I was just thinking about the intentions of things vs the consequences of things. It's really easy to get these confused, and I think I do get them confused fairly often. The concrete examples are:
My shorty-shorts. I wear a particular style of underwear that's often called 'spanx' or 'shapewear' or 'granny pants' or 'bridget jones undies'. Basically they're very high waisted tight shorts that come about halfway up my thigh or a bit below. These underwear are for 'tummy shaping' or 'thigh shaping' if you read their labels or search for them on line. That's the intention. However, what they're for, for me, is totally different. I don't particularly care if my tummy or thighs are 'shaped' or 'slimmed', the size of them is the size of them and changing that isn't what I'm after when I wear them under my skirts and dresses (I don't wear them under trousers). I'm looking for the coverage on the thighs so that my legs don't chafe (the fact they chafe is a consequence of the size of them/shape of them but they'd still probably chafe even if I was at that 'healthy weight' people/doctors/weight loss meetings talk about). I think I'd have to get waaaaay below the 'healthy weight' to get my thighs to not touch. So the consequence I'm looking for is the comfort of not having my legs rub, even though the intention of the item is to make them smaller/more shapely according to some f*cked up plan of making women all the same shape and size.
My parents' and other people's comments about my mental state/work performance/housework abilities/relationship status. The consequences of these comments so often is that I bottle up rage/sadness/feelings of personal injury until I can let them out later (or I don't end up letting them out and my depression gets worse, or my anxiety gets worse, or the irrational thoughts become too hard to ignore, or I need to pinch/flick my arms...) or I start some kind of argument/discussion that the other person never intended to have, which still ends up with the same problems for me (e.g. internal anguish). However, the intention of these comments is not the same at all -- I'm almost certain that most (if not all) of the people who talk to me about things going on in my life don't mean to be causing me pain and stress and anguish and ... . They talk to me about these things from a position of concern, or as a way to show they care, or that I'm important to them, or that they love me. It's just that the mis-match between the intention and the consequences for me is an ongoing difficulty I have with communicating with pretty much everyone except David, Trav, Lauren, Nate and my counsellor Andrew. Those five people are about the only ones I feel comfortable revealing the consequences of what they and other people say to me.
Another thought I had is about my pinching/flicking/scratching/face picking habits. The consequences of these are the bruises and mottled skin on my arms, the sores that won't heal right, and my acne/scarring on my face, but that's clearly not my intention. Thinking about it, my intention appears to be (at the moment anyway) to have some kind of external expression to what's going on inside of me, like, when I'm struggling with stress/pain/irrational thoughts/anxiousness, having something on the outside that I can see, and that others might see, seems really important to me. It's not like I particularly want other people to notice - attention seeking - but in a way it also is, like a sign up saying 'this is how bad it gets for me'. Being able to show the bruises to my new doctor, for example, helped me explain the extent of my mental troubles in a way that I find really difficult to put in to words, without having to try to put it into words.
The face picking is also a consequence/intention thing relating to comments from people, especially my mum and my sister, about my appearance (besides my size) -- when they mention things like 'you look like you don't take much care of yourself' or 'what have you been doing to your hair and face' or 'you look like you've been dragged through a hedge' they don't mean to send me in to a frenzy of picking, scratching, trying to pop pimples, plucking my eyebrows and grey hairs and generally angsting about the outside of my head. But the consequence of the comments built up over the years means that I rarely pass a mirror without having a bit of a go at my face/hair/both. It's a habit I haven't really thought of before, and my thoughts are still mixed as to what I want to do about it - try to beat it, leave it be, I don't know.
I'm at work at the moment, but I really wanted to express this, and I want the blog to become somewhere I can do that. I need to work on tracking my negative thoughts and praising myself in writing for victories I have for my psychologist and I've lost the notebook habit to some extent, so at this stage I'm thinking that the blog might be a good replacement. It's easier to share with others anyway. So yeah, good luck.
