For several weeks, and the week after Halloween in particular, she had been having a lot of mental health lows without even really realizing it. One factor in that was that she had lost a lot of weight in a somewhat short period of time. As thrilled as she was with what she saw in the mirror, she felt like she was having a bit of an identity crisis. She sometimes still felt the same way about herself as she did before the weight loss – negative emotions in regard to her appearance and her worth in general.
To add to her already wavering feelings of self worth, the Halloween disaster had really been affecting her. After several years in hibernation, the messy, sloppy, embarrassing version of herself from her early 20s had made an appearance and this had triggered all sorts of unhealed feelings of shame and guilt, among many other negative emotions.
The first week of November was pretty rough. Not only was she beating herself up mentally, but she also had the literal physical injuries she had done to herself that night to reinforce her negative thoughts. She would look down at the gigantic bruises on her knee, feel the pain in it as she moved, and would berate herself over how stupid and pathetic and worthless she felt she was.
She had sincerely apologized to her two best friends who were there to witness her humiliate herself. And though they both accepted her apologies, she couldn’t shake the nagging worry that they were both sick of her bullshit and that her friendships would crumble due to her constant lack of self control. And even though she had chatted almost every day that week with her more outspoken friend, it wasn’t until the following Friday when her other friend who had hosted the party, texted to check up on her, that she truly felt that her friendships would be okay.
Her friend texted her saying, “I honestly wouldn’t worry at all about the party. Everyone gets fucked up like that, as long as you don’t make it a habit. Then I’d be worried. The one thing I’d say to check up on is your self worth and esteem. It seems to me you think so low of yourself and can’t even believe it’s you in the mirror. I know this will take lots of time, and trial and error. But I’m here for you.”
Reading that on her break at work, she broke down in to hysterical tears, crying into the Subway wrap she had bought herself for lunch. Again, she was given proof that she was still worthy of friendship and acceptance and love, even if she sometimes acted like a walking, talking, dumpster fire.
She had a Zoom therapy session the next day. After speaking with her therapist, the link between her “identity crisis” and the amount of shame she felt in regard to her hard-partying ways, became apparent. She had been looking negatively at herself since before this drunken mistake of an evening. Even though she had been doing so well with her weight loss, and with her mental health in general since leaving her ex, she had still been holding on to the feelings of unworthiness and of disgust towards herself which were then amplified by her getting too fucked up on Halloween. Her therapist made her realize that what she really needed was some self compassion.
“What would you say to a friend who was feeling the way you’re feeling?”, her therapist asked her. She realized that in that case, she would have comforted that friend. Telling her friend that everyone makes mistakes. It’s what we learn from those mistakes, and how we move forward from them that matter. She would remind that friend of all the positive qualities they posses; of how valued she is as a person, not only to friends but to family as well. How funny and smart and caring and empathetic and kind and thoughtful and generous she is. How her value isn’t measured by what her body looks like, how much she weighs or how attractive she comes off to men she doesn’t even know.
She would tell her friend that it’s okay to feel down sometimes. But it’s not okay to fester in that hole and dwell on all the perceived negatives floating around in her head. She would remind her friend of how far she’s come in such a short time – less than a year! After nearly a decade spent with the wrong person, it’s amazing and admirable and worthy of pride to actually see all the progress that she’s made. Not just physically, but in her life in general.
She cried into her hands, sitting in the living room as her therapist just watched from the other side of the screen. That hour passed in the blink of an eye, but she was able to breathe a little easier afterwards. Her therapist sent her some self compassion meditations and they scheduled their next session. She wiped her tears as the dog hopped up on the couch and curled up next to her, the sun shining a little brighter through the bay window.
The weeks following that therapy session seemed to allow her to regain focus on what was important. She had made her mistake. It was over and done with. There literally wasn’t anything else to do except move on.
She decided that she needed to get back on track with her diet. Not because she needed to lose more weight (even though she was only 7lbs away from her goal), but because it was something healthy and positive that she could focus on to make herself proud again. She felt that that feeling of purposeful eating and regimented exercise was exactly the positive goal she could channel her energy towards. Specifically the exercise. Losing so much weight in a short period of time had left parts of her body, well saggy. There’s no other way to put it. And as much as she hated exercise (like truly. It’s just the worst), she had already seen positive results after working out with her friend for a couple months. The rest was up to her, and she hoped she would be up for the challenge.