I'm not quite sure when I lost my identity, for me it would be easy to say it was when I started to become poorly, because that's when my weight started to increase. However, if I am truthful, and there is no point even writing this unless that's how I am to be, I think it happened a long time before that. I haven't really felt particularly good about myself since I was about 18. That's over half my life feeling uncomfortable in my own skin.
I was always the chunky child, taller than anyone else, bigger chested (which before boobs basically means you look fat). Glasses, flat lifeless hair, cellulite early. Seriously not a great look. I was with the cool kids at school, not because I was 'cool' but because I was good at sport so I qualified. It's still the same now isn't it - school yard pecking orders. Then as I got older, I started to take control of my eating, only having small amounts of food, drinking lots, and as the weight started to come off, I started to be able to wear better clothes and look more attractive, which in turn, kept me eating less until my parents discovered my uneaten pizza in my drawer and my weight loss and frog-marched me down to the doctors surgery to discuss annorexia. Part of me wanted it, part of me was trying for that, the only thing I was sad about was that I was unable to make myself sick as I have a fear of it. That was my saving grace and perhaps the thing that stopped me for truly succumbing to the lure of the illness. Those who have been there will understand, those who haven't will just think of it as being silly.
This was the time in my life when I felt amazing, when I cared about myself, thought about myself. Took time to make sure that I looked good and felt it too. It is a distant memory.
I didn't really realise how much weight I had gained because I was having such a good time. I started to think about weight loss at key stages in my life, my wedding, having Madison (my first born), having Cassidy (my second born) and it seems as though that's where I kind of stopped......
So is it being a mum has caused me to lose sight of myself. I don't think it is, I think all the counselling that I had around that time, changed how I feel about my life, my attitude, my approach and the trouble is that I have changed inside, but on the outside, I still see the 'lost' person, who doesn't know where her life is going and who has absolutely no control over it whatsoever.
There it stands, or I stand, feeling forgotten as a woman. I'm a mum, wife, daughter, friend but I've forgotten how to feel fun and flirty, to feel sexy and alive, to want to accessorise, wear heels, wear make-up, get the contact lens out, have my nails done nicely. Will that make me sexy, feel sexy or think sexy and come out of my ugly ducking phase.
The answer is there isn't it. Writing this though has it's healing benefits of being able to get out of my head all the unnecessary madness that being a woman entails.
Luckily, through social networking I have bad some amazing motivation. www.weightlossbitch.com is amazing and very passionate about being positive. Perhaps rather than a feeling sexy is an attitude! I know what I want & I just have to keep focused & start working towards my goals again.
Perhaps eventually the Ugly Duckling will turn into a Swan but she might just be a slightly older one!
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