Fear

So ... what does fear feel like? I believe that I have been afraid for at least half of my life. When I was a child, I was practically always afraid ... of my dad's temper, my mother's incomprehensible moodiness, my brother's occasional torments of me ... then, when I started school, I remember always feeling on edge, like I didn't fit in, like there was something wrong with me and nobody would like me and want to be my friend. For this reason, when I was in grade school, I overcompensated for that by being the friendly, outgoing, sweet little student that all the teachers and kids loved. That was fine for grade school, but when all us kids started growing up and getting hormones and I was the fat girl, I learned to feel a new kind of fear ... the fear of being excluded, ridiculed, humiliated, hurt, alone ... I felt all of these things, nearly every single day, when I was very young. It has stuck with me, to the point of when people look at me, I almost always assume they are thinking something bad, and if they lean over and say something quietly to the person they are with, I definitely assume they are talking about me, saying something horrible and uncomplimentary. It's paranoia, of a kind, developed and mastered over years of feeling inadequate, unloved, and isolated.

You would think that ruminating on these things means I'm feeling rather depressed and down today. But I'm not. Thankfully, I have learned to detach myself from these feelings and see them for what they are, rather than just taking it at face value that I am excluded, unloved, and alone. I realize that a big part of the reason I feel these things is because of me, from years of conditioning myself to believe that things are a certain way. It's a big part of the reason I stayed in my long-term relationship, then marriage, for so long. I honestly did not believe I could get any better. I figured something was better than nothing. And when I detach myself from it, and look at it objectively, I can see how wrong and unhealthy it is.

I have been struggling for so long with my weight and my body. But even more difficult than that has been my struggle with my mind and my emotions. Changing your body is relatively easy compared to changing the way you think. And we all know that unless you really get in there, metaphorically, with a scalpel and cut all that shit out of your head that's been polluting your life for so long, you will never have the life you need, and want.

I am beginning to accept the fact that life is hard work. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy. And sometimes you just have to dig in there, up to your elbows if you have to, and cut those fucking tumours out.