There will never be enough compliments

Seriously. I may go "Oh, you're making me blush, stop" and what I really mean is "Please please keep going, please feed my ego, please make me feel good about myself because I don't know how to do it on my own".

So...let's talk a little about me. I'm a natural red head (as you may or may not know). But I am. Here's a picture from when i was a kid. Yeah, I'm adorable, what can I say?
So anyways. I was teased through out grade school and high school for my red hair. I would suppose it stopped around the end of sophomore year right around...oh yeah, the time I began dying my hair to get rid of the red.
I was never the skinny blue eyed blond that caught the boys attention. What was sad, is looking back to my high school pictures, man I had a great figure. But, at the time, I thought I was fat. I suppose since my friends were a size 2 and I was a hefty size 10, that is probably when the body dysmorphia started. Where you look in the mirror and you see a completely distorted view of what you really look like.

That still happens. I've lost 60 lbs now. Trust me, I know when I say the following statement, I am going to sound crazy, but I don't see it. I look in the mirror and I see my chubby belly and my fat ass.
I've gotten "I can see it in your face, your face is so thin now"
"I can really tell, you look great"
"I've had numerous people say to me have you seen Nicole lately?" (My response, who exactly and what word for word did they say)
"I'm so jealous of you" (Me??? Really?)

I adore it when people tell me I'm pretty or cute or beautiful or that they can see a change. I shouldn't adore it as much as I do...because I should be happy with myself and not have to rely on that feeling.
Maybe at some point I'll get there...but for now, can you just please know that I need you to feed my ego and I need to feel beautiful and keep the compliments coming?

I'll owe you one.

What the hell just happened?

This might be hard for some to understand, but I'm kind of weirded out right now. (Side note: spell check doesn't recognize "weirded" as a word. Random fact of the day). I have to go to the fancy GE Healthcare Institute tomorrow. (Second side note: although if you work for GE, you would naturally think that would be a place with a padded room where we all go brush each others hair and talk about what the bananas say to us, sadly, it's not).

So. I knew I needed a new suit jacket, so I killed some time at Macy's today while my cat Christopher was getting shaved. Yes I said shaved. He gets a lion cut. RAWR. So I looked around and tried on some. I ended up purchasing a size 16. Let's rewind for a second here. I started this journey at almost a size 24 pants. I just bought a SIXTEEEEEN. I can't even remember the last time I saw that number. And I'm just about in a size 18 pants. This means that I am 3 short sizes away from being a size 12. A FREAKING 12. I never thought that would be possible again.....

........here's where it gets all Crazy Town. (Remember? I'm the President. Also, I plan on ruining next Tuesday night's TV for you with my State of the Union address, just wanted you to know).
I get the fact that I'm down sizes. I sort of can comprehend that. I can SEE that I'm buying smaller clothes. But when I look in the mirror, I don't see it. I see my fat ass and my gut. And the same size I saw in the mirror when I started this, I still see. So it's kind of weird thing to know in your head that you really are smaller, but then to have that total body dysmorphia going on.

Excuse me while I go talk to the bananas.