Failure

"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. "

~Alexander Dumas

Well, my five seconds of being a perky cheerleader are clearly over. I am bearing arms against myself now, apparently.

And I hate, hate, hate how it all just flips on a dime and it's all based on this stupid diet. The diet is the catalyst but then, in my head, it snowballs into everything in my life. I can't lose anymore weight so I will be stuck here and I am a bad example to my daughter and a horrible mother and she will be ashamed of me and I'll die early and leave her all alone but before that happens people will judge me and hate me and no one will ever love me again and I'm dumb and stupid and bad at my job and don't make enough money and I'm a rotten horrible person with no right to live. Not that I get carried away or anything.

So I'd lost about 40 pounds. And then I was stuck for two weeks and I was super frustrated. But then I lost 3 1/2 pounds in a week and that was the I-love-life-everything-is-awesome-and-sunshine-and-rainbow-unicorns post. And then I stayed even for a week, no biggie b/c I figured I was adjusting. Which resulted in the okay-I'll-keep-trying-to-stay-positive post. And then, without doing anything different, I *gained* 4 pounds the next week. What?? How could it be? That was two weeks ago and I've really not moved since then. Well, at last check I was down 1 of the 4 pounds and I've been too depressed to get back on the scale.

Okay. Things I know....the scale is not 100% of the story. There are things like measurements and transitioning fat to muscle and just plain doing the right thing for my overall health. I get it. Another thing I know is that something is going on with my body. I think my hormones are in a major uproar from the recent weight loss. I suspect this is behind the plateau. It doesn't matter. Because, for me, the scale is 100% the measure of success. And when it's not moving, or worse, moving in the wrong direction, there is only one answer. I.AM.A.TOTAL.FAILURE.

I have a degree of BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder). In a nutshell, this means that what I see in the mirror at any given moment is a reflection of how I'm feeling about myself, not of my true physical form. A couple weeks ago, I looked in the mirror and I saw a beautiful, curvaceous, sassy woman smiling back at me. Now I see this hideous, fat, frumpy, inexcusable failure glaring back with utter disdain. Every.Day. And I hate that chick.

I hate myself every minute of every day and remind myself of it repeatedly. Never endingly.

And it makes me want to binge in the worst way. Except so many people have been watching my success and I think I would about die of shame if they now saw my failure. So, essentially, I feel like I am letting all these people down and, naturally, I feel like they are judging me because I'm no longer succeeding. I hate that the results of my endeavor are so visible...that I could not keep it secret if I tried. Because I'm living in fear, paranoia, guilt, shame, disgust. I feel stuck. Trapped. I hate myself, I hate every morsel of food I put into my body. I hate feeling hungry and I hate feeling not hungry. I agonize over every calorie, every bite, every decision, every urge, every thought. Every minute. Of every day.

Yes, it takes a lot of work to be this kind of a failure.