Harriet M. Welch

Today I went to the mall because I was shopping for something, and I stopped in at California Pizza Kitchen to get a beer at the bar. There was a woman seated to my right and the tv was showing NCAA women’s softball – Washington vs UNC. This woman was quite tiny, about my age. At one point she said to the bartender, “You should change the channel. You are not going to get people to eat here if you are showing this on TV.” He asked her why. She said, “Look at those girls playing softball. They are all huge! One after the other. I thought it was just the one team, but now they are showing a different game, and each girl is so fat!”

I started to watch, and I didn’t see any “huge”, “fat” girls. They are athletic looking, but not fat. She said, “I’m so glad my daughter doesn’t play softball. Thank goodness she is a dancer.”

Here are photos of the girls softball teams from Washington and UNC:

I watched for a while and I said, “Those girls aren’t big. Some have large muscular legs, but they are very athletic looking. Look at their upper bodies, they aren’t big at all.” She did concede that their upper bodies were not too big. She was trying to convince the bartender that they are fat. She said, “You’re a guy, what do you think?” He didn’t look like he enjoyed being put on the spot.

The whole thing made me angry. I feel sorry for her daughter, who will probably never be allowed to play softball.

Tags: body image

Do you know what I am going to do in Mississippi? No one will know me. I can be whoever I want.

I am not bringing any makeup. Not even mascara. I am not bringing any hair products (yes, I will bring shampoo and conditioner, and a comb and brush, but no uv protection spray, no curl serum, no shine serum, no straightening serum….)

I will wear my buffs and baseball caps and have a ponytail every day.

The clothing regulations say “pants/shorts must not be tight fitting. Any form of clothing that is tight fitting is not allowed.” I don’t even know what that means! I tend to wear somewhat form fitting clothing because it makes me look less fat. Are my clothes tight? I don’t even know.

I have some jean shorts that are from 10 pounds ago, they are definitely not tight. I’ll bring those. I have a pair of khaki shorts that don’t seem tight. My jeans are somewhat tight, but they are all I have. If anyone says anything about them I can run out to Walmart (ack!) and buy some bigger jeans.

So I’ll be a makeup-less, ponytailed, baggy clothing chick for a week. Sounds comfortable, low maintenance and different. But it sounds scary. I’m almost 50 and I need to make myself look the best I can look! It’s hard to change that. I don’t want to be one of those slovenly matronly women who have “let themselves go.”

But no one knows me there, and I’ll probably never see them again. So it’s ok. I hope.

Tags: body image, self esteem, weight

On Friday, before the snow started, I sent J an email with my homework assignment. I was supposed to figure out what a parent’s responsibility is for their adult child. Basically what I said in the email was that I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to write about parents in general, or me specifically. If it was about me specifically, then I feel a lot of responsibility towards my son because of the things I didn’t do properly during his childhood. I gave him a link to a post on my blog where I wrote about my son and the difficulties he had academically, and what I tried to do for him, and how I ended up messing things up pretty badly. I also told him that he was welcome to read other posts on my blog about my son, but he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.

Then I told him that thinking about this has brought up old bad feelings that I don’t want to deal with. I would rather focus on the problem. And don’t I have responsibilities for my daughter, my family, and myself? I told him that I just wanted to solve the problem without it being about me.

And I told him my son’s name.

And then I mentioned the insurance company difficulties, and how I am concerned that I had to lie to the insurance customer service woman, and now I am concerned that they will find out that I lied because of whatever paperwork J has to send in to them with my claims. And that was about it.

I wasn’t really expecting a reply, since I didn’t ask him anything, and this was just an assignment that he asked me to email to him, and the last time I emailed him he didn’t reply. I’m glad he didn’t send me back an email because I had enough to deal with over the weekend with the weather situation.

But this morning I did get an email from him saying that I bring up some good points and that this assignment was a prelude to coming up with a plan for my son. He said he would be happy to develop a plan but whatever he suggests would be just that – a suggestion, but he wanted to conceptualize my role first.

I felt really stupid once again when I read the email, and I was even more happy that he didn’t send it to me last week, because I would have been thinking about it all weekend and thinking about how I suck at therapy and here I am messing things up again. Of course he had a plan, why would I think he didn’t have a plan? And here I am saying I don’t want this to be about me, I just want suggestions for dealing with the problem and I don’t want to think about my feelings and all he was asking was for me to conceptualize my role in order to be able to make a plan.

And then he addressed the insurance issue – he said that he can handle it with minimal disclosure and he can show me what he submits to them. I don’t understand this at all, I really asked him if I could just pay him, and not deal with the insurance company at all. Why would he be opposed to that – maybe he thinks I don’t have the money to pay him and he’s afraid my check will bounce or something.

He didn’t say whether he read the blog post that I sent him the link for.

This morning I was talking to my husband about how I am “sharing” my friend’s personal trainer. We signed up for 12 sessions – which is 6 weeks – and he asked how much it was costing. I told him it was $55 per session, but it is a onetime thing, I’m only doing the 12 sessions and that is it. He said, “$100 a week???” OK, I guess that is a lot of money, but he has a gym membership that is $100 a month. Yes, that is $300 a month cheaper, but he has been going for a couple of years and I only want to do this for 12 sessions. After that I can do the workout on my own, or with my friend.

This afternoon, right after I got the email from J, my husband finally got around to asking how my workout went this morning, which I was surprised about since he never asks me how anything goes in my life. I told him that I had to pay the trainer the full amount in advance, so could he put $600 in my account. He got really pissed off and scowled and finally mumbled, “Fine.” Then I felt like a real piece of shit. Here I am using my family’s money to work out with a personal trainer 12 times, a real luxury, and how dare I do that? He plays golf all summer, which is expensive, and belongs to a gym, and my daughter has her own horse that we pay for board and lessons and horse shows, etc etc. And I want to spend $600 on a trainer and he gets pissed off. Just thinking about it is making me upset. I hate having to ask him for money.

I really want a new job. I’ve been answering job ads on Craig’s List, but no one ever gets back to me. I guess I have no marketable skills that anyone wants, and I have no way to make any money. The people that I normally work for haven’t been calling me because their workloads have dwindled lately, and they don’t want to spend the money on me. Or maybe they just don’t like me, who knows.

I just really feel like a worthless piece of garbage right now. And I have gained 5 pounds recently. It seems every day when I step on the scale there is another pound. I’m not sure if it is due to stopping the wellbutrin, or maybe I’m drinking more. I do keep track of all of my calories, but maybe I’ve been cheating too much. I really need to get my act together. I even bought some diet pills, but they don’t seem to do a thing. I certainly don’t feel any different or eat any less when I’m taking them. That was a waste.

This evening I got an email from the trainer asking, “How was today?” That was all he asked, and I started to read all kinds of things into it: He doesn’t want to work with me, he thinks I’m lazy, I complain too much, I’m not strong enough, I’m too fat, I’m too weak. I emailed him back asking, “I thought it was fine. Did you think it was ok? Did I complain too much?” He replied that I did fine and he wanted to be sure he was addressing my needs. Now I’m wondering what he really means, when maybe what he really means is what he really said. My mind is just totally spiraling out of control at this point.

Tomorrow is therapy and I get to go in there and feel like an idiot again. Isn’t therapy supposed to make me feel better about myself? When does that start happening?

Tags: blog, daughter, email, exercise, feelings, insurance, money, negative thoughts, son, weight, wellbutrin, work

It was really bad today. I actually wasn’t very anxious yesterday or this morning like I usually am before therapy, because of the email I sent J last week. I knew there was enough material in there to take us through at least two or three sessions, so I was off the hook as to coming up with something to talk about. But when I got there he asked me “What are we talking about?” I mentioned the email. I can’t remember what he said, but he blew that off. Softened the blow by telling me again that it was perfect. But no talking about the email today! Too bad for you!

Remember how I wrote a couple of days ago about not being resilient? This is another example. When I have something planned out and I’m expecting it to be a certain way, and then it doesn’t go that way, I’m floundering. I can’t regroup and go the new way. So for the next 45 minutes I was not all there. I know I definitely zoned out a few times – it’s amazing how easily that happens in therapy. It never happens in real life. Plus somehow we got onto one of my least favorite subjects – weight and eating. Combined with another of my least favorite subjects – putting myself down and not thinking positive thoughts about myself.

I don’t really remember much of what was said, except that I need to think more positive things about myself, which I don’t know how to do, and not focus so much on the negative things. I know I used the phrase “going to hell in a handbasket” which I can honestly say that I have never said before in my life and I don’t even know what it means. Microsoft doesn’t even think handbasket is a word.

I wish I could have a do-over.

J said he thought he would have gotten an email from me with my blog address. Oh yeah, like that is an easy decision to make. But I think I’ll give it to him, what the hell. I made some old blog entries password protected, and I’m not sure what I’ll do about future ones, but I’ll figure that out when it happens. And if it’s a disaster I’ll just start a new blog, although I’ll miss Harriet. I think this deserves two pairs of shoes, since I never did buy shoes after my dentist appointment last week when I found out I’m not a perfect patient.

I wish I knew the name for the feeling I get after therapy sessions like this. I’ve gotten this feeling many times in the past year, usually when talking about body image, or finding positive things about myself, or maybe when a session doesn’t go the way I’d like it to, or if it’s something we’ve talked about so many times before without the issue ever getting better. I have my list of feelings words and it’s kind of a combination of:

Upset
Disappointed
Discouraged
Perplexed
Distrustful
Uneasy
Alone
Useless
Frustrated
Dejected

Is there a word for all of that? Maybe fucked up would do. That’s how I felt today. When I left I felt that feeling and I drove around, then had lunch, then walked around, went into Barnes and Noble but couldn’t concentrate on anything, walked around some more, bought cupcakes for my kids at a bakery and came home. Sandra Lee was calling my name. Remember I went through that Apple-tini phase until I ran out of Apple Brandy? Now I have another Sandra Lee recipe using tequila, pomegranate juice and lime juice. Pom juice is really healthy.

And I’ve been thinking about the 16 year old who called the Lifeline on Sunday and told me that he is being picked on at school because he’s gay. That really sucks. We talked for a while and I think he decided to talk to his guidance counselor because he said he trusts her. He lives with his dad who doesn’t know he’s gay, and he doesn’t have a relationship with his mom. I asked him what he does at lunch, and he said he sits alone. Every day. How can no one care about this kid?

I was listening to John Prine in the car earlier. I like these lyrics:

Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go

Yep, it’s a hard way to go. And tomorrow is the 13th – four more months until my birthday.

Tags: anxiety, blog, body image, drinking, eating, feelings, hotline, negative thoughts, weight

People liked me better when I was fat. Maybe I was more accessible. I know I was more likeable, more fun, easier to be with. That could also be because I was on anti-depressants.

Once a month I meet with friends that I used to work with when I taught nursery school. We meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Last spring I stopped eating Chinese food, because every time I ate it I would gain about 3 pounds. So I stopped having dinner with them. But last month I decided I could go and have steamed brown rice and steamed chicken and snow peas and it would be fine. Other women in the group get their own meals, not everyone shares and no one ever has a problem with it. So at our dinner I said I wasn’t going to share that night, I was going to order my own food. One of the women said, “What, are you too skinny to share?” I thought that was awfully rude, but I didn’t let it hurt my feelings (yay, that’s an accomplishment!) Eighty percent of the women in this group are thin, and the others aren’t fat, they could stand to lose 10 or 20 pounds, but they are perfectly fine the way they are. I don’t know why anyone is picking on me, I guess it’s because I’ve changed. I used to be a sharer and now I’ve gone solo.

Other ways I’ve changed because of my eating:

I don’t like to go out to eat
I don’t spend as much time with friends because I don’t like to go out to eat
I obsess about food a lot which reduces time in the day for fun, and makes me uptight
I obsess about exercising, which does the same thing

Or maybe I haven’t changed because of my eating, maybe I’ve changed because I went off of the wellbutrin. No, I don’t think so, because this eating stuff started to happen while I was still on the wellbutrin.

Or maybe people just like overweight people because they aren’t threatening? I don’t think I’m threatening, but people who are thinner than me are threatening to me. (I know that’s ridiculous, but I try to be honest here.)

Tags: eating, feelings, food, friends, weight, wellbutrin

Yesterday I ran in a race. It was a 5K and my goal was to run it in under 30 minutes, but over the last couple weeks I was thinking I would just run it for fun, since I developed shin splints. I’ve really been taking care of my injury, cutting back on frequency of runs and duration of runs, icing, stretching, exercises, physical therapy. I didn’t want to push too hard and make this worse because I have a 10K I’m running on November 1st.

But this week I was feeling pretty good and when I got to the race I decided I would go for it. Maybe I was deluding myself about forgetting about my goal, I’m way too competitive for that. So I tried to run the race in under 30, but the first mile really screwed me up. There were 2700 people running and I lined up too far to the back of the pack. I had a hard time getting around people for the first mile, and I finished in 10:14, which I knew was a setback. I ran the next two miles much faster, but it wasn’t enough, I finished in 30:16. I did cut 2 minutes off of my 5K time, which isn’t too shabby, but I was disappointed about the 17 seconds. I know it’s not a big deal in the larger picture, but it is what it is. (I know that a 30 minute 5K is no big deal for most people, but hey, I’m old and I’m slow!)

My husband said I did great and 17 seconds is no big deal. I finished 25th in my age group out of 117, and that’s a good thing! Then my mother called me in the afternoon to find out how I did in my “marathon.” She said it was broadcast on TV and she was looking for me, but didn’t see me. I explained to her that I was not running a marathon, but a 5K. I told her a 5K is only three miles. Her response, “Oh, well I guess you had no trouble with that.” Yeah, mom, no trouble at all. Sorry to disappoint you that I didn’t run the marathon. Then I saw that my sister posted on her facebook that I was running a marathon. Sheesh!

I’m reading a book in which the main character is an overeater. She loves cupcakes and sometimes buys 6 or 7 or them at once and eats them. I also love cupcakes, who doesn’t love cupcakes? They are cute and little and have a high ratio of frosting to cake. What’s not to love? So yesterday afternoon I was craving a cupcake. I went to the grocery store for some things and stopped at the cupcake section in the bakery. Yum, they looked good. You can’t buy one, you have to buy six. My kids love them and would have enjoyed them. But I thought, am I buying them for my kids, or to see if I can resist them if they are sitting on my kitchen counter. Am I doing this to punish myself for not meeting my goal in the race? Because if so, that is a bad reason to buy cupcakes and I’m not going to do it.

But if I want a cupcake I should be able to eat a cupcake, right? I’m not a binge eater, it’s not like I would ever eat all six. Today my daughter and I went to the mall and there is a new shop that sells frozen tart yogurt and cupcakes. I told my daughter I’ve been craving a cupcake and she said they are really good and I should get one. I told her I didn’t think I wanted one, they have too many calories. She said I could get one and eat one half today and one half tomorrow. Wow, what a good idea. But, guess what? I didn’t get one. I can’t bring myself to eat a cupcake. She had a cupcake, topped with frozen yogurt, topped with granola. And she looked like she enjoyed every bite of it. I did get some frozen yogurt – only because it’s the tart kind. And there were 6 raspberries on top. I liked it, but it wasn’t a cupcake.

Why can’t I eat a cupcake if I want a cupcake?

Tags: daughter, food, mother, running, sister

So tomorrow I can’t weigh myself. I made a pact with I Hate To Weight. No scale tomorrow. I’m a little bit freaking out. If I can’t weigh myself I’m afraid I won’t eat the whole day. I eat pretty much the same food (well, not exactly the same food, but the same type of food) every day, so I don’t see why I need to weigh myself all the time. I’m being ridiculous. I hate how stupid I get sometimes.

My tooth is still hurting, but I’ve been taking a lot of Advil. I talked to the dentist and she mentioned a couple of things she can try. I’ve also been doing research on the internet about this and there seem to be a few causes for tooth pain after filling. I’m starting to think I’m sensitive to the composite material of the filling. All of my other fillings have been silver. Composite is supposed to be better, but some people are sensitive to it. And since I’m sensitive to EVERYTHING in this world and in my life, it makes sense that I’m sensitive to composite fillings.

But after asking for advice on my facebook, I got into a “facebook fight” with my brother in law, who is an asshole, and then his wife, my sister in law, had to chime in, and now I’m the bad guy. You’d think they would be more sensitive to the fact that I am in a lot of pain, but no, they accuse me of being critical, when it was actually my BIL who was critical. I can’t win.

But I’m glad I’m being proactive about the tooth issue. The dentist says I have a few more old fillings that need to be replaced, and I want to get to the root (ha ha pun!) of this issue before I attempt more fillings.

So the advil will continue…..

Tags: eating, family, food, sensitive, tooth, weight

A couple of weird things happened yesterday, but I’ll write about this one. I have a sister who is three years younger than me. All of our lives she was the cute pretty little social one, and I was the ugly big nerdy one. Lately when I’ve been glancing in the mirror at myself (because that is how I look in the mirror, via glances) I see her. And we don’t look anything alike. A major change that has happened to me is that over the last two years my hair has gone from sleek and straight to curly/wavy. My sister always had curly hair. Our hair was always about the same color until a few years ago when she stopped coloring hers, now hers is mostly gray with some blobs of brown. She looks vastly different due to the gray hair, and also much older.

When my friends see photos of her they say, “What happened to your sister?” To me she looks the same, but with grayer hair, but to most people she looks very different.

I have also lost weight during the last couple of years resulting in a thinner face. But I still don’t think we look alike, except when I glance in a mirror and see her.

As I mentioned I’m taking an online photo journalism course and last week our assignment was Reflections. We took photos of ourselves or others reflected in different surfaces. This was an extremely difficult assignment for me, psychologically as well as technically, but I did manage to create a few photos that were decent.

One of the photos I shot in my car. It was a reflection of me in the mirror of my sun visor.

And in this photo I look just like my sister, except with brown hair. I also have sunglasses on, which hides my eyes. My eyes are very different than my sister’s. I sent the photo to my sister with a note, “See why I say I look like you?” She sent me back this email:

“That’s my old me. I miss that look. Wow, you are sooo lucky”

I was stunned when I read this. I felt like crying, I felt so badly for my sister. I never thought that she was affected by her appearance – she was always the cute pretty one! Now I’m the lucky one? How can this be?

I guess when you’re ugly for your whole life you get used to it, but when you start out attractive and you get older and your looks change it is very disturbing.

I told her it’s just the hair color that is different, nothing else about her has changed. In my eyes, anyway. She’s still the pretty one. I just can’t believe that when it comes to looks anyone would think I’m lucky.

Tags: appearance, creativity, self esteem, sister

I was at the beach for the last few days. I didn’t have internet access – yikes! I am so dependent on my computer and my internet. TOO dependent.

I did have lots of time to do lots of thinking though. That could be good or bad. One thing is I’m trying to have less in my life. Less of everything. Towards that goal, I have cancelled my Twitter account. Twitter has been such a waste of time for me. I have also cancelled subscriptions to lots of blogs that I read. Most of them were fashion or beauty blogs that led to me to spend more money than I needed to on more items that I didn’t really need. I’m still subscribed to lots of blogs – mostly in the areas of fitness, diet, health, organization, mental health and creativity. It takes lots of time to read these, but I get great ideas on improving these areas of my life, so I think it’s worth the time.

For my beach vacation I brought a ton of food. I ate all of my own food for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks and we went out for dinner. This was hard! I did have to put up with lots of comments and questions about my food from the two friends I was with. The comments seemed genuine, but with an undertone of sarcasm. This could be in my head, however. They did ask sincere questions about what I eat, and how I eat. I feel that I eat a very healthy diet, but I’m very obsessive and regimented, which isn’t always a good thing.

After eating out Monday night and Tuesday night, we awoke Wednesday morning and they were already trying to decide where to eat Wednesday night! I suggested we just come back home and eat something from the pantry, like an apple or something, but that did not go over well. They wanted to go to another restaurant that had a nice patio overlooking the bay where we could sit outside and have a drink, etc. It’s true the atmosphere of eating that way is lovely and I did enjoy it. But I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the amount and type of food that I was eating at these restaurants. And there was no scale at the beach house. Unfortunately my life revolves around the scale, and I know this is not good. So don’t tell me it isn’t. I KNOW!

I did still get my exercise in on Tuesday. None on Monday. And on Wednesday, which is the day I normally walk 4 miles, my friends wanted to join me. This was bad for the exercise, because they don’t walk as fast as I do, but good for the socializing, because the 4 miles took one hour and eight minutes to complete (Gah!) and we had a nice time. I tried to hurry them up, but they could only go so fast. One kept saying how much she was sweating, and she did seem a bit out of breath, so I didn’t want to push her any harder!

I did a lot of rationalizing and logicalizing about my eating and exercising for these three days. I know logically that three days of eating anything – good or bad – is not going to change me in any way. I know that I don’t have to be so obsessive about what and when I eat and exercise. I know this in my head. But last night I was up most of the night. I couldn’t fall asleep or stay asleep, and when thinking about it all I could come up with was my anxiety about eating too much and exercising too little. I don’t know how to get to my subconscious to believe my conscious.

We came home a day early because my friend’s father-in-law became ill and needed surgery. I was relieved to come home! One of the first things I did after I brought in my stuff and gave the dog a treat was to weigh myself. I’m starting to think there is something wrong with me.

Tags: anxiety, beach, eating, food, friends, obsessive, running, vacation, weight

So I’m sitting on the beach today with one of my best friends. We’ve been friends for about 24 years or so. Out of the blue she says, “Did you ever get a tattoo?” I said, “Why do you ask?” because when in doubt and caught off guard it’s best to answer a question with another question. She said, “Well, I know you’ve been wanting one and I was just wondering if you ever got it.” And I got very brave and said, “Yes, I did get it.” She said, “Where is it?” I said, “On my ankle.” She said, “I don’t see it.” I said, “That is because I cover it up.” (Dermablend, MAC Studiofix, etc., works wonders). She said, “Why do you cover it up?” I said, “Because I don’t want to embarrass you.” She said, “Why would it embarrass me?” I said, “Because I know you don’t like tattoos.” She said, “Well, just because I wouldn’t get one on myself doesn’t mean that it would bother me that you have one.” I went on to explain to her how no one knows about it and how most people seem to think that having a tattoo makes one a lower class citizen. And she said if I did it for me I shouldn’t worry about what other people think. And I explained that I believe that human beings in general worry about what other people think of them, that’s just human nature. But I felt relieved that she knows about it and later today I showed it to her and she said she liked it (although I’m sure she doesn’t, but it was nice of her to say she does.) It was anxiety provoking telling her about it, but it turned out to be not so bad.

Tags: anxiety, beach, friends, tattoo