utopia

i have felt strange, sort of clearheaded and more aware od my surroundings. while i am unsure of where i will be living soon and am unemployed again i dont feel my usual anxiety and panic, perhaps due to a lot of step 3 readings. i recently have for the first time in my life been making myself a hot meal for dinner EVERY DAY and using the rest for a hot lunch. its amazing to me (though i know intellectually but now feel it) how eating properly helps, i think this comes most of all from loving myself enough to care to make myself good food, just for me and me alone. i thank recovery for the growth in this self love and hope my sleeping and exercise patterns will grow as i do. handling these new feelings is very very bizarrre to me but i guess that keeps happening in recovery??? you just keep getting better?

splendra

((((Utopia))))

I am so glad to hear you say that you are taking care of yourself. I think we(acoas) are taught to over look our needs. Our hunger and comfort were often completely overlooked by our parents and we have to learn about our needs.

yes we do keep getting better. We still have challenges and hopefully we will get thru the challenges with more self respect and love. When I learned to treat myself like I would my best friend my self awareness allowed me to take care of me.

I used to get these really bad feelings about myself that I learned were needs that had not been met. As I started meeting these needs the bad feeling faded. Now when I feel these kinds of things I realize there is something I need. I now trust myself enough to tell me what I need so I can make sure it is met. It feels really good to not be in need.

GingerM

Good for you Utopia. I haven't quit gotten to the point of really being able to take care of me all the time yet, but I'm working on it.

At least in my house, my needs weren't overlooked, they were actively denied. As a child, if I hurt myself, I was told "It's a long ways from your heart". I learned that everyone else's desires were always more important than mine and that I didn't deserve to have needs.

I would say it's just within the past 5 years or so that I could even tell that I had needs, forget about be able to vocalize those needs to others, and now I"m working on vocalizing them without feeling guilty about it. I'm getting much better about it, but still have those setbacks where I feel guilty for taking care of myself.

So you keep doing what you're doign and set a role model for me! It's good to hear that I can get there if I just keep working it!

cwohio

i'm in that same place right now. vocalizing my needs has always been a real toughie for me. it's like vocalizing them makes them "real" and then the head spinning starts - "selfish" girl. argghhh - getting to know myself is so tough sometimes!

utopia

i find sometimes that it's as if i have 100lb weights tying me down and a shot of tranquiliser wheni do things to take care of myself, something that helps me is the Just for today card where it says just for today i will do two things i don't really want to, more often than not thats brushing my teeth and cooking a good meal, but the result is i feel much better and i dont have that self loathing of "well idiot arent you great to just let your teeth rot"

its hard but im striving to change, gently and lovingly, gently and lovingly, gently and lovingly

splendra

Oh babe consider yourself gently and lovingly huged,rocked, and stroked from this mama...