Since defining my mainline problem of being extremely insecure, I actually feel as though a large weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

Going through some of my not-so-proud moments, I realize that being insecure has been a driving force in many of my emotional reactions and decision-making process.

When I was 18 and halfway into my senior year at a community college, I was involved in a very lustful (thought it was real love at the time) relationship and decided to move in with him to another part of the state.  I did it because A)  He told me that if I didn’t he couldn’t see us lasting as long relationships are hard and B) I wanted the security of having him near.

As much as I would like to regret that decision, I can’t.  Had I not moved in with him and let things disintegrate naturally from a distance, then the probability of getting to where I am today would be slim.  However, I now recognize that I made a huge decision just based on insecurity and not based on logic or even a strong gut feeling.

I have also have kept my mother-in-law at bay from the moment I met her.  There were a few times I got angry over stupid things in regards to a situation she happened to be in or on the edge of and *now* I recognize why.  I had thought it was her.  Now I realize it was me.

I have always felt (at least to some degree), that I needed to keep this perfect image around her.  I never wanted her to see then (or even now) my vulnerabilities and weaknesses.  Being myself around the MIL has never been easy for me.  I feel like I smile even when I don’t feel like smiling.  During those times, I wonder if cracks are forming at the edge of my upturned lips to show how fake I really am being at the moment.

The fakeness comes from not wanting to face the emotions head-on.  Or at least, not wanting to be honest about my emotions.  For the sake of peace, I fake it.  Then again, some of the turmoil in the relationship with my MIL is due to my own insecurities and fear that she will take over and deem me not good enough for her son or even my own children.

I have a hard time believing that she could ever really love me for real and not just because I am her son’s wife and the mother of her grandchildren.

So I know that I have come at least one tiny step ahead in this situation.  There are varying degrees of insecurity in all facets of my life.  I want to fix them and overcome these demons.

I guess that’s why I have this blog…right?

The current path I am on in the journey to find myself has lead me to the stop of reconciling my insecurities.  So many of my relationships and the somewhat negative way I handle them has to do a lot with how I feel about myself.

I had come to believe (a long time ago) that who I was rested solely on how I looked.  I’m not really sure where I got this notion that how I looked and presented myself mattered more than the inner substance of who I was… but it’s something I have held on to for a long time.  Unlike some of my personality traits… this one has become unwavering and constant.

There have been times (past and present) where I have actually quit talking to people and distanced myself from good friends because of my insecurities.  Irrationally I had thought that they didn’t want just me but always wanted something from me.  That individually I was worth nothing unless someone wanted something.

I worry about my friends taking my husband away from me.  I worry constantly about him cheating on me and finding someone else to occupy his time.  It hasn’t hit me yet that I am worthy of his love or more than good enough for him.  I have even taken issue with my mother-in-law because I feel deep inside that there is no possible way she could love me and that she is only looking at my faults.  It’s as though in my mind she is looking to take over my place in her son’s life (albeit in a different way… not as a lover/wife) and that she’s out to be mother to my children.

I am so insecure that I actually push people away from me when they get too close.  I am afraid of letting out all of my emotions and afraid of presenting myself in a less-than-perfect light.  To do so would mean that I outwardly show my imperfections and allow people to become critical and non-accepting of me.

In my 28 years on this planet I have become somewhat of a chameleon.  I take certain personality traits that I like about people and meld them into my own persona.  Doing this has made me confused about certain parts of my personality.  Even though I know who I am…. I am afraid to be who I am for fear that no one could really accept me.

Irrationality at its finest.

I know the problem… now the question becomes…

How do I overcome these insecurities?  How do I accept myself in whole no matter what?

For once, I want to feel good about who I am and not compare my value to others.  I want to allow myself to be strong in my convictions and lastly, I need to come to an acceptance that I am beautiful inside and out no matter what my weight might be.

My biggest fear is that I will still be fighting the same issues well into my 50s.  I want to present my children with a positive woman role model and I want to move on from this and enjoy my life!

I’m just not sure what the first step should be…

Finding the motivation to lose weight is easy.  Inspiration is in abundance when it comes to getting healthy, especially on the internet.  Whole online communities are created so that people like me can have a strong support group and make new friends.

The problem is… i’m having trouble getting started.  I am addicted to fast food and carbs.  I have been very conscious lately of what I have been putting in my mouth.  That is, I am aware of what I eat and no matter how bad it might be for me, I continue to eat it.

Part of my bad habits when it comes to food is the emotional response to the baby crying or the kids crying and/or misbehaving.  I am attuned to eating because simply because of emotion.  In fact, more than half the time I eat because of emotion and not of hunger.  I don’t give my body a chance to get to the hunger part.

I want to exercise but am on restriction due to the c-section.  I have another month to go before I can get into a routine.  So, it is almost as though I am subconsciously telling myself to eat, drink and be merry because I really can’t start this journey until I am off exercise restriction.

Realizing this is somewhat disheartening because I feel like I am oh-so-close to success, yet so indescribably far away emotionally.  I think the next step to take is to be held accountable for my weight loss.  So far, I have only admitted to my husband that I want to get healthy and begin living again.  Still… husb has a hard time supporting me with the weight loss decision because he fights the same demons.  In that way, we are not good for eachother because we keep advocating the sickness.

In all of this of one thing I am certain:

Talk is cheap.  Time to put my money where my mouth is.

I have been trying to expand to new ways of thinking.  One of my problem areas (emotionally) is that I am extremely territorial.  It is hard for me to open up completely to people.  I am weird in that my life is basically an open book but when someone wants to come in and becomes too close to the point where I feel threatened, I back off.

It’s not that I desire to be the queen-bee, insecurity is the name of the game here.  Feelings of inadequacy surface time after time and the only way I feel on top of my game in my life (i.e. with husb and the kids) is to push everyone who continues to become close to me… away.

Some days I think that if I were a dog, i’d be a little ankle biter dog.

Anyway, one of my source problems is with my Mother-in-law.  I think she is a fantastic lady and extremely kind and generous.  However, there is another part to her that I don’t understand.  She always wants to “help” me and in a way, it makes me feel inadequate.  She also uses terms around the kids like… “hey Owen, are you grandma’s boy?”  OR  “Hi grandma’s girl!”  (the last said to my daughter).  I don’t know why… but sometimes I feel that she feels that I am inadequate at being a mom and wife.  So, I push her away.  I don’t want to get to close because i’m not altogether sure what she thinks of me or what she wants from me.

We do this dance, MIL and I… where we get close and then not-so-close.  It’s confusing… this hot and cold relationship of ours.

Since having the third baby, she has been around a lot more wanting to help.  All of my insides scream “NOOO!” because I am afraid of losing ground or afraid that she might think I am weak and cannot handle the responsibilities of being a mom and wife.   The more logical and at this point tired part of my brain feels that she just wants to be close to us.  ALL of us… including me.  She wants a good relationship with her grandchildren and husb and I.

So, I have been letting her come over and help.  My guard has been down with her and though I feel uneasy about it sometimes, I am trying to get closer to her.

I haven’t figured out why I have this problem.  It is like I am so afraid of her rejection.  Maybe it is because all of my other boyfriends had parents who disapproved of me.  So this is my way of making sure that doesn’t happen again.

Husb and I are extremely committed to our marriage and eachother.  Still… I can’t help but feeling as though the marriage is a delicate flower that I need to protect fiercely.

In any case, I truly am trying to be more warm and open with my MIL.  Maybe she’ll come to truly love me some day.

I don’t want to jinx it but I have been feeling really good lately.  I feel like I am more able to breath and that the world holds a multitude of opportunity and joy once again.

Why is life so moment to moment?  Just as I feel good today with good thoughts and good will toward fellow human beings, tomorrow could be the exact opposite.  It never ceases to amaze me how life takes on a different aura every day, week, month, year.

So you know how I have discussed in previous entries that I am overweight and that my feelings toward being overweight are far from a “fat positive” point of view.  Recently, I decided that I need to quit punishing myself for being overweight.  I have failed to search or buy myself cute clothes for almost 2 years.  That means, I wore old jeans that didn’t fit right or (1 year into it), a couple of different pairs of sweat pants and whatever t-shirt my husband had clean.  Ouch.  No wonder I was so depressed!

I feel that in order for me to lose the weight I so desire, I have to start being happy with who I am… no matter my size.  I have based so much of my self-worth on numbers (the number on the scale and the size on my clothes) for so long.  I quit treating myself right and started punishing myself.  I let my weight determine how i was going to feel on a daily basis.

I want to quit doing that.  I want to shut off that negative voice in my head that keeps telling me I am worth very little because of my weight.  I want to quit blanching everytime I see a picture of myself.  More importantly, I don’t want my children to see me this way or have to live this way.  Regardless of my weight and how I look… I can still be fun.  I can still be the mom they deserve.

I came across a rather good blog once and in it, the blogger stated that she felt she was taking away something from her family everytime she put unhealthy food in her mouth or spewed forth negativity in regards to her weight.  That blog entry spoke to me.

Now… I need to put those words into action.

The last month of my pregnancy went off without a hitch.  My doctor prescribed a low-dose of Zoloft and I felt like a new woman to say the least.  Finally, I was excited about my pregnancy, being a mom and life in general did not suck anymore.  It didn’t solve everything, though the meds did make it so that I felt less emotional on things.  Basically, I didn’t cry, scream, yell, or otherwise overreact to situations that had no merrit.  Six weeks without crying about stupid things and/or giving stupid things a second thought has been heavenly to say the least!

Then, I found myself in the hospital just having had my baby only to find that the doctors and nurses were worried about him because of his breathing. His breaths would come rapidly and though he could eat through it, there was cause for concern because they were afraid the formula would end up in his lungs instead of his stomach.

Talk about all the emotions hitting me at once!  I balled like a baby when the nurse was telling me that I may have to be discharged without my baby.  I almost had to leave him at the hospital and then visit him everyday until they deemed we could take him home.  I felt immeasurably devastated over that news.  I wanted to be strong then… but I just couldn’t.

The day of my discharge was fairly stressful emotionally.  I sat in my room waiting up until the very last minute to hear if my baby boy would be able to come home with us.  The nurse checked his breathing 3 times before the final few minutes and miraculously his breathing slowed to 55 all three times!

The emotional sabbatical was nice.  I felt able to cope with everyday things.  In some ways, I have to admit that in some wacky way, I wanted to be numb for the scary experience with the baby in the hospital.  I wanted to be strong for him and felt that by crying … it meant I wasn’t strong.  What I learned, is that I love my baby and did not want anything bad to happen to him.  I WANTED to take him home with me.

In essence, I felt a little relieved as I was afraid that I would feel removed from the baby as I felt at times… removed from my pregnancy.  So having the emotional reaction and feeling it so deeply in my heart and soul and feeling the love for my little guy seep through every pore in my body was refreshingly relieving.

It is hard to be depressed and isolated socially.  Toward the middle of my second trimester, husb and I moved to another part of the state.  Sure it was only less than an hour away from where we used to live but with the rising price of gas it felt like we were moving an eternity away.

When the darkness started rolling in, I had hit the end of my 2nd trimester and the wee beginning of the 3rd.  I felt increasingly tired all of the time but more so than the average tiredness, I was constantly weepy, my mind went crazy during the day, my focus was lacking and I got so easily frustrated with my children over small things.  I felt like a mental and emotional wreck that was only two steps away from a breakdown.

The other emotion I felt quite frequently was that I enjoyed being alone more than I enjoyed being with people.  I wanted nothing more than to stew in my darkness… alone.  As a turtle in a shell, I would shy away from any social gatherings and would shy away from meeting with people who were happy.  I also did not want to be close to anyone other than husb and the kids.  I pushed a lot of people away for fear that they would see through my “fake-happy” exterior to the mental hell I was going through and do the worst thing possible (well, in my mind at least)… which was … judge me.

I didn’t want people to see through me.  I didn’t want them to glimps into the private hell of my mind to see a woman who was struggling to regain focus, ambition, and harmony.  It is no fun when you are not at peace with yourself.

I realized really quickly that it was harder for me to be away from my friends.  Sure, they were only less than an hour away but in retrospect, it felt like a lifetime in distance.

Then, I came across this article that links social isolation and depression.  This excerpt really hit home with me:

Women who said they did not have the support of family, friends, and a partner were nearly four times more likely to develop the disorder.

Having positive support from family and friends really helps the mental well-being of women who find themselves pregnant whether it be unexpected or planned.

I finally did it.  I spoke with my doctor about depression, postpartum depression and impending ppd.  He was extremely not helpful.  He said that it was probably 3rd trimester hormones and then basically left it up to me to decide whether or not I wanted anti-depressants.  Of course, my first thought was for the baby.  I wanted to make sure that the baby would not be harmed if I chose to go on anti-depressants.  He said that the baby (at this point) is fully formed so no harm should come.

I chose the anti-depressants.  I know myself to the degree that I know when i’m not feeling like “me”.  I asked him for a low-dose of something.  He proceeded to say that it is not a magical pill that makes everything all better.  My reaction:  DUH.  I just want to feel more even with my emotions.  I’m asking to feel “okay” rather than down all the time with my mind racing.  What I have been through has hardly been a pleasant experience for me.  I certainly do not expect any pill to “make it all better”.  I just want to feel a little less like I am down all the time and going to go insane.  Too much to ask?  I think not.

I have to admit that after the appointment, I balled like a baby.  This has been coming to a head for so long.  You have no idea how much courage it took to actually open up to the doctor about it.  I finally admitted to myself that I needed help and I finally sought it.  The sucky thing is, that my doctor was less than supportive.  His bed manner sucked quite frankly.

It has been exactly 1 week and 1 day since I have been taking the pills.  To my delight, I feel “even-keeled” emotionally.  My thoughts aren’t racing, I am not crying like a mad woman one minute and just plain old sad the next, I feel nothing and I feel not so overwhelmed.  Even my focus has gotten on track!

Depression aside, there are things within me that I want to change.  This is something no pill can do for me.  I wasn’t looking to take anti-depressants to feel happy, I just wanted to feel not sad and without hope.

The next phase of “finding myself” will include digging deeper into some personal issues I have not dealt with.  There are things I need to do in order to find my happy spot in life.

I have to say, I enjoy my anonymity at the moment.  I can come here and post whatever I want and not worry about the prying eyes and plentiful opinions of people who know me.  The charm to this is that I can get through whatever I am going through without a mountainous load of opinions.  That’s why I started this blog.  I want to grab whatever peace and quiet I can so that I can figure out how to get better.

Yes.  Opinions are plentiful in my life.  I get lots of opinions and “how to” hints from my family and even hubb’s family (every once in awhile).  It’s not the opinions that bother me persay, it’s the judgment behind those opinions.  Because you know… someone somewhere thinks i’m fucking nuts or lazy or both.

I don’t think i’m screwed up.  Truth be told, I think I have a lot of things that go through my mind on a daily basis because I have nothing better to think about.  I’m just a depressed pregnant woman who is looking for some relief.  In any case, this is nothing that happy pills and consistency cannot solve.  Though don’t tell me to start “positive thinking”.  My mother in law told me this the other day and I looked at her like she was nuts.  This coming froma woman who was on depression meds about 5 years ago.

On good days, I can think positive (to a point…because something is always a little gray even on those days).  On bad days, forget it.  Positive thinking on a bad day is like a poor person wishing for a million dollars… it’s only something to think about but not something that will actually happen.

I like the fact that I have this “anonymous” blog.  It makes me feel a little less open to the public.  Sure, if someone (or a bunch of people) start reading this thing, then i’ll be open to public opinion.  Let’s face it though… if that would happen, I would still remain anonymous.

My dear hubb is having a hard time right now.  He is stressing out about his current job situation and really starting to put pressure on himself.  At least, for today.

His current job pays him *okay* but not for what he does.  He’s a computer guy who does a little bit of everything.  His boss still sees him as a sales guy, but he does so much more than that.  He fixes computer issues, maintains client communication, has working knowledge of computer networks, has working knowledge on a variety of different software, he is proficient on both the Mac and the PC.  In short, he is a sales manager, a service guy, a network engineer and all of the above.  He has been in the industry for 12+ years and has never stopped learning.

He is a huge asset to the company he works for, but unfortunately, the company does not like to pay out or reimburse him.  For instance, he goes on both sales and service calls and only gets a set mileage amount per month.  However, his phone expenses are also taken out of his mileage expense check.  He uses the phone primarily for business purposes.

His last raise was October of ‘06 and that was after 8 years of no raise or compensation.  The company offers medical benefits but because they are so small, we couldn’t afford to have the family included on as it would cost us half his paycheck just for medical insurance every month.  There’s no 401k plan to speak of.  No bonuses and basically nowhere to advance.

To say he feels *stuck* in his position is at this point an understatement.  Our state is in the worst financial situation ever and so jobs are hard to come by.  Even low-wage employment is hard to come by here.

He wants to quit his job on one hand because it offers very little in terms of the future and on the other hand, he has been with the company for 12+ years so the comfort level is the most enticing thing that keeps him there.  He is the “go to” guy.

The company made a mistake in stockholders awhile ago.  One of the owners was found to have been embezzling company profits for years and years.  As a result, it was hard to kick him to the curb as they had to not only pay him off for his investment (even though he stole from them), they also had to pay his attorney fees, which were atrocious.

The employees have been “paying” for that mistake ever since.  Now that the rotten boss is all paid up, the other stockholders want to continue to roll in the green without compensating the employees who have all worked so hard to keep the company afloat for years.  It’s a pretty crappy situation.

The sad part is, his boss knows that he is loyal to a fault and uses that to take advantage of his good nature.

It’s frustrating because hubb doesn’t feel like he is doing all that he can to keep us going financially.  He feels like he should be doing better.  I know that he is working his hardest.  There is nothing else out here where we live.

So, we’re considering a move out of state.  Both of us feel that this state is a sinking ship because all of the eggs have been placed in one shaky economic basket.

I feel so frustrated for him.  Especially because I know that he deserves something better.  Not that he is entitled to it by default, but just because he works so darn hard and is so darn talented and good at what he does.