"I'M GONNA PUT MY BODY FIRST AND LOVE ME SO HARD 'TIL IT HURTS..." -HAILEE STEINFELD

"You look gorgeous!!!!"

*Delete*

"You look happy!"

Old habits die hard. That was me posting on someone's picture on Facebook and it's true, she did look gorgeous. But, why is that our go to and why does that matter? What really matters is that she looked happy. After my post last week about my years of self-image issues and hating myself and my body, for really, as long as I can remember, I have really tried to change my language. I have tried to compliment someone's intelligence, attention to detail, happiness, or resilience rather than on their shoes, clothes, make up, or looks in general. But, I still find myself in that mind set.

After a friend of mine read my blog, I immediately started explaining myself. "Well, I really wanted to.." "My point was.." "See, I just want to feel good about myself.." "Yeah, I'm just done hating myself.." STOP. What? My blog was about feeling empowered. I allowed myself to be the most vulnerable and raw I've ever been and then I just faltered. Immediately went back to my old habits of hating myself, explaining myself, questioning myself, and resisting others compliments on my accomplishments. I remember texting her, "I think I look great in that picture!" And her response was, "Well, you do, but that's not really the point." YOU'RE RIGHT! LOL. Did I miss my OWN point? Point is, no matter how much I am trying, learning, and improving, it is going to take a long time for me to completely readjust my thinking patterns.

Aligning with this same topic, I want to discuss searching for happiness and healing in all the wrong places. I think that when we are unhappy, we are very quick to latch on to something that we think COULD make up happy. And also things that we think will at least give us a boost of happiness, even if we know we are going to wake up the next day feeling the same or worse. This can be exhibited in many forms: drugs, alcohol, sex, over-sleeping, gambling, food, over-exercising, eating disorders, and so many others. For me, though, I poured my unhappiness into food and then, once divorced, sex.

I'm not sure why I began to binge eat. It wasn't anything I had really struggled with before. But, I have always had an unhealthy relationship with food. I know that as a parent, you are not trying to hurt your children and most of the time it is unconscious. But, for me, when I was growing up, food was used as a reward and a shelter. Oh, you got an A on your test? Food. Oh, your boyfriend broke up with you? Food. Oh, your best friend was mean to you? Food. And so, I grew up with the belief that food was a reward and also something I could hide behind. I am aware that my family never thought twice about this and never in a million years thought that it would affect me. But it, without a doubt, set a tone for my inability to pace myself, stop myself, and have any sort of self-control.

As I said before, I was a child athlete. I played every sport from basketball to soccer, volleyball, and track. But, I found my niche on the swim team. I joined the summer before freshman year and I made varsity by sophomore year. I wasn't the best swimmer, but I was dedicated. I had quit everything I'd ever started but I loved swimming and would never miss a practice. Looking back, it was such a positive thing. I had good, well-behaved, strait-laced friends. Swimming kept me busy and out of trouble. But, really, with hind-sight being 20/20, I stuck with swimming because my body looked ridiculous. I was obsessed with it to an unhealthy degree. I was not only swimming 5-6 days a week, but I was also lifting weights about 3-4 times per week. But still, I did not give a shit about health. I remember eating nothing but cookie dough for a week once. I thought my body was invincible. I thought I would stay that way forever. And I believed with all my heart that I would never ever get "fat."

The comments about my body, made by other people, completely innocent comments that looking back no one would ever think would affect me so much, made me vein. I knew I was perfect. I would stare at myself in the mirror and do even more sit-ups because now I wanted an 8-pack, rather than a 6-pack. To some, I probably looked like a girl dedicated to the swim team, determined to win, determined to make State, or cared about her team. I did not. I did not care about any of that. And what I remember most is looking at my body and hating it. I know, I said that I was obsessed with it. That I thought it was perfect. But, every time I looked in the mirror, I thought that it could be better. And the second I gained even 5 pounds or lost an ounce of muscle mass, I hated myself. And that was the part that ruined me. I was 16. My body was not even fully developed yet. I had no boobs, no ass, no hips. And I worked out an obsessive and unhealthy amount. All the while, eating like shit because I thought I was bound to stay perfect forever.

I did not go to college straight out of high school. So, needless to say, I stopped exercising as soon as I was out of high school. That's when my poor eating habits and my unhealthy relationship with food caught up to me. My biggest flaw is that while if you tell some people that they are gaining weight, they immediately get into the gym. And some people when they are angry at someone or sad about something, they take it out on running 5 miles or lifting weights. Me, I take out my anger on myself. Food. Sex. Alcohol. When someone tells me I'm gaining weight, I take out my sadness on a half gallon of ice cream. For someone so obsessed with not gaining weight, with being perfect, and with this unbelievably skewed vision of beauty and unhealthy self-image, I sure do love to eat those half-gallon tubs of ice cream. This is the difference between someone who is PMSing or in a situationally depressed state, and me. And others like me.

The last six months of my marriage, I was binge eating. I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't feeling heard and felt like I had no outlet. I wasn't able to talk about my feelings without being told I was annoying or dramatic. I didn't feel loved or cared for, I wasn't being touched. I felt lonely and isolated. I felt unappreciated. And with every bite of food and every pound I gained I hated myself more and more. Flaws were unacceptable to my ex-husband. No one ever had a problem, you were the problem. If you gained weight, lose it. If you're sad, be happy. If you're having trouble with a friend, fix it. Everything was so black and white. This was not a "just do it" or "just change it" kind of behavior. This ran deep. It ran back to that 16 year old girl staring at herself in the mirror, obsessed with herself. It ran back to every time I would eat dessert when I was sad. It ran back to the way I was raised. It ran back to my abusive first husband who would tell me I looked like the Michelin Man even though I was running 5 miles a day and lifting 6 days a week. It ran back to every comment telling me I was GORGEOUS when I was a size 4. And it ran back to the lack of comments when I was a size 10. It was so deep rooting in me and it was not as simple as just changing.

After my divorce, I quit binge eating. It was pretty easy for me to stop doing that once I took myself out of the situation that was causing me to have that behavior. I no longer felt trapped or unheard. But, just because I was out of that situation did not mean that my thought process changed or that I was healed. I continued to feel unloved, misunderstood, rejected, and unaccepted by myself and so many others. And with that, I turned my food addiction into a sex obsession. My sex obsession didn't last for long because I started to feel like it was getting out of hand, but my point is that I went from one obsession to another. And that's what we do. We throw ourselves into things that we THINK might make us happy, even for one second, when we are sad. And it is WORK for me to not continue to do this.

I still settle for shitty men who only want me for one thing. Going back and back and back, no matter how unhealthy the relationship is. I continue to devalue myself in the way I speak and the way I think. I continue to eat when I am sad, although not to the same degree. I still have unhealthy responses to stress and I still hate myself all the time. I still think I'm fat and have a hard time believing anyone that says they are attracted to me. But with every day that passes, every blog I write, every irrational belief that is changed, decrease in negative self-talk, and increased self-love, I get better. But I still wish I was that 16 year old girl sometimes. The one who never had to question if she looked good but had extreme anxiety about every realistic pound gained.

The truth is, I know that I had less self-esteem and more self-hatred when I was thin than I do now. And I don't think it's because I don't enjoy being healthy or working out or feeling good. I actually enjoy those things. I think it's because this is the first time in my ENTIRE life that it's been MY CHOICE. Addiction is about control. Or lack of control, if you will. We tend to hyper-focus on things when we feel like we have no control over something else. We find that ONE thing we can control and we obsess over it. For me, it's my weight and the way I look. There's a part of me that feels like I haven't lost this weight because, well, FUCK YOU. That's why. Fuck every guy who told me I was fat when I was perfect. Fuck my family for ridiculing my weight rather than asking me what was wrong or how they could help. Fuck my friends who cheered me on when I would starve myself for days or went on unhealthy crash diets. Fuck society. Just, FUCK 'EM.

And that's where I'm at. And that may or may not ever change. But, one thing that will NEVER change is me being DONE changing myself, hating myself, and killing myself because of what anyone else thinks or believes. I may lose weight some day. I may get back to that six-pack I love so much. I may eat perfectly and go to the gym every day. I may hike the PCT or run 10 miles a day. I might. But, I can promise you one thing. If I'm doing it, you best believe it is JUST FOR ME. My heart is still healing, my brain is still changing, and my soul is still working through some pretty tough shit. So why would I give a shit about what you think about my appearance over what you think about my mind? I have worked too hard on my mental health and on healing the parts of me that need me the most to sacrifice my progress on being insecure and dumbing myself down for anyone. I am brilliant. Smart, funny, kind, humble, easy-going, fun, successful, creative, talented, and so much more. And so, please, do me a favor, if you're going to compliment me, compliment me on that. And for the love of god, love the shit out of yourself.

I promise I know how hard it is to change a learned and conditioned behavior. But my hope for you is that you don't necessarily change it immediately. But, rather, that you just become aware of it. Awareness is key and change comes with time. Give yourself the time. Don't let society put a timeline on you. Don't let society throw your age in your face and tell you that you need to "get over it" because you're such and such years old. Healing and growth do not have a timeline. You will forever be on this journey. Please stop looking for a destination in happiness. You won't ever find it. You won't find it in material things or food or sex or drugs or alcohol. It's not there. It is IN YOU. In your heart. No one else is living your story, so stop giving them the power to control your life.