I have the choice

I started out writing this blog telling the story of how I came to realize that I have the choice.  Each and every day with each and everything that I think, say and do in life. It is easy to talk about this when my choice was to stop smoking and to stop drinking.  Those are healthy choices. It is embarrassing to talk about when I choose to play denial and procrastination.  Facing up to the choices I make in reference to my health and weight are those of shame. Last night I weighed myself.  193.2lb..  Almost hitting the 200lb. This kept me up all night. How could I let this happen? How did it happen? Why can't I control what I eat? Why did I have that icecream? I need to stop and I don't think I can. I don't think I can. I am crying out for help but don't know where to go! I know what I need to do, I just don't do it. My "diets" only last a couple of hours. How I wish to go to a rehab center for Over Eaters. A place where I can get help.   I want

And there lays the difference between before and now. Today I KNOW that the choice to be happy is mine.  No one else is responsible for how I feel. Not anyone or anything else is responsible for what I do or say or think. BTW...  It is not as simple as it sounds.  I have so many wishes that I believe if they were fulfilled all would be better. I cannot rely on those.  Simply because I have no control over such things.  I have no control whether or not someone likes me or not.  Or what it is that they want from life.  Or what they believe in. Oh..  how I wish! but back then... in the "before" place it was my belief that if they loved me they would do as I wished.  I then considered myself unlovable since that seldom happened!

Not until I hit bottom was I willing to look at reality in the face. The reality was that I alone had built the cage for me to go in.  The fact that I was a helpless child in the body of a grown woman.   My fantasy being that I wanted someone to be responsible for my happiness and well being.  When that was not happening my insanity was doing the impossible to try to change him.  NEVER wanting to just turn around and look at myself. I judged and I criticized.  HE was the one responsible for everything I did/didn't do.  HE was the selfish bastard.  HE was the immature alcoholic, irresponsible S.O.B. I was a saint.  I had given everything to him and HE was supposed to give back.  How could HE do this to me? Now I lay here like a rag doll.  Unwanted, old and without any purpose.

My biggest fear was that the rug would be pulled from underneath me.  I would fall into a bottomless pit. I did anything and everything to hang on.  I gave up my dignity and all self worth in order to "keep it" from falling. Guess what...  it did not work. Everything did "fall apart" and I was left naked in the middle of a cold room. For many days and nights, for many weeks I would cradle in a fetus position on a far corner hoping I would disappear. The pain I had been avoiding for so many years was here and I did not know how to deal with it.  I felt I could not breath. If I could just stay asleep...  Waking up was overwhelming.  I did not want to go thru another day of pain and grief. Someone had told me...  all you have to do is make myself take a shower, get dressed and make my bed.  The rest of the day was me trying to do some work. That went on and on...  Day in and day out.  They say pain is inevitable, suffering is by choice. It was not my ch

"The Cage" I blamed everyone but myself for being there.  I also wanted someone to rescue me from there.  The cage kept getting smaller and smaller and turning into a black box.  No longer being able to look to the outside. I firmly believed that I was not gonna move from that safe tiny black space.  Everything out there was a landmine.  I was no longer living life.  I was just existing.  And that is all I needed, I felt.

A never ending circle began to take place.  No control over shame and guilt brought in anger and frustration. Combining these feelings and not having any control over them built anxiety.  Stories of the past were either something I very much missed or tried to erase.  Sweep under the rug and hope no one ever lifts it. I hated to feel anything.  Any feeling took a life of it's own.  Many if not all decisions of life were then made to not feel that which was overwhelming to me.  A cage was slowly being built.