In my lifetime, I have lost and regained thousands of pounds. Finally, after nearly 50 years of this, i decided that the only way I'd ever lose and keep weight off would be to get a cataclysmic disease.
I never believed that thoughts could manifest themselves until I got meningitis, became a paraplegic, developed a horrendous bedsore, became incapable of keeping anything down, became malnourished and well on my way to starving to death, thereby losing 110 lbs in about 3 months. And I never, in several years, regained any of it. In fact, I'm still losing, very, very slowly. (A word of caution to dieters -- Losing weight can change one's life, but nobody promised it would change for the better.)
After I had been bedbound awhile and could, at last, keep food down again, I decided that, at 62 or so, I had been dieting nearly my entire life and, by golly, I refused to diet anymore. I vowed to eat anything I wanted, anytime I wanted it.
However, I hadn't entirely lost my mind. I'm diabetic and, after drinking a regular Coke caused my glucose level to soar into the 500s, my common sense kicked in. So now I do kind of watch my sugar intake. But I treat myself to dark chocolate candy sometimes, too.
There's no moral to this except, maybe, "careful what you wish for." I'm thinner, but I live in a nursing home and, even if I were to find a geriatric "Mr. Right" here, it wouldn't do me any good because they don't allow fraternization here. Heck, they won't even let us close our doors. Besides which, I'm bedbound. If there is a Mr. Right in this place, he's unlikely to wander into my room. And if he did, it would probably be because, in his dementia, he'd lost his way.
So I'm limited to having a "to be expected" transference-crush on my therapist. Not that having a minor crush on my therapist is bad. I discovered in junior high that having crushes could be fun, unless I tried to inject some actuality into them. Then they were heartbreaking, not to mention embarrassing. So i know, although I have genuine feelings of affection for my therapist, whom I assume has little idea that I feel this way, I also know that our therapeutic relationship precludes even a close friendship. Otherwise, he'd lose the objectivity he needs to really help me. I've been through this before. THIS is reality.
But at least it gives me something to look forward to. Besides being able to see my "heart-throb" ;-) i look forward to exploring ways to make my life better. I still experience a feeling of fear that he will suddenly disappear. After all, it happened once. But, as he pointed out last session, that's a normal reaction. I assume, with time, I will relax and not worry so much about it.
I'm still a worrier. I've been concentrating on enjoying being alive and haven't worked much on that. I've been treating my worrying like I would treat a crying baby. I soothe it, reassure it, hush it, sing subliminal lullabyes to it. The only things I don't do in this analogy are burp it, stick a pacifier in its mouth, or change its diaper. So far, so good.
My life as a child and teenager was miserable because of my chubbiness. I only recently realized what a blessing it turned out to be. Because of it, I learned kindness and tolerance. I learned that looking like you "should" was not a guarantee of good character. I learned that intelligence did not make anyone superior to anyone else and that the disabled are in no way inferior to others. I learned to befriend those who were persecuted by others through no fault of their own. I learned to stand up for people whose rights were being violated. I learned that freely given kindness makes a difference, even though that might not be apparent at the time. I learned independence. I learned to just take one day at a time. In other words, I learned things that made me who I am. Heaven knows, I'm in no way perfect. There's a lot left to improve upon. But I'm pleased to say, I believe I am the kind of person I would be happy to have for a friend. I'm currently working on that, too.
Thank you so much to my friends, famiy and "enemies" for the kindness and life-lessons. And thanks to Mike, my therapist, for all his efforts. I expect we will go far.
Love, peace and joy to you all.
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