The Size of the Chair vs. the Size of Your Rear

There was some discussion in the comment section on Carol's Aha Moment post about not being able to fit in seats, or getting stuck in a chair. I have plenty of experience with this subject, mostly involving being uncomfortable in airplane seats. But a few months ago my therapist switched his chairs from the one on the left (his was white) to something like the one here:

Although the first one wasn't great (it was a little low and difficult to pull myself out of), the replacement is the pits. My hips ooze out the side and I feel totally self conscious. The first session after he changed the chairs, he asked if it was OK. What are you supposed to say? "Uhhhh, no. My fat ass is oozing out of the arms. I feel like I may be stuck. And it makes me feel like an even fatter cow than I am." I just said, "yeah, it's OK" I don't feel like he would have done anything about it if I'd said what I felt anyhow.

While we're on the subject of ranting about him. I am seriously disturbed that he makes me take my shoes off. I think that is just so wrong! It's one thing at a person's home, but I am thoroughly opposed to shoe removal or covering at a place of business. Especially in a Doctors office or in the hospital. (Most Doctors, dentists and hospital type places here give you these little blue plastic shoe covers that are just repulsive.) If you're doing business, pay someone to vacuum/mop/sweep the floors every night instead of being a lazy, brainwashed s-o-b about it.

When I gave birth to my son, I was required to make my own bed, make my own breakfast and even clean up the bathroom before I left. When I arrived in my room right after squeezing out my 9 1/2 pound boy sans any pain meds, and after a severe tear which led me to lose 1 liter of blood, I was greeted by someone else's blood all over my shower. When I went back to the hospital 6 months later (after visiting numerous gynos and being told it's nothing when they actually sewed the left side of my vagina to the right side and it was painful in general, not to mention ever having sex again), to "repair" said tear that they didn't sew up properly in the first place. The doctor continually told me I had a "defective" vagina, and refused to see me after the operation (it was 5:05 pm and I was told my an intern that "this is not USA, we have lives, the doctor left for the day.") By the way, I hate the way all of Europe refers to America as USA. It's THE USA, thank you.

End rant.

Last night's session was good, not great, but pretty good. Therapist man suggested, and I agree, that when I was three, I began trying to be "perfect" in order to get noticed amongst the chaos of my new brothers and death of my grandfather. My first thought with this was, "well, getting fat does not align with perfect. Where did I verge off the road?" His though was that when striving for perfection didn't bring me the results (ie, affection, attention), I turned to food (the most readily available thing) for comfort. I think this makes a lot of sense. It also explains a lot of my behavior that seems to tear me apart--trying to go down the perfect road, but ending up down the fat road. He asked if I had any memories from that time. I have a really difficult time tweaking out what is a real childhood memory, and what is created from stories and photo albums...so I'm still pondering this. I do remember some birthday parties, but maybe when I was 5-8, and not liking being the center of attention. I think that could be because I used to be the center of attention (before the twins), and as it was something I lost, I began to recoil from it. Perhaps out of fear of losing it again?

Additionally, I talked about how my issues seem to be this big mountain, and I don't know how to begin picking away at it to level it out. It's like my weight problem, the task can feel overwhelming because its so big. Seventy plus pounds to lose. 35 years of issues to get over. The thing is, I'll never get anywhere unless I start, and I need to remember to just take it one day at a time, bit by bit, and I'll get there eventually.

He also asked me to define what I'd be when I became perfect. This is a tough one, and I'm pondering it too. I read an article recently in O Magazine that spurred me to start making a list of qualities I want to possess. He gave me an assignment of defining how I will know when I've achieved each quality in a concrete way. My first response was, "hmmmm I don't know how I can do that, because I feel like I'd have to completely personify, compassion for example, in a 100%, winning, total way." He told me to stop hacking at myself! Anyhow, I feel like this is going to be a tough assignment and I'll start writing a post on it. Maybe it was a better session than I thought.

Finally, what's the netiquette on comments? Do people come back to check for an answer if they posed a question? Or is it better to just visit their blog and leave the answer there?