Day 53: Overwhelmed
Sometimes I get so bogged down in what I have to do that I just can’t seem to cope.
It’s such a pervasive feeling.
It’s failure.
I’m a person with big dreams. I always have had big dreams.
Sadly I’ve never really been able to turn those dreams into reality. I keep trying though. And failing. In fact I’ve had so much failure that it’s amazing that I ever try anything.
The big issue for me has always been my weight. I have known that I was overweight and therefore somehow “bad” since I was very small. I remember the over riding feeling I had was how unattractive I was, simply because I was fat, which is ironic because then, I wasn’t fat.
Course I am now, but in a lot of ways I think that was a self fulfilling prophecy.
I have always wanted to be beautiful, to feel beautiful. I also always wanted to work for myself, to write, to travel and most importantly have fabulous clothes. Whenever I’ve taken steps to achieving those dreams I always started with weight loss.
And I always failed.
My reasoning went something like “if I can’t do this, control my own body, how can I possibly succeed at anything else”.
It’s quite the limiting belief, and a building block of the “fat prophecy”. I’d diet, loose a little weight, move toward my goals, gain back the weight plus a few extra pounds, give up trying and beat myself up constantly for being so fat. I’d get depressed, eat lots, gain more weight and then the whole process would start again.
So what’s different now?
How much I weigh is not going to stop me from achieving what I really want in life. Plenty of fat people write books, have businesses and travel the world. They even fall in love and have wonderful relationships.
It really took falling in love myself for me to really understand being fat is not a reason to be unhappy, even though the whole world seems determined to convince me otherwise.
Now happiness is my goal and I’m happiest when I’m taking steps toward achieving my dreams.
It’s just that sometimes, like now, I feel so overwhelmed I don’t see how I can ever achieve anything. I feel like a failure.
How Can I Accept Myself, If Others Say I’m Unacceptable
I read a lot about body size and, now, body acceptance.
I’m a plus size woman and feel the pressure of public ‘disapproval’ of my size. I used to take it all very personally and I lived my fatness, hiding myself away so as not to offend anyone.
Recently I’ve hooked into the fatosphere and began learning about the politics of fat and food.
What an eye opening experience. The constant messages about health, body shape and what is or isn’t acceptable is largely rubbish. The whole ‘obesity epidemic’ doesn’t have much scientific evidence to support it, beyond confirmation bias, and its treated as a sanctioned reason to bully and discriminate.
Then we’re told ‘it’s for your own good’. Physical and emotional abusers have been using that line for centuries.
I read a lot of different information and views on this issues because its so polarising but I can’t help but wonder if my paying attention to the issue is simply perpetuating the issue. I believe strongly what we give our attention to increases.
My goal is to accept myself, whatever size and shape that I am. To eat what I want to eat when I want to eat it and stop when I ‘m full. To really have food become a delight again instead of an emotionally charged and dangerous quandary. Basically to give it no more analysis and attention than using the bathroom or breathing.
If I involve myself in this polarising retoric how do I convince myself the subject is not a major issue?
Clearly it is.