Prepare to Cringe: Getting Naked...

Note: No, I'm not actually getting physically naked for you all. You can thank me later. I do something even harder in today's post...expose a bit of the inner workings of my psyche...yeah I think it is even scarier than a picture of me in my birthday suit.

Hey guys, I’ve been dealing with migraine fog the last few days. I pretty much have some kind of headache 24/7. It is making exercising difficult because it seems to exacerbate the headache, but I’ve just decided to suck it up and do what I can to minimize the headache (drink plenty of water, not over exert myself, walk when it isn’t too hot, etc). Tuesday I took tanner to the pool at the YMCA and we took the water aerobic class and had a lot of fun. I really felt like I got a good workout too so I think that will become a regular thing. Unfortunately, it is raining cats and dogs here today so it will likely not happen tonight so I’m a bit bummed out about that. Hoping to at least get a walk in; if the weather is still crappy, maybe Tanner and I can just work on our Michael Jackson moves on the Kinect lol! That is always good for a laugh. I swear I’m going to have to borrow a video camera so I can share with you guys. It’s hiliarious.

I also got a bit of closure on the whole relationship thing too so that has helped. I think I can move on. Now I just need to get around to forgiving myself for even stupidly seeking out a relationship when I obviously was not ready for one. My biggest regret is that it was Greg that I had to screw things up with. At the very least, I think we would have made good friends so I almost wish I had met him under different circumstances. Meeting him on a dating site made it feel like our relationship was almost forced in that direction for some reason…I don’t know.

Anyway, I have an appointment with a therapist set up for next Friday and another one set up for the following Friday. I’m a little nervous about it, but know it is what I need to be doing. I actually spent some time talking to a good friend of mine last night. He has been one of my biggest cheerleaders through this whole weight loss journey and was the person who let me cry on his shoulder (virtually) when I was dealing with the whole gay thing coming out about Erik, etc. We were talking about what went wrong with this whole relationship adventure and why I ended up feeling like I was doing a repeat of what I went through the first time Erik and I got together. It was slightly different from that, but played out very similarly and I think that is what I was so upset about…that years later I was repeating the same behaviors. I’m only really talking about this here because I think I’m beginning to see that so much of all this is wrapped up in the weight issues, self esteem issues, etc.

The short version is this: Essentially, boy meets girl, boy shows interest in girl, girl…having only two speeds: brakes slammed to the floorboard OR overdrive, vacillates back and forth between liking the whole relationship thing and being scared to death of it. Boy eventually starts to catch on that this chick has some issues and starts to pull away, girl misinterprets this as him needing reassurance and becomes needier and clingier which of course pushes boy further and further away until boy finally runs screaming in the other direction. Sound like fun? Oh yeah, I’m sure it’s a blast for them.

Essentially, that is what happened. With Erik, I was truly and utterly in love with him when we got together so when he started pulling away (my neediness came from a different place emotionally then) I panicked and became this …sad sad sad person who couldn’t BREATHE without him 5 inches from me…uggh, painful to even remember, but that is how it was.

With this most recent relationship, I honestly thought that when he was saying he wanted to slow things down, instead of taking him at his word, I read WAY too much into things. I know this is partly just me over thinking things as usual and partly just being super inexperienced at this. So, instead of taking him at his word, I thought the following:

1. He needs reassurance (cue the excessive fawning, desire to be with him, etc)
2. Part of me actually realized last night that I thought he was maybe also using some reverse psychology because he knew I was going back and forth and scared and so I think I thought he was saying he wanted to go slow, but maybe it was just so I wouldn’t be so scared of him. I know this is absolutely ridiculous thinking, but …this is what prompted my behavior with him.

I also knew his self esteem wasn’t all that great and, wanting to prop him up a bit because I cared about him and wanted him to feel better about himself, would go overboard with the compliments. Anyway, putting it all down on “paper” I can see how I did everything, absolutely everything so freaking WRONG. You want to hear something really funny? I went back to read what I had written in my profile and I had some line that went something like this:

“I'm a nurturer, but don't worry, I'm not the smothering type. I want a man who has outside interests and pursuits. While I think it is important to spend time together, I also think it is important to have time for yourself.”

Can you say “False Advertising?” I guess that is the ME I want to be, but have a ways to go before I get there.

So back to my most recent relationship, instead of being true to myself, listening to my gut, I tried to become what I thought he wanted. I did the same thing with Erik. Why? Because I still don’t think, I don’t believe that I am enough. That Michelle, the person that I am is worthy of attention, affection, etc. I don’t believe that I deserve happiness or love because, fat aside, I don’t like who I am very much on the inside either. Trust me, it isn’t easy to be writing this down. I’m absolutely cringing inside every time I think about actually posting this blog because I feel like this is me basically standing naked in front of anyone who reads this. I don’t like feeling this damaged.

The realization that my main problem has to do with me not liking ME so much is the hardest because I can’t diet and exercise that part healthy. So where the hell does that leave me? At the beginning of a very long and painful journey…and that’s depressing; that I haven’t evolved much in the last 20 years and I’m going to be doing the work now that I should have done years ago. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed just thinking about it. I just want to skip it all and get to the good stuff. I want to be happy, I want to eventually find someone that I can love and that can love me without all this craziness. I don't want to have to work so damn hard to be happy...I just want to BE happy.