Wondering if I'm disconnected from my emotions

[Guest guest]

The therapist that lead my IE workshop gave me one of those food logs where you

log what you eat and what you're feeling at the time, and I notice that 95% of

the time, I can't identify any particular emotion when I'm eating. I tend to

just write something like neutral or fine. I don't feel particularly happy or

sad or angry or anything. I just " am " and that seems fairly normal to me.

But I'm thinking about this this morning because last night I definitely ate

more than I would have liked when I came home from work and I was wondering why

at the time but couldn't tie it to anything in particular. I've noticed that I

do almost always tend to want to eat something right away when I get home from

work. Sometimes it is because I'm actually hungry and am trying to tide myself

over until dinner (though I do keep asking myself what the harm would be to just

be hungry for another 30 minutes until dinner is ready). But more often than

not, I'm not particularly hungry, and I've assumed that it's probably some sort

of winding down ritual. I noticed that at this time I tend to want something

crunchy like chips or cracker or nuts and I'm thinking there's probably some

significance to that.

But the other reason I'm thinking about this is that I realized that this week

I've been somewhat frustrated at work. I have a job that's stressful anyway but

I also have a boss that's an insane perfectionist and basically can almost never

be pleased. Even though she's fairly polite about it, she has a way of making

all of us that report to her feel totally incompetent (I guess there's some

small comfort in the fact that I'm at least not alone in this). Being a

perfectinist myself, it's really really hard for me to feel like I don't know

how to do my job. So I know I was beating myself up last night about a project

I was working on that didn't go well and it often feels like nothing goes well

even though I always get good performance reviews. So it's like this weird

conflict in my head that I can't reconcile what the paper record says with how I

feel like I'm actually doing.

In any event, it made me wonder if the eating last night was tied to that, even

though, by the time I got home, I felt like I'd sort of pushed it out of my mind

and wasn't frustrated on the surface. I'm wondering if I was more frustrated

than I could connect with and that was what fueled the eating, or if it was just

the winding down thing after a very long day. Or maybe even a little of both.

I guess I'm struggling with why it seems like I can't usually identify any

particular emotions and whether that's normal and if it's because I'm not tuned

into them when I should be (like they have to reach some sort of boiling point

before I acknowledge them) or if I'm just overthinking things.

Okay, that felt kind of rambling and maybe didn't make much sense. But it's out

there. If anyone was able to figure out what I was saying and has any input,

it'd be appreciated. >)

Thanks,

Josie

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Laurie, and everyone else, for the feedback. I wish I was in a place

right now where I could believe this, but I'm afraid I'm just stewing in my own

juices this weekend and feeling like a big failure. Once I get in this place, I

start ruminating on all the other parts of my life that suck. I'm not sure how

feeling like complete crap can ever be helpful. Not only can I not stand myself

when I'm like this, but I've also wasted the weekend feeling sorry for myself.

Grrr....

But this, too, shall pass. I don't want to be seem ungrateful. I'm not. I

know that once the storm cloud passes, I will be able to appreciate everyone's

kind and generous input.

Thanks, Ladies.

Josie

>

>

> Well, as an editor (it's my profession), I can tell you, Josie, that I don't

take the time to drip red ink on anything that is not close to perfection. If

it's a pile of junk, I simply send it back pretty much unmarked and tell the

person that it needs too much work for me to put in that amount of time, that it

has to be totally recast before I can even work on it. So maybe that's where

your boss is with your work--and I suspect she is, since you're getting good

performance reviews. If you can continue to take the time when you get one of

these documents back (and I know the first reaction is to put your head in your

hands, bite down on your pencil, and want to scream) to look at it objectively,

see the pattern of the corrections, and make a mental note to catch yourself in

that kind of error in the future, you'll feel even better about getting her

future feedback. I suspect you are already doing this, though, since you say

you're learning so much from her.

>

> In short, that your boss is spending time reworking your stuff says to me that

she thinks you're worth the time investment: a high compliment from such a

perfectionist!

>

> My husband was my dissertation director. This was before we became involved. I

can't tell you what a picky, picky editor he was! His other directees and I

would commiserate about how, even on the third draft, the guy was still finding

new things to pick apart. But bless his heart, he taught me to write like a

fiend, with confidence and flair! And he made me fearless and egoless in the

face of other people's input on my writing. I can't tell you what a gift this

was. And shoot, I got me a husband out of the deal, too, LOL.

>

> And here's maybe where he may differ from your boss: At a certain point he

mock-bemoaned the fact that I didn't really need his input anymore. But he's

still my choice for first eyes on anything I write. Then I send it on to another

writer friend, and she has at it. Then a third, who has a different eye. What

fun!

>

> Laurie

>