I haven't posted anything in a while. It isn't that everything is perfect or that I have run out of things to say. But I typed up a few things in the interim and well, just didn't like them enough to put them out into the world. Such is life, I guess.
I started back to work in the office on January 3rd. When my shit bag left, so did my ability to work from home. I think after a month back I can say I am simultaneously happy and sad about the change. I miss being at home with my husband and the crazy animals. I felt a lot more flexibility working at home. But it was a double-edged sword since I was a few feet from a refrigerator full of food and apparently have no self control.
I immediately was infected with the winter crud upon returning to working in an office with other people. One of the funsies of having sepsis is that I am more susceptible to germies for the rest of my life. It ended up being a sinus infection. I guess I can be thankful that it wasn't the flu, strep, or bronchitis. I literally started feeling bad on day two in the office.
The other funsie side effect of sepsis that I have noticed as being more prominent is short term memory loss. I know it comes with aging as well and I have come to accept a lot of new limitations my body has made clear to me since all of this happened. But it almost feels like I got a double dose of it... like it progressed more intensely than it would have just from aging. I forgot to wish a family member happy birthday on their birthday. I didn't even realize it until three days later. I don't do stuff like that. I just don't.
It makes me feel too self-absorbed. Like I don't have room in my brain to remember anything except all of the things I need to do specifically for myself. I am not even successful at that sometimes. I forgot to pay the car note in January. I logged in to pay it for February, and the bill was twice as much with a late fee. I know I don't talk a whole lot about finances on here, but I am NEVER late on payments. I set it up for automatic draft so it doesn't happen again. But this feels like I am failing.
One thing I have been doing successfully in the past month is sticking to an eating plan. I decided I would try keto for three months to lose the extra weight I picked up when I was working from home and eating all day. I have been doing it since January 15th and so far I have been committed to it. I have been put in multiple situations with cake and somehow abstained. I guess it is just not worth it to cheat when it takes a week for your body to get back to ketosis. I have lost some weight, so that has been nice.
But, I went back to my therapist last Friday and told her about the keto. I explained to her that I was trying to kick my addiction to sugar and thought the temporary fast from it would help me change my cravings. I remember when my husband and I first had gastric sleeve, the post surgery diet was incredibly restrictive and we didn't eat sugar for probably two months afterwards. The first time I had sweet tea after that, it tasted awful, almost like drinking syrup or something. I figured doing keto would help me in the same way.
To say that I am addicted to sugar is a vast understatement. The first week I did keto was a very strong statement on my level of addiction. I would just stand in the kitchen staring at all of the food I had meal prepped for the week, longing for something (anything) else with sugar in it. Ketchup. Bar-B-Q sauce. Anything. And I thought to myself, "Girlfriend, you have serious issues if you are literally thinking that drinking some ketchup sounds like a good idea just because you are craving some sugar."
I got through it. I stared at all the things in my kitchen with sugar or carbs longingly. But I got through it. It isn't worth it when cheating reverses a week of effort. I explained all of this to my therapist. Along with my reasoning that food for me is black and white. I don't do well with gray areas. I can try my best to stick to a plan that says you cannot have certain things, but I do not do well with having everything in moderation. Her response was interesting.
She wanted to know when I was going to be able to look at food without the lens of self-punishment through restriction. Through a series of other discussions about other things going on in my life, her other big questions in this session were: when are you going to love yourself, and when are you going to be more important to yourself than everyone else in your life is. She deserved a mic drop after this hour.
You know, I can look at the lives of other people and can pinpoint with some level of accuracy what led them to the paths they are currently following. The person who relies on food for comfort because it was the only thing that comforted them when they were abused as a child. The person who is lazy and does not accomplish (or try to accomplish) anything because their parents always told them they couldn't. The person who is materialistically selfish because their parents were the same way and they always felt like they were going without. The abuse victim who chooses abusers over and over again because that was the example their parents set for relationship norms. I know it simplifies a lot of other variables, and it isn't always cause and effect. But the relationships between events like this are clear.
But I don't have answers like that for myself. I didn't have a terrible childhood. Overall, I was spoiled by my grandparents, I went to private school, I was afforded opportunities a lot of kids weren't, I took dance and piano lessons, and in general I appeared happy and well adjusted. But for some reason, self-inflicted or otherwise, I always had this sense of "other"; that I didn't fit in, that I wasn't wanted. And all of the things I did, from a very early age, came from this place of going above and beyond any general expectations because I, myself, was not enough.
I still do this. I have a very hard time saying no when something is asked of me. And because I have spent 40 years exceeding expectations, usually voluntarily, the things people feel comfortable asking of me are not minimal and are sometimes to my own detriment (financially, emotionally, physically, you name it). My husband has been a voice of reason since we got married attempting to save me from myself. But it is with me kicking and screaming the whole way.
When are you going to love yourself? I cannot even verbalize why I don't love myself or where the ideas of insufficiency come from, not less when I will stop allowing them to win. It's like trying to fix something that you know is broken, but doesn't outwardly appear broken, and doesn't indicate to you how it is broken. Where do you even start?
When are you going to stop punishing yourself with self-restriction? This was originally in reference to food, but it applies to a lot of other areas without a doubt. I didn't even notice or recognize this is what I am doing.
When are you going to be more important (to yourself) than everyone else is? I have always put other people first. Call it self-sacrifice or self-sabotage. Does it really matter which one it is? All of this derives from core beliefs I have about myself. I don't know where they came from. I don't know why they're there. I don't know how to change them.
I do not deserve love.
I am not enough.
I am a failure.
I am not important.
I do not fit in.
I am not likable.
I realize that most of you will read those statements and disagree with me. However, it doesn't really matter if at the end of the day, *I* do agree with them. No?
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