Comfort

Recently, I've identified a pattern in my life (and began to realize that I'm not the only one who deals with this).

Often, I find myself in the same uncomfortable situation again and again.

I'll go out with the same friend week after week, and come home feeling worse every time.
I'll go to the doctor and come home feeling horrible about myself because of something she said, something that wasn't meant to be offensive, but that I interpret in such a way, every time.
As a child, I'd try on shoes and clothes that were too small, hoping that they would fit, and being upset that they didn't, every time, and shopping became terrible.
Or I'd forget my homework or my flute or a textbook or a paper that needed to be signed, so I'd start dreading school in case I'd forget something.

So, I became comfortable living with the constant feeling of dread. Even though I knew there were ways to make things better, they seemed so big, so scary, so terrible that just sitting with the constant dread was the better way for me to go.

The first time I realized that I needed to break out of the comfort zone in order to actually hit a more comfortable place was in recovery from my eating disorder. The first couple of times I was in treatment, I wasn't ready to do anything uncomfortable. I was hoping to change my attitudes and once my attitudes were there, I'd change my behavior. Well, there's something chemical about eating disorder behaviors that influences the attitudes. I don't know whether or not it's been scientifically defined yet, but I know it's been observed, and I know it's true of myself. I know the whole "starvation syndrome" where malnutrition = more thoughts of food, and a less positive mood. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly WHY this hit me, but in my most recent (almost two years ago now) residential treatment, I realized that staying where I was comfortable, would not get me to where I wanted to be. I would most likely die in my comfort zone. And dying, really, didn't seem all that comfortable.

I likened my change of heart, change of attitude, and change of direction to standing on a cliff above a lake and jumping in backwards. Not knowing what's below me, how far it is, if I'll live or if I'll die. Now, I'd never advocate doing that IN REALITY. But metaphorically, it served me. I mean, I suppose we could just call it standing on top of the high dive and closing the eyes and jumping in backwards. But fear-wise, it definitely felt like jumping off the cliff. I began to embrace the mantra, feel the fear and do it anyway. I realized that the fear would never go away, not at this rate, and I would just need to do what I needed to do.

I could apply this to my eating disorder, and could give advice to others to do the same. It was the only thing that got me through the rut. Why, then, did it take nearly two years for me to realize that this circle I went through with the eating disorder that needed to be broken, really needed to be generalized to the rest of my life!? Good question. A lot of times, eating disorders are just a way of expressing the problems of the rest of our lives. When the eating disorders are gone, the problems are still there. Thank god for therapy.

Yeah, therapy. So I didn't realize this whole thing myself. My therapist brought up the fact that I needed to do something about my work situation, and that yes, it would be uncomfortable at first, to tell my supervisors that I would be leaving and so forth, but that I would need to leave my comfort zone (of just getting by at work and being 99% burnt out) in order to be more comfortable.

Then today, I went to the doctor. She said some things to me that made me "feel fat," and that I had predicted would happen. I had asked my nutritionist to talk to her and she agreed to, but she constantly reiterates that I need to talk to her. As do my friends who know her, and those who don't know her. I need to speak up for myself and deal with the discomfort of doing so, in order to be more comfortable with my doctor.

I can't go back in time and start writing things down so as to never forget to bring something to school, but I can stop the dread by starting now.
I can't go back in time and stop trying on clothes and shoes from departments that were too small for me to stop the negativity that comes from shopping, but I can accept my size now (I'm 23 and there is no need to try to shop in the kids department...all right, except for certain occasions it's okay to see what's there since it's cheaper. But only certain stores).

But I can speak to my doctor next week about the way I feel when we talk.
I can resign from my job. I can say goodbye to toxic friends.

And I can't expect things to go beautifully every time.
In fact, I have said goodbye to toxic friends, and they became very bitter and the drama dragged on for too long. I have also resigned from a job or two and felt disrespected and unwanted by my supervisors after doing so.
But these are not pieces of evidence why I shouldn't go out of my comfort zone. It's why I should try again and again to build more evidence as to why I should and why it's all right.

Too often, our comfort zones mean that we're settling. Sometimes, they're not even all that comfortable at all. Just a shelter. I told a friend today, hiding in your eating disorder (or whatever other comfort zone) is like hiding in a trench or a little dugout shelter in an active war zone. You have the option of getting to safety, getting to real comfort, real LIFE, but you'll have to pack up your things, book a flight, and leave everything behind. Luckily, I'd say about 99% of the time, at least in my life, it's not nearly as scary as that.

But we still need to leave that comfort zone sometimes in order to become more comfortable in our lives.

I have a lot of comfort-zone-leaving to do in the next few months.

Trying this AGAIN.

This time, I'm going to try to write in here more regularly. I was so active on LiveJournal, years ago. It was a great release for me. I'm trying to find a great release again. Here's today's reflection.

Pretty much anyone who knows me, knows that I have an incredible relationship with my therapist. Sure, some people have been weirded out by the fact that I text her (although we are working on decreasing that, because I was using it as a coping skill). Others might find it creepy that I have googled her randomly, although I'm never looking for any new information, just proof that she exists outside of our sessions (and, in true therapist fashion, I get minimal results...unlike when you google me and get the Myspace pages of a few pre-teens from Ireland). And still others might wonder why I have such a great therapist who is not a specialist in eating disorders (well, I think it might be for that very reason. because she specializes in working with PEOPLE, not disorders!), or that I could afford a NICE apartment if I didn't go to see her for therapy and saw someone on my insurance instead.

I had a long "weekend" of Thursday through today of thinking and reflecting, and had many many pages of journals, so last night I texted my therapist asking if we could have a session-and-a-half or a double. We started off planning on a 75 minute session but ended up with a 100-minute session. It was the best 100 minutes I could have asked for.

Why? Well, I mean, I did work out some important things, got a lot off my chest, and learned her daughter's name by a total accident! But that's not what was so inspiring.

My therapist has disclosed to me before that she's been in therapy. She implied that she may have been in the first few months that we worked together. Then once we were talking about terrible therapists, and she told me that she once saw a therapist who constantly fell asleep in the middle of their sessions. Every once in a while, she reminds me that going through "shit" and going to therapy is as "normal" as normal can be.

It's just so empowering, to have a therapist, who appears PERFECT (although she reassures me constantly that she is not, that she is human), to be showing no shame about being in therapy. It's the attitude I LONG to be able to show at work (I would get in trouble for disclosing it at my current job, which is understandable since I work with a different set of clients), and to be comfortable with saying it out loud in the world.

Her honesty makes me feel sane. Makes me feel capable. Makes me feel like I can do what I want to do, and if something's going to get in my way, it's not going to be my past.

Self-disclosure is a very controversial thing in therapy. Honestly, I don't wanna hear about her marital problems (although in my head, she does not have any) or if eating Coldstone makes her feel fat (I do believe that she has told me that it does not, that she finds it purely delicious. I LOVE her food attitudes. Better than a nutritionist, because her stuff is based on human nature, not scientific nutritional knowledge!) or that she has a pounding headache (I'm sure she has had one at some point while working with me, it would have been nearly impossible not to!). And she doesn't disclose those inappropriate things.

But what she shares, is so powerful. Empowering.

When I say I want to be like her, I don't just mean in the "I want to be a thin blonde with a great, husband, a sweet daughter, and a baby boy on the way" but that I want to connect with my clients the way she can connect with me, to have the dedication, understanding, and empathy that she is able to share with me. To have that with just one client, even, would be enough.

My therapist is incredible.
The therapeutic relationship we have built is so strong, the strongest, stablest, healthiest relationship of any kind that I have ever had. (at least, in my opinion...and it's helping me to form MORE stable, healthy relationships)
And I'm realizing that sometimes in order to follow my dreams, I need to do less, not more.
I am not the same as everybody else.
Or anybody else.