July 30, 2014

KarenZen

Hey gang,
Carly made an excellent point yesterday about putting other's needs before our own, and I thought we could discuss that today.
Do you minimize your own needs?
Do you get too involved in the needs of others?
How has this pattern of behaviors affected your weight?

KarenZen

I think these are pretty common themes in obesity. My eating disorder shrink suggested I get "co-dependent minimizer" tattooed on my arm. I'd elevated it to an art form, to the point that I didn't even recognize my own needs at all, but at some level my body and psyche DID recognize my neglect of self and turned to food to medicate the pain away (literally--high carb foods trigger the release of serotonin).

Now I'm supposed to stop every hour and do a quick inventory--am I cold, thirsty, hungry, comfortable? Do I need to take any meds? Move my joints? And because I can no longer trust my body's signals after shutting them down for so long, I sometimes have to eat and drink by the clock, dress by the thermometer, and move just because I haven't for a while.

I'm terrible about taking my Still's meds on time, especially the two daily injections of kineret that I'm supposed to take at certain times. It burns terribly unless I bring it to room temp first, and most of the time I wind up bleeding from the injection sites, so if I'm taking care of my neighbors' little boy, or going out with hubs or friends, rather than keeping them waiting, I just skip and do it later. This means that I'm usually in so much pain by the time I get home that I curl up on the couch and sob. How ridiculous is that? So as part of self-care, I PLAN better, make time,for the meds, and, yes, sometimes keep people waiting.

My question now is, "If you were your own child, would you neglect yourself this way? How would you take care of you?"

Karen

PatrickB_87

Do I minimize my own needs, yes. Anxiety, self doubt, lack of self confidence or control, obsessive behavior, avoidance. All my hangups for years of bullying over my weight and the leftovers from years of suicidal depression over other things. They all help me avoid whats best for me. That includes the size I had (see, I am using the past tense and taking myself into consideration first ) ballooned to. Far too many other things to go into.

Do I get involved in the needs of other? Not so much anymore. I am a loner and not a particular fan of many social interactions so at the moment I have no one else whose needs I am involved in besides my family and they are all taking care of themselves. I use to use the needs of others to fill my inability to take care of my own, to achieve a sense of satisfaction and self worth. But I eventually realized that what It did for me was superficial to what I actually needed. So I am still as caring and kind (if you can stand my sarcasm in real life) as I have always been, but I am dealing with me at just this moment. Not all that well, but stumbles and starts. So in this case, being a loner has helped.

KarenZen

Pat, I think you brought up a great point. At the core of minimizing our own needs can be a deep self-loathing. Feeling unworthy of care. If you get enough of those messages, from bullies, from family, from self because of sexual or other types of abuse, then you start to believe them.

I wouldn't say that I hated myself (although maybe I did in some place that I don't want to acknowledge), but I definitely felt that others needs were more important than mine, and, in fact, I think there was some arrogance at work too. I remember my dad telling us that we were smarter, stronger, tougher, etc. than everyone else and so we needed to step up. He was "dad" to most of the neighborhood kids whose fathers neglected them, and it wasn't unusual for him to pile ten boys into the car after work to go fishing in a local cranberry bog. My mom was the same--always having all the neighborhood kids in our house and yard to play games, bake cookies, etc. So even though my parents weren't demonstrative with us, rarely hugged us, never told my sister and I that we were beautiful, they were beloved by all the neighbors, and they taught us well... I am famous for treating relative strangers better than my own family, for believing that I need to jump in and fix things for others who aren't strong enough to fix their own stuff. On the surface, this looks like I'm generous and caring, but underneath, I'm really saying, "I don't think you can handle your own problems as well as I can handle them for you." And that's unbelievably arrogant.

Anyway, I am babbling today. Trying to procrastinate on a heinous chore, LOL.

K.

mikesgirl4evr

I am the Queen of putting other's need before my own. From the time I was 12, I was more or less the mom of the house. My mom went to work nights and we never saw her. She was asleep when we got up and was gone for work about the time we got home. It was left to me to take care of my brothers, keep the house and be a companion to my dad. So I learned from a very early age it was my job to take care of others. Add to that the self-hatred and low self-esteem I had from the sexual abuse and the weight I gained because of it and you have a recipe for disaster. I could never do anything right in my mom's eyes...nothing was ever good enough. And I'm still that way. My therapist had me write 10 things I like about myself. All but about 2 of them included a "but...." For instance, the very first one I wrote was " I take care of others: but, most of the time I forget to care for myself." I like something but it's not good enough. I can lose weight but it's never enough. You get the idea. I also have a lot of trouble accepting help from others because I don't feel I'm worthy of help and/or I don't want to bother others with my problems. Like Monday for instance. I went to court alone because I didn't want to bother anyone even though I would have loved someone to go with me. Would it have been so bad to ask someone to go with me? What's the worse that they could have said, no? Of course that means I could be rejected and I can't take that chance. God, I'm messed up. I have to get past all of this if I'm ever going to get anywhere.

KarenZen

Dee, you're wonderfully messed up and human. Me too! Thank you for being part of my super special messed up club!

Last month my therapist and I were talking about how I get through a really bad Still's flare, who do I turn to when I'm really sick and need comfort, and I said, "Oh, no one. I just want to be left alone. I just hide in my bedroom." She looked so disheartened when I said that, and she said, "That sounds so sad and lonely. Don't you want to be held?" Oh my God, I just started balling. So I guess deep down I do. But like you not asking someone to go to court with you, I don't want to bother anyone with my distress.

Opening up in here about this has got to be progress, right? Maybe the next step will be asking for support in real life!
K.

catladyksa

I think I strive to keep a balance of taking care of my needs and those of others. I have been fortunate that I have not had depression (well one year I went thru it but not to the point of having to see someone or take meds...just was not happy in a marriage and made the decision to get out of it). I think because i don't have kids....I am used to putting 'me' first...BUT....at work.....that is another story. For some reason, I seem to get my hands into everything to 'help' out and I end up bringing the work home to do. I have a busy enough job but I just keep taking on more and more......and then I get mad and ***** about it to my friends...when it is my own fault. I have not found that I eat out of being depressed, I eat out of being bored....sitting in front of the TV or 'doing my work paperwork at home'.....!! Go figure!! So I need to keep my hands busy....I try to knit or make jewelry in front of the TV and that helps. Being a nurse, guess I am used to caring for people, so I don't seem to mind.I have learned to say no...to family or friends...and that took a while to learn to do that. I actually like myself, am a fairly happy person and I do put myself first....but I do take care of others too. Guess I am fortunate that way. Maybe it is because I come home to 9 cats that keep me company and make me laugh!!! Guess it is my 'cat therapy' that helps me out!!!!

Wishing you all well!!

Nancy

mtnheathr

I tend to minimize my own needs. I don't do it on purpose, but when you have a family, you get wrapped up in doing things for everyone else and then there is nothing left at the end of the day for you.

I am overly involved in everyone's business. I don't seek it believe me, people just come to me and vent. I ask myself all of the time why do they hunt me down to vent to me? LOL. Then I just figured that it must just be my gift, so now I am in school to be a therapist.

I think you get so used to doing for others that you swallow your own desires, tears, words, and feelings, until there is nothing inside but overwhelming emptiness. Then that little bit of food makes you feel better when nothing else does.

blondageh

Karen! I love the new profile picture! So cute.

I am definitely not as wrapped up in everyone else's needs as I once was. Before I had my own family, I was worried sick about my immediate family members all the time and tried to take control/charge and do whatever I could (if anything) to help them. I have grown up a lot since then and moving away helped. Having my own family has been the biggest change now though because I don't have the time or energy and I honestly see now I can't make people change.

Obviously, as a mother, you put your child's needs first. That is just the way it is. I am fine with that but do see myself turning to food out of frustration sometimes. Usually it is when I am tired and just want to go to sleep and she doesn't. As I have said before, food has a calming affect on me, so I reach for it to calm my anxiety in certain situations. Never in social situations as I am a closet eater.

Anyhow, the biggest obstacle I face, and this is why I stopped going last year, is I want to exercise and that means leaving my daughter with my husband after work. I am trying something new now where I really only try to be gone for an hour so he doesn't feel so burdened, but I feel guilty or worried the whole time I am gone. That is where I am struggling with my needs and his needs. If I had it my way, I would be going to the gym or an exercise class every night after work. I am getting addicted again.

ronercat

When it comes to being overweight I am sort of an oddity. I have been large pretty much my whole life, but I never thought of myself as fat. I thought of myself as the same as everyone else so I acted like everyone else and they treated me in kind. I was never bullied, but with the extra weight also came some extra height. I was 6'1 and 287 in 7th grade so I wasn't really a good target for bullying since I had half a foot on my peers at that point. As I got older I continued to do what others did and I was happy. After my time in Brazil I came home and I started gaining (more) weight. I had injured my foot during my last few months out of the country (I snapped a tendon) so I wasn't able to really work out and I was eating very poorly.

I paid this weight gain no mind and I went about my business. It wasn't until I saw some of the adverse health effects in some family members that I started to realize I had a problem. All four of my grandparents had diabetes, but they lived into their late eighties/early nineties so I didn't think about that much until my father was diagnosed. It became much more real. It was also around then that my mother told me that I reminded her of my father's cousin. He had been a very happy man and he was also quite large, but he had a diabetes induced heart attack and died in his fifties. I didn't want that. I also didn't want all the late life complications my uncle Lars had to face. For many years he weighed around 450-500 pounds. The damage he did to his body during that time was incredible.

For me the trick was not putting myself before others, but realizing that I had a problem and that I needed to face it. I had been hiding from it and ignoring it for years and I had to admit that it truly was affecting me negatively. I have always been someone that people seek out to discuss their problems and to help them through certain situations, but it doesn't seem like it has caused me to lose sight of my own needs.

Your discussion of putting others first really made me think of my mother though. For years she did everything for others. She donated some much time and effort into the well being of others. About five years ago she started to have terrible vertigo attacks that were induced by ocular and vestibular migraines. They were impossible to predict and would attack at random. She was forced to retire from teaching and go on disability. It was terribly devastating for her. Here she had gone from helping everyone to being the one in need of help. It crushed her. She has had such a hard time admitting that at times she does need help. It has gotten better, but from what I am seeing in here it is not easy trying to go from the helper to the helpee. She is still the center of the family even though she can't do what she did before.

(Sorry about the novel. I guess I am feeling chatty today haha.)

KarenZen

Wow, thanks guys. Very enlightening conversation today.

carostad

Separating myself from other people's problems and giving them space to solve their own problems is a constant issue for me. I can't fix everything, nor do I want to. I take care of my kids, and honestly, I've taken care of my husband for so long he has no clue how to take care of himself. For example, yesterday, I finally asked him to fix the duvet cover on his side of the bed. He pulls the cover only and the comforter ends up puddled in the middle, so then he pulls more, and then I have no comforter. I asked him to just fix it and he said "I don't know how to do that." I told him it was easy, just pull the comforter over inside the cover, and this was the important part, then I walked away. If I'd stayed, I would have just done it for him.

So, two things stick out to me in this scenario. 1. Nobody ever told me how to do this. I just figured it out for myself. and 2. How the heck did he get to be over 40 years old and feel so inept at something like that? oh, and 3. Why does he think I have to teach him how to do stuff like this????

Okay, rant over. It's a growing process. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I keep saying that over and over. Although, technically my family IS my circus. I just have to keep reminding myself that they have their own monkeys to manage. Or something like that.

Today I'm feeling kind of cruddy. Had a tiny sore throat when I woke up. Got myself up and fed, my son started on his schoolwork (we homeschool), monitored the chore situation, and then I was so tired, I lay back down to read at 11, and slept for over 3 hours! Yikes! Just figured out the battery on my Fitbit is dead, which explains why I only have 200 steps. I think I get more than that walking from my bed to my kitchen table. I think today is just going to be a wash, and I'll catch up later in the week. I'm not terribly hungry, so the calories will probably work out.

I wish I could "like" the responses on this page. Everything everyone has said has resonated with me to some degree, so conisder that a "like" for all.

KnitOrMiss

Okay, so by now, many of you may have read the blog I wrote a few years about about this pivotal moment in my life... I woke up one day and realized I'd neglected everything. i went from being my parent's child to my siblings' big sis to girlfriend to wife to mother - but never was I JUST CARLY. I had no idea how to go about just being me. I was always called generous and selfless and a hard worker, because I didn't know how to keep anything for me. I gave every ounce of me away.

My now ex-husband and I had been married 3 or so years, separated, eventually reconciled, and had our daughter around our 5th anniversary. When kiddo was born, we both poured everything into her, keeping nothing for the marriage, keeping nothing for ourselves (he kept some for himself, but in my experience, generally men suffer the sacrificial mother trait less, unless with extenuating circumstances). Needless to say, the marriage crumbled eventually.

I woke up one day and realized that my daughter had never seen me be me, just for me, not putting her dad's needs before my own, not rearranging my schedule and budget to make sure hers was priority. I realized that I had learned this from watching my mother, and I decided in that very second that I would not let my daughter grow up into the same mess. It seemed to be working, then outside influences stepped in, and everything went to hell. I hope someday she figures out the lesson I was trying to teach without feeling abandoned and resentful...

Regardless. I have always been the confidant, the friend everyone went to, the go-to girl on volunteer projects, etc., etc., etc. I am slightly empathic/sympathetic in that I absorb the emotions from any situation, whether they be good, bad, ugly, or in between. In junior high, this threatened to send me into a spiral. Fortunately, it was pointed out to me, and I learned to close myself off somewhat, barely surviving. I still do this when friends are upset, but I think the flip side of this coin is that when I work hard to get others motivated and excited, I get motivated and excited too.

I repeatedly minimize my own needs - seemingly at random and subconsciously. I bite my tongue to stall a fight. I don't get my medications so we can buy "xyz." I spend countless hours helping my fiance batten down the hatches of his shattered emotional life (thanks to abusive and neglectful childhood, etc.), so many hours that I forget to make sure I have fuel in my own boat's engine or to put my sails out.

Have you heard the statement, "In case of emergency, secure your own breathing mask before helping anyone else with theirs..."? This statement has always horrified me. Why on the Gods' green earth would I do that? My daughter's life was more important than mine. A stranger's was. My "job" was to sacrifice...it is what I was always taught. Even though I now understand the logic behind this statement, it still doesn't "sit easy" with me to agree with the sentiment. Aren't we judged on this earth by what we give to others? Let's all hope I'm never put to the test because I'm not sure I'd pass it.

I cook dinner and clean, when sometimes all I'd like to do is bust open a can of soup. Going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink makes me feel guilty as hell. I literally have to work out at work on my breaks because stealing any other time away leaves me neglecting something else, whether rightfully or not. I feel guilty taking vacation time off from work. I hate going to the doctor because it inconveniences EVERYONE in some way. Even showers are on my hit list - could there be a bigger waste of time? Oh, yeah, fixing my hair and make-up, neither of which I do. I rarely feel "better" after a shower, so I have learned to loathe them. Just one more damned chore I have to do that takes time away from EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING I HAVE TO DO.

I hope you'll pardon the language, but I seriously hate having to act like a selfish ***** just to take a few minutes to myself. Even when it is encouraged by those in my life, I still feel bad, like I should be doing something else. More often than not, my own sleep is what I sacrifice. I know that I am a caregiver by nature, and I have taken back so much of what makes me ME, but I still wonder, what would my life look like if standing up for myself across the board wasn't something that made me despise myself? Not to say that I'm a pushover, but it is far easier to fight for someone else than myself.

I work daily to break this cycle, but somehow fighting all my habits (my nature?) on a daily basis is just even more exhausting than leaving nothing for myself. I wish that my mother had taught me to steal time for myself every day...and to refuse to feel guilty for it. I was a more fulfilled and better mother for returning to work. I had a longer temper with my daughter and knew she loved school, and all that. Why can I not continue to do that? For years, I felt I had to justify that decision. I know some of that is society's expectations, some of it is environmental - how I was raised, and some just seemed "comfortable."

I am getting better about little things. I used some medical reimbursement money to get some things I really needed, and I don't feel but a whisper guilty that I didn't use it on anyone else. Sometimes I get the fruit I need even though it means my household may have one less item or something... I am working to banish guilt from my daily life, but it isn't easy...I feel guilty about feeling less guilty! How's that for irony?

Anyway...I guess I'll respond some in another post to other posters as this is already way too long...lol. (Maybe later - this took longer than I expected, and now I have to wrap up some work and calm down...)



But, I will say one thing...please, please, please don't think I'm attacking you -- these words come from experience (an almost 14-year old daughter who hates me now because she is no longer the center and pivot point of my universe - hates me for dethroning her - and will probably not have anything to do with me until she is and adult and decides that maybe I did get a clue, if a little too late for everyone... )

Heather - I fundamentally disagree that a mother's needs must ALWAYS be secondary to her child's/children's. A child's physical needs - food, clothing, shelter, yes, I agree. But the child needing another book read or clothes washed or _________________ fill in the favorite request/demand here, no, I don't agree with that. Let me ask you this - do you want your child to do exactly what you do - put everyone else first and turn to food (or worse, in today's society, drugs) in order to cope? Or do you want to teach them the right lessons, while they are still impressionable and easily adaptable to not being in the driver's seat? We have to lead by example with children. They will ALWAYS mimic what we DO before what we SAY. I personally made this mistake for too many years... When you stop and think about the best kiddo you want your child to become - YOU MUST MAKE THE CHOICE NOW TO LIVE THAT LIFE FOR YOURSELF....or the child will never see a true example. Even now, my chest is tight saying this. I've dealt with a lot of pain, anguish, grief, and hatred in the last 3-5 years, but damn it, I deserve to have a life, too, whatever that means.

Sorry, all, for the soap box, but if what I write can stop one single person from going through what I've been through, it will be worth it...

Carly in overcast OK, thinking the grey skies match her current mood... Alas, "Sound of Madness," here we come!

julieworley376

Wow this is a seriously wonderful conversation going on. And I have just read a LOT it's hard to remember who said what. I have definitely been guilty of putting others needs first and I still do. I am also one that looks after her husband, mostly waiting on him hand and foot and it is not as bad as it used to be! I feel guilty going out and guilty going to the gym, he doesn't like the house a mess, which it is a lot because I don't have the energy and so to go out on top of that is hard.

I did go out and work Remy last night but that walk around one block almost killed me. I am currently looking into lap band, my Doctor just referred me because I don't know what happened to me, it's like I suddenly hit a certain weight and injury and everything went downhill and I just keep getting bigger. I know my husband is worried about us finding the money and last time I raised the issue said no outright.. but I am at the point of I have to save my life here. And even if I don't end up having it done I will get more real help than I am currently getting.

Yes I think self loathing is a huge thing here, I will bet there are very few people in this category that haven't been bullied, made to feel inferior, abused etc. Recently I have been getting angry about being so negative on myself all the time and also of the treatment of me by others.

Here, no one should feel like a mess, or if you do know there are lots of messes here.. that is why we are here, if we didn't have issues we wouldn't be a part of this group.

mikesgirl4evr

Dee, you're wonderfully messed up and human. Me too! Thank you for being part of my super special messed up club!


K.

Oh Karen, you made me laugh so hard with that. Thank you, I needed that