Thanks for your kind words, Anita. My fiance and I are homebodies, we’re either chatting with ourselves, he’s doing an online game with friends and we’re all chatting, or I’m on a forum/facebook chatting with my friends. His family is very warm and inviting and we spend a lot of time with them. All of my friends either live far away, are people I work with, or regulars at work. I have learned over the course of four years that I shouldn’t consider people from work my friends the hard way. My fiance’s friends are also my friends, though I have a hard time thinking of them as my friends since they were his first [just another thing from childhood I’ve got to unlearn]

I know healing and growth is an ongoing process, but I don’t really know, you know? I imagine that one day I won’t struggle as much with stuff, I’ll understand why I do things, be all zen, and be this better version of myself I see in my head. And I know that’s not realistic, but I can dream. But because I don’t see the improvement, I’ll hit walls and conclude I’m either getting worse or simply stagnating and that drags me back into old patterns because I’m not improving, so I think what’s the point in trying? But then I’ve got the other part of my brain that, on good days, will point out how people don’t see the middle part of growth, so I just have to keep looking at the light at the end of the tunnel.

I also have this problem where I want to change, but I don’t want people to acknowledge I’ve changed, but I do, but not really? So, if someone was to say “wow, have you lost weight?” my brain automatically goes “you must have been a whale and not realized it because this person noticed you’ve lost weight” and I know that’s crazy, but that’s what happens and I’m working on not doing that. I’ve gotten better. I can take 3 complements before I start to question how awful the past version of me was.