Do. Not. Like.

A lot of things.

But I especially do not like the waiting area. I do not like other people being there (this is a change from before). I do not like other patients, other therapists, office staff -- none of them.

I feel paranoid when I'm sitting there. Today I actually looked up paranoid on my phone and read the entry on Wikipedia to try and distract my paranoid thoughts. Yeah, I chuckled a little with that one.

I feel very, very, very, very vulnerable. Very see-through. I don't want anyone else to get a look at me. I don't want anyone else to form a thought or opinion (no matter how inconsequential) about me. I don't want to be visible.

I told T I needed to be smaller. That I felt like Big Bird with that big feather sticking out of the top of his head, except I had those types of things sticking out all over and I wanted them GONE.

I figured out this was another reason for my extreme weight loss. That I need to be smaller. Invisible. The other new reason I discovered was shame. When I am fat I am greatly ashamed. When this whole process began a few months ago I had shame coming at me from every direction and no control over it. So I started losing weight to get rid of one of the shameful things that I could actually control.

So I need to disappear. Not in a going-away-forever kind of way, but in a nobody-notices-her-in-the-corner way.

Trigger warning just because it probably is triggering. Hell, I don't know.

very insightful. I am reading a real pain in the butt book about "negative mothering" where the author says some good things, she just says a lot of junk junk junk in between. anyway, being obese is also being invisible, and this is the first author I have ever seen put the two together. if she ever gets to an actual point about anything, I will post.

Ugh. I'm with you! Don't like having other people in the waiting room.

I tell my husband that my "super power" is being invisible. Which makes him sad for me because I thinks that I think being figuratively invisible is a bad thing. It's hard for him to understand that I would much rather be invisible than vulnerable. I don't like that Big Bird with the feather sticking out feeling either.

Hankster, you cracked me up! Thanks -- I needed that. Yes, please, let me know if she ever gets to the point.

PL -- I feel like this time I may actually disappear. I may actually get down to a weight that is lower than I've ever been as an adult. I'll admit that I'm willing to hang on to whatever neuroses allow this to happen. Then when I get down to a tiny speck (for me -- not an ana. tiny speck) I'll go ahead and safely examine all the fat stuff.

I'm a voracious reader, so I always take a book with me to my T's office. Generally I have my nose in a book while I'm sitting there and I honestly hardly notice all of the other people around me. Don't know if distracting yourself that way might help, but at least you wouldn't spend your time looking at all the other people, and if your mind is occupied with a great plot maybe your thinking won't try to "go there" so much. (Just a thought. I realize not everyone is a voracious reader.)

Farmergirl - from one VR to another it's sort of a mixed blessing, since one of the things I read a lot about is... therapy...

Jenluv - the waiting room can sure be tough. T2's is a hallway, and the previous client(s) must come right through there on their way out. They are all leaving in a happy, supported, confident mood, and often want to chat with me; my inclination would be to put on my therapy burqa and just sit immobile.
I don't wish them any ill at all; I just don't feel like chat at those times (like throwing up, maybe; like bolting out the door, maybe; but chat - no!).

farmergirl -- when it's really bad I don't have to be looking at anyone, and I usually don't. I just feel incredibly paranoid -- like people who aren't even there can see me.

And the thing is, if you were to meet me on the sidewalk or in the grocery store you would think I was incredibly comfortable in my own skin. I have this invisible sign on my forehead that says, "Tell me all your problems, I'm a safe person and easily approached."