Unda

As well as cash for honeymoon we asked for things that we'd never buy ourselves but also secretly wanted. Food is a big part of mine and hubby's relationship so we asked for really fancy knives and nice new crockery as well as really good pans. Our Belgian friends also bought us an ice cream maker which is THE BEST THING EVER. Seriously, we use that thing at least every month, there's always ice cream/sorbets/gelato in our freezer. My MIL got us (me) a really fancy Kenwood food processor as an engagement gift too and I use that all the time as well.

I think you're all right. It's more the self-censoring that bugs me. Being bi isn't a MASSIVE part of who I am but having to not say things bugs me. Perhaps I'll just stop doing that and if a discussion comes from it then so be it, I won't bring it up though. And if she objects... well... like you all said, it's not as if I'm going to be bringing any ladies home romantically now is it? What frustrates me is that she was always super supportive of my gay male cousin and his husband. It just always felt to me like she was okay with non straight people just as long as it wasn't her kid. And seeing as I am her only child... I don't know. It's not like she's getting grand kids out of me anyway, hubby has a pretty rare disease that we are NOT passing onto offspring and frankly neither of us like kids enough to do anything like adopting etc. I told her that before and... actually she did the same kind of thing as this. She said that that idea made her sad and she was sure I'd change my mind eventually. Argh. I guess my mum just does this with major stuff that she doesn't like, she just pretends that it's not happening. She and my dad split up for six months when I was at Uni and she just decided not to tell me and even went so far as to always actively lie about my dad being out and getting him to call me from work and pretend like everything was fine. She said that she'd thought it might mess up my exams if I knew. So yeah, seeing a pattern here. Denial, not just a river in Egypt.

I was wondering if I could get some advice from you good folks. I came out to my mum when I was 17, telling her that I was bi. She just responded with a flat face and a 'no you're not', this hadn't been what I'd been expecting at all at the time so I was like 'uh, yeah, pretty sure I am actually' she repeated that I wasn't then just left the room. It took up so much guts to talk to her the first time that I just left it and never said anything since. That same year I got together with my husband who I married this year. Obviously it's not like I'm going to be dating women now seeing as I'm married, to a man no less. But it irks me that she still either doesn't know, refuses to know, or thinks that she was right about me not being bi back then. It seems a little pointless to come out to her now again as it's kind of irrelevant, but also it's not irrelevant godamnit! On the one hand I wouldn't talk to her about anything else I prefer sex wise so part of me thinks "why should the fact that I like ladies be different?" but then on the other hand it irks me that I know she doesn't know and I self-censor myself around her. Is there any point to trying to come out to her again now or should I just think screw this and leave it well alone?

More or less as much sanity as i went in there with anyway! Thanks guys for being so supportive, it really meant an awful lot to me while I was in that really dark place there. And whilst work last week with her wasn't super duper fabulous it was nice to be able to close my eyes and mentally chant that I was almost out of there.

one or two, i personally prefer two but it might be because you look happier in number two.

it depends really what the advice is about, I find this easier with family and friends than I do co workers (after all unsolicited advice and comments as well as all around bullying is the reason I'm leaving my job now) If the whole, I'll think about it stuff doesn't work as an excuse try just turning around to them and being like "why do you keep bringing this up? I'm happy but the way you're picking at me is making me unhappy. I thought that since you loved me you wanted me to be happy? Or is me doing what you want more important than how I feel?" It's blunt, it's rude but damn if it isn't true. Sometimes you've just got to throw it out there rather than pulling the punches.

I HAVE A NEW JOB!!!!!! Heh, with that over with I'm so happy! Now I just have a little less than a month's notice to serve out, two weeks of which the awful evil woman is on holiday!!! Oh man, my new job is doing more of what I love, is closer to home, pays more and has the word "executive" in the title! eeeee! It's been days since I got the offer and I'm still walking around grinning from ear to ear whenever I think about it. And me and the girls that I made friends with at work have agreed to keep up our monthly meal and sleep over tradition after I leave, and we're still gonna email and call all the time. Life is good again.

I know I've talked about my awful co worker before so you're probably all sick of hearing it. I've spoken to my manager and her manager and they've told me that they'll do nothing, we have no HR department at all so I've no one else to complain to. My co worker's abuse is getting worse and worse. This morning I woke up and dreaded going to work so much that I just cried. I got to the point where I actually thought "Maybe if I break something I can go to the hospital instead of work and get some time off". And then I realised that I was seriously considering massive self harm as an alternative to spending one more minute with my horrible co worker. I've been applying for jobs and getting nowhere so my self esteem is plummeting and yesterday my manager chewed me out for not doing the aspects of my job that I share with this awful co worker because she tells everyone that I don't do my work and make her do it. Despite everything I've told her and how hard I work my manager believed her and criticise me right in front of her. My co worker spent the rest of the day happy as a clam that I'd been put in my place. I'm at home sick today desperately job hunting because I can't face going in. I just can't go on. I'm speaking to my CEO tomorrow and if that doesn't work then I'll just have to quit, although my husband will be furious if I do because we need the money and I won't have another job to go to. i'm so lost.

Tom Hardy *drool* Uh, yeah. Back on conversation! I can see guys that do that gonna crush your hand thing, I even sometimes have guys that try to do that to me. I can't really relate with having to take my shirt off in public but I suppose bikini anxiety compares.

Talking about being ex-fat making you judgemental I get, however there are qualifiers to that. I think it's human nature to compare yourself to other people, in both postitive and negative ways and mentally and physically. I see some people that are SERIOUSLY fat and a small part of me is like "ew" but then I remind myself that I don't know them, I don't know their life and I don't have any buisness judging them. Besides I remind myself that there are some seriously awesome people on this forum who might still be "fat" but are a hell of a lot better than they were before, but if I ran into them on the street I wouldn't know that and as such I shouldn't judge. It can be hard to remind yourself of that though. However, I look at picture of the old me and feel ashamed at myself having ever let myself get to that stage. However I'm keenly aware that if anyone had come to me and said those sorts of things to me when I was that shape I would have torn them a new one, no one speaks to me like that. Furthermore I feel like the journey to getting to be fit is strange. I don't think that it's just understanding that you're overweight, knowing how to get there and having the willpower to do it. I think it's some strange combination of things. I'm not dumb, I knew what healthy eating was, and I knew I was overweight and disliked it, I should have been able to do it. But frankly I didn't want to, I didn't want to put in the effort and I didn't want to go to a gym and look like I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't want to run and I felt like I wouldn't enjoy exersize. As such NOTHING could have convinced me otherwise, not someone guilting me, not someone shaming me or telling me off, or someone telling me what I already knew. It's very much a leading a horse to water and not being able to make it drink. Nothing would have convinced me to do something until *I* was ready. I suppose that because Steve's matrix article was the one that finally flipped that switch for me I always think of it in those terms. I could have known that the matrix was real as it were without being able to wake up. And I think that someone can be simply just not ready for "the truth". Old me wasn't ready but the me I am now is. Because of that I don't know when someone else will wake up and until they do I can't help them and I shouldn't judge. I'm not sure that this post is going to make sense to anyone else but whatever, if it does great.

Yay! I'm so pleased for you both! Sometimes friends just need someone to go "hey, you're being kind of an ass" and someone to be the bigger person before these things can get back on track.

I've definitely noticed people reacting to my weight loss. I get nothing but compliments from my mother and my father who was initially really anti-weight lifting is really proud of me now, he's always been an empiricist and seeing as my knees haven't exploded from squatting and I've not hulked into Arnie he's accepted that women don't do that without steroids. I even posted on facebook recently that I'd just dead lifted my bodyweight and he posted on there "that's my girl!" On the other hand my colleague at work was at first supportive despite being very negative herself but she kept saying about how the moment my wedding was over I'd pile it back on. I haven't and I've continued losing in fact and now she's super hostile towards me. Apparently 168lbs is a tolerable weight for me to be for her but less makes her furious at me somehow. No idea, she's nuts. As for how I'm reconciling my new image? It's kinda odd. On a day when I feel good I'll look at bits of me in the mirror and be like "Aw yeeeeeah" and I've taken to not allowing myself to think anything about my body that I wouldn't say to someone else, although that's hard. But equally sometimes I'll walk past a hot girl and check her out only to have an odd dissonance of "oh hey... my stomach is slightly flatter than hers" or "oh... my butt looks better than hers" and to get that when I'm appreciating someone's hotness makes me realise not that they don't look good or that I look better but that I too could possibly be considered hot. The nice thing is being able to start to see in the mirror what my husband always says that he sees in me. On an interesting note my husband asked me what bits of me I liked now and that he'd asked me last year. I remember the conversation last year and it'd all been things like "I like my smile" or "I like my hair" things that couldn't be fat or what have you. But the other night I was able to say that I really liked my legs now or that my shoulders were awesome. It was nice to feel some self confidence in my body itself.

eee! well I took a look around the place, asked all the right questions and now my On Ramp induction starts tomorrow! I'm so excited, I'll report back after and let you all know how it went!

bingo, as a bi girl I can attest that it's often really hard to be bi in that you feel like you don't belong in either group. I've never felt comfortable going to rallys because I'm married to a man and I worry what people will think. It get so ingrained that often I fear that people will critisise me for saying that I'm bi despite never having been with a woman, the reason for that is simply that I met my hubby when I was 17 and have been with only him since. I've only been with one other man and that was just before I met my hubby. But it's stupid because I still think about women as much as I think about men, if not more, and my first film crush was Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy *sigh* so I know what I am. It's just stupid sometimes you know? Again, thank you for making this space and it's nice to see that NF is just a whole nother level of awesome and accepting people. I think this is genuinely the best place on the internet. When people see sucky forums and people being dicks on the internet and wonder where all the nice people are... I guess it's cause they're all here instead!

I've started wearing almost exclusively dresses at the moment too, both because they're more forgiving of leg muscles and because I'm losing weight quite quickly and whilst my trousers have started falling down at inopportune moments a dress won't. Also! I bought a elastic-y waist cinching belt with a new dress and had to return it because the large size that i'd automatically picked up was way too big. I had to go pick up a medium!