PERCEPTIONS

“You do realize you are not 12, right?”

“Um..yes…”. Where on earth is she going with this? Maybe I need to break up with my therapist. 

Sensing my judgement, she jumped in to reassure me. “I only ask because you just said you were basing your healthy weight (at 39) on the weight you were when you stopped growing…at…12…years…old.”

Ah…Put in that context, I can see that some would see my thinking as flawed. Shit, how do I tell her that I actually want to weigh less than I did when I was twelve? Think Peikert! You’re smart, you’re persuasive, you can weave some clever words together to get her to agree this is an acceptable goal. 

Crickets…

I’m screwed. Well, nothing else to do but be honest.

So I tell her everything. I tell her that I know it doesn’t make sense but that it feels so right. That I felt ok when I was just a tiny bit smaller. That if i can just lose two pounds, I can finally start breathing again. Sigh…

False perceptions…we all have them. But where people differ is in the amount of false perceptions we have, their strength, their power and what we do with them.

In my case, apart from the body image issues I am currently facing, my false perceptions have been around for a long time. But, here is the thing, for years, they were way below the surface. They drove my desire to achieve, my dogged determination, my tendency to put others’ needs before mine, my need to be needed. But, I wasn’t aware of them, didn’t feel them; so I felt happy, confident. Bliss…

Last night, I was driving home and I was angry. At first, I thought I was angry at others, at the world. But, then I realized, I was angry at myself for allowing my false perceptions to persist but, even more so, for allowing them to drive my actions and my feelings.

I’m done with this, I thought to myself. I’ve cried my last tear (ok, that’s a bit unrealistic), I am tired of basing how I feel on other people – their words, their opinions, whether or not they love me – on the way I look, on my job, on my title, and even on my kids. Experts say that no person or thing is responsible for our feelings. Only we are responsible for our feelings. I read this in the past but I didn’t get it. Now I do.

Shit, I’ve been focusing on the wrong things in my recovery. I’ve been “wasting” my power and energy on getting affirmation, approval, etc outside rather than focusing everything I have on me. I have been clinging to things that hurt me because I’m scared of letting them go…because it will hurt in the short term to leave them behind. Time to put myself first even if it will make me sad at times. 

This is what Oprah would call an “Ah Ha” moment. It is powerful, it is scary. But I know what I have to do.

Now, I won’t lie, I have no idea how to do this.

But, luckily, I now have someone in my life to help me on the journey and to remind me when I get off track that I…am…not…12…years…old.