New Meds…

After a month off Prozac, the depression came back.  Prozac started to cause more problems than it was worth… like wanting to sleep constantly, while that sleep became lighter and lighter so that I couldn’t sleep if someone was breathing in the next room. 

The doc put me on Zoloft… my fifth med in five years.  I wish I could find something that I could stick with… ya know… that didn’t cause side-effects horrible enough that I’d actually WANT to try another med and go through the whole med change process that isn’t fun or pretty.  It’s not like changing from asprin to ibuprophen.  There is usually withdrawal for weeks and then weeks of sickness getting on a new med. 

I see so often these articles about how effective medication is for depression.  It makes me feel like a freak.  Sure, meds are effective… for a few months, before the really horrible side-effects start and I get so burned out I get off all meds until the depression is bad enough that I try meds again and the cycle continues…  Will I ever find a med that I can tolerate for more than six months????  This rollercoaster sucks. 

Many anti-depressants give me horrible throat cramps that can get so bad that it travels over my face so that my whole head feels like it’s in a vice.  I had some symptoms of that last night.  Let’s see how long I tolerate the face vice this time before no longer being able to force myself to swallow the pills.  Or, maybe I’ll be lucky and this med will have some staying power in my life… but my gut feeling is that I’m headed right into face vice land.  Sadly, my gut is usually right about these things. 

This time my depression manifested as a short-fuse and lots of irritability.  Normally my depression manifests as lots of crying and sadness, but I think the ritalin I take for my ADHD changed things up a bit.  It’s nice to know that my bitchiness is prolly on its way out the door, but I’m really really really really really hoping the side-effects will be tolerable this time…

My pdoc also wants me checked for anemia.  I’ve had it before and I didn’t realize how I have almost every single symptom of anemia, because it crept up so slowly on me this time… well, that is, if I really am anemic again.  It wouldn’t surprise me if I am.  I’m vegetarian and over the last few years I completely forgot to make sure I get enough iron.  Iron rich foods haven’t had much of a place in my diet of late.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the blood test for anemia soon (no insurance, so I’ll be calling around for prices) and get an answer.  Wish me luck.  I find myself actually hoping for anemia, because it would explain a lot and the last time I was treated for it, it really helped. 

Off to fold laundry…

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

Open Threadiness 10.28.09

Whooo hooooo!  Open thread! 

R.I.P. our old XBox360.  It was a 12GB machine and just couldn’t take all our gaming, so it imploded or something.  Long live our new 120 GB Xbox360!  Maybe now I can play Fable II without hearing the machine grind as it struggles to process all the scenery…

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

I Hate Exercise

Okay.   I said it. 

The important bit isn’t even that this is posted on a blog that any one can read.  The important bit to me is that I finally accepted it myself – I hate exercise.  I fucking hate it.  And… that’s okay. 

I’ve always hated exercise.  Even when I was a compulsive over-exerciser, I hated exercise.  I was simply obsessed enough to thinness and trying  not to be fat that I could force myself to exercise anyway. 

When the topic of exercise has come up nowadays, I tend to think first that yeah I do hate exercise… but then I add this big “BUT.”  BUT, it’s prolly cuz I had years of eating disorders that included lots of overexercise on top of all the food restriction that made my skin turn gray and made my hair fall out.  That BUT is just denying the real truth that I have been ashamed of my whole life.  It’s just a cover to avoid the judgement of others.  I hate exercise. 

That’s right.  The fattie hates exercise.  And, I’m not going to be ashamed of it anymore.  It’s time to accept myself and be proud of myself as is. 

At the same time, I realize that exercise benefits me… non-compulsive exercise, of course.  I wonder if my denial of exercise hatred has been part of my difficulty in getting up and getting moving.  I wonder if at long last accepting my true feelings about exercise could actually help me bring more activity into my life.  Ironic.  😉  I dunno about you, but my brain tends to work in ironic ways just like this one.  Even accepting very negative feelings about something can help me to face it and bring all sorts of good things into my life that denial of the negative feelings kept me from. 

What is interesting is that once I allowed myself to own that I really hate exercise – without qualifiers… that suddenly exercise didn’t feel like such a big deal.  I could picture myself being active without clenching up inside.  It felt like a weight being taken off my shoulders.  We shall see…

Then I considered other things that I hate, but I don’t want to admit that I hate.  When I’m tired at work, I hate having to be nice to people.  I’d rather just yell at them to GO AWAY.  I hate walking the cats sometimes.  I hate cooking.  Sometimes I hate doing housework.  I hate picking up take-out.  And, more irony ensues.  The more I accept the way I really am, the less intimidated I feel by imagining doing the things I don’t want to do…. the less completely blocked I feel about actually doing these things.  Maybe it’s human nature to be so contrary or maybe it’s just my nature…

Owning one’s feelings doesn’t mean that one has to be owned by them.  Even my acceptance of these things doesn’t mean that I will start yelling at customers and sit on the couch for the rest of my life.  Right now I’m hopeful of what letting go of all this denial might mean for me.  At the same time, I am not one that thinks people MUST exercise to be morally correct or worthy of respect or anything.  We’re all human beings here and I don’t believe in the “good fattie” (that exercises and eats veggies) and the “bat fattie” (that doesn’t exercise and eats lots of candy) dichotomy. 

It’s time to love myself inside and out – even my hate of exercise. 

Thoughts?  Secrety hate exercise anyone?  😉

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

Stray Cat New Part II – Help!!!

Apparently a feral colony prolly isn’t going to happen.  What (I’m told) does work is finding a feral cat a spot as a barn cat, so now that’s what I’m trying for. 

So, I’m reaching out to my blog friends.  I am in the Chicago area and we would be willing to drive him a couple of states in whatever direction to get him to a good home.  If any of ya’all know someone who has room for a feral at their country home or farm, please contact AngryGrayRainbows@gmail.com.  Friends in the MidWestern states who live in the country – if you can ask your friends and neighbords if they have room for a barn cat that has been neutered and is up to date on all vaccinations, please ask around for the sake of Mr. Orange.  We would alsp be willing to help pay for his food long-term, if desired. 

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

Juxtapositions

These ads appeared in my Sunday newspaper.

Right next to each other.

I don’t know how the “lipo” center felt about being right next to the dance studio ad — maybe the person who determined the ad placement thought that it was a similar audience interested in both of these services.

But the contrast. Wow.

I’m thinking “no general anesthesia, immediate results, short recovery time” all also apply to the “Have Fun. Be Active.” motto of Debbie’s Dance Etc. “Have Fun. Be Active.” really is such a HAES statement. No “consult with Board Certified Surgeon” necessary.

The Debbie’s Dance ad worked. I had heard of the studio, and there are a surprisingly large number of dance studio in my relatively small tri-city area. In fact, the women I heard of the studio from are gorgeously not slender.* I’ve been wondering where I would like SuperHeroPrincess to take classes for dance (if that’s even something she would like — like me, free expression seems to be more her thing. But it’s nice to have a foundation). And Debbie’s Dance — your ad worked. You had me at “Have Fun.”

Sometimes, I feel like I’m just on top of this wave that is sweeping through most people’s consciousness about weight and fatness and the ridiculousness of the dominant paradigm, not only about weight but about health and what we can and can’t control.

Which reminds me of this piece of brilliance from Laura McKibbin, LICSW, creator (with input from with the amazing Jon Robison, PhD, MS): The Food for Thought Pyramid**. This satirical work highlights the overemphasis on “healthy eating and exercise as the primary determinants of good health” when in reality, genetics, luck and socioeconomic factors play a much larger role. Other determinants of health, such as relationships, social supports, a sense of meaning in life, and our ability to bounce back from hard circumstances play a huge role, in comparison to diet and exercise. And weight loss advice that tells us to ditch family and friends with “bad eating habits” or prioritize eating healthy or exercising over social interactions undermine and erode those things that have a much deeper impact on health. Sure, it’s nice to go walking and talking with friends. And the dance practice I do satisfies my needs for physical activity, but more importantly, expression, creativity, belonging, and self-exploration. But the “friends” part is the more important part, for me and for most (but not all) people.

Speaking of dance, and juxtapositions, I was at my practice on Tuesday, and our regular instructor/leader/guide/DJ (who I love) was expectedly out, and his sub was someone I also love but who I hadn’t had as an instructor/leader/guide/DJ before. And she did something amazing. She had us explore the concept of our “shadow side” and what that looks like, moves like, feels like. For some reason, this particular evening, my defenses dropped and I really allowed myself to explore that shadow side.

Interestingly, I found myself thinking of my shadow as bigger, fatter, heavier, hungrier, weaker, grouchy-er. It was weak where I feel the need to be strong these days, full where I feel the need to be empty these days, nice where I feel the need to be tough these days. It was just great to have a space to explore and expose all that I haven’t been able to allow myself to be. It felt so freeing to be able to feel bigger — to be inhabiting more rather than less space. There was something deeply integrating about that. Like it’s okay to actually be a bit smaller because I can visit feeling bigger anytime I like. I can carry all of that internally — accessing it when I need to — not having to feel guilty about my size, larger or smaller, as some sort of rejection of what I’ve been in the past. I have this worry that it will come across to those reading as a sort of “psychic fat suit” — and I didn’t experience it that way — having actually been quite a bit bigger (and smaller) as an adult than I am right now, this felt like an embrace more than a parody.

Because of a conversation I had been having right before, I went into dance practice with a thought about how loving myself is really important role modeling for SuperHeroPrincess. And exploring the idea of feeling loved, valued, appreciated from within, rather than from outside. And when this instrumental blues song came on (this was before the “shadow work”) I thought of slow dancing with myself as a partner, the way I always wanted to be danced with. I heard me saying to myself all kinds of good things — what a sensual dancer I am, how great it feels to dance with me, how adorable I am, how nice it feels to lean up against me, what beautiful eyes I have, how amazing I am overall — that’s what I remember. But it didn’t feel hokey, or silly, it felt authentic and true. And not like I was imagining someone else saying these things to me the way I did when I was younger, before I had the experience of someone actually saying those sorts of things, whether as a come-on or not. When I juxtapose how it felt to hear those things coming from me, next to the kinds of things I more frequently hear from myself about how unacceptable I must be to others, what I notice is the locus. The center. And with me at the center — how I feel about myself, to myself, the idea of unacceptability drops away. Or, what I find unacceptable shifts, and it’s not acceptable to carry an outdated, illogical, inaccurate vision of myself as some sort of protection.

Now, I know that old perception doesn’t just drop away. But the veneer has slipped just enough to allow a more accurate perception, at least some of the time. I think continuing to live with/in what I can see beneath the veneer and allow it to come to the forefront, that’s the trick.

Thanks for reading about this journey. It’s nice to feel it’s not happening in a vacuum.

Wishing you slipped veneers and joyously enlightening juxtapositions,

WRT2

* I am still not comfortable calling women who haven’t self-identified as fat, “fat.”

** I’m ordering one of the pyramid posters soon, I swear. To put up in my cube at work (as opposed to my cube at home?).

Read Full Post »

Stray Cat News…

Mr. Orange (as posted about here) has finally been captured.  Sheesh he has been one hard character to catch! 

I suspect, given his behavior since we caught him (a few minutes ago) that he’s far too feral to go into anyone’s home.  Sigh.  However, I know that there are feral cat colonies in the Chicago area and maybe I can get him adopted into one of those.  At least if he lived in a feral colony, I know he would be getting regular food and emergency care.  So, tomorrow I will be calling around trying to get Mr. Orange into a feral colony.  I know a couple who takes care of a feral colony right by their home and maybe they’d take Mr. Orange if hubby and I committed to helping them pay for food for the colony.  It’s worth trying for anyway…  If they can’t take him, maybe they’ll know someone with a feral colony who can take Mr. O in.  The Chicago winter is a crappy place for a kitty to be out on the streets all by himself. 

Wish us luck in finding Mr. Orange a safe place to call home soon. 

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

Open Threadiness 10.21.2009

Open threadiness activate!  😀

Ramblings from me…

I’ve prolly had swine flu, but it also seems that I am at least mostly over it now.  I think it was the actual swine flu, because I had the normal flu vaccination and my symptoms were more in line with the swine variety.  It’s been tons of fun.  My stomach has been a mess.  I’ve been feverish.  I’ve been ridiculously easily tired out to the point of dizziness or nausea.  I’m scheduled to work tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be ready and able to take it on… wish me luck!

The leaves are turning where I live and OMG… gorgeous! 

Back to trying to wake up…

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

Kicking the (nonexistent) tires

PhD Coachy said something that stuck with me the other day. He said that a kid once brought into his office a book of amazing lego models which included a picture of a landspeeder (pictured at left) and he was glad to learn the name of this mode of transportation, because he thought about it from time to time.

He thought about it in relation to me because he was noticing that my most critical inner critic was “kicking the tires” when in fact, I was more landspeeder than car, and in fact, no longer even had tires.

Does that make sense?

There’s this part of me that is stubbornly convinced of my unattractiveness. That beats myself up over not being prettier, assumes I need to compensate for my ugliness. It’s kicking the tires, thinking they are not well inflated enough, and really ought to be whitewalls, and have beautiful, custom rims, when I don’t even have tires anymore. I’m a friggin’ landspeeder. I hover above the ground. Tires would only slow me down. How attractive I am to that out-of-whack part is irrelevant.

And one more thing from PhD Coachy — when we were both looking at a photo I brought in of me as a child that I was critical of, that what he noticed most was that it seems like I have this invitation to play in my eyes, my face, my stance. And that I still have that.

Yes. I do. That’s such an essential part of me. I LOVE to play. I hate being too busy to play. I want to romp around ALL THE TIME. I can’t — and that’s okay, life sometimes demands work over play, and I like work sometimes, too. But I do have such a drive to play. I don’t know to what extent we all do. I certainly see it with SuperHeroPrincess.

So, while life has delivered a whole heaping bunch of emotional pain and logistical difficulty lately, one upside is that SuperHeroPrincess and I are able to look each other in the eye and really see each other, and from time to time, I can set aside whatever it is that I am supposed to be doing and play with her.

Have I mentioned how much I love her lately? I have to her. She has to me. I told her I love her more than all the water in all of the oceans and all the sand on all the beaches in all of the world. And that might be an understatement.

She’s an amazing mode of transportation.

Read Full Post »

How Not To “Flirt”

I got hit on… it was creepy and even scary.  Recently, there was some thought provoking convo over at Atchka about men who are creeps and what women, men and society can do to manage, cope and make things better…  What happened Saturday night brought it all to the forefront of my mind. 

It was after 9pm and I was working alone to close the Starbuckish cafe hours later.  The phone rings.  The person refuses to speak.  They call back… and I am told by some guy that he is in the store all the time looking for me, but I am never there or I am on break and he wants to know if I want to go out.  Some things about the whole experience scared the crap out of me.  I immediately pulled out the husband card, because I had the feeling that a simple NO wouldn’t be enough and that explaining that I’m married would add some incentive to leave me alone.  I was pretty rude about it.  I was also shaken.  I managed to blow-up a few lattes right after that call, because I was so shaken that I wasn’t (couldn’t?) pay attention to the expresso machine so the drinks were so overheated they just blew up.  That was fun to clean up.  What bothered me more was how scared I was…

You see, the call brought one particular guy to mind.  He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he didn’t seem to get that I wasn’t into him.  I was cheerful and friendly to him like I am to all customers (though I tend to be more reserved with men, so that it’s less likely that they will think I am flirting…) and he didn’t want to leave my work area.  He went and sat down and I noticed him looking over at me a few times.  I had to go out into the lobby area (where he was) to do some work, but I made a point of avoiding looking anywhere near him and when I did notice him looking at me I also made a point to not smile or do anything flirty at first… after 15 minutes or so of him not getting the point, whenever I noticed him looking at me I straight-up frowned and looked annoyed… I WAS annoyed. 

When I got that call, I was rude, because I had a very strong feeling that it was that guy and I wanted to be uber-clear.  There is something very scary about a person (but especially a man, when you’re a woman and not nearly as strong as men are) refuses to understand very loud body language that says NO – STOP IT!  Maybe I should’ ve just walked up to his table to tell him to stop looking at me… stop trying to make eye contract…. stop trying to engage me… stop smiling at me in that creepy ass way. 

What is sad is that I felt really guilty for taking  harsh tone on the phone.  But dang… calling a girl when she’s in a vunerable position in the middle of the night letting her know that you’ve been in and out of her place of business over and over before… that is just not cool.  Seriously not cool.  What’s even more sad is that this guy prolly has no idea how uncool this call was… or the staring behavior in the lobby – if it was the same guy. 

I spoke to a coworker about the whole thing today and she agreed that it was creepy and scary even if it wasn’t the lobby guy who was staring at me.  She said that if that happens ever agin to tell the manager and make sure I get an escort to the car when I leave the building.  It is nice to be validated… rather than to straddle the fence of trying not to beat myself up for over-reacting or being a “bitch” for being stern to the guy in the lobby and the one on the phone… assuming they are not one and the same. 

It is experiences like this that makes me want to completely trash any sexuality I may have, because I am sick of dealing with men who don’t understand NO in any of its forms.  I feel like never being even polite to a man again… but that is just letting the jerks win… sigh…  Today was my first day back at work since that call and it was difficult.  How can I be fair to men while protecting myself?  How can I avoid spiralling into that thinking that all men are predatory jerks that need to be treated as such?  It wasn’t easy.  Every interaction was at least a little scary.  One man happily stepped into my personal space and that felt crappy, so I stepped way back and tried to keep my defenses up.  I think I did okay overall considering how shaken I have been…

Sometimes I think, “if only they understood how scary their behavior can be…” 

The thing is, I have been stalked before.  One of the most disturbing aspects of all this is the memories it brings up.  Ugh.

As I like to end things on a bright note, I am happy that I got my donation into NPR today.  😀  Yay me. 

In the days and weeks to come, I will be working to process what has happened, my memories about the past and all that.  Hopefully it won’t spark too many nightmares. 

–AngryGrayRainbows

Read Full Post »

Just fat or could it be something else?

The first thing I’d like to do is apologize to my co-bloggers and our readers for not being here lately.  I’ve hit a snag and it’s brought me back to a mild depression that, if I don’t get a handle on it soon, will only get worse.

My depression has been spawned by non-stop pain.  It’s that vicious cycle of self-abuse when you say to yourself, “well, if I wasn’t so fat, I wouldn’t be in this pain.”  You know, the crap that goes around in your head when you only want to beat yourself up and degrade yourself just a little more every day?  (as if the physical pain weren’t enough…let’s just top it off with a bit of self-disgust)

I’ve experienced this pain and occasional swelling for, I’m guessing, around a year and a half, maybe a little longer.  I’ve been told it’s muscle strain and to not exercise.  I’ve been told it’s a matter of needing to exercise.  I’ve been told it’s sciatica.  At one point I was told my foot was probably broken with a stress fracture.  I’ve had x-rays and taken pain pills, muscle relaxers, sleeping pills, gone to the chiropractor regularly, used heating pads, ice packs, etc…

This latest bit of depression really hit on Sunday.

My husband recently got a promotion and as a gift to himself and from me, we decided to get him a spiffy new briefcase.  We got up Sunday morning and showered and had breakfast  out.  It was a rainy day but I was with my hubby and we were having a good day.  We shopped for a briefcase from 9:00 that morning until about 6:00 that evening…pretty much non-stop.  That means standing and walking all day.  We went to a huge mall and walked all through it and we went to Target, Sams Club, Office Depot and some other stores.  (I know there’s a whole other post in here about how I should’ve known better than to try to shop all day and that I should’ve done a better job of self-care but that’s for another time.)

By 7:00 (within an hour of getting home) I was in bed in pain.  I didn’t go to work Monday or Tuesday.  I stayed in bed both days.  As the physical pain eased up, the emotional pain didn’t budge. 

I had done some research on the internet last week and I found out that a lot of what I’m experiencing (almost every symptom) is exactly what fibromyalgia looks like.  There is no known cure and the cause is unknown at this time.  There’s really not much in the way of medicine to help people with this either.  But it was still a diagnosis and it sounded right to me.  I know that self-diagnosis is not always right so I had planned to make a doctor’s appointment to see if this was a possibility.

After the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I had this week, I called my general physician and made an appointment for 3:00 yesterday.  Before I went, I typed up a list of the symptoms I was experiencing so he would be able to read it and so that I would remember to mention everything.  I didn’t mention believing that it was fibromyalgia because I wanted him to tell me what he thought I had based on the info I had given him.  The paper I handed him had about 20-25 symptoms on it.

Now this doctor has come a long way in fat acceptance since I started seeing him in the 90’s.  He’s seen me go through my depressions and has seen how I handle myself when it comes to self acceptance.  I guess I was so beat down by this doctor’s appointment that I couldn’t even rally enough to get my point across.  And for some reason, this visit seemed to be a reversal for my doctor because he was definitely weight focused.

I was sitting on the table when he entered the room and had my paper in my hand.  I could tell he was in a good mood.  He asked me what was wrong and I proceeded to tell him about my constant pain and he saw my paper.  I handed it to him and he read the whole thing before saying, “you know what this is saying to me?  This is saying you’re way out of shape and you need to lose weight.  You need to exercise.”  (He did tell me to purchase some Mucinex D, gave me a prescription for cough medicine and a z-pack and diagnosed me with bronchitis.)

He did not even consider looking further than my size.  I am fat.  I don’t deny that.  But I wonder what he would have said to a thin woman who had walked into his office with the same list of symptoms.  Would he have been so quick to say, “you’re out of shape”?  Or would he have maybe said, “we might need to do some blood work or an MRI on you”?  Or maybe even, “does anything like this run in your family?  Arthritis?  Muscle issues?”  Would he have immediately said, “you’re out of shape” to a woman who APPEARED healthy?

Having said that, I will concede that I don’t have enough movement in my life and that exercise has always made me feel better physcially and emotionally.  I will even go so far as to say I’m not as healthy as I would like to be and my choices have not always been to the betterment of my body, but STILL!!!  Those things I can change.  But what if, just what if, I were to lose all the weight that my doctor suggests and I start a healthy workout routine and STILL HAVE THESE SYMPTOMS?  Then what?

Does that mean that I could’ve been diagnosed correctly in 2009 instead of waiting until 2011 or 2012 when (or if) I lose down to the prescribed weight and continue to exercise?!?  What if I never lose the weight?  Do I remain undiagnosed and just wonder if I’m crazy and are these pains really real?

But then what if it really is all about my weight?  What if I do lose the weight and keep up a regular exercise routine?  What if my pains do actually go away once I’m down to XXX lbs?  Does that mean I won’t ever be sick with anything again?  Does being a certain weight guarantee me to be healthy?  No.

But does appearing healthy mean I might get better treatment by my physician?  Does it mean I’ll be listened to more intently?  Does it mean I won’t be pre-judged and diagnosed based on my symptoms and not my appearance?  I say yes.  Sadly, yes.

I went home after this visit with my doc and talked to my hubby about it.  He felt so badly that the doc had talked to me like that and saw every point I made.  He even suggested I go to another doctor which I very well may.  I do want to get an MRI or something on my spine because I may actually have some disk degeneration or rupture.

One would think that after a visit like this with my doc, I would sink deeper into depression but it’s actually kind of renewed my faith in myself and my own body.

Again, I’m sorry for my absence lately.

~sas

Read Full Post »