xp Recognizing danger, and dancing on guard rails

*Disclaimer - Course, if you know me any, you know - this will be long. :}  It is what it is.

Something that I knew would be important to me on the way down the scale and living a balanced life at maintenance is recognizing the areas that are dangerous for me.

Guard rails are put BETWEEN you and danger on the road.  If the point is to be SAFE, its much better to crash head on into the guard rail, than into the ravine, down the mountain, et cetera.

When life is good and everything is fine - I need to be on guard that I do not think since everything feels fine and normal that I can think I can just cruise through and do what I please and make excuses for why I *should* do what I please.  That is dangerous *for me* and equals dancing on the slippery slope in saran wrap shoes.

But life puts the squeeze on you sometimes.  Some days more than others.  And you know, its not personal, its just life.  Trouble IS going to come, its not IF, its WHEN.  And again, its not personal, its just life.

I just got home from a lovely vacation in Hawaii that my husband's parents paid for (by way of inheritance) and handsome face left from Hawaii and went on his boyhood dream vacation of going to New Zealand and packing, and paddling and hiking on glaciers and all sorts of sporty adventure things.  He will not come home until the 28th and I will be glad to see his face.

Danger zone warning - in times past, presurgery - his being gone was my time to eat whatever, whenever, how ever much, play too hard, let things pile up, et cetera.  Huge emphasis on FUN IN EXCESS. 

Danger zone warning - I love that man. When he is going away, I get lonely for him before he even leaves.  Its silly, but its true.  NOW - that being said, I DO enjoy being able to watch marathon House and Dr. G and surgery shows!  But I do miss my handsomeface husfriend.  SPECIFIC DANGER HERE?.. A bit of lonely. 

Danger - my birthday will be before he comes home.  Will I spend my birthday "alone?"  Only if I choose to, because I have friends who are glad to birthday fun it up with me. But there is still danger in regards to being alone and past behaviors, and being alone on a birthday when if I am being neurotic, I can start to weave tales about - well - you know..whatever neurotic tales I can come up with. Which, honey.. I got mad skillz.  :}

So all of these things add a bit of danger to my practice of being moderate. But you know, hey, I can do this thing! 

LIFE SQUEEZE..  Emailed my mama, told her I was home.  She emails back and makes a snide comment (purposeful or not, I do not know, but there it was) about something that I realize, she is going to keep poking at, and my new practice is

ASKING FOR WHAT I NEED OR DO NOT NEED.

So, I asked her to consider her comment, that she would consider who she makes comments like that to (because she would NOT have made comments to a friend of the same ilk as I, of that nature), and could we have a truce on that particular subject.

And the return email was chilly, further emailed turned into a railing on me, character traits of mine, et cetera.   Little history about my beloved mama.

If you do not show deference to the queen, she has no further need for you.  You are cut off.  Unnecessary.  Out of the pool.  The end.

And as it turns out, I am assuming we will be estranged again (because, this is not the first time) until I decide enough is enough and apologize (even if its not sincere - which ya know, I just will not do anymore, so its not going to happen) so she can tell me "lets never hurt each other again" which means.. "lets you not disagree with me again" which I dunno, but seems to me in healthy relationships, there's room for disagreement.

so...

Dangerish, dangerish, BIG FAT LIFE SQUEEZE, SCREAMING DANGER!!

So, thankfully - my journey thus far I have worked on my head, on the focus of what is TRUE versus what I FEEL, and in the middle of FEELING bingey, blue, hopeless, helpless, worthless, sad, reminding myself what is true, and especially with the feeling bingey (whether its a food binge, a spending binge, a drinking binge, a house cleaning binge - no wait.. that has not ever happened so far :}, an exercise binge)

ASKING MYSELF WHAT I REALLY WANT!!

You know what it is?

Its to be happy, healthy, and whole.  To do minimal damage to myself and others on my worst days (which you know, some days are better than others) and not revert back to the person I was, whose worth, whose feelings about herself, whose actions were all reactions to how others told me I should feel, my worth, or even worse yet, my reactions to what I THOUGHT they felt about me. 

All this mental crap you hear me talk about, or maybe get glassy eyed and skip me talking about (because I get it, I do not shut up about it, but its because maybe it really will be helpful to someone other than me) THAT IS MY GUARD RAIL.

Because people will not hold me in the esteem I might like all the time. There are times I would rather be careless and numb, than have to deal with me feeling ****ty, or culling all of the crap that I have gathered and used to use to flog myself with.

All this stuff, the way we think, the ways we act - those are habits, we created them.  Maybe they started for a good and protective reason, but sometimes, to stay sane, to stay sober (and I do not just mean booze drunk), to stay upright - we need to do the hard work of changing our habits.

Because truth - maybe some folks could make themselves feel better by saying "but I weigh X pounds, but I wear X size, but I garner attention from everyone, LOOK AT MY TINY ASS" but for the things that weigh heavy on my heart - the external is not going to fix. 

BUT (big hairy but!!) I have to tell you, from right here, right now? Knowing the truth about me, the WHO of me, as opposed to buying what someone else is selling in a moment of frenzied frothy fury?  Its pretty priceless.

And there is still danger, because I do not feel "numb" about or conflict - but I have to keep reminding myself that asking for courtesy is not wrong.  I am not responsible for her over the top response to me, her response is her own, and even though I feel kind of ****ty in my heart because again I see the conditions of our relationship, I know that she is doing the best she can with what she has, just like I am, and what I CAN do - is be good to me.

Be moderate in my fun, be thoughtful in my feeding and exercising of me, do some things that are good for my soul and use words in my mind and outta my mouth to battle all those old "unworthy, unloveable, must submit, must obey, do not cause friction, all of those things do not equal good girl" thoughts that are doing their best to show up and swirl around, like they used to.

Staying on this side of the guard rail (treating me WELL, not indulgently, but WELL, in my thoughts, in my nurturing myself with food and with purposeful exercise) will keep me safe.

When I start to even begin to entertain all of those old self mutilating thoughts - that's me, dancing on the guard rail, skinny dipping on my period with sharks, skating on the slippery slope with saran wrap socks.

So.. just some blabbity thoughts from me.  You might just need to glaze eyes, and pass on by, but maybe someone else could use a little bit of encouragement that you really are/can be different than before.  You do not always have to be/do/feel the way the flow takes you.

New habits are not the easiest things to create, but its so much easier to create them before the squeeze comes.

Because baby, its coming.  Its not "if" its WHEN.

Hi  Brandylyn
As usual an interesting and insightful post. So wise of you to recognize the danger zones and guard rails of your life. When my husband is away,, which isn't often, i love to watch Project Runway and other drivel and I used to love watching Big Medicine and related shows which don't seem to be on anymore. When he is here, we have some shows we both like but he has his sci fi shows and he gets to watch them while i play my computer scrabble. So you are missing him which is understandable but it sounds like the real issue is the snarky comments from your mom. What is it about our mothers who with just a few words have the ability to reduce us to pathetic self doubting piles of protoplasm. I know my mom had a gift for this which has only dissappeared with the onset of some mild dementia. a sad way for us to have an improved retationship - she forgets to nag me about all the stuff she used to and forgets to call me up to do so. She was the one person i did not tell ahead of time about my surgery because I knew she would argue about it without even knowing why she was arguing - just a reflex to disagree with whatever decision I made. But seeing me 6 months later with 60 lbs gone (she lives far away) she was just fine with it. So yeah, i really understand the concept of walking the tightrope (or the plank) with mommie dearest as i spent 50 years trying to please my mom and finally said   f - it and did what i really wanted. But in doing so its hard to find the balance of being kind and maintaining a relationship as the mother-unit ages and needs attention and assistance. Yeah, its enough to drive anyone into a bag of peanut butter cups. Thankfully I seem to have moved away from that solution and I think you have too but i bet lots of us former fat girls had strained relationships with our mothers that contributed to our weight issues. Thats another whole topic.

Good that you recognize that this is sort of the squeeze time and I know you will deal with it in a healthy and constructive manner. A shopping binge would not be so horrible. A cleaning binge would be just plain weird. A binge of trashy books and junky old godzilla movies might be fun. But even if you are dancing on that guardrail, at least you are dancing and not taking a flying leap. So enjoy the fun things you can do with hubby gone and ignor mom for awhile. Sweating about it does no good. if all else fails, spend time writing fun stuff here - we love it and it always stirs up fun discussion.     diane

Well I will tellya what, when my mama gets senile, we are moving to the emerald triangle and I can keep her stony, pleasantly demented, and get a couch that bong water cannot stink up.  :}

Her heart is to be helpful, mostly, I know.  Does not mean sometimes I would not love to kick sand in her eyeholes and laugh and laugh.  Well, you know, in my horrible daughter fantasies. 

And you are right, all those other things, aside from the me and mama vomit were all just minor dangers, caution lights as it were.

I am thankful to realize NOW that all of my previous excuses to eat and not feel, are now my very good and solid REASONS to take extra good (not indulgent, but good) care of me. 

No zumba tonight, so I just boogied up and down our road and sang at the top of my lungs.  Too bad for you, people listening!  :} 

Ha Brandylyn, the nice thing about living in the emerald triangle is that you don't ever have to use the herb yourself. Everyone else is whacked and therefore mellow and therefore easy to get along with. (However, there are enough tweakers to be trouble makers and keep law enforcement busy.) 

My mom too has always meant well and being a super achiever raised her from beginnings bordering on poverty so i understand why she was so demanding and expected so much from me and my dolt brothers. But as an adult it seemed the teenage era nagging and arguing just never phased out. Oh well. My dad is long gone and i am much more like him and  miss him a lot.   
And hey, older brother who has been lifelong obese is getting ready to have the vsg in the next couple of months thanks to my encouragement. so this family is going to be down several hundred pounds before long. Who'd a thunk it.

anyway, sing it out, girlfriend! 
diane

Tweakers abound, wherever you may roam. 

I am proud on you and your older brother!!  You have done well being a shineybottomed example!  :}

Muwah girlie.

Ha Brandylyn, how do you know i have a shiney bottom? the north coast glow is from my aura and not reflectrion of shiney a$$ off the water!  actually only have recently become reaquainted with the apprearance of my bottom, having not seen it in years. ditto belly button. but bottom is not shiney - more wrinkly. Brother is starting to lurk and read on OH and the main vsg forum so may be seeing some questions from him. I think his handle is roundater.  help him out of you see that name. I think his bmi must be close to 50 so he has a lot to lose. Am hoping he can get some feedback from the male vsg stars like jimbo and frisco.    diane

I used to get into arguments with my Dad,  silly arguments that often would be because we did not agree with each others thinking.

He has been gone now for almost 3 years and i would give anything to be able to have him back even if it meant having arguments with him daily, which i would often walk out of his house over, sometimes walking out meant flying back to America.

As for guard rails i think we put them up even uncontiously alot of the time, I came from a home with a eating disorder, my mother had anerexia and bullemia at her lowest she got down to 77 lbs.
she also developed manic depression which through meds gained all her weight back but she never had long term recovery from the depression she could never handle the weight gain, so would stop taking meds and it was a vicious circle... to the point she became a full time patient in a mental hospital.

 growing up and probably still to this day i always had fear that i would end up the same, so when losing weight in the past i would never get "too" low because i did not want to look like she did  her work collegues would call her "walking bangladesh"

My daughter after coming to america also got bullemic but has since stopped doing that and has been a healthy weight for a few years now..  so knowing that it is hereditary i still have in the back of my head i dont want to go too low,  so for me size 4 is small enough... even though with my height  i could probably get to a 0 or a 2 i dont want to look like she did..
which is probably part of the reason i allow myself to go off plan for times like christmas...
so i am thankful for my sleeve that it lets me get back on track and back into my comfort numbers..

I know what you mean, I lost my daddy 4 years ago this June.  In 3 hours, my big ol strong 59-year-old (so, relatively young, daddily speaking) daddyman, who was going to his blues band practice, went from headache to gone gone gone. 
He and I had some clashing, but the one thing I really appreciated about him that is so different from the situation with mama is, he could be mad with you and love you anyway.  He could handle you asking him to please stop pushing that button, without having to totally push you away. 

I know its just her reflex, and her habit, and the thing she knows to do, but it does get wearying to a soul. 

I am glad that you and your daughter are doing better, and I guess that your mama is forced to have some help (like it or not).

Sometimes the road to knowing us is a wearying road to trudge it seems, but I am so thankful that most of the days, I really do not have bitterness about much of the past at all.

Well, cept the rule mongering.  :}  That rankles me, but hey - that's my poor reaction and I own it! 

I am thankful for the line in the sand that was drawn with my sleeve too.  Its an awesome reminder to me that I do not *have* to be the same as I was.

  Brandilynn

Thanks for the love, my honey!!