STBX has noticed …

… he’s noticed that I am eating more. Does that mean I am eating too much?? Fuck my head is really screwed isn’t it. That wasn’t a question btw – merely a statement of facts. There was a conversation where STBX were discussing safe things. We only tend to have “safe” conversations these days about things that are either “important need to know” stuff or relevant to daily ongoing life and topics like the news, what we heard on the radio, what’s for dinner etc.

Anyway … and appropriately on the subject of what’s for dinner … Sunday STBX likes to cook. He’s an ex chef so it’s in his bones/blood whatever! He also likes to make sure that the children do get at least a couple of proper dinners and SOME vegetables in their diet which is all good as far as I am concerned! He did a roast tonight and when he let me know earlier that he was cooking tonight … I purposely didn’t eat anything at all during the day so that I could have a totally empty belly to eat “proper food” with …

Well there was conversation a little bit later and I don’t even remember how we got onto the subject … STBX was telling me what his weight was – I mentioned I’d lost another pound but that my appetite seemed to have increased over the last few days…

HE SAID YES, HE HAD NOTICED.

So he’s watching me scoffing food now? Does he even know what alarm bells that sets off inside my head??? It says to me I’ll show him – bastard! I won’t be living with him soon and I will show him what a low appetite can do … because I know I DO control my appetite… no really, I do.

Fucker – I won’t even be living with him and STILL he has this frigging control over me and this way of totally altering my perception of myself and snapping my self confidence.  I’ve been feeling so positive lately and he has this way of bringing me right back down.

My appetite HAS increased yes. I put it down to the stress bubbles being popped with every day I get closer to leaving my husband “officially” … but I am keeping a very close eye on the scales and the minute it goes up even by a tiny little pound … well we’ll worry about that if when it happens.

My weight …

Well my scales have been broken for three days and I have avoided the temptation to buy a new battery. I have absolutely NO IDEA what I weigh. This is good, right?

I dont know … it’s as if over the last few days all I can think about is my new house and moving and how HAPPY I feel right now – and that has cancelled out so many of my negative feelings. Plus … I took in a parcel for a neighbour opposite (at the old house) today and when I saw her pull up in her car, I took the parcel out to her and we ended up having a really good chat! She’d noticed me loading up the car with lots of things over the week and I admitted that I was moving out with the children in just over a week. She laughed and told me she’d commented to her partner that “the woman over the road is looking really good these days!” She told me all about her nightmare divorce, how she had lost a butt load of weight afterwards and we had a good old natter! Funny where you find friends eh!

Well anyway, I HAVE been eating over the last few days. I’ve been having something at lunch and something in the evening. Okay it hasn’t been huge mega amounts, but it’s been more than before – and that is a breakthrough for me.

So being thinner doesn’t necessarily equal happy … but obviously ending my marriage and moving out does … sad huh. I STILL feel fat – don’t get me wrong… but I’ve promised myself all along that I will never starve myself and if I am hungry … I WILL eat. It just seems ironic that the closer I get to leaving this place (ie leaving my STBX husband) and moving into my own place … the less I am obsessed about food.

Or it isn’t irony and it’s just frigging obvious that HE has been the cause of all of my stress!!

Stress bubbles

I woke up feeling VERY panicked and anxious this morning and I don’t want to go into work. I don’t have huge amounts to do, but I do have enough to be getting on with, plus I need to make a start on packing it all up ready to move it to my mother’s. I just feel like I can’t face it right now. I’ve been back on my “happy pills” (anti depressant) for about a week, so hopefully they will kick in soon.

Stress for me involves very physical and very real symptoms. The best way to describe it is like those butterflies you get in the pit of your stomach when you are apprehensive about something. I call them my stress bubbles as that is just what it feels like. I feel them inside my stomach rising up from the bottom all the way up to the top, and I physically shake as well. Emotionally it is almost like a feeling of impending doom. It isn’t good. When it happens I just want to shut the world out – I don’t want to answer the phone or the doorbell

I am just full of apprehension and anxiety about the future and how I will cope and where I will get the emotional strength from. I KNOW I will cope because I will have to and I won’t have any choice, but the longer this is dragging out and we are having to live here in this house together … it is just getting worse. We are pretty much avoiding each other as best as we can.

On the upside, we did have a discussion about furniture etc and he apologised for being bitter and said I should take what I needed as long as I didn’t strip the house bare! I said I never intended to … I already have a sofa, cupboards, shelves & storage in my office at work that I’ll take … so all I really want from the house is the double bed, the dining table & chairs, the TV from upstairs and the stuff from the kids’ rooms plus my own personal posessions! The rest is just stuff.

As long as I have everything the kids will need, plus somewhere for me to sit and somewhere to lay my head – I’ll be fine.

Okay with that positive thought in mind, I AM going to go into work and start packing it up. At least if I do a couple of hours of clearing out and boxing up, then it will boost my mood later on as I will have achieved something.

Ohhh and another positive thought is that I am 9 stone 12lbs (138) today so that’s another pound gone. The scales were waivering between 137 and 138, but I picked the top number because tomorrow it may be flat on the bottom number :-) There we go … closing on a positive thought.

Body Image & Self Control

It is weird how something that started purely by accident … i.e. simply not having an appetite due to the stresses in my life has led me here, and even moreso how it all happened so quickly.

I realise that I am almost very totally obsessed by it and that puts me on a slippery slope … but I don’t want to stop until I get to my new goal weight. Even that sounds weird because I am not consciously starving myself or purposely avoiding food … I just don’t WANT it and so little makes me feel full up. I don’t count calories and if I fancied a cream cake I would eat one … I just don’t want one.

I need to admit … I hit my original goal weight last week when I got to 142lbs. That was the weight I had strived for all along for so many years, and finally I’d got there! It wasn’t that simple though and it wasn’t the celebration I had hoped for… partly because there wasn’t anyone to share it with. My husband and I are separating soon … so it’s not as if he’d care – not really – he doesn’t get the benefit of my new shape so why would he care! I have now changed my goal weight to 130 … 9lbs to go and I think hope I’ll be happy there.

I tried convincing myself that it was okay … that it was just a lack of appetite due to stress and that I didn’t have any control over it, but the RESULTS – damn, I have lost a huge chunk of weight and my clothes fall off of me now. This has been the happy side effect of stress. I just wasn’t hungry.

I don’t know whether it controls me or I control it now. Musings for another post maybe.

As I was in the shower this morning for the second time (I shower a lot – I do my best thinking in there!!) I looked at my body and although I like it better than I did before I lost the weight, I think my boobs are the only part that I actually REALLY like! I still hate my stomach … I’ve had children so I have stretch marks and it isn’t as flat as I want it to be. My thighs are flabby and my hips are enormous. I’ve always had a big bum and been pear shaped for as long as I can remember. I’ve already lost 6″ from my hips, so maybe just another 4″ … or 2″ at LEAST. I even hate my feet – I have such ugly feet!

See … I am an intelligent 33 year old woman and I do NOT want to be an anorexic bag of bones. I do not strive to have sticky out collar bones and ribs that you can count from a mile away. I do not think that is attractive and I have no desire to starve myself to death. I just want to be slimmer and happy. I also realise that being slim won’t necessarily make me happy and that ultimately I am responsible for my own happiness … but damnit – it will help.

The journey begins …

In brief … I am 33 years old and am just coming out of an 11 year marriage with 2 children aged 8 & 10. My marriage broke down a long time ago through lack of communication and no intimacy. We were both to blame. My husband used porn and ignored me sexually for years. I fought back with casual sex encounters and then I had a 4 month affair with a man I continued to see pleutonically after the affair was finished.

My marriage is over but we are still living in the marital home together with the children until my claim for tax credits comes through and I can move out with the children while the house is sold.

In the meantime I have been diagnosed with EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) because I have severe body issues and zero appetite. I am not purposely starving myself or restricting myself consciously  … but as to what goes on in my subconscious mind? Ack well that is what I am here to figure out through my writing.

It is classified as EDNOS because I have lost a serious amount of weight in a short time and I meet all the criteria for being anorexic except for the fact that I am still currently of a “normal” weight for my height and I still have regular periods. Apparently I need to be closer to death and have bones jutting out. I have no desire to eat food and simply don’t ever feel hungry. If I am hungry - I will eat something but it doesn’t take more than a few mouthfuls before I can’t face anymore.

I also suffer from depression and anxiety – all brought on over the last 2-3 years of an unhappy marriage, low self esteem etc and a failing business that I’ve been trying to keep afloat for too long. Ohhh, and if it helps … my 8 year old son has ADHD & Aspergers.

Yeah, I have a full plate.

This blog is meant to be my daily SCREAM about all of the crap that I have in my life as I work my way through all KINDS of issues including but not limited to … LOL …

• Low self esteem & zero self confidence.
• HUGE body / weight issues and a daily battle against the scales.
• An obsession with losing weight as quickly as I can
• Disordered eating (no appetite)
• A diagnosis of EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified)
• Why my husband ignored me in preference to porn.
• What led me to have an affair.
• Dealing with hurt and pain caused to my Husband and extended family.
• Depression & anxiety
• Feelings of inadequacy and a drive to be perfect even though I know I can’t be.
• … and then some!

I have an innate need to WRITE about my daily shit, and although my affair was discovered through a blog, I still HAVE to write it down somewhere so I may as well publish it. Call it cathartic – maybe I get a kick out of feedback & comments … maybe it’s a way of “fitting in” to a world that doesn’t seem to suit me. My old blog has been closed and this new one started. I hide nothing and write everything.

My marriage is over – I have nothing to hide anymore which is why I am writing again. We are both now simply waiting in limbo until I can move out and we can begin our new lives. All I ask is that if you read this and know who I am that you keep it to yourself. Comments / advice all welcome as I take the journey to my emotional recovery and try to work out what the f**k I am doing with my life.