8 biscotti later

[Hopalong]

I'm getting genuinely upset about my weight, because I am binging so often I feel like I'm losing control and exploding out of my clothes. My belly JIGGLES. I have been a good deal heavier but that was when things were firmer. I just had an insight today that explains it though. It's partly the stress of it (and it is very very stressful when she has a crisis) but I think what's really going on is that I can't stand watching what's happening to my mother. It's painful because I am sensitive to it and I feel completely helpless and it's really hard to watch.
 
It doesn't matter how I feel about what kind of person she is or personality she has or things in the past. It is truly truly depressing to be around someone whose wellbeing you care about who's growing ever more feeble, ideaf, weak, wobbly, and demented. She is any day short of a fall and some horrible descent and I think I'm walking around carrying a ton of tension about it. It's like watching a hammer come down slowly from the sky and knowing that there's absolutely nothing you can do except watch. And she hasn't kept her normal dignity lately (I couldn't either) and she doesn't have a sense of humor or grace as my Dad did, so it's just more of a blunt animal thing to witness.

I feel as though in abandoning my own body I've been subconsciously acting out what's happening to hers.

Talk about codependent, displacement, have I missed anything?

I'm pretty dismayed with myself.

 

Hops
 

[mountainspring]

Hi Hops

I’m familiar with that kind of tension.  When Mammaw was living with me she had several falls.  I remember the bang I would hear as she hit the floor.  Then the kids would play.  And I’d hear a bang and go running in her room thinking she had fallen again and she’d be sitting there sewing.  Or when she would turn the corner to go to the bathroom and I’d see her walking down the hall without her walker and I’d go running after her.  It’s that dread of knowing that something is going to happen and being helpless to prevent it.

Do you have someone at your church that can stay with her for a day while you take a break?  Some assisted living facilities are very nice and offer respite care for a few days.   If she won’t agree to that you could call the altzheimers association and they will sometimes provide a caretaker to stay with her at your home for a few days and you could go somewhere. 

If you could find a way to get a break, even if it was a small one, it would probably relieve some of the tension you’re feeling.

((((Hops and Hops Mom))))

[Hopalong]

Thanks much, MS.  You so have been there.

Well, Mom has a daily caregiver but she's gone well before I come home. I'm it every evening and all weekend.
About twice a year my brother comes but I usually feel more tension around the idea of him being here than not.

In July I may go to a church conference for a week. Not really up for back to back workshops but it'll be a break. My daughter offered to come stay. She doesn't realize how downhill my mother's gone, though, and there'll be a lot of routine to teach her which is kind of wearying too.

This may be negative and I shouldn't be, but since Mom's at home here, the thought of communicating (shouting) to her and calming her about the changes in her routine involved when someone else comes feels more stressful than just soldiering on.

I think I could at least take my stress/health issues to therapy though. There's a women's covenant group through my church starting in August. It'll be twice a week on Sunday evenings.

It really is hard to find someone in quite my situation. I don't know why. How uncommon can it be? It may be that in a well-to-do church community, very few 57 y/o women are in charge of a needy 96 y/o alone.

I long for simpler times. Right now I work full time, worry about Ma, and am trying to start a side business since I have no money for retirement. Sometimes it piles up in me, and I think that, plus the stress over Mom's lability, is why I've been bingeing.

I spend a lot of lazy time in my room escaping into the TV and here (and sometimes both simultaneously). I don't think the escapes are working any more. I need new ideas and new inspiration.

I'm peeved at myself for being weak. When god knows we all know women who are like iron...caring for mutliple family members, working, and poor to boot. I am lucky, and I feel I shouldn't be feeling such self pity.

There you have it. Bleahh.

Tomorrow's church and that will help.

thanks again MS...I understood your first paragraph intimately.

love
Hops

[gratitude28]

Hops,
Thank you for bringing up this topic. Actually, I have not been myself lately and that is why I haven't been on here as much - I feel it's harder to help others when you are not screwed down tight...
The weight thing is a major irritation for me. I have made enough changes that I should have seen some progress - and nothing. My doctor says it may be the AD, but that to change/drop it during a move probably isn't the best thing to do. So I have gone off and started eating wrong and sitting on my butt again because I am pissed off about it. Especially seeing my husband work out two or more times a day. I was so into it for a bit, but then I got mad and lost sight of the fact that it is for fun and health... that I feel better when I go.
I have also been gambling... a lot. I can't wait to be where there won't be slot machines available. Ugh. I have been compulsive and untamed. It makes me mad, because, really, it is just a replacement addiction.
We are still here in Japan and leave in three weeks. I am done with work, but still busy. I am cleaning out EVERYTHING. This is the first move I feel organized for. We are moving into a house twice this size (I CAN'T wait for that). But this has been my home for a long time and I know so many people here.
I miss Henry a ton. He is with Grandma and doing well. She is a saint to take him. We had to give away our guinea pig and the kids and I were so sad.
I feel like I am in limbo.

So, Hopsy my dear friend... what are we gonna do???? Let's make a plan of attack, OK? self magazine has an online checlist that you can log into every day to say if you ate right, exercised, etc. I started with a 1200 calorie diet and made it about two days. LOL (kinda).

Let's plan, let's follow through.
Thank you for being honest, because I have been holding all of this in and needed a release.
Love, Beth

[gratitude28]

Had to add one more thing, Hops... I had a total moment of empathy with you after I finished my job. I froze. I couldn't do anything for a bit - which included dealing with bills, making appointments or anything of the like. I thought of you the whole time... and realized I now understood!!!! Ugh. I am unfrozen and made it through a bunch of appointments and all... in spite of how much I hate them.
Love, Beth

[lighter]

(((Hops)))

When I'm binging it's usually emotional and I don't get anywhere berrating myself or beating myself up.  I binge and work on finding things I can do for myself that changes my emotional state.

I don't care if it's cleaning my car and organizing 3 drawers, it's got to be something that positively effects my life and that leads to

1) filling up my time with something besides thinking about how many more chocolate biscotti with yummy nuts I have left in the pantry and

2) it lifts my spirits so that I want to continue finding good feelings so I make better choices out of GOOD feelings, not bad feelings.  One good feeling leads to another, IME.

It's just getting started that's so difficult.  Procrastinating and binging is a cycle for me.  Once I break it, it seems so easy!  But BEING there, I almost see it as impossible to escape.  Makes hardly any sense even as I sit here and think about the 10 things I could do immediately to make myself feel better, and do nothing.


Hmmmm.... I'm thinking I'll do my hair and settle for that. 

[axa]

Sweet Hops,

Your post brought up so much stuff I can empathise with.  In the last year of my beloved daughter's life I ate and ate and ate.  She could not eat so I did it for her.  I got fatter and fatter, the only time I felt a numbness from the helplessness I felt was when I was eating.  And then I went on the cycle of disgust, not caring how I looked, how could that I matter when my daughter was dying... so I ate more.

I know it was so linked with the sense of not being in control, nothing I did was going to make her better.  I watched her get thinner and thinner until she resembled someone from a concentration camp, my beautiful beautiful daughter.  I was her Mom and I could not save her.  People were sympathetic but nobody else was watching their little girl die, she was mine and it was my pain.

I dont know what else to say except I know what it is like for you.  I took the only comfort I knew was available to me which of course in turn was so distructive.  It is easy for me to give you advice but I am not in your shoes right now.  Please in any healthy way you can, comfort yourself

Much love,

axa

[Ami]

[
I'm peeved at myself for being weak. When god knows we all know women who are like iron...caring for multiple family members, working, and poor to boot. I am lucky, and I feel I shouldn't be feeling such self pity.

Dear Hops,
   I am so sorry that you are going through all this stress. There is so much that I want to say,but what really struck me was the quote above.
   I was just thinking today that I probably would be happy with myself  IF I did not compare myself to a "standard". My N mother was the worst ,in this sense. Everything was compared to others. Every aspect of life was compared to some amorphous person out there who did it better- WHATEVER it was. I could never feel good about anything at all. There was always someone who did every little part of life better than I did,so I was a failure.
   I realized today that I do the same thing. She trained me really well. I went forward as  a little 'Zombie".( as Vaknin says)
When I was "healthy and centered", I remember thinking, I don't have to be the "best" in anything. I am good enough in everything that I value and I like myself. Can you believe what a healthy thought that was. I would give anything to be that healthy today.In fact, this way of thinking is what I am striving for.
To hear you compare yourself to some 'iron women" is so toxic. This in itself could be a big part of your stress. There is nothing much worse than trying so hard on something(like taking care of mother) and the denigrating yourself at the same time.It is like constantly "taking away any progress " that you make. I see you in an entirely different light. You are a hero to undertake this. Most people would not. I,as an outsider, can see it a whole different way. Your 'old patterns" are imprisoning  and poisoning you.
 For me, exercise is a positive addiction. Once you get in to it,it gives you all the positive things of a "bad" addiction- relaxation,peace of mind, clarity in your mind,  and peace in your body. I would be so depressed if I could not exercise.- When I am exercising is when I have the revelations  and insights that allow me to get a "gap' in my thinking.Also, just sweating, even in a bath with epsolm salts is very healing.
  To me,  one of the happiest activities in my life is exercising.I offer this as just a different way to look at it
           Love and a BIG Hug  Ami

[Hopalong]

thanks very much, guys. You're a bunch of loves.

Sundays are always better. I am quite tired and I'm sure that was part of it.

The insight about sabotaging my own health out of pity for Mom's decline was a biggie for me.
So far today, no impulses that aren't good for me.

I'll take it one day at a time, and you're all so right that exercise will change it. I've had long
stretches of regular exercise before and I feel wonderful.

And I don't jiggle THAT much...hey, I've seen chubbier belly dancers and they were beaming!

Beth, hon, how brave of you to share about the gambling. Thank you. Will that be accessible when you're back in the states? If so, or if the temptation strikes, have you thought of going to Gamblers Anonymous?

love to all,
Hops

[Ami]

Dear Beth,
   I want to echo Hops about your courage in sharing about gambling. Really whatever addiction a person has,it is all about taking away pain.It is a temporary fix for a deeper issue.
  I used to be on e bay all the time.Now, that I am healing the inside I am not buying on e bay at all. I was frantically trying to medicate pain. I was trying not to "go crazy."
  My life was about trying to hang on to my sanity.
  Beth, try to look at gambling like a fix for pain. If it is not hurting your finances, I would not have a huge guilt trip on it. I would just put the idea in my mind that I am trying to get to the 'root" of the reason that I need the excitement of gambling. Then, I would try to ferret out the deeper issues either here on in some way that seems right to you.
   I, actually, have very little desire to shop. Before, I always had packages coming because that was a way of having hope, I think.It was also,excitement and a feeling of being alive. I was so numb inside that shopping was one of the few times that I did not feel numb.
 Beth, you are not "bad' for having this gambling "addiction" if you want to call it that. I see myself as able to interchange addictions and could easily have gambling or any others.
  I am feeling much better now that I am getting to the deeper pain.
  I am also enjoying things for the first time in a long time,like reading. I am so happy to read a book and it feels much more nurturing than shopping. Shopping felt frantic and reading feels nurturing.
  i will say that that is a lot of pain under all the addictions. It is about facing almost unbearable facts of life like mothers so selfish that they would destroy their kids so they don't have to face themselves. It is pain about "wasting" a lifetime hating yourself  and having no self esteem. It is really gut wrenching pain. However,if left inside, it is much worse.It will become physical or mental illness(IMO)
  I would say to make yourself share on the board even if you don't want to. I bet that you feel better that you let out this  particular pain.  Hope to hear from you soon       Love Ami

[Bella_French]

I'm getting genuinely upset about my weight, because I am binging so often I feel like I'm losing control and exploding out of my clothes. My belly JIGGLES. I have been a good deal heavier but that was when things were firmer. I just had an insight today that explains it though. It's partly the stress of it (and it is very very stressful when she has a crisis) but I think what's really going on is that I can't stand watching what's happening to my mother. It's painful because I am sensitive to it and I feel completely helpless and it's really hard to watch.
 
It doesn't matter how I feel about what kind of person she is or personality she has or things in the past. It is truly truly depressing to be around someone whose wellbeing you care about who's growing ever more feeble, ideaf, weak, wobbly, and demented. She is any day short of a fall and some horrible descent and I think I'm walking around carrying a ton of tension about it. It's like watching a hammer come down slowly from the sky and knowing that there's absolutely nothing you can do except watch. And she hasn't kept her normal dignity lately (I couldn't either) and she doesn't have a sense of humor or grace as my Dad did, so it's just more of a blunt animal thing to witness.

I feel as though in abandoning my own body I've been subconsciously acting out what's happening to hers.

Talk about codependent, displacement, have I missed anything?

I'm pretty dismayed with myself.

 

Hops
 

Oh Hon, I am so sorry that you are losing your Mum inch by inch that way! And having to watch it happen right before your eyes, as well as worrying for her well being almost constatnly is so very hard on you. Really, it makes perfect sense that you would reach out for comfort during a time like this. Its only natural.

If I may offer a suggestion, I think perhaps it can help to start with looking at the positive aspect of comfort eating. You are doing it to ease your suffering during a time where you can't easily change your situation, which is not a bad thing in itself.  Its really only a indicaton that you are hurting a lot; it won't kill you and theres nothing wrong with a few extra pounds:) But since the weight gain is difficult to live with (as it usually is for we sensitive women), can you think of other sources of comfort that might be more nurturing? It might help to kind of substitute your eating with a range of other sources of comfort, you know?

Can you think of some things which might be a source of comfort to you during this time?

Hugs to you hops!

[Hopalong]

Thank you very much Bella, that was so sensitively put. You're right. I'm about 15-20 pounds overweight. That's it.

I find it hard to talk about because so many people want to tell you how to fix it...and if there's any 57 y/o female who hasn't absorbed ample (pardon the pun) nutrition and fitness info in this culture she'd have to be living in a cave. It's not the info I lack at the moment, it's been the motivation.

And everybody was right about the depression...I haven't been owning that. I had a much worse bout years back and since this one's milder I hadn't really named it. It has helped a lot to post about it.

As to comforts, I think I'll take up renting more DVDs. That fits my evening habits and I do love good movies. (I just am watching an absurd scene between Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant where they declare their love on top of a dinosaur skeleton in some museum--the skeleton then collapses.) 

I won't declare plans because I set myself up for more self flaggelation if I don't follow through. But I will say that I have shared things with all of you in a way that helps me more than I can express. I know one day I'll look back on this almost-endless chapter of my life and know that I blundered into an extraordinary healing place that draws the very best out of everyone.

(If I were a believer I'd call it a miracle.)

thank you all!
love
Hops

[Hopalong]

Hey CB,
Forgot to thank you for the on-the-way-home suggestions, good ones all. Thing is, I have to hustle to get home by 7 p.m. as it is as my workplace is outside of town and Mom can't really wait a lot later.

But I COULD in the nice weather take quick care of her meal and then haul myself around the block. Even if that's all I do, it's better than not. Thank you.

Besee,
Thanks for the link...wonderful notion (though the details page wouldn't load). You've never met a worse Buddhist, though. I probably talk about Pema so much because I'm so dense at it!

I'm actually petrified that if I ever really date again I'll fall for a geezer and wind up taking care of another old person, and right now I don't have the juice. I'm not sure I can even take care of a dog.

But when I've taken better care of myself for a while, I could change my mind...thank you for the thought.

hugs
Hops

[WRITE]

Don't keep in 'comfort food' is my advice.
I always end up eating myself the stuff I buy 'to keep for guests' and i have learned to give it away.
I can run out to the store if I am in need of a 'fix' but the fact I have to make the effort means I rarely do.

But if I do- I have the conscious choice now too, if I am going to do it it is a choice, i am going to enjoy every bit, and NO GUILT!

Re self-image though, I have to say this is such an unhealthy culture.

My son thinks he is fat because of all the skinny kids around him, you can see ribs and bones!
Why are they so thin? They don't eat regularly.

I just encourage him to exercise more and tone up.

We consider thin as healthy when often it's not it's just thin.

I will never be super-thin, but I feel healthy and I like my body now, wiggles and all.

There's a poster in my bedroom by Andy Warhol: if everyone's not a beauty no one is.

I was her Mom and I could not save her.  People were sympathetic but nobody else was watching their little girl die, she was mine and it was my pain.

Axa I am so sorry for your loss, I just know you were a wonderful mother caring for your child at the most difficult time.

You are right that overeating is our way to take charge in a primeval way, we will at least not be hungry that way....

So much we don't have control over, even if it is destructive we will try and make it feel like we have control over us.

I've seen chubbier belly dancers and they were beaming!

my friend who died recently we all went to a Greek restaurant for her last birthday in March.
There was a belly dancer and though she had a little tummy her skin and muscles were so toned.
She was about 50 and so beautiful I thought.

My friend got up and danced though she was always so self-conscious about her weight. She was shouting 'opa!' She didn't eat only clear soup that night though, & her pancreas cancer was diagnosed a week later.

She looked beautiful, her hair and clothes and smile. One of my gifts was a four leaf clover in a little frame, she loved that. She smiled at me, i know she often smiled at me but I can only remember that time, her eyes were shining and though she clearly was ill that night she was the centre of attention and having a wonderful time.

We forget what real beauty is, it isn't thin, it's to be in this moment- alive.

[Ami]

Dear WRITE,
   That was "something" about beauty , WRITE I remember an incident that happened to me when I was about 14. I managed to maintain my essential self until about that age. I remember that I had a kind of "love" inside me. I had a feeling of being whole and of loving myself and of not needing to be "more" or "better".
  I don't know why I am sharing this,but somehow I think that I should.
 Anyway, I  felt like there was someone inside   me who was valuable.                                                      I was away for the summer at a camp. One kid who I really liked all summer but he never seemed to come and talk to me, came over on the last day and said to me,"You are the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen."
  When I think of this, I  see it as he was seeing my essence,which was beautiful. It had love in it.
  When I see people now, I think that I can see in to their "Spirit". There are people who are so beautiful  and it is at a level beyond the physical.It is a beauty that is shining with love.
  I  know where it is that I want to go. However, getting out from under all the layers of NPD  is the trick.
  When I think of El, on the other post, I think of someone who has to excavate the essential self which is STILL there. She is not broken, but a muffled voice under all the layers of NPD"blankets". She is crying with a small voice. However, with care and nurturing, it will become louder.    I feel strange sharing this post,but something inside of me felt that I should write it      Love Ami