Cheers!

Today I had to try on dresses for an upcoming wedding in a few days. As I lugged the dresses into the dressing room I told myself not to get depressed if clothes didn't fit. Kind of a mini pep talk to prepare me for what was coming.

All in all, it went well. Some dresses were too small, some fit, and the sizes were varied so all in all a typical trying on session that most people would experience. I even found a cute dress with a shrug and it was on sale. Score!

*sigh*

I didn't really register a change in my overall mood until I went to pick the kids up at the sitter. I had worked today and been away from the boys all day yet, my nerves seemed to already be running thin with them and I had just picked them up. The bad mood continued after we got home. It took a while for me to figure out I was sad. I was feeling upset about trying on dresses and how I looked in them. The fact that the dress I ended up with was a size 24. The fact that I have several dresses in my closet, and some of them may have fit, I didn't try them on yet, but the one I wanted to try on in my closet wouldn't fit because it was a size 18. I wore it to a fancy wedding in 2007 when I was a lot thinner.

My mood progressively got worse. I was snappy with my kids. Angry at my husband. And just plain sad. I didn't really connect my sadness about my weight and the dresses with why I was so upset until we sat down for dinner and I realized I was just tired.  Tired of everything. Tired of preparing meals, listening to kids whine, the routine.  I was unhappy. Deep down inside I was tired of the weight. Tired of losing weight only to gain it back. Tired of feeling like a failure. Tired of wearing a stupid size 22/24. I have been in and out of a 22/24 my entire adult life. I'm sick of it. Tired of thinking that even if lose the weight again, statistics show that I have a 95% chance of regain. And Lord knows, I know something about regain already.

It's times like this, when I think that losing weight for good is impossible that I feel the lowest. I wish I could just make it go away. But that's not going to happen. I have to walk through this road. I have to lose every pound, walk through all the emotional garbage, and get through it.

The only thing is I don't have to do it alone. But inside my head I was alone. And the task was insurmountable. That's why I felt so sad. So unhappy. Overwhelmed.

So after the boys left the dinner table I told Greg what I was feeling. And I started to cry; surprised at the emotional-ness of it all. He asked if I wanted to talk about it and I shook my head no. But the sadness I felt was deep.

Eventually I was able to share how I was feeling with Greg. He opened the door, I just had to pick when I wanted to walk through.

What I have learned in therapy is that I am unhappy on the inside. And no amount of losing weight on the outside is going to make me happy. It's just a whole lot easier to focus on what I can see and be unhappy about it than what I can't see. When I was younger I turned the unhappiness on myself. As a teenager I remember writing horrible things about myself. I would turn all my unhappiness on myself.

Now I know I am supposed to be kind to myself. Love myself. Not criticize myself. Not rip every part of my body that I despise. I'm not supposed to despise my body, I am supposed to be thankful for everything it has done for me. I'm not supposed to tear myself down. And that's hard. It's a lot easier to focus on what I see and is tangible ... like FAT....and focus hate on that rather than owning feelings and emotions.

See, everybody gets tired. Everybody gets worn down. That's why you need a support system. That's why we don't do it alone. This blog helps too. I share my feelings and I am way more transparent online than I am in person. It still shocks me when people talk to me about the blog and I go, 'oh yeah, I said that. Oops!". LOL!

Step by step I am getting there. It's a process. Recognizing that I struggle with depression and anxiety and have to work on those issues constantly rather than focusing on something negative I can see and not deal with the pain. I also have ADHD, and I know a lot of people say they are ADD or ADHD, but for reals, I have been diagnosed and with it a plethora of feelings around low self-esteem, failure, forgetfulness, guilt and shame come from experiences with that too.

And for the first time I am facing them. So I get sad. Add to it life's little stressors (that are also tremendous blessings) and it can be overwhelming. But, face them, I do. And this was one of those days.

I had a visual reminder of why I am unhappy and it led to deeper revelation about what I am truly unhappy about and even though I can't change this phase of life I am in, I know I won't be here forever and dealing with it now brings healing, so that next time, I can move a few steps closer to health.

If you struggle with anything significantly, I'm sure you've figured out that the path to healing is anything but linear. It's does not have a beginning and an end. I've figured out that healing is ongoing and sometimes messy and hard. It's a journey, not a destination. 

Here's to one step closer to healing.