Feeling Very Self-Critical Today

[Guest guest]

Hi, Josie,

Boy, you got it with both barrels today: Self-consciousness, envy, doubt, old hurt, more self-consciousness, more hurt, resentment, anger, sadness. Ouch! It's hard to untangle feelings when so many of them come whacking you on one day.

It's our curse to tie all our feelings up into our weight, when in fact weight has nothing to do with our feelings unless we make it. Maybe it would be a good idea to sit down tonight and try to sort through the whole thing with this former "friend" without letting the weight issue be a part of it--I know, hard to do! It's hard enough when someone you're really close to loses a ton of weight, let along when it's someone who used to be a friend and then "dumped" you over something petty.

There's a whole issue for most of us about our weight and other women. When Geneen Roth was on Oprah, there were two friends interviewed, who admitted that they didn't like it when one of them lost weight and the other didn't, so they were both now more comfortable that they were both fat, because at least they could still be friends! I know as hard as I try not to be, if one of my "fat" friends loses weight, it makes me feel like I'm that much more dowdy. But, sheesh.

Take some time, too, to remind yourself why you want to do IE instead of WW. Your former "friend" won't have the joy of knowing that she can trust her own body and that she doesn't need anyone else to tell her what and when and how much to eat.

One of my friends recently got to her goal weight with WW, and she tells me she has to throw out a piece of pizza after taking two bites, even though she wants to eat the whole slice. She salivates over the cookies at work and white-knuckles her way through parties and nights out with friends. I admire her weight loss, but I sure don't envy her having to live on the edge of that razor blade.

All best,

Laurie

I have been doing really well with IE for the last couple weeks and feeling good about myself. But today, I got dressed at home this morning and thought I actually looked pretty good. But when I got to work and caught my reflection in the mirror in the restroom, I felt like I looked really fat. Maybe just a difference in the mirrors, but it wasn't a good start to the day.

Then, I had another difficult situation at a meeting at work. A number of years ago, I was very friendly with a co-worker. We were both recent transplants to the area and had kind of bonded and would often hang out together after work. Then, we competed for the same job in the company and I got it and she didn't (we were both qualified, though I think I had a slight edge on her for a number of reasons. Regardless, I'm sure it was a pretty close decision). Foolishly, I thought that would not affect our friendship. But after that happened, all of a sudden, I was persona non grata and she pretty much stopped communicating with me for anything other than work purposes. Then she very suddenly transferred to another department within the company and we pretty much stopped having anything more than superficial contact.

Well, now she has returned to my department as a manager (I am also a manager, so we are peers) and since leaving, she has lost about 80 pounds on WW and has formed really close bonds with others in the department she had been in. So at this morning's meeting (when I was already feeling fat) she's sitting there in her stylish fancy new skinny clothes, talking about how she spent a weekend at the lake with one of her colleagues from her now former department, and I'm sitting next to her feeling like total crap. Arrgh. >(

Luckily, it's not driving me to eat (at least not yet), but it does put those doubts in my head. Like, if she was successful on WW, maybe I should give it another try. Hey, maybe the ninth time will be the charm! >:op It also makes me really conflicted. Part of me has always been really mad at her. Like, how could she call herself my friend and then just drop me like a hot rock because I got a position that she wanted when we were both really up front with each other about applying for it and actually helped each other prepare our resumes to interview for it?! If she had gotten the position, I would have been jealous, sure, but I can't imagine ending a friendship over it! And part of me feels really sad, like she's saying I'm not "cool enough" to hang out with all her stylish new thin friends.

So much time has passed since the intial event, that I don't know that I would ever say anything to her about it. And I don't want to create any conflict when we're going to have to work so closely together going forward. Plus, if she did what she did on purpose (and really, how could she not have? How do you inadvertently stop talking to someone??), part of me doesn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she really hurt my feelings.

This sucks. I hate all this feelings crap. Grrr. Thanks for letting me vent.

Josie