Confidence?

Still. after all this weight loss. after all the changes that I have physically made to my body, to my health and to my well-being...the one constant, the one continuous obstacle I lack is confidence.  And I am not the only one who is a witness to this.  I am placed under scrutiny every day.  by me. by others. by friends and by family.
Yet. I hear amazing compliments.  More so lately.  More so now than ever before.
And yet the confidence escapes me.  For a moment, in time. I am ever elated after hearing this:
You are stunning.
You are so good looking.
Don't you feel so good about yourself?
You are sexy.
You are beautiful.
Yet.  I do not feel these things at all.  I do not see the compliments. I do not see what people are saying  I don't see it. period.
I still lack the confidence to, how do you say.. pull it all off.  And yet. at times I seek validation, if you will.  I know that I do not need anyone's validation of the person I was or now have become.  But the lack of confidence is paramount to the future of my well being.  Of feeling important.  Of feeling justified as a person. a woman.  It's a very extreme weird concept.  For years as a heavier person I had no problems being confident. I was confident for all the wrong reasons.  Confident for the girls I worked with.  Confident that I looked good in the same three or four dresses I wore on a weekly basis(usually it was two of the same style and different color.)
But that confidence has, for one reason or another, left the building,.  Maybe it's because my body is in such a sad, distressed and stretched state, under the clothes. My weight loss has left my body in such a deflated, ugly blob state that I cannot see past it.  Nor do I think anyone else will or can see past it.
It is symptom of my lack of confidence.  It is a constant reminder of the damage I repeatedly placed on my body.  I reeked havoc on my body for 30 years. The sheer pressure of walking, of standing, of doing 'normal' things, that you take for granted, drained me, exhausted me and completely turned me away from things I liked doing.
Today. I look in the mirror and there are monumental moments that I look back at myself and ask, "who the hell is that staring back at me?"  I am afraid of the person staring back at me.  She seems confident and beautiful and, for a lack of a better word, skinny.
Yet. there are days when the mirror lies to me. and my confidence that I may have had from the day before washes away. completely.
I look in the mirror and I see the "fat or morbidly obese" girl.  That image, that thought scares me. beyond.  How can I overcome that image. that thought?  hard days ahead.  courage to see the difference.  confidence. always.

Not proud

I am not proud of these moments. these pictures.  but they are necessary to tell my story.  This is me in 2007, 2008.  I weighed in at over 400 pounds.  Not a proud moment.
Do you think that I thought I looked bad?  No.
Do you think that I thought about losing weight?  Yes.  all the time.
When confronted I retracted. Ate to cover my feelings of inadequacy. Of not having will power. Of not being able to control my eating/food addiction.
Do you think, at times, I was, embarrassed by my looks, by the continuous "same" clothes I wore. over and over again?  Yes. of course.
But to tell my story, to tell of my change, my lifestyle change. is emotional to say the very least.

The change of eating habits literally changed overnight.

The change. of my life. was at least, 25 + years in the making.  I will ponder this question always:  what took me so long to make that change?  To prove to myself and all the nay-sayers that I am worthy; I do have will-power, I can make a change. ON MY OWN.

My biggest problem is looking back.  Because you have to look back to move forward.  Looking back at pictures of yourself - hard. not proud.  And if you know ANYTHING about me is that I loved to take pictures.  And on rare occasions when I thought I could appear in the back of a picture or make myself look smaller, I did.  To look back on those pictures is again, hard. hard moments - physically, mentally and emotionally. To see for yourself, the same clothes, worn over and over again, in pictures is surreal.

Last night at a function, I was talking to one of my close friends.  She said how great I look and how she remembered me wearing the same navy dress every time I would appear on TV.  I admitted to her that I had ordered at least 5-10 of those dresses and would wear them every other day, a different color.  Not proud.  Hard to admit.  Hard to have someone tell you that.  not proud. one bit.