Oh!

Wow. after so many weeks of searching, I finally found a place for some counseling and group meetings. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I guess just knowing I was having some unresolved issues continually pop into my brain made me consider a different route. I'm glad. It's something I can afford, because these people seem to understand that not everyone in Boulder is ultra rich. It was as simple as finding the right place, and, for some reason, because it's run by women, I already feel more comfortable seeking advice. I start next week, and I think it's a great move in the right direction.

I need to learn to not see things as all or nothing or black and white, which is odd to say, because my life tends to look more like Jackson Pollock than Robert Doisneau. I've learned about the gray areas when it comes to food and exercise, but I need to apply it to life in general. It's so often the way I feel or see things though, so it's a hard transition. Instead of trying to react to what I assume people want or think, it would make more sense to say what I think and act on that. Unfortunately, I don't seem to operate that way, and for some reason it seems so difficult to process things in the moment. I think it has a lot to do with fear. I'm afraid of how people will react, so it's sometimes easier to shove it down and let it simmer, until it pops out in bad and very wrong ways, of course. I generally need some time to see straight and think clearly, and I am generally pretty good about doing so after the fact, which is often too late.

I tend to live quite a lot in my head. That's when I become most obsessed, selfish and feel most alone. I should be asking myself where it is that my head is getting in the way, and where it is that reality exists. Often the lines are blurred in my world.

Lately, I feel like everyone can see my pain, not just from things recently, but from my past as well. It's in my eyes. I can see it too. It doesn't help that I'm having small outbursts where I can't seem to contain the tears, even though I'm really doing quite fine overall. I just have these moments. Sometimes I wish I could go to a warm beach and sit in the sun for a few days. I hate showing weakness, and ever since my surgery, I feel like it has been seeping out all over the place. I also feel like my brain has been spit out of a whirling emotional tornado.

I know I talk about my dad quite a lot here. I think it has to do with how he affected me and the way I am in the world. My mom sometimes says that he wrecked the lives of his kids and others as well. It’s all just hard to process. I know feeling like I didn’t have a fully functioning father made me afraid to let go of others who ended up stepping into my life. I generally keep people at a distance, and hang on to those few who scale over the first wall. I seem to crave any kind of stability in my life, even when I'm unconsciously pushing people away. It’s a hard thing to face. There were times that were so gut wrenching and traumatic for me, yet my dad, being drunk, didn’t remember. He also had this thing about never being able to apologize. One time when I was in the hospital for my eating disorder, my therapist suggested that my dad apologize to me for being drunk so much. I’m not sure if it was full blown denial or just not wanting to admit fault, but his response was something like, “I’m sorry she sees it that way.” This actually made me feel worse and even more discounted by him, but that’s as close to an apology as he would ever get. Maybe there's a little bit of that in me-not wanting to be wrong. I think mine has more to do with being afraid that people will think less of me when I am though. There’s something to be said about alcohol taking away the emotional response in a situation. All these vivid memories I have of how things went down were probably a distant blur to him. It makes me think that our relationship was very one sided, if that makes sense.

But it wasn’t just my dad that was a problem for me as a kid. I mentioned before that other kids teased me like crazy when I was little. A friend of mine and I were just talking yesterday, and he had a similar experience where he had this idea that he was fat. Looking back at old pictures, both of us can see that neither of us was fat, yet our self image had been formed by what these other kids were saying. To them it was probably mild teasing, but we took it to heart and incorporated it into our belief systems, as false as it all was.

Well, I’m just glad that I will be able to talk to someone. I haven’t done this in a really long time. I know I’m on a better path. Now if I could get past trying to fix the past, that would help. Whewww.

Heh. I don’t know why this video is on my mind today.