I am a sporadic blogger at best, but I did do a bit of writing tonight on my sparkpeople.com blog. I've copied what I wrote here. If you read an earlier post about cocooning, well yes, there I am again. Actually I feel more like a little turtle hiding in my shell. I stick my head out (not too far) and take a few slow steps, but I zip back into my shell (cocoon) pretty quickly if something comes at me too fast.
Feel free to read other posts on my sparkpeople.com blog (as if you have nothing else to do, right?).
Please do not share anything on my blogs without my permission. Thanks.
~ Christine
PS- this post is my pep talk to myself, trying to put things in perspective. "fake it till you make it," right? i'm trying. i'll get there. maybe at a turtle's pace, but eventually i'll get there.
PPS- i just don't think fb is the place to be posting negative or very personal/sensitive things, so that is why i don't post thoughts and feelings you'll find on my blogs there.
Monday, November 21, 2011
My blog title is a partial quote from a children's book: CHLOE & MAUDE, by Sandra Boynton (Boynton, Sandra. "Chloe, Maude, and Sophia." Chloe and Maude. First ed. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1985. 26+. Print.). Please, allow me to explain:
Maude decides it's boring being plain old Maude and one day changes her name to "Sophia." Sophia dresses in fancy clothes, reads fancy magazines and refuses to do anything that Maude normally loved to do with her best friend, Chloe.
After days of being rejected by her best friend's alternate personality, Chloe takes matters into her own hands. She visits "Sophia" and leaves a package. A package, "For Maude. Not to be opened by anyone except Maude, even if your name used to be Maude but isn't anymore. (p.26)"
Here our dear reader finds Maude struggling; continue on as the glamorous and sophisticated "Sophia" or return to being plain, old, ordinary Maude?
Chloe's clever present proves to be temptation enough for Maude to conclude that it is time to leave her "Sophia" days behind her and go back to being Maude. Maude says, "I'm back! And look- here's a package for me! (p.29)" *the book says package, but present is just more me*
What is the relation between myself and drawings of dressed up kittens right now?
After being a divorced and a single mom for about 10 years I met a great guy. We dated for a year and were married.
Then it all fell apart. I won't even go into the all of the dramatic details, but a year's worth of marriage counseling didn't help.
I will say that in those 17 months we were married I gained 65 lbs, felt so deeply rejected and betrayed, angry, guilty, and spent periods in and out of deep depression, anxiety and worry. Trust and hope were destroyed and I learned things that were the emotional equivalent of what it would feel like physically for a pedestrian to be hit by a tanker truck. There was no way, no matter how hard I tried, for my marriage to recover.
I have been feeling like my life is a snow globe someone shook up and threw across the room with me trapped inside.
Difficult to see the relation to Sandra Boynton's cute little kitty friends, I'm sure, but allow me to continue in my explanation and hopefully you'll understand.
Although in my marriage I was not the person pretending to be someone I wasn't or looking for something fancier than what I already had or was, my depression turned me into a person very different from who I am when I am not depressed. My self esteem plummeted, I began failing my classes, I regained weight I had been so happy to lose as I ate to try to fill the aching holes left by lies.
I struggled for a long time to try to "fix" a marriage I hadn't broken. Finally, I accepted the fact that the healthiest choice for my sons and I would be to get a divorce, to rid our home of the tension, yelling and other ugliness that precedes such a decision. The best choice for us was to go back to the way things were before the marriage; to leave my "cheating, lying husband" days behind me and chose to move on and allow space and time for healing to take place.
Bouncing back from all of the negativity hasn't been quick or easy. I still feel overwhelmed a lot. I seem to be over-spending now rather than over-eating because I feel compelled to find a ring with my sons' birthstone to replace my wedding ring.
But I know I will bounce back. I am, just slowly. And as I'm rising out of the depression I am regaining hope and feeling like myself again. Like who I was before the nightmare began and my world fell apart. I'm walking away from it and in doing so I'm slowly beginning to regain my health, my strength, my identity as a beautiful, capable woman who can be loved and wanted.
(Ok, so I may not be feeling like myself a whole lot yet but I know I will more and more as the days go on.)
"I'm back! And here's a *present* for me!"
What is my present?
My health, my happiness, my son's health and happiness. I am seeing severe stomach problems that have plagued my son for more than five months start to fade away since my "almost" ex has moved out and hasn't been spending time with him. A peaceful home. Hope. Opportunity for something more, something better. A new chapter. A chapter in which I will continue to grow and change for the better emotionally, spiritually and physically.
I just thought of another way I can relate to Maude. I have great friends- and sons!- who are supportive and there for me when I need them most. I also have my faith. Great gifts to have!
Maude decides it's boring being plain old Maude and one day changes her name to "Sophia." Sophia dresses in fancy clothes, reads fancy magazines and refuses to do anything that Maude normally loved to do with her best friend, Chloe.
After days of being rejected by her best friend's alternate personality, Chloe takes matters into her own hands. She visits "Sophia" and leaves a package. A package, "For Maude. Not to be opened by anyone except Maude, even if your name used to be Maude but isn't anymore. (p.26)"
Here our dear reader finds Maude struggling; continue on as the glamorous and sophisticated "Sophia" or return to being plain, old, ordinary Maude?
Chloe's clever present proves to be temptation enough for Maude to conclude that it is time to leave her "Sophia" days behind her and go back to being Maude. Maude says, "I'm back! And look- here's a package for me! (p.29)" *the book says package, but present is just more me*
What is the relation between myself and drawings of dressed up kittens right now?
After being a divorced and a single mom for about 10 years I met a great guy. We dated for a year and were married.
Then it all fell apart. I won't even go into the all of the dramatic details, but a year's worth of marriage counseling didn't help.
I will say that in those 17 months we were married I gained 65 lbs, felt so deeply rejected and betrayed, angry, guilty, and spent periods in and out of deep depression, anxiety and worry. Trust and hope were destroyed and I learned things that were the emotional equivalent of what it would feel like physically for a pedestrian to be hit by a tanker truck. There was no way, no matter how hard I tried, for my marriage to recover.
I have been feeling like my life is a snow globe someone shook up and threw across the room with me trapped inside.
Difficult to see the relation to Sandra Boynton's cute little kitty friends, I'm sure, but allow me to continue in my explanation and hopefully you'll understand.
Although in my marriage I was not the person pretending to be someone I wasn't or looking for something fancier than what I already had or was, my depression turned me into a person very different from who I am when I am not depressed. My self esteem plummeted, I began failing my classes, I regained weight I had been so happy to lose as I ate to try to fill the aching holes left by lies.
I struggled for a long time to try to "fix" a marriage I hadn't broken. Finally, I accepted the fact that the healthiest choice for my sons and I would be to get a divorce, to rid our home of the tension, yelling and other ugliness that precedes such a decision. The best choice for us was to go back to the way things were before the marriage; to leave my "cheating, lying husband" days behind me and chose to move on and allow space and time for healing to take place.
Bouncing back from all of the negativity hasn't been quick or easy. I still feel overwhelmed a lot. I seem to be over-spending now rather than over-eating because I feel compelled to find a ring with my sons' birthstone to replace my wedding ring.
But I know I will bounce back. I am, just slowly. And as I'm rising out of the depression I am regaining hope and feeling like myself again. Like who I was before the nightmare began and my world fell apart. I'm walking away from it and in doing so I'm slowly beginning to regain my health, my strength, my identity as a beautiful, capable woman who can be loved and wanted.
(Ok, so I may not be feeling like myself a whole lot yet but I know I will more and more as the days go on.)
"I'm back! And here's a *present* for me!"
What is my present?
My health, my happiness, my son's health and happiness. I am seeing severe stomach problems that have plagued my son for more than five months start to fade away since my "almost" ex has moved out and hasn't been spending time with him. A peaceful home. Hope. Opportunity for something more, something better. A new chapter. A chapter in which I will continue to grow and change for the better emotionally, spiritually and physically.
I just thought of another way I can relate to Maude. I have great friends- and sons!- who are supportive and there for me when I need them most. I also have my faith. Great gifts to have!
Originally posted 11/21/11
November 21, 2011 7:47 PM 
Thank you for sharing your experiences. When you mentioned SparkPeople.com I was puzzled, because I knew you to be so slender. I receive a lot of support there. Keep climbing! You are doing great, and you are worth it.
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