I got my first haircut today. I say first haircut because it is the first time I have cut my hair since it all fell out and grew back in. I just had about an inch and a half cut off the bottom of the back - I'm debating growing it back to long - but in any event, the top has to catch up to the bottom and it was looking a little too mullet like. It took 10 minutes and cost me 12 dollars. Gone are the days of spending 2.5 hours and 150 dollars every 7 weeks in a hair salon. I used to love to color my hair, it made me feel like I could wake up and reinvent myself. I could just look different, be different - I used to color it differently every time. Blond highlights, red ones, back to dark brown, carmel color highlights, low lights. Always different. The ever present feeling that I was somehow escaping. For now, I am sticking to my natural hair color and waiting for it to grow - but if only it were as simple as changing your hair color.
I've been posting a lot more lately, though sorry it isn't interesting. I am sure you love reading about the options when it comes to peeing and my really poor body image. It's just that my other avenues, or outlets are disintegrating one by one, and at the very least, I can dump my head out here. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I don't really get feedback - but there is comfort in knowing that I am less alone than I used to be, or than I would be if I keep it to myself. Some of my friendships are dissolving - important ones - and in some ways I feel like I am standing on the sidelines watching, powerless to stop it. And in other ways I feel myself distancing myself from certain other people, out of necessity, coupled with fear. The fear goes both ways - when it comes to sticking around or running away, either choice is based upon fear.
My sponsor says I have to start talking more - talking at every meeting. Meetings are great but what good is all this junk swirling around in my mind? I leave a meeting and I'm still stuck with myself and what goes on in my own head if I don't ever let anyone else in there. I always feel better when I share, but I am so damn scared to. Do I make sense, do I sound stupid? Are they judging me? Am I one of those people, who when they raise their hand, you cringe and roll your eyes at your friend sitting across the room - this little silent communication about the other people who are sharing. Don't act like you don't know what I am talking about. We all do it when certain people share. I don't know - I feel overly self conscious lately. Self centered fear. My sponsor says I have to step my program up and get out of myself and my own head. I'm tired of myself, frankly. I am going to take her suggestions - because I've never been steered wrong and I am tired of feeling the way I've been feeling. My options are limited, the way I see it, so I'm going to do what she tells me to do because I trust her that it will work.
So I have this weirdness about me when it comes to opening up to people - I'm either in, or out. I divulge a lot or very little, but emotionally, I am cut off either way - I don't invest myself very easily. It takes some time - to really let someone in. I get close - seemingly, but it is on the surface, and never so close that I can't cut and run when it becomes too scary or feels too threatening. I have always struggled with letting people get to know me - first of all because I assume I am unlikeable, and second of all, I have this overpowering fear of abandonment - and it wins, nearly every time.
If you don't know me, you can't abandon me and I'll make sure to abandon you, before you have the chance anyway. I don't want to need you or miss you or want you around, because I won't know what to do when you turn around and leave me standing here. Yet I can't let you go either. There is this push and pull. This friend asked for my blog link and to be honest, the thought of giving it to him made me nervous after I had a minute to think about it. I've tried to be honest writing here, more so than I am in person with people (and discovering that it is actually easier to open up than I thought). But what happens when you give all your secrets away to someone else, and they leave with them? Because the thing is - part of me feels like - if I am going to give you a window into my world and even let you peer in here, you damn well better not break through the window, take a couple of things, and leave. I feel like that has happened recently.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Let's Get Honest about Body Image, Self Esteem and the Food I Eat
First off, it feels a little weird to talk about this - because this, that I am about to talk about - is my fundamental problem, I believe anyway. Second, where do I begin? Third, some of you don't know some of this.
This is all stemming from my recent reflections pending my 30th birthday, and the fact that I have watched too many episodes of TLC's What Not to Wear with Stacey and Clinton - a great show (I've learned a lot), but it is prompting me to shop. It's made me want to change my wardrobe, dress differently, present myself differently...am I hiding, am I trying to change the outside because changing the inside isn't working, or am I changing the outside to match the inside, or am I just trying to be someone I'm not, either to get you to like me, or because I don't like myself, or both, or is it something entirely different? I'm not sure. But I have learned a lot about shopping for clothes - to buy more color and pattern, to better accessorise - shoes are important, to buy more versatile pieces that can be good for work and evening, to buy things that fit your body shape well, and most importantly, that you can look outstanding no matter what your body type is like - it's all a matter of how the clothes fit.
My body image, it's bad. My self esteem - only slightly better. Ask anyone who knows me and they would say that I am very thin - maybe too thin, but if you ask me, I will tell you that I am 5-10 pounds too heavy - I just hide it well. I don't think I know a single woman who doesn't have a messed up body image. Every woman I know would tell you, unequivocally, that her body image, if not entirely poor, is certainly skewed. How do I see something completely different than what you see? Where does it stem from - I don't know? T.v., magazines, parents maybe, men, a combination - feelings of not being good enough, not being pretty enough, not being desirable enough. Where did I ever get the idea that a man is only going to want me for my body?
My mother told me once that even though I am skinny, I am thick at the waist - she told me this when I was pretty young, and I have thought about it on a daily basis ever since - examining myself in the mirror every morning, examining myself from behind before I walk out the door - trying to make sure that the shirt I have on lays just right over my hips/pants that I don't look like I have a bulge at the waistline. Scrutinizing my body - labeling myself negatively, my legs are too long and my torso too short - and that's why I look funny. Someone told me once that my hips were too big - not in proportion to the thinness of my body or my frame, even though I am tall - and I've never forgotten that either.
I don't spend a lot of time exercising, and I always eat - and for the most part, I have just been lucky when it comes to staying thin - and I wouldn't say that I have any kind of eating disorder - although, some would say that the way I approach food is undoubtedly disordered. I approach food like I do alcohol - somewhat obsessively, sometimes controlling. There are times when I eat and I don't think twice about it, and there are other times when I obsess over it - I count the calories, I write them down - trying to make sure I stay below a certain amount per day - calculating and recalculating how many calories I think I need to eat to maintain my current body weight versus lose 1/2 pound per week. Controlling what I eat is sometimes an irrational way to control the anxiety the plagues me. It's the OCD that I have mentioned before. I feel an impending sense of doom, therefore, I can't eat the dessert because something bad will happen if I eat it - my attention turns away from the impending sense of doom and towards food and my body - because this I can control. So I count, I obsess, I go shopping, I eat, I feel bad about it, I keep counting. Sometimes, every month or so, I try on literally everything in my closet to gauge how I am doing - did I lose weight, gain weight - how do they feel, do I look skinny enough?
And all of this is a problem why - I mean, like all things, I seem to manage it well, right? Well, yes and no - I manage it, it doesn't affect me like this on a daily basis, but it does affect me, and I want to be free of it. I am about to turn 30, am single, don't believe that I will find the right man to be with, and have a limited time frame in which to have children (which is important to me), before I unexpectedly lose my fertility earlier than I would have if I had never taken chemo drugs. I am operating on a limited time frame - an unpredictable time frame, and having to consider, at least on some level - what my options for having my own biological children alone might be, how this impacts my career, my chances of finding "him," oh, and the prospect of dying young and leaving my children behind with no parent (I can hear my sponsor's voice in my head saying, yes, but, we don't have to worry about any of this today...).
My self esteem figures into this how - because in a desperate kind of way - I just want to find the right person to be with. All I've ever wanted really, is for someone to want to be with me - because I equate this with whether I am a decent person or not. And my self esteem is poor enough, even still, that I believe that I have to look a certain way in order to find him. There is a part of me that believes that whoever wants to be with me - it will be because of how I look, and not the person that I am. Or it will be because I make a lot of money - or maybe both. It's like I believe that there are good people out there, who love people no matter what etc., it's just none of those people want to be with me. So I have to lose 5 pounds, buy new clothes, wear cuter shoes, carry a nicer purse etc. I have to be someone that I'm not, to make you like me, because you would never just like me. And if I don't find someone to want me, there is something wrong with me.
It is shocking that after going through so much in the past year, that I am sitting here, almost exactly the same. I look outside of myself for validation and self esteem. I care only slightly less what you think of me. The truth is - if we peel off all the layers surrounding my "marriage," the circumstances, AA, moving etc., the fact is this, I married the guy I was dating when I found out I had breast cancer, because I believed that no one else would ever want me again, after going through that - not knowing how it would deform my body. I divorced him, because in the end, I realized I would rather be alone, and struggle with my own self hatred, then be with him.
The fact is - that guy, the one who only really wants to be with me because of how I look and because I have a good job - he isn't the kind of guy I even want to be with at all, he is exactly the guy I don't want to be with - but he's the only one I'm going to attract. Because people always say you attract what you put out there. But what would it look like to suddenly stop caring about what I weigh, or what I eat, or how my clothes look? What I really want now, more than anything, isn't to find him, I simply want to not care if I don't.
This is all stemming from my recent reflections pending my 30th birthday, and the fact that I have watched too many episodes of TLC's What Not to Wear with Stacey and Clinton - a great show (I've learned a lot), but it is prompting me to shop. It's made me want to change my wardrobe, dress differently, present myself differently...am I hiding, am I trying to change the outside because changing the inside isn't working, or am I changing the outside to match the inside, or am I just trying to be someone I'm not, either to get you to like me, or because I don't like myself, or both, or is it something entirely different? I'm not sure. But I have learned a lot about shopping for clothes - to buy more color and pattern, to better accessorise - shoes are important, to buy more versatile pieces that can be good for work and evening, to buy things that fit your body shape well, and most importantly, that you can look outstanding no matter what your body type is like - it's all a matter of how the clothes fit.
My body image, it's bad. My self esteem - only slightly better. Ask anyone who knows me and they would say that I am very thin - maybe too thin, but if you ask me, I will tell you that I am 5-10 pounds too heavy - I just hide it well. I don't think I know a single woman who doesn't have a messed up body image. Every woman I know would tell you, unequivocally, that her body image, if not entirely poor, is certainly skewed. How do I see something completely different than what you see? Where does it stem from - I don't know? T.v., magazines, parents maybe, men, a combination - feelings of not being good enough, not being pretty enough, not being desirable enough. Where did I ever get the idea that a man is only going to want me for my body?
My mother told me once that even though I am skinny, I am thick at the waist - she told me this when I was pretty young, and I have thought about it on a daily basis ever since - examining myself in the mirror every morning, examining myself from behind before I walk out the door - trying to make sure that the shirt I have on lays just right over my hips/pants that I don't look like I have a bulge at the waistline. Scrutinizing my body - labeling myself negatively, my legs are too long and my torso too short - and that's why I look funny. Someone told me once that my hips were too big - not in proportion to the thinness of my body or my frame, even though I am tall - and I've never forgotten that either.
I don't spend a lot of time exercising, and I always eat - and for the most part, I have just been lucky when it comes to staying thin - and I wouldn't say that I have any kind of eating disorder - although, some would say that the way I approach food is undoubtedly disordered. I approach food like I do alcohol - somewhat obsessively, sometimes controlling. There are times when I eat and I don't think twice about it, and there are other times when I obsess over it - I count the calories, I write them down - trying to make sure I stay below a certain amount per day - calculating and recalculating how many calories I think I need to eat to maintain my current body weight versus lose 1/2 pound per week. Controlling what I eat is sometimes an irrational way to control the anxiety the plagues me. It's the OCD that I have mentioned before. I feel an impending sense of doom, therefore, I can't eat the dessert because something bad will happen if I eat it - my attention turns away from the impending sense of doom and towards food and my body - because this I can control. So I count, I obsess, I go shopping, I eat, I feel bad about it, I keep counting. Sometimes, every month or so, I try on literally everything in my closet to gauge how I am doing - did I lose weight, gain weight - how do they feel, do I look skinny enough?
And all of this is a problem why - I mean, like all things, I seem to manage it well, right? Well, yes and no - I manage it, it doesn't affect me like this on a daily basis, but it does affect me, and I want to be free of it. I am about to turn 30, am single, don't believe that I will find the right man to be with, and have a limited time frame in which to have children (which is important to me), before I unexpectedly lose my fertility earlier than I would have if I had never taken chemo drugs. I am operating on a limited time frame - an unpredictable time frame, and having to consider, at least on some level - what my options for having my own biological children alone might be, how this impacts my career, my chances of finding "him," oh, and the prospect of dying young and leaving my children behind with no parent (I can hear my sponsor's voice in my head saying, yes, but, we don't have to worry about any of this today...).
My self esteem figures into this how - because in a desperate kind of way - I just want to find the right person to be with. All I've ever wanted really, is for someone to want to be with me - because I equate this with whether I am a decent person or not. And my self esteem is poor enough, even still, that I believe that I have to look a certain way in order to find him. There is a part of me that believes that whoever wants to be with me - it will be because of how I look, and not the person that I am. Or it will be because I make a lot of money - or maybe both. It's like I believe that there are good people out there, who love people no matter what etc., it's just none of those people want to be with me. So I have to lose 5 pounds, buy new clothes, wear cuter shoes, carry a nicer purse etc. I have to be someone that I'm not, to make you like me, because you would never just like me. And if I don't find someone to want me, there is something wrong with me.
It is shocking that after going through so much in the past year, that I am sitting here, almost exactly the same. I look outside of myself for validation and self esteem. I care only slightly less what you think of me. The truth is - if we peel off all the layers surrounding my "marriage," the circumstances, AA, moving etc., the fact is this, I married the guy I was dating when I found out I had breast cancer, because I believed that no one else would ever want me again, after going through that - not knowing how it would deform my body. I divorced him, because in the end, I realized I would rather be alone, and struggle with my own self hatred, then be with him.
The fact is - that guy, the one who only really wants to be with me because of how I look and because I have a good job - he isn't the kind of guy I even want to be with at all, he is exactly the guy I don't want to be with - but he's the only one I'm going to attract. Because people always say you attract what you put out there. But what would it look like to suddenly stop caring about what I weigh, or what I eat, or how my clothes look? What I really want now, more than anything, isn't to find him, I simply want to not care if I don't.
The Upscale Alternative to Peeing at a Gas Station
You know when you are on a road trip (to the outlet mall, for example, in suburban Illinois), and you really really have to pee? You've been cursing yourself all the way there for not stopping at home to pee before heading out. You don't want to pee at a rest stop (if there even are any) so you are holding out for a McDonalds or Wendy's because fast food establishements beat the gas stations hands down...even though for the most part they are gross and disgusting anyway (and Subway isn't a good choice - cause it's a lot harder to sneak into a Subway and pee without buying anything)...and you are really really getting desperate. I have found the solution. Hotels. They are easy to come by right off expressways. Why didn't I think of this sooner? It literally never occurred to me until...
I was on my way back from the women's retreat that I went on in early March, with a car full of people and we all had to pee. Right in front of us, the Hilton. All you have to do is march in as if you are already checked in and staying there - look confident, like you know where you are going...it isn't as if any employee is going to confront you, and find the public bathroom somewhere off the main lobby. What a great idea. Sure it's a slightly farther walk, but it's clean, the floors and toilet seats aren't covered in pee, there is toilet paper, soap, papertowels, sometimes even lotion. I would take marble counter tops and dry floors any day over peeing in any of those other places while traveling. The only down side that I can see to this, is that unless the hotel has an in house convenience store, you can't re-load on snacks.
This actually may solve the downtown Chicago peeing dilemna as well. When you come to Chicago and you are wandering around shopping - or interviewing for example - you have limited options to pee in the city. You can pee at Borders, a department store, the couple of malls on Michigan Ave. or the Chicago Public Library (which by the way has some of my favorite bathrooms in all of downtown Chicago...the ones at O'hare airport are good too - surprisingly). I know about the Library bathrooms because before I moved here, when I would come into town to interview, and I had time to kill between interviews, and really had to pee - frequently I would go to the Library. There are some cafes that will allow you to use the bathroom if you buy something - but for the most part, it is more difficult to find a public bathroom here than you would think. You might be blocks and blocks away from any options. I bought a truffle the other day from my favorite chocolate shop - Moonstruck, just cause I had to pee. Turns out it was the best truffle I have ever had there - I almost went back for a second.
In any event - if you are out shopping in Chicago, or whatever, and you need to use the bathroom - just walk into any hotel. They are everywhere here and no one is going to question whether you belong there, there are so many people running around...seriously, some hotels, like the Hotel Intercontinental, are a tourist attraction anyway - for the interesting period decorations and famous swimming pool. Just walk right on in - what the heck, take a seat in the lobby and rest while you are there.
I was on my way back from the women's retreat that I went on in early March, with a car full of people and we all had to pee. Right in front of us, the Hilton. All you have to do is march in as if you are already checked in and staying there - look confident, like you know where you are going...it isn't as if any employee is going to confront you, and find the public bathroom somewhere off the main lobby. What a great idea. Sure it's a slightly farther walk, but it's clean, the floors and toilet seats aren't covered in pee, there is toilet paper, soap, papertowels, sometimes even lotion. I would take marble counter tops and dry floors any day over peeing in any of those other places while traveling. The only down side that I can see to this, is that unless the hotel has an in house convenience store, you can't re-load on snacks.
This actually may solve the downtown Chicago peeing dilemna as well. When you come to Chicago and you are wandering around shopping - or interviewing for example - you have limited options to pee in the city. You can pee at Borders, a department store, the couple of malls on Michigan Ave. or the Chicago Public Library (which by the way has some of my favorite bathrooms in all of downtown Chicago...the ones at O'hare airport are good too - surprisingly). I know about the Library bathrooms because before I moved here, when I would come into town to interview, and I had time to kill between interviews, and really had to pee - frequently I would go to the Library. There are some cafes that will allow you to use the bathroom if you buy something - but for the most part, it is more difficult to find a public bathroom here than you would think. You might be blocks and blocks away from any options. I bought a truffle the other day from my favorite chocolate shop - Moonstruck, just cause I had to pee. Turns out it was the best truffle I have ever had there - I almost went back for a second.
In any event - if you are out shopping in Chicago, or whatever, and you need to use the bathroom - just walk into any hotel. They are everywhere here and no one is going to question whether you belong there, there are so many people running around...seriously, some hotels, like the Hotel Intercontinental, are a tourist attraction anyway - for the interesting period decorations and famous swimming pool. Just walk right on in - what the heck, take a seat in the lobby and rest while you are there.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Thought Process that Unexpectedly Brought Me to the Underlying Feeling of Failure
I was reminded yesterday, in the subtle (or not so subtle) way you sometimes are when you go to an AA meeting, that I am the problem. I know this, but sometimes, I still like to think that the problem is actually you. You being any one and every one of you. My life seems easier when you are the problem. The collective "you" are relatively easy to blame and it means I don't have to change or take responsibility, because I didn't do anything. You did, and I don't control you and I can't change you and you are not my problem. But believe me, I feel justified in being ticked off at at you.
Then, I walk into a meeting and someone so kindly reminds me that if I am disturbed (which is an understatement), then the problem is me. If I am this pissed off - it isn't simply because you are an asshole. Because the theory is - even if you are an asshole, I don't have to be bothered by you. But since when do you get to tick me off and I have to take responsibility for it? Why do I have to change my attitude and my behavior to accommodate your assholish self - as opposed to - why don't you, stop ticking me off?
This isn't really going anywhere - it's just that I've been in a bad mood for a while now. What can only be described as restless, irritable and discontent. I feel slightly bored, extremely agitated and highly annoyed, constantly. My sponsor cleared one thing up for me today though - very simply - you don't want to be with someone who has to ask whether they can go to coffee - simply run the other way. Yeah, run the other way. I wish I knew how to do that. Instead I think - his sponsor won't let him go to coffee, what can I do to get him to go to coffee anyway? HELLO???!!! This is old behavior.
So, at the meeting she was talking about how we get to choose every day how we are going to be in the world, regardless of how everyone around is behaving. Great. Which means, I am choosing to be restless, irritable, discontent, bored, agitated and annoyed. And I've been complaining, a lot. Which is the way I used to be. Constant complaining and constant negativity. But I can't figure out how to choose something different. I feel like I'm trying and it isn't working. I feel like ever since I had that breast cancer scare (I know, get over it already right?), I can't get back to normal. I just don't feel right. I feel anxious, all the time.
The stress of my job is getting to me a bit, and the uncertainty about my life - the options I have and the choices I have to make - the fact that I have never really found a way to deal with what I went through. The loneliness is overwhelming sometimes - sometimes I just want something instead of nothing, even if the something isn't really what I want. I've isolated myself too much and not maintained any kind of closeness with people in the program in Chicago. I don't really have that many close friends back at home in the program right now either. I have friends, some I would even call close, I mean, they would show up for me - but I feel closer to the edge than I do to the middle, and honestly, I don't really feel particularly close to anyone right now.
I keep saying my birthday is a bad time of year...which is bothering me as it gets closer. And I know it just sounds like I feel sorry for myself - but the truth is, just once, I want to have a good birthday. I don't know how it is that my birthday has been so built up in my mind over the years that it feels like a big deal. It never was a particularly big deal, I guess it's just that I have such negative associations with it. Growing up my birthday was frequently ruined because my mother was drunk, not to mention the fact that most of the family wouldn't come to me and my brother's birthday parties anyway - but the family went to everyone else's - we have always been the odds one out. As I got older, my birthday just seemed sadder and sadder, the family more and more fragmented, my relationship with my parents more and more dysfunctional.
I always reflect on my life around my birthday, but never in a positive way - and the older I get, the faster time goes and it just feels like a reminder of how my life isn't the way I thought it would be or the way I want it to be. I fail to look at what I do have - I fail to look at what is right. But I could tell you every way that I am sad. It still feels like the pieces of the puzzle that I was left with - after everything I went though last year - don't fit together. Nothing lines up, nothing is recognizable. Very little makes sense. And it has been almost exactly a year - I was diagnosed with breast cancer, two days before my 29 birthday. I feel like I can't live through those days - those days right before my birthday. Most of my life I just figured I had more time, I could always see opportunities and chances - the possibilities. Now all I see is an end point. It's like a wall that I am standing so close to, that I can't see around it. And it's too high to climb over.
The problem is, unless I can give up my expectations, of life being a certain way, I think I will always feel this way and go through this around my birthday. I think I will always feel like I have failed.
Then, I walk into a meeting and someone so kindly reminds me that if I am disturbed (which is an understatement), then the problem is me. If I am this pissed off - it isn't simply because you are an asshole. Because the theory is - even if you are an asshole, I don't have to be bothered by you. But since when do you get to tick me off and I have to take responsibility for it? Why do I have to change my attitude and my behavior to accommodate your assholish self - as opposed to - why don't you, stop ticking me off?
This isn't really going anywhere - it's just that I've been in a bad mood for a while now. What can only be described as restless, irritable and discontent. I feel slightly bored, extremely agitated and highly annoyed, constantly. My sponsor cleared one thing up for me today though - very simply - you don't want to be with someone who has to ask whether they can go to coffee - simply run the other way. Yeah, run the other way. I wish I knew how to do that. Instead I think - his sponsor won't let him go to coffee, what can I do to get him to go to coffee anyway? HELLO???!!! This is old behavior.
So, at the meeting she was talking about how we get to choose every day how we are going to be in the world, regardless of how everyone around is behaving. Great. Which means, I am choosing to be restless, irritable, discontent, bored, agitated and annoyed. And I've been complaining, a lot. Which is the way I used to be. Constant complaining and constant negativity. But I can't figure out how to choose something different. I feel like I'm trying and it isn't working. I feel like ever since I had that breast cancer scare (I know, get over it already right?), I can't get back to normal. I just don't feel right. I feel anxious, all the time.
The stress of my job is getting to me a bit, and the uncertainty about my life - the options I have and the choices I have to make - the fact that I have never really found a way to deal with what I went through. The loneliness is overwhelming sometimes - sometimes I just want something instead of nothing, even if the something isn't really what I want. I've isolated myself too much and not maintained any kind of closeness with people in the program in Chicago. I don't really have that many close friends back at home in the program right now either. I have friends, some I would even call close, I mean, they would show up for me - but I feel closer to the edge than I do to the middle, and honestly, I don't really feel particularly close to anyone right now.
I keep saying my birthday is a bad time of year...which is bothering me as it gets closer. And I know it just sounds like I feel sorry for myself - but the truth is, just once, I want to have a good birthday. I don't know how it is that my birthday has been so built up in my mind over the years that it feels like a big deal. It never was a particularly big deal, I guess it's just that I have such negative associations with it. Growing up my birthday was frequently ruined because my mother was drunk, not to mention the fact that most of the family wouldn't come to me and my brother's birthday parties anyway - but the family went to everyone else's - we have always been the odds one out. As I got older, my birthday just seemed sadder and sadder, the family more and more fragmented, my relationship with my parents more and more dysfunctional.
I always reflect on my life around my birthday, but never in a positive way - and the older I get, the faster time goes and it just feels like a reminder of how my life isn't the way I thought it would be or the way I want it to be. I fail to look at what I do have - I fail to look at what is right. But I could tell you every way that I am sad. It still feels like the pieces of the puzzle that I was left with - after everything I went though last year - don't fit together. Nothing lines up, nothing is recognizable. Very little makes sense. And it has been almost exactly a year - I was diagnosed with breast cancer, two days before my 29 birthday. I feel like I can't live through those days - those days right before my birthday. Most of my life I just figured I had more time, I could always see opportunities and chances - the possibilities. Now all I see is an end point. It's like a wall that I am standing so close to, that I can't see around it. And it's too high to climb over.
The problem is, unless I can give up my expectations, of life being a certain way, I think I will always feel this way and go through this around my birthday. I think I will always feel like I have failed.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Mission Aborted and Other Miscellaneous Things
So - I came home one day early from my work trip. It cost me 180 bucks to get home early - which I probably can't get reimbursed for. Although I will try. But the question is - what is my sanity worth? At least 180 dollars apparently. I just couldn't sit through another dinner. Thursday was no problem. Friday was okay, and I didn't drink - it's just not a comfortable situation to be in. Hour one is fine. Hour two is okay. Hour three, so so. Hour four - it's time to get out of there. For some reason, and I don't know exactly why - even when I am spiritually in a good spot, and not feeling particularly tempted - these situations are exhausting to be in. They exhaust me every time, much to my surprise. I know to those on the other side you just think, so, you just don't drink, but the thing is, it isn't that simple. It's a bit of a balancing act and a line drawing problem when these two worlds collide. This trip is the closest they have ever come to crashing and by worlds I mean my work life and my "real" life. I have to do what is required for my job, yet know where to draw the line - such that my job is not jeopardized in any way, nor is my sanity or my sobriety. This is a delicate balance I found out and I am not so skilled at knowing where to draw the line.
Anyway, on other fronts, this guy asked me to coffee, then told me he had to check with his sponsor and then his sponsor said he shouldn't go. I found this disappointing. This is the only guy I've even had a remote interest in that I have met in the program here, and of course, I don't meet anyone outside of the program and everyone I work with is married. Not having the usual social circle and activities is a bit of a handicap I think. Anyway, this guy has been sober long enough to go to coffee, right (he's been sober longer than me)? It's just coffee for God's sake. Then again, coffee leads to other things, and where does the line get drawn around this one? I mean, what started with coffee in my early sobriety ended in divorce. HA HA HA. Well, I think it's kind of funny.
But I find it disappointing nonetheless. Rather than have his sponsor decide for me that I don't get to decide that I don't like him, I'd like the chance to figure that out on my own. I have to say though - he scores a few points by the mere fact that he listens to his sponsor. I respect the fact that he takes suggestions cause most people don't. Most people, as a way to get out of blatantly not taking a sponsor's suggestions - simply don't always tell the truth. I fall into this category. If there is something I want to do, and I don't want to be told how bad of an idea it is, I just do it without telling anyone. Then I pay the price and sometimes fess up later in what can only be described as a half truth. Did I mention before that this is a program of honesty? HA HA.
In any event, I did have a chance to talk to him after the meeting, so that was good (says who?) - although I have a feeling his sponsor would say standing outside the Alano club after the meeting for 45 minutes is akin to having coffee and therefore goes against his suggestion. Not to mention the fact that his sponsor probably has a reason for making the suggestion and truthfully, I don't really want any of his unresolved crap cluttering up my world. I mean - that right there is a reason to stay out of a relationship anyway. I was telling my brother about this and he said something to the effect of - you've been sober roughly the same amount of time, how much damage could you cause one another...truthfully, probably a lot. I am tired of other people's dysfunction in general. But then again, you are never going to find the perfect person, right? We all have a past, we all have behaviors we hope never to repeat, we've all hurt people. I do try to remember though what someone told me once - if you meet someone, and they tell you they are bad at relationships - believe them.
Anyway, on other fronts, this guy asked me to coffee, then told me he had to check with his sponsor and then his sponsor said he shouldn't go. I found this disappointing. This is the only guy I've even had a remote interest in that I have met in the program here, and of course, I don't meet anyone outside of the program and everyone I work with is married. Not having the usual social circle and activities is a bit of a handicap I think. Anyway, this guy has been sober long enough to go to coffee, right (he's been sober longer than me)? It's just coffee for God's sake. Then again, coffee leads to other things, and where does the line get drawn around this one? I mean, what started with coffee in my early sobriety ended in divorce. HA HA HA. Well, I think it's kind of funny.
But I find it disappointing nonetheless. Rather than have his sponsor decide for me that I don't get to decide that I don't like him, I'd like the chance to figure that out on my own. I have to say though - he scores a few points by the mere fact that he listens to his sponsor. I respect the fact that he takes suggestions cause most people don't. Most people, as a way to get out of blatantly not taking a sponsor's suggestions - simply don't always tell the truth. I fall into this category. If there is something I want to do, and I don't want to be told how bad of an idea it is, I just do it without telling anyone. Then I pay the price and sometimes fess up later in what can only be described as a half truth. Did I mention before that this is a program of honesty? HA HA.
In any event, I did have a chance to talk to him after the meeting, so that was good (says who?) - although I have a feeling his sponsor would say standing outside the Alano club after the meeting for 45 minutes is akin to having coffee and therefore goes against his suggestion. Not to mention the fact that his sponsor probably has a reason for making the suggestion and truthfully, I don't really want any of his unresolved crap cluttering up my world. I mean - that right there is a reason to stay out of a relationship anyway. I was telling my brother about this and he said something to the effect of - you've been sober roughly the same amount of time, how much damage could you cause one another...truthfully, probably a lot. I am tired of other people's dysfunction in general. But then again, you are never going to find the perfect person, right? We all have a past, we all have behaviors we hope never to repeat, we've all hurt people. I do try to remember though what someone told me once - if you meet someone, and they tell you they are bad at relationships - believe them.
Friday, April 20, 2007
"Are your sinuses dripping?" (Work bonding take two)
A couple of important observations that come out of my first out of town internal meeting/event with my colleagues:
1) It is perfectly acceptable to miss the meetings if you are hung over. In fact, management believes that half of the people in the room have had to leave in the middle of the meeting to either puke and/or sleep - and they seem to find the drinking stories associated with such occurrences funny, also, they are participants.
2) Because I don't drink - I miss out on a significant part of the bonding experience which is half, if not entirely the point of this entire experience. All of the really important bonding seems to occur between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. - and here I am at 11 p.m., already in bed, blogging of all things - because I am too full to sleep. It is the bonding that occurs in the wee hours of the night, when the light bulbs have been unscrewed, as the hotel room furniture has been rearranged to permit dancing, as floor lamps are waltzed with, as arm chairs are surfed off of...are we a bunch of youngish to middle aged lawyers, or are we at a frat party? Folks are lobbying for next years meeting to be held in Cancun - but the preference is to wait until after spring break season. The evening conversations over dinner are dominated by trying to remember which year can be considered the most drunk and most hungover, and therefore the most fun year? And the level of the conversation is about as follows:
Associate: "Are your sinuses dripping?"
Partner: "What?"
Associate: "Are your sinuses dripping? You know - are your sinuses clear? I mean, it's like every time you take a sip, your nose goes in the glass, and you know, you inhale it."
Associate: "Are you supposed to sip cognac, or shoot it?"
Partner: "Sip it." "A couple of hours from now, shoot it."
Associate: "I'm a drunk, but I'm functional." (Everyone laughs)
Associate: "Do your sinuses always drip when you drink cognac, or is it only when you drink the really expensive cognac?"
The other non drinking (because she is pregnant) associate: "Four drinks, I mean, I would never have four drinks."
Me (thinking): Four drinks, why would you stop at four drinks? Damn, I really feel like blabbing that I am an alcoholic right now. Just to watch them squirm in their seats. Out loud I am laughing right along with them, but in my head, I am thinking all sorts of other things...
3) The food is outstanding and there is a lot of it. I am going to have to diet starting Sunday - I had dessert three times today.
4) Lastly, I am horribly and painfully uncomfortable here and it has nothing to do with alcohol. I have been pleasantly surprised at how little the alcohol has actually bothered me. Although I would be lying if I didn't say that I thought about it a lot during dinner as I watched them all drink and recount the stories of years past. I even felt tempted at moments and even had the thought - just one, no one would know. But would I stop at one? Probably not...fortunately, the tape plays to the end and I don't give in. The truth is - parts of the stories sound fun and mostly it is because I miss the sense of togetherness, the cohesiveness. I feel like an outsider. I am the odd one out. Stick me in an AA meeting and I am fine. Force me to converse with anyone else, anyone in any career, anyone with any other job - I'm fine - comfortable, even outgoing. Stick me in a room full of other lawyers and I am quiet, uncomfortable, and I feel totally out of my element. The truth is, I think I am good at my job - but surround me by my own people so to speak, and I feel inferior, less than, not smart enough, unintelligent, not witty enough, not well spoken enough. I don't feel a part of, I feel like an outcast, I feel different, I feel unable to hold a conversation. I feel stupid basically and like I don't deserve to be here.
I find it surprising that in all other areas of my life right now I feel so at east, but here, in my world, in my career etc., I feel like I don't belong.
1) It is perfectly acceptable to miss the meetings if you are hung over. In fact, management believes that half of the people in the room have had to leave in the middle of the meeting to either puke and/or sleep - and they seem to find the drinking stories associated with such occurrences funny, also, they are participants.
2) Because I don't drink - I miss out on a significant part of the bonding experience which is half, if not entirely the point of this entire experience. All of the really important bonding seems to occur between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. - and here I am at 11 p.m., already in bed, blogging of all things - because I am too full to sleep. It is the bonding that occurs in the wee hours of the night, when the light bulbs have been unscrewed, as the hotel room furniture has been rearranged to permit dancing, as floor lamps are waltzed with, as arm chairs are surfed off of...are we a bunch of youngish to middle aged lawyers, or are we at a frat party? Folks are lobbying for next years meeting to be held in Cancun - but the preference is to wait until after spring break season. The evening conversations over dinner are dominated by trying to remember which year can be considered the most drunk and most hungover, and therefore the most fun year? And the level of the conversation is about as follows:
Associate: "Are your sinuses dripping?"
Partner: "What?"
Associate: "Are your sinuses dripping? You know - are your sinuses clear? I mean, it's like every time you take a sip, your nose goes in the glass, and you know, you inhale it."
Associate: "Are you supposed to sip cognac, or shoot it?"
Partner: "Sip it." "A couple of hours from now, shoot it."
Associate: "I'm a drunk, but I'm functional." (Everyone laughs)
Associate: "Do your sinuses always drip when you drink cognac, or is it only when you drink the really expensive cognac?"
The other non drinking (because she is pregnant) associate: "Four drinks, I mean, I would never have four drinks."
Me (thinking): Four drinks, why would you stop at four drinks? Damn, I really feel like blabbing that I am an alcoholic right now. Just to watch them squirm in their seats. Out loud I am laughing right along with them, but in my head, I am thinking all sorts of other things...
3) The food is outstanding and there is a lot of it. I am going to have to diet starting Sunday - I had dessert three times today.
4) Lastly, I am horribly and painfully uncomfortable here and it has nothing to do with alcohol. I have been pleasantly surprised at how little the alcohol has actually bothered me. Although I would be lying if I didn't say that I thought about it a lot during dinner as I watched them all drink and recount the stories of years past. I even felt tempted at moments and even had the thought - just one, no one would know. But would I stop at one? Probably not...fortunately, the tape plays to the end and I don't give in. The truth is - parts of the stories sound fun and mostly it is because I miss the sense of togetherness, the cohesiveness. I feel like an outsider. I am the odd one out. Stick me in an AA meeting and I am fine. Force me to converse with anyone else, anyone in any career, anyone with any other job - I'm fine - comfortable, even outgoing. Stick me in a room full of other lawyers and I am quiet, uncomfortable, and I feel totally out of my element. The truth is, I think I am good at my job - but surround me by my own people so to speak, and I feel inferior, less than, not smart enough, unintelligent, not witty enough, not well spoken enough. I don't feel a part of, I feel like an outcast, I feel different, I feel unable to hold a conversation. I feel stupid basically and like I don't deserve to be here.
I find it surprising that in all other areas of my life right now I feel so at east, but here, in my world, in my career etc., I feel like I don't belong.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Service For One
Hello from Houston. I was going to write a post tonight called "Traveling Sucks." Why - cause it sucks. It sucks for a lot of reasons. It sucks having to check your bag cause you use so many bathroom products that you can't fit them in 3 ounce bottles all in a quart size bag. I can manage to get everything into small enough bottles - but I have a whole gallon size bag of products. The TSA people suck - they are just plain unhappy and they take it out on the travelers. It sucks flying on a small plane that only holds 60 people and having to deplane on the runway because the plane is so small. Then take a bus to the terminal and wait 30 minutes for the shuttle to the hotel. Oh, and it also sucks that the only thing to eat in a airport terminal is junk food. It sucks being trapped at a hotel in Houston with a bunch of people drinking and unable to get to a meeting. This sounds like a bunch of complaining to me, but I really set out on this trip thinking it was going to suck miserably in every way.
So I got to the hotel, checked in - only to find I had been upgraded to a suite. I unpacked - went to the cocktail reception for 1.5 hours and now I am sitting here on the Internet, awaiting my service for one, watching Grey's Anatomy and pretending like I am on vacation. Later, I will sit in the bathtub. The only thing missing from this small apartment sized hotel room, is a tub with jets. Oh - and I have the heat on. This is funny because I went through the entire winter in Chicago without turning my heat on. And here I am, in Houston, where it's 80 and I had the air on so high earlier that I have now had to turn the heat on to compensate for it. But see, like the food, the Internet, the heat - it's all free to me and courtesy of my law firm.
Service for one this evening consists of tortilla soup - which I hear is really good - it comes with chicken and fresh avocado on the side, a salad of mixed lettuce, red and yellow beets with a balsamic vinaigrette, mango sorbetto, and chamomile tea with honey and lemon. Later, after my bath, I will read the Big Book, do some step work, and retire to the king sized bed and listen to sleep 101 - the meditation cd in every room. That's odd isn't it? It's like they knew I was coming or something and they knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Ha ha.
Anyway, the coolest thing about this whole experience, so far - and I have been dreading it - was the cocktail reception that I just went to. How is a cocktail hour cool to an alcoholic - ha, a sober one? Because not once did I even think about alcohol or drinking. Okay, for all you "normal" people, I know how this must sound - but to someone like me - it is truly a relief and an accomplishment to be able to be around alcohol and not feel like drinking. Not feel compelled, not feel obsessed, not have every single thought be about alcohol. I thought before I got here, that I would be so uncomfortable, and I'm not. What a relief. What a gift. I honestly didn't even think about it all. I have heard people say that when you work the program - this is what happens - but I wouldn't have believed it. I never thought it was actually possible.
Okay, I guess I thought about it enough to realize I wasn't thinking about it! Ha ha!
So I got to the hotel, checked in - only to find I had been upgraded to a suite. I unpacked - went to the cocktail reception for 1.5 hours and now I am sitting here on the Internet, awaiting my service for one, watching Grey's Anatomy and pretending like I am on vacation. Later, I will sit in the bathtub. The only thing missing from this small apartment sized hotel room, is a tub with jets. Oh - and I have the heat on. This is funny because I went through the entire winter in Chicago without turning my heat on. And here I am, in Houston, where it's 80 and I had the air on so high earlier that I have now had to turn the heat on to compensate for it. But see, like the food, the Internet, the heat - it's all free to me and courtesy of my law firm.
Service for one this evening consists of tortilla soup - which I hear is really good - it comes with chicken and fresh avocado on the side, a salad of mixed lettuce, red and yellow beets with a balsamic vinaigrette, mango sorbetto, and chamomile tea with honey and lemon. Later, after my bath, I will read the Big Book, do some step work, and retire to the king sized bed and listen to sleep 101 - the meditation cd in every room. That's odd isn't it? It's like they knew I was coming or something and they knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Ha ha.
Anyway, the coolest thing about this whole experience, so far - and I have been dreading it - was the cocktail reception that I just went to. How is a cocktail hour cool to an alcoholic - ha, a sober one? Because not once did I even think about alcohol or drinking. Okay, for all you "normal" people, I know how this must sound - but to someone like me - it is truly a relief and an accomplishment to be able to be around alcohol and not feel like drinking. Not feel compelled, not feel obsessed, not have every single thought be about alcohol. I thought before I got here, that I would be so uncomfortable, and I'm not. What a relief. What a gift. I honestly didn't even think about it all. I have heard people say that when you work the program - this is what happens - but I wouldn't have believed it. I never thought it was actually possible.
Okay, I guess I thought about it enough to realize I wasn't thinking about it! Ha ha!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"I have a pain under my arm." "Do you want to talk to a psychologist?"
So I went to the doctor for the pain I have under my right arm today - my medical oncologist. Because they tell you that pain is the indicator of cancer spread - bone cancer that is. But pain seems pretty vague to me - and although I have asked for the specifics of what this pain would feel like - no one seems to be able to describe it satisfactorily. At least - not so that I feel comfortable judging whether every little pain may qualify. Though she keeps reminding me that I have odds on my side - overwhelmingly. The fact is though the anxiety that I wrote about yesterday, it is affecting my ability to live - sort of, lately anyway. I mean, I have called her like 4 times in the past month, unable to decide whether the pain under my arm is surgical related or something else. So today, she told me to come see her. The exchange literally went like this:
Doctor: "How are you?"
Me: "Paranoid apparently."
Doctor: What's going on?"
Me: "There is pain under my right arm."
Doctor: "Do you want to see a psychologist?"
Ha ha ha. I just have to laugh. I mean, it is kind of funny. But the fact is, if you were me, you would be paranoid too and you wouldn't be sleeping either, or able to concentrate, at all. Anyway, I said sure, and the guy she referred me to who took my insurance happened to be available one hour later so I went and bought pants and went back. It all happened to so fast - here I was resisting the whole thing, claiming I couldn't find anyone who took my insurance with the proper background - that being cancer survivors and alcoholism - I figured well, this guy has the cancer survivor stuff covered - my doctor has referred people to him before. She tells me he is great and he won't need to refer me to anyone else. I think yeah right.
Anyway, this is a testament to just how responsive my higher power actually is - like I frequently say God puts people in my life for a reason. I start talking - telling my story, of getting sober, anxiety, OCD, moving, marriage, divorce, surviving cancer, my childhood, my parents. Well, he spends his life exclusively counseling cancer survivors, turns out he's been sober 18 years, works a program, has a sponsor etc. and OCD - he has that too. Actually, he is from my home town also. Before I even knew it, he was scheduling another appointment with the psychiatrist in that office to talk to him about whether I would consider taking something very short term for this anxiety and OCD problem I am having. I suppose now I have to go and explore this one - but I have to say, I am still leaning strongly against it - though my higher power is apparently pushing me in that direction.
Doctor: "How are you?"
Me: "Paranoid apparently."
Doctor: What's going on?"
Me: "There is pain under my right arm."
Doctor: "Do you want to see a psychologist?"
Ha ha ha. I just have to laugh. I mean, it is kind of funny. But the fact is, if you were me, you would be paranoid too and you wouldn't be sleeping either, or able to concentrate, at all. Anyway, I said sure, and the guy she referred me to who took my insurance happened to be available one hour later so I went and bought pants and went back. It all happened to so fast - here I was resisting the whole thing, claiming I couldn't find anyone who took my insurance with the proper background - that being cancer survivors and alcoholism - I figured well, this guy has the cancer survivor stuff covered - my doctor has referred people to him before. She tells me he is great and he won't need to refer me to anyone else. I think yeah right.
Anyway, this is a testament to just how responsive my higher power actually is - like I frequently say God puts people in my life for a reason. I start talking - telling my story, of getting sober, anxiety, OCD, moving, marriage, divorce, surviving cancer, my childhood, my parents. Well, he spends his life exclusively counseling cancer survivors, turns out he's been sober 18 years, works a program, has a sponsor etc. and OCD - he has that too. Actually, he is from my home town also. Before I even knew it, he was scheduling another appointment with the psychiatrist in that office to talk to him about whether I would consider taking something very short term for this anxiety and OCD problem I am having. I suppose now I have to go and explore this one - but I have to say, I am still leaning strongly against it - though my higher power is apparently pushing me in that direction.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Disquietude
Desperation, alarm, foreboding, confidence, calm, comfort. So, I'm sitting here at work (obviously not working), looking up anxiety in thesaurus.com, and reading the synonyms and antonyms. Why? Not sure, other than to see how many words I can find to describe the way I am feeling lately, and the way I am not feeling. The answer is, a lot. Who knew there were so many words for anxiety and so many words for a lack of. My favorite, disquietude. I think that captures it accurately.
The anxiety has been overwhelming me - free floating anxiety I guess. Anxiety about everything and about nothing at all at the same time, triggered by nothing in particular. Generalized Anxiety Disorder as the DSM IV defines it, under which you must have 3 or more of 6 symptoms for 6 months. I get disqualified by the time period every single time. It comes and goes - but it is never consistent for 6 months. My psychology degree comes in handy sometimes as I like to diagnose myself with mental disorders. A common thing among psychology majors I think after taking the class on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. I manage to never diagnose myself with depression, although I think I might have just technically qualified myself for mixed episode bipolar disorder. Seems the criteria have changed over the past 10 years and the episode is much shorter than it used to be - what they were just starting to call rapid cycling back in the day. Ha - back in the day, as if I am so old.
Anyway, whatever I have, I don't feel right (have I ever felt "right," do I know what "right" even feels like?). The anxiety kicked in two weeks ago - the day I had the breast cancer scare, and multiplied exponentially the day I had the most horrifying conversation with my mother that I have ever had. I wake up in the morning and I feel great and I go to bed devastated, nearly every day. According to thesaurus.com, devastated is the wrong word. Crestfallen might be a better choice.
All my life I have cycled, rapidly through episodes of up and down, depression, something like mania, but not quite qualifying for either, back to depression, elation - always underlying is the anxiety that weaves in and out and around everything I do and everything I think and the OCD that goes with it (which I undoubtedly qualify for under the DSM IV). For a couple of years I saw a therapist, but I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it. Could it be because I don't tell the truth? Well, probably. Sometimes I think I should add compulsive liar when I introduce myself. Like people sometimes say alcoholic and addict, compulsive over eater, compulsive shopper, debtor - people add all kinds of things in. I mean, I don't really lie compulsively necessarily, but I am not a compulsive truth teller either. My favorite thing to say in response to a therapist's questions is "I don't know." Finally, my therapist asked me if I really didn't know or if I just wasn't telling her. I told her I just wasn't telling her - and then I got a new therapist.
AA is helpful, but sometimes praying for God to relieve me of the anxiety so that I don't have to check the stove and the bathroom light one more time before I leave the house, so that I don't find out that I am dying of cancer - well, let's just say, I've been wasting a lot of time checking the stove and the bathroom light, unplugging lamps, not wearing certain clothes, cleaning compulsively... So I made a few phone calls, called a therapist, called a breast cancer support group, felt better and then stopped the process of looking for other ways to help myself. I talk myself out of it every time. Part of it is a resistance to asking for help - to admitting that I need help, part of it is a lack of time (excuses, excuses). The rest of it is just plain not wanting to look at it. I mean, obviously something serious is festering under there if a conversation with my mother can send me into such a tail spin - the problem is, is letting it come to the surface and wash over me better or worse than sticking my toe in and then erecting a barrier between me and it?
I've always been good at erecting barriers. Not so good at setting boundaries, but good at erecting barriers. I always used to pride myself on the fact that you couldn't hurt me because the barrier was impenetrable. It isn't these days - impenetrable - but it is well fortified.
So do I deal with it now, or do I deal with it later.
The anxiety has been overwhelming me - free floating anxiety I guess. Anxiety about everything and about nothing at all at the same time, triggered by nothing in particular. Generalized Anxiety Disorder as the DSM IV defines it, under which you must have 3 or more of 6 symptoms for 6 months. I get disqualified by the time period every single time. It comes and goes - but it is never consistent for 6 months. My psychology degree comes in handy sometimes as I like to diagnose myself with mental disorders. A common thing among psychology majors I think after taking the class on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. I manage to never diagnose myself with depression, although I think I might have just technically qualified myself for mixed episode bipolar disorder. Seems the criteria have changed over the past 10 years and the episode is much shorter than it used to be - what they were just starting to call rapid cycling back in the day. Ha - back in the day, as if I am so old.
Anyway, whatever I have, I don't feel right (have I ever felt "right," do I know what "right" even feels like?). The anxiety kicked in two weeks ago - the day I had the breast cancer scare, and multiplied exponentially the day I had the most horrifying conversation with my mother that I have ever had. I wake up in the morning and I feel great and I go to bed devastated, nearly every day. According to thesaurus.com, devastated is the wrong word. Crestfallen might be a better choice.
All my life I have cycled, rapidly through episodes of up and down, depression, something like mania, but not quite qualifying for either, back to depression, elation - always underlying is the anxiety that weaves in and out and around everything I do and everything I think and the OCD that goes with it (which I undoubtedly qualify for under the DSM IV). For a couple of years I saw a therapist, but I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it. Could it be because I don't tell the truth? Well, probably. Sometimes I think I should add compulsive liar when I introduce myself. Like people sometimes say alcoholic and addict, compulsive over eater, compulsive shopper, debtor - people add all kinds of things in. I mean, I don't really lie compulsively necessarily, but I am not a compulsive truth teller either. My favorite thing to say in response to a therapist's questions is "I don't know." Finally, my therapist asked me if I really didn't know or if I just wasn't telling her. I told her I just wasn't telling her - and then I got a new therapist.
AA is helpful, but sometimes praying for God to relieve me of the anxiety so that I don't have to check the stove and the bathroom light one more time before I leave the house, so that I don't find out that I am dying of cancer - well, let's just say, I've been wasting a lot of time checking the stove and the bathroom light, unplugging lamps, not wearing certain clothes, cleaning compulsively... So I made a few phone calls, called a therapist, called a breast cancer support group, felt better and then stopped the process of looking for other ways to help myself. I talk myself out of it every time. Part of it is a resistance to asking for help - to admitting that I need help, part of it is a lack of time (excuses, excuses). The rest of it is just plain not wanting to look at it. I mean, obviously something serious is festering under there if a conversation with my mother can send me into such a tail spin - the problem is, is letting it come to the surface and wash over me better or worse than sticking my toe in and then erecting a barrier between me and it?
I've always been good at erecting barriers. Not so good at setting boundaries, but good at erecting barriers. I always used to pride myself on the fact that you couldn't hurt me because the barrier was impenetrable. It isn't these days - impenetrable - but it is well fortified.
So do I deal with it now, or do I deal with it later.
Monday, April 16, 2007
I'm Pirating This One
So - I've typed three of my own posts that I can't seem to finish, so I am going to pirate the poetry of someone else instead. A friend sent this to me a little while ago and I loved it, so I am posting it for your reading enjoyment.
Corsons Inlet (by A.R. Ammons)
"I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning
to the sea,
then turned right along
the surf
rounded a naked headland
and returned
along the inlet shore:
it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,
crisp in the running sand,
some breakthroughs of sun
but after a bit
continuous overcast:
the walk liberating, I was released from forms,
from the perpendiculars,
straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds
of thought
into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends
of sight:
I allow myself eddies of meaning:
yield to a direction of significance
running
like a stream through the geography of my work:
you can find
in my sayings
swerves of action
like the inlet's cutting edge:
there are dunes of motion,
organizations of grass, white sandy paths of remembrance
in the overall wandering of mirroring mind:
but Overall is beyond me: is the sum of these events
I cannot draw, the ledger I cannot keep, the accounting
beyond the account:
in nature there are few sharp lines: there are areas of
primrose
more or less dispersed;
disorderly orders of bayberry; between the rows
of dunes,
irregular swamps of reeds,
though not reeds alone, but grass, bayberry, yarrow, all . . .
predominantly reeds:
I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries,
shutting out and shutting in, separating inside
from outside: I have
drawn no lines:
as
manifold events of sand
change the dune's shape that will not be the same shape
tomorrow,
so I am willing to go along, to accept
the becoming
thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends, establish
no walls:
by transitions the land falls from grassy dunes to creek
to undercreek: but there are no lines, though
change in that transition is clear
as any sharpness: but "sharpness" spread out,
allowed to occur over a wider range
than mental lines can keep:
the moon was full last night: today, low tide was low:
black shoals of mussels exposed to the risk
of air
and, earlier, of sun,
waved in and out with the waterline, waterline inexact,
caught always in the event of change:
a young mottled gull stood free on the shoals
and ate
to vomiting: another gull, squawking possession, cracked a crab,
picked out the entrails, swallowed the soft-shelled legs, a ruddy
turnstone running in to snatch leftover bits:
risk is full: every living thing in
siege: the demand is life, to keep life: the small
white blacklegged egret, how beautiful, quietly stalks and spears
the shallows, darts to shore
to stab — what? I couldn't
see against the black mudflats — a frightened
fiddler crab?
the news to my left over the dunes and
reeds and bayberry clumps was
fall: thousands of tree swallows
gathering for flight:
an order held
in constant change: a congregation
rich with entropy: nevertheless, separable, noticeable
as one event,
not chaos: preparations for
flight from winter,
cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, wings rifling the green clumps,
beaks
at the bayberries
a perception full of wind, flight, curve,
sound:
the possibility of rule as the sum of rulelessness:
the "field" of action
with moving, incalculable center:
in the smaller view, order tight with shape:
blue tiny flowers on a leafless weed: carapace of crab:
snail shell:
pulsations of order
in the bellies of minnows: orders swallowed,
broken down, transferred through membranes
to strengthen larger orders: but in the large view, no
lines or changeless shapes: the working in and out, together
and against, of millions of events: this,
so that I make
no form
formlessness:
orders as summaries, as outcomes of actions override
or in some way result, not predictably (seeing me gain
the top of a dune,
the swallows
could take flight — some other fields of bayberry
could enter fall
berryless) and there is serenity:
no arranged terror: no forcing of image, plan,
or thought:
no propaganda, no humbling of reality to precept:
terror pervades but is not arranged, all possibilities
of escape open: no route shut, except in
the sudden loss of all routes:
I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will
not run to that easy victory:
still around the looser, wider forces work:
I will try
to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening
scope, but enjoying the freedom that
Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,
that I have perceived nothing completely,
that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk."
Corsons Inlet (by A.R. Ammons)
"I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning
to the sea,
then turned right along
the surf
rounded a naked headland
and returned
along the inlet shore:
it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,
crisp in the running sand,
some breakthroughs of sun
but after a bit
continuous overcast:
the walk liberating, I was released from forms,
from the perpendiculars,
straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds
of thought
into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends
of sight:
I allow myself eddies of meaning:
yield to a direction of significance
running
like a stream through the geography of my work:
you can find
in my sayings
swerves of action
like the inlet's cutting edge:
there are dunes of motion,
organizations of grass, white sandy paths of remembrance
in the overall wandering of mirroring mind:
but Overall is beyond me: is the sum of these events
I cannot draw, the ledger I cannot keep, the accounting
beyond the account:
in nature there are few sharp lines: there are areas of
primrose
more or less dispersed;
disorderly orders of bayberry; between the rows
of dunes,
irregular swamps of reeds,
though not reeds alone, but grass, bayberry, yarrow, all . . .
predominantly reeds:
I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries,
shutting out and shutting in, separating inside
from outside: I have
drawn no lines:
as
manifold events of sand
change the dune's shape that will not be the same shape
tomorrow,
so I am willing to go along, to accept
the becoming
thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends, establish
no walls:
by transitions the land falls from grassy dunes to creek
to undercreek: but there are no lines, though
change in that transition is clear
as any sharpness: but "sharpness" spread out,
allowed to occur over a wider range
than mental lines can keep:
the moon was full last night: today, low tide was low:
black shoals of mussels exposed to the risk
of air
and, earlier, of sun,
waved in and out with the waterline, waterline inexact,
caught always in the event of change:
a young mottled gull stood free on the shoals
and ate
to vomiting: another gull, squawking possession, cracked a crab,
picked out the entrails, swallowed the soft-shelled legs, a ruddy
turnstone running in to snatch leftover bits:
risk is full: every living thing in
siege: the demand is life, to keep life: the small
white blacklegged egret, how beautiful, quietly stalks and spears
the shallows, darts to shore
to stab — what? I couldn't
see against the black mudflats — a frightened
fiddler crab?
the news to my left over the dunes and
reeds and bayberry clumps was
fall: thousands of tree swallows
gathering for flight:
an order held
in constant change: a congregation
rich with entropy: nevertheless, separable, noticeable
as one event,
not chaos: preparations for
flight from winter,
cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, wings rifling the green clumps,
beaks
at the bayberries
a perception full of wind, flight, curve,
sound:
the possibility of rule as the sum of rulelessness:
the "field" of action
with moving, incalculable center:
in the smaller view, order tight with shape:
blue tiny flowers on a leafless weed: carapace of crab:
snail shell:
pulsations of order
in the bellies of minnows: orders swallowed,
broken down, transferred through membranes
to strengthen larger orders: but in the large view, no
lines or changeless shapes: the working in and out, together
and against, of millions of events: this,
so that I make
no form
formlessness:
orders as summaries, as outcomes of actions override
or in some way result, not predictably (seeing me gain
the top of a dune,
the swallows
could take flight — some other fields of bayberry
could enter fall
berryless) and there is serenity:
no arranged terror: no forcing of image, plan,
or thought:
no propaganda, no humbling of reality to precept:
terror pervades but is not arranged, all possibilities
of escape open: no route shut, except in
the sudden loss of all routes:
I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will
not run to that easy victory:
still around the looser, wider forces work:
I will try
to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening
scope, but enjoying the freedom that
Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,
that I have perceived nothing completely,
that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk."
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Easter Dinner Etc.
Would I honestly rather have been doing something else tonight? Probably not actually. I went to a meeting, had a nice conversation with someone afterwards, and now I am cooking Easter dinner. I really like to cook, but I don't do it much because I get home so late and it seems like such a big mess to make - for one person. I find cooking much more enjoyable when I am cooking for someone else. Anyway, for Easter dinner, I am making a citrus chicken (chicken simmered in a sauce made of vegetables and citrus fruit, honey, garlic and chicken broth - with a little tomato paste and flour to thicken it), steamed asparagus with lemon and augratin potatoes. I think it is going to be good. Now, if only I had made dessert. I do have jelly beans though, courtesy of the restaurant I ate at last night. The Easter bunny never came, sadly.
Also - as some of you know - I had a breast cancer scare last Tuesday. Unfortunately, I still haven't emotionally recovered from this. My doctor found a lump in my left breast (so not the one I had cancer in) - turns out it's nothing. Lumpy breast tissue. Imagine going back into work and having to explain to your almost all male colleagues that everything is okay - your breast tissue is just lumpy. I've pretty much gotten over that I guess - my co-workers are more like my family than my family. The head of my group - who has been just amazing through all of this - is more fatherly than my own father. He's told me a few times since Tuesday how scared he was for me and how concerned he was when he heard what was going on. You know what is interesting - I've learned a lot from the people I work with about what it means to be supportive - much more than I have learned from my own fammily.
Anyway - my trip to Germany to see my brother, sister-in-law and nephew is going to work out after all. I was a little worried that my employer wasn't going to be happy about the timing - but like always - things work out.
Back again - I ate my dinner. Next time, I will modify the sauce a bit - and I found the whole thing just a little bit labor intensive. The thing I find disappointing is that one hour, and about 15 dishes later, I am done eating it in less than 10 minutes. Not to mention that I am still not satisfied - all I really want is some chocolate. But - I ate my last Moonstruck truffle this afternoon - I couldn't wait! I highly recommend Moonstruck for truffles if you ever need to order some chocolate for anyone - it's the best chocolate I've ever had. Next year, or maybe for my birthday coming up in May, or maybe just because - I might mail myself some. Check out the new spring collection. Or the truffle collection. This place also makes the best mocha and hot chocolate I've ever had. My friend Pam can attest to this - she and Marco like the chocolate shake so much that she has been known to transport them back to Ann Arbor in a cooler.
Also - as some of you know - I had a breast cancer scare last Tuesday. Unfortunately, I still haven't emotionally recovered from this. My doctor found a lump in my left breast (so not the one I had cancer in) - turns out it's nothing. Lumpy breast tissue. Imagine going back into work and having to explain to your almost all male colleagues that everything is okay - your breast tissue is just lumpy. I've pretty much gotten over that I guess - my co-workers are more like my family than my family. The head of my group - who has been just amazing through all of this - is more fatherly than my own father. He's told me a few times since Tuesday how scared he was for me and how concerned he was when he heard what was going on. You know what is interesting - I've learned a lot from the people I work with about what it means to be supportive - much more than I have learned from my own fammily.
Anyway - my trip to Germany to see my brother, sister-in-law and nephew is going to work out after all. I was a little worried that my employer wasn't going to be happy about the timing - but like always - things work out.
Back again - I ate my dinner. Next time, I will modify the sauce a bit - and I found the whole thing just a little bit labor intensive. The thing I find disappointing is that one hour, and about 15 dishes later, I am done eating it in less than 10 minutes. Not to mention that I am still not satisfied - all I really want is some chocolate. But - I ate my last Moonstruck truffle this afternoon - I couldn't wait! I highly recommend Moonstruck for truffles if you ever need to order some chocolate for anyone - it's the best chocolate I've ever had. Next year, or maybe for my birthday coming up in May, or maybe just because - I might mail myself some. Check out the new spring collection. Or the truffle collection. This place also makes the best mocha and hot chocolate I've ever had. My friend Pam can attest to this - she and Marco like the chocolate shake so much that she has been known to transport them back to Ann Arbor in a cooler.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
"Who would you like to list as your emergency contact please?"
Me: Uh, ummm.....uh (long pause), uh.....(mind is blank), ummm...do I have to list someone?
Receptionist: Uh, ummm.....uh, you don't have anyone you want to list as an emergency contact person?
Me: Uh, no. I don't have anyone like that.
Receptionist: Blank stare.
Me: Do I have to list someone?
Receptionist: Uh, no, I guess not. You don't have anyone to list?
Me: No. I don't have anyone like that...(thinking...who is the best person I know in case of an emergency? That would be myself...I can't list myself). No, I don't have anyone.
I find this both annoying and sad. Sad mostly. I go through this every time I have a doctor's appointment with a new doctor. Am I going to have to tell her, well, my mom is an alcoholic and will go hysterical, my dad has no coping skills and my brother lives in Germany - cause if I have to tell her this, I'll end up telling her my life story - and then I got sober, then I got breast cancer, then I got married and divorced - the story comes out at the most inappropriate times. Typically, I list my brother - but he is too far away at the moment. The fact is though - for any of my friends reading this - I know I could list any one of you and all of you would respond in case of an emergency. It's just that - I am like a deer caught in headlights every time this happens.
You would think I would have pre-designated someone as my emergency contact by now. Your parents are naturally the first thing that comes to mind though - but my parents are simply not an option. I mean, when I found out I had breast cancer - I had to console my hysterical mother - which was surreal - almost like watching the event from above and thinking - this isn't how this is supposed to happen.
The fact that I have no emergency contact person, coupled with the fact that I have no where to go for Easter dinner (not like Easter is a big deal or anything...although I do really wish I had someone to give me an Easter basket - cause Easter baskets really really make me happy) - has left me more than a little depressed this past week. This, coupled with the fact that my birthday is coming up -which always depresses me - but more on that later. Mostly it makes me sad that my mother is never going to be different and my past is never going to be anything other than it was. It makes me sad in a way that my mother isn't my emergency contact. That she isn't there for me at all, in any way, shape, or form. Well, actually, what I really wish is that I had some other mother to list as my emergency contact. My sponsor said to me yesterday - I am really sorry that your mother is never going to be the mother you wanted her to be. Thirty years later, you would think I would have gotten over that.
Receptionist: Uh, ummm.....uh, you don't have anyone you want to list as an emergency contact person?
Me: Uh, no. I don't have anyone like that.
Receptionist: Blank stare.
Me: Do I have to list someone?
Receptionist: Uh, no, I guess not. You don't have anyone to list?
Me: No. I don't have anyone like that...(thinking...who is the best person I know in case of an emergency? That would be myself...I can't list myself). No, I don't have anyone.
I find this both annoying and sad. Sad mostly. I go through this every time I have a doctor's appointment with a new doctor. Am I going to have to tell her, well, my mom is an alcoholic and will go hysterical, my dad has no coping skills and my brother lives in Germany - cause if I have to tell her this, I'll end up telling her my life story - and then I got sober, then I got breast cancer, then I got married and divorced - the story comes out at the most inappropriate times. Typically, I list my brother - but he is too far away at the moment. The fact is though - for any of my friends reading this - I know I could list any one of you and all of you would respond in case of an emergency. It's just that - I am like a deer caught in headlights every time this happens.
You would think I would have pre-designated someone as my emergency contact by now. Your parents are naturally the first thing that comes to mind though - but my parents are simply not an option. I mean, when I found out I had breast cancer - I had to console my hysterical mother - which was surreal - almost like watching the event from above and thinking - this isn't how this is supposed to happen.
The fact that I have no emergency contact person, coupled with the fact that I have no where to go for Easter dinner (not like Easter is a big deal or anything...although I do really wish I had someone to give me an Easter basket - cause Easter baskets really really make me happy) - has left me more than a little depressed this past week. This, coupled with the fact that my birthday is coming up -which always depresses me - but more on that later. Mostly it makes me sad that my mother is never going to be different and my past is never going to be anything other than it was. It makes me sad in a way that my mother isn't my emergency contact. That she isn't there for me at all, in any way, shape, or form. Well, actually, what I really wish is that I had some other mother to list as my emergency contact. My sponsor said to me yesterday - I am really sorry that your mother is never going to be the mother you wanted her to be. Thirty years later, you would think I would have gotten over that.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Procrastination Cleaning
Whenever there is something I should be doing, like working on a Sunday afternoon, inevitably, I am overcome by a compulsion to clean before I can settle in to work. I know myself, and I know that I simply won't be able to concentrate unless I give into the cleaning compulsion. I used to do the same thing when I was a student and had studying that I needed to do.
We aren't talking vacuum, mop and wipe off the kitchen counter. We are talking serious cleaning. For example, this morning, the thought process went like this, I should work, or at the very least, I should relax today. But first I have to clean the grout lines in the tile floor in the bathroom with a toothbrush, rearrange the entire pantry in an OCD like fashion (all boxed items together, all jars together etc.), remove everything from the fridge, clean the shelving, and rearrange everything as I put it back - for example, cheese goes in the cheese draw - a pet peeve of mine - and the fruits and vegetables do not get mixed.
Once this is done, I'll have to make a "quick" trip to Target for a new toothbrush, cause I cleaned the bathroom floor with the only one I had. Although I only need a toothbrush, some toothpaste and a lint roller refill, totalling less than $10, I will inevitably leave Target with $100 worth of stuff I don't necessary need. It is virtually impossible to leave Target without purchasing more than you went in there for. Not to mention the fact that you buy so much unnecessary stuff that you forget one of the things you specifically needed - the lint roller refill. Anyway, then, because DSW is on the way home, I might as well stop there, then get stuck in traffic cause literally every Sunday I forget there is a street market on Canal.
Get home, realize I forgot the lint roller refill. Go back out, come back home. Eat. Now I can work. Oh wait, blog first. All of this is accomplished by 12:15 p.m., giving me 5 hours to work before I am due at a meeting. I have to believe that I am not the only one who does this - although, a lot of people I know have far more busy lives with husbands or wives and families - they probably wish they had the luxury of enough peace and quiet to sit on the bathroom floor and clean it with a toothbrush. Anyway, although I am totally procrastinating - I am at least super productive right? It is good stress and anxiety relief for me - although you would think that simply sitting down and getting my work done would relieve the work related stress and anxiety. Plus, it is a good form of light to moderate exercise - depending how dirty the floor is!
We aren't talking vacuum, mop and wipe off the kitchen counter. We are talking serious cleaning. For example, this morning, the thought process went like this, I should work, or at the very least, I should relax today. But first I have to clean the grout lines in the tile floor in the bathroom with a toothbrush, rearrange the entire pantry in an OCD like fashion (all boxed items together, all jars together etc.), remove everything from the fridge, clean the shelving, and rearrange everything as I put it back - for example, cheese goes in the cheese draw - a pet peeve of mine - and the fruits and vegetables do not get mixed.
Once this is done, I'll have to make a "quick" trip to Target for a new toothbrush, cause I cleaned the bathroom floor with the only one I had. Although I only need a toothbrush, some toothpaste and a lint roller refill, totalling less than $10, I will inevitably leave Target with $100 worth of stuff I don't necessary need. It is virtually impossible to leave Target without purchasing more than you went in there for. Not to mention the fact that you buy so much unnecessary stuff that you forget one of the things you specifically needed - the lint roller refill. Anyway, then, because DSW is on the way home, I might as well stop there, then get stuck in traffic cause literally every Sunday I forget there is a street market on Canal.
Get home, realize I forgot the lint roller refill. Go back out, come back home. Eat. Now I can work. Oh wait, blog first. All of this is accomplished by 12:15 p.m., giving me 5 hours to work before I am due at a meeting. I have to believe that I am not the only one who does this - although, a lot of people I know have far more busy lives with husbands or wives and families - they probably wish they had the luxury of enough peace and quiet to sit on the bathroom floor and clean it with a toothbrush. Anyway, although I am totally procrastinating - I am at least super productive right? It is good stress and anxiety relief for me - although you would think that simply sitting down and getting my work done would relieve the work related stress and anxiety. Plus, it is a good form of light to moderate exercise - depending how dirty the floor is!
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