By Ox Drover
I slipped into an unhealthy lifestyle after my husband died six years ago. Slowly I let things deteriorate until I had gained a significant amount of weight, about 10 pounds a year. I started to feel bad and wasn’t really sure just why, but in the back of my mind I knew I had ignored the “red flags” of that needle on my scale creeping up. I had been in “denial” with, “Oh, it’s just a couple of pounds.”
Many times I have realized that my life has been “out of whack” just a little bit at a time, that I have been doing unhealthy things that didn’t immediately impact my life dramatically, but just a “little bit at a time.” Like a bucket filling up one drop at a time, eventually it gets full, if we don’t stop the dripping.
With my weight and my health problems beginning to become apparent, I realized I couldn’t continue to do the unhealthy things I had been doing and continue to enjoy good health. I started to have a little swelling in my feet, and I had always eaten a great deal of salt. It couldn’t be the salt, could it? I was discussing this (really, arguing with) my young physician and I told her, “Well, I’ve always eaten a large amount of salt and it never hurt me before!”
She looked at me and laughed and said, “Well, you’ve never been this old before!” I laughed too, but she was right! I had to quit being in denial that all the little unhealthy things I was doing in my food and exercise lifestyle were not adversely effecting my life and my health. I needed to alter my lifestyle, not just my “diet.”
I realize that I have done other unhealthy things as well. I have allowed others within my circle of family and friends to contribute to this unhealthy way of doing things. It isn’t just a matter of “going on a diet” and shedding a few pounds and then going back to the way things were. It isn’t just a matter of telling a person to stop treating me the way they were, and then go back to the way things were. It is a matter of lifestyle changes that are consistent and long lasting.
Stop and think
With the matter of my nutritional intake and my exercise regimen, I had to actually stop and think every time I went to the kitchen. I had to make plans in advance of how I would fix a meal and had to shop with more forethought, rather than just “grabbing” something out of the pantry and throwing it on the stove.
How many calories, how much sodium, did I have the ingredients I needed? It wasn’t quite as easy any more to put a meal on the table. It required me to actually meal plan days in advance, to shop for those items, to rearrange my budget to take these increased costs for “low sodium” products into account instead of cooking the way I had and following the habits I had for forty years.
I had to do the same thing with my relationships, taking into account the behavior of others in my life—what I would tolerate and what I wouldn’t. What would my boundaries be? Just like I don’t want to take all the taste and enjoyment out of my food in order to “eat healthy,” I don’t want to take all the enjoyment and pleasure out of my relationships either, but at the same time, I can’t tolerate a lot of substances that are toxic to my health, or relationships that are toxic to my soul.
Balance
I have to come to a balance of enjoyment and toleration. There are things I have to eat now that are not my favorites, but I know they are good for me, so I eat them. There are foods that I really enjoy but I know are not good for me at all, so I must entirely avoid them. There are foods that I can enjoy in moderation, or in small amounts. The same applies to the relationships and in people in my life.
My son and I have a friend we dearly love, but who is married to a woman neither of us can stand. While we want to maintain a friendship with him, and visit with him, we know that we must have some association with his wife as well. I sort of look at it like eating my favorite biscuits and gravy. I can have small amounts once in a while, but can’t take very much or very often.
In the past when I had weight problems, I would change my eating habits temporarily, but as soon as I lost a few pounds, I went back to eating in an unhealthy manner. I think I have done the same thing when dealing with people in my life who were unhealthy or toxic. I would get them (or people like them) out of my life for a while, sort of like a “crash diet,” but then when I felt better, go back to the old dysfunctional and unhealthy lifestyle.
Now, in my emotional and relationship life, I have made a commitment to a LIFESTYLE CHANGE, just as I have in my dietary and nutritional status. I’m not just on a “short term diet.” I am making healthy choices for life. I am working on living a balanced life, a healthy life, and not “slipping” off of a short term change, back into the old unhealthy habits.
Skylar, what you wrote is a very interesting perspective, one I hadn’t thought about or realized. You are onto something I think!
Gem, I really understand when you talk about your anger….as I have worked through this new info on lovefraud, realizing how much of my family have traits of this behavior and looking at how much I have lost of myself over the past 12 years when being married, then divorced from spath I too felt buried in anger. I was so shocked to be so angry. It was infecting all aspects of my life and for so long. It seemed as though I’d never get past it, that I’d never heal and I felt so stuck. I continually gave my power to my ex and even though I knew it intellectually, I couldn’t internalize the idea that I had to do something differently in order to come alive again. I know I had been stuck for a good 5 years. Until I found lovefraud and my perspective changed so much. I started doing things differently. I don’t know why I was able to several months ago and not be able to do it several years ago. I supposed when we are ready things happen. For some reason I wasn’t ready before. Maybe I had some other lessons to learn. Who knows. But now after having NO CONTACT with ex spath for almost six months now (!!) my life has improved drastically. I also allowed people around me who love me to help. Asking for help is very difficult, and knew I had to let those trusted people back in. Having NC with my x has made a huge difference in my psyche. I don’t think about him as much and when I do it isn’t with that all encompassing process. It is smaller if that makes sense. I just let go. But a couple of things I did do included forgiving. Now, I don’t know if I really have forgiven him yet, or forgiven my brother…but I’ve been praying for them. I pray for them to have what I want in my life. I stopped calling them names in my mind and when talking about them to others and actually quit talking about them quite a lot overall. I stopped calling them names like Fu_ _ wit, and even stopped calling him sociopath because I found for myself that the more negative I behaved the less I was able to let go of my anger. it’s just what has worked for me, I am not at all saying anyone else is wrong when doing that. And praying for them helped my perspective, too. Forgiving is not about condoning behavior. Forgiving doesn’t mean we have forgotten, either. But forgiving helps us to release those feelings that cause us to stay stuck. Fogiving helps us get our power back. Under anger is usually another feeling as others have said…it is usually about loss. The loss of something we had, or something we want or think we need, or the loss of something we had been planning, like planning on what our family would look like. Most of us have had that ripped away. It’s ok to feel angry. We should feel angry. If we don’t and it is about something like we’ve all endured then most likely that anger will surface again and again until we deal with it. That’s why we get stuck. We need to be able to feel the feeling, walk through it and heal. There is no other way! I’ve tried! Finally, I got sick and tired of being angry and decided it was time to do something about it.
After praying and forgiving and after reconditioning my brain to think less drastically about my ex or my brother and others in my family I started to become more Mindful. Mindfulness is a skill that for me was hard to learn. I am a very goal oriented type person for the most part. That is good for some things in my life, but not for others and I realized I needed to be able to sit with myself, sit and enjoy the moment and not race to the destination. As I became more mindful with each thing I did….eating mindfully, being more present when talking to a friend and not thinking about what I had to do, or what I needed to say next, and enjoying slowing down I realized my stress levels started to decrease and my anger got less and less. I had fewer catecholamines being discharged daily because I was able to sit and be calm instead of live in my kind of fight and flight life style. (and after living like th at for 5 years I have depleted my cortisol!! LOL.) Living like I did really did a number on my physically and when we have all that cortisol being released in our anger and fears and anxiety makes it worse. It makes us very unhealthy.
I don’t know if I am making any sense. But for me these changes have been miraculous. I love this new place I am in. I am not ruminating about all of these things that have “happened” to me. I have taken responsibility for my part and have been open to learning what it is I needed to look at for myself (and there has been a ton!) and I have been willing to do things differently. It’s easy to say or to recommend or to advise, but it really is difficult to do. So I am proud of myself! Proud that I have had the courage to look this stuff in the face because it hasn’t been pretty. And the changes started after I came to this site. It was hearing about others’ plights and realizing I wasn’t alone, although I certainly don’t want others to go through this. It was listening to people who have been through it and be able to ask for help. I commend all of you for being here and giving of yourselves so others can heal. Its a long hard road and not many out there in the world understand this. Hopefully we will be educating people more and I know in my small way I will do what I can, which includes hopefully helping other clients who are going through this and who have not had any luck in finding someone to understand this.
So much has changed in a few months and I am grateful. I am seeing my daughter this weekend FINALLY. What a long road to get that going and this is only temporary. I will be getting all of that back to normal soon. I am moving to a smaller town, a town my son lives in (he’s 26 and a great guy) and making the decision to move will be a part of the lifestyle I am taking on for myself now. The “mindful” lifestyle where I can enjoy the beauty of where I live and can slow it down and stop the insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results! I am now feeling really grateful and although I wish I would have understood this a few years earlier so I wouldn’t have had to make a mess of my life as i tried to scramble around figuring out what was happening to me and then trying to make my life better immeidately! But, I really don’t dwell on that…it is what it is…and I had some things to learn that might not have happened otherwise.
So i guess the bottom line for all of us is in taking back our power we just have to be willing to try something different. Just one thing. One small thing can make a huge difference. And continue to ask for help from TRUSTED loved ones.
Thanks!
one_step_at_a_time,
I know what it’s like to have a family member steal money from you. It is shocking and disturbing, causing you to have to revise your thinking about the person. It hurts to see a side of them that speaks about their character – a lack of it.
skylar,
Your post was interesting to read.
chinagirl,
It’s good to hear from you – good post.
Hi Bluejay! Thanks… I’ve come on LF and read a lot but didn’t post. (obviously…lol) Sometimes it is just good to listen. So much has changed in a few months it is amazing! Really couldn’t have done it without the support and care here.
Cat-I was reading your post from way up…what a story! How incredibly strong you are. I can completely relate to having a mom undermine you. It goes along with what Sky was saying in her post that we feel entitled to have our mothers be someone who stand up for us, support us, comfort and care for us and when it doesn’t happen it is so shocking. My mom would do and say similar things…I sent her a picture of me and my now ex s when we were getting engaged. I had been working in a great job, working out, looked healthy and felt healthy and great! (Little did I know that would be the beginning of the end….with him….) and she said to me, “Well, you look heavy in this picture”. WHAT? I wasn’t. I was very thin but I remember just taking that on. Believing her. Instead of standing up for myself and calling her on bad behavior I was still in that mindset back then of not hurting her feelings and not saying anything and allowing that kind of thing to happen. I’d just feel horrible. or, she’d talk about me to my son. What mother does that? Oh, yes, some of our mothers do. man oh man. It doesn’t even compute for me…I’d never in a million years do that to my kids. At the end, before she died that last year of her life I started to put up very strong boundaries with her and although it was necessary it was also difficult mostly because she was dying and there were times I had to just NOT set the boundary in order to help her. It was a conscious choice and I wanted to help her and be there for her and I just made the decision to ignore any bad behavior. I’ve never come to understand what she got out of saying those things to me…or about me. Was she jealous? Was she just an angry woman or an unhappy woman? She wasn’t really angry, more unhappy is my guess. Unhappy with herself and insecure…she might have been borderline, too, who knows. But I think a lot of us grew up with that kind of thing and it contributed to us being open to allowing some of the bad behavior that happened by our spaths. It really is amazing to read these stories and see how much I relate!
Oxy, EB , One step. hens. china girl, Sky, Bluejay,
Thank you all SO MUCH! , for taking the time and love to respond to my desperate pleas about my anger issues.You have all helped me so much, in different ways. Thank God for LF!! China girl, your right, as kids a nd teenagers we were never allowed to express any emotions in our house, while I was growing up.And for YEARS and YEARS I bottled up anger to my spath girls and ex husband.I HAD to for years, just to get to see my Gkids.Now Ive got to the stage I dont CARE ifI see them or not, I know I have to heal ME. I WILL get all the anger out, Oxy, I will, but it takes time to process it all.
I totally GET that I can be in a rage of anger and my spath daughters are not even aware of it, or could CARE LESS!Someone else said, yea, we kind of EXPECT out blood family to love us back, and treat us like we treat them. Doesnt always happen that way, as Ive discovered.I REFUSE any more to try to live on crumbs from my spath D and maybe Narc SIL”s lives.
I WONT be like poor NewLily. living on crumbs.
Oxy, china girl, I will try to pray for them without trying to do Gods work for Him, ie,not suggest ways He can make them suffer too!Its totally up to God, when and where he decides to dish out their bad Karma. However, I DO believe in the law of Karma, and divine Justice.In the Bible it says,”It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of Almighty God!” So for now, I have to be at peace, knowing they will “GET THEIRS” one day.
I was in such DENIAL for so many years as to the extent of the WICKEDNESS of the 3 spaths. Now, its all rising to the surface, and I gotta get it out!! THEN I can heal. A bit like trying to heal over an embedded fishhook,that spot will get red, hurt, fester,
and will NOT heal unless we dig out that fish hook, which is embedded in our flesh!IM GETTING IT ALL OUT and I have to trust the process. looking back, I think Im very lucky to be alive and sane, and in a brand new happy life with David and my new “family” from Iran. But I MUST get this festering poison out,or it will go on poisoning my present life!As Oxy said, re
Joren Van der Sluts victim’s Mother,she said she REFUSED to allow him to steal her future, he had already stolen from her her daughter, her mariage,and her job.I must do the same. They, [the 3 spaths} have stolen so much from me, but they will NOT steal my future, starting from RAHT NOW!!
Love, and heartfelt thanks to all of you! TOWANDA for LF!!
Mama gem.XXX
hi bluejay – nicely put! ‘lack of character’. It’s hard to accept that my dad is like that. i would like nothing better than to let down my defenses and be the loving daughter – but it’s not about me – as much as he tries to make it about me. he’s just a person of bad character, who stole from me and lied about it; who mistreats my mom; is engaged in looking at incest porn; searches for eastern european ‘brides’ online; who huffs and puffs, sulks and blusters, and SO doesn’t deserve me as a daughter. don’t think he ever did; I just didn’t know that.
dear onestep – your description of your father is sickening to say the least..you can still be a loving daughter too your mom and I would love to have you as my daughter…
Mamma Gem You deal with that anger how ever you need too, but hurry up and deal with it, you aint gettin any younger…
I was thinking of Anewlilly the other day when I dug up, seperated and transplanted the naked lady lillie bulbs, I am gonna have nekkid ladys everywhere next summer.. I dont think she died angry just sad with lot’s of regret’s, but also happy she escaped her demon ass doctor narc husband before he killed her – now I am gettin angry remembering it all….
thank you hens.
i haven’t written about the extent of the things i know about him, because they haven’t been salient to the discussions – but he is all those things. and i beleive he is withholding the stolen money out of a N wound – i didn’t take his side when my sis accused him of some stuff 20 some years ago – and i had my own story about HIS father – that made me reaaaal unpopular with the whole family 25 years ago…knowing too much is a burden, but one we need to learn to dance with.
um, and if you are gonna have nekid ladies everywhere, can i visit? 😉