I am What I am

This is a song from La Cage Aux Folles - film version: The Birdcage - and it's sung by a man who lives as a woman, but it's a song that I've heard John Barrowman sing a few times now and it's become a bit of a show theme tune for him. It's on his latest cd and best heard loud - sing heartly to it. Anyway these are the words, great for when you're having a good day. You can't beat a good show tune sometimes:


I Am What I Am

I am what I am, I am my own special creation
So come take a look, give me the hook or the ovation
It's my world that I want to have a little pride in
My world and it's not a place I have to hide in
Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, hey world
I am what I am

I am what I am, I don't want praise I don't want pity
I bang my own drum, some think it's noise I think it's pretty
And so what if I love each feather and each spangle
Why not try to see things from a different angle
Your life is a sham 'til you can shout out loud
I am what I am

I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses
I deal my own deck sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces
There's one life and there's no return and no deposit
One life so it's time to open up your closet
Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, hey world
I am what I am

(written by Jerry Herman)

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I blame my childhood of BBC2 Saturday afternoon matinees of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and the such like :) LOL, all those Buzby Berkeley numbers etc. Perhaps that's why I love glitter and sparkle... LOL. Interestingly it was covered by Gloria Gaynor but the lyrics were changed to "every sparkle and every bangle" rather than feathers and spangles - rather spanglist I think :) There used to be sweets in the UK called spangles I used to love the cola flavour... Showing my age now LOL

A weight coming off

For the last 10 years or so, I've had a weight problem. I did lose 50lbs about 6 years ago, but almost as soon as the scales showed the 50lbs loss, my weight started to go back, plus a few more stone for good measure. Over the next years I tried to lose some weight again, would get so far and then it would creep back and I couldn't understand why. Then I had a lightbulb moment from my past.

I was quite gangly as a child and young adult, but I was a late developer, and as I entered my 20s-30s, I got to be noticed - more than I could handle. My natural friendliness was mistaken for other intentions, and I was hurt. My weight crept up and people stopped noticing me and I felt safe. It came to me that my weight had become my coat, held tight, as protection against those unwanted remarks and attention, and that as people started to notice the losses, I felt too far out of comfort. A few years ago, I joined a weight management group but was discharged from it because my losses were discouraging others, but without the support and help it had given me, the emptiness came back and I ate to fill that hole my soul has. It was then that I realised I needed counselling about the abuse I suffered as a child and a young adult, as the hurt had never been addressed and it was that that possibly was driving my need not to be noticed by people other than my husband - luckily he loves me big or small. Over the recent years slowly I have come to love myself and be happy with me, learning what looks good on me and how to use my height to minimise knowledge of my actual size but my weight is potentially a health problem as I get older.

So, I'm going to try again but I have some strategies. 1. I'm going to blog the losses periodically to confront my "public" noticing problems, 2. I've found a style of clothes that I can use as my coat, but which express my arty side - its German name is Lagenlook, meaning layered (example above), but the clothes are worn as you want, big or fluidy - one size fits all. So I can lose my weight and learn more about the new me, regardless of others' gaze - well that's the theory.

At the start of this week I was 17st 4 (242 lb), and today I was 17st 1.5. I'm not dieting as such, just making more healthier choices on foods - swapping crisps for apples etc. I know that weight is an up and down thing from day-to-day, but I'm aiming for down over time. One rule - don't ask me how I'm doing - I'll tell you - as asking = attention in my faulty thinking and for the moment I'm letting go of only so much of my past coping strategies, but this is a start and one step can still make a journey happen.

So...

What I said was that I blame You: I didn’t say that it was your Fault

This is a poem I wrote in 2005 when I was receiving counselling from a women's group for abuse and bullying that I had received as a child and again as a young adult. The "yous" are different people that were in my life, but each added their actions to the equation. I've revised the poem a little, but it is very honest and is now my attempt at explaining my inner critic in words and how I used to feel. My anger is gone as I have been able to let go of the guilt I felt for my role in keeping the situations going. I now realise that parts of my past were not my fault, but I own that I kept the punishment of me going internally, when I should have challenged my inner critic's so called "evidence" of worthlessness and guilt. I'm not that person anymore. I am still haunted by parts of my past, but I am learning to forgive and let go.



What I said was that I blame You: I didn’t say that it was your Fault

You made me feel stupid when I wasn’t,
You took advantage when I was naïve.
You didn’t see when I was hurt.
You made me eat lies, and feel worse about myself.
The problem is that you stopped.
But I added to it.

I took the flawed evidence,
Drank in your poison
And found me wanting, found myself guilty;
Tried in the absence of my real self -
And I knew the words that really hurt
And where, in the dark, to truly twist the knife.

So now I’m the problem,
Not you.

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Not a happy poem, but a recognition of my situation then and a resolution to move on from the hurt that I had. I've included it to show truth and honesty, and as a contrast or measure of how far I have come from there. I try not to blame or apportion fault now, but try to look at what people say now and measure it against my truth. Guilt still sometimes raises its ugly head, but I know that those things were in the past and that now that I know better, I aim to do better. That person who was me is now a foreign land, with border guards and high walls to keep it from sabotaging the newer me, the real me, again. Occasionally the guards fail and my past interrupts my present, but I look at it, look at the truth and then look away, looking back at the present and the me that I have now. That's all I can do. I've "served" my time, suffered the punishment, now I move forward as best as I can and remember to be human, and not so hard on myself.

Messages from the Past

I thought that I would share with you a piece of art that I did a few years ago (about 2003, I think). It came out of a "Transactional Analysis" therapy session with a counsellor and reflects the messages that I felt I was told as a child (directly or indirectly), the challenges that I was starting to make of those messages and how I was trying to move on from those messages. (Wiki has a detailed explanation of TA if you want to know what the thinking is behind this behavioural theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis).

Just to explain this mixed media piece, I put the messages behind tracing paper to show how they can be obscured, but the meaning still seen, and the silver foil represents the silver lining that challenging brings when at the time I felt that I couldn't cope for the weight and pressure of the messages. The paper for the top half (the replacement messages) has threads in it representing the threads of new ideas moving together to form the replacement messages. I actually made two of this piece, one of which I gave to the counsellor as she was leaving the profession to thank her for being my guide, as I then started to see this as a journey that I had to make but on which I would be guided sometimes on part of the way.

By sharing this, I'm actually challenging my controlling side as that part usually keeps such personal expressions (as art is) to itself, for fear of rejection or others claiming things as their own. But again I choose to let go, and see where this opportunity takes me...

A Jewel Shining Through

I thought I would google my blogging name just for fun and found it in a poem, which is a little spooky as it was a phrase that just came into my brain one day, out of the blue. Very spooky. The poem was written by L M Montgomery who also wrote Anne of Green Gables amongst other things...

THE POET'S THOUGHT

IT came to him in rainbow dreams,

Blent with the wisdom of the sages,

Of spirit and of passion born;

In words as lucent as the morn

He prisoned it, and now it gleams

A jewel shining through the ages.
© An L.M. Montgomery Resource Page and TickledOrange.com

I liked my blog name as it reflected that despite depression there was still something worthwhile about me - the jewel shining through despite the knocks etc. Having now found this, my blog name seems very appropriate, at least I think...

Curious Photo

Curious Photo
Originally uploaded by George Eastman House

Sometimes don't you just have one of those days :)

Priceless, not worthless

I was once told that the human body had a scrap value of about 50p, with all its bits of precious metals and elements (a bit more if you have gold teeth), but there were times when I wouldn’t have paid someone else to take me away – my self-estimation was so low. My problem was that because I couldn’t work out my self-worth, I thought that I was worthless. However, just because I can’t put a “price” on me, that makes me priceless, not worthless. Now I still have no price, but I have a better idea of my value.

The Moment I Let Go

Just been chatting on a forum about trust, but I'll share this with you:

Songs, sayings, words and lyrics have come to mean a lot to me. I always used to analyse what people said to me, so it's a bit of a habit. Anyway, on my journey, certain songs/words have come into my consciousness and formed ideas or lessons that I try to then use. One such song is "Thank U" by Alanis Morissette and in particular her lyric: "the moment I let go of it was the moment I got more than I could handle, the moment I jumped off of it was the moment I touched down"

I've always loved the song, but more recently started thinking about those lines. It made me think of those team building tasks where you have to put your trust in someone else catching you if you just fall back. Never had to do that, and probably it might still be a bit too far for me yet, but it got me thinking. And I let go. I let my intuition in. I said "yes" or "possibly" rather "no" straight away and, yes I did get "more than I could handle" initially, but by loosening my controlling nature, I began to feel freedom. The lyric I take to mean that rather than me seeking to control everything, the freedom comes in letting go (metaphorically) and then you will be supported or will be able to see more clearly what it is you really want.

Earlier this year, I flew to Belfast. Now I hate flying - I get motion sickness - but it was an opportunity to meet people that I only knew as pen friends. Going to Belfast was really scary, but I got to meet some fantastic friends, feeling their love and support, and the concert I went to see was fantastic. It was a once-in-a-lifetime time and I learnt a lot. Now I wouldn't go bungee-jumping but I have found by "letting go" sometimes, I do get much more out and feel more grounded afterwards. And so I have let go in writing this, as I could have just kept it to myself. It remains to be seen if I get more than I can handle or if I gently touch down.

If I'm so OK, why don't I feel it?

I suffered from depression for nearly 10 years, really suffered. Most things were too hard. Hours became days, days ran into weeks and then years had gone by. I received counselling but my counsellors moved on as their job titles changed, and I was left feeling that I was “too hard” to “solve”, that no one wanted to get to the crux of the matter, as I felt that I couldn’t. What I didn’t realise was that that wasn’t their job but no one really explained that, or if they did, I wasn’t well enough to take it in.

I came to the end of my “allocation” of help and yet only little things had changed. I found that “loss” was a big problem for me – as counsellors came and went, just as I seem to be making progress… typical. But I have been able to make progress on my own and now I see myself as recovering, starting to walk back along the road, but not yet near my destination, wherever that’s supposed to be. So keep the faith and it will come…