Hello Brooke,

So I was the last model of the day yesterday. Afterward, I didn’t sleep a lot last night. I was having a really hard time turning off my brain. When we did the model, one of the first things you asked me was, “You wouldn’t let anyone else treat you that way, why do you treat yourself that way?” as well as “You wouldn’t sit by and watch a friend get abused, why is it okay to abuse yourself?” And last night it dawned on me, I have/did/do let other people treat me that way, I did sit by and watch myself get abused. (I was abused by my first husband and stayed for 10 years). And while I like to think that I would not allow that situation in my life again, I do believe that somewhere through all of this I learned to beat-up and abuse myself.

I am now recognizing that I work to be perfect, to be the best daughter/wife/sister/employee/stepmom, to accomplish so much (thus the to do list), because I am afraid that if I am not perfect someone will abuse me. I beat myself up to be perfect, so that no one else will do it. It feels better coming from myself than it does coming from someone else. Safer somehow. I am not even sure how to begin modeling this, I am just trying to sit with it right now. It feels like a huge revelation. Like somehow I am so afraid of being abused by other people that my brain is convinced that if I am perfect all I will get is love and respect. So I abuse myself to drive myself to get where I think I need to be so other people don’t have the opportunity to do it. I suspect this links into my desire to people please as well.

The final thought/revelation I had on this is maybe for so long I have been setting myself up to fail (with my daily schedule) knowing that I won’t make it, so that I can buffer with food later so I feel better. Then I get overweight and have another reason to beat myself up. Wow, how did I not know all of this was going on in my head. I have a lot of work to do! Need to learn how to be kind to myself, not even sure where to start.

Thanks for listening and for helping me learn and grow.

Sincerely,
Kathleen