hiding

|
Yesterday I had lunch with my most lovely friend Miss Milo. It was a fabulous highlight to an otherwise underwhelming day.

Truly underwhelming: I'd freaked myself out by looking at jobs in the local paper; disappointed myself by purchasing size 20-22 (sob!) PJs in the Target sleepwear sale - only to find they still clung to my belly; picked on nibbles for the rest of the afternoon when I should have recognised the signs of thirst and anxiety, not hunger; and finally, and most disappointingly, ruined a perfectly good ham and made a revolting dinner - which I still ate, why did I do that?

But back to the lovely Miss M. She wisely recommended that I write this post when I said how I'm feeling, blogwise. That is, I'd told her how very selfish I feel now that I'm posting again but still not really visiting other people's blogs. Sure, blogging is a great means of journaling and outpouring, but I used to find the real value was to be found in how it opens the door to a whole community. The support and inspiration received from others was worth countless more than any amount of self expression.

I just don't know where my head is at right now. I want to be an active part of this community, to offer support, feedback and appreciation to others. I used to feel kinship with those who struggled, be inspired by others' successes, pick up tips and fantastic ideas from folks' experience and experiments, and generally feel good to be part of a loving and supportive community. But now, even after 10 days of being good to myself by eating clean and exercising, I'm still struggling to read other people's blogs. It doesn't matter whether they're fighting to keep themselves afloat or rejoicing at the top of their game, I'm getting the same internal reaction. I feel edgy and anxious, self-disappointment, self- hatred even. Above all, I think what I feel is shame.

I thought it was only my friends and family in the UK and Perth I was hiding from. I hadn't realised how much I was hiding from my virtual friends too. Strange really, these are people who don't know my real name, haven't even seen my whole face, and who I've known only a very short time. But in their presence the emotions are very much the same.

I need to deal with my issues because no matter how much writing this blog is, by its nature, all about me; it's only worthwhile when it's also a gateway to you. Has anyone else felt this way? How did you get past it?

1 comments:

The Fat Foreigner said...

When I'm starting to get things back together after an absence, I find I have the same problem in checking other peoples blogs. While other times I can enjoy reading about their respective journies, when I'm feeling bad about myself and have gained weight I just find the ethusiasm everyone else seems to have to be too much. They make it sound easy and effortless and it just makes me feel worse about not doing wehat they're doing.

I don't really have a solution though. I tend to find that the more I blog on my own blog and get myself back into a 'weight-loss' frame of mind, the better I feel, the more I want to check others.

Sometimes you jsut have to start fresh, so click the 'mark all entries as read' button on your reader so you don't have 3 million unread posts stacked up and taunting you, and go from there.