stuck

so i know the past few years feel like i am not really moving forward in my life. I feel like i am stuck in the mud. the mud continues to pull me down under no matter how much i am attempting to get out. the mud is self doubt, self hate, negativity, and pain. how can you get out of the mud if you have awful thoughts running through your mind the minute you wake up in the morning, until you put your head on the pillow at night? i’ve always been extremely hard on myself. i grew up  in a family where your appearance equals happiness. my family is very close and very loving, however, generation to generation we have always had the underlying belief that skinny is beautiful. my parents had me a lot later in life after they both had children and failed marriages. so my closest in age sibling is 16 years older than me. i obviously was the baby of the family. both of my mom’s daughters were in the miss america pageants a year apart. they are both very talented and very beautiful. because we have different fathers, we are not built the same and i do not look like them. i was always compared to them by everyone. i always felt like the ugly duckling of the family. at the very young age of 14, i was throwing up my meals. i would stay in the bathroom after dinner for hours trying to get it out. my family HAD to of known something was going on, but instead it was overlooked. my mother is a very beautiful woman as well. very tiny and petite. she was always compared to her twin sister and she always was trying to lose weight. i know that she has her own unhealthy way of viewing what is important and beauty, so i hate to blame my mother in all of this because i know she loves me and i know her intentions were not ill intended and she will never fully understand the pain many of her comments and actions have caused me and how it has effected my adult years. any time i have tried to have the discussion with her, it never goes great. she is in complete denial. in junior high i was a cheerleader and she would tell me i would be happier if i would lose a few pounds. she would tell me she would buy me something if i would lose 5 pounds. she would start hiding the treats and the butter. she will never admit to doing that, but she absolutely did it. she would look at my outfit up and down to see if my pants were too tight and just by her reaction to how i looked, would dictate whether my night was good or bad. i was counting calories, overeating treats when i was at my friends houses, and purging the minute i could find the right time, obsessing that my friends were skinnier than i was, comparing myself to everyone in sight. as i got older and when i moved out of the house, i was partying a lot with my friends and roommates and ended losing a lot of weight. at that time, i thought i was happy with myself, but i obviously wasn’t, but again my weight dictated whether i thought i was happy or not. after getting married, i stayed thin but when i look back, i didn’t consider myself thin. i was always very critical of myself. loving who i was never really happened, but it wasn’t something that was on my mind much. i mean it didn’t help that my husband was having affairs, but i always got compliments that i looked beautiful from my family, so i guess that means i was okay right?

well moving on to now. since the divorce and my illness, i’ve put on probably 20-30 pounds. i don’t even know how to say this without wanting to die. to admit out loud where i am is so humiliating. so i have never been able to really full ever heal. i’ve either used bulimia to feel better, drugs, or men. now the past few weeks loving who i am is on my mind. i’ve told myself if i lose the weight, i will love me for sure. but how can i lose the weight if i am so negative and down on myself? because obviously nothing has worked so far. i’ve tried a lot of things to lose weight, going to the gym, paying for food to be brought in that are low in calories and fat content, diets, etc.. nothing is working. i know that methadone doesn’t help but i’ve been coming down on my dose but it’s not helping. but how can i love myself NOW.. TODAY? how can i get out of the mud that is so thick? no one will ever love me, if i don’t love me. i can’t even stand to see myself in ANY pictures. and it makes it so hard to be around my family because the weight thing is still JUST AS IMPORTANT as it has always been. so it makes me not want to be around them because i feel so judged by them. i know they feel pity for me. i try to remember how i’ve overcome so much. i’ve gotten myself clean, i’ve gone through a painful divorce, i’ve overcome my health problems, i have been able to grow back my full head of hair, and i am a good mother. but non of that matters if i am not at the size i want to be. how can i change this way of thinking? yes, people say affirmations, and just do it, just LOVE YOURSELF, it’s as easy as that. but this is years and years of thinking. i don’t know how to change it. i want my kids to see me love who i am for once. i want to love me for me, and more than anything i want to find a man to love me for me. how can i get out of this freaking dark heavy mud that i have been stuck in for so long?

xoxo