For awhile at work a couple of years ago, I worked with a guy who dubbed me 'Dina Spazz' after as spazzed out once during a work crisis. After that, he forever called me that and I never minded as it was so true. I tend to be very peevish about things and spazz out when I'm irritated or, well... peeved. The thing that spazzes me out the most about having PCOS or being obese is inadequate medical care.
It's a terrible, sad, and shameful thing if a woman has to beg for proper care, keep switching doctors, or tell her own doctor what tests to have done. There is also still an ever pervasive movement in medicine to ignore female issues - unless you're trying to conceive and then they'll pump you full of all kinds of hormones unless they think you're not worthy, 'cos your fat. Yes, I said it. I am fortunate that I don't have this problem with my doctor. He's made it clear he would help me if I needed it but not all obese women with PCOS are so lucky. Many get things like this...
"Of course you can't get with child, you're too unhealthy to be a parent."
"There is nothing I can do because you can't stop eating."
"It's survival of the fittest and you're unfit."
Then there are the women who either don't have periods for months or even years or have the opposite where they bleed for weeks at a time. There are doctors who think there is nothing wrong with this and no reason to treat it. There are medications to help and not having periods is a risk for uterine cancer. It's completely irresponsible for doctors to ignore these women.
Here's what some of them hear...
"I don't have time to waste on someone that won't help themselves."
"You're just depressed, let me give you some Wellbutrin, Celexa, Prozac, (insert drug of choice.)"
"Here's 3 packs of free birth control pills called Yasmin (that will fuck you up royally.)"
"Well, PCOS is rare so it never dawned on me that you would have that."
PCOS affects 1 in 10 women and there are all sorts of women who aren't getting diagnosed because doctors aren't being taught to look for/diagnose this. It's also very profitable to some groups if we all end up getting HBP, High Cholesterol, Kidney Failure, Clogged Arteries, and Diabetes when we don't deserve it.
Also - birth control pills are actually really bad for PCOS as PCOS along with Endometriosis and Fibroids are caused by Estrogen Dominance. Our bodies make an improper amount of estrogen or respond to phyto-estrogens in our environment or diet and convert it to bad testosterone. By taking birth control pills, you introduce more estrogen. Yet they still help a few women with PCOS and so doctors regularly push this as a first response.
They say that something like 75% of women with PCOS are gluten intolerant yet most doctors never mention that gluten intolerance is even real so a lot of women struggle for years with PCOS before realizing there is something that can help - not cure - but help.
I've had my share of bad doctors in the past. I lost my gall bladder in 2006 after eight years of mystery pain. I wasn't anywhere near the size I am now, but I received the same response from several doctors. I saw two endocrinologists, two gastroenterologists, one gynecologist, and two internal medicine doctors as this pain became more severe. It started out as a spasmodic pain on my right side that would arise whenever I drank diet coke or slept on my right side for longer than 9 minutes. I quickly learned to avoid diet coke and I had to sleep elevated on my back so that the pain would not come. When I described this pain to doctors, I told them about the triggers and the spasms, the excruciating pain, and that it felt like I was sleeping on a "ball" of pain. I was told it was just "muscle pain" because I needed to exercise and stretch my muscles or that if it was after I had drank a diet coke at a movie, it was because I had been drinking the diet coke while siting for two hours or more. So they treated me like I was lazy and made assumptions about my activity level and over these years, my activity level decreased as I became more sedentary because if the pain came, I couldn't move much or the pain would take my breath away, I was afraid to go anywhere for fear I'd be struck and have to try to drive home with these spasms occurring. I went to London during this time with my sister and maybe slept four hours a night because apparently, when sleeping on my back, I snore and since I could never sleep on my right side, I was fucked. (It was still my favorite trip though, as I was with my baby sister.)
Finally, my regular doctor sold his practice and not knowing where to go when I got a sinus infection, I decided to just try the new guy. Whilst it's very difficult to get care for endocrine dysfunction, it's very easy to get antibiotics. So I went to see him and he visited with me for a while and said, "Is that all that's wrong, you don't seem right." By this time, I was having this pain every night without fail and it would start bothering me right after work and last me deep into the night. So I told this new doctor. Told him about how other doctors said it was muscle pain and as I started to describe it, I burst into tears and I told him how many years it had been and how it affected my life and that I didn't know what I was going to do. He said "well, did anyone ever do an ultrasound?" I cried "No."
So I got sent for an ultrasound and found out I had a gallstone the size of a golf ball. It was very quickly removed and I got my life back. I still can't and won't drink diet coke and as a result, broke any pop habit I ever had. I allow myself a regular pop once a week and try like the plague to avoid being tempted. Although, as bad as HFCS makes me, I don't have to avoid too hard most weeks. Something I've learned in the past couple of years is that losing your gall bladder is connected with gluten intolerance. Imagine if doctors looked for this when you first present with isssues? Could I have saved my gall bladder? Could I have been diagnosed with PCOS years sooner?
I wish I could go back and track how much weight I gained over these years that I could barely move without triggering pain and it was a heavy price to pay in order to learn to be your own health advocate.
The moral of the story: Find a good doctor! First do your own research. Figure out every test you need and go to your doctor's visit armed with this information and ask for it. If he/she is still useless, find another. There are websites out there that recommend people. Find someone else in one of the PCOS Support Groups that lives in your area and go to THAT doctor. Get copies of all test results, blood work, etc. and look it all up on the internet so you know what's what and can track what is happening with yourself.
Lastly, if that doesn't work - then go postal. A little drama never hurts. Think of the suffragettes going on food strikes or chaining themselves to fences outside the White House. Cry your bloody heart out!!! Shame them for their prejudice or ignorance. Infact... why don't you just
FUCKING SPAZZZZZZZ!!!!!
Monday, April 28, 2014
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Time Out
So, I got to have my iron treatment again a couple weeks ago. I was thinking I'd start feeling great in a couple of weeks and other than realizing after a week that it was getting a little easier to climb the stairs, the last two weeks have been hell on earth. I got back into work the following Monday swollen like a balloon and in excruciating pain. I looked at the calendar and lo and behold - what time is it? Yes, your correct - my favorite time of the month - the day one week before my cycle is due and the commencement of PMS.
So now I know the next week is going to be sucky and after a few days, it gets worse and I'm thinking it's going to come just before the weekend and hopefully I'll still have a good Easter. Having taken Friday and Monday off, I had a lot of plans for the weekend that involved lifting and moving things and instead spent most of the time in bed curled in a ball and popping ibuprofen and trying not to cry because my neurotransmitters failed me again. There's nothing like waking up expecting to have a good day and instead getting endless pain.
So Easter weekend came and went. All day Monday of this week, I had horrible cramps. Tuesday they got worse. Yesterday I was walking with a permanent bend at the pelvis and after gobbling down some Naproxen-Sodium both last night and this morning, I thought for sure my special gift would arrive today. Nope. Still period-free!
What the fuck is going on? This is ridiculous. I was supposed to be starting a new exercise program this week and I'm supposed to do my company's corporate challenge walk tomorrow night. If I start later tonight or tomorrow, I'm screwed on that front unless I wear a diaper. Still, other than phantom starts today, it doesn't seem as though it will ever come. I'm supposed to go to a Beer Fest on Saturday. You know what those are like. I'll give you a clue. Johnny On the Spot. And it's supposed to be like 80 degrees outside and humid - and I'm supposed to be beer tasting?
This is when I call 'Time Out.' I've fucking had enough. This has ruined two weeks of my life already and this doesn't even count the one week of weird cramps I had before this. Thank God I see my gyno on the 1st. We are going to have to do something about this. I can't take it anymore.
The other day I sat thinking about it and PMS and all that comes with it, the heavy cycles and blood loss, and overall general iron deficiency anemia negatively affects my overall life and pursuit of health and happiness around 75% of the year. Here's how I figure. After I get intravenous iron treatment, it takes at least a month before you get the benefit where you can start getting back to self and incorporate good healthy changes - i.e. where you care about incorporating good, healthy changes, and then about six months after that, the iron levels start to taper off, getting lower and lower and lower until you're down too low. So these 3 months, you are starting to get more tired and you're not sure if it's you or not and then for the next 3 months, you are low and you are exhausted and you're waiting for your blood work to hit the number it needs to for treatment. So 6 months on. 6 months off. That's 50%. Then if you look at the good six months, you still have PMS, still have a heavy cycle, and still suffer anemia right after you lose a pint of blood until your body robs from itself to get to feeling back to normal. Since that all takes 2 weeks, that's and additional 50% of each month that you feel like shit. That's half of the good six months which is another 25% of the year.
Now, it's not that there aren't good 'mind over matter' days, but they are few and far between and you just get tired of being in pain. I am actually envious of the gals with PCOS who don't have cycles. I would rather have that than what I have. At least they don't have to worry about whether they'll be able to walk or play tennis or shop with the equivalent of a diaper on. I would give anything to drop my uterus into a toilet.
You always hear how greed or power corrupts absolutely - but I think it's really pain that does it. It warps you until you yourself are a hard, steel, sharp edged blade, ready to carve out any random person's heart. I recently shared a pic on my facebook page about the symptoms of PCOS and on the list was rage. I have a lot of anger that seems to have no place to go. Exercise helps. Sex helps but I've felt so bad about my appearance lately that I haven't had sex in over a year. I just don't think I can again until I feel better about myself. I also have been TKO'd on too many days of late. There are days when it's just not worth going out or even enjoying a few drinks for Happy Hour 'cos it might take me two days to recover. I need to get my exercise on and it's painful enough. I know exercise helps cramps - coincidentally, so does orgasm, but if you are hunched over from the pain, you're not going to make it around the block. So while I think perhaps there are green fields ahead, I have to figure out how to reach them or water my lawn for real. Something has to be done about this blood loss or I'm gonna lose it. I've lost too much already.
One more week 'til my gyno appointment. I hope I don't lose it when I'm in there but I find that when you're fat, crying theatrics tends to get you the care you deserve.
Crazy psycho over and out.
So now I know the next week is going to be sucky and after a few days, it gets worse and I'm thinking it's going to come just before the weekend and hopefully I'll still have a good Easter. Having taken Friday and Monday off, I had a lot of plans for the weekend that involved lifting and moving things and instead spent most of the time in bed curled in a ball and popping ibuprofen and trying not to cry because my neurotransmitters failed me again. There's nothing like waking up expecting to have a good day and instead getting endless pain.
So Easter weekend came and went. All day Monday of this week, I had horrible cramps. Tuesday they got worse. Yesterday I was walking with a permanent bend at the pelvis and after gobbling down some Naproxen-Sodium both last night and this morning, I thought for sure my special gift would arrive today. Nope. Still period-free!
What the fuck is going on? This is ridiculous. I was supposed to be starting a new exercise program this week and I'm supposed to do my company's corporate challenge walk tomorrow night. If I start later tonight or tomorrow, I'm screwed on that front unless I wear a diaper. Still, other than phantom starts today, it doesn't seem as though it will ever come. I'm supposed to go to a Beer Fest on Saturday. You know what those are like. I'll give you a clue. Johnny On the Spot. And it's supposed to be like 80 degrees outside and humid - and I'm supposed to be beer tasting?
This is when I call 'Time Out.' I've fucking had enough. This has ruined two weeks of my life already and this doesn't even count the one week of weird cramps I had before this. Thank God I see my gyno on the 1st. We are going to have to do something about this. I can't take it anymore.
The other day I sat thinking about it and PMS and all that comes with it, the heavy cycles and blood loss, and overall general iron deficiency anemia negatively affects my overall life and pursuit of health and happiness around 75% of the year. Here's how I figure. After I get intravenous iron treatment, it takes at least a month before you get the benefit where you can start getting back to self and incorporate good healthy changes - i.e. where you care about incorporating good, healthy changes, and then about six months after that, the iron levels start to taper off, getting lower and lower and lower until you're down too low. So these 3 months, you are starting to get more tired and you're not sure if it's you or not and then for the next 3 months, you are low and you are exhausted and you're waiting for your blood work to hit the number it needs to for treatment. So 6 months on. 6 months off. That's 50%. Then if you look at the good six months, you still have PMS, still have a heavy cycle, and still suffer anemia right after you lose a pint of blood until your body robs from itself to get to feeling back to normal. Since that all takes 2 weeks, that's and additional 50% of each month that you feel like shit. That's half of the good six months which is another 25% of the year.
Now, it's not that there aren't good 'mind over matter' days, but they are few and far between and you just get tired of being in pain. I am actually envious of the gals with PCOS who don't have cycles. I would rather have that than what I have. At least they don't have to worry about whether they'll be able to walk or play tennis or shop with the equivalent of a diaper on. I would give anything to drop my uterus into a toilet.
You always hear how greed or power corrupts absolutely - but I think it's really pain that does it. It warps you until you yourself are a hard, steel, sharp edged blade, ready to carve out any random person's heart. I recently shared a pic on my facebook page about the symptoms of PCOS and on the list was rage. I have a lot of anger that seems to have no place to go. Exercise helps. Sex helps but I've felt so bad about my appearance lately that I haven't had sex in over a year. I just don't think I can again until I feel better about myself. I also have been TKO'd on too many days of late. There are days when it's just not worth going out or even enjoying a few drinks for Happy Hour 'cos it might take me two days to recover. I need to get my exercise on and it's painful enough. I know exercise helps cramps - coincidentally, so does orgasm, but if you are hunched over from the pain, you're not going to make it around the block. So while I think perhaps there are green fields ahead, I have to figure out how to reach them or water my lawn for real. Something has to be done about this blood loss or I'm gonna lose it. I've lost too much already.
One more week 'til my gyno appointment. I hope I don't lose it when I'm in there but I find that when you're fat, crying theatrics tends to get you the care you deserve.
Crazy psycho over and out.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
New Dreams - Perhaps the Grass Isn't Always Greener?
So, I talked about my dreams surrounding being a Mother and how that didn't pan out. For years, I carried around that heartbreak always thinking, 'oh soon, it will happen,' I'll meet the right person, I'll then be able to fulfill my destiny. I dubbed the life I was living at the time as 'Plan B' instead of Plan A (Plan A being to marry and have a family.). All along, though, I didn't realize as I tried to fill my hole, that I was on this discovery and along the way, I changed. While I spent all this time studying religion and culture or politics - and trying to utilize my free hours in a way that interests me, I finally realized I could put my interest in all these things to better use. At first I tried living my 'Plan B' life with gusto and let it become 'Plan A' but I found I wasn't always happy and I recognized that there were things about me that didn't fit that life and so I went back to school and I eased into it and I found out again that I was not only smart, but in many ways equally as smart if not smarter than a lot of my teachers. I also realized I liked learning this way too and it wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. Might as well get credit to learn.
So here I was at this not new but same place in my life but viewing it from a different vantage point, realizing things aren't so scary as I always thought they would be, and being this woman who did everything for herself, I looked back on my life with shame at the time I wasted waiting for something to happen - dreaming about things. I had a step-Aunt once who told my Mother that "I would always be nothing but a dreamer" and my Mom told me this which I always thought was cruel but the words have haunted me. Dreaming about Plan A or any plan, for that matter accomplishes nothing. When I'm at work, I didn't wait for promotions to happen - I worked hard, I found out what to do and I went for it. When I didn't like my position, I changed it. I asked myself why I didn't apply that philosophy to the rest of my life. This change in my thinking came about just before I took General Psych and I thought about how most kids take this when they're young and find out things about themselves, learn to understand their parents and other people so they can better navigate through life and that I really screwed myself by not finishing school for that reason alone and yet, I look around me at all the people I know and I think - they've all forgotten. They've forgotten that only they can change their life. Being trapped in a victim state most of my life, I'm embarrassed to say that fact never occurred to me - at least, even if it was lurking just out of site or in the recesses of my mind, it wasn't evident.
Something I should say here is that when another person is in a victim state, no one can force them out. You can try to get them to see themselves until you're blue in the face, but it's not going to happen. If they're not raised to find their way out, or something doesn't click with them in a unique and eye-opening way, it often takes trauma or something major to awaken them and then many just can't handle seeing themselves and go back to doing what they were doing before because change is perceived as too difficult. Lying to oneself and making excuses is easier. I recognized for the first time that I was in part to blame for the fact that I never met anyone. I didn't go out and try to meet anyone. I could've joined a dating site. I could've branched out to meet more people. I could have stopped thinking people wouldn't like me before I ever decided if I liked them. I could just be myself and see what happens.
I have to report that trying to change IS difficult. People are used to you being the you they know. It's hardest to change around family and friends - even though they're the people that are supposed to love you the most. Especially if those friends haven't had that big a part in your life. They don't mean you any harm - not directly, they are just used to you playing the roll YOU play in their life. A change for you is a change to them as well and some part of them will have a problem with you making a change. It doesn't matter if you just want to be you - there will be people who want to keep you right where you are as to them everything is a competition, and they don't want you to be successful or maybe it's because contemplating you are different than they think is just confusing or something. This is especially true when dieting or trying to get healthy but in general - when you change, it changes the friendship or relationship dynamic. Hell, marriages fail over this. I worry about a lot of things because I never want to exclude anyone and I never want to push someone out of my life as I try to become who I ultimately want to be - doing things that I love. When I worry and express this to one of my friends, she always says "Just do you Dina." She's right. If you want to be successful, you can make sure you don't intentionally hurt someone, but you also can't be untrue to yourself. It can be difficult. I don't expect my friends to be like me. I want them to be who THEY are.
I have reached this point in my life where I know who I am in the fact that I at least know who I want to be for the most part - allowing room for growth and change. I also definitely know what I don't want or who I don't want. I look at what friends or family go through in their relationships and I know I don't want to be Sally home maker or June Cleaver and I can't believe I ever wanted to. I don't want to be with someone who is overly religious as I don't like living in a black or white world. I don't want to be with someone who is less driven than I am or who can't encourage. I won't settle for someone who is emotionally, verbally, sexually, or physically abusive. I won't settle for being with a racist. I don't want to be someone who needs to look down on others to feel good about myself and yet I've been there - but I see myself and I just want to be with someone who also sees themselves and wants to strive to be better. We are all always a work in progress unless we choose to remain in a stagnant state. I have escaped the tiny box I grew up within. It was safe and I never intended to leave, but the fact remains that I did wander right out of it and I've found that I like continually pushing at the boundaries of my life. To go back in now would feel like a prison.
I think that's why no matter what, I still make attempts to diet and exercise even when it fails to yield desired results. It's just so frustrating when it doesn't yield much by way of result. A girl wants to see the fruit of her labors.
Still, I came to the realization one day that I was single and still planning to have a life I didn't have. Why keep buying things for a home when I don't have one? Why worry about buying a house when it will suck me dry of all my resources while I sit alone in it resenting everything it isn't? Why worry about not having a husband or a good boyfriend when I'm single and I can enjoy all the different complexities of each individual man that crosses my path? I can just like looking at them or talking to them or loving on them or hating on them or having fun with them. I don't have to find out a husband cheated on me or put up with the emotional abuse or have someone always telling me what's wrong with me. I can just love them for a little while and when it gets sour - move on. I can drool if they have brown eyes or blue eyes or green eyes, whether they have lots of hair in waves, curls, or a little hair - cut short and perfect, or rub on their head if they are bald. I can love their skin no matter what the color. I can rub my face and lips all over their hairy chest, or rest my cheek against their cool hairless chest. I can just see who they are and who I am when I am with them and see if he's a keeper or if when it's over, it's over. Why settle? Why make it so complicated? (Trust me I'm guilty of both and all other manner of crazy mistakes.)
With other aspects of my life, I have nothing holding me home or holding me back. I can go anywhere or do anything. I don't need someone to go with me or hold my hand. If I want to travel to some far off place, I do it. If I want to try octopus, I do it. If I want to get in my car and drive to St. Louis or Minneapolis, I do it. If I want to blow $400 on something stupid, I can do it. If I can't find someone to do it with me, I often still do it. I've overcome fears of both eating and drinking alone. I don't like it - but if you really want to do something, just do it. I can't go back now. I've started down a road that no longer seems scary. There's a new adventure in a lot of things. I do everything I can to live for these moments when I walk down that path toward something new - knowing some part of me will change because of it.
There is something to be said for a life of freedom and lack of obligation and even though I wish with all my heart I had a true husband and partner and a couple of children, I don't. This is what I have. So I will be me and I will love being me in every way I can and I will try to enjoy every minute of the life I have. I didn't do any crazy shit when I was younger but there is much I will do now. There are more fears to conquer. There is more Dina to develop. I don't know if I'll ever crack the weight loss problem and I don't think I can allow myself to let that be my whole existence. I am going to just be me and keep moving forward. There are grassy green hills in the distance - straight ahead!
So here I was at this not new but same place in my life but viewing it from a different vantage point, realizing things aren't so scary as I always thought they would be, and being this woman who did everything for herself, I looked back on my life with shame at the time I wasted waiting for something to happen - dreaming about things. I had a step-Aunt once who told my Mother that "I would always be nothing but a dreamer" and my Mom told me this which I always thought was cruel but the words have haunted me. Dreaming about Plan A or any plan, for that matter accomplishes nothing. When I'm at work, I didn't wait for promotions to happen - I worked hard, I found out what to do and I went for it. When I didn't like my position, I changed it. I asked myself why I didn't apply that philosophy to the rest of my life. This change in my thinking came about just before I took General Psych and I thought about how most kids take this when they're young and find out things about themselves, learn to understand their parents and other people so they can better navigate through life and that I really screwed myself by not finishing school for that reason alone and yet, I look around me at all the people I know and I think - they've all forgotten. They've forgotten that only they can change their life. Being trapped in a victim state most of my life, I'm embarrassed to say that fact never occurred to me - at least, even if it was lurking just out of site or in the recesses of my mind, it wasn't evident.
Something I should say here is that when another person is in a victim state, no one can force them out. You can try to get them to see themselves until you're blue in the face, but it's not going to happen. If they're not raised to find their way out, or something doesn't click with them in a unique and eye-opening way, it often takes trauma or something major to awaken them and then many just can't handle seeing themselves and go back to doing what they were doing before because change is perceived as too difficult. Lying to oneself and making excuses is easier. I recognized for the first time that I was in part to blame for the fact that I never met anyone. I didn't go out and try to meet anyone. I could've joined a dating site. I could've branched out to meet more people. I could have stopped thinking people wouldn't like me before I ever decided if I liked them. I could just be myself and see what happens.
I have to report that trying to change IS difficult. People are used to you being the you they know. It's hardest to change around family and friends - even though they're the people that are supposed to love you the most. Especially if those friends haven't had that big a part in your life. They don't mean you any harm - not directly, they are just used to you playing the roll YOU play in their life. A change for you is a change to them as well and some part of them will have a problem with you making a change. It doesn't matter if you just want to be you - there will be people who want to keep you right where you are as to them everything is a competition, and they don't want you to be successful or maybe it's because contemplating you are different than they think is just confusing or something. This is especially true when dieting or trying to get healthy but in general - when you change, it changes the friendship or relationship dynamic. Hell, marriages fail over this. I worry about a lot of things because I never want to exclude anyone and I never want to push someone out of my life as I try to become who I ultimately want to be - doing things that I love. When I worry and express this to one of my friends, she always says "Just do you Dina." She's right. If you want to be successful, you can make sure you don't intentionally hurt someone, but you also can't be untrue to yourself. It can be difficult. I don't expect my friends to be like me. I want them to be who THEY are.
I have reached this point in my life where I know who I am in the fact that I at least know who I want to be for the most part - allowing room for growth and change. I also definitely know what I don't want or who I don't want. I look at what friends or family go through in their relationships and I know I don't want to be Sally home maker or June Cleaver and I can't believe I ever wanted to. I don't want to be with someone who is overly religious as I don't like living in a black or white world. I don't want to be with someone who is less driven than I am or who can't encourage. I won't settle for someone who is emotionally, verbally, sexually, or physically abusive. I won't settle for being with a racist. I don't want to be someone who needs to look down on others to feel good about myself and yet I've been there - but I see myself and I just want to be with someone who also sees themselves and wants to strive to be better. We are all always a work in progress unless we choose to remain in a stagnant state. I have escaped the tiny box I grew up within. It was safe and I never intended to leave, but the fact remains that I did wander right out of it and I've found that I like continually pushing at the boundaries of my life. To go back in now would feel like a prison.
I think that's why no matter what, I still make attempts to diet and exercise even when it fails to yield desired results. It's just so frustrating when it doesn't yield much by way of result. A girl wants to see the fruit of her labors.
Still, I came to the realization one day that I was single and still planning to have a life I didn't have. Why keep buying things for a home when I don't have one? Why worry about buying a house when it will suck me dry of all my resources while I sit alone in it resenting everything it isn't? Why worry about not having a husband or a good boyfriend when I'm single and I can enjoy all the different complexities of each individual man that crosses my path? I can just like looking at them or talking to them or loving on them or hating on them or having fun with them. I don't have to find out a husband cheated on me or put up with the emotional abuse or have someone always telling me what's wrong with me. I can just love them for a little while and when it gets sour - move on. I can drool if they have brown eyes or blue eyes or green eyes, whether they have lots of hair in waves, curls, or a little hair - cut short and perfect, or rub on their head if they are bald. I can love their skin no matter what the color. I can rub my face and lips all over their hairy chest, or rest my cheek against their cool hairless chest. I can just see who they are and who I am when I am with them and see if he's a keeper or if when it's over, it's over. Why settle? Why make it so complicated? (Trust me I'm guilty of both and all other manner of crazy mistakes.)
With other aspects of my life, I have nothing holding me home or holding me back. I can go anywhere or do anything. I don't need someone to go with me or hold my hand. If I want to travel to some far off place, I do it. If I want to try octopus, I do it. If I want to get in my car and drive to St. Louis or Minneapolis, I do it. If I want to blow $400 on something stupid, I can do it. If I can't find someone to do it with me, I often still do it. I've overcome fears of both eating and drinking alone. I don't like it - but if you really want to do something, just do it. I can't go back now. I've started down a road that no longer seems scary. There's a new adventure in a lot of things. I do everything I can to live for these moments when I walk down that path toward something new - knowing some part of me will change because of it.
There is something to be said for a life of freedom and lack of obligation and even though I wish with all my heart I had a true husband and partner and a couple of children, I don't. This is what I have. So I will be me and I will love being me in every way I can and I will try to enjoy every minute of the life I have. I didn't do any crazy shit when I was younger but there is much I will do now. There are more fears to conquer. There is more Dina to develop. I don't know if I'll ever crack the weight loss problem and I don't think I can allow myself to let that be my whole existence. I am going to just be me and keep moving forward. There are grassy green hills in the distance - straight ahead!
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Wednesday Happiness
So, blood work came back and I am due for IV Iron therapy again. I'm not insane. I am not tired for no reason. I am not keeping myself awake all night long. My legs aren't only hurting because I'm enormous.
I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane!
WOOT WOOT!!! WOOT WOOT!!! WOOT WOOT!!! WOOT WOOT!!!
NOT INSANE!
(well, not about THIS. In other ways, it's debatable.)
There is sleep and strength and happiness and exercise in my future again.
Please God, let Wednesday come fast.
Heee Hee Hee Heeeeee!!!
If I could skip, I would.
It's a skipping session in Multiple Fonts instead.
You'd think it was World Peace. It IS!
Just World Peace within my body.
I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane! I'm NOT insane!
WOOT WOOT!!! WOOT WOOT!!! WOOT WOOT!!! WOOT WOOT!!!
NOT INSANE!
(well, not about THIS. In other ways, it's debatable.)
There is sleep and strength and happiness and exercise in my future again.
Please God, let Wednesday come fast.
Heee Hee Hee Heeeeee!!!
If I could skip, I would.
It's a skipping session in Multiple Fonts instead.
You'd think it was World Peace. It IS!
Just World Peace within my body.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
My Big Giant Black Hole
I grew up in a very traditional Catholic family. My parents grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same grade school, and then started dating when they were teenagers. They were married by the time they were 20. When my parents went out, we didn't usually stay with babysitters, we stayed with our grandparents and drove them nuts. Sometimes I would get to spend the night at my cousins and we'd wear ourselves out playing Star Wars and then crash on the family room floor in front of the TV. I grew up very safe, very sheltered - protected from the knowledge of the outside world, sure that my way of life was the best. In retrospect, I was very lucky as something I later learned is that not everyone grows up feeling so safe, feeling so loved, never hungry, with siblings, cousins, and grandparents, let alone two parents even. I never knew how much work went into it or what my parents went through everyday to provide this canopy around us at all times. My Dad worked on his feet all day and my Mom, while I was little, was a traditional stay at home Mom. I always knew we were a little spoiled, but not overly so and certainly not by modern standards.
I hate to be clichéd but my recollection of life before puberty was idyllic. I didn't understand the world was changing, that more and more women were going to work, that there might be a chance I would reach adulthood with zero husbandly prospects, or that I'd regret not going to college. I was so naïve. I just thought I would meet my person, I would be swept off my feet, fall in love, marry, and have like four babies - two of each, of course. As if it was all pre-ordained, as if anything could ever go wrong. I thought that's what all people did and as I entered High School, I learned that life wasn't so idyllic, that love wasn't something that just happened, that your friends might not really be your friends, that you could choose wrong, that you could give your love to entirely the wrong person, feel nothing but pain or that you could learn to, after much criticism, hate and criticize yourself - give up on yourself so easily. In High School I didn't know how to try to plan for a future or which university to go to or to think of myself as having a profession. I was stuck in a different time. Someone was supposed to marry me and I would cook, and clean, and take care of the kids, and do the laundry. What did I need college for? I let myself be talked into things. I never knew how to speak up for myself. I certainly had no notion of having value as an individual with individual wants and needs. I couldn't tell you what those wants and dreams were as I always just dreamed of being a Mom. I took care of my siblings, changed my brother's diapers even - taught him to ride his bike. I had already been groomed to care for others. It was just who I was naturally supposed to be.
I made so many mistakes and hated myself for them and it didn't help that by the time I was 19, I was officially plus sized. I spent most of my 20s trying to reconcile myself with all my mistakes - make up for all of them. I tried so hard to do everything right. I hated that I knew so little of the world and that I was uneducated. I learned to like non-fiction. I had a giant hole and I filled it with everything good, cultured, intellectual, or political I could find. Fascinated, I became obsessed with religion and began to study them in great detail and the more I learned, the less I wanted to be a part of one. No matter what I did, read, absorbed, or encountered, it seemed my hole was still hungry. I read about life - other people's lives and even tried living through friends and loved ones. There was a part of me that didn't think I deserved good things because of past mistakes and another part of me that didn't know how to go about having a life or one that didn't involve having my nose in a book.
Having been harangued every day of my life for as long as I could remember about my weight, I was very ashamed of how I looked. I dressed frumpy, had no knowledge of how to be sexy or dress sexy. I wasn't anywhere near as plus sized as I am now, but I didn't feel comfortable getting dressed up or going out. I always felt enormous and like people stared at me. What's sad is that they didn't and if they did, it was probably because of my frumpy lack of fashion sense. It was nothing like these days where I have to worry what I'm going to bump into every time I walk into a room. In hiding myself from the world, I became borderline agoraphobic. I hated going anywhere where I hadn't prepared myself to go. I spent a lot of time in coffee shops and bookstores. I loved going to the movies. I wouldn't go near a bar and wouldn't dream of ever going near a nightclub. I always pictured myself as a dancing blob compared to the dancer I used to be when I was younger. I had a problem with noise sometimes and I hate being crowded and I thought people would be embarrassed to be with me. I would go out to dinner and after a couple of drinks, I would loosen up, be alright, and have a good time. If anyone changed the plan, it would cause so much psychological distress that I would almost and did sometimes ruin my own night. I always brought my own car so I could leave if I didn't want to go to the next place or if people wanted to stay later than I was comfortable with.
As I grew apart from High School friends or their lives evolved to where they had families, etc. I got over my loneliness when I formed new friendships at work. I began to go out with co-workers for Happy Hour and since it was to a restaurant with a bar, it was not as scary. I developed a friendship with a very outgoing and very patient friend who spent a lot of time going to all the places I was 'comfortable.' She was encouraging but never critical but as the years went by, I could tell she was disappointed when I never wanted to go out to bars with her - and she always asked. Eventually I went to Happy Hour with her at a local jazz bar and had a weird encounter with a guy who was
handsome and he had facial hair and all this curly black hair - like a Spanish painter type and when I went to the bathroom and came back, he had left before I got up the courage to talk to him. I was so angry with myself. Over the next couple of weeks, my friend told me how he'd been there every Friday so I finally went back, and then I went again - and then I went again. Finally, about the fourth or fifth time, she taps me and says look - there he is. I looked. I said "that's not him." She says "oh well, at least I got you out." I just looked at her... and then I started laughing. Fear conquered. I'd say I was about 34.
After that, we started branching out and I asked her to help me go through my wardrobe and we kicked out a lot of what was frumpy. I started wanting to go to new places and try new things. I had more confidence then at any other time in my life. I didn't meet many men though. In general, it all still reminded me of my first mixer where all the girls stand on one side or dance in a group and all the guys stand around until one or two people get the courage to ask someone to dance. Men didn't seem to get any courage until closing time and then even if I caught them glancing back at me all night, they would pick someone else. I began to notice that I'd get a lot of looks but men would quickly turn away after they dropped below my breasts and realized I had hips. I would have courage to smile or say Hi but I perceived (maybe inaccurately) that I could tell when they were uncomfortable if I said "Hello." I joined online dating sites but didn't have the best of luck and my emotions would get so wrapped up in trying to build something that I would often try to read too much into it or think I had feelings that I later realized weren't there and it was just that I was very lonely.
I struggled during this time with more weight gain - sometimes from dieting and failing and other times from nothing at all that I could discern. It didn't help that with every cycle, there would be a period of manic behavior where I would have mood swings and become someone else for a time before finally returning to myself only to repeat again in another couple of weeks. As the years went by, I got more courage to try to start conversations and I found I was just so thankful for the times I met people that were intelligent or who could converse about the world. Still, if there was romantic or sexual interest, it was the alcohol talking or alcohol giving them the courage to not see only a fat girl or a plus sized woman. For a time, they seemed to just see me. A person. It always hurt so much afterwards to find out it was just the alcohol talking. When I have met someone who seemed into me, even if it was not serious, but I know they desired me, it was a true gift within the context of the grand struggle.
I never imagined I'd still be single at 41 or that I would have zero children. To not be a parent is my greatest heartbreak. My only consolation is in the fact that if I were with someone and we were trying, it would probably be total hell because of the PCOS because, if you have PCOS, you often have trouble conceiving if you aren't almost completely infertile. Or, because of the thyroid issues, you miscarry. I know from my support groups that women with PCOS try for years - can you imagine being married and having to have sex based on your wife's body temperature or proof of ovulation or when your wife is having to take crazy fertility drugs that make her feel insane and have hot flashes - for years at a time? Can you imagine how she feels? She's the one going through it all. Do you even enjoy sex anymore? I can't imagine for a second what that feels like- to have the intimate enjoyment of making love with your spouse reduced to such fruitless work.
I always think about how I have so much sexual aggression, in part because of my own obsession with sex, (from being overly repressed) but also because of all the androgens - and I think about how I would love it if I could have sex often - but I would hate it if it were like that. I have watched women with endometriosis go through this also and it is not fun. However, I do think it's extremely unfair that unlike a lot of other women, I don't have to be coddled or coaxed to have or like sex, and that while I am in my sexual prime and completely wanting it all the time, I am not desirable to what feels like 99% of men. It really sucks.
Both my family and my friends were supportive of me trying to have a baby on my own. I told myself I would give myself 'til age 38 to try to meet someone but when 38 came, I began to try to imagine myself with a child and doing it by myself and aside from even trying to figure out what kind of donor or father to find/give, I knew I wouldn't want to share custody with a stranger. I knew I didn't want to make a baby with someone who's facial expressions I didn't know or whether their laugh was irritating or something crazy like that. I would sit there picturing all the little faces of the children I imagined having over the years and looking into their eyes that looked like mine or maybe my Mother's or have curly hair like mine, or whatever and just sob. I wanted them all so much. I wanted to be part of building some truly spectacular little persons, but after the crying spells would end, I would think about how I also wanted to see part of someone else in them as well - their father and then I remembered how there wasn't one and then I imagined myself telling those little faces how I was so selfish, I brought them into the world without a second parent on purpose. (& I say second parent because I don't feel families have to be only a man and a woman or that people can't adopt or use insemination, etc. I'm just pointing out what I would want for me.) I never wanted to have to explain that to them or make up stories about what happened to their father. They deserved the best
that I could give. I decided to love them enough not to do that to them - to love them enough not to have them. It just didn't seem right to me. Life is hard enough and I also worry about passing on this disease. At least in my line, it dies with me.
After I thought I was comfortable with my decision and starting to accept it, I had a friend who is also childless say that there was no way she wasn't going to be a Grandma one day. It was like a giant punch in the gut. I had been so focused on my sadness related to not being a Mother, that I never even realized this other thing that I would not have. I wouldn't have children who had what I had. I won't see my parents pickup my child and love on them or spoil them. I won't see my kids run circles around them or play tricks on them or call them Nani and Papi. I won't see them recognize if they have the same nose or hands or eyes. There won't be playtime with cousins at Nani and Papis. So extremely painful but I am learning to accept. I think though it would hurt worse to have someone in my life and spend nine or ten years trying to have a child and not being able to. At least I save someone else from watching my uterus fail time and time again even if I'm terribly lonely.
It makes me sad as I spent years building hope chests (so old-fashioned,) and buying things for the home I would someday have. I have my Grandmother's china and my other Grandmother's silver and I have no reason to use it. It just sits in boxes. It won't get passed on to my children. I refuse to put a lot of money into a home that sucks me dry of cash and then I'm trapped in it - trapped by a mortgage. I hate feeling trapped. If I can't have my dream, then I'll have my freedom to just live and blow my money however I please. Still, I try not to feel I've disappointed those around me - my parents, for example, but I know I surely must have - no matter how much they love me. They didn't want this for me - this or illness. I do feel like a failed female but I am fortunate to be able to give my love to my two extraordinary nephews and I know I make a difference in their lives and I would give them anything in the world. They get all my maternal love and I get to spoil them besides. I've figured out how to realize I'm still important and that my life is important - even if it's only so to me. In learning who I am, I also learned to make a new list of new dreams and try to make them come true. I can love and give to myself and if I can afford it, then none of my new dreams aren't within reach.
New dreams are possible whatever heartache you have. Don't give up.
I hate to be clichéd but my recollection of life before puberty was idyllic. I didn't understand the world was changing, that more and more women were going to work, that there might be a chance I would reach adulthood with zero husbandly prospects, or that I'd regret not going to college. I was so naïve. I just thought I would meet my person, I would be swept off my feet, fall in love, marry, and have like four babies - two of each, of course. As if it was all pre-ordained, as if anything could ever go wrong. I thought that's what all people did and as I entered High School, I learned that life wasn't so idyllic, that love wasn't something that just happened, that your friends might not really be your friends, that you could choose wrong, that you could give your love to entirely the wrong person, feel nothing but pain or that you could learn to, after much criticism, hate and criticize yourself - give up on yourself so easily. In High School I didn't know how to try to plan for a future or which university to go to or to think of myself as having a profession. I was stuck in a different time. Someone was supposed to marry me and I would cook, and clean, and take care of the kids, and do the laundry. What did I need college for? I let myself be talked into things. I never knew how to speak up for myself. I certainly had no notion of having value as an individual with individual wants and needs. I couldn't tell you what those wants and dreams were as I always just dreamed of being a Mom. I took care of my siblings, changed my brother's diapers even - taught him to ride his bike. I had already been groomed to care for others. It was just who I was naturally supposed to be.
I made so many mistakes and hated myself for them and it didn't help that by the time I was 19, I was officially plus sized. I spent most of my 20s trying to reconcile myself with all my mistakes - make up for all of them. I tried so hard to do everything right. I hated that I knew so little of the world and that I was uneducated. I learned to like non-fiction. I had a giant hole and I filled it with everything good, cultured, intellectual, or political I could find. Fascinated, I became obsessed with religion and began to study them in great detail and the more I learned, the less I wanted to be a part of one. No matter what I did, read, absorbed, or encountered, it seemed my hole was still hungry. I read about life - other people's lives and even tried living through friends and loved ones. There was a part of me that didn't think I deserved good things because of past mistakes and another part of me that didn't know how to go about having a life or one that didn't involve having my nose in a book.
Having been harangued every day of my life for as long as I could remember about my weight, I was very ashamed of how I looked. I dressed frumpy, had no knowledge of how to be sexy or dress sexy. I wasn't anywhere near as plus sized as I am now, but I didn't feel comfortable getting dressed up or going out. I always felt enormous and like people stared at me. What's sad is that they didn't and if they did, it was probably because of my frumpy lack of fashion sense. It was nothing like these days where I have to worry what I'm going to bump into every time I walk into a room. In hiding myself from the world, I became borderline agoraphobic. I hated going anywhere where I hadn't prepared myself to go. I spent a lot of time in coffee shops and bookstores. I loved going to the movies. I wouldn't go near a bar and wouldn't dream of ever going near a nightclub. I always pictured myself as a dancing blob compared to the dancer I used to be when I was younger. I had a problem with noise sometimes and I hate being crowded and I thought people would be embarrassed to be with me. I would go out to dinner and after a couple of drinks, I would loosen up, be alright, and have a good time. If anyone changed the plan, it would cause so much psychological distress that I would almost and did sometimes ruin my own night. I always brought my own car so I could leave if I didn't want to go to the next place or if people wanted to stay later than I was comfortable with.
As I grew apart from High School friends or their lives evolved to where they had families, etc. I got over my loneliness when I formed new friendships at work. I began to go out with co-workers for Happy Hour and since it was to a restaurant with a bar, it was not as scary. I developed a friendship with a very outgoing and very patient friend who spent a lot of time going to all the places I was 'comfortable.' She was encouraging but never critical but as the years went by, I could tell she was disappointed when I never wanted to go out to bars with her - and she always asked. Eventually I went to Happy Hour with her at a local jazz bar and had a weird encounter with a guy who was
handsome and he had facial hair and all this curly black hair - like a Spanish painter type and when I went to the bathroom and came back, he had left before I got up the courage to talk to him. I was so angry with myself. Over the next couple of weeks, my friend told me how he'd been there every Friday so I finally went back, and then I went again - and then I went again. Finally, about the fourth or fifth time, she taps me and says look - there he is. I looked. I said "that's not him." She says "oh well, at least I got you out." I just looked at her... and then I started laughing. Fear conquered. I'd say I was about 34.
After that, we started branching out and I asked her to help me go through my wardrobe and we kicked out a lot of what was frumpy. I started wanting to go to new places and try new things. I had more confidence then at any other time in my life. I didn't meet many men though. In general, it all still reminded me of my first mixer where all the girls stand on one side or dance in a group and all the guys stand around until one or two people get the courage to ask someone to dance. Men didn't seem to get any courage until closing time and then even if I caught them glancing back at me all night, they would pick someone else. I began to notice that I'd get a lot of looks but men would quickly turn away after they dropped below my breasts and realized I had hips. I would have courage to smile or say Hi but I perceived (maybe inaccurately) that I could tell when they were uncomfortable if I said "Hello." I joined online dating sites but didn't have the best of luck and my emotions would get so wrapped up in trying to build something that I would often try to read too much into it or think I had feelings that I later realized weren't there and it was just that I was very lonely.
I struggled during this time with more weight gain - sometimes from dieting and failing and other times from nothing at all that I could discern. It didn't help that with every cycle, there would be a period of manic behavior where I would have mood swings and become someone else for a time before finally returning to myself only to repeat again in another couple of weeks. As the years went by, I got more courage to try to start conversations and I found I was just so thankful for the times I met people that were intelligent or who could converse about the world. Still, if there was romantic or sexual interest, it was the alcohol talking or alcohol giving them the courage to not see only a fat girl or a plus sized woman. For a time, they seemed to just see me. A person. It always hurt so much afterwards to find out it was just the alcohol talking. When I have met someone who seemed into me, even if it was not serious, but I know they desired me, it was a true gift within the context of the grand struggle.
I never imagined I'd still be single at 41 or that I would have zero children. To not be a parent is my greatest heartbreak. My only consolation is in the fact that if I were with someone and we were trying, it would probably be total hell because of the PCOS because, if you have PCOS, you often have trouble conceiving if you aren't almost completely infertile. Or, because of the thyroid issues, you miscarry. I know from my support groups that women with PCOS try for years - can you imagine being married and having to have sex based on your wife's body temperature or proof of ovulation or when your wife is having to take crazy fertility drugs that make her feel insane and have hot flashes - for years at a time? Can you imagine how she feels? She's the one going through it all. Do you even enjoy sex anymore? I can't imagine for a second what that feels like- to have the intimate enjoyment of making love with your spouse reduced to such fruitless work.
I always think about how I have so much sexual aggression, in part because of my own obsession with sex, (from being overly repressed) but also because of all the androgens - and I think about how I would love it if I could have sex often - but I would hate it if it were like that. I have watched women with endometriosis go through this also and it is not fun. However, I do think it's extremely unfair that unlike a lot of other women, I don't have to be coddled or coaxed to have or like sex, and that while I am in my sexual prime and completely wanting it all the time, I am not desirable to what feels like 99% of men. It really sucks.
Both my family and my friends were supportive of me trying to have a baby on my own. I told myself I would give myself 'til age 38 to try to meet someone but when 38 came, I began to try to imagine myself with a child and doing it by myself and aside from even trying to figure out what kind of donor or father to find/give, I knew I wouldn't want to share custody with a stranger. I knew I didn't want to make a baby with someone who's facial expressions I didn't know or whether their laugh was irritating or something crazy like that. I would sit there picturing all the little faces of the children I imagined having over the years and looking into their eyes that looked like mine or maybe my Mother's or have curly hair like mine, or whatever and just sob. I wanted them all so much. I wanted to be part of building some truly spectacular little persons, but after the crying spells would end, I would think about how I also wanted to see part of someone else in them as well - their father and then I remembered how there wasn't one and then I imagined myself telling those little faces how I was so selfish, I brought them into the world without a second parent on purpose. (& I say second parent because I don't feel families have to be only a man and a woman or that people can't adopt or use insemination, etc. I'm just pointing out what I would want for me.) I never wanted to have to explain that to them or make up stories about what happened to their father. They deserved the best
that I could give. I decided to love them enough not to do that to them - to love them enough not to have them. It just didn't seem right to me. Life is hard enough and I also worry about passing on this disease. At least in my line, it dies with me.
After I thought I was comfortable with my decision and starting to accept it, I had a friend who is also childless say that there was no way she wasn't going to be a Grandma one day. It was like a giant punch in the gut. I had been so focused on my sadness related to not being a Mother, that I never even realized this other thing that I would not have. I wouldn't have children who had what I had. I won't see my parents pickup my child and love on them or spoil them. I won't see my kids run circles around them or play tricks on them or call them Nani and Papi. I won't see them recognize if they have the same nose or hands or eyes. There won't be playtime with cousins at Nani and Papis. So extremely painful but I am learning to accept. I think though it would hurt worse to have someone in my life and spend nine or ten years trying to have a child and not being able to. At least I save someone else from watching my uterus fail time and time again even if I'm terribly lonely.
It makes me sad as I spent years building hope chests (so old-fashioned,) and buying things for the home I would someday have. I have my Grandmother's china and my other Grandmother's silver and I have no reason to use it. It just sits in boxes. It won't get passed on to my children. I refuse to put a lot of money into a home that sucks me dry of cash and then I'm trapped in it - trapped by a mortgage. I hate feeling trapped. If I can't have my dream, then I'll have my freedom to just live and blow my money however I please. Still, I try not to feel I've disappointed those around me - my parents, for example, but I know I surely must have - no matter how much they love me. They didn't want this for me - this or illness. I do feel like a failed female but I am fortunate to be able to give my love to my two extraordinary nephews and I know I make a difference in their lives and I would give them anything in the world. They get all my maternal love and I get to spoil them besides. I've figured out how to realize I'm still important and that my life is important - even if it's only so to me. In learning who I am, I also learned to make a new list of new dreams and try to make them come true. I can love and give to myself and if I can afford it, then none of my new dreams aren't within reach.
New dreams are possible whatever heartache you have. Don't give up.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Listlessness
I haven't had a very good week this week and I've been afraid to write for fear of self-declaring just how negative and psychotic I can be. It was supposed to be a good week where I have already bounced back to my positive self after my horrible cycle and instead, I am exhausted, cranky, not sleeping, and I have had cramps for going on a week now. I should not have cramps for a few more weeks so I don't know what is going on but I suspect I'm having difficulty ovulating or I double-ovulated and my body is going to either skip a cycle or have another one before one is due. If you're a cyster, you'll know of what I speak as this happens from time to time (if you actually HAVE your cycles, which a lot of cysters do not.)
In addition, I've had horrible restless legs with my legs cramping all night long. Whilst most nights, I've been lucky to get four hours of sleep, there have been a couple of nights in the last three weeks where I've had that catch up night of sleep where I slept so dead I had very little recollection of anything at all but wake up feeling like someone beat me up in the night with bags of rubber balls. I can barely lift my head off the pillow let alone get up and one night, I think I even walked in my sleep. Since Narcolepsy runs in my family, this wouldn't exactly surprise me, but I've never been afflicted before. My eyes and skin have become so dry and I keep getting dizzy, have vision disturbances, and bad headaches. I've been eating pretty healthy excepting Happy Hour and my best friend's birthday so I know it's not blood sugar. So on Thursday, I deduced two things, one - that I should call my hematologist immediately and demand blood work, and two, that I should, if it's time for treatment again, finally give the IUD called Mirena a try to see if I can get the bleeding to stop and put off having a hysterectomy for a bit if I can help it.
So, blood now drawn, I entered my weekend hoping my Ferritin levels reach whatever level my insurance company says I have to be at to get treatment. I will find out early next week during one of the busiest weeks in the year at work and will likely have to hold out until after that week to get treatment since I can't miss work during this week. Joy.
So I had another weekend feeling disconnected from self. I feel bad as even the alcohol didn't sustain my brief interlude with alertness on Saturday for my best friend's birthday and as I sat there in the bar with the noise level increasing, there was a part of my brain fixated on the TV and another part screaming in agony. I could hardly focus on any conversation and I just felt so withdrawn from my own life - like I was sitting there as a ghost trying to listen in to the world of the living. I've never been good with overly loud environments but I notice that anemia increases sensory problems as well. It doesn't cure the sensory problems for me all the time, I still have problems when I'm on my cycles, but the rest of the time, I'm so much better. I hope my best friend isn't upset I wasn't more talkative. I will make it up to her.
It's almost family dinner time and I'm going to see what I can do to muster some attentiveness for my sibs and my nephew and try to enjoy the rest of the day before the onslaught that next week will be. I hope my inner self doesn't pull itself all up inside like a tightly wound ball of twine. I will force 'me' to stay out and alert for as long as possible.
So, that's all I got for today. I hope it's treatment time and that I don't have to wait any longer or I sense there will be a freakishly awful enraged sob fest. Oh well, at least I'm prepared for it.
In addition, I've had horrible restless legs with my legs cramping all night long. Whilst most nights, I've been lucky to get four hours of sleep, there have been a couple of nights in the last three weeks where I've had that catch up night of sleep where I slept so dead I had very little recollection of anything at all but wake up feeling like someone beat me up in the night with bags of rubber balls. I can barely lift my head off the pillow let alone get up and one night, I think I even walked in my sleep. Since Narcolepsy runs in my family, this wouldn't exactly surprise me, but I've never been afflicted before. My eyes and skin have become so dry and I keep getting dizzy, have vision disturbances, and bad headaches. I've been eating pretty healthy excepting Happy Hour and my best friend's birthday so I know it's not blood sugar. So on Thursday, I deduced two things, one - that I should call my hematologist immediately and demand blood work, and two, that I should, if it's time for treatment again, finally give the IUD called Mirena a try to see if I can get the bleeding to stop and put off having a hysterectomy for a bit if I can help it.
So, blood now drawn, I entered my weekend hoping my Ferritin levels reach whatever level my insurance company says I have to be at to get treatment. I will find out early next week during one of the busiest weeks in the year at work and will likely have to hold out until after that week to get treatment since I can't miss work during this week. Joy.
So I had another weekend feeling disconnected from self. I feel bad as even the alcohol didn't sustain my brief interlude with alertness on Saturday for my best friend's birthday and as I sat there in the bar with the noise level increasing, there was a part of my brain fixated on the TV and another part screaming in agony. I could hardly focus on any conversation and I just felt so withdrawn from my own life - like I was sitting there as a ghost trying to listen in to the world of the living. I've never been good with overly loud environments but I notice that anemia increases sensory problems as well. It doesn't cure the sensory problems for me all the time, I still have problems when I'm on my cycles, but the rest of the time, I'm so much better. I hope my best friend isn't upset I wasn't more talkative. I will make it up to her.
It's almost family dinner time and I'm going to see what I can do to muster some attentiveness for my sibs and my nephew and try to enjoy the rest of the day before the onslaught that next week will be. I hope my inner self doesn't pull itself all up inside like a tightly wound ball of twine. I will force 'me' to stay out and alert for as long as possible.
So, that's all I got for today. I hope it's treatment time and that I don't have to wait any longer or I sense there will be a freakishly awful enraged sob fest. Oh well, at least I'm prepared for it.
Monday, March 24, 2014
So Repressed We Can't Even Enjoy Our Own Food Orgasm
Ever notice how every time you dine - be it with your family or with a group of friends, whether you're getting anxious to taste again the sheer perfection of your Mother's home made pizza or what you ordered at the newest and hippest restaurant, there's always someone who has to try and count the carbs, or wince at how much fat they're eating? I know many have equated food with sex and you'll know you've done it when you groan aloud after a bite of a perfectly grilled filet mignon, or sucked a little long on your finger after scraping up that last bite of Tuxedo Chocolate Cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory. You don't have to say anything. I've had the mouth orgasm and so have you. You can deny your pleasure, but we all know you're lying.
Still, when you are sitting there after weeks of pining, finally about to feed yourself the best fry in the city dipped in white truffle aioli and someone mentions carbs, it's akin to when your lover brings up his/her ex lying there naked in bed with you. You don't invite someone into the bed that isn't even in the room. It's a violation of intimacy, a rude awakening most foul. How do you concentrate on your orgasm or anyone else's after THAT? You can't. It's ruined. So is the French fry... with the white truffle aioli... the one you waited weeks to get to. Did I mention the white truffle aioli? White truffle? You just DON'T ruin white truffle aioli just like you don't intentionally ruin sex.
So what is behind a person's desire to ruin their own dinner? Is it guilt or is it self-flagellation? Is the person just feeling that horrible about indulging or ruining their diet? Does it make the food more delicious to them to be reminded it's naughty? Or is it a quiet, manipulative scolding to the fat person or a Machiavellian form of emotional abuse? I don't really feel I'm being scolded by my friends and loved ones, but I do feel emotionally abused at every turn. Why do we as a people trash every meal we eat with negative feelings and guilt? Does it really make us feel better? Maybe it does for some folks. I don't feel better though, I feel worse. I feel interrupted. Pleasure and fun and camaraderie and sharing just went out the window. I was laughing and now I'm quietly counting everything I ate the whole last week to justify the fries I've waited weeks to have. I'm reminded of my fatness and now I'm depressed and angry, I try to shake it off by eating more fries than I might have originally because now I'm feeding an angry self - that hole that is never filled. Now I'm abusing myself.
I was raised in a culture where food is everything and sitting down to have that communal meal with friends or family or both, is a very special and very sacred thing. Just like sex. Yes, even sex driven purely by lust and not necessarily of a romantic sort. It's still takes two, therefore you're sharing - your communing, you are being intimate and you are focusing on the experience. You don't stop in the middle and talk about how you're going to go to confession afterwards. You don't interrupt the exploration. So why do we do it when we're dining?
I don't know all the answers, I just know it's unhealthy. I don't want to be reminded every time I eat that I'm fat. I want to explore and taste and experience and moan aloud or sigh contentedly. I often eat lunch alone as it's the only surefire guarantee no one will say 'carbs' or 'fat' while I'm eating a salad or god-forbid a gluten free crepe. I can sigh contentedly as I sip on my tea or coffee and read a book.
So, in closing I would like to say... Just as I know you wouldn't stop in the middle of a screaming crescendo to discuss STDs or pregnancy, please remember this... If you aren't eating carbs or don't want carbs, or feel guilty because you ate some bloody effing carbs, please don't bring it to the table.
Oh, and please leave the word 'fat' out of all conversation. Some oils are good for us cysters as we need those fats for proper hormone synthesis and even if we are splurging on some bad fat that night, leave us alone or we'll bring up all those lovers you took into your bed that you probably shouldn't have.
Oh. Oh. Oh. Mmmmmmmmmm!
Eat well. Love well. Good Night darlings!!!
Still, when you are sitting there after weeks of pining, finally about to feed yourself the best fry in the city dipped in white truffle aioli and someone mentions carbs, it's akin to when your lover brings up his/her ex lying there naked in bed with you. You don't invite someone into the bed that isn't even in the room. It's a violation of intimacy, a rude awakening most foul. How do you concentrate on your orgasm or anyone else's after THAT? You can't. It's ruined. So is the French fry... with the white truffle aioli... the one you waited weeks to get to. Did I mention the white truffle aioli? White truffle? You just DON'T ruin white truffle aioli just like you don't intentionally ruin sex.
So what is behind a person's desire to ruin their own dinner? Is it guilt or is it self-flagellation? Is the person just feeling that horrible about indulging or ruining their diet? Does it make the food more delicious to them to be reminded it's naughty? Or is it a quiet, manipulative scolding to the fat person or a Machiavellian form of emotional abuse? I don't really feel I'm being scolded by my friends and loved ones, but I do feel emotionally abused at every turn. Why do we as a people trash every meal we eat with negative feelings and guilt? Does it really make us feel better? Maybe it does for some folks. I don't feel better though, I feel worse. I feel interrupted. Pleasure and fun and camaraderie and sharing just went out the window. I was laughing and now I'm quietly counting everything I ate the whole last week to justify the fries I've waited weeks to have. I'm reminded of my fatness and now I'm depressed and angry, I try to shake it off by eating more fries than I might have originally because now I'm feeding an angry self - that hole that is never filled. Now I'm abusing myself.
I was raised in a culture where food is everything and sitting down to have that communal meal with friends or family or both, is a very special and very sacred thing. Just like sex. Yes, even sex driven purely by lust and not necessarily of a romantic sort. It's still takes two, therefore you're sharing - your communing, you are being intimate and you are focusing on the experience. You don't stop in the middle and talk about how you're going to go to confession afterwards. You don't interrupt the exploration. So why do we do it when we're dining?
I don't know all the answers, I just know it's unhealthy. I don't want to be reminded every time I eat that I'm fat. I want to explore and taste and experience and moan aloud or sigh contentedly. I often eat lunch alone as it's the only surefire guarantee no one will say 'carbs' or 'fat' while I'm eating a salad or god-forbid a gluten free crepe. I can sigh contentedly as I sip on my tea or coffee and read a book.
So, in closing I would like to say... Just as I know you wouldn't stop in the middle of a screaming crescendo to discuss STDs or pregnancy, please remember this... If you aren't eating carbs or don't want carbs, or feel guilty because you ate some bloody effing carbs, please don't bring it to the table.
Oh, and please leave the word 'fat' out of all conversation. Some oils are good for us cysters as we need those fats for proper hormone synthesis and even if we are splurging on some bad fat that night, leave us alone or we'll bring up all those lovers you took into your bed that you probably shouldn't have.
Oh. Oh. Oh. Mmmmmmmmmm!
Eat well. Love well. Good Night darlings!!!
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