May has always been a shitty month for me. I dislike the loss of winter with its quiet, soothing cover of clouds and coldness. I'm also prone to spring allergies, but mostly I don't react well to Mother's Day. Or at least I didn't in the past.
For a long time I've struggled with the practice and concept of motherhood. It just looks to me like a job that women are set up to fail. As a former ungrateful daughter, I never want to be on the mother side of the stories that end up in the therapist's office. Even if a mother does her very best, she makes many mistakes and she can't know which ones actually do damage until her child is unable to commit to a relationship or is unable to hold a job or develops an eating disorder or can't handle money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
At least in part because motherhood is impossible to get right and so easy to get very, very wrong, I chose not to have kids. I look anxiously at babies and children, fearful of what they have in their future (abuse, neglect, neurosis, hunger, endless punishment?). When anyone mistakes me for a mother, I draw back in horror, insulted that they think I might be one of those people, The Mothers with the power of life and death over their children and whose actions weigh so, so heavily on the psyche and development of little personalities. No, I'm not A Mother. I would never do that to anyone.
As I reach my late 40's, it becomes more frequent that strangers assume I have children, especially on this day. But decades of therapy, inner work and healing of my childhood pain are finally starting to change this day for me. Yesterday a stranger wished me "Happy Mother's Day!" and I didn't feel insulted. I didn't glare at them and say, "I'm not a mother," forcing them to apologize for their mistake. I said, "Thank you," in the spirit of someone who isn't of the same faith as a religious holiday, but who still appreciates the festive greetings of others.
I shocked myself. As I walked away, I checked my mood for the old resentment and bitterness, but they weren't there. My Mother's Day resentment and bitterness were gone! It's a secular miracle! Actually, it's the result of decades of hard work on my childhood issues, using various therapies and techniques to release my old anger and fears.
Today I see families out together, but feel no envy of someone else's better childhood than mine, or anger that people keep selfishly having babies so the world can go on suffering. This holiday has become neutral for me. It just IS. I see individuals carrying bouquets, on their way to Mom's. One teenager held bright red roses which contrasted her dark expressionless look. I felt for her because I know that mask of bored detachment. It was my best defense against unpredictable holidays when I was growing up. I wish that young woman well, but she probably won't be. Not today.
Mother's Day is extremely difficult for a lot of people, but they get ignored by the bright greetings and colors of this day. I intensely dislike the false pageantry people are forced to participate in, but I'm grateful to have made my way to the surface of the bleak emotions that until now have penetrated my feelings about motherhood. Have a happy Mother's Day? Yes, actually I am.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Thursday, May 09, 2013
What is it like to be married? (Part two)
[My original post on this question was written in February, 2012]
Lately I've been talking to people who’ve been married fifteen or thirty or more years. For decades I've been hearing that “every marriage is different,” but I still thought marriage was supposed to fit into certain parameters of respect and decency, and if it didn't, it could not stand. I don't know how the heck I learned this from my life experiences, but I somehow I got the impression that there were rules to be followed.
I was wrong. Apparently marriage really doesn’t have to meet any standard whatsoever except that both people agree to be in it without anyone having to physically lock anyone up. This has turned into my theory called The Deal: that the key to a stable marriage (and "stable" does not necessarily include happiness) is The Deal that the couple has worked out, often without words or even conscious acknowlegement. I believe couples make all sorts of unspoken deals, some of which might seem awful or unhealthy, but they work and the marriage is stable. The deal might be “I won’t mention your drinking if you don’t mention my weight,” or “I’ll stop wanting sex to accommodate your sexual trauma” or “I’ll tolerate your affairs if you keep earning lots of money.” None of this is spoken out loud, but the arrangement is solid and can last indefinitely.
This theory also explains why people can be married for twenty or thirty years or more and then "suddenly" get divorced. It's because the deal stopped working for one or both of them and they were unable to negotiate a new one. When the deal becomes intolerable to someone, the couple divorces (or someone gets bumped off, depending on the level of relationship skills).
There are those who might call this theory of marriage cynical or jaded. I'm just processing what I've been hearing from the experts: men and women whom I'm friends with who've been married for decades. Decades.
Sometimes the deal is easy. At the beginning it's simply, "Love me and I'll love you" or "Keep being wonderful and sexy and I'll do my best to keep up." But I think all marriages eventually lose their shine, elasticity and water resistance, and when everyone isn't as wonderful or sexy, you look at what is there and decide if it works for you. Is the price of staying married worth it? Am I getting as good a deal as I'm giving? Is her depression worth how well she runs the household? Is his lack of ambition worth how great a father he is? Is my partner's salary worth how much our schedule drains me? Is his sense of humor worth how much he drinks?
Every marriage is different. Each contains its own bliss and its own nightmare, and each of those things can only be defined by the participants. You fall in love, you dive in and as everybody gets to know everybody better, you see what you've got. And you start dealing.
Lately I've been talking to people who’ve been married fifteen or thirty or more years. For decades I've been hearing that “every marriage is different,” but I still thought marriage was supposed to fit into certain parameters of respect and decency, and if it didn't, it could not stand. I don't know how the heck I learned this from my life experiences, but I somehow I got the impression that there were rules to be followed.
I was wrong. Apparently marriage really doesn’t have to meet any standard whatsoever except that both people agree to be in it without anyone having to physically lock anyone up. This has turned into my theory called The Deal: that the key to a stable marriage (and "stable" does not necessarily include happiness) is The Deal that the couple has worked out, often without words or even conscious acknowlegement. I believe couples make all sorts of unspoken deals, some of which might seem awful or unhealthy, but they work and the marriage is stable. The deal might be “I won’t mention your drinking if you don’t mention my weight,” or “I’ll stop wanting sex to accommodate your sexual trauma” or “I’ll tolerate your affairs if you keep earning lots of money.” None of this is spoken out loud, but the arrangement is solid and can last indefinitely.
This theory also explains why people can be married for twenty or thirty years or more and then "suddenly" get divorced. It's because the deal stopped working for one or both of them and they were unable to negotiate a new one. When the deal becomes intolerable to someone, the couple divorces (or someone gets bumped off, depending on the level of relationship skills).
There are those who might call this theory of marriage cynical or jaded. I'm just processing what I've been hearing from the experts: men and women whom I'm friends with who've been married for decades. Decades.
Sometimes the deal is easy. At the beginning it's simply, "Love me and I'll love you" or "Keep being wonderful and sexy and I'll do my best to keep up." But I think all marriages eventually lose their shine, elasticity and water resistance, and when everyone isn't as wonderful or sexy, you look at what is there and decide if it works for you. Is the price of staying married worth it? Am I getting as good a deal as I'm giving? Is her depression worth how well she runs the household? Is his lack of ambition worth how great a father he is? Is my partner's salary worth how much our schedule drains me? Is his sense of humor worth how much he drinks?
Every marriage is different. Each contains its own bliss and its own nightmare, and each of those things can only be defined by the participants. You fall in love, you dive in and as everybody gets to know everybody better, you see what you've got. And you start dealing.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
The bright side of mental illness!
Guess what, everybody? There's an upside to having bipolar disorder and depression! Dr. Nassir Ghaemi runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts USA. His book, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness, argues that typical people without depression have an optimism bias: they expect to do well, things to go well, people to behave well, etc. People who suffer from depression don’t have this. We tend to see things 50-50: there's an equal chance things could be good or bad. This tendency handicaps us when it comes to average daily living because we’re out of step with everyone else’s view, but it’s good when things go wrong. Suddenly we appear realistic, prescient and practical, plus we've often done some preparation for the crisis. Once again, there's good and bad in everything, even mental illness. Blessed be the symptomatic!
The project of Ghaemi's book is to show that people with bipolar disorder and chronic depression have qualities that make such people superior performers in times of hardship. Chapters compare depressive William T. Sherman's unconventional battle strategies to homoclite Robert E. Lee's Civil War traditional approach, and bipolar Winston Churchill's foresight and grandiosity to homoclite Neville Chamberlin's ill-fated taciturnity (Ghaemi's term "homoclite" refers to people who have no symptoms of mental illness whatsoever). Ghaemi makes the argument that people with depressive and bipolar tendencies do better in crisis than people without mental illness, but likewise, homoclites perform better when things are good. Thus Chamberlain was an ideal leader for peacetime, but didn't do so well in foreseeing the rise of Hitler.
What I find encouraging about this book is its argument that depression and mania aren't bad all the time. Ghaemi defines "creativity" as finding novel problems and solving them. Mania, which includes rapid thinking, flights of ideas and making grandiose plans, creates ideal conditions for high creativity. Creative people conceptualize complex ideas, making connections others would miss, and so does a person in mania. Ghaemi isn't the first one to point out that Churchill's mood disorder got England successfully through a war that a more clear-minded individual might have seen as a lost cause.
Ghaemi names four key elements of mania and depression that serve leaders well in crisis: realism, resilience, empathy and creativity. All of these are found in depression and two -- creativity and resilience -- are found in mania. Ghaemi identifies Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi as depressives and Ted Turner as having bipolar disorder. He finds evidence for John F. Kennedy having been hyperthymic, which means slightly manic all the time. He also provides counterexamples of five homoclite leaders who unsuccessfully managed their countries' crises: Richard Nixon, George McClellan, Neville Chamberlain, George Bush and Tony Blair. Ghaemi isn't just seeing depression and mania everywhere. He also points out where it was actually needed!
Published in 2011, Ghaemi's book wonders if Barack Obama might have some mania or depression to help him get us through the crap heap he inherited in 2008. (From President Obama's performance thus far, I'd guess he does.)
So there's the good news. We are gradually uncovering the good parts of being mentally ill and they do exist. As a depressive, I'm grateful to learn that some of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century were aided -- not hampered -- by the same emotional disorder I have. Those of us with bipolar disorder and depression just happen to flourish when everything's going down the crapper, but hell, someone has to be able to take the helm at such times. Go, Obama! Please be a wacko.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Some thrive on the unknown
I.
The dirty stove (her job) competes with the uncleaned floors (his job)
for most neglected surface,
but the winner is her skin.
Emotions balance and unbalance, shifting positions and changing sides
Who's heavier?
II.
It turns out the buoyant boy can sink,
while the puffer fish moves towards the surface.
Not too close because pressure is dangerous,
but so is lack of pressure.
She has spent her life in pitched and rolling seas
unable to see through the shadows ahead.
Uncertainty is her anchor.
In a life with nothing approaching stability,
new things are not only good, but preferred.
Against a dark now-ness
an unknown future always looks brighter.
The dirty stove (her job) competes with the uncleaned floors (his job)
for most neglected surface,
but the winner is her skin.
Emotions balance and unbalance, shifting positions and changing sides
Who's heavier?
II.
It turns out the buoyant boy can sink,
while the puffer fish moves towards the surface.
Not too close because pressure is dangerous,
but so is lack of pressure.
She has spent her life in pitched and rolling seas
unable to see through the shadows ahead.
Uncertainty is her anchor.
In a life with nothing approaching stability,
new things are not only good, but preferred.
Against a dark now-ness
an unknown future always looks brighter.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Happy Administrative Professional's Day!
Administrative Professionals Day | Forward this Picture
I work as admin support staff, but I like to call this Secretary's Day, too, but I might be the only person left in the country who refers to herself as a "secretary."
To those of us whose workplaces aren't recognizing this day (or our efforts) at all: Let's go buy ourselves a cupcake! Hey, any excuse, right?
EFT and Boston
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-boston-bombing-healing-the-pain
Emotional Freedom Technique is making its way into the mainstream press! I'm excited about this.
Emotional Freedom Technique is making its way into the mainstream press! I'm excited about this.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Depression lifted! (and I'm so damn relieved)
Thank you so much to those of you who contacted me individually after seeing my post yesterday (I also posted on Facebook and Twitter). It really means a LOT to me when someone tells me that they're sorry I'm going through a depression. It makes me feel like someone's listening, like someone cares. I feel a lot less alone just getting a brief comment of support. Please keep those messages coming, especially on my blue days. Thank you.
The good news is that my frozen anger/clot of depression finally broke! You know what it took? It took my tapping circle, which was the only reason I left home yesterday. Emotional Freedom Technique tapping is a powerful way to release stuck emotions (and food cravings and other physical/emotional pain), but doing it alone hadn't helped this past week. Or maybe it had, but not enough to break my bleak mood. I had tapped for days and felt extremely frustrated.
But my EFT Tapping Circle Meetup was yesterday and five of us tapped on my problem and we finally shifted it! Our weekly meetings last 90 minutes and in that time we go around the circle, share our problems and tap on whatever challenges we're facing that week. By the end I felt 100% better and didn't want to leave. I felt afraid my gloom would descend once I was alone again, but it didn't! I still feel fine and it's amazing. It's like having a rock lifted from my chest and being able to suddenly breathe again. It feels so good it's almost miraculous.
It is SUCH a relief. I was feeling desperate and was beginning to wonder if I'd have to drop a wad of money on some individual therapy with a professional. I began the Chicago EFT Tapping Circle Meetup last summer. I'd been using EFT on my own and with a practitioner for two years and had gotten excellent results, but I read an article that said the power of a tapping circle was greater than doing it alone, and I figured it would be cheaper than one-on-one time with professionals (definitely true).
I threw together a website on Meetup.com last July and waited to see if anyone would respond. They did. At our first meeting on August 11, 2012 ten people showed up! I was surprised and encouraged. Since then our weekly tapping circle has stabilized at a core membership of about eight people who show up regularly. It's like a high powered support group because we check in, share our problems/fears, tap them out and always feel better afterwards, sometimes stunningly so.
For the first couple of months, after each tapping circle someone would turn to me and thank me for starting the group. I would always feel a little surprised because all I did was pay the 45 bucks to the Meetup website to start the webpage. The people who showed up actually made the group happen. But I never felt so grateful to myself for paying that initial $45 as I am right now. This was my crisis week and the hole I was in felt deep and inexplicable, but the tapping circle pulled me out. I owe a deep thanks to yesterday's fellow tappers and to MYSELF for setting up this incredible support system that caught me, held me and set me gently back on my feet, the gloom wiped away. I still don't know exactly how the hell EFT can do that, but I'm so glad it can!
The good news is that my frozen anger/clot of depression finally broke! You know what it took? It took my tapping circle, which was the only reason I left home yesterday. Emotional Freedom Technique tapping is a powerful way to release stuck emotions (and food cravings and other physical/emotional pain), but doing it alone hadn't helped this past week. Or maybe it had, but not enough to break my bleak mood. I had tapped for days and felt extremely frustrated.
But my EFT Tapping Circle Meetup was yesterday and five of us tapped on my problem and we finally shifted it! Our weekly meetings last 90 minutes and in that time we go around the circle, share our problems and tap on whatever challenges we're facing that week. By the end I felt 100% better and didn't want to leave. I felt afraid my gloom would descend once I was alone again, but it didn't! I still feel fine and it's amazing. It's like having a rock lifted from my chest and being able to suddenly breathe again. It feels so good it's almost miraculous.
It is SUCH a relief. I was feeling desperate and was beginning to wonder if I'd have to drop a wad of money on some individual therapy with a professional. I began the Chicago EFT Tapping Circle Meetup last summer. I'd been using EFT on my own and with a practitioner for two years and had gotten excellent results, but I read an article that said the power of a tapping circle was greater than doing it alone, and I figured it would be cheaper than one-on-one time with professionals (definitely true).
I threw together a website on Meetup.com last July and waited to see if anyone would respond. They did. At our first meeting on August 11, 2012 ten people showed up! I was surprised and encouraged. Since then our weekly tapping circle has stabilized at a core membership of about eight people who show up regularly. It's like a high powered support group because we check in, share our problems/fears, tap them out and always feel better afterwards, sometimes stunningly so.
For the first couple of months, after each tapping circle someone would turn to me and thank me for starting the group. I would always feel a little surprised because all I did was pay the 45 bucks to the Meetup website to start the webpage. The people who showed up actually made the group happen. But I never felt so grateful to myself for paying that initial $45 as I am right now. This was my crisis week and the hole I was in felt deep and inexplicable, but the tapping circle pulled me out. I owe a deep thanks to yesterday's fellow tappers and to MYSELF for setting up this incredible support system that caught me, held me and set me gently back on my feet, the gloom wiped away. I still don't know exactly how the hell EFT can do that, but I'm so glad it can!
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Depression, Part 6,000
It takes me down. It takes me right down and I have no idea what the trigger was. What's the reason for this bleak mood? Maybe there isn't any. I've fallen and I can't get up. Even sugar won't be my friend these days. It's stopped helping, leaving me locked in an ice-grip of anger and self-disgust. Why doesn't it lift? Why doesn't it lift? Emotional Freedom Technique, yoga, meditation, affirmations, writing, talking. None of it has made a difference. Or has it? Would I be even worse without those things?
Depression makes me unpleasant. I wish I could just pull the covers over my head so I don't bother anyone until this lifts. Why doesn't it lift? This was the weekend my dad was supposed to come visit, but then he had to change his plans. Is that part of it?
I feel hungry right now, but I don't feel like eating. I can't think of anything I feel like eating right now. Nothing appeals to me. If I didn't have my EFT tapping circle at 11 AM, it's possible that I wouldn't leave the apartment today. Being depressed while married is even worse than being depressed single.
I hate this. It's been days. Days of tapping and Bach flower remedies and homeopathy and meditation and of course my fluoxetine. It's not like I'm off my meds. I hate that depressive episodes can descend even when I'm on everything I'm supposed to be on.
I'm a depressed blob right now. So be it.
Depression makes me unpleasant. I wish I could just pull the covers over my head so I don't bother anyone until this lifts. Why doesn't it lift? This was the weekend my dad was supposed to come visit, but then he had to change his plans. Is that part of it?
I feel hungry right now, but I don't feel like eating. I can't think of anything I feel like eating right now. Nothing appeals to me. If I didn't have my EFT tapping circle at 11 AM, it's possible that I wouldn't leave the apartment today. Being depressed while married is even worse than being depressed single.
I hate this. It's been days. Days of tapping and Bach flower remedies and homeopathy and meditation and of course my fluoxetine. It's not like I'm off my meds. I hate that depressive episodes can descend even when I'm on everything I'm supposed to be on.
I'm a depressed blob right now. So be it.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Loosening the grip of food over me
I'm still struggling to accept my new body, the one I've grown into since I stopped my lifelong punishment of starving and binge-ing. After years of forcing myself to stay a size 8:
I've decided to let my body be whatever shape it naturally wants to be. It's possible that my body naturally wants to be a size 8 (but not likely), but I won't know that until I stop crazy-exercising and trying to force it to be hungry or not be hungry as I think my body should be at any given moment.
Since October 2012, after reading a few of Geneen Roth's seminal books, I've let myself eat whatever I want. At first that was a lot of donuts and cake and ice cream, but over the past six and a half months, my appetite has changed. Letting myself have everything I'd been depriving myself of, eventually took the edge off of my cravings. My I-can-have-it-all freefall has slowed and now I eat a much more typical amount of sweets.
Still, months of eating all the things I'd been dreaming of have had their effect (yes, I actually dream about sweets):
According to weight experts such as Geneen Roth, as you work your way through all the foods you've been depriving yourself of, you gain weight, but you also start to emotionally heal your old patterns of eating. Once the novelty of eating everything in the world wears off, you gravitate towards treating yourself well: no starving and no binge-ing, just eating good food when you're actually hungry. Roth says that at that point, you lose weight and your body stabilizes at the size it naturally belongs.
According to others, once you put on the weight it stays on, but the process of letting go of old starving and binge-ing habits still heals your old food issues, so that you still end up happier and healthier: no starving or binge-ing, but from now on eating good food when you're actually hungry. You might not be thin, but you accept and love yourself completely, feeling comfortable in your body, possibly for the first time in your life.
(Please see Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere and When Food Is Love.)
Both theories predict self-acceptance and stopping your use of food as a replacement for other things in your life and that's what I'm going for. The question is: will I eventually lose some of this weight as my eating habits normalize or will it stay? Sadly, wondering this means I haven't truly accepted my body as it is right now, which in addition to healing my food addiction, is the point of all this. I really want to accept my body as it is, but that's goddamn fucking hard to do in a society that teaches girls that we aren't all right just as we are, and then compounds that message with decades of humiliating body expectations. Fuck.
So I breathe and I tap (EFT). Some days I accept my body as it is and feel content. Other days I feel fat and ugly and I know my self-hatred has kicked in. I know the problem isn't really my body because I used to feel fat and ugly when I was a size 8, too. I used to hate my body when I weighed 125 pounds. I used to starve myself and drive myself through grueling workouts because I didn't like my body even when I looked like the first picture above. Yes, it was crazy, but it's not over because I still go in and out of hating what I look like, although it's getting better. The self-loathing times are getting fewer and not lasting as long as they used to.
I've been working on self-esteem and not misusing food for decades with therapy, self-hypnosis, neurolinguistic programming, meditation, acupuncture, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and lots of will power. At this point I've added one more thing to my process: guided meditation by Paul McKenna. Disappointingly, McKenna's sales pitch is about making people thin, which is a toxic concept, but his focus is on the way you experience food. The guided meditation I listen to every night as I fall asleep stresses eating slowly, enjoying every bite, stopping when full and being aware of what my stomach wants and doesn't want. The emphasis is on treating food as physical nourishment, not a replacement for love, excitement, celebration or anything else.
(The importance of listening as I fall asleep is that such deep meditation provides direct access to the unconscious mind where we can learn new things, instill new beliefs and change our behavior. With recordings, we can work on new behaviors every time we go to bed. I've wasted so much time!)
Since I started listening to this meditation two weeks ago, my awareness of when I'm hungry and when I'm full has hugely increased. It's as if I've spent my whole life with the nerve endings to my stomach disconnected, stuffing myself without caring how my stomach felt. Now the connections are functioning again and when there's a cake in front of me I can actually hear my stomach say, "No, thanks. Not hungry and if I eat that, I'll feel sick." It feels like the first time I've let my stomach give input into what I eat without my brain overriding with, "I don't care if the stomach isn't hungry. I need this emotional pick-me-up / energy boost / compensation for my crappy day." I still have those overriding brain moments, but a lot of the time I'm now putting food in my mouth at the direction of my physical hunger, not my emotions.
Yesterday I celebrated two friends' birthdays. My homemade cake lingered afterwards, but through two meals I just let it sit there as I ate the food I really wanted. I sat at our dining table with a hunk of frosted cake as I ate last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast without having a bite of the cake! I've never done that in my life.
I have hope that I'm getting closer to giving my body what it truly wants and letting it relax into the state it belongs in. I have hope that I can stop hating myself, or at least contain those feelings to a small part of my attention. Through this past November, December and January I steadily grew from a size 10 to a size 16. I've stayed at that size 16 (163 pounds) for three months now (I'm 5'1"). The spreading has stopped. I'll see what comes next.
 |
| FIVE YEARS AGO (July 2008) |
I've decided to let my body be whatever shape it naturally wants to be. It's possible that my body naturally wants to be a size 8 (but not likely), but I won't know that until I stop crazy-exercising and trying to force it to be hungry or not be hungry as I think my body should be at any given moment.
Since October 2012, after reading a few of Geneen Roth's seminal books, I've let myself eat whatever I want. At first that was a lot of donuts and cake and ice cream, but over the past six and a half months, my appetite has changed. Letting myself have everything I'd been depriving myself of, eventually took the edge off of my cravings. My I-can-have-it-all freefall has slowed and now I eat a much more typical amount of sweets.
Still, months of eating all the things I'd been dreaming of have had their effect (yes, I actually dream about sweets):
 |
| FOUR WEEKS AGO (March 2013) |
According to others, once you put on the weight it stays on, but the process of letting go of old starving and binge-ing habits still heals your old food issues, so that you still end up happier and healthier: no starving or binge-ing, but from now on eating good food when you're actually hungry. You might not be thin, but you accept and love yourself completely, feeling comfortable in your body, possibly for the first time in your life.
(Please see Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere and When Food Is Love.)
Both theories predict self-acceptance and stopping your use of food as a replacement for other things in your life and that's what I'm going for. The question is: will I eventually lose some of this weight as my eating habits normalize or will it stay? Sadly, wondering this means I haven't truly accepted my body as it is right now, which in addition to healing my food addiction, is the point of all this. I really want to accept my body as it is, but that's goddamn fucking hard to do in a society that teaches girls that we aren't all right just as we are, and then compounds that message with decades of humiliating body expectations. Fuck.
So I breathe and I tap (EFT). Some days I accept my body as it is and feel content. Other days I feel fat and ugly and I know my self-hatred has kicked in. I know the problem isn't really my body because I used to feel fat and ugly when I was a size 8, too. I used to hate my body when I weighed 125 pounds. I used to starve myself and drive myself through grueling workouts because I didn't like my body even when I looked like the first picture above. Yes, it was crazy, but it's not over because I still go in and out of hating what I look like, although it's getting better. The self-loathing times are getting fewer and not lasting as long as they used to.
I've been working on self-esteem and not misusing food for decades with therapy, self-hypnosis, neurolinguistic programming, meditation, acupuncture, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and lots of will power. At this point I've added one more thing to my process: guided meditation by Paul McKenna. Disappointingly, McKenna's sales pitch is about making people thin, which is a toxic concept, but his focus is on the way you experience food. The guided meditation I listen to every night as I fall asleep stresses eating slowly, enjoying every bite, stopping when full and being aware of what my stomach wants and doesn't want. The emphasis is on treating food as physical nourishment, not a replacement for love, excitement, celebration or anything else.
(The importance of listening as I fall asleep is that such deep meditation provides direct access to the unconscious mind where we can learn new things, instill new beliefs and change our behavior. With recordings, we can work on new behaviors every time we go to bed. I've wasted so much time!)
Since I started listening to this meditation two weeks ago, my awareness of when I'm hungry and when I'm full has hugely increased. It's as if I've spent my whole life with the nerve endings to my stomach disconnected, stuffing myself without caring how my stomach felt. Now the connections are functioning again and when there's a cake in front of me I can actually hear my stomach say, "No, thanks. Not hungry and if I eat that, I'll feel sick." It feels like the first time I've let my stomach give input into what I eat without my brain overriding with, "I don't care if the stomach isn't hungry. I need this emotional pick-me-up / energy boost / compensation for my crappy day." I still have those overriding brain moments, but a lot of the time I'm now putting food in my mouth at the direction of my physical hunger, not my emotions.
Yesterday I celebrated two friends' birthdays. My homemade cake lingered afterwards, but through two meals I just let it sit there as I ate the food I really wanted. I sat at our dining table with a hunk of frosted cake as I ate last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast without having a bite of the cake! I've never done that in my life.
 |
| Sandwich I ate while the cake sat near me ignored! |
I have hope that I'm getting closer to giving my body what it truly wants and letting it relax into the state it belongs in. I have hope that I can stop hating myself, or at least contain those feelings to a small part of my attention. Through this past November, December and January I steadily grew from a size 10 to a size 16. I've stayed at that size 16 (163 pounds) for three months now (I'm 5'1"). The spreading has stopped. I'll see what comes next.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Who would mourn the human race?
 |
| Original photo by Bob Martin, altered by me. |
But now that I'm a dog owner, it's clear to me that one species -- and undoubtedly only one -- would be in worse shape without us. So tonight I leaned over Ozzie and said, "On behalf of all the other humans, thank you for being the only species who would miss us if the human race died out."
Friday, April 12, 2013
Used to be "American Association of Retired Persons"
A friend described looking at this photo as feeling like "a kick in the stomach!"
How about it Gen X? Is this disturbing or what?
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Appropriate / inappropriate pain
I envy those whose pain is socially appropriate. If someone's walking into walls, red-eyed and unable to concentrate, we excuse that if we know her dad just died or she's going through a divorce. We also give people some slack if we know they're having a bad day with their migraines or sciatica or arthritis.
But people with mental disorders often don't get that kind of sympathy. Our pain isn't as socially acceptable. People think we have control over our emotions, so our families lose patience with us when we're having an episode. Non-mentally ill friends don't understand our symptoms which look like they have no "cause." They think we should just get a hold of ourselves. Taking a sick day for depression or anxiety looks like calling in when you're not "really sick."
I'm envious of everyone whose pain can be painted in primary colors that are easy to understand. Cancer, surgery, a sick spouse -- it's not that I want those things, but it feels unfair that people with those problems get cards and cakes and days off, while people whose crises take place in psychiatric wards and therapists' offices just get silence.
But people with mental disorders often don't get that kind of sympathy. Our pain isn't as socially acceptable. People think we have control over our emotions, so our families lose patience with us when we're having an episode. Non-mentally ill friends don't understand our symptoms which look like they have no "cause." They think we should just get a hold of ourselves. Taking a sick day for depression or anxiety looks like calling in when you're not "really sick."
I'm envious of everyone whose pain can be painted in primary colors that are easy to understand. Cancer, surgery, a sick spouse -- it's not that I want those things, but it feels unfair that people with those problems get cards and cakes and days off, while people whose crises take place in psychiatric wards and therapists' offices just get silence.
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| Depression, June 2011 Photo by me. |
Sunday, April 07, 2013
I'm a failure - y que?
Failure gets such bad press, but it really doesn't deserve it. Who cares if you fail? It doesn't mean your life is over (unless your failure causes your death, which I guess happens). I'm a big failure and I'll tell you all about it.
My first failure was leaving Cornell University in 1993 without finishing the PhD program in English literature. Instead, I fled with a masters degree and moved to Chicago, Illinois, USA. There I began my second big failure as a musician. I spent fifteen years taking voice, music theory, guitar and electric bass lessons and practicing, practicing, practicing. I was determined to make my musical mark on the world and I guess I did. It just turned out to be miniscule.
Although I performed a lot of others' music, in choirs and solo, my main focus was writing my own songs and I wasn't too bad at it. My specialty was a sort of acoustic folk with jazz, pop, country and Latin influences. My singing voice covered three octaves and my songs expressed the optimism and trust in life that I didn't feel at all. A chronic depressive who constantly struggled with her emotions, I wrote and performed songs with the comforting, soothing messages I needed to hear. My fans -- and I did have them -- particularly liked "The Penguin Song," "Not So Bad," "Happy Are We," and "I Like Life." I played electric bass and hired a guitarist and a conguero to accompany me. By a stroke of luck, I met jazz guitarist Neal Alger through a friend in 1999 and he worked with me on my music for years. He brought a lot of creativity and great ideas to my songs and was fun to work with (his website is here and he is great).
In my loneliness and depression, I craved singing. I sang all the time, to the radio, to my bass, to my guitar or to nothing at all. I'd spread myself out on the hardwood floor of my one-bedroom apartment with staff paper and pencil to create charts for my songs. I'd run melodies over and over, plucking at the heavy resonant strings of my bass to find the right harmonies and rhythms. The electric Fender Rhodes piano I kept in the corner did little but help me tune my other instruments since I never really learned how to play it. In truth, I never learned how to play any external instrument very well. I was a singer.
I wrote songs whenever I felt inspired and whenever I needed to drain off some of the emotion that overwhelmed me. On no particular schedule, I poured myself into my music because I needed to make my voice heard, needed others to hear my stories and craved attention. Chronic depression drove me through those 15 years of focusing on music, and I took my musicianship very seriously. I became rabid whenever anyone suggested singers weren't musicians, or if someone assumed our technical and theory skills were always worse than those of instrumentalists. I hated singer jokes (How do you know when there's a singer at your door? She doesn't know when to come in).
My singer stridency poorly masked my deep insecurities. I desperately wanted people to like and respect me. I needed applause and compliments. My favorite place to be was onstage with a bar full of patrons, listening to ME. I enjoyed the patter between songs as much as the singing because what I really needed was connection and understanding, and performing made me feel like I was getting that.
My wonderful friends faithfully attended my gigs and I even picked up a few followers. People would tell me that my music made them happy and no wonder: I wrote the chirpiest songs and felt happy while singing them for others. Often my only peaceful times were while I was onstage making music with Neal and Jean and telling my stories. I loved the spotlight, but the gloominess overtook me almost immediately afterwards. Some of my most productive years corresponded with my bleakest depression.
Then in 2006 I fell in love with a guy named Bob Martin (now my husband). My need to sing began to wane. I spent 2007 trying to market my music to people looking for songs (record companies, commercial directors, film producers), but no one was interested probably because my lyrics were too obscure and my singing unimpressive.
By 2008 my desire to pick up my bass had pretty much disappeared. I no longer got those urges to write melodies and lyrics. My piano gathered more dust than ever and I stopped singing around the house. The worst of the fear and self-loathing that had driven my music seemed to have dissolved.
There's a cliché that artists must be in pain in order to create. I can't argue it because I sing when I'm sad, not when I'm happy. Once my need for connection and love was appeased by acquiring a husband, I simply stopped needing the music and my "career" as a singer/songwriter ended. I never became well known, I made no money, no one wanted the rights to any of my songs and I produced all of one CD that I never finished packaging. Oh, one more detail: I wasn't the best singer. When I listen to recordings of myself I'm amazed that anyone let me get away with all those sharp and flat notes. I just never truly relaxed in front of the microphone, probably because I was so desperate for everyone to love me.
A failure as a musician, I returned to focusing on the activity that had sustained me since I was ten years old: writing. Writing is truly my element and my lyrics were always stronger than my singing voice. Did I feel bad about my failure to break into the Chicago indie music scene? No. By the time I realized that I hadn't felt like practicing in months, the dream was dead. I felt no regret because by then I knew it was more important to do what felt good than to worry about how I appeared.
A few weeks ago, friends were discussing public speaking. They were saying that even professionals who have faced hundreds of audiences still get nervous before starting. I supported this opinion with my experience as a singer: even though I loved doing it, there was always some anxiety before a show.
"You were a musician?" someone asked as all eyes turned to me.
"Yeah, I wrote songs and performed and recorded them. I don't do it anymore."
"Really? You have recordings?"It was that familiar expression of someone being impressed by a part of my life that's actually already over.
"Yeah. I sang and played electric bass and performed with a guitarist and a conga player." I wasn't interested in going into more detail.
"Do you ever think about doing it again?"
"No," I said definitively.
I didn't feel embarrassed about my amateur career that existed in obscurity. It happened, and then I moved on. If pressed, I'd provide a copy of my last (and only) CD if they wanted, but no one asked, which is just as well. The last friend to whom I gave a copy of my CD either lost it or said she did because she didn't want to comment on my singing.
One thing that strikes me is that I was way cooler when I was the most miserable and depressed. In the late 1990s and early aught's, I prowled the streets with a 1972 Fender Mustang electric bass strapped to my back, heading to and from open mic's at all hours. Bar regulars became familiar with me as the chick bass player, and once someone even recognized me as such while I was riding the bus. I wore black shoes, a too-big bomber jacket with a fur collar and strutted as if I couldn't possibly be harassed on the street (I wasn't).
So I'm a lifetime failure and that's fine with me. God knows life isn't for riding out success after success, endlessly triumphing until we die. We're all failures and that's good or we'd never learn anything. I'll never be as hip as I was back then, but so be it. If suffering accompanies coolness then I'm perfectly content to be a dorky, pudgy, middle-aged woman who stays home reading and writing every night. That's failure I can happily live with.
My first failure was leaving Cornell University in 1993 without finishing the PhD program in English literature. Instead, I fled with a masters degree and moved to Chicago, Illinois, USA. There I began my second big failure as a musician. I spent fifteen years taking voice, music theory, guitar and electric bass lessons and practicing, practicing, practicing. I was determined to make my musical mark on the world and I guess I did. It just turned out to be miniscule.
Although I performed a lot of others' music, in choirs and solo, my main focus was writing my own songs and I wasn't too bad at it. My specialty was a sort of acoustic folk with jazz, pop, country and Latin influences. My singing voice covered three octaves and my songs expressed the optimism and trust in life that I didn't feel at all. A chronic depressive who constantly struggled with her emotions, I wrote and performed songs with the comforting, soothing messages I needed to hear. My fans -- and I did have them -- particularly liked "The Penguin Song," "Not So Bad," "Happy Are We," and "I Like Life." I played electric bass and hired a guitarist and a conguero to accompany me. By a stroke of luck, I met jazz guitarist Neal Alger through a friend in 1999 and he worked with me on my music for years. He brought a lot of creativity and great ideas to my songs and was fun to work with (his website is here and he is great).
In my loneliness and depression, I craved singing. I sang all the time, to the radio, to my bass, to my guitar or to nothing at all. I'd spread myself out on the hardwood floor of my one-bedroom apartment with staff paper and pencil to create charts for my songs. I'd run melodies over and over, plucking at the heavy resonant strings of my bass to find the right harmonies and rhythms. The electric Fender Rhodes piano I kept in the corner did little but help me tune my other instruments since I never really learned how to play it. In truth, I never learned how to play any external instrument very well. I was a singer.
I wrote songs whenever I felt inspired and whenever I needed to drain off some of the emotion that overwhelmed me. On no particular schedule, I poured myself into my music because I needed to make my voice heard, needed others to hear my stories and craved attention. Chronic depression drove me through those 15 years of focusing on music, and I took my musicianship very seriously. I became rabid whenever anyone suggested singers weren't musicians, or if someone assumed our technical and theory skills were always worse than those of instrumentalists. I hated singer jokes (How do you know when there's a singer at your door? She doesn't know when to come in).
My singer stridency poorly masked my deep insecurities. I desperately wanted people to like and respect me. I needed applause and compliments. My favorite place to be was onstage with a bar full of patrons, listening to ME. I enjoyed the patter between songs as much as the singing because what I really needed was connection and understanding, and performing made me feel like I was getting that.
My wonderful friends faithfully attended my gigs and I even picked up a few followers. People would tell me that my music made them happy and no wonder: I wrote the chirpiest songs and felt happy while singing them for others. Often my only peaceful times were while I was onstage making music with Neal and Jean and telling my stories. I loved the spotlight, but the gloominess overtook me almost immediately afterwards. Some of my most productive years corresponded with my bleakest depression.
Then in 2006 I fell in love with a guy named Bob Martin (now my husband). My need to sing began to wane. I spent 2007 trying to market my music to people looking for songs (record companies, commercial directors, film producers), but no one was interested probably because my lyrics were too obscure and my singing unimpressive.
By 2008 my desire to pick up my bass had pretty much disappeared. I no longer got those urges to write melodies and lyrics. My piano gathered more dust than ever and I stopped singing around the house. The worst of the fear and self-loathing that had driven my music seemed to have dissolved.
There's a cliché that artists must be in pain in order to create. I can't argue it because I sing when I'm sad, not when I'm happy. Once my need for connection and love was appeased by acquiring a husband, I simply stopped needing the music and my "career" as a singer/songwriter ended. I never became well known, I made no money, no one wanted the rights to any of my songs and I produced all of one CD that I never finished packaging. Oh, one more detail: I wasn't the best singer. When I listen to recordings of myself I'm amazed that anyone let me get away with all those sharp and flat notes. I just never truly relaxed in front of the microphone, probably because I was so desperate for everyone to love me.
A failure as a musician, I returned to focusing on the activity that had sustained me since I was ten years old: writing. Writing is truly my element and my lyrics were always stronger than my singing voice. Did I feel bad about my failure to break into the Chicago indie music scene? No. By the time I realized that I hadn't felt like practicing in months, the dream was dead. I felt no regret because by then I knew it was more important to do what felt good than to worry about how I appeared.
A few weeks ago, friends were discussing public speaking. They were saying that even professionals who have faced hundreds of audiences still get nervous before starting. I supported this opinion with my experience as a singer: even though I loved doing it, there was always some anxiety before a show.
"You were a musician?" someone asked as all eyes turned to me.
"Yeah, I wrote songs and performed and recorded them. I don't do it anymore."
"Really? You have recordings?"It was that familiar expression of someone being impressed by a part of my life that's actually already over.
"Yeah. I sang and played electric bass and performed with a guitarist and a conga player." I wasn't interested in going into more detail.
"Do you ever think about doing it again?"
"No," I said definitively.
I didn't feel embarrassed about my amateur career that existed in obscurity. It happened, and then I moved on. If pressed, I'd provide a copy of my last (and only) CD if they wanted, but no one asked, which is just as well. The last friend to whom I gave a copy of my CD either lost it or said she did because she didn't want to comment on my singing.
One thing that strikes me is that I was way cooler when I was the most miserable and depressed. In the late 1990s and early aught's, I prowled the streets with a 1972 Fender Mustang electric bass strapped to my back, heading to and from open mic's at all hours. Bar regulars became familiar with me as the chick bass player, and once someone even recognized me as such while I was riding the bus. I wore black shoes, a too-big bomber jacket with a fur collar and strutted as if I couldn't possibly be harassed on the street (I wasn't).
So I'm a lifetime failure and that's fine with me. God knows life isn't for riding out success after success, endlessly triumphing until we die. We're all failures and that's good or we'd never learn anything. I'll never be as hip as I was back then, but so be it. If suffering accompanies coolness then I'm perfectly content to be a dorky, pudgy, middle-aged woman who stays home reading and writing every night. That's failure I can happily live with.
 | ||
| Regina Rodriguez in 2001: beautiful and an emotional wreck. Photo by Bruce Lorie. |
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Top Regrets of the Dying
The AARP newsletters sometimes have very intriguing articles and right now I'm focused on Bronnie Ware's Top Regrets of the Dying, first posted in February 2012. Ware worked in palliative care and saw many people live their final weeks. From these personal interactions and talking to many people as they faced their end, she created this list. It's not everything that came up, but these were the top five. Ware gives meaningful explanations for each, so please click on the links to see details.
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
It's hard to take risks when we think we have the rest of our lives to live with the consequences, but Ware's article shows that what's most important at the moment of our death isn't what others thought of us or how much money we made, but our personal relationships and the dreams we either did or didn't reach for.
What I like best about this list is its focus on being yourself, expressing your feelings and not letting others' expectations get in your way. I'm proud to live that way, unafraid of making enemies or coming off as a weirdo. I'm uncommonly honest and take risks to speak up for what I think is important. I let people know how I feel about them, whether I like or dislike them. No one has to wonder where she/he stands with me.
But I'm surrounded by people who made safe choices, who started out their lives going in one direction and then took compromising turns because of what others wanted. I've listened to them talk about the day when they'll start living the life they meant to lead, just as soon as A, B and C happen. They assume they have decades to redo their lives and enjoy the choices they wish they'd made the first time.
Maybe they have the time to do it all over again. Maybe they don't. I've carefully avoided the paths I didn't really want to take. In case I die tomorrow, I want to leave behind memories of Regina Rodríguez-Martin that really represent me. I intend to be remembered for working hard on my personal relationships, painstakingly nurturing friendships, telling the world exactly what I thought and taking risks to express the truth I believed needed to be spoken. I intend to be remembered for going after my dreams and not being afraid to let them go if they were no longer what I really wanted.
The one item on Ware's Top Regrets of the Dying that deserves more of my attention is the last one. I could do a better job of allowing myself to be happier. I've been afraid of so many things for so long, but in my late 40's I'm finally emerging from my shadowy crouch. It's time for me to take my new positive view of life as far as I can. So my new goal is that if I die tomorrow, I want to know I spent today allowing myself to be as happy as possible.
It Is Lifted!
Easter Sunday usually depresses me, but last year, for the first time in my life, it didn't. Why? Our dog Ozzie seemed to make the difference. Between doing some volunteer work and taking care of our new dog, I made it to the end of Easter 2012 with no feelings of dread or sadness. At the end of the evening I was startled to tell the dog that it was the first Easter I could remember, all the way back to childhood, that hadn't made me feel bad.
So this year I didn't scramble to find an activity to keep me occupied on Easter Sunday or try to find a way to distract myself. In fact, I so completely didn't dread Easter 2013 that I made no plans at all. As the day got closer and closer, the old fear didn't kick in and right now I'm enjoying Easter as just another Sunday afternoon. It feels so good to have the curse taken off this holiday!
The lifting of my dislike of Easter also shocks me because I didn't even focus on it. I've spent decades emotionally healing many fears and fixations, but my problem with Easter was not one of them. Maybe I don't always have to work very hard on every single problem and neurosis. I tend to work very hard on my personal problems and it's paid off, but I'm very happy to find that some things can heal on their own, while my attention is on other issues. That must be what happened here because I can tell that even if I didn't have the company of the dog, I'd be okay on Easter. Easter is no longer scary to me.
So while others today are rejoicing "He Is Risen!" I'm rejoicing "It Is Lifted!" Hallelujah!
So this year I didn't scramble to find an activity to keep me occupied on Easter Sunday or try to find a way to distract myself. In fact, I so completely didn't dread Easter 2013 that I made no plans at all. As the day got closer and closer, the old fear didn't kick in and right now I'm enjoying Easter as just another Sunday afternoon. It feels so good to have the curse taken off this holiday!
The lifting of my dislike of Easter also shocks me because I didn't even focus on it. I've spent decades emotionally healing many fears and fixations, but my problem with Easter was not one of them. Maybe I don't always have to work very hard on every single problem and neurosis. I tend to work very hard on my personal problems and it's paid off, but I'm very happy to find that some things can heal on their own, while my attention is on other issues. That must be what happened here because I can tell that even if I didn't have the company of the dog, I'd be okay on Easter. Easter is no longer scary to me.
So while others today are rejoicing "He Is Risen!" I'm rejoicing "It Is Lifted!" Hallelujah!
Friday, March 29, 2013
Depression can look just plain mean
Lindy West's Ladies Be Moody: The Sad Sack Women of Anti-Depressant Commercials makes a few excellent points, but this is my favorite: depression does not only manifest as low-energy sadness that saps you of your will to get out of bed. That's one way it can appear, but really depression can have a wide range of symptoms.
I've let depression sneak up on me because I've fallen victim to advertisements that show a sad slumpy depressed woman (depressed men don't show up as much). Such images suggest that depression means sadly not engaging in life at all. How could I be depressed when I was showering every day, holding down a job, seeing friends on weekends and wearing clothes with color?
Some years ago my poor husband had to live for months and months with a woman who was becoming increasingly shrill and critical, started each day with loud complaints and was extremely energetic in her unhappiness. Depressed? I wasn't depressed. I was pissed!
I wanted my co-workers to stop making small talk, god dammit. I wanted assholes in the street to stop looking at me. I wanted the goddamn phone to stop ringing. I wanted all these slow walkers to get out the fuck of my way RIGHT NOW. I didn't want to have to return anyone's damn smile ever again.
Well, duh. Anger is a major symptom of depression and it can knock people down, literally and figuratively. It has been suggested that one reason so many more women are diagnosed with depression than men is that men express more rage when they're depressed and that just isn't what we expect depression to look like.
Depression strains relationships, but not just because the moody partner refuses to get dressed. There are different kinds of behaviors that make depressives hard to deal with including irritability, restlessness and lopping people's heads off. We start fights. We disappear outside of the house. We constantly criticize everything and everyone. We act like we just can't be bothered with anyone because we are way too important.
There are all kinds of ugly that can come out of depression. Don't believe those ridiculous, monochromatic commercials that show droopy eyed women staring into space and ignoring the dog. I've struggled with depression for decades and it comes in all flavors.
I've let depression sneak up on me because I've fallen victim to advertisements that show a sad slumpy depressed woman (depressed men don't show up as much). Such images suggest that depression means sadly not engaging in life at all. How could I be depressed when I was showering every day, holding down a job, seeing friends on weekends and wearing clothes with color?
Some years ago my poor husband had to live for months and months with a woman who was becoming increasingly shrill and critical, started each day with loud complaints and was extremely energetic in her unhappiness. Depressed? I wasn't depressed. I was pissed!
I wanted my co-workers to stop making small talk, god dammit. I wanted assholes in the street to stop looking at me. I wanted the goddamn phone to stop ringing. I wanted all these slow walkers to get out the fuck of my way RIGHT NOW. I didn't want to have to return anyone's damn smile ever again.
Well, duh. Anger is a major symptom of depression and it can knock people down, literally and figuratively. It has been suggested that one reason so many more women are diagnosed with depression than men is that men express more rage when they're depressed and that just isn't what we expect depression to look like.
Depression strains relationships, but not just because the moody partner refuses to get dressed. There are different kinds of behaviors that make depressives hard to deal with including irritability, restlessness and lopping people's heads off. We start fights. We disappear outside of the house. We constantly criticize everything and everyone. We act like we just can't be bothered with anyone because we are way too important.
There are all kinds of ugly that can come out of depression. Don't believe those ridiculous, monochromatic commercials that show droopy eyed women staring into space and ignoring the dog. I've struggled with depression for decades and it comes in all flavors.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Stranger Here: A memoir on weight loss surgery
The first part of Larsen's memoir shows her filled with shame about her body, barely able to make herself leave her apartment and putting up with a less-than-ideal relationship. Eating and drinking are her main coping mechanisms. The next part of the memoir shows how Larsen struggles with all that self-loathing even as she becomes a thin person. The big lesson is that becoming thin does not does not solve all your problems.
Larsen has said in interviews what she says in her book: being skinny is much easier than being fat. She expresses no regret about getting the surgery, even though her book describes a nightmare of adjustment to her new digestive system: lots of vomiting, gas, diarrhea, queasiness and even a crapping-her-pants story. But her narrative points to a better way that she could have gone. She eventually sees that she has "dishonored" the beautiful, accomplished person she was before surgery by trying to "wipe out" that person. She writes, "I wasn't brave enough to address the physical and emotional realities attached to being fat in a world that doesn't like fat people." She admits that grappling with her emotional issues before heading into surgery would have been a better way to do it.
Larsen urges others to do it differently than she did, but seems to think this was the best she could do. Part of the beauty of this book is her honesty in laying out for us her suffocatingly negative thinking, her bad decisions, the relationships she strains and the humiliating details of having a body that doesn't digest food in a normal way anymore (weight-loss surgery seems to cause permanent stomach flu symptoms). She's impressively candid about her denial of the dangers of surgery and her delusional terror of what others think of her (she has trouble being honest with even her closest friends).
In all it seems to be a pretty well-balanced statement about weight-loss surgery: Larsen describes a terrible experience, but it's her terrible experience and she takes complete responsibility for it. My interpretation of her message is that ideally we would all face our problems head-on and deal with them directly before allowing our inner organs to be permanently damaged, but if radical surgery is what you need, then radical surgery is what you need.
Maybe part of her message is also that we not criticize someone's choices as she tries to change the parts of her life that aren't working. I know I've had to reach unbearable amounts of pain (emotional and physical at different times) before finally taking steps to heal myself. Larsen's refusal to consider the long-term effects of weight-loss surgery and headlong plunge into the decision when she was at her most depressed are terrible moves in hindsight. But Larsen's story points to how society brainwashes women into thinking that causing ourselves pain and damage is worth achieving the cultural standard of beauty. Hell, we go through all kinds of pain just to achieve an ordinary appearance. Larsen makes clear that being skinny is her ideal, but just getting down to "normal fat" instead of mordibly obese would be a dream. She just doesn't want to draw attention to herself anymore.
Stranger Here is painful to read, especially if you've been where Larsen is at the beginning of the book. I'm very glad I read it because it affirmed for me that whenever I harshly judge my body, those are subjective views I learned from American culture and they are bullshit. This book reminded me of how little it matters what size I wear and how much it matters that I feel happy with my life, my choices, my own company and myself.
Autumn Whitefield-Madrano puts it well on her blog The Beheld: The mirror is a reflection of how we feel, not how we look. I've only begun to learn this lately as my self-esteem goes up at the same time that I'm gaining more weight than ever before. Startlingly, I love my body more now that I've outgrown most of my wardrobe, while for most of my life I had hated my body even though it was thin.
It truly doesn't matter what you $%^damn look like or what size you are if you just don't like yourself. Likewise, it doesn't matter what you look like if you're happy with yourself. The lesson that complete self-love is separate from physical appearance is one of the hardest lessons American girls and women have to learn. Larsen's book shows us one way not to go.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Someone asked me about being pregnant
On Friday morning a co-worker asked when I was due. Even with my prosopagnosia and a staff of over 500, I felt sure the two of us had never properly met because I pretty much have every middle-aged Latina in my workplace memorized. And I certainly didn't know this one well enough for her to be asking such a question.
I said, “What?” She asked again when I’m due to have my baby. I looked at her blankly and then said with vague hostility, "I'm not pregnant."
"Oh! I'm sorry!" The woman clearly felt terrible about her mistake. She said someone told her I was pregnant.
"Um, I'm Regina. I don't know if we've met?"
Now the stranger introduced herself. I'm not sure if Maria Julia (not her real name) was just trying to cover for her embarrassment or if someone else has really been discussing Regina Rodriguez-Martin's pregnancy, but I asked just in case, "Who told you I was pregnant?"
"Oh, I don't want to say," she demurred with a smile.
Since I had started putting on weight in October, I had kind of been waiting for this mistake, so I clarified, "I've gained 30 pounds in the last few months, but not from getting pregnant. I’m just fat." I paused while Maria Julia nodded placatingly.
"I don't even want kids," I pressed. "I'm married to a man who also doesn't want kids. I don't even like kids. And I'm 46 years old. I'd have a hard time even getting pregnant." I wanted to be sure that if there were an actual rumor, it would end here.
"Oh, that's fine." Maria Julia tried to assuage me. "You're 46? You look great!"
"Thank you," I said distractedly. I was still trying to imagine who else might think I'm pregnant. The idea was as amusing as it was irritating. Eventually I let Maria Julia lead me into other topics for our first discussion as acquaintances of five minutes. It was a weird conversation, but I guess we won't forget each other now.
Later I decided that being mistaken for being pregnant is actually fine. It would be funny for women to watch me suddenly gain 30 pounds, but never hear me announce being pregnant or see me have a baby shower. Then June would come and go and I'd never give birth. Psych! Damn baby-obsessed people.
Then I imagined having a baby shower. What the hell? I’d get my co-workers to buy me my favorite cake and an expensive gift that I can return for cash, and at the end of the party I’d go, “Punked! Ha ha! You just celebrated thirty pounds of pure fat!"
For the rest of Friday I wondered why women think pregnancies are everybody's business. Why is all this baby stuff treated like public knowledge? What if someone doesn't want to talk about her pregnancy? Why do even strangers impinge on women's privacy this way?
As I discussed this with various people, in person and online, one response I got was that if you know a woman is pregnant, it feels rude if you see her but don't mention it. Even if you don't particularly care for her or feel like talking about it, if you see someone who you know going to have a baby, there's almost a social obligation to comment on it. It's just polite. But even the women who told me this said they wouldn't inquire if someone were pregnant because the risk of offending her is too high. Being asked if you're pregnant when you're not, usually leads to a crisis of body image ("Am I that fat?").
Someone else put a positive spin on it. She emailed me that among people for whom a new baby is a wonderful thing, commenting on a pregnancy feels like joining in the celebration. Even strangers will try to connect with a woman who looks pregnant because it's a way to share joy, "doubling it." When I read this I said to myself, "Oh, yeah! Ninety-nine point nine percent of regular people think another baby in the world is a good thing. I always forget that." Seriously, I forget that. We're in the tiny minority, those of us who think life is endless pain that no woman should put another innocent human being through.
Another friend (who knows I'm against parenthood in general) chided me for feeling offended by the question at all. He saw it as an honest mistake made by someone who was trying to be nice. I don't suggest that Maria Julia wasn't trying to be nice. Everyone who makes the mistake of assuming a non-pregnant woman is pregnant is undoubtedly trying to be loving, inclusive, supportive or at least friendly. The problem is that talking to someone like that is always risky.
The most common problem is that when you ask a non-pregnant woman when she's due, she will feel fat for the rest of the day (or week or year). In the past the question has really messed with my self-confidence (yeah, it's happened a few times to me). It can be a painful question for other reasons, too. Maybe the woman recently had a miscarriage. Maybe she's having fertility problems. Maybe she would love to have a baby but has recently learned that she'll be unable to do so. Questions like that, however well-intentioned, are very personal and there's no way to know what could come up if you're guessing wrong.
Pregnancy is just too loaded a subject, people. Leave it alone. I'm amazed by how many people don't know that and who just blunder into it like Maria Julia did. Between fertility problems and body issues and motherhood pressures, people, just leave it alone. Unless the woman herself (or maybe her mother or partner) has told you that she's pregnant, don't ask when she's due.
Yes, Maria Julia was trying to be nice, but "I didn't mean it that way" is no defense for offending someone. Questions about if someone is pregnant are very personal and can be painful no matter how nicely they are asked.
I said, “What?” She asked again when I’m due to have my baby. I looked at her blankly and then said with vague hostility, "I'm not pregnant."
"Oh! I'm sorry!" The woman clearly felt terrible about her mistake. She said someone told her I was pregnant.
"Um, I'm Regina. I don't know if we've met?"
Now the stranger introduced herself. I'm not sure if Maria Julia (not her real name) was just trying to cover for her embarrassment or if someone else has really been discussing Regina Rodriguez-Martin's pregnancy, but I asked just in case, "Who told you I was pregnant?"
"Oh, I don't want to say," she demurred with a smile.
Since I had started putting on weight in October, I had kind of been waiting for this mistake, so I clarified, "I've gained 30 pounds in the last few months, but not from getting pregnant. I’m just fat." I paused while Maria Julia nodded placatingly.
"I don't even want kids," I pressed. "I'm married to a man who also doesn't want kids. I don't even like kids. And I'm 46 years old. I'd have a hard time even getting pregnant." I wanted to be sure that if there were an actual rumor, it would end here.
"Oh, that's fine." Maria Julia tried to assuage me. "You're 46? You look great!"
"Thank you," I said distractedly. I was still trying to imagine who else might think I'm pregnant. The idea was as amusing as it was irritating. Eventually I let Maria Julia lead me into other topics for our first discussion as acquaintances of five minutes. It was a weird conversation, but I guess we won't forget each other now.
Later I decided that being mistaken for being pregnant is actually fine. It would be funny for women to watch me suddenly gain 30 pounds, but never hear me announce being pregnant or see me have a baby shower. Then June would come and go and I'd never give birth. Psych! Damn baby-obsessed people.
Then I imagined having a baby shower. What the hell? I’d get my co-workers to buy me my favorite cake and an expensive gift that I can return for cash, and at the end of the party I’d go, “Punked! Ha ha! You just celebrated thirty pounds of pure fat!"
For the rest of Friday I wondered why women think pregnancies are everybody's business. Why is all this baby stuff treated like public knowledge? What if someone doesn't want to talk about her pregnancy? Why do even strangers impinge on women's privacy this way?
As I discussed this with various people, in person and online, one response I got was that if you know a woman is pregnant, it feels rude if you see her but don't mention it. Even if you don't particularly care for her or feel like talking about it, if you see someone who you know going to have a baby, there's almost a social obligation to comment on it. It's just polite. But even the women who told me this said they wouldn't inquire if someone were pregnant because the risk of offending her is too high. Being asked if you're pregnant when you're not, usually leads to a crisis of body image ("Am I that fat?").
Someone else put a positive spin on it. She emailed me that among people for whom a new baby is a wonderful thing, commenting on a pregnancy feels like joining in the celebration. Even strangers will try to connect with a woman who looks pregnant because it's a way to share joy, "doubling it." When I read this I said to myself, "Oh, yeah! Ninety-nine point nine percent of regular people think another baby in the world is a good thing. I always forget that." Seriously, I forget that. We're in the tiny minority, those of us who think life is endless pain that no woman should put another innocent human being through.
Another friend (who knows I'm against parenthood in general) chided me for feeling offended by the question at all. He saw it as an honest mistake made by someone who was trying to be nice. I don't suggest that Maria Julia wasn't trying to be nice. Everyone who makes the mistake of assuming a non-pregnant woman is pregnant is undoubtedly trying to be loving, inclusive, supportive or at least friendly. The problem is that talking to someone like that is always risky.
The most common problem is that when you ask a non-pregnant woman when she's due, she will feel fat for the rest of the day (or week or year). In the past the question has really messed with my self-confidence (yeah, it's happened a few times to me). It can be a painful question for other reasons, too. Maybe the woman recently had a miscarriage. Maybe she's having fertility problems. Maybe she would love to have a baby but has recently learned that she'll be unable to do so. Questions like that, however well-intentioned, are very personal and there's no way to know what could come up if you're guessing wrong.
 |
| Me, not pregnant. |
Yes, Maria Julia was trying to be nice, but "I didn't mean it that way" is no defense for offending someone. Questions about if someone is pregnant are very personal and can be painful no matter how nicely they are asked.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
EFT for pet problem behaviors
My Fellow Dog Owners (or "Doggie Moms" if you prefer, whatever) -
Here's an impressive way to connect with your dog, whether or not you have actual issues with him/her. Emotional Freedom Technique uses the meridians and energy points of Chinese medicine to release blocked emotions that can cause physical pain, cravings, fixations and stuck emotions like grief, fear, anger and sadness.
EFT has changed my life since I started practicing it and it's available to help animals, too. Lili Betancourt attends my weekly EFT group and she's amazing. I've had private sessions with her that helped me tremendously. If I were to recommend an EFT/hypnotherapy practitioner, I coudn't do better than her.
Check it out.
Class in Emotional Freedom Technique for Animals
3358 N. Pulaski, Chicago, IL USA
Wednesday, 27 March
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
$20 per person/$35 per couple
Do NOT bring your animal. Call 773-736-3641 to reserve your space.
Whether you work or live with animals, this class will show you how to relieve stress and address problem behaviors in your animal. And it can be ANY animal,
not just dogs.
EFT involves gently tapping on acupressure points to balance the body's energy field. The idea is that all problems start on the emotional plane and can be healed there.
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