The war I'm waging

First of all, I ate an entire head of garlic tonight. Jeffrey is one lucky man.

Second of all, everyone is really just beautiful in their own skin.

I have such a hard time feeling truly comfortable in my own skin. 

I suffer from body dismorphia. 

Something that is all too common in this day and age.

What is fat and how did it become a prized noun within my mind's self imposing vernacular? 

I am not fat but how come, no matter what, I'll never be "un-fat" enough? 

I could lose thirty pounds and think "Hmm, I'm not fat, but I'm also not 'un-fat'"

I have weighed 125 lbs and thought I was fat.

I weigh 145 lbs, and I still think I'm fat.

Or should I say not "un-fat"?

What's going on here?

How did this little word create such a realm of disillusion within my mind and self perception? 

Well it's other people. I believed for so long that other people thought I was fat. So how could I think I looked good if other people thought I was fat? 

I have been called fat a few times in my life, and it was puberty, so it doesn't count. 

I framed the image of myself solely with what I thought other people thought of me or what I thought other people should think of me and, what I thought of other people. 

Mindfuck. Major, major mindfuck. 

But a mindfuck that, I believe, many women fall prey too. My thought is "how could I be confident with myself if other people thought I was gross and chunky?" 

Well it turns out that...

A. Confidence comes from self esteem and what you think of yourself and...

B. I am extremely judgmental of people, myself included.

Recently there has been a major societal war on body shaming and body image. As much as I'd like to be "above it", sadly I am not. I suffer from body dismorphia. I honestly think I should look like a goddamn model. For what? I am not a model. I don't even want to be a model. I want to be a mother and a teacher and a good friend and a strong, educated woman and none of those things that I want to do directly correlate with the status of my thigh gap or how robust my love handles are.

I was always in the mindset of "I have it lose 5 lbs". In actuality,  I don't even really want to lose 5 lbs, I just thought I had to want to lose 5 lbs. That mindset made me feel safe, it makes me feel like I am in control. 

I crave control. I love feeling like I have control. It is part of my mental illness.

If I can just control what I look like, I will feel better. 

If I look thin, people will love me.

If I exclude this, I will lose this.

If I run here, it will make this smaller.

If I find what Kate Hudson does, I will look like her.

What does she eat? 

What's my BMI?

How come I'm not getting a thigh gap?

Why are my arms fat?

Why won't my pooch go away?

Oh! I will try juicing!

Oh! I will be vegan!

Oh! I will go Paleo!

Oh! I will try bodybuilding!

What does she look like in a bikini?

How did she lose weight?

What does my stomach look like today?

I am obsessed with trying to control this. 

These are all things I think and have thought. Constantly searching for a solution to a nonexistent problem causes much unneeded stress, anxiety and DISease. 

There is no problem with how I look, there is a problem with my perception. 

There is a problem with the expectations I have set for myself.

This is the war I'm waging and guess what, bitches? I'm winning.

This is not easy. It's not like one day I woke up and was like YEAH GUYS I JUST LIKE LOVE MY BODY.

Constantly I am removing myself from the negative mantra of "my body is not good enough" and questioning it.

I ask myself, What does that even mean? Because I have a little fat on my stomach and a double chin, I am a piece of crap? 

What have I done about it?

Well I prayed. I admitted this was an issue in my life that I really have no control over. I cried. I got so upset. All I wanted was to be thin. 

Luckily, it is difficult for me to lose weight and the universe did not grant me my wish of "glorious weight loss" because it has lead me to actual salvation from this problem. Actually, real self love and dedication that focuses on health rather than vanity.

I'm doing my best to focus on exercise that makes me feel good, not exercise that obliges the thought of "I have to lose weight, and if I don't work out I will get fat"

I'm doing my best to eat mindfully and listen to my body's needs.

I'm doing my best to focus on building strength, mentally, physically and emotionally.

I believe we are all meant to unconditionally love our bodies. 

My weight goes up and down, and it has NOTHING to do with my self worth.

I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. I want to listen to the wisdom that lies within my body. 

I no longer have the ability to lie to myself about the magnitude of this issue within me. I have dedicated myself to living a life that is true to ME. A life of honesty, compassion and love. That shit starts on the inside.

Let it begin with me.

Deep on thought while smelling like garlic. 

I knew Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Everyone dies.

There I said it.

I'm a big feeler. I have lots of feelings (which is a blessing and a curse, just ask my mother or my boyfriend). However, when celebrities die I don't get too sentimental, because, let's be honest, I don't personally know them. I am sympathetic to their families and love ones for such a personal loss but I don't get too hung up. (However, when Heath Ledger died I was struck with sadness simply because I don't think he had a fair chance at fulfilling our true love). 

But the recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman had (and still has) me speechless. My heart sank. I believe that I knew him. I believe anyone who saw his work knew him; he was truly loved for the art he produced. 

Was it his eyes? His voice? He was chubby and certainly not your typical Hollywood stud, but I found him charmingly alluring and curiously handsome. His voice sounded so real. His characters were real. He was so real. 

I'm finding it so hard to know what to say. I just loved him as an actor and it's so sad to see him go.

I mean, of people to go why him?

For me, a loss of life over drug addiction is personal. I've seen addiction. I've seen it ravish human souls and consume them wholly, leaving you with the shell of someone you used to know. People become arrested by some dark mass and taken away. Against their control. 

I miss him and I haven't even seen him in anything since The Master.

But still...

He emulated the truth and art of acting so much that I felt like I knew him. When I see his photos and look at his face, and his eyes, I'm washed over with sadness. 

What a terrible loss. I know this shit reads as melodramatic to some people but I just don't care. I feel sad about this.

Rest in Peace. Your skill will always be remembered.

EDIT:

I'm an asshole for not saying this earlier.

My good thoughts and prayers go out to his children and the mother of his children. 

I pray for their recovery from such a tragic loss. 

I've always been so scared...

I've always been so scared to write. To explain my thoughts and feelings to the public for the fear of rejection. The little fledgling of self esteem has grown to be a Phoenix. Risen from the ashes. The fog of fear has dissipated; a paralyzing illusion created within the deepest and saddest parts of my mind, where I would be persecuted for being myself.

Now, let me not get ahead of myself here. It is not as if I have come to find myself in one grand, euphoric experience. Life is not like that, because it would be fucking boring. It's more like a really, really slow coffee pot. A slow drip feed of information about yourself that sparks your deepest desires, fuels your soul and reigns in your ego when things get a little cray cray. I mean, I really can't speak for you, but I can speak for myself, certainly.

So the slow drip feed has been on for about two years. Two years ago I was mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically ill. I no longer wanted to live. I had reached an all time low. What the fuck was wrong with me? In retrospect, I acted purely out of my emotional wounding and lacked any type of spiritual practice. I was so detached, and no one would have known otherwise.

Two years later, things have changed drastically. I have made incredible personal gains and..

This isn't what I wanted to talk about. It doesn't matter. Today, I rock. I love myself and I respect myself.

I don't want to get side tracked in the gory and dramatic details of my existence because it isn't that amazing but, in reality, it's pretty amazing, but not too amazing.

Anyways, I want to write. I want to write about my life because I have so much to share! About life and love and death and food and exercise.

Body image issues, relationships, comedy, acting, drug addiction, codependency issues, anger, sadness, joy, children. The list goes on.

There is so much crap jammed up in my head and I just want to write about it.

I want to do things in my life for me. I want to write for me.

What a novel idea.

I let society dictate what I did for so long. I let others tell me who I am. I waited for external confirmation before I did anything for myself; before I acted out of my heart.

I want to write, and gosh darn it, I'll write because I like to write and because I want to write. I don't need any other reasons.