Week four: Powers of the Self

(this might not make any sense. In trying to piece my thoughts together, I feel they get more jumbled and that I question what I am saying more and more.)

I try to go through my life, thinking and concentrating as hard as I can, to try and find the exact moment in time where I realized I have no self-esteem.
I don't know when it happened, but it happened.
In doing so, it became even more apparent that not only do I have no self-esteem,
but I also have no self-worth, respect, confidence, acceptance, love, et all.

Over the years, I've done all the 'normal' things to try and find all those things.
I've dressed inappropriately, showing off more of my body than I was actually comfortable with.
I've looked to the bottom of way too many bottles of all kinds, looking for what I was lacking.
I've been with far more people than I feel ok admitting, physically and emotionally.
I've worked myself to the point of exhaustion and deprived myself of basic human needs.

For so many years I've been doing these things and so many more,
trying to find in every other thing possible the things that I can only find inside myself.

Hell, I'm still doing these things,
still trying to find love and acceptance,
respect and confidence and worth,
all from and for myself.

I think somewhere inside my brain, the blindingly obvious truth is starting to shine through:
none of this is going to be achieved through outside measures.
The only place I will find these things is in myself.

I don't know where to start and I'm constantly looking for ways to get there faster.
But all I can do is keep trying and keep hoping that some day,
soon or in the future, I can find respect for myself.
I can realize my own self-worth.
I can be filled with self-confidence and self-esteem.

And most importantly, come to love myself.
Because, as Ru-Paul once said,
if you can't love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?

closure and bad days

I’m really surprised that I’m not more upset about this. But I think it’s good. I can feel the door shut on that part of my past. I don’t feel like I’m missing something anymore, because I’ve got my answer.
It does hurt a lot, the fact that he’s moved on and they’re trying to start a family, but maybe now I can too.
No more holding back. No more what-ifs. No more forgetting the future because I’m stuck in the past.
This is good, all of it.

----

Today I am struggling with eating.
I am having a terrible "fat day" and I keep going through my food log and cutting stuff out.
I want to see just how little I can survive on this week.
I'm reworking the meal plans I took so much care to make.

I wish the heat were gone, so I could stop having to monitor how much I exercise outside.

I feel close to the edge today,
All I need is a push and goddammit I'll do it again.
Just you see how small I'll get this time.

I don't know if it has anything to do with the emails,
I really do feel ok with everything being definite ended.

But then where did these feelings come from?

neglect

Like with all my blogs, I feel like I'm falling out of this already.
I don't want to, I really feel like talking things out would help me.
But I am just .... talked out.

I just sent an email to the only person I've ever seen a future with.
I've felt ill for hours. I can't sleep.
I'm so terrified of his response, or lack of one.

For the past three years, since we last dated,
I've felt a big hole in my heart.
I haven't felt complete in three years.
It's a terrible feeling.

I don't put my feelings out like this.
I do all that I can to remain as cold and hardened as possible.
I fear getting hurt and getting left almost more than anything else in the world.

This is a BIG thing for me.
And all I can do is cry.

I don't have much to say today, or just lately in general.
Have been obsessively weighing myself, using a lot of behaviors, and just being pretty mean to myself all together.

I had lost weight while my mom was gone last week and since she's home, I've gained it all back.
I'm very not happy because it was an ok weight loss. I had eaten very well and worked out ok amounts and all the "normal" stuff.

I need to lose weight.
Or rather, I need to gain health.
I know my weight is unhealthy, but I am trying very hard to focus on not weight loss, but health instead. I want to slowly teach myself how to do this, how to accept food and be ok and be healthy and happy.

But when I look back on last week's food log, I realize how deep in this I still am.
How what I think of as being "good" and "healthy" is so very far from that.

And I don't know where to go or what to do or how to start.
My head is full of negativity and it's pulling me down.

Why doesn't life come with an instruction manual?

I am struggling with self-worth and feelings of negativity.
I have so many thoughts inside my head, but all I can do is cry today.
Today, I have very few jumbled words, so bear with me.

I think most of it is stemming from this guy I've been talking to.
I belong to a dating site because I am terrible at going out and meeting people.
I've been talking to this person for a week or two and we get on very well and have a lot in common.
But I doubt I will ever meet him.
The anxiety I get over, well everything, but specifically driving and meeting someone for the first time is overwhelming.

I haven't been on a date in nearly two years.
I haven't been in a relationship for three years.

The last person I was with very early broke me when he gave up on us. I was dealing with very serious depression and anxiety issues at the time and he just could not handle how withdrawn I was.
I have been in love with him since the first moment I laid eyes on him five years ago, and he felt the same way.

I don't blame him at all for leaving, or for how terrible I've become.
After he left, I withdrew and vowed to work on myself and my issues.

Three years later and nothing has changed.
And now this new person has come into my view and I just don't know how to proceed.

Instead of focusing on the actual issues - the anxiety and depression - I internalize and make everything about weight.
If I were smaller, I wouldn't have these problems. I'd be confident and easy to love.

I know it's not true, but it's always been the "easy answer".
I'm having a hard time not falling into it again, but I don't know what to do.

I know that if I am to move on and start living a healthy adult life with healthy adult relationships, I need to focus on the real problem - the anxiety.
But where do I start? How do I do this?

Today I am struggling with thoughts of never being "sick enough".
What does that mean though?
How sick is enough?
Is it the countless hours a day I've spent working out to the point of exhaustion?
Is it the disgusting amount of time I've wasted with my head in the toilet?
Is it the days and weeks I'd deprive myself of food?
Or have I been "sick enough" because all these things were normal to me?
Because all these things have become a way of life for me?

Days like this, when I doubt I've ever had a problem and that's always been in my head, I read through old diaries and online journals.
I dig out the first food diary I ever had and turn through the pages where I, at the tender age of 13, started restricting and purging.
I work my way up to the first online journal I had, when I was deeply involved in pro-ED groups and challenges.
So many girls wasting their lives on this, challenging each other for points to see who could eat less, who could purge more, who could not get caught, who could not die.

More than I wish to go back in time and apologize to myself, I wish to find those girls now and apologize for being a "friend" and encouraging them.

I should have done more to stop it.

But maybe that's the way to tell I was sick enough.
I couldn't see past it to know what I was doing to others.

first post

Hello!
My name is Vicki, but some people call me Torrence.
I'm 26 and trying to start moving forward with my life.
I just recently moved back home and it's bringing up all kinds of feelings and issues.
I've been struggling with depression for as long as I can remember, as well as SI for over half my life and disordered eating. I've not received any treatment or therapy, but I'm still holding on to the hope that I can work things out myself.
I want to use this as a place to be completely 100% honest with myself.