I get teased. A lot. Yes, I'm an adult. Yes, I can handle it. Yes, it's all of part of life . . . .everyone's life. But, sometimes, just every now and again mind you, I wish that people would know. . .could know what it's already like inside my head. The hostile environment I live in every single day. All self inflicted. . . .the suffering. The damage dealt. The pain. The constant nagging. All coming from inside my own body . . . . .is relentless!
I get teased because I "clean my house too much". People throw around the words "OCD" and "anal" like they're just words. First of, OCD is a real condition that has little to nothing to do with my need for my home to be spotless every second of the day. Do I have a "touch of it" in the fact that I'm COMPULSIVE about crumbs or dust or vacuum lines in my carpet? Sure. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who knows? Better, who cares? But, if you could just hear what I tell myself about those crumbs. That dust. Those "stupid lines" in my carpet. If you really knew the disgust I feel about myself when those things are present or lacking, you might not be so quick to "make fun" of me. You might give me some grace and treat me a bit more tenderly if you understood that I simply cannot allow this space, this refuge, this "sanctuary" to be anything less than perfect because I feel that it is such a reflection on who I am. What I am. At my essence. I'm a failure if it's not "perfect". I'm less than. I'm a loser. I'm lazy. I'm "not pulling my weight". I'm pathetic. I mean, who can't keep their fucking house clean? I feel dirty on the inside so maybe. . .just MAYBE if I can keep the space I live in spotless I'll feel a little bit less damaged. Survivors of sexual abuse generally feel dirty. Broken. Guilty. We feel like WE did something wrong or that something MUST have been wrong with us, because otherwise, it wouldn't have happened, right?
I get teased because I "count every calorie and I work out every single day". People simply can't understand why, after "all these years" of maintaining my weight loss, I still feel compelled to be "so hard on myself". I mean, come on, "Why can't you just come and hang out and have some drinks and eat some food and have fun?" Oh, if it were just that simple. If you could hear the tapes that are playing in my head. Over and over and over again. If you knew the shame I feel from eating a cookie or skipping leg day, you'd understand. If you could be inside my body when I'm starving and craving a chocolate cake and I KNOW that I can't eat it. . . or anything else for that matter. If you knew that words I used to describe myself. . .to myself about even WANTING a damn chocolate cake, you might just sit back and think "Wow, I'm glad I'm not her!" Or you might think, "Wow, she's really fucked up?" Who knows? If you knew how painful it is to log every bite of food that I put into my mouth and workout every single day and still gain 15 pounds over the last year and half and how I simply can't give anymore in a workout or eat any less or beat myself up anymore about it, you might back off a little bit with the "teasing". If you knew how badly I want to give up each and every day and either gain all my weight back or go the opposite way and go back to bingeing and purging "just to get there again" you might think twice about "pushing me" even harder. If you saw what I see when I look into the mirror, you might understand. Understand what it's like to see a fat cow staring back at you and KNOWING that there's just not one damn thing I can do to change it. Fix it. Make it alright. I've given it everything I have and it's still not enough. I've still failed. I'm still a loser (or a gainer, depending on how you look at it). I'm still pathetic. Oh, those tapes, they just circle around and around in my head. Playing on and on and on until there's nothing else I can even hear over the volume of them. Eat less. Move more. It's that simple. Until, it's not.
I get teased because I'm too sensitive and take everything to heart. People tell me to just "let it go, blow them off, why do you care what they think anyway"? Believe me, I WISH that I could. I wish that I didn't care. I wish that I didn't feel. so. much. I wish that my tender heart would just "toughen up" already. I wish that I could just walk away and not look back. Look back at all the failure. All the loss. All the pain. I wish that I could just "move forward" and make a vow that, "from this day forward I solemnly swear to not give two shits what you think about me". But, come on. I can't lie to myself. I could maybe lie to you (although, those of you who know me, know that even THAT'S a stretch. . .my "lying ability" is not one I've developed very well over the years) but one can NEVER lie to themselves. I know that I'll still feel the pin pricks of pain when I'm verbally attacked. When someone is disrespectful to me or my family. I will still hurt when I'm misunderstood which, by the way, seems to happen to me a disproportionately large amount of times. I'll still feel confused when someone assumed the worst in me, when I'm giving them the best. It'll never occur to me that you're lying to me, so I'm made to look foolish often.
See, here's the rub. . . .in all of this, I'm simply trying to be perfect. I want to be. I need to be. I don't know any other way TO be. In some futile attempt to be "good enough" to deserve your love, I've lost all sense of my self. I just know perfectionism. I only know this way. I can only feel like I've given it my all, if I've truly given it my ALL. If I'm left exhausted at the end of every day and if I feel tortured, beat up, hurt and empty, then I KNOW I've done all I can. If I leave no stone unturned, no corner undusted, no floor unattended to, no person felt neglected by me, I worked out until I want to cry or vomit or both, I didn't eat that chocolate cake and ate less than I really wanted, I do more than I did yesterday and will do more tomorrow than today, then I might be able to sleep tonight. For you see, my "being perfect" isn't really a choice for me. . . .it's a way of life. Hell, it IS my life. So, maybe, just perhaps, if you know someone like me, who knows, maybe you ARE like me, maybe, you could take a step back and really realize what it's REALLY like to be a perfectionist is-----you never really ARE. It's never enough. It's painful and long and strenuous and tedious and it's all for really damn good reasons but in the end, I'm always going to fall short.
So, maybe the lesson in all of this ranting it just this . . . . . .
Take a deep breath, it's just another day in Perfect!!!!
I get teased because I "clean my house too much". People throw around the words "OCD" and "anal" like they're just words. First of, OCD is a real condition that has little to nothing to do with my need for my home to be spotless every second of the day. Do I have a "touch of it" in the fact that I'm COMPULSIVE about crumbs or dust or vacuum lines in my carpet? Sure. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who knows? Better, who cares? But, if you could just hear what I tell myself about those crumbs. That dust. Those "stupid lines" in my carpet. If you really knew the disgust I feel about myself when those things are present or lacking, you might not be so quick to "make fun" of me. You might give me some grace and treat me a bit more tenderly if you understood that I simply cannot allow this space, this refuge, this "sanctuary" to be anything less than perfect because I feel that it is such a reflection on who I am. What I am. At my essence. I'm a failure if it's not "perfect". I'm less than. I'm a loser. I'm lazy. I'm "not pulling my weight". I'm pathetic. I mean, who can't keep their fucking house clean? I feel dirty on the inside so maybe. . .just MAYBE if I can keep the space I live in spotless I'll feel a little bit less damaged. Survivors of sexual abuse generally feel dirty. Broken. Guilty. We feel like WE did something wrong or that something MUST have been wrong with us, because otherwise, it wouldn't have happened, right?
I get teased because I "count every calorie and I work out every single day". People simply can't understand why, after "all these years" of maintaining my weight loss, I still feel compelled to be "so hard on myself". I mean, come on, "Why can't you just come and hang out and have some drinks and eat some food and have fun?" Oh, if it were just that simple. If you could hear the tapes that are playing in my head. Over and over and over again. If you knew the shame I feel from eating a cookie or skipping leg day, you'd understand. If you could be inside my body when I'm starving and craving a chocolate cake and I KNOW that I can't eat it. . . or anything else for that matter. If you knew that words I used to describe myself. . .to myself about even WANTING a damn chocolate cake, you might just sit back and think "Wow, I'm glad I'm not her!" Or you might think, "Wow, she's really fucked up?" Who knows? If you knew how painful it is to log every bite of food that I put into my mouth and workout every single day and still gain 15 pounds over the last year and half and how I simply can't give anymore in a workout or eat any less or beat myself up anymore about it, you might back off a little bit with the "teasing". If you knew how badly I want to give up each and every day and either gain all my weight back or go the opposite way and go back to bingeing and purging "just to get there again" you might think twice about "pushing me" even harder. If you saw what I see when I look into the mirror, you might understand. Understand what it's like to see a fat cow staring back at you and KNOWING that there's just not one damn thing I can do to change it. Fix it. Make it alright. I've given it everything I have and it's still not enough. I've still failed. I'm still a loser (or a gainer, depending on how you look at it). I'm still pathetic. Oh, those tapes, they just circle around and around in my head. Playing on and on and on until there's nothing else I can even hear over the volume of them. Eat less. Move more. It's that simple. Until, it's not.
I get teased because I'm too sensitive and take everything to heart. People tell me to just "let it go, blow them off, why do you care what they think anyway"? Believe me, I WISH that I could. I wish that I didn't care. I wish that I didn't feel. so. much. I wish that my tender heart would just "toughen up" already. I wish that I could just walk away and not look back. Look back at all the failure. All the loss. All the pain. I wish that I could just "move forward" and make a vow that, "from this day forward I solemnly swear to not give two shits what you think about me". But, come on. I can't lie to myself. I could maybe lie to you (although, those of you who know me, know that even THAT'S a stretch. . .my "lying ability" is not one I've developed very well over the years) but one can NEVER lie to themselves. I know that I'll still feel the pin pricks of pain when I'm verbally attacked. When someone is disrespectful to me or my family. I will still hurt when I'm misunderstood which, by the way, seems to happen to me a disproportionately large amount of times. I'll still feel confused when someone assumed the worst in me, when I'm giving them the best. It'll never occur to me that you're lying to me, so I'm made to look foolish often.
See, here's the rub. . . .in all of this, I'm simply trying to be perfect. I want to be. I need to be. I don't know any other way TO be. In some futile attempt to be "good enough" to deserve your love, I've lost all sense of my self. I just know perfectionism. I only know this way. I can only feel like I've given it my all, if I've truly given it my ALL. If I'm left exhausted at the end of every day and if I feel tortured, beat up, hurt and empty, then I KNOW I've done all I can. If I leave no stone unturned, no corner undusted, no floor unattended to, no person felt neglected by me, I worked out until I want to cry or vomit or both, I didn't eat that chocolate cake and ate less than I really wanted, I do more than I did yesterday and will do more tomorrow than today, then I might be able to sleep tonight. For you see, my "being perfect" isn't really a choice for me. . . .it's a way of life. Hell, it IS my life. So, maybe, just perhaps, if you know someone like me, who knows, maybe you ARE like me, maybe, you could take a step back and really realize what it's REALLY like to be a perfectionist is-----you never really ARE. It's never enough. It's painful and long and strenuous and tedious and it's all for really damn good reasons but in the end, I'm always going to fall short.
So, maybe the lesson in all of this ranting it just this . . . . . .
Take a deep breath, it's just another day in Perfect!!!!
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