(no subject)
Isn't insanity being able to perceive what no one else can?
Am I finally there...?
...
the e-mails with my mom prove it.
It's not as if I didn't notice that I put my foot in my mouth at the cabin with the pitas thing. I could tell when I was saying that at the end of the night that the joke had fallen flat, changing the atmosphere, but I didn't realize why until you/[my mom] referenced it yesterday at my apartment. I could FEEL the difference, but didn't know why because I knew she/{my cousin's wife} had cancer but honestly didn't remember of what.
It'd been a long day of compliments on Saturday, and I'm not trying to sound ungrateful for them (because I'm not)...but it's hard for me to receive them so constantly. With anything, not just my surgery--I've always downplayed myself. I've gotten better about it, at accepting any compliments with a simple thank you. But at some point, fighting my instinctive nature breaks. It broke for the day, then.
It's hard for me to be the center of attention and have to talk about a topic to a group, even more so when I have to do it verbally. At some point my ability to do it in a controlled manner just breaks and it becomes something more akin to verbal diarrhea as opposed to a carefully considered and throttled stream of thoughts and words. It's like the difference between jumping off a plane with a parachute vs. a free fall.
You/[my mom] might not have heard this, I don't think you were in the kitchen at the time, but [my cousin's wife] and others were questioning me about nutrition and things I can/cannot eat earlier in the day. And at that time the bread her son eats was brought before me as a good option in [my cousin's wife]'s opinion because it's whole wheat and a complex carb. It was way off from what I'd ever consider eating (21 net carbs per slice) but I nodded vaguely that maybe it'd be okay for me. I didn't want to make her feel bad for being wrong (and the stakes in accurate information weren't as high then as they were at the end of the night), so it's not as though I go about in the world not caring about being tactful. Because I do pay attention to that, very much so.
This is why I hate being the center of attention--I know that eventually I'll say something that'll be misunderstood. I'm used to being misunderstood--most of my life when I've tried to express things I can't do it well and the person has to be really intuitive and perceptive to decipher what I can't express well. I consider it a dodged bullet when I get out of the encounter with me being the only one hurt by the misunderstanding. It's one of the reasons I seclude myself so much, and don't let many people close to me or interact with many people. I'm happier that way, and I don't hurt as many people.
([my sister] misunderstood at first too, right? And it won't even occur to her that it'd hurt me, so she only partially understood. Whereas when I got her reply, I had an intuition/could feel that something wasn't quite right--I just didn't know the specifics. Written doesn't always prevent it, but I have a better track record with written words than verbal ones.)
But after realizing yesterday which cancer [my cousin's wife] has [breast cancer] and the ramifications of it, I think the bullet hit on Saturday. And I'll tell you why I brought my loose skin up the way I did, then.
I don't even remember if [my cousin's wife] was listening to me talk in the kitchen at that point, there were too many people and so it blurs in my mind, but [my cousin] and [their daughter, also becoming obese] and her brother (there's my crap memory at work again--can't remember his name) were so at least they would have felt affected. Not to mention the other family listening. I probably sounded like a real self-absorbed bitch, but I said what I said for several reasons.
A) When people call me skinny or are impressed by the surgery, I feel like the fraud that I really am. It's why I cry when Dad calls me his hero. I couldn't do this without the surgery, because I'm too weak of a person to have done this alone. I'm so scared that I'll gain all this weight back once it stops being this easy, because I'm nothing but a fat girl in someone's borrowed normal body. And everyone will see me for the fraud that I am, because I feel like this can't possibly last.
This is the easy part, the first couple years; what I've gone through so far. The hard part will come later at about 2 years and beyond, and I don't know if I'll be strong enough at that point not to let this all slip away. I'm terrified of that, because I want to stay like this so much. But I can't accept that it's MINE, or that it's permanent.
B) When I feel like I've flaunted that I'm a fraud by accepting the compliments without protest for too long, I HAVE to correct the perception. Or I'd always feel like I was lying, and I especially didn't want to be lying to my family. (With you/[my mom] and Dad and the sibs it's different, because I know you know the dark side of this. So I don't feel as much that I have to correct your perception, whereas much of the family at the cabin had no idea.)
But I deal with talking about it with self-depreciating jokes, because that's how I do things related to expressing the negativity of myself. Such as the thigh curtains, or bat wings, or pita breasts. I was trying to show them it's not all pretty, and that was the only conscious way I can. (I half wonder if I subconsciously pushed my limits with the nuts to purposefully get sick and show it that way, too--I don't know. I think that might have been it.)
C) It was especially important for me to show that this doesn't have pretty results under my clothes because of [my cousin's daughter]. I got the sense that either her parent(s) or her herself or even [my aunt] might have thought about surgery for her, because of how intensely technical the questioning got at the very end of the night and how many notes people were taking. That's why I wrote down so much informational websites, and did my best to draw a diagram of my stomach. I wanted badly to be a good source of accurate, unbiased and nakedly true information even though my ability to speak carefully by that point was teetering off the edge of social sanity. And because of that, I hurt people. I want to cry thinking about it, but I can't change the past. And nothing I could say now can make it better, because I can't erase that moment in time.
Look at how much text I just had to write to explain my motives and feeling and thoughts behind just one sentence that was misunderstood? And so often I'm misunderstood when I'm genuine about what I think and actually TRY to express it, that for the most part I've stopped trying.
I don't feel that I'm fit to be with people in general, which is why I'm so selective about who I let be close to me. I hurt people otherwise, if they're not perceptive enough to see past my social retardedness. And I don't like hurting people. It's probably part of the reason I let myself become so fat in the first place, to make separating myself away from humanity a no-brainier because no one would ever seek me out in the first place.
I think that, even though I'm so sorry about Saturday and wish it'd never happened, for me it was a reminder much needed as a lesson about what I have to keep in mind, going forward. Just because I look normal now doesn't mean I am normal enough to be with people, and I'm okay with that. I suspect hearing this is hard for you and I'm sorry if it's hurting you--didn't want that, either. But it's me, and it's the truth of my existence.
And I guess I had to try to explain this in order to live with myself, because through the guilt I know I've tried.
And even though I told my mom all this, in her reply she simply consoled me about my personal fears related to the surgery. And said my social retardedness was just because of my childhood, as if it wasn't something inherent to me. And said that she was there late that evening and thought that people realized I was joking. That my aunt said I was articulate and smart when I was talking about the surgery.
But I KNOW I felt the shifts, I KNOW I did!
And my mom is a HSP too, so she's definitely used to the subtle. So what does THAT say?
...am I finally sensing at that level? the deeper level into people's subconscious where they'll never know of, never realize their very things I'm seeing as transparently as air? Is this what she was talking about so long ago, the depth she perceived at which I couldn't notice back then? Because if that's true, then I finally understand why it's tormented her so.
I had another instance of this with my older sister just before last weekend, the written word in that case. I knew something was "off" in our e-mails and couldn't pinpoint the specifics, only that my sister might be upset with me. But I brushed it off as paranoia on my part--until Mom validated what I'd perceived by telling me the specifics of how my sister'd said to Mom I'd inadvertently hurt her feelings. Even as my sister hurt my feelings with her response...but no one noticed that. And I don't mind that really, but it doesn't change that this is happening which is far worse.
...why now? Why should anything have changed to have me see this way NOW? My weight loss should not have had an effect on something like this, right? And it's been so long since I abandoned her, since I stated I wanted to reclaim things. This...CAN'T be what it means to be the Four Leaf, can it? I wasn't even aiming for that; it makes no sense...
But I know in my heart I'm not wrong, even as I want to deny I'm right out of lack of confidence and self-preservation. I WANT to be wrong, I WANT to believe my Mom in this. To not notice what I saw before, to pretend it was just a paranoid over-reaction on my part. To not put two-and-two together that how could I feel that my sister was hurt before I knew why she was? That I could sense the deep, dark...still/slow/sluggish/under-the-overlay...discomfort in a conversation/situation before I even knew the crucial detail about the situation that made it uncomfortable in the first place?
I wish that I could not see this...but I know of the subtle shifts that's happened. I know.
And I'm scared, because I have to do this alone this time. There was never another option for me.
Not without ripping someone else apart, that is.
I won't let that happen again. There's no one here but me to destroy, and I just have to hope that I can keep it together before it gets to that point. That I can use this Sight on myself to master this, rather than on another person, and not lose myself in the screaming...
I just...have to survive this.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Am I finally there...?
...
the e-mails with my mom prove it.
It's not as if I didn't notice that I put my foot in my mouth at the cabin with the pitas thing. I could tell when I was saying that at the end of the night that the joke had fallen flat, changing the atmosphere, but I didn't realize why until you/[my mom] referenced it yesterday at my apartment. I could FEEL the difference, but didn't know why because I knew she/{my cousin's wife} had cancer but honestly didn't remember of what.
It'd been a long day of compliments on Saturday, and I'm not trying to sound ungrateful for them (because I'm not)...but it's hard for me to receive them so constantly. With anything, not just my surgery--I've always downplayed myself. I've gotten better about it, at accepting any compliments with a simple thank you. But at some point, fighting my instinctive nature breaks. It broke for the day, then.
It's hard for me to be the center of attention and have to talk about a topic to a group, even more so when I have to do it verbally. At some point my ability to do it in a controlled manner just breaks and it becomes something more akin to verbal diarrhea as opposed to a carefully considered and throttled stream of thoughts and words. It's like the difference between jumping off a plane with a parachute vs. a free fall.
You/[my mom] might not have heard this, I don't think you were in the kitchen at the time, but [my cousin's wife] and others were questioning me about nutrition and things I can/cannot eat earlier in the day. And at that time the bread her son eats was brought before me as a good option in [my cousin's wife]'s opinion because it's whole wheat and a complex carb. It was way off from what I'd ever consider eating (21 net carbs per slice) but I nodded vaguely that maybe it'd be okay for me. I didn't want to make her feel bad for being wrong (and the stakes in accurate information weren't as high then as they were at the end of the night), so it's not as though I go about in the world not caring about being tactful. Because I do pay attention to that, very much so.
This is why I hate being the center of attention--I know that eventually I'll say something that'll be misunderstood. I'm used to being misunderstood--most of my life when I've tried to express things I can't do it well and the person has to be really intuitive and perceptive to decipher what I can't express well. I consider it a dodged bullet when I get out of the encounter with me being the only one hurt by the misunderstanding. It's one of the reasons I seclude myself so much, and don't let many people close to me or interact with many people. I'm happier that way, and I don't hurt as many people.
([my sister] misunderstood at first too, right? And it won't even occur to her that it'd hurt me, so she only partially understood. Whereas when I got her reply, I had an intuition/could feel that something wasn't quite right--I just didn't know the specifics. Written doesn't always prevent it, but I have a better track record with written words than verbal ones.)
But after realizing yesterday which cancer [my cousin's wife] has [breast cancer] and the ramifications of it, I think the bullet hit on Saturday. And I'll tell you why I brought my loose skin up the way I did, then.
I don't even remember if [my cousin's wife] was listening to me talk in the kitchen at that point, there were too many people and so it blurs in my mind, but [my cousin] and [their daughter, also becoming obese] and her brother (there's my crap memory at work again--can't remember his name) were so at least they would have felt affected. Not to mention the other family listening. I probably sounded like a real self-absorbed bitch, but I said what I said for several reasons.
A) When people call me skinny or are impressed by the surgery, I feel like the fraud that I really am. It's why I cry when Dad calls me his hero. I couldn't do this without the surgery, because I'm too weak of a person to have done this alone. I'm so scared that I'll gain all this weight back once it stops being this easy, because I'm nothing but a fat girl in someone's borrowed normal body. And everyone will see me for the fraud that I am, because I feel like this can't possibly last.
This is the easy part, the first couple years; what I've gone through so far. The hard part will come later at about 2 years and beyond, and I don't know if I'll be strong enough at that point not to let this all slip away. I'm terrified of that, because I want to stay like this so much. But I can't accept that it's MINE, or that it's permanent.
B) When I feel like I've flaunted that I'm a fraud by accepting the compliments without protest for too long, I HAVE to correct the perception. Or I'd always feel like I was lying, and I especially didn't want to be lying to my family. (With you/[my mom] and Dad and the sibs it's different, because I know you know the dark side of this. So I don't feel as much that I have to correct your perception, whereas much of the family at the cabin had no idea.)
But I deal with talking about it with self-depreciating jokes, because that's how I do things related to expressing the negativity of myself. Such as the thigh curtains, or bat wings, or pita breasts. I was trying to show them it's not all pretty, and that was the only conscious way I can. (I half wonder if I subconsciously pushed my limits with the nuts to purposefully get sick and show it that way, too--I don't know. I think that might have been it.)
C) It was especially important for me to show that this doesn't have pretty results under my clothes because of [my cousin's daughter]. I got the sense that either her parent(s) or her herself or even [my aunt] might have thought about surgery for her, because of how intensely technical the questioning got at the very end of the night and how many notes people were taking. That's why I wrote down so much informational websites, and did my best to draw a diagram of my stomach. I wanted badly to be a good source of accurate, unbiased and nakedly true information even though my ability to speak carefully by that point was teetering off the edge of social sanity. And because of that, I hurt people. I want to cry thinking about it, but I can't change the past. And nothing I could say now can make it better, because I can't erase that moment in time.
Look at how much text I just had to write to explain my motives and feeling and thoughts behind just one sentence that was misunderstood? And so often I'm misunderstood when I'm genuine about what I think and actually TRY to express it, that for the most part I've stopped trying.
I don't feel that I'm fit to be with people in general, which is why I'm so selective about who I let be close to me. I hurt people otherwise, if they're not perceptive enough to see past my social retardedness. And I don't like hurting people. It's probably part of the reason I let myself become so fat in the first place, to make separating myself away from humanity a no-brainier because no one would ever seek me out in the first place.
I think that, even though I'm so sorry about Saturday and wish it'd never happened, for me it was a reminder much needed as a lesson about what I have to keep in mind, going forward. Just because I look normal now doesn't mean I am normal enough to be with people, and I'm okay with that. I suspect hearing this is hard for you and I'm sorry if it's hurting you--didn't want that, either. But it's me, and it's the truth of my existence.
And I guess I had to try to explain this in order to live with myself, because through the guilt I know I've tried.
And even though I told my mom all this, in her reply she simply consoled me about my personal fears related to the surgery. And said my social retardedness was just because of my childhood, as if it wasn't something inherent to me. And said that she was there late that evening and thought that people realized I was joking. That my aunt said I was articulate and smart when I was talking about the surgery.
But I KNOW I felt the shifts, I KNOW I did!
And my mom is a HSP too, so she's definitely used to the subtle. So what does THAT say?
...am I finally sensing at that level? the deeper level into people's subconscious where they'll never know of, never realize their very things I'm seeing as transparently as air? Is this what she was talking about so long ago, the depth she perceived at which I couldn't notice back then? Because if that's true, then I finally understand why it's tormented her so.
I had another instance of this with my older sister just before last weekend, the written word in that case. I knew something was "off" in our e-mails and couldn't pinpoint the specifics, only that my sister might be upset with me. But I brushed it off as paranoia on my part--until Mom validated what I'd perceived by telling me the specifics of how my sister'd said to Mom I'd inadvertently hurt her feelings. Even as my sister hurt my feelings with her response...but no one noticed that. And I don't mind that really, but it doesn't change that this is happening which is far worse.
...why now? Why should anything have changed to have me see this way NOW? My weight loss should not have had an effect on something like this, right? And it's been so long since I abandoned her, since I stated I wanted to reclaim things. This...CAN'T be what it means to be the Four Leaf, can it? I wasn't even aiming for that; it makes no sense...
But I know in my heart I'm not wrong, even as I want to deny I'm right out of lack of confidence and self-preservation. I WANT to be wrong, I WANT to believe my Mom in this. To not notice what I saw before, to pretend it was just a paranoid over-reaction on my part. To not put two-and-two together that how could I feel that my sister was hurt before I knew why she was? That I could sense the deep, dark...still/slow/sluggish/under-the-overlay...discomfort in a conversation/situation before I even knew the crucial detail about the situation that made it uncomfortable in the first place?
I wish that I could not see this...but I know of the subtle shifts that's happened. I know.
And I'm scared, because I have to do this alone this time. There was never another option for me.
Not without ripping someone else apart, that is.
I won't let that happen again. There's no one here but me to destroy, and I just have to hope that I can keep it together before it gets to that point. That I can use this Sight on myself to master this, rather than on another person, and not lose myself in the screaming...
I just...have to survive this.
Sounds simple enough, right?