Today I’m grateful for…
That judgmental feeling I get when someone is telling me something and it triggers my own thing. It doesn’t happen like it used to but I have one friend who I always succumb to judging her and I really don’t want to be. She’s in her version of where I was growing up, with the depression/eating disorder/gaining weight with no control/suicide/helplessness. That sounds like what I’m dealing with now but it’s slightly different. And I feel for her, I make sure she feels felt and that she doesn’t know that deep down inside, her struggles trigger my history with those same struggles and I resent it. So I judge it. And I know what’s happening even as it happens. Then feel guilty for having those feelings. Remind myself that feelings happen and it’s what you do with them that matters. Clearly I need to work on this in therapy as well.
The leader of today’s SIA meeting (it’s meant to be a meeting of equals, mind you) pulling me aside at the end of the session. She broke a group rule and I couldn’t for the life of me get myself out of it. It tainted the really good feeling from that particular meeting, and I kind of dread being in a group with her again in case this repeats. It’s hard to have self-compassion for myself for the same thing over and over. Why would it matter if I felt rejection from her, she isn’t an important figure in my life. Frustrating.
The extra pounds I’ve gained that make it so none of my summer clothes (nearly all crop top types) fit me well anymore and it’s a crisis every time I try to dress. I get that fitting room feeling where everything I try on looks bad, but they’re all my own clothes and they used to look good. It’s crushing. I dread having to figure out what I’m going to wear to anything, and it used to bring me such delight.
the sadness I carry at being too tired to work out. I haven’t properly worked out in a couple weeks, which is the longest I’ve gone since those first months after Ludvig. I’m normally a really active person, like a dog that needs to be walked every day, and revel in the feeling of using my muscles and testing myself. I feel so against my own grain, and dispirited at losing this part of my routine/personality. It feels a bit like I don’t know who I am, because being an athlete used to be a big part of that. And I’m nervous about going back to it, about having lost ground and having to build it back up. What if I don’t go back at all? And I stay in this unnatural state? Little questions that I know aren’t real but tiny voices in me ask them (and worry about them) anyway.
Upbeat gratitudes include…
- tea. I fucking love tea, I’m so grateful for the variety and the aromas that fill my nose even as my taste buds sense something different. For the heat and steam of it all.
- the shares I was able to do in-meeting today. I cried a lot. I don’t know if anyone could tell what I was saying but it mattered to me to be able to say it aloud.
- everyone’s bravery and vulnerability in meetings that inspires me to be brave and share too.
