my name is holly....

HI

my name is Holly


i weight 235 pounds and i don't quite know how that happened.

obviously i should exercise and quit eating.


but i am addicted to food.

it is my comfort.

it is where i turn to make me feel better.

i've been in therapy for it.

it helped for a while, but i've gone "off the wagon" so to speak


today...i am taking my kids to the zoo. It's over 90 degrees here. and humid.
i am wearing jeans because none of my shorts fit me.
I thought i could wear a knit pair, but they looked like i should be at walmart shopping, not at the zoo with my kids.

that depressed me.
even though i knew it before i even put them on.

I am eating berries and yogurt...my breakfast.
having a pity party.

just needed to vent.

hope you are well.


xoxo
holly

stuff

so i said i wasn't going to blog everyday....oh well .

So i have issues with anxiety. i tend to be very anxious. Anxiety is a very uncomfortable feeling for me so i try to avoid it when possible. Not that i can really control being anxious, but i do things to numb the feeling of it. I use to smoke. so i would chain smoke when i was anxious about something.
But i finally quit smoking, except for a few social situations, so that's out. Even when i did smoke, i was a closet smoker so i couldn't always rely on that to help ease my anxiety. My other drug of choice is food. I've noticed when i am anxious about things, i tend to eat by the hand fulls. M&Ms, nuts, Jelly Beans, chocolate chips, potato chips, whatever i can get my hands on and if it is crunchy all the better.
As the anxiety continues, the more hand fulls i eat. the more i eat, the worse i feel, even though it does alleviate some of the anxiety.
Part of the problem is that i am a talker. I like to talk things out. Its how i process. Maybe that is why i blog. Its talking to me. getting my ideas out there so i can look at them and process them. however i still don't like to feel them so i stuff them down with food. i bury them because i can't sit with them.
I need to invite them in and sit them down to tea. Maybe they would tell me what i need to know and then move on. Maybe i wouldn't feel them like a knot in my chest and a lump in my throat if i was more familiar with my uncomfortable emotions.

Back to anxiety and me...i know there are times when i have to wait. Things i can't control. People who need time and space. People who are *gasp* different than I am. People who deal differently. I know there are answers i don't want to hear and realities i don't want to face. It's part of life and i have to find healthier ways to deal, right?

xox
holly

therapy stuff

ok so if you do more than look at the photos here you know i am in therapy. Tons of it. I really should be scary and damaged, but i really am not, i just got sick of my life being how it was and decided i needed to get off my ass and do something about it.

(yay go me!)

ok so my most recent "class" is about eating and food disorders. I was reading today and came across this. I thought it was very powerful so i wanted to share it and maybe someone out there will read it and it will help them out. Oddly this is from Marthaswewart.com first published may 2008. Here goes:

At the heart of Cameron's classes is a technique called "morning pages," in which you rise early and write three longhand pages of absolutely anything -no thinking, no worrying, no dieting. Although Cameron instructs her students to write freely, she says people often use morning pages as an emotional outlet, one they were accustomed to finding in food. "you take a look at your fear, anxiety, and nervousness directly instead of eating something to squelch it, " she says. "you don't need to focus on it; it will just come up. Morning pages are remarkable in how they get to the underside of what's bothering you. "

And the more you give voice to your emotions, the less you'll need food to keep your real feelings quiet. "When you do morning pages, " says Cameron, "you start to take your likes and dislikes a little more seriously. It helps with speaking your mind."

uncomfortable

i am uncomfortably numb. actually not so numb but filled with the emotions that i don't deal well with . The ones i usually stuff down and ignore with food. The ones i deny. I don't even know their names i have run from them so often. I do know how they feel. sort of empty and hollow in my gut...i guess that is why i want to eat, to try and fill that spot.

is it frustration? desperation? loneliness? depression? i'm not sure. what is it that this emotion is trying to tell me? if i don't eat to cover it up, then what do i do? how do i deal with this feeling?

i don't like it. Its uncomfortable.

more thoughts from an email...

"OK, so now we move on to the BDSM portion of the show. I know that you love attention and feeling adored and all of it....for the most part, who doesn't? I feel, however, that it's a problem, not in your mind, mind you, that it's coming from outside people & not K. I also realize that if you were in Obama's shoes right now and the whole damn world just loved you to bits, it would not be enough. If I were in your shoes, I'd be thinking 'yeah, that's true...but why is that?' ...."

yes, i am a self proclaimed attention whore. Yes. I admit it. My name is holly and i am addicted to attention. Yes, i also realize that getting that attention from other men...men other than K. is harmful to ME. I am not saying that some people can't be poly and healthy or swingers and healthy or whatever...but yes, i agree, that FOR ME, it is not healthy to seek or obtain sexual attention from someone other than K.

there, i've said it!

That does not mean that when it is placed in front of me, i will not accept it or that i won't actively seek it from time to time. There are times when i think i can handle it, when i think i have got it in a box...and then later realize that i don't. I mess up, i fail, i cause a lot of my own problems, i am human and i am learning. I realize that my low self esteem and my lack of appropriate emotional boundaries are WHY i can never have enough attention. I am working on 'fixing' those things. it is a slow process.

"...I think part of the BDSM thing is that pleasure and pain/pleasure from pain is along those same lines of experiencing extremes. To you it's 'vanilla' to do anything else. I would venture a guess that if you try to figure out the extreme emotion thing, part of you is afraid you'd lose all these other things that come with the extreme back-n-forth (e.g. the lifestyle, the attention). I suspect that might even cause you to back away from working on that part of your life. "

I will agree that the SM part and the objectification part of my BDSM play does have to do with the extremes i crave. It also has to do with giving up, or even being "forced" to give up, control for a time. It is an escape. It is a 'happy place' where i can just exist and be and release a lot of pent up emotional crap...and feel better afterward.

I have said before, and think that it has happened to some degree already, that the more i get my self together the less i will NEED the D/s stuff. If i feel good about myself and feel competent then i won't NEED someone else to control me all the time. does that mean i won't still enjoy it or still crave it from time to time? No, i don't think so. Honestly it is like a drug...like some of you crazy running people...you get a runner's high. I get a high from bottoming, from being submissive, from playing in a SM and/or D/s way. Just because i am not sure what's at the other end of the rabbit hole, doesn't mean i am going to stop mid way through. I have come too far to turn back now.

"...I also noticed, in one of your responses to coquette about sub-drop, you got very defensive. However, I must tell you I feel awful when you're so down it's scary, when the negative doesn't seem like it's nearly enough negative for you...."

I went back and looked at that specific comment and my response. I don't feel it was defensive. It at least was certainly NOT meant to be. I was just trying to point out that sub drop is not something that happens to everyone, or every time. I don't want my sub drop stories to keep anyone from exploring something they are interested in. In two years, i have had really bad sub drop twice. I have learned something valuable from each of those experiences. That is all. Coquette, if i seemed defensive, i am sorry girl!

"...I want you to experience what you consider vanilla because you deserve to be happy and content...busy but happy & content. You mean so much to so many, I feel, from what I read on your blog, that you're looking for something you can't seem to find...you think you've found it but then it's like 'oh, no, never mind...that's not gold...just some sparkly rock...' I know that some of this is due to your childhood as not only an only child but also with nothing of regular happiness to use as an example, as you've said"

Hmmmm. i do feel like i am chasing a rainbow at times. I feel like i don't live intentionally enough. I don't see what is right in front of my face. i am rarely content. again, things i am working on. I do mistake sparkly rocks for gold at times, and yes, it is disappointing but at least i haven't become so cynical that i don't think there is any gold left out there!

I am an only child, and i think that has a great deal to do with the person i have become. I do not recall ever saying that my childhood was not happy. I have struggled a lot because i can't think of anything traumatic that happened to cause me to be who i am now. i wish there was some definitive thing i could point to and say "THIS is what caused it..." but i can't. It is more work than that. It is hiding. I have to uncover it and discover what to do with it.

"As you've mentioned as well, I think your expectations of many situations in life, but most specifically the things in your sex life, are very high. You have 'in your mind' how things will unfold and you feel a need to control something you shouldn't even be remotely thinking about controlling it. You can't let go, you can't enjoy, you can't let K just be himself. I read about the situations with OKB & TEO and seriously, I want to scream at you. I get that in the BDSM world, the marks and the highs and lows are apparently something to aspire to. I'm not condemning it I'm simply saying that I do not like it when any of my friends are hurting in any way. "

yes, my expectations do get me in trouble. I am trying NOT to have them. I am trying to roll with the punches and go with the flow. I am trying to take what i get and be happy with it instead of always wanting more, bigger, better!

the marks are amazing and i could write a whole post on marks and how they make me feel. they are reminders of fun had. Proof that it happened. The highs are something to aspire to as well, who doesn't like a little endorphin rush? ...and the lows, are just a part of it. We do all we can to avoid them, but as it has been suggested recently, why not just embrace them when they do come as part of the whole. Instead of trying to reject them and feeling even worse for having them, invite them in, sit with them, learn from them and take them as a chance to pamper yourself for a bit until they pass. See them, like the marks, as a continuation of the scene. change the way we look at them in order to handle them better.

As far as the downs go, yes, they do hurt..but why is hurting always bad? Don't we learn a lot from our pain? Why is it that our culture is so afraid of pain and hurting? why do we focus on making it go away instead of focusing on what it is trying to teach us? maybe if we sat with it and learned the lesson it was trying to teach, it would leave us quicker, and return less often than when we just freak out and try to shoo it out the door like an unwelcome guest.

always

holly