Sure, investing in another and placing the power to make one happy in another’s hands can be healthy to a certain extent, especially if the other is the one. But that power is actually yours and so is the responsibility. And whether that person ultimately turns out to be right or wrong, but never as perfect as one might have thought at first, you should always save some of that love and good karma for yourself. Perhaps even most of it. Because no matter what happens or doesn’t happen over time, you will always be there at the end. You cannot escape yourself.

So remember always to invest in your own happiness. Pay yourself first as they say. There will plenty to around, providing you tend to your own needs first. Weight loss towards a desired goal for health or aesthetic reasons can certainly be good thing but it really has to be done for yourself, not somebody else. Because that person may not be around before you reach that goal.

The ability to love oneself comes before the ability to truly love someonelse, whether that love is misguided or well-deserved.

And the use of food as a weapon against oneself, either by withholding or overindulging is sadly a far too common malady and eating disorders are serious and can sometimes be deadly. But food is obviously not the problem. And using it to stuff down feelings that are either too painful or simply overwhelming obviously is a self-defeating behavior which attempts to suppress the symptom of the real problem while compounding others in a vicious cycle.

I had a relationship with a young woman who also used food to self medicate and punish herself. She eventually went inpatient at RADER which didn’t actually accomplish anything in the end. It was a hard time and she was the world to me then and would obviously always be. I have no idea where in the world she is now. But she was self destructive and was often extroverted about it. If given the chance she may have eventually destroyed us both.

I suppose this would have been shorter if I had simply said love thyself. But context is everything.

Don’t give up, but try not to set expectations too high. Looking at the world and trying to see it as it really is the wisest course. But we all probably know that and yet refuse to actually do it.

Humans are indeed strange creatures, aren’t they?