Harriet M. Welch

I have this feeling that I want to get rid of everyone in my life. Just do away with them all, never have anything to do with them again. Start over with all new people. I realize this is impossible for most of the people in my life. And I definitely don’t want to get rid of my husband or my kids. Other family members, well, I’m stuck with them. But friends – I don’t need any of the friends I have. I’d prefer to be with my more casual acquaintances, or strangers. People who I don’t need to share too much information with in either direction. Then I won’t have to help them when they need it, and I won’t be let down when they don’t help me when I need it.

Today I was researching volunteer vacations – working on trails in Washington, building homes in Ohio. I would love to go away for a week and work on an organic farm, or do whale watching. Unfortunately I discovered these vacations a little late in the year, as most are already filled. But I think I would like the kind of people who go on these trips and I really want to try one. Anyone ever do anything like this?

Tags: friends, vacation

Forgot to write in the blog yesterday! I’m too preoccupied with keeping track of my exercise and food on runnersworld.com and livestrong.com. I even bought new weights, goggles for swimming, and a new heart rate monitor yesterday. Not too obsessed, am I?

So I wrote to my therapist telling him I can’t write to him about my problems because it sounds like I’m whining. He responded by saying, “No problem. If writing makes you feel worse, don’t do it.” I thought that was nice. He didn’t try to convince me that it’s his job to listen to people’s problems and that he doesn’t consider it whining and complaining. So I sent him an email thanking him for acknowledging my feelings and not trying to give me logic.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to talk to him about my problems, but it’s nice having my feelings validated.

Tags: email, feelings, food, running, validate

I’ve been reading a wonderful blog called Graceful Creative. It is written by a mom in her thirties with two young kids. She says on her blog that she is on a journey to become a better her. I highly recommend reading it.

The other day she talked about Dr. Brene Brown who also has a blog Ordinary Courage and has written a book called I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) — Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power. On Dr. Brown’s website it says “she has spent the past ten years studying connection – specifically authenticity, belonging, and shame, and the affect these powerful emotions have on the way we live, love, parent, work and build relationships.” Her book is amazing and I highly recommend it.

Meanwhile I keep writing emails to my therapist, J, and not sending them. Every time I write it and read it, it sounds like whining. How do you talk about your problems without sounding like you are whining and complaining? I can’t do it.

Tags: connection, creativity, shame

I had emailed J last week about the journal entry I wrote last year, and I told him he didn’t have to read it until today. When I got there today first I gave him that piece of crap book he recommended to me and he told me he never even read it. That’s the second time he’s done that to me. I told him about a great book I’m reading about shame, which I’ll write more about tomorrow, and the great blog I’ve been reading from where I got the name of the book.

J had printed out my email with the journal entry and we talked about that pretty much the whole time. The shame of being bad, etc. I told him that I thought shame was more than just being bad vs. good and he says he knows that. I don’t think he quite gets my shame, he seems to think it’s just because I don’t think I’m perfect at everything, and that’s not really it. It encompasses a lot more than just that. Or maybe that is it, but it covers a lot of different areas. We talked some about my parenting shame, and I don’t think I’ve successfully conveyed the extent of poor parenting I used on my son. I’m going to have to do a better job of describing that. Maybe I’ll print out that blog post about weighing the pennies.

We used recyling as an example of not being perfect since it was in the journal entry. I was telling J that I feel bad when I don’t recycle every single thing. I know my family throws some recyclables away, and I don’t fish them out of the trash to recycle them. Also sometimes I’m too lazy to walk in the next room with a piece of paper and I’ll put it in the trash.

J was saying if he is reading the newspaper in a coffee shop and there isn’t a recycling bin, he’ll throw it away. I asked, why? He said because there is no recycling bin. I said why don’t you just take it with you? He asked, take it where? I said, into your car, then into your garage, then into the recycling bin. He said, he just doesn’t.

He also has little plastic cups in his waiting room by the water cooler, and there is no recycling bin there, so the plastic cups just get thrown away and he doesn’t feel bad about that. I asked if that was normal – not feeling bad about that. I told him that I used to teach nursery school at a synagogue and there was no recycling there. I would bring everything home from the entire school with me (just plastics, not paper), and people would come down to my room with their plastic stuff and I would bring it all home and recycle it. I had to order an extra large bin from the county. I just couldn’t stand the fact that all that plastic was being thrown away. I asked him if it was weird that I did that. He said he is not the determiner of weird vs normal and if recycling is my pet peeve then it’s fine for me to do that. The problem is everything is my pet peeve!

We once again are in agreement that I am too harsh on myself and set expectations for myself that are too high. We keep coming to this conclusion – the problem is how do we change it?

Then it was time to go and I said, “I have been having some problems and we didn’t have time to talk about them.” He asked what kind of problems. I kind of answered….relationship things sort of. I said, they are not really problems, that’ s an exaggeration, to which he replied, “That is something typical of you to say.” He suggested since I am so good at writing my problems out that I should email him all of my problems. I said that it might be too long, and I didn’t want to bother him, etc etc….. And he assured for the millionth time that it’s not a bother, he wants me to email him. So I guess I will.

Then we had a discussion about how it’s my fault that we didn’t talk about my problems because I didn’t mention that I had something to talk about. He said it’s not someone’s fault. It is what it is. He said I probably don’t like that expression, and I don’t. I said, yes, it is what it is, but it could also be someone’s fault. If a patient comes in every week for 9 months and never has anything to talk about, why would he think that one day she would have something to talk about? And he said, he does think I have things to talk about.

So I’m going to send him an email describing my problems. Then he’ll really see what a bother I can be.

Tags: book, email, high expectations, parenting, perfection, shame

So I have cut waaaaaay back on my drinking. I have had one drink in the last 10 days or so. This is due to my new obsession. I also am going to have stop cutting for a while. Summer is here, the pool opened yesterday and I don’t want cuts and scars visible for all to see. It’s bad enough that I have to cover my tattoo every day now that it’s hot out. An ankle tattoo can be seen in any outfit except long pants, and I do wear capris, shorts, skirts, etc. I only cover it when I know I’ll be seeing people I know. If I’ll be around strangers all day it’s ok.

So without the drinking and cutting, my mind needs a new dysfunction. And what is it? Food! Exercise! I’m totally obsessed with food and exercise. I was dabbling in keeping track of things on Livestrong.com, but now I’m more than dabbling. I’ve posted on the forum to get help with my weight and fat loss, and exercise methods. I carefully plan every meal and snack so that I get the proper amounts of protein/carbs/fat. I’m working on adding more protein to my meals. I have spreadsheets and grocery lists and recipes and on and on and on.

I have lost some weight, which is good. I’m mainly trying to lose fat, build muscle and become more fit. I’m trying not to be so focused on the actual weight of my body, which isn’t a bad weight for me.

But between exercising, grocery shopping, preparing food, analyzing food, entering and deleting items into livestrong.com to find the right numbers – well, there isn’t much time for anything else. I am eating very healthy and doing great with my workouts, so I feel good about that. It’s just that I feel so obsessive and it’s a bit troubling.

Tags: cutting, drinking, food, obsessive, running

I’m reading a good book Skinny Boy A Young Man’s Battle and Triumph Over Anorexia. I do not have an eating disorder, although there have been times in my life when I have food/exercise issues, but that is more a function of my obsessive nature. However, I have been reading some books lately about people with EDs and I find I have a lot in common with these people. My dysfunction just happens to manifest itself in a different way. In a way it is comforting, and yet sad, to find that there are others out there who are extreme perfectionists, need to be in control at all times, feel a lot of shame about themselves, and are unable to express feelings and be authentic.

My heart goes out to anyone with an eating disorder, because you all are so deserving of love, kindness, empathy, and rich, full lives.

I was thinking last night about my father and his lifelong illness, and my sister who was always sick as a child. Then there was me, trying not to bother my parents because they had so much to deal with already, between my father and my sister. No one ever told me to leave them alone, go take care of myself, or anything of that sort. I just took it upon myself to not be a burden. I kept everything inside, all of my worries, my accomplishments, my feelings. I somehow felt I would bother my parents if I had anything to say. And that is how I am to this day.

Tags: book, bother, dad, feelings, food, obsessive, perfection, shame, sister

Tags: cat, random

So J wasn’t upset that I didn’t do my homework. I emailed him yesterday to tell him it was too hard and I couldn’t do it and he said it’s no problem. He assured me for the 86 millionth time that I am not a waste of time and there is nothing for me to be sorry about. So I felt better.

When I went in today we talked about shame, again, and he tried to get me to tell him something that makes me a good person and I couldn’t think of anything. Then we spent 45 minutes talking about what makes a person good. J says he feels like a good person when he pays his bills and he feels good that he can support his family. That didn’t impress me much.

Many of the things that J thinks make a person good are things that I think people should just do because they are part of the human race and it’s our responsibility. For example, helping someone whose car broke down at the side of the road, or telling the salesperson in the store that they forgot to ring up an item. Doing those things doesn’t make a person good, those are just responsible human things to do.

I did say, though, that there are different standards of good for different people. A man with a wife and 8 kids who is working two jobs and living in a trailer and has no medical insurance and can barely afford electricity isn’t going to have a lot of time in his life for volunteering. But he can be a good person nonetheless, he is working his tail off to provide for his family and keep them safe.

I’m not in that position. I’m a very lucky person. I have everything I need, my husband makes a good salary, we have a lovely home, I don’t need to work full time. I should be going above and beyond average in order to consider myself a good person. I don’t even know what that would be.

So I did admit that my standards of good are very high, too high to ever achieve. It seems that in order to consider myself a good person I will either have to lower my standards, or figure out a way to meet my own expectations. I’m wondering if I figure out how I got this way I can learn the way out. Or would that be a waste of time, should I just start figuring out how to change my thinking?

I just think that if everyone in the world lowered their standards of “good” what a mess the world would be. It’s not such a great place already; our standards are already too low.

This is a dilemma. I feel like there is no solution. And that’s just the good/bad aspect of my shame – there are other dimensions to it that we haven’t gotten to yet.

Tags: bad, good, high expectations, shame

Tags: cat

My friends took me out to dinner last night for my birthday. It was a fish place that I really like. I have these little cards that I printed out from Monterey Bay Aquarium that I bring with me when I get fish so I can get environmentally friendly fish. So I pull out my card and I ask my friends if anyone wants to see it. One said, “No, I don’t really care if my fish is environmentally friendly.” Another said, “Sure, I’ll see it.” Another said, “No thanks, I’m just getting a salad.” The last one said, “It’s a good thing I know you well, because if I was just meeting you and you pulled that out and asked us if we wanted to see it I would have thought you were a totally weird person.” And I asked her, “So how is it that you don’t think I am a weird person now?” And she said, “Well I’ve known you for a long time and I put up with certain things in my friends that are their idiosyncrasies.” So I guess I’m not weird, just idiosyncratic. That’s good to know – I guess.

Then I said that I would only pull out this little card if I was with my best friends, not strangers or acquaintances. Like when we went to St. Thomas and were with people we didn’t know I didn’t mention anything about environmentally friendly fish, or the fact that I don’t eat meat because I’m opposed to factory farming, etc. And one friend said, “I’m glad you got to this age and finally realized that you can’t be doing things like that with strangers!” Hmmmm……

This was my 49th birthday. I did say something later in the evening that caught everyone off guard. I said I didn’t want to live to be 50, I’d rather die than be 50. I don’t want to be old and icky. My friend who is turning 50 next month and seemed really shocked at what I said replied, “I’m turning 50. Do you think I’m old and icky?” And I said, “Of course not, it only applies to me.” I don’t think I should have said anything about this topic to my friends, especially with one about to turn 50. That was unthinking of me, wasn’t it?

I guess this is why I don’t feel I have authentic relationships with people. I can’t be myself, because my self is a very strange person that puts people off and that no one understands.

Tags: aging, different, friends