Am I Ready for the Beach?

Hell No!!

Let me tell you a little story. When I worked there was this women who always seemed to take the elevator at the same time as I did, whether arriving at work or during breaks. She was older than my 45 years, it was really hard to tell her age with the always tanned (I mean really tanned) skin. She had bleached almost white hair with black roots and wore white eyeliner with long fake eyelashes (which were not the norm back then). One day she got on the elevator just before it closed... an officer, I was working for DND as a civilian at that time, mumbled “Nice pants”. She turned to him and beamed, “Thanks! My daughter wears these to her university classes”. I’m not sure of the other occupants but I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes. She was wearing pajama bottoms! I know the officer was being sarcastic, but I had to agree with him, I mean “Come On!! A women of at least 50 years old wearing pjs at her place of work? A goverment office at that”.

I’m all for being comfortable but being too comfortable is a problem for me. No matter what anyone says... what you wear is important. It tells so much about a person. Some clothes give the wrong impression. So, with that...how’s your body working out for you? The topic is “Am I Ready for the Beach?” Let’s start...

I have a beautiful exercise setup in my basement, I have the best diet cookbooks and all the time in the world to get in shape. I hope to start using these ’tools’ soon. My excuse? Fibromyalgia plus I had bloodwork done, the joys of getting older, and my thyroid, iron, vitamin D and some other thing that makes antibodies are out of wack. So this explains why I have been feeling like I’ve been run down by a bus, after I tried to out run it for a mile and a half.

Pro: As a spinster, I can stay in bed as long as I want/need to, which is very nice. I also get to makeover my basement the way I want. No man to tell me ‘you’ve been in bed long enough’. No man to tell me ‘What a waste of money. All this equipment and you’re not even using it....’

Con: No man to tell me ‘What a waste of money. All this equipment and you’re not even using it...’ I guess you could call that encouragement, right?

My body imaged is f__ked, pardon my language. It’s been this way ever since I can remember. Chubby baby, regular size kid, chubby 8th grader, regular size in high school. When I went to community college I started to get fat. No longer chubby. So for two years up and down. When I joined the military I weighed 145lbs and the person taking the measurements said “I’ll approve because you will lose that 5lbs in boot camp. Which I did. Yeah.

Now that I have gone thru, hopefully, all my ’major’ trials and tribulations I now have to remind myself that I have hypothyroidism. Not the good one, the hyperthyroidism where you loose weight fast, I have the one that makes you gain weight. Add that with my bulimia and well... Lucky me. My female cat has hyperthyroidism and she lost weight really fast. She now has medicine twice a day, like her mummy. My mom and her three sisters all had problems with their weight, so it is genetic. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier, it just gives me an excuse as to why I am like I am. I blame my Davenport female DNA.

Loving your body is hard, especially if you have my ‘lovely‘ constitution. As a spinster I think, or more like I hope, it’s my body that doesn’t attract men. Because if it’s not my body then it has to be...me. So, if it’s me then I’m really screwed. (I have to say that I do attract men, just not the kind I want to spend the rest of my life with).

Pro: as a spinster only I know what’s going on when I binge eat. There is no man trying to ‘fix me’ by telling me what I should or shouldn’t eat.

Con: it seems that ‘men’ is the source of my bulimia. Relationships make me want to eat. So far, every man I’ve been in a relationship with I‘ve gained weight. When I’m not in a relationship I lose the weight. A ’catch 22’.

Do I love my body? Absolutely not. Years of therapy has taught me to love myself. I haven’t learned to love my body, yet, but I have learned how to respect it. It has been a tremendous journey to where I am today. I am a huge procrastinator. With PTSD, ADHD, OCD and I’ve also been diagnosed with bulimia and perfectionism I’ve been told it’s amazing that I do anything at all.

I went to a psychiatrist for about 2 years who specialized in eating disorders. After doing a series of test on the computer he told me I did have bulimia but wasn’t too concerned about it was the perfectionism that he was worried about. He actually said that if I didn’t get the perfectionism under control it would hurt me. I laughed and said I was the least ‘perfect’ person that I know. He asked me to describe some routine that I have a hard time doing. After telling him about how messy my house is and how I get so overwhelmed by how much work it will take to clean that I don’t clean. He said that was a text book case of perfectionism. Now, after a few decades and always remembering what he said... I am definitely have what’s called an OCD-perfectionism-procrastination combination. It is described by Rockefeller University professor Bruce McEwen as an allostatic load. Allostatic load refers to the long-term effects of continued exposure to chronic stress on the body. This is a wearing and tearing of the body due to stress. If you hear your inner voice telling you that if you are not great you are a big nothing, you've found an anxiety belief that adds to your allostatic load. Who knew? I literally thought I was lazy. Appears I’m not. Mentally I am very active. The brain never stops. I’m working on that.

My ADHD makes me impulsive, my OCD makes me anal retentive, my PTSD makes me paranoid. Add all this together with my procrastination, bulimia and perfectionism and no wonder I have a hard time doing anything. When I impulsively start something that I really like then my ADHD and OCD kick in. I will not even know that I’m sitting in the dark working on whatever I’m fixated on. The perfectionism means I don’t really finish anything, there is always something better.

Pro: as a spinster I don’t have a man telling me I’m lazy or there’s something wrong with me...etc. I know me. That’s all that matters.

Con: I don’t have a man to share my self discoveries as I journey to loving my body. My cats listen but they do not give great feedback.

I have found, for me, accepting my body the way it is and taking responsibility of what I do or do not do takes away most of the body image issues. If I eat a whole tub of tapioca pudding (my flavour of the month) in 24 hours I know I will gain weight. Because I accept what I do and take responsibility my binge eating is way down. I would love to say it is gone, but I can’t, it still happens occasionally.

So, am I ready for the beach. No. I’m ready, however, to accept that I may not look good in a bathing suit but I do like the water. So, beach... here I come.