A Weight Lifted Update 8

Well, it's been a while, I know, my weight has been up and down over the last few weeks with the problems with my arm. Just before Christmas I had joint pains in my right elbow - both tennis and golfer's elbow - meaning problems with my tendons on both sides of my right elbow joint. I managed to get treatment for the lefthand side of the joint but then the righthand side flared up again, and the doctor at our surgery that specialises in joint injections has been on holidays for January. Anyway, Wednesday, I should be able to have another injection (gee, I hate needles, but the pain of the joint is worse).

Now my strategy for pain used to be to overeat, to take the hurt away and replace it with fullness, but then I would feel guilty and eat to take the guilt away, etc, etc. I managed to curb some of that behaviour and managed to keep my weight gain below 17st, and now the weight is being lost again. Today I've managed to get back to the lowest weight I was before my pain problems and now I have lost a total of 8.5lbs so far, cue the fireworks again...

So weight in the beginning (Nov 2008) 17st 4
Weight today: 16st 9.5
Weight lost: 8.5 lb

It's about 11 weeks till my trip to Dublin, so I hoping to have lost a stone in total by then, so still working towards that :)

I think that works out as a sleeve rolled up on my "coat", don't you? xx

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.