i am uncomfortable with how large and puffy i look in this photo. my immediate reaction to seeing this photo was 'i need to lose a lot of weight.' i also thought 'i just don't understand why the fuck i look so fucking huge.' at the same time, there's a sort of artistic quality to the photo that i like.
i think my body was built for strength and endurance. in my family, there are examples of world-level athletes, and perhaps some of my obsession with my body is somehow related to that.. i am not sure if i was just too lazy to do anything with whatever potential i might have had, if i lacked focus and direction, if mental factors were at odds with developing my physical potential, or if physically things were off as well, things that would have prevented me from achieving anything beyond a certain level. probably all of the above.
sometimes, people have commented 'you've lost a lot of weight' when i know i haven't lost any weight at all, i'm just dressed differently from the last time they saw me. also, in states of undress, photos taken on the same day from different angles can make me appear to be of a much different weight, or even of a different body type. in the above photo (as in all 4 of the photos in this diary entry), my weight is 106-107 lbs (i'm approximately 5'4", when standing as tall as i possibly can), although i bet this photo would make most people guess i weigh more. my measurements are somewhat small: 33.5 - 23.5 - 33.5 (in inches, and not holding the tape tightly). my normal weight for years now has seemed to be from 115-120 lbs, and most of the photos on my website represent that. (the weight my body seems to prefer and can maintain without much difficulty. before that, my normal weight seemed to be around 120-125, and years before that, when living with my family, after a period of trauma, my weight on a few occasions reached from 130-140.. a horror i still dread the return of, although after moving away from my family i have never really come close to that again. i would like to mention that when i was that weight i was much fitter than i ever got credit for, and i didn't have attractive clothes and was judged by my family as fatter than i was because no one really saw me. my body at that weight was much more shapely than anyone realized, with a more pronounced difference between hips/chest and waist.)
i feel pretty irrelevant in the world. i don't know how to explain that to people in a way they can comprehend.. i was able to slip away from my family with no fuss at all, with no one really expressing much interest in me or in continuing relations with me. i guess they've always thought there was just something wrong with me, and i've always had the impression that they've thought of me as expendable, not worth thought or effort. part of it i think was about apathy, or about being overly respectful of privacy. part of it was about having their own problems, and not having time or energy for mine. or not seeing what there was that could be done. this seems understandable to me, but if your family in effect gives up on you, and doesn't see any need to try to help you when you can't help yourself, when you've had the impression that they're just waiting for you to die, when they seem to express no regret that you've done nothing with what potential you've had, when seeing them just makes you feel judged as a loser who is choosing not to try, when you know they are not aware of how much effort you've put in, when you know they are not aware of who you are as a person, and that they've probably got all kinds of weird ideas about who you are because you can only express yourself incompletely with them, when your actions are probably judged incorrectly because they don't have enough background information about you, and when you try to explain more about yourself they either become uncomfortable or just don't seem to hear you, possibly because they haven't had life experiences that would allow them to understand and hear.. how can you think of it as a real family? every time i had contact with my family, my lack of ability to make who i am seen and understood was so painful and frustrating to me that i'd break down and be unable to break free of bulimic behaviour for a very long time. rather than blame it on them, it made more sense to me to see myself as an odd person who was conflicted in ways that made me difficult to be around, difficult to respond to, and that it wasn't reasonable to expect anyone to know what to do with me. at the same time, it didn't seem to make sense to me to continue to put myself through the torture of being with people that i felt very uncomfortable with, and so it seemed that the healthiest thing to do was to try to create a way of looking at life that allowed me to be who i was, even if who i was was understandably objectionable to most people.
i've found it as difficult to maintain relationships with others as i have with my family. it is difficult to hold onto a good feeling about myself. it's hard not to suspect that i'm completely unreasonable, and worthless. and if i can't treat people as if they have value to me, how can i expect to have value to them? i guess i see all relationships as teaching us about ourselves, and that it doesn't necessarily follow that it is a good thing to cling to relationships and expect them to last.. some of us are not made for normal lives or lasting relationships. we are tossed here and there by the tempests of life, with nothing solid to grip. i know that people try their best, and that they really aren't so bad, but if it makes me feel worse about myself to be around them, and there is no way to make communication between us more effective, or to bridge the differences well enough to get enjoyment out of interaction, if i can't deal with the stress of interacting, if there isn't enough common ground, if there aren't things/activities to do together, then what can be done?
i think i'm giving a misleading impression in certain ways. when my longterm relationship broke up, one family member offered to let me stay with her, and another considered asking me. my reaction: they didn't really mean it and were counting on me not accepting, or they didn't fully understand the situation. they didn't know that i would be more uncomfortable with them than i would be if i were homeless, even though i'm terrified of being homeless. and the reason: the stress. the stress of knowing that they don't understand who i am. the stress of knowing that with them i'd be so panicked i wouldn't be able to control my eating, and then the guilt and shame, and knowing that i'll never have a way of supporting myself, and knowing that they don't intend to support me forever, but what if i reach the disabled state i've been in many times before and i just won't go out or leave the house? i don't think anyone's ever understood the trauma of being in that state. i don't know how to explain it. i do know that i don't see any way that i'd ever be 'on my feet' and able to support myself, and if someone offered to let me live with them, they'd probably have to help me through the process of applying for disability, or there'd be no sense in offering to let me stay with them at all, because rather than go through the humiliation of losing control and eating all their food and being unable to leave the house or face them, and knowing they wanted me to leave, but having nowhere to go and no inner resources to know what to do, i'd rather just immediately become homeless or die.
other possible misleading impressions.. maybe it sounds like i really wanted people to help me get on disability. i really don't know. i know that if i had to go to therapy twice a week like i was told i would, i don't see how i could do it, even if i was driven there. i could see those two days being the constant focus of my week, and i could see myself as constantly feeling panicked about those two days, not being able to ever relax any other day, and not being able to ever control my eating. i can see therapy as being as surface level as ever, no matter how hard i tried to take it beyond that.. in part because i know that a lot of the things i think would never be appropriate for therapy, or would lead to repercussions.. lead to a therapist having to protect her/himself if i mentioned them. and so while trying to be true to myself i'd have to try so hard to find ways of being honest and of honestly dealing with things, and the stress would be enormous, and i know there would be the constant urge that would become more and more irresistible to stop the stress and futility of it all and just say fuck it i can't go here any more. and enjoying that feeling, knowing that destructiveness is a part of who i am, and that i can never resist that urge to say fuck it all for long.
i've been horribly unfair to the people in my life. i do see that it's been impossible for anyone to deal with me.
i can't find more unusual music, clothes, things to surround myself with, because i don't have the internal structures that would lead me to those things. what i mean is that although my life situation isn't really ordinary, in a lot of ways my influences have been pretty ordinary, and so finding the extraordinary is not something that comes naturally to me. years ago when i went through my musical awakening, when i became less close-minded, i realized that there was probably all kinds of stuff out there somewhere that was absolutely exquisite, but that it might take some effort to find.. and i didn't know how to look for it. i kept my eyes and ears open. when i discovered someone i found interesting, i tried to find out who had inspired them, or what they were listening to. everywhere i went, i tried to be aware of music, but it was a lot of work, and i lost the ability to hear. i just don't have energy now, and i don't think i really hear music any more, and it's possible that my best dancing is behind me because of it, and that if i tried to dance now i'd really only be a caricature of my former self. but i have experienced a lot in the last years that i have not really danced, and at times i can feel that i have more to translate into dance, that my body is still strong and flexible enough, or can be with a little more effort, and that i'm just waiting for my opportunity. as for clothes and hair and whatnot.. i've gone on about how i admire vampires and goth styles.. but what i originally wanted was to try to figure out something original for myself, something no one had ever seen. i think i'm too tired for that now, and am probably willing to accept that i'm not all that unusual, and that it would be at least better to be the type of ordinary that most appeals to me.
i do not get invited anywhere, and at present there is no real situation in which i will be any time soon. i don't have enough connections to life to be invited anywhere. years ago, my family still invited me sometimes, but no one else. gk has not been invited anywhere by his neighbours for many years, and in the past it sounds like he was invited very few times. nor have we as a couple been invited anywhere, except by his family, and in almost 2 years we have not seen his family. we live isolated. when i lived with jamie, we were only invited places by his family and mine, and by friends of my family. when i lived alone a very long time ago, i was sometimes invited places by males. other than that.. there was one female who lived next door to me who seemed to be looking for a female friend, about her age and level of attractiveness, someone to go out with, hang out with. once an older woman who lived on the top floor of a house i was living in asked me in to visit, but i got the impression she felt it her duty to get to know the people who lived in the same house, and after that first time, she never invited me again, because we had nothing in common. i have been invited places by people i met while hospitalized - people trying to develop ties to life with those who'd had similar experiences. other than that, it's all been sexual invitations, and i do not get those any more. i do not anticipate that i will. i go everywhere with gk, and if i did go anywhere on my own, i don't think i would be approached at this stage. i am older and simply not as relevant in a sexual way, and in addition, i have lost all confidence and find it difficult to see myself as having anything to offer on any level to anyone i'm likely to bump into.
dancing.. it's possible that what i've felt when dancing cannot be observed by anyone else, passed on to anyone else, because my facial features and bodily features may not be in harmony, and may not be equal to the task of conveying what i'm feeling. in that case, the feeling is still important, it's still for me the most important thing i've ever experienced, but it's something solitary, something that i will never be able to share.
i have been working out and trying to lose weight, and it's very discouraging to me that my results aren't more pronounced. i want my body to be more dancer-like. i still feel so clumsy, awkward, too big. i had been working very hard, and then just broke down and am scared now that i won't be able to continue, like every other time. i've had an ideal in mind regarding my body for a very long time. it's been incredibly important to me, and yet in all of these years i've never been able to achieve or maintain it. that is, i've achieved the 'ideal' weight, but not fitness/health level. i've never maintained the ideal weight for long. maybe until i'm dead i will always try, but i've now come to the point where i realize: i'm old. i've had my chance and i blew it. now all there is is the possibility for a kind of consolation prize, which i won't dismiss as completely unimportant, and perhaps it's more important in a way.. my efforts can only be for me now. i don't think of myself as capable of having ultimate sexual value to any person. and part of what i think i'd achieve is only to make myself less disgusting, to get myself to a level of disgustingness that i find easier to handle. but at this point, i think i will always be too aware of people looking at me for signs of my age, of signs that my skin is losing elasticity, that i am getting deeper lines, grey hairs, etc, and i think it will be very difficult not to feel self-conscious about these things, in addition to everything else that is wrong with me, and at this point, it doesn't seem relevant to me if anyone finds me attractive or not.
before, it was all wrapped up in ideas of life and interaction, of fulfilling potential and of getting to live 'successfully', and in bringing out certain reactions in others.. whereas now, i know i'm beaten. i lack a kind of confidence that was based on the hope of extraordinariness.. not sure if that's clear.. i can't see how i can ever have that kind of hope again, and without it, i probably can't project what i'd need to to seem 'receptive' to others, to seem more attractive or even relevant to others. i see that i'm not extraordinary. i see that for years i kept myself going with the possibility that i could achieve the extraordinary if only i tried hard enough. but, if i ever had a chance, i realize i've probably missed it. i think my interactions with others over the years have helped me to face what i am and what i am not. i think it is better to realize the truth about yourself than to fool yourself into thinking you had more potential than you actually did. in a way, i feel relieved. in a way, i like the idea that i can continue to send things out, to express, to express my failure and mediocrity even, that i have a place to do it. it's like i've reached a place where it feels a relief to let things out, knowing that i won't receive anything in return, that i can just be myself, as awkward, unappealing, boring as that may be to others.. i don't know.. i feel kind of free. it's like i *have* fulfilled my potential. it's not what i would have originally wanted or expected, but it's kind of unique in a way.