did. Even tho I didn’t like her as a person, I tried to be there. But she keeps taking and taking and gives nothing back. I just wish she’d leave me alone. I just realized I have her pie plate. That’s another excuse for her. If she demands to get it, I’m going to send her the money. What are they? Four dollars at the grocery store?
I really hope I’m not a terrible person for feeling this way.
April 19th, 2008
Last weekend I called my sister. She was stuttering and said she’d been sent to the ER by her pdoc. They ran tests, but didn’t keep her. She was outraged that they suggested she was suffering from anxiety. The idea that she was doing this to herself. I tried to explain that anxiety is a real thing, but it didn’t help.
I want to say this, but I’m judging myself, so it’s hard. I’m tired of rescuing her. I don’t invite her to my home because she comes here and then has anxiety attacks. I tried to help, but it seemed that she wasn’t willing to help herself. I have a strong feeling that she’s being passive aggressive, hoping someone will “save” her. But I’m no Savior.
Then there’s my mother. She called me to say my sister was sounding odd. She was stuttering. I acted like that was news to me. My mother decided there must not be anything wrong with my sister. She called a couple days later and said my sister must be doing ok. Even though she hadn’t talked to her again.
This may sound crazy, and it is. I feel that I’ve put my time in already - with my father. I was the only one there when he needed to be hospitalized. And he’d been in and out of the hospital since I was fifteen years old. I spent most of my life visiting him in the hospital until he died. I’m not willing to do that again with my sister. I think one of her sons went back to the middle east so he didn’t have to deal with her problems.
March 24th, 2008
My husband chose the movie. I wanted to please him. We both know I can’t watch violence and this was the worst. I will never watch a violent movie again for anyone. Ever.
March 6th, 2008
My feelings are so hurt that I’m having trouble talking about it. I’m so devastated that my self esteem is in the toilet. I’m judging myself and assuming everyone else will too. I fear I will be found lacking in character.
There’s so much history that one would have to know to understand. But to put it short, I had an issue with my husband and when I told him, he wouldn’t believe that the issue was one, not many. He didn’t believe me. He said there had to be more for me to be that upset. But there wasn’t.
I suggested he was the one with many issues and after denying it, he began a long list. You’d have thought it was Festivus. He resents that he has to get up at 5:30 a.m. He thinks because he’s such a martyr, he should be able to do anything he wants to do without having to consider my feelings. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist.
I felt like I’d been assaulted. It felt like the marriage is in serious trouble. It felt like he no longer wanted to be married.
I felt physically ill for the first day. Then I felt resentment and thought about revenge in the form of buying something expensive for myself. That would be the emotional equivalent of what he did.
Today I began to feel free. If there’s no marriage, I can do what I want without answering to anyone. It felt good. I fantasized about having my own home. I felt free to resume my life, the life I’ve wanted to end for a very long time. The fear I’ve always felt when contemplating leaving the marriage wasn’t there, only excitement.
I went shopping, but I didn’t spend a huge amount of money, just a little. On practical stuff. I realize that I don’t need to act out.
Also, I’ve lost my appetite. Maybe I’ll go on a diet. I feel like anything is possible now that I’m single.
March 3rd, 2008
I was driving home yesterday afternoon, wondering why I was feeling blue, almost depressed, when I realized I hadn’t visited the psychcentral forums yet. Was that the reason? Was I lonely?
But I’m feeling It again this morning. Unssettled. Troubled. Blue.
Physically, my knees hurt. My ankles hurt. My teeth hurt. Yesterday I had an allergy attack, sneezing even after I took meds.
I’m dehydrated. It’s gray and rainy. Like yesterday. And cold.
The cat isn’t letting me write. He lays on my notebook; he brings me his ball. A gift? A game? I throw it; he retrieves it. Again. Again.
Yesterday I was supposed to see my sister. I cancelled. I couldn’t bear her negativity. I had nothing to give. I can barely throw the ball to the cat.
The other kitty jumps onto the table. She sniffs my coffee and winces.
Am I feeling guilty about my sister? Probably. I’ve cancelled on her before. It makes her crazy angry. That’s part of the reason I don’t want to see her.
I’d called. I’d felt I should. I genuinely wanted to know how she was. I cared.
She wanted more. “Let’s do lunch.” She was even willing to make the long drive. So we made plans.
Then she told me about seeing Mom. Blow by blow. The story was fraught with frustration and misery. That’s the special bond they share.
Once, my sister surprised Mom by bringing me on one of her visits. Mom could barely speak. She was too confused. She’s two people. One way with my sister, and with me she’s happy and optomistic. The one she’s closest to gets the complaining. The other gets to be the hero.
Day before yesterday, my husband lost a coworker and friend. He’s been greiving and I’ve been here for him. He came home and broke into tears in my arms. I have magical arms. So does he, for me.
It’s drizzly, but I love the rain. I adore the rain. I grew up in this arid land. I’m amazed when tv news thinks we need to be cheered up by reports of when the rain will be over. Where do these people come from? The rest of the time they complain about the drought.
I wiggle my pen and the kitty attacks. She doesn’t like to be pet unless you play with her first.
We went to the zoo on Sunday. Spontaneously. It’s a small zoo in a big park.
Do you know that blinking at a cat tells them you are safe?
I think I’ve bled off most of my blues. Thanks for listening. Was it a fair trade?
February 22nd, 2008
I’m not feeling clever. This is me, but it isn’t. I just don’t care. Being me is caring, but I just don’t care. My gift/curse is empathy, but I just don’t care. Other people’s problems sound petty and simple and they irritate me. This isn’t the me I usually know. And now I feel like crying. What’s wrong with me? Where did I go?
January 28th, 2008
I started to feel sick to my stomach. The energy was being sucked from my body. I…quick, breathe in the white light. By the time my husband had left for work, my body was zinging with alarm.
Already this morning I had put on the headphones and was listening to a seminar at Berkeley with David Lynch on transcendental meditation and film. That was to neutralize the anxiety I get when he turns on the radio in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep. It’s this call in show about ufo sightings and weird happenings. That stuff really gets to me. And then he rolls over and hugs me. Smothers me.
This is the man I plan to spend the rest of my life with. I’m going to find a way to make it work. I have two long shelves of books to guide me.
Last week he told me he is going to look for a new job. - long story. Outward I’m supportive; inward I’m panicking. I know with the end of football season that something is coming. It comes every year, this sense of loss and not knowing what to do with himself, when he turns all that football energy on me. My neat little life is in for an upheaval.
I’ve calmed myself down and now I reach out to him. I send him my love, but I sense there’s a vast emptiness in him that I cannot fill. I send him off, wishing him all good things. Maybe I’ll try transcendental meditation.
January 18th, 2008
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