I am Ashamed

And I tell her, this tiny force of nature who I could once fit in the palm of my hand

To be quiet

To calm down

She isn’t being nice.

It’s like autopilot for the emotionally impaired

When faced with total unconstrained thought and deed in the form of an angel

Who is red faced and screaming exactly what she feels

Her freedom hurts my ears and burns my skin

And peels me raw to my core until I am a bare boned bundle of nerves

I want to shake her

I want to cry

I want to silence her the way I was silenced

And so I tell her she isn’t being nice.

Because beautiful little girls need to be nice

They need to make the world candy sweet with their frozen ice cream smiles

They need to hide the pain in their little Hello Kitty handbag

They need to swallow their feelings down like lemonade

Until it becomes a sickness that can’t be cured

Or purged in a private bathroom stall

I tell her if she can’t be nice to say nothing at all.

And that’s what I told her, this tiny force of nature

who once fit in the palm of my hand

instead of leading by example

or trying to be an educated adult

I tell her to be nice.

 

And I am ashamed.

In Which I Hate Everyone (Except for You, of Course)

Woke up yesterday in a lot of pain and found out my GP was on sabbatical so I had to see an ‘associate’ or nothing….against my better judgement I did.

She spent most of the appointment telling me I was a doctor shopping junkie, then wrote me a prescription for 3 months worth of muscle relaxants instead of pain killers (I’m interested why my doctors seem to think benzos have some kind of non addictive magic in them that makes them superior to  opiates for pain control). She also told me that I was too fat (the day I started my period and Medifast, so I was jacked up on hormones and eating about a quarter of the calories I normally do so I would have happily pulled her arm off and beat her with it if I was inclined to violence) and that I needed to get more sleep. She kept asking the same questions, was incredibly condescending when I got frustrated, and then said the ER (which I have gone to frequently because I call my GP for an appointment and the nurse says ‘If you’re in pain, you should be in the ER) was going to stop treating me because I was scamming for drugs.

…..Then she told me if I wanted to switch GPs, she’d be happy to take me on as a patient.

………

I’m guessing she didn’t want to give me painkillers because she already took them….if she really thought I’d want to see her regularly after that visit she must have been HIGH AS BALLS on something.

 

((PS The irony of it all? I get to my pharmacy and it turns out she forgot to send the prescription to the pharmacy and had gone home already))

And I sat in the pharmacy and openly sobbed, not caring who I made uncomfortable….it got me thinking….

Was I this miserable and negative a human being before my health seriously went to hell 5 years ago? Is that why I’ve retreated into myself, have no friends, can’t keep any kind of relationship if it’s not with a desperate masturbator over the phone with a working credit card?

 

In Which I Try, Try Again

A great philosopher once said ‘The first thing you lose on a diet? Brain matter.’

Truer words, my friends, truer words.

It seems like in those first few days/weeks, you are reduced to a base life form. You become all instinct, your higher functions of logic and reasoning only to be used in extreme situations, as accessing those parts of your brain will likely burn up the scant amount of calories you have in store which you need to put one foot in front of the other.

Nonetheless….

As another great philosopher once said: “Here I go again on my own….”

Medifast this time. Mostly due to the fact that I will most likely be getting bariatric surgery (I love the fact that autocorrect always tries to change ‘bariatric’ into ‘barbaric,’ but I digress) and one of my bosses just had WLS and said Medifast was very similar to the way she was eating post surgery.

So, what the hell? Diving in.

If nothing else, I’ll get some practice.

Ohhh, and I had the brilliant idea to do yoga this morning when I couldn’t sleep….I’m now the proud owner of a very, very, VERY unhappy sciatic nerve in my right leg.

Fuckity fuck fuck.

In Which I Slouch Towards Bethlehem

I come back to you, tail between my legs….

The first few days of blogging, I felt refreshed, renewed….it was a tremendous boost to be able to express myself. MYself. Not one of the millions of aliases I portray to the needy masses, cocks and credit cards at the ready. I didn’t have to be anyone else….and it felt good.

…So, of course, I stopped doing it….

If consistency were a strong suit, I certainly would not have the myriad of health, emotional and financial problems that have dogged me…some of my doing…most of my doing really, but this is not about blame…just explanation.

And in the spirit of total disclosure, I’m going to say something radical….

Being sick, whether it is body or mind, SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.

I know, I know, wild concept, right?

UltraSimple Journal: Day 1 (Morning)

What can I do to truly take care of my body today?

Follow the program I spent so much time crafting with my schedule. Staying relaxed in the face of physical and/or mental discomfort. Not letting interruptions be an excuse to derail my progress….not letting anything be an excuse to derail my progress, really. Staying present and actively participating in each moment.

What can I do to truly take care of my spirit today?

Be gentle with myself, recognize the good things I have done, no matter how small. Be mindful of negative self talk and try to find positive counterstatements for any self criticism instead of spiraling into a depression. Also, taking as much care of my body as possible will help to care for my spirit, as my physical comfort is extremely linked to my mental/spiritual comfort.

What toxic food/behavior/idea can I do without today?

I had an extremely vivid dream about D, so I suppose eschewing the toxic memory of D is not going to work today. I think the idea that I am a quitter, a loser with no self control and broken beyond all repair I can do without today. Today is the day I need to be focused on the fact that I am helping to reset my body for optimum health, and from there I can make better decisions and move into a brighter future. Today the toxic idea that I am a failure and a loser is something I can not only do without, but NEED to get rid of to support and love myself.

How do I feel today, physically?

I feel pretty good, actually….a little shaky, a little weak. My gut feels enormous and wobbly….I’m extremely conscious of the physical space I inhabit. Also, my lower back and right quad are slightly stiff radiating into the knee.

How do I feel today, emotionally?

I’m very fearful today…fearful that having my niece over will derail the schedule I’m trying to stick to. I’m fearful I will take on Mom’s negativity and stress as my own, ESPECIALLY with my niece here. I am fearful I will not be able to keep to the program for even one day. I am extremely scared of failing. I’m afraid of the fact that my hair is falling out and I’m going gray at 30. I’m already physically tired just typing all of this out.There are far too many fears to give voice to in the time I’ve allotted for journals.

What else do I notice about my physical and spiritual state that is noteworthy?

I feel slightly dizzy. The lower lid of my right eye won’t stop twitching. My feet are buzzing. I’m seeing spots, wondering if the morning olive oil is activating my dumping syndrome. I feel really tired but I woke up right at 6 and could not convince my body to go back to sleep, so I figured I’d just get to it.

Begin at the Beginning: The UltraSimple Journaling Exercise

List the three most physically toxic habits you have (smoking, caffeine, not resting, sugar etc)

1. Not paying attention to what I eat (eating unconsciously, ignoring allergic reactions to foods, eating poor quality food)

2. Using caffeine in place of rest

3. Considering junk food an answer to all my problems

List the three most toxic mental habits you have:

1. Believing pessimism to be realism

2. Reacting impulsively to negative emotions and stress

3. Procrastination

List your three most toxic relationships. What purpose do they serve? What prevents you from giving them up?

1. FOOD – I don’t eat for reasons of hunger anymore, I eat both for pleasure and for punishment. I use it to numb both emotions and physical pain, but due to allergic reactions I often end up in worse pain for a few minutes of ‘high.’ I starve myself after I binge, or eat to the point of pain when something has gone wrong in my personal life. I can’t give it up because we obviously need food to live, so I can’t quit it like most people can quit their drugs of choice. I can, however, live happily with far less junk and more vegetables/fruits/lean protein/water.

2. MOM- My most toxic and most rewarding at the same time. I love my Mother to the point of codependency, knowing we keep each other from getting healthier and moving on in our lives. I don’t want to lose my closeness with my Mother, but I need to lose the extreme enmeshment if I want to improve my quality of life.

3. MEMORY OF D- D has become a legend in my own mind, and it’s for good reason: We had amazing times together. But he was also the source of a massive amount of pain and wasted time/opportunity. If I ever hope to have a healthy relationship that could lead to the marriage and kids I’d like, I need to de-deify D.

What would your life look like without these habits, relationships and toxic behaviors:

I have no idea, to the point that it’s actually scary. It’s strange that I don’t know how to see further into the future when all I do is worry about it and I am never living in the moment.

Pulling Teeth

I am literally making myself write this…

Some days, when depression hits, it’s like swimming through jello to get from one place to the other. Today, it’s like that from the tips of my toes all the way to fingers. I am forcing myself to express my feelings, make this all concrete. I would much rather sit and watch Grey’s Anatomy reruns next to a phone not ringing and increasingly hostile coworkers when I am so damn close to finally being successful.

Twitch..twitch….twitchtwitchtwitch…..

I remember the last time my hair was falling out in clumps and my eyelids twitched this uncontrollably….I was with a guy, the most disgusting low point in my dating life, who lived 1000s of miles away but still  managed to make me constantly stressed out by defacto stalking and harassing me at all hours of the day and night (and I thought it was okay because he would say he loved me).

Ugh.

Also, my cat had to go to the vet for a quickie check up before my parents left and now she’s sneezing and coughing. She also got a severe case of ringworm after a visit to this vet. I’m getting rather dubious about their standards and practices but don’t know where else to take my very sick pet.

Brain Fail…A Million Hours to Go Before I Sleep

Brain no work…make me sad…

Taking care of my nephs and catching their cold has left me behind on hours…so no rest for the wicked. I need another 20 hours before 9pm on Tuesday, so I’m just staying logged in to the dispatch center.

Freakshow: The Celebate Dominatrix

I’m used to being a freak.

I never really fit in, I’m awkward as ass, and I’ve always struggled in personal relationships often due to my crappy health (most people assume that I’m avoiding them because no one gets THAT sick THAT often).

Obviously, I have no problem with sex…

…Though, the loss of my virginity after all the drama, secrecy and finger wagging was…disappointing. I remember thinking ‘This is it? This is what people get all their knickers in a twist over? Damn…I could have skipped this and gotten two extra hours of sleep before I start work in the morning.’

After that, I thought…well…maybe I just didn’t do it right….

So, I ended up doing it. A lot. Every chance I got in every way I could within safe, sane, and legal limits. I found myself going on auto pilot…After all, I’m an actress, and a damn good one….every sexual partner I’ve ever had, if questioned, will undoubtedly tell you they rocked my proverbial world. But it was often like the real me, the core of my pleasure, had shrunken back and was somewhere inside my body…too small and ethereal to be reached by the average slightly drunk joe, so why bother trying to guide him?

I don’t know what made me want him…

Freud would have loved me, because the men who really capture my attention are like my Father: Dark hair, dark eyes, facial hair and emotionally impotent. Yep, I freely admit to being a ‘Daddy Issues’ cliche of the most depressingly textbook order.

I was introduced to D in an intensive acting course…our first interaction was an improvised scene in which he called me a cunt then grabbed me as if he were going to kiss me and we had one of those moments of being body to body, eye to eye, breathing heavily in sync.

….Fuck.

….What the fuck?

It was about 3 years later when I finally made a move. I had had a fling with his D’s former roommate (without knowing it) and he had ‘introduced’ us. It was an early summer evening and D’s apartment building had a pool and a sauna that we snuck into in the dead of night after one too many margaritas. Never being terribly modest or shy, the three of us went skinny dipping…leaning out of the water to share a cigarette, laughing, until D’s former roomie looked at D and said ‘She’s so beautiful….isn’t she incredible?’

I turned to face D in the water….I had no idea how my skin could have such a palpable flush in a swimming pool but my heart went into my throat when I saw those eyes…..

Dot…dot…dot…

And the first night (and the many that followed) I thought…’THIS is it….this, what I feel right now..this connection…THIS is what people get so worked up over. Everything else up to this wasn’t anything close to what I feel, here and now.’ I was connected to my body every moment I spent with D.

D is for Delightful….Drinking….Destruction….

D and I are no longer together and are not on speaking terms…and honestly, if I could have the memory wipe from ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ I think I would be a happier person…..because for all the faults and severe pain that tended to color our bad times, the good times gave me the flavor of what it was like to get the kind of love, physically and emotionally, I truly deserved.

And now, I’m screwed…

I realized, as I got more into the domination side of phone sex and explored it in my personal life….I may want sex, but after D….I just can’t see giving it up to your average internet dating site troller in the hopes of more or at least scratching an itch.

So, technically, I’m not screwed…going on 5 years.

I suppose I get more sex then most death row inmates with a ticking clock and a case of nymphomania..it’s all different kinds in all different places….I have everything from sensual, loving encounters to Cirque du Soleil freaky orgies…but has another person penetrated my eternal enigma.

Nope.

And with D forever in my head, I don’t know that anyone ever will.

Redemption…Temple…Purification…

Another day, another diet…

I remember when I used to diet obsessively, wanting to be ‘pretty.’ It wasn’t about health and I was more then fine using unhealthy methods to lose the fat that padded my larger set frame.

Where did it begin?

My thoughts are a jumble when I think about the origins of some of my more destructive habits. Placing names and incidents to my current state seems like I’m trying to pass the buck for my own behavior, but I’m honestly not…..

Origin of the Sickness

My Mom, who always meant the world to me, was a rather obsessive dieter. My earliest memories of her were screaming that I didn’t want her to leave to get to her weight watchers meeting…I think I was about 2 or 3. Recently she told me she had hidden food and eaten in secret since she was a child and how it must have been symptomatic of her just being ‘disgusting.’

Ironically, what the world views as laziness is all about control…

As a child facing traumatic and stressful situations, you have little to no control over anything in your life…except what goes into your body. Food becomes the drug…food carries with it all the tangled emotions and behaviors of addiction….and it sets the tone for the adult’s life long view of food.

When food is your drug, is there a way to quit cold turkey?

 

As I right this, I’ve started another diet. I’m far beyond wanting to be ‘pretty’ and have the little boys on the playground chase after me (which I could have at any weight). I’m just so miserable being overweight and unhealthy I have to do SOMETHING.