a warped view

Last night we went to an outing that required us to dress up 1950s style. As always I left everything to last minute but I managed to throw together a pretty decent ensemble. During the night I posted the following on social media  "dress up parties are much funner when you aren't as fat #justsaying #confessionsofaformerfatgirl" I posted this because I realised how much easier it had been for me now that I am a size 12/14 instead of a size 20 to find something to wear and how much more comfortable I felt being "in costume". Somebody took exception claiming that I should re-word my statement as some of our mutual friends may find it offensive and upsetting. Hogwash I say. Anyone who has been as big as I have, or bigger, knows exactly what I am talking about.  When you are any size bigger than a 16 wearing any clothes can be hard, let alone dress ups. While it is getting easier, with more plus size fashion labels available, being overweight and shopping for clothe...

I will never toe the line, fall in line or stay in line. I do not follow the crowd, the beaten path, go by the book, with the flow, roll over or play the game. I will make waves, rock the boat, misbehave, challenge, contradict, reject, act up, offend, transgress. I will be out of line, out of order, go astray, get into mischief, make trouble and do it with joy. I am passionate, intense and zealous, never apathetic or indifferent. I will get it wrong and I will make mistakes and I'll admit when I do (usually).This is who I am. I don't hide it. Don't expect me to change it. It's taken me a lifetime to become comfortable enough to be proud of who I am. So don't take advantage of my passion when it suits you and then try to change me when it doesn't. That's a good way to lose my respect. This is me. Deal with it.

Warning: this post is a post written for me. To get my feelings out of my head where they go around and around. There is no obligation to read it. The voice inside me has always told me that I have to be someone. I have to achieve something amazing. Change the world. Affect people's lives. Not just this. This living. I think it was created by my belief that I am no one. By being told when I was younger that I could "be someone". That I had so much potential. But never really believing it. I have a constant internal conflict between the two extremes. Seeing all my old school friends on facebook, seeing them graduate uni, travel, have awesome careers, makes it so much harder. It makes me feel like I'm a failure. None of them have jobs that create world peace or cure cancer (as far as I'm aware), but they are more somebody than me. I know I shouldn't compare myself to others. I know each life stands alone, with its own misery and happiness. It's own difficult...

I've noticed that when I stop trying to push my emotions away, when I am more conscious of feeling my feelings, I dream more. Not just more, almost constantly. Vivid, complicated, intense dreams. I can't help but feel that the two things are related.  By being more in tune with my feelings am I allowing my sub conscious more freedom? Am I allowing my inner voice to speak rather than forcing it to be silent? I'm not a huge one for dream interpretation, my dreams are usually inspired by conversations I've had or something I've been watching. I don't necessarily think there are hidden messages in my dreams, I'm more interested in the act of dreaming itself.  I've always had a lot of dreams. They are always very detailed and, as long as I think about them as soon as I wake up, I'm easily able to remember them. However for most of this year I've either not dreamt or been completely unable to recall any dreams at all. The human brain is a fascinating t...

Working with my psych has made me realise that one of the biggest mistakes I make is invalidating my own feelings by explaining away other people's bad behaviour. I've spent the majority of my life rationalising, its something that I think I learned from my mother. It's something that used to make me angry at my mother. She is a big believer in seeing both sides of the story, and consequently so am I. Seeing both sides of the story is not the issue though, I still think that's a great ability to have. The problem comes when you are so good at seeing the other persons side of the story that the feelings they caused with their actions become secondary, or get lost completely.  I realised today that I now do it to my daughter and I want to stop. When she comes to me to tell me about something that has happened with her friends she doesn't want me to be objective, she wants me to soothe her hurt feelings. She doesn't need help seeing why the other person did what th...

So I was a bit anxious about seeing a psychologist. I've done it before in the past and the experiences were mediocre at best. I didn't find them particularly helpful in the long term though they did probably provide some short term benefit. I am always worried that I won't like the psychologist. That I won't feel comfortable with them and I will spend the whole time wishing I could leave. I am, to my own detriment, sometimes too quick to judge people. Although I am most often proved right about my gut feelings I do occasionally get it wrong and then have to eat some humble pie while trying to apologise for getting it so wrong. When I first saw the woman who would be my psych my anxiety levels increased. She had a hard edged look about her, sharp and harsh. Not soft and caring and anything at all like the sort of person I wanted to spill my inner secrets to. Luckily, in this case, I was wrong. Once we got into the session I could see she was very good at her job and...

So a lot has been happening in my world. I've started taking my anti-depressants again and I've started seeing a psych. Things (like getting out if bed and forming coherent sentences) were getting hard and there was no chance of me accomplishing anything harder (like laundry, remembering to eat or what my name was). There is no shame in getting help, I'm just super stubborn and even avoid taking panadol or using band aids whenever possible.  I also decided that I needed to make a concerted effort to start reading again. So I started reading a book I received as a present from one of the loveliest people I know. It's called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I love it. It's all about Gretchen's quest to become happier and what she did to achieve it. She wasn't particularly unhappy to start with, she just felt she could be happier, more engaged in her own life and kinder to herself and the people she loved. She didn't want her life to just whiz by...