changing a mindset!
Sunday 29 January 2012
A new mindset!!
When life got very difficult some years ago, I started to comfort eat. My comfort has always been chocolate. Yes, there is a science behind it, or so I’ve read. Chocolate causes certain chemical changes and gives a "high" that helps mask negative, even painful emotions. Feeling stressed, upset, reach for some chocolate and it makes you feel better. Except then you gain weight and you hate what you see in the mirror, you feel bad, you cry and reach for more chocolate, and there it is. The perfect circle.
A cycle of behaviour which, pardon the pun, feeds itself and so has no end. Your ability to deal with life lessens and the chocolate becomes a form of coping mechanism. You start to retreat from difficult situations. Stop going outside unless you absolutely have to. There is pain and upset outside. People make judgements based only on what they see and they can’t see the pain, only a fat person. Fat people are thought to be stupid, greedy, lazy, have no pride in themselves, not much use to anyone, right? It takes a very special person to look further than someone’s appearance, to see a person inside the fat shell.
Unfortunately these special people are very rare it seems, and very far between. Mostly I see people look at me with judgement in their eyes, or worse pity. Every time I see it, it’s like a physical blow and I feel it just as keenly. They don’t know me these people. They don’t know how many nights I sit up because I’m in so much pain I can’t lie down. They don’t see the many pills I take every day hoping that some day they might magically help with the pain of arthritis and help me feel human again. They don’t see someone who skips wearing a bra that day because the pain through her shoulders is so bad she wants to die. They don’t see me. They see a fat woman and think "why doesn’t she do something about herself, how disgusting." They judge. I'm fed up with being judged. I've been living in hell for so many years I can't remember what it's like to get through a whole day without pain, without crying at some point. I allowed life to beat me. I gave up caring about myself because it was just too hard.
Enough is enough. Time for a new mindset. I'm hoping that if I can change the way I think, I can change the way I react to life, to bad things, bad days of which i have many. We'll see, I can only try.