Control Freak

I thought a lot about yesterday's post and the comment I made that breakfast and lunch were not a problem because those were the most controlled parts of my day. There is obviously a direct correlation between chaos in my life and the chaos in my eating, and it's something I really need to explore.

Just today someone said to me that I am very easy going and down-to-earth. I know I come off that way, but like my mother very astutely commented about me recently, "They just don't know all the turmoil that goes on below the surface." That's been my problem all my life -- suppressing my emotions, feelings and opinions. And here's the irony of it: I've done it to protect myself from the possible rejection, ridicule, and anger of others; but in doing that, I've caused so much damage by holding those emotions inside and not asserting myself.

The older I get, the more I realize how much of a control-freak and perfectionist I can be. I don't like chaos and drama; I don't like it when someone else holds the cards and causes problems in my life; and I often have to fight off that irrational thought "if it isn't done right, why bother doing it at all?" That comes into play a lot both in my work life and at home. Whether it's a task at the office or a housecleaning chore, it's very difficult for me to hand it off to someone else, dreading that it won't be done correctly and that I'll have to do it over or correct it later.

I think about all of this, because after ruminating over the first paragraph, my initial response was to figure out how to gain some control over the parts of my day that have become chaotic. I started thinking about how to do it "right" and how I could pre-plan and fix the situation. But then I realized, the REAL problem, the REAL solution I need to find, is how to learn to live with the chaos without falling apart! Because let's face it, no one can completely control every aspect of their lives, and chaos will always exist. How can I become more tolerant, more accepting of my lack of control over the universe? And how do I change my current coping mechanism, which is "treating" myself with food?

I made a step in the right direction today, at least as far as asserting myself. Rather than continuing to stew and steam over something that was making me crazy, I addressed the issue head-on with the person involved. I had a lot of anxiety doing this, but I knew I had to get it off my chest, even if the person got mad at me. And once again, I was pleasantly surprised that the person was very receptive and even complimented me and thanked me for all I do.

Now if I can tackle this control issue without being a control freak about it!

Been There, Done That

This past week Kirstie Alley has been the target, punching bag, object of ridicule, etc., because she came out on the Oprah show and admitted she regained the weight she very publicly lost. God bless her, I know what she's going through on several levels, although I consider myself lucky that I don't have paparazzi following me around calling me "fat a**." People are probably thinking it and muttering it to themselves behind my back, but at least it's not being yelled at me in airports or malls.

This came at an interesting time for me. I have another doctor's checkup this Friday, and I know it's not going to be fun. I haven't done well at all lately with the weight loss and exercise, and I totally expect to have gained when I step on the doctor's scale. I'm already trying to prepare myself for the fallout I'm going to get for it.

The sad thing is, when I get this way, even an upcoming doctor's appointment doesn't seem to give me the incentive to get myself into gear. "This way" includes major moodiness, prone to tears or anger, and a major lack of energy. Add a hectic schedule to the mix, and I'm reduced to getting the very basics done (work, basic housekeeping) and not being able to muster the motivation to attempt anything else. That means exercise for sure.

As far as eating, I do my best with breakfast and lunch to be a "normal" eater, as far as portion sizes and healthy food goes. It helps that it coincides with my most orderly and routine part of the day. After that, however, as my life goes chaotic, so does my eating. Definitely way too much night time snacking! I guess I should focus on that chaos=eating relationship and figure out how to combat that. Recognizing it is the first step. Doing something about it is the second. And sometimes that even goes well. At first. But then I lose motivation, the stressors of my life get the better of me, and I'm realizing more and more that I need help and support to keep it from collapsing once again.

I'm quickly coming to the realization that things really need to change in my life. It hasn't congealed into a formal plan, but I think within the next month or so, I have to come to some conclusions and make some real decisions. I'm sure Friday's appointment will contribute to that. And I have to realize that I can't do it all by myself. It's always been exceedingly hard for me to ask for help, but if I ever want to get some real progress in my life, it has to be done.

AWOL again!

I have been absent again from the blog, and I give my apologies. Part of the reason was the time of year: as a church secretary, Holy Week and Easter are one of the busiest times of the year for me, and there were a couple weeks when I hardly had time to think straight, let alone blog. It's finally starting to slow down now that I've mailed my monthly newsletter (I'm the editor, type in all the copy, design all the pages, fold and label them, plus handle all the bulk mailing duties!) I can take a little breather. In fact, summer is really slow for me at work, and I have to admit I'm looking forward to the lighter schedule.

We also had some upheavals in my home routine. At the beginning of April, after debating over it for the past year, we made the decision to move my daughter from one gymnastics team which was 10 miles away, to another gym that is 40 miles away! In addition, we're bumping up from three days a week, at three hours a pop, to four days a week, with the Saturday class clocking in at four hours! It's meant a lot more running for me, although once we get settled in, I think some of the other parents and I will set up some turns at carpooling. It's already obvious it was the right decision to make; I know my daughter has learned more in the last three weeks than she learned in the last three months at her old gym. Her form is better, and she's definitely increasing her strength.

To add to all this "busyness," I've been dealing with some issues with a medication I take. I take a generic form of Ortho Tri-Cyclen, and last month my pharmacy switched the generics on me. Well, the last couple weeks have been rough. The PMS was rough with major moodiness. Then, when I was supposed to have my "visitor," it was nowhere to be found. And I'm usually as regular as clockwork. I was freaking out and even got a pregnancy test, which did turn out negative. A few days after that, a week after it was supposed to come, it arrived with a fury, with cramps from hell and moodiness that made me feel like a crazy woman. I was near tears three times that day!

It was weird that this "scare" happened right now, because I've been surrounded by a lot of babies recently, and I have to admit I've caught a little baby fever. Even my husband caught a bit of it from me. So we both were really doing some heavy thinking and talking during those days when I wasn't sure. Although in the midst of my hormonal breakdown I ranted to him, "If I had a baby right now on top of all this I'd jump in front of a truck!" So I don't know what will happen now.

To make matters worse, my daughter and I caught some kind of stomach bug, so while I stayed at home with her yesterday and tried to work from home, I was also making frequent and urgent trips to the bathroom.

Needless to say, add this all together, and I haven't been doing that great the last few weeks with my eating and exercising. But it hasn't been a total backslide. I will backtrack a little bit here and say that as of March 27 I had lost almost 20 pounds since January, and on April 8 I got weighed at a different doctor's appointment and was still at that weight. I can't even guess what it is right now, though, after these last two weeks of insanity. I didn't want to weigh myself and bum myself out more. However, my husband did mention yesterday morning that he could tell I've lost weight, so apparently I haven't undone all the work I've done. I have until May 8 until my next check-in with my doctor, so hopefully by then I can regroup and get myself together again.

The biggest bummer is that my exercise is almost nonexistent this month. It's not about using it to lose weight: I've got a 5K race in June and I really want to be able to do it without collapsing! That's me on the right in that picture over there from last year's race, with my friend Jen and my daughter standing in front of us. I've GOT to get myself back to walking regularly and at length, because I don't want to make an a** out of myself. It's just been so darn tough lately to find the time. There are days I'm up at 5:50 a.m., get daughter to school and be at work by 8; out at 3, make an early dinner for my daughter so we can leave by 4:15 to get to gymnastics; run errands during her practice, then get home at 8:45 p.m. and hope to be in bed by 9:30 so I can start it all over again the next day. The good news is, some of the other gym moms want to start walking together when the weather improves (it was snowing here today!), so maybe that will help.

I will do my best to stay more up-to-date here, but I've recently been bitten by another fever: Facebook! It's hard to stay away from it and I've tracked down a lot of friends from my college days, which is v.v. cool!

Hunger

This morning I read the newspaper and saw the Cathy comic strip (March 5, 2009, in case you're reading this later). In case you can't find it or see it, Cathy is on yet another diet -- this time the Cookie Diet -- and she's marking off the minutes since her breakfast cookies at 7:15 a.m., exclaiming happily that she's not hungry. Finally, at 9:22 a.m., she announces "I miss being hungry." In the next frame her friend/co-worker says, "Incredible how your mind is completely off of food..." while Cathy replies, "I hunger for hunger!"

Back in January when I was hitting bottom, I went to my therapist and explained to her about hitting this bottom when it comes to food and not sure what I could do about it. In one of those odd coincidences, she had just done some extra research on eating issues, and she asked me a question that really made me think. "Most people overeat as a substitute for something they're not getting in their lives. What are you really hungry for?"

My answer? Well, it wasn't a clear-cut answer, but what it boils down to is that food equals comfort to me. Food doesn't judge me, look down on me, or look for something in return. And this isn't an uncommon notion in our society -- just look at the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread." This isn't just about filling our stomachs; it's about spiritual sustenance, too. From our first days of life our parents answered our cries with the bottle, beginning that connection between food and comfort.

But, unfortunately, people like me take it one or two or a million steps further. Due to life circumstances and our reactions to them, food becomes our only comfort. Or the only one we trust not to let us down. And once those habits are in place, it's so hard to break those connections and look elsewhere for our support. That's why it's so much more than counting calories -- it's learning to change our behaviors, to find other methods and trust other people to comfort us.

Since trying to pull myself out of the abyss in January, I've had some bumps along the way, but I've been very conscious of them and they haven't lasted long. I don't do well with stress, and I've had some pretty stressful moments lately. The funny thing is, I'm getting better about sitting with my emotions and not eating during the stress. But once the worst is over and I'm coming down from it, that's when the urge to overeat becomes the most overwhelming.

I had another one of those moments last night. I was so stressed, so emotional, and I did my best to work through it. I realized the main feelings I was experiencing were fear and helplessness, and being able to pinpoint that seemed to reduce the severity of it, because I didn't let it build out of control into an anxiety attack. My fear is that today I will now want to turn to food to "make it all better." I suppose it's a good thing that I'm very conscious of it, but I can't help feeling a little like Cathy. Without the emotional hunger on auto-pilot, I'm feeling kind of lost and not sure what to do with myself.

I know, I need to now implement those alternative methods of comfort that I've read about in various books and magazines and have written down in lists as I go through this IE process. I listened to a relaxation CD last night, and today I will do my daily exercise. I'm also writing this, which was something I couldn't bring myself to do for the last six months. I also have a good book I'm reading right now, which gives me the escape I crave without filling my belly with candy or cookies. I just hope that after all of this I'm not sitting there like Cathy hungering for my hunger.

What a Pain

Okay, I realize it's been almost a month to the day since I've posted last. I'm not pleased with that, and apologize to those who've posted messages here and I haven't responded right away.

For three and a half weeks I've been dealing with nearly constant pain in my neck, shoulder and arm, with some infrequent tingling in both arms. For those of you who have been with me from the beginning of my blogging life, you'll know about my previous problems in this area, which is fully documented in this old blog entry.

I have tremendous respect for people who deal with permanent chronic pain, because these past three weeks have been tough. I rarely get through a full night's sleep without waking up with my shoulder and arm in agony.

You may wonder if I'm getting this treated. Almost two weeks ago I called my surgeon, but it right before Memorial Day and he was away. To add to it, he is based out of Pittsburgh and only visits our Podunk little area once a week. But the nurse knew me from my previous visits there and took my health insurance information. The hope was that we could get an MRI scheduled and the doctor could have it on hand when I have my appointment. Well, because MRIs are so expensive, my health insurance won't approve it until they receive doctor's "notes." So now I have to wait until June 23 to even see the guy so he can write something up, THEN wait for approval from the health insurance, then get the MRI scheduled, have it done, then wait God knows how long to get another appointment with the doctor!

So in the meantime I'm popping Ibuprofen, trying to do the stretching exercises I learned in physical therapy last time, and icing the shoulder down. I did heat at first, which turned out to be a mistake, because while it felt good at first, it seemed to make the area even more inflamed later, and seemed to be causing the excruciating pain I was having at night. The cold treatment has cut that down greatly, thank goodness. It's still not gone, though. Sleeping involves a complicated operation of body and pillow positioning that still never gives me a completely pain-free night.

On the bright side, I really think the Clearing Emotional Blocks hypnosis CD I started last month has kept me sane through all of this. My irritability and frustration has been quite low, and I can only attribute my level of tolerance and calm to that half an hour I spend every night listening to the CD and relaxing my body while listening to those positive, affirmative statements and suggestions.

In fact, I truly believe the CD has helped me throughout my life. I'm much more patient with my family, which I'm really glad about because I didn't like how frazzled I would get in the mornings trying to get my daughter despite her lack of organization and tiny attention span. I feel calmer throughout the day and have found it easier to speak my mind in a calm, confident way. I have had a goodly number of stresses in my life right now -- I'll get to some here when I can -- and I'm amazed that I've been able to handle them as well as I have.

Now that my first month is over, I'm now beginning a month of the second CD, Intuitive Eating for Weight Release. I'm really hoping the CD will help me as much as the first one has.

Here!!! I Is Hiding

Thank you to icanhascheezburger.com for this picture.

In hiding, you ask? I guess you could call it that. I feel like I've been in hiding from myself.

The sure sign that I'm in Escape (from myself) Mode is that I've returned to the one pleasure that has consoled me since my teens... fiction writing.

It started with the nighttime daydreaming my best friend and I started as preteens. To push out any stressful or nagging thoughts out of my head so I could get to sleep, I begin thinking about the characters, the story lines, and soon enough I'm drifting off to sleep.

But two weeks ago I took the next step. I dragged my manuscripts out of the attic and began scouring it, getting caught up in it again and wanting to do this twenty-something year old project some justice and finally finish the thing.

Because I started this story when I was in my teens, reading it now I can really see how my writing skills have improved over time. Part 2 is so much better than Part 1 (if I can ever finish the whole bloody thing, it will be three parts), in just about every aspect: the well-roundedness of characters, the development of plot lines, even the attention to detail is severely lacking in Part 1.

So, for the past two weeks, I've slowly started rewriting Part 1. It's definitely harder to get to now that I'm a wife, mother and employee; I don't have the luxury of staying up all night when inspiration hits, and battling the constant interruptions and pressing chores is quite the challenge.

I'm looking at this return to writing in two ways. On the one hand, it's a positive thing because I'm doing something I've always loved, using a talent I worked hard to develop, and it's pretty hard to eat an entire basket of leftover Easter candy when your hands are tapping away at a computer keyboard. The part that worries me a little is that in the past, I have enveloped myself into writing when I'm trying to escape something unpleasant in my life, usually something I have no control over. I guess I'm afraid I'm using it to run away from my life and lose myself in this fantasy world I've harbored in my mind since the mid-80s.

And yes, there have been some things in my life that have cropped up in the past month that have definitely been unpleasant. Nothing deadly, nothing permanently scarring (I hope!), but difficulties I wasn't expecting and that have been hanging around like a batch of no-see-ums flying around my face. A major bummer for sure.

Already on a couple of occasions my husband has complained I've been distant. Of course, in my defense, I'm in the middle of typing something when he tries to talk to me, so of course my mind is elsewhere. When I am making the time to talk to him (our early morning chats, our afternoon how-was-your days, our bedtime wrap-ups) I am entirely in the moment and paying attention. Ironically, when I'm trying to talk to him there's usually a TV on nearby and invariably he gets sucked up in some show and doesn't hear anything I say, and I almost always have to repeat every single word.

Come to think of it, he's been guilty of this interrupting thing when I try to read a book or talk to someone else on the phone. He reminds me very much of some pets we had when I was a kid. Every time my mom would try to read the newspaper, the cat would have to jump up on the newspaper, sometimes even lying down on it to make sure she could be the main focus. And our little chihuahua would get so jealous when Mom was on the phone that he would crawl around on her and do this fake sneezing thing to get her attention.

Am I comparing my husband to a lap dog? He is definitely loyal and affectionate and would protect me to the death. But sometimes that ... neediness can be a little suffocating. I've tried many times to explain to him that I grew up in a very independent family, that I learned to enjoy having a lot of space and alone time, and at this point I actually require regular portions of it to keep my sanity in our fast-paced, always-on-the-run lives. But the fact of the matter is, while that kind of life drains me, he thrives on it, and to boot, he's used to a very tight-knit family that was always doing things together and hated doing anything alone.

So there's the update on my life. Still hanging in there, trying my best to traverse these choppy waves and not capsize. The good news is I'm slowly working my way back to exercising regularly, and this week I've been walking on the treadmill every day. As for the eating, well... that's another post.