Dismantling Myths
Jan. 10th, 2005 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deoridheI have spent the last year dismantling a myth, and I'm finally beginning to see some progress.
I call it a myth because it is something that is not based on literal truth but which has the power to change my behavior. I consider myths the truths that are not literal, or are beyond literal, which inform and alter my life. This is a particularly personal myth, and one that has made my life more difficult for the last decade, at least, and possibly the last decade and a half.
Chocolate (and sugar) make me happy.
I picked up this myth between the ages of eight and twelve. Those of you who know me now would not have recognized me before; I was a skinny, active child with incredibly strong and present emotions. I ran everywhere, loved being around people, and once an emotion was experienced it was gone again. I did not hold grudges and affection came easily to me. I was particularly affectionate toward the sad, and had several people I would adopt and try to be friends with simply because they seemed sad or lonely. I was an endless fount of energy.
When I was eight, my parents separated, and every other weekend I went to my father's. He was usually at work or not around. I spent my allowance on candy from the seven eleven in the parking lot of his apartment complex, and after a while - when I ran out of allowance - I started to steal from my father. He either never noticed or never cared. When my father was around, we'd make throw-ins, which were pasta dishes made with cheese and whatever else we could find in the kitchen. The neighborhood he lived in had no playgrounds and no other children. I spent my weekends watching television and eating and stopped caring what my body or clothing looked like.
When I was eleven or twelve, my father married his girlfriend. At the time, I loved her. I got drunk on champaign because I didn't realize it was alcohol and they wouldn't bring me any soda. At some point soon after, she told me I could no longer wrap my father around my little finger.
I spent every other weekend eating and watching television. I started timing when I slept and was awake to when as few people as possible would be around. I could never tell if I would be treated well or abused, so I was careful. I developed a fear of entering a room with people in it, and became good at placing people in the house so I wouldn't walk in on them when I wasn't on guard. One night, while drunk, my stepmother woke me up to scream obscenities at me, then hit my brother. People didn't speak to me very much, and listened to me even less. The first summer I spent at my father's house, I came back silent, depressed, and twenty five pounds heavier. My mom tells me it took me months to get me to offer up topics of conversation or even answer questions. I had tuned out of the world.
I descended into a fantasy world of adventures - almost always Cinderella-esque. I learned to fake being interested and to smile when I didn't want to. I learned how to leave a room so no one would notice. My best friend of the time came with me one weekend, but my father lost his temper and started screaming and slamming things because he was hungry, and she never came back. I got used to being alone every other weekend, and being unable to join anything because I had to go there. I got used to not existing while I was there. I began to wonder if, after long enough, I would disappear. My stepmother, angry because I didn't want to wear pants, fitted me out in shorts and layered polo tops in the preppy style. I was told I was fat and that bicycle gears could be greased with my hair (most likely true, in retrospect).
I was over identified with my mother and told I was greedy, and bitchy, and manipulative like her. I picked a best friend who would try to seduce any boy who showed interest in me, up to an including kissing or having sex with many of them. I became obsessed with random, empty people. In the afternoon, I would go home and sit around and eat. My only exercise was walking home after I got into a fight on the bus after school and almost attacked a boy in my school. My mom put me into counseling, and tried me in a diet program (weekly exercise and food advice), but I would go to my father's every other weekend and eat and eat and eat.
Sometimes I think I ate to make myself bigger so that people would have to notice me. Sometimes I think I ate because I had nothing else to do. Sometimes I think I ate because of the full feeling it would give me. Ultimately, the original reasons are really unimportant; I walked away from that decade with two myths: 1) I don't really exist and 2) chocolate (and sugar) make me happy.
The first myth I tackled first. Quite frankly, it's the more damaging of the two from a universal point of view. After all, it doesn't much matter whether chocolate makes me happy or not if I don't really exist. The second has more recently become an issue because, you see, I'm tired of being fat. In order to stop being fat I have to build in new myths that will motivate me to exercise and eat healthy food, and dismantle old myths that keep me sedentary and eating unhealthy food.
I'm finally seeing progress, after two years of noting how food made me feel and what I felt after eating different things. I now know that a little chocolate tastes good, but more than a little starts to make me fill ill and a lot makes me feel very ill. I know that I tend to reach and stuff and not pay attention to what I'm eating. I know that I go to the kitchen when I'm bored, even if I'm not hungary, and that if I don't eat I start to feel sick. I know that I need variety in my food, or I don't want to eat it, and that if I eat some sweets I want to eat more, but if I stop eating them I start to want to eat them less. I know that exercise makes me bouncy and helps me sleep better as long as it's several hours before bed. I know that stretching makes me feel good, and that my posture is decent but I need more torso strength to have it be really good.
It's an oddly empowering thing, dismantling myths. I'm rather enjoying it.
I call it a myth because it is something that is not based on literal truth but which has the power to change my behavior. I consider myths the truths that are not literal, or are beyond literal, which inform and alter my life. This is a particularly personal myth, and one that has made my life more difficult for the last decade, at least, and possibly the last decade and a half.
Chocolate (and sugar) make me happy.
I picked up this myth between the ages of eight and twelve. Those of you who know me now would not have recognized me before; I was a skinny, active child with incredibly strong and present emotions. I ran everywhere, loved being around people, and once an emotion was experienced it was gone again. I did not hold grudges and affection came easily to me. I was particularly affectionate toward the sad, and had several people I would adopt and try to be friends with simply because they seemed sad or lonely. I was an endless fount of energy.
When I was eight, my parents separated, and every other weekend I went to my father's. He was usually at work or not around. I spent my allowance on candy from the seven eleven in the parking lot of his apartment complex, and after a while - when I ran out of allowance - I started to steal from my father. He either never noticed or never cared. When my father was around, we'd make throw-ins, which were pasta dishes made with cheese and whatever else we could find in the kitchen. The neighborhood he lived in had no playgrounds and no other children. I spent my weekends watching television and eating and stopped caring what my body or clothing looked like.
When I was eleven or twelve, my father married his girlfriend. At the time, I loved her. I got drunk on champaign because I didn't realize it was alcohol and they wouldn't bring me any soda. At some point soon after, she told me I could no longer wrap my father around my little finger.
I spent every other weekend eating and watching television. I started timing when I slept and was awake to when as few people as possible would be around. I could never tell if I would be treated well or abused, so I was careful. I developed a fear of entering a room with people in it, and became good at placing people in the house so I wouldn't walk in on them when I wasn't on guard. One night, while drunk, my stepmother woke me up to scream obscenities at me, then hit my brother. People didn't speak to me very much, and listened to me even less. The first summer I spent at my father's house, I came back silent, depressed, and twenty five pounds heavier. My mom tells me it took me months to get me to offer up topics of conversation or even answer questions. I had tuned out of the world.
I descended into a fantasy world of adventures - almost always Cinderella-esque. I learned to fake being interested and to smile when I didn't want to. I learned how to leave a room so no one would notice. My best friend of the time came with me one weekend, but my father lost his temper and started screaming and slamming things because he was hungry, and she never came back. I got used to being alone every other weekend, and being unable to join anything because I had to go there. I got used to not existing while I was there. I began to wonder if, after long enough, I would disappear. My stepmother, angry because I didn't want to wear pants, fitted me out in shorts and layered polo tops in the preppy style. I was told I was fat and that bicycle gears could be greased with my hair (most likely true, in retrospect).
I was over identified with my mother and told I was greedy, and bitchy, and manipulative like her. I picked a best friend who would try to seduce any boy who showed interest in me, up to an including kissing or having sex with many of them. I became obsessed with random, empty people. In the afternoon, I would go home and sit around and eat. My only exercise was walking home after I got into a fight on the bus after school and almost attacked a boy in my school. My mom put me into counseling, and tried me in a diet program (weekly exercise and food advice), but I would go to my father's every other weekend and eat and eat and eat.
Sometimes I think I ate to make myself bigger so that people would have to notice me. Sometimes I think I ate because I had nothing else to do. Sometimes I think I ate because of the full feeling it would give me. Ultimately, the original reasons are really unimportant; I walked away from that decade with two myths: 1) I don't really exist and 2) chocolate (and sugar) make me happy.
The first myth I tackled first. Quite frankly, it's the more damaging of the two from a universal point of view. After all, it doesn't much matter whether chocolate makes me happy or not if I don't really exist. The second has more recently become an issue because, you see, I'm tired of being fat. In order to stop being fat I have to build in new myths that will motivate me to exercise and eat healthy food, and dismantle old myths that keep me sedentary and eating unhealthy food.
I'm finally seeing progress, after two years of noting how food made me feel and what I felt after eating different things. I now know that a little chocolate tastes good, but more than a little starts to make me fill ill and a lot makes me feel very ill. I know that I tend to reach and stuff and not pay attention to what I'm eating. I know that I go to the kitchen when I'm bored, even if I'm not hungary, and that if I don't eat I start to feel sick. I know that I need variety in my food, or I don't want to eat it, and that if I eat some sweets I want to eat more, but if I stop eating them I start to want to eat them less. I know that exercise makes me bouncy and helps me sleep better as long as it's several hours before bed. I know that stretching makes me feel good, and that my posture is decent but I need more torso strength to have it be really good.
It's an oddly empowering thing, dismantling myths. I'm rather enjoying it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 12:59 am (UTC)And while you're much better about that now, I've found you, and at it's never too late to glomp you (electronically, granted), and tell you I care about you. *GLOMP* I care about you. You and all my freaky friends in Maryland. ^_^
And remember, it's thanks to you that we all ended up getting to know each other in the first place. At AUSA, I asked for the picture of you guys in your Weiss costumes, and it was you who insisted that you then get a picture of me as Sanzo. It's all your fault, and I thank you for it. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:28 am (UTC)I'm so glad I took that picture of you. ^_^ Better con-friends have never been made.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 01:53 am (UTC)And I had no doubts that you got dealt a good share of bad cards, so I am not surprised or anything, but actually reading about it has put me in brooding mood.
Thanks. I guess. Or just thanks, definitely. I should do some thinking anyway.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:48 am (UTC)*waves vaguely in direction of your post*
About bad habits and not dealing with things and ways of not dealing with things and such. I have those recurrent times where I Don't Care About Things and have a lot of troubleshooting to do afterwards, like inventing new ways of being able to pay the rent, nursing drifting-away friendships back to live, reacquainting with daylight and all that, and I just had a major one of those in December again. And I decided that I am tired of that routine, but I just missed an opportunity to see someone about it, because I'm back on the don't-care side of things by now. And that sucks and just won't do. So, as much as I don't like to, brooding is really in order to make me sufficiently unhappy to act again.
That's it, roughly. I'm afraid I can't express such things as well as you did in your post, but I guess you have a idea how it works.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:17 pm (UTC)Maybe you just need more time alone to regenerate than you get? Sounds like your family is kinda OMGINMIEFACE and you're not so much.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:48 pm (UTC)Sorry for your hermit crab, sweetie.
Nah, I got rid of my family just fine, so I don't have to put up with them (if we disregard the occasional bizarro telephone clash, but we can file that away under minor nuisances).
Also, I get lots and lots of time alone, and though it's what I soon feel I need urgently whenever I am exposed to people, the problem is more my lack of skill in actually making alone-time regenerating. They way I manage it, it is just time passsing without major nuisances and it even becomes time spent badly once I sense The Things I Am Supposed To Deal With, But Don't piling up on the horizon.
Maybe I must! *kicks self* learn! *kicks self* to be nicer! *kicks self* to myself! *kicks self*, or something? :D
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 04:16 pm (UTC)THat's a rough balance, though. I find kicking myself in the ass helps, but YMMV.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 05:34 pm (UTC)When I tell myself in little words what I am trying to achieve with the asskicking, it helps better.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:32 am (UTC)I've got the lazy thing, too, but a lot of mine stems from wanting to avoid reality (see above ^_^). I find fantasy so much nicer, so it's taken some real effort for me to be in touch with reality.
If you want advice on how to start - I started paying attention to when I ate and why I ate first. No lists or anything (that makes me feel pressured, so I run away, which is counter productive), just noticing. So, you could start noticing when you don't do things and why, and how not doing things makes you feel. It's a slow thing, though, so be careful not to get too impatient with yourself. *hugs again*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:29 pm (UTC)Feel free to snag, if you wish....
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:19 pm (UTC)Online played a role with me, too, but in my case I learned how to think logically and argue in a forum I could walk away from any time, which eventually helped me view myself with less drama. Different end result, same tool.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:19 am (UTC)Love you, sis.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:19 pm (UTC)*big hug*
Date: 2005-01-11 04:40 am (UTC)Re: *big hug*
Date: 2005-01-11 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 05:57 am (UTC)I always have to be eating now. Last night I ate a few hundred pixie sticks. Tonight I ate so much I can't even list everything. I also drank a bottle of steak sauce.
Damn though, food tastes so good.
A lot of people in our generation had bad childhoods, because our parents generation (the baby boomers) was one of the most selfish in all of history.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 11:08 am (UTC)To have come as far as you have shows that you have a very strong will.
Stronger then you may ever think.
You have my love and admiration, Wyndi, always. *kiss*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 12:37 am (UTC)