I can be my own worst enemy at times. After a knee injury and then two very unpleasant rounds of antibiotics sidelined me for about three weeks, I am just now working my way back to any semblance of my routine, and it’s a struggle.
You would think I could muster up some grace for myself, considering the injury and illness were not my fault, and certainly not much fun. Instead, I have allowed my frustration and disappointment to get the best of me. This has pushed my goal deadlines back by several weeks, and my excitement has turned to aggravation, worry that I won’t reach my goals at all, and then heaps and heaps of self-blame and anger.
Yeah, it’s as delightful as it sounds. I tell myself how irrational it is to be mad at myself for something I couldn’t possibly control, but my inner critic is relentless and harsh as hell. The problem is, it’s making it very difficult to get back onto my feet. How do I move forward, when I keep shoving myself back down into the dirt?
Last night, I decided to talk to my husband about it. He is the most honest and straightforward person I know. He doesn’t believe in sugarcoating the truth, and it’s one of the many, many things I love about him. I know that any words of wisdom from him come straight from his heart.
I was glad that I opened up to him. We talked for a good while, and he gave me a healthy dose of tough love mixed with encouragement and compassion, exactly what I needed. He said he didn’t know why I am so tough on myself, but that he wished he could change that, and that he wished he could replace that negative voice in my head with his, telling me how beautiful and strong I am, instead of tearing myself down.
So, starting right now, I am committing to this promise to him, and to myself: that I will stand back up, brush myself off, acknowledge that the setback has slowed me down and delayed the finish line for some of my goals, but that I am absolutely going to move forward again, take good care of myself, and get back to work.
I did a lot of thinking this weekend. I believe in truly understanding myself, my feelings, and clawing to the root of a problem instead of settling for what is often just a trivial top coat.
One thing I never anticipated about being a stepparent is that it gets substantially more difficult as the kids get older. I naively expected them to automatically surge forward, shape their own lives, and shed the straitjackets forced onto them during an abnormally chaotic childhood.
I assumed that is they want to do. Who wouldn’t? That is where I went wrong. I could not live under the suffocating thumb of malfunctioning individuals. I would be itching to heave their oppressive weight from my shoulders, spread my wings, and fly as high as I could.
The kids are not me. They will react, respond, and make choices based on what they are comfortable with, where they want to be, what they are willing to accept from themselves and others.
That has been my struggle: expecting the kids to want better for themselves, to hold higher expectations for themselves and for others, to fight to rise above the behaviors modeled for them all these years, and I am completely bewildered when that is not the reality.
I am not writing this to put down my stepchildren. I love them. I do not support all of their decisions, because I feel that they are selling themselves short, but I do finally understand that they are hesitant to unfurl wings that were discouraged and disparaged, by people they should have been able to trust, for as long as they can remember. They have grown up with unquestioned norms that inflict immeasurable wounds, but for them, that is simply the way it is.
I get it. It’s more comfortable, more familiar, for them to stay under that smothering rock, to be told what to think, to continue what they have learned and what they know best: lying, sneakiness, dependency, dysfunction. It’s sad, but I do see where it comes from. It would be hard not to.
Of course I expect them to rise above that, to want to be better than that…because I want better than that for them.
I don’t give them a free pass for accepting such low standards. Two of them have graduated high school and can no longer blame anyone, no matter how toxic, for the status of their lives. Where they are and who they are now is completely up to them, no matter how much they wish to foist responsibility onto anyone else.
I recently read (about narcissistic mothers), “Without proper healing, the child will pick up where the parent left off, by self sabotaging.” That made me sad. Yes, that is what seems to be happening with three of my stepchildren: they have not been given (and have not pursued) the opportunity to honestly face their upbringing, deal with it, heal, and move on in a healthier manner. Their self-sabotage is blatant to anyone who understands the situation without blinders. The fact that it doesn’t appear to be obvious to them makes me worry even more about them, the damage inflicted on them by others, and the denial of any problem that means they will not seek a healthier, saner path.
I can’t fix this for them. My husband and I have taught, coached, lectured, demonstrated, explained, modeled — have done everything but perform interpretative dance — to help them grow and learn and want better than the hand they were dealt by people who have ultimately failed them. We have counteracted as best we could with the limited time we had.
As they get older, it becomes more and more their own responsibility to direct and steer their lives. Watching them make choices that restrict, hinder, and obstruct their own growth and happiness is nothing short of heartbreaking. It can only considered a victory by those who self-servingly stifled them in the first place.
Part of a child’s maturation process involves the parents growing and learning as well. I know it is time to let go of that steering wheel for some of my stepchildren, even if I don’t support the direction they are heading. I have offered the best guidance, advice, and instruction that I could. What they do with it from here is up to them. If they choose to follow the footsteps of the same ones who deliberately shattered their wings, I cannot fathom it or condone it, but I refuse to hurt myself by taking responsibility for their crippling decisions.
I wish them the best. I pray for the best for all of them. I will always love them. Maybe someday they will wish for better, will stand up, and will strike their own path, and finally be truly happy.
Our road trip earlier this week started off on a positive note: I got up early that morning to go running before we headed out. I was determined to stick to my plan this trip.
Then my boyfriend and the kids decided they want to stop for breakfast, and where did we go? Waffle House! Home of the greasiest food around, guaranteed to give you digestive troubles for days to come. Everything was downhill from there.
Okay, it wasn’t all bad. I worked out in the hotel room Tuesday morning and was very proud of myself. But after eating out for every meal for three days, at restaurants largely selected by three children, I ended up feeling sick to the stomach, heavy, and ready for a detox. We were also up very late each night, so a morning workout on Wednesday was impossible, and I still feel drained and exhausted. I am disappointed in myself, but I was way off schedule and routine, and I didn’t have much control over that.
After work yesterday, I hit the gym for 30 minutes of running and 35 minutes on the elliptical. It felt good to sweat it out and do something good for my body after cramming too much food, and not the healthiest of food, into it for three days.
I anticipate a gain at my weigh in tomorrow morning. I feel irritated and angry: at my boyfriend, because how much harder would it have been to reserve a room at a hotel with a fitness room, and at myself, because I took the time to pack workout DVD’s and a food diary, then went off the rails anyway.
Either way, we’re home now, and I have one more day of eating better and working out before I weigh in tomorrow to assess the damage.
After five weeks of weight loss, this past Saturday wrecked my streak: I weighed in at 200.6, a gain of 0.8. I was upset. Okay, still am. I know the week was stressful, and I know I ate out twice and skipped two workouts, but it’s not like I laid down and gave up. I worked out five days last week. And being right back in the 200’s after just breaking out of them was extremely demoralizing.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t even a whole pound, and I reminded myself that I wasn’t exactly on my best behavior this past week. I will work hard this week to zap that 0.8 of a pound, and then some. I will have a good weigh in this Saturday!
My stepkids were home for the weekend, so it went very quickly. I went to the gym Friday night after we picked them up, went running Saturday morning while they were still sleeping, and did a Les Mills Combat workout on Sunday in the living room while they were eating breakfast.
Later, my youngest stepdaughter, who is 9, said out of the blue, “Mom doesn’t go to the gym.” Then she said, “She has a workout DVD, but she never does it”, then laughed and said her mother uses the excuse that she never works out as her reason for not working out.
I know that Psycho, the kids’ biological egg donor, is obsessed with weight and talks about it constantly, from things my boyfriend and the kids have said. I didn’t want to make a big deal about Psycho’s weight, since she does a fine enough job of that herself. So I just said something like “Well, the only way to get started is to do it”, and my stepdaughter started talking about workout DVD’s that I have that she really likes (she loves Shaun T from the Hip Hop Abs workouts, ha ha).
It reminded me, once again, that the kids really have no strong, fit, healthy female role model. Their mother is overweight and moans about it constantly. My boyfriend told me she used to stand in front of a mirror and complain viciously about her weight, but when he suggested they go for a walk, she would get mad. The kids are obviously well aware of how she compares herself to me, or I don’t think my stepdaughter would have commented on how her mother doesn’t go to the gym. I know Psycho well enough to know that if the kids have mentioned me going to the gym, she has made nasty comments to them about how I shouldn’t bother because I’m still fat.
They need to see that a woman can be strong, fit, confident. I want to be that role model for them. I’m not there yet, and I have a long way to go. But I will get there.
The celebration was short-lived. This past Saturday, I weighed in and just wanted to slap myself. I gained back exactly what I lost last week, so back up to 211, for a gain of 2.2 pounds.
*sigh*
I am beginning to believe I will never get my act together. I am the fattest I’ve ever been, my clothes don’t fit, I look terrible, I feel awful, I have pain in my joints and feet and back, and still I’m not motivated to keep at anything that will help me lose this disgusting extra weight. What the hell is wrong with me?
Yes, I’m feeling very frustrated today. I feel like a beached whale. I feel frustrated, disgusted, angry, and ashamed. How did I do this to myself, and how do I keep doing it? I am not a stupid person. So why am I acting so stupid in this one piece of my life?
It doesn’t help that this week, I not only have my second job to contend with, but also a work event in the evening later this week. All of that means very little time for workouts, or sleep, for that matter. I’m so sick of not being able to do what I want to do, what I need to do, because of obligations I don’t even want to honor and things I don’t even want to do. I don’t want to attend this work event, and I am sick to death of working two jobs.
If you can’t tell, I am not in the best of moods today. I keep saying something needs to change, but nothing changes except my weight keeps nudging up. Something has to give, before my sanity does!
My Time to Bloom 