Irony isn’t always funny!

That thing last week, where my supervisor talked with me, it's hit me really hard. I'm STILL preoccupied with it. All I keep thinking about it how I wasn't perfect. Then I think about how I'm not expected to be perfect and neither the Corporate Officer nor my Supervisor have thought about this incident again. And here I am killing myself over it. Why do I do that? I feel like any moment my supervisor is going to come over, ask me to his office, and he'll fire me. Over what? Two cells in Excel that updated and I forgot to verify them? No, that's stupid. And yet here I am, fretting over just such a scenario. I'm ridiculous. I've done MUCH worse (unintentionally) and I still have my job. Why am I being so silly about this?

I took a moment and said a prayer about it. I'm better now. I'll move on to bigger and brighter things. :) I was thinking Saturday about the irony in my life. Somehow I've associated importance and lovability of myself to my ability to attract and be intimate with the opposite sex. The great irony of it all is that Heavenly Father gave me a husband that intimacy is not high on his priority list. I am forever feeling worthless and unloved by Jon, yet I know that's not the case.

The new thing I'm trying to figure out now is how being "abandoned" by my mom made my pea-brain decide that sex and intimacy with a man is the only thing that can and does make me feel loved and wanted. The thing is, I know both my sister's do this too, but do you think either one of them would admit as much? Insert sardonic laugh here.

Last night in my group, I started my sharing portion with, "I am compulsive, emotional over-eater, and my trigger is anxiety." It felt really weird admitting that to a roomful of people. But it felt somewhat good too, because I wasn't hiding there. I hide everywhere else I go, even home and work, but I didn't hide there.

After all, the first step to recovery is actually admitting, out loud to others, that you have a problem.

B

Step one WAS the hardest...

Darn, it's been a while!  I told you it may not be very frequent any more. :(  So today was a 1st that used to be a common occurrence.  I felt like a total and complete moron.  Too stupid to even figure out how to breathe.  I made a common error on a spreadsheet that ANYONE could make, but I was called out on it by one of the Corporate Officers.  Then, of course, my supervisor had to "talk to me" about the error.  He didn't really come down on me or anything, but he said, "Haste is Waste."  Basically slow down.  The thing is, I had the formula in these three cells correct, but I must have fixed a formula in a cell higher up and the table I had formatted did a column auto-fill and overrode my original formula.  That would have been fine, but those three cells needed to be different than the rest in that column.  And I should have verified my work before sending it on to the Corporate Officer.

THEN, when that had finally gotten fixed and settled down (and I had mostly gotten over my feelings of moronishness), my supervisor came in and told me that one of my office decorations would be considered "clutter" by the CEO and I would need to take it down.  So I felt stupid already for the above issue, then I felt even more stupid for not knowing my decoration was clutterish. 

Basically, I had a rough day today.

Sunday I went to my first meeting for the Over-eaters anonymous thing.  I think it's going to be a while before I see results.  It's not going to be as easy as the codependent thing was because I am not ready to tackle this the way I tackled that.  I find myself avoiding thinking about my experience that started all of this... and I find myself avoiding any thought about what has gone on and continued to go on that has contributed to my continuing of compulsive eating.  I need to go get a physical book to work on, having a downloaded copy is good and all, but I think for this time around, I need something I can touch, hold, and stare at when I am exercising my right of avoidance. :)

Right now I feel like good and evil are battling it out inside of me.  I want to fix this, I want to work on it and get rid of my issues, but at the same time, it's easy and comfortable to stay where I'm at and to not exude any effort into overcoming my issues.

One of the ladies on Sunday put it perfectly, I'm so afraid of being rejected that I put on this weight and kept it on, but now, I'm so afraid of being rejected when I'm skinny, that I'm willing to risk keeping on the weight.  Right now if I'm rejected it's because I'm fat.  But if I'm skinny and rejected... that means it's me that people don't like; not just the way I look.

I hate that I understand that and yet I feel powerless to apply it.  This is definitely going to be a long hard journey.  At least I've done this; I've admitted out loud, to other people, that I compulsively/emotionally over-eat and I can no longer manage this on my own.  My life has become unmanageable in regards to this and I need help.

One step at a time, right? :)

B

On any journey, the first step is the hardest.

I've been reading that book, "Fat is a Family Affair" and I've read some really interesting stuff. I've made notes, but unfortunately, left them at home. It strongly urges readers to go to an Over-eaters Anonymous meeting and utilize the stuff there. Well, I looked into it and it just so happens my church offers one, locally, at 7:15pm Sunday's. I made plans to go Sunday, but didn't quite make it. I have the panicky feeling I had when I started in on my resentment list. Like I'll lose who I am if I go. Same with the resentment list, I'm telling myself to stop being ridiculous and just get it over with… but I'm so scared.

I'd never admit that to anyone, but it's somewhat "safe" to admit it on my Blog, after all, I don't know who is reading this or if I even know them. By getting the scared feeling though, I know it's where I'm supposed to go. I find myself clinging to stupid excuses though. I don't have the book. Yeah, well, it's online and I have a digital copy. Next excuse, please. :) You get the idea.

I find myself wanting to find someone to go with, but the downside of that is whomever I take gets to know all the crap that happened to turn me into an over-eater in the first place. The other thing I'm nervous about is that it's a men and women meeting, not women only. I just need to get over myself and go. I told my husband last night that I was going to start going to that one along with the one I've been going to on Tuesday. Guess I need to just suck it up and do it this week. The sooner I start, the sooner it's over, right?

On a side note, my office is moving, and that's where I've composed most of my postings. I'm not going to have my very own office anymore, we're moving to cubicles. I may not be able to write how I have been. I'm going to have to start writing from home… but who knows, maybe I'll still be able to post from work! That's why I've had fewer posts lately, we've been packing up, having meetings about packing up, and helping get everything ready.

I'm really scared about Sunday. I'm still me, regardless of the outer package. Right?

B

What’s love got to do with it?

After all this work I've put in, I think I've managed to clear up all my "issues" except one. The one where I feel like no one loves me. How does one go about feeling loved? I obviously don't know how to feel loved, otherwise this wouldn't be an issue for me. I try playing around with Jon and he just yells at me for tickling him or scaring him. Just now as I wrote that, I realized, that's an awfully like how a 10 year-old would try to get love… and guess how old I was when I lost this particular talent.

I guess now, my challenge is to figure out how to feel loved as a 35 year-old. Maybe it'll help to list out the things I need in order to feel loved? Maybe I'll see something in the list that I haven't seen before now. So, 1. Be considered and thought of. 2. Get paid attention to. 3. The little things that show I've been thought of; a card, flowers, or perhaps a clean kitchen.

I'm sure there's more, but the one thing I keep thinking is: this is all stuff I depend on someone else to do to make me feel loved. How do I provide that for myself? How do I stop from depending on others for my love value? I think if I can figure this one out, I'll become a millionaire! :) Seriously though, how do I stop feeling ridiculous, embarrassed, and alone when Jon rejects the way I'm trying to get him to love me. I can't even think about touching him without him yelling about how it tickles and how I'm torturing him. You know, now that I think about it this way, the lack of physical touch in our relationship has really hindered the growth of our love. In my case, I feel like it's dying, not maintaining or growing. I really can't touch Jon anywhere. If I try rubbing his bum, he gets mad at me. If I rub his sides, he gets mad at me. If I rub his back, but get too close to the sides; he gets mad at me. If I rub his leg, he gets mad at me. He's ticklish EVERYWHERE and I honestly can't touch him without him getting upset with me. I've pointed out that I just can't touch him, but he whines at me that I can. The truth is though, if I could, I'd have found it by now.

The thing is, without touch, it's harder to show him how I feel, but I manage it with little things. He's not compensated in any other areas though. He says he has, but it's that kind of trying that is just enough that you can't say he HASN'T tried, but it's not enough to actually make a difference.

We celebrated our three year anniversary last week and had a pretty good talk at our celebratory dinner. We just talked about the first time we met, online and in person, and all the things we thought and felt. Jon said this awakened something in him he didn't realize was dead and he has a renewed interest in us. He's going to work on forgiving himself for things he's done to me that he still feels guilty about. I'm almost afraid to hope. Maybe this is the turnaround we need.

B