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butterflyeffect · 09-24-2010, 12:36 PM

I am starting to understand myself a little better. I have watched as I come out of my shell people flock to me. I seem to have an abundance of friends and compliments. I am naturally bubbly and happy and people want to hang out with me.

Classic pattern:

I start losing weight, disengaging from ED behaviors and enjoying life. In the process I start to make lots of new friends and get heaps of compliments and asked out to do lots of things.

I get anxious and feel overwhelmed. I catastrophise and imagine that I am just going to get swamped with too many people. I blame it all on the weight loss and go put all the weight back on again and use my ED to isolate.

I get lonely and fed up and process starts again without me really being consciously aware of it.

***

Now that I have identified the pattern I can choose to create a new way of handling the situation.

I am currently returning to my bodies natural size and that causes me some anxiety and obsession and I feel a vulnerable without the ED. At the same time I am super excited about all the courses and holidays I intend to start. Issue, I am trying to keep a foot in both worlds on some level. I seem to want to keep people at a certain distance to allow myself the space to feel more safe and comfortable.

I notice I am fine with meeting new friends and its when I percieve the frienship as getting deeper without my active consent that I often tend to get nervous and uneasy. Like I am being boxed in. I think that is reminscint of issues I had in primary school. Usually I felt pushed into friendships with people despite not really liking them because I felt there was no one else. I am resisting close friends sometimes because I don't like that limiting boxed in feeling. Something to work through. Again a boundary issue, how to maintain my own boundaries.

I am struggling to have my physical boundaries heard, particularly in regard to sexual attention. When i get unwanted attention I back away, my voice gets high pitch, I tense up and clench my fists and start looking for an exit and this always seems to go unnoticed. I think I need to do some work on allowing myself a different way of voicing my boundaries. At the moment they are all non verbal.

I think I am wanting to have my own space and boundaries heard. When I allow them to be violated I feel vulnerable, weak and powerless. Therefore I overeat/exersize etc to avoid feeling weak or powerless. So I guess I need to become an active participant in my relationships and remain aware of my boundaries and when to assert them or when to allow myself the nervous feelings and proceed anyway. I think there is a huge difference between consciously choosing to challenge a belief or boundary and unconsciously allowing them to be challenged and then rebelling against the resulting feelings.

In conclusion, I am going to talk to my therapist about how to assert boundaries and work through the gremlins surrounding unwanted attention and weight.

09-24-2010, 12:36 PM	#185 (permalink)
butterflyeffect Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 801	Boundaries I am starting to understand myself a little better. I have watched as I come out of my shell people flock to me. I seem to have an abundance of friends and compliments. I am naturally bubbly and happy and people want to hang out with me. Classic pattern: I start losing weight, disengaging from ED behaviors and enjoying life. In the process I start to make lots of new friends and get heaps of compliments and asked out to do lots of things. I get anxious and feel overwhelmed. I catastrophise and imagine that I am just going to get swamped with too many people. I blame it all on the weight loss and go put all the weight back on again and use my ED to isolate. I get lonely and fed up and process starts again without me really being consciously aware of it. *** Now that I have identified the pattern I can choose to create a new way of handling the situation. I am currently returning to my bodies natural size and that causes me some anxiety and obsession and I feel a vulnerable without the ED. At the same time I am super excited about all the courses and holidays I intend to start. Issue, I am trying to keep a foot in both worlds on some level. I seem to want to keep people at a certain distance to allow myself the space to feel more safe and comfortable. I notice I am fine with meeting new friends and its when I percieve the frienship as getting deeper without my active consent that I often tend to get nervous and uneasy. Like I am being boxed in. I think that is reminscint of issues I had in primary school. Usually I felt pushed into friendships with people despite not really liking them because I felt there was no one else. I am resisting close friends sometimes because I don't like that limiting boxed in feeling. Something to work through. Again a boundary issue, how to maintain my own boundaries. I am struggling to have my physical boundaries heard, particularly in regard to sexual attention. When i get unwanted attention I back away, my voice gets high pitch, I tense up and clench my fists and start looking for an exit and this always seems to go unnoticed. I think I need to do some work on allowing myself a different way of voicing my boundaries. At the moment they are all non verbal. I think I am wanting to have my own space and boundaries heard. When I allow them to be violated I feel vulnerable, weak and powerless. Therefore I overeat/exersize etc to avoid feeling weak or powerless. So I guess I need to become an active participant in my relationships and remain aware of my boundaries and when to assert them or when to allow myself the nervous feelings and proceed anyway. I think there is a huge difference between consciously choosing to challenge a belief or boundary and unconsciously allowing them to be challenged and then rebelling against the resulting feelings. In conclusion, I am going to talk to my therapist about how to assert boundaries and work through the gremlins surrounding unwanted attention and weight.