This is an exploring historical feelings post. I’m writing it out for my own growth. I recognize that I don’t do a lot this normally on this blog… so I think it will put off some of my readers. Feel free to skip this post if you would prefer to skip the self-therapy session.

Yesterday my friend wrote me and asked me how I pulled myself out of my slump. That made me stop and think for a moment, because I really do not feel out of my slump. I am now just back to my regular level of functioning…. Just with more awareness. I feel a bit better - but not healed at all. And I really started to explore that (shudder) feeling – why I felt better when I was not. And it hit me… it’s not really that I feel better it’s that this all feels so …. Familiar. I am comfortable with suffering. I accept it readily. It’s known. It’s predictable. I know how to wrap it up in my head and let the constant strumming soothe me. I focus on it. Perhaps, I wouldn’t know what to do without it.

I realize now that is part of the reason I live my life with the urgency of needing to accomplish things. I have to do things with urgency because it’s only when things are urgent that I will get a response from people. When I do not make it urgent… I don’t get the desired response – which is for people to love me. If I don’t do things at a certain level…. People won’t love me. I’m even uncomfortable using that word. Because truthfully, I detach from everything so effectively I don’t even let it sink in. People respond to my intensity… but I get weary of being intense. The constant swing of the emotional pendulum gets tiring. And I really want to stop the swinging. I want peace. I think there is comfort in the peace. Somehow I am going to bring balance to my life using my awareness and spirituality as my guide.

Anyway…

The whole achievement need thing is what is playing through my head right now. I do things at the extreme. I do the job right or not at all. I hate the volunteer work I have to do because I am surrounded by people who don’t work at the same level I do and I feel like I am doing substandard work. Since it feels substandard… in my head I feel judged by everyone else and thus just want to detach from it. Why do it if it’s not a positive recognizable achievement? So I don’t want to play anymore. When I think people do not think I’m doing a good job it causes me emotional churn. Because in my warped head, just being “me” without the achievements, without the intensity… I wouldn’t be worthy of response. It would be abandonment and I avoid abandonment at all costs. (I could do a whole nother post on abandonment alone and the threads of it throughout my life). What I “do” is what defines me as loveable. Which isn’t true of course cause I’m damn loveable doing nothing. But I am beginning to realize at a conscious level that I think the achievements in my life are what bring me love. People love that about me. I am defined by them. By my career and retiring. By my adopting two kids. Building a vacation home. By having weight loss surgery. By losing 160 lbs. By having plastic surgery. And all these things became important … when I didn’t have the career to shine the light on anymore.

There was a dramatic shift that happened 3 years ago when I left my job, adopted two kids and then had the weight loss surgery. I spent so much time hyper focusing on the achievements and the subsequent “love” the achievements would bring that I didn’t realize the impact of the timeline of the achievements.

After years of infertility pain, we adopted the two kids. I left my job to be “present” with my children which was my priority. But then I didn’t have the career to generate accolades from my family to make me loveable. So I built the house. By them. And made money at it. And money is a fine metric my family uses to measure success aka love. And as I focused on being a mom I realized I couldn’t do that to the level I wanted to because I was fat. I couldn’t be a motherhood overachiever at the weight I was because I couldn’t get on the floor with my kids or carry them out of a burning building if terrorists blew it up. Lucky for me I had weight loss surgery as an option. And what a plus… serious medical chaos in our family always gets love. But then I couldn’t eat. I lost the eating coping skill. This was huge…cause you know eating was the skill I used to soothe myself throughout my life… especially when my mother wasn’t the kind of mother I expected her to be. So I hyper focused on my body. Had plastic surgery in another country. Paid for my mom to have my weight loss surgery with me. She didn’t realize it but a lot this was again searching for her love. Her to be there for me in my surgery and by being there for her…hoping she would be for me. Of course it never works that way. Even with the doing monetary acrobatics and the emotional support she never gave me when I made the surgical choice.

*sigh* As I write this timeline… it’s so obvious. These accomplishments…the urgency by which I created them was all in response to not being or feeling worthy. To really in my mind, motherhood not being worthy in my family. Just being a mom was never enough for my mother and so in my mind my choice wouldn’t bring the love from her I so craved. So I created all these other things. And it started a domino effect of change. Change which has been good and got me to the point I am now…. I don’t think I ever really slowed down long enough to realize what a change this was going to bring to my life. Not only did my coping skills change… I couldn’t eat, I didn’t have my fat as a protector, I didn’t have my career… but there was a fundamental shift to not just how I coped with life but what life means. And perhaps some of my choices in the achievements were not as noble as I would have myself believe.

So as I am clearing things away and seeking balance, I am feeling uncomfortable. There are no achievements on the horizon other then selling the house. And trust me… since selling it is painful you might be happy to know I’ve risen to the occasion and have been a tremendous underachiever in this department. I’m releasing myself from my need to achieve. I am going to back off the volunteering, I’m selling the house, I am spending time just being with me and trying to convince my head that I am worthy of love without the achievements. I am worthy. Not having the achievements to focus on doesn’t feel good….it feels like suffering. It feels like I won’t be loved. Feels like it felt when I was a lonely little girl.

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