I have long had an unhealthy relationship with myself.
Listening to and reading Brene Brown’s research, books, and lectures on shame
has been very enlightening. I am also working on reading “Healing the Shame
that Binds You” and about 100 other psychology texts that touch on this subject
in various degrees. These books, the Bible, and the some soul searching has
lead me to look back on my recent shame path and I’d like to share my story.
The “Early” Years: Emotional Component
I struggle with co-dependency. I grew up delighting at
stories of martyrdom. I was a little girl dreaming of dieing brutally for some
excellent cause (preferable for God or saving other people from some evil or
both). I remember in maybe early middle school thinking to myself “there are so
many people in the world, how can I ever help them all??” and that overwhelming
thought nearly giving me a panic attack. The concept “I am third” seemed so
beautiful and perfect to me (Treating God as first priority, and others as
second priority, and yourself as third). IT wasn’t that I thought I was worse than
others… at least not consciously. It was that I thought that ideally all
people, especially Christian people, would serve one another and then everyone
would be taken care of and loved. At least, that was the idea. Over time, if
not at the beginning this overwhelming sense of needing to take care of others diminished
who I am and who I ought to be and my on going journey out of it is a life
saving one.
High School: Physical component
When I hit puberty I started hating my body. When I got
thick thighs in 5th grade, I vowed to never wear shorts again… and I
didn’t for years. By the time I reached high school my physical self-loathing
was at a fever pitch. Though I knew I was an intelligent person, I placed too
much stock in what my appearance meant for my worth as a person… If I wasn’t
pretty (read: skinny) then I wasn’t enough. I basically tried to be anorexic…
but I went to food for comfort when feeling shame: so I ended up in a weird
place that I shall quasi-bulimia. I
would compulsively eat for comfort… then I would eat very little for days and exercise
abundantly… I wouldn’t let myself go to sleep some nights until I did 500 sit
ups, and my eyes would get blurry and splotchy in the process. Then I wouldn’t work out for weeks and try to
not eat. Then I would eat like a dinosaur. It was a horrible relationship to
food. I felt so less than. I felt shame. And I tried to use food or lack of
food to numb the shame. And I would try to use the shame associated with my
body image to motivate weight loss… but shame is not motivating. It is debilitating.
Pretty soon I decided to hell with that and virtually banned
myself from working out and dieting to avoid slipping back in there. During
this yoyo time I was in an incredibly unhealthy dating relationship that absolutely
made me fed my feelings of shame and not being worthwhile.
College: Trying to shift focus
My college years were my years to do some soul searching and
over working. I didn’t really date much until I met Jasper, just causal
quasi-dating. I tried to take the focus off of my body, I would work out or not
work out, but tried to not put my worth it in it… but I still felt shame about
it. I once took 21 hours in one semester (spit between 2 different
universities) while interning at a rehab and living in a commune…. So, I would
say that my type A personality won over my self-care in large part. I still had
an external focus. I was not great with boundaries. And while I was getting
stronger and more self aware, I still really felt that I need to be efficient
and helping everyone all the time to be worthwhile thing.
I had so many conditions of worth. I would say my worth is
in God, but it was really in giving, or being efficient or having my shit
together, or my relationships, or being cute or any range of things that are
not truly internal but based on actions
that I constantly had to be working on, not an internal innate worth. Feeling
like you constantly need to do more to warrant your existence, does not make
for a satisfied, thankful, or even worthwhile life.
Marriage: A New Era
Jasper and I met and got married. I kept gaining weight. This
was partially because I was working in an environment that did not encourage
self-care though they paid lip service to it. They constantly asked more of me.
And for a while I constantly kept giving. The more I give recklessly the less I
would take care of me, the less I would watch what I ate, the more I would
stress eat, the less I would do the things that relaxed me, etc. It is like I
only had so much attention and I didn’t feel that I deserved any of it. I also
seemed to think, hey Jasper things I am cute and like that I am “thick” so why
not another piece of pizza? Jasper was a rock star who constantly would
confront my warped perceptions of self. He would ask me why I have so much
empathy for others, but none for myself. Why I assume the best of others, but
the worst of myself. These were things I really had never thought about.
A year into our marriage I went off hormonal birth control
and we started trying to have a baby. I swiftly stopped having a period and
started gaining weight. I was convinced I was pregnant. After not having a
period for 3 month, but not getting positive pregnancy tests, insisted on
getting an ultrasound. I still believed I was pregnant, but that was squashed
when I asked the ultrasound tech how it looked and he said “your uterus looks
normal, but we need to get another look at your ovaries… one of them is about
twice the size of the other.”
Long story made slightly shorter: I got diagnosed with
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). PCOS is a hormone disorder that causes
virtually uncontrollable weight gain, is a leading cause of infertility, and
has horrible health risks associated with it that now make me very high risk
for diabetes, heart disease and a slew of other problems. I eventually got put
on Metformin, a pill typically given to people with diabetes but can help curb
my weight gain and potentially regulate my cycle. But, crappy self-care Deah
would sometimes forget to take the pills…
At any rate, by the time my weight stopped ballooning for a
moment, I had a vibrant new set of stretchmarks and hated my body anew. The dark
comedy that I thought I was pregnant, got stretchmarks on my stomach, and then
found out it was caused by the thing that would potentially keep me from ever
having children was not lost on me.
2013: Year of Despair
For the first half of 2013 I did not have a job (although I
tried and failed at starting an art business) and was not in school. I felt
compelled to take some time off for self care, but what I found was that I
hardly knew where to start. Sure, I painted and spent time with people, but I
felt utterly worthless because despite my self-delusion that it was otherwise
my perceived worth was in my efficiency and/or in what I could do for
others. Add onto that the shame I felt
at being barren, and the deaths of several loved ones that year, and I was in a
very dark place. The one thing I can hold onto about this year, is that my
shame became so overwhelming that it could not be ignored. For the first time
in my life, I started hiding because of my shame. I would shirk from encounters
and opportunities because I just thought I would probably fail because I was so
suckie. It was a horrible place to be, but it made me name my demon. And it
continues to do so.
Later in the year (after countless tests on both of us and a
surgery on my lady parts), we also found out that there is something wrong on
Jasper’s end fertility-wise. As heartbreaking as this is and was, it was also a
little freeing. “It isn’t my fault” could be internalized completely… I would
never ever blame another human being for their infertility. The thought would
never occur to me. But as Jasper has been so kind to notice, I have no mercy
for me. Only wrath. So, when there was something wrong on Jasper’s side even he
said something like “I prayed that if there was something else it would be on
my end. Because I wouldn’t blame myself like you do.” (BLESS HIM).
This year, I have actively had to say to myself, if someone
else was going through this, how would I feel for them? What would I say to
them? And let myself feel those things and say those things to myself. It might
be sad that is how I have to do it, but I am just glad that I found a way to be
loving and generous to myself.
Bringing it together
Rambling is sort of my style, so I am sorry if I lost you
along the way. I have treated myself and my body like a pile of rubbish and the
dumpster to keep it in. Early on in my life I connected to the part about God
loving people and blessing them, but not about that part of Him where he knows
himself and his worth. Jesus took care of himself. Jesus sought alone time for
prayer and reflection. He had an inner sanctum of friends. He never said “I am
a piece of shit” (which is a favorite of my automatic inner dialogue). In fact
the Bible says “No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ cares for his church. And we are the members of his body” (somewhere in
Eph 5) and time and time again refers to his people and his church as his body
and talks about how Christ treats his body and cares for it. It talks about how
he cleans his body to that he can present it to himself without blemish.
Elsewhere it says (forgive
the mixed metaphor as here he is referring to his church and his body as his
children) “ “Which of you, if your son asks
for bread, will give him a stone? Or
if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If
you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to
those who ask him!” (Matthew 7). These are metaphors because we are
supposed to relate to them, but I could not be more far removed from having
this metaphor apply to me. Christ calls us his body and treats us well. HE
loves us and gives us what we need. I treat my soul and my body in a way that
should make any human shudder. Why do I
say that I want to emulate Christ, but when it comes to treating myself and my
body well I could not be further from his image?
So, I have started to change. And it feels good.
From this moment on, I want to love my body. And I don’t mean love like the
feeling. I mean love like the action, which is the only love worth talking
about. I want to chose to love myself and my body. I want to see those
stretchmarks on my stomach and still smile. I want no conditions of worth. God
had called me worthy. I am now worthy.
Right now I weigh about 215 pounds. This is hands down
the most I have ever weighed. And that is okay. I need to be okay with who I am
now, and choose to love it. I need to chose the body I have, from my awesome
boobs to my stomach stretchmarks, from my blue eyes to my spider veins, from my
curly hair to my cellulite. This is me. All of me. I have flaws inside and out.
I can love others flaws and all. It is time for me to love me flaws and all.
So, yes, I want to love every pound of my 215
pounds as they are now, but I want to start actively treating my body with love and respect. I want to eat well, because my body wants and needs nutrients... and when I need bread God doesn't give me a rock. I
want to work out, not because I need to fit some image of beauty, and not even
because I don’t want to get diabetes, but because I want to love my body like
Christ loves his. I need to love and respect my inner self, flaws and all, because
though Christ humbled himself and was treated like refuse he never lost his
inner self-worth, he never succumbed to shame. I wanna be more like him in
every way. And this year, I think that means learning to love and respect
myself in a new way.
