Tag Archives: body stuff

I went to an incest survivors support group for the first time on Tuesday. It went well. No histrionics. The other three participants have been together for over a year. I swear to god I am a professional new kid.

At one point we went down a checklist of all the various symptoms and physical problems that Early Childhood Sexual Assault (ECSA) survivors have. With the exception of a shy bladder (I can pee anywhere) I have everything. If there is something bad associated with ECSA I have that problem. I am completely textbook. I spend a lot of time feeling fairly ashamed of this.

Stomach and GI problems are big for us. My stomach has hurt my whole life. As an educated adult I will label it anxiety. As a kid all I knew was that I kept being told over and over again, "Oh quite sniveling everything will be fine" and then someone else would beat the shit out of me. I have no idea how many times I was beaten as a child. I went to 25 schools. I didn't get into a fight in any of the last five high schools. By then I had managed to avoid that specific issue. I got into fistfights–several in both middle schools. That leaves the 18 elementary schools. I don't have any memories of elementary school that are not tied up in people physically hurting me. The teachers beat me (in Oklahoma and Texas) and the students beat me everywhere.

My mom would tell me that people would like me more if I didn't dress like such a freak. From when I was very young I dressed like an orthodox conservative religious group. If I had been able to get away with covering my hair I would have. I wore long dresses. No one saw my skin.

But I still got raped over and over. My dad sexually assaulted me/raped me over and over for more than a decade. Before I stopped him. First by requesting no more visitation and then when I prosecuted him.

The other eleven people who raped me all started out as "friends". They were going to "help" me. They "loved" me.

My stomach hurts all the time. I live my life in an incredible amount of fear.

When I turned 18 I decided that since being raped and beaten was unavoidable I was going to try and figure out how to control it. So I got into the bdsm community. I played with all the Big Names. I was an extremely heavy player. I have safeworded exactly once and that was when someone used a cattle prod on my vulva after I had specifically told him that my three hard limits for the scene were scat, water sports, and cattle prods. He saran wrapped me to a table so I couldn't move and then got out the cattle prod and said, "I hear you don't like these." I was 19. I had been in the community for less than three months. He was a Pillar of the Community. Of course I didn't make a stink.

That's just how shit happens in my life. I say: don't do ______ and then someone immediately does it. It is far safer for me to not think about the things I don't want to have happen to me. If I say, "I don't want to have sex with you" it is nearly inevitable that I will be raped.

No wonder I don't leave the house much.

So I need to talk to a doctor about my stomach and GI issues. A big part of the reason I smoke as much pot as I do is because I use it as an appetite stimulant. Most of the time my stomach hurts too much to eat. I feel cramping and waves of nausea on a daily basis. My stomac hurt. When I'm stoned I feel fine. I can even eat vegetables. Trying to eat vegetables sober means I will be in horrifying pain. It hurts so much to digest. And when I eat a salad completely sober I have burning painful diarrhea not long afterwards.

This is why I didn't eat vegetables as a child.

Over the past few years of being a heavy stoner I have managed to get my diet to a place where pretty much any nutritionist would say, "Well done!" I get a weekly CSA box. We eat absolutely all of it. We eat pasture raised, humanely treated meat. Maybe slightly more than strictly necessary… but I don't think so. I eat a lot of fruit. We eat some starch still, but not even with every meal. White flour and white sugar are now things that are more like sometimes foods.

But I can't really eat sober. It hurts too much. I can take a few bites. I can never eat enough.

When I was a kid I solved this by living entirely on carbohydrates and staying so full that my stomach never had the chance to get this empty painful feelings. Getting hungry is agony. Simple carbs are the primary thing I can eat without pain.

And I've almost entirely cut them out of my life because they are "bad for me" so when I'm in pain and I'm hungry and I want to eat I can sometimes end up sobbing and sobbing because either I can eat something "good for me" that will hurt me more or I can eat something "bad for me" that will long-term hurt me in another way but provide instant relief.

I've been doing some googling on chronic bronchitis. I have to stop smoking. I have ordered a vaporizer and I will have no choice but to completely stop smoking. (It should arrive on Monday.) I grew up in a house where you couldn't see the opposite walls because of the haze of smoke. My lungs came pre-damaged. My mother was a chain smoker. Auntie smoked heavily during my early childhood but quit by the time I was in middle school. Uncle Bob smoked longer than her but I think he stopped when I was in high school. Our house was incredibly difficult to function in. Apparently chronic bronchitis is one of those incurable it can kill you super fast if you keep fucking with it sorts of things. I want to see my daughters grow up. I have to stop.

I think it is pretty reasonable for me to be scared right now. I don't know what the next step is. I need to be able to talk to a doctor about this. I need to try something else. This is something where I really don't know what to do. I have tried so many things over my lifetime.

And there's the weird pulsing thing that feels vaguely like trapped intestine in between the walls of my stomach muscles. That kind of shit sometimes happens after pregnancy. But I don't know what has been going on with that. Since I stopped marathon training the pain has gone dow dramatically hich makes me want to JUST NOT MENTION IT. SEE–IT'S FINE. Now it's genuinely in the 1-2 range for pain. It hasn't spiked up to 5 since October. Obviously I healed myself. It's fine. I can ignore it, right?

I'm not sure how to write this script for a doctor. I think of these problems in context of my life. But if I tell people about my life they respond with, "that is unbelievable" and there we are.

I tell Shanna that my problem is that a long time ago I had good reasons to be scared and my body has never managed to really understand that I don't need to feel scared any more. Something in my brain broke and that feeling just keeps happening even though it should stop.

I don't know how to make my stomach stop hurting. I don't know how to be able to jus eat food ithout thinking the whole time about how much pain I will be in when I have to shit it out.

Having children has been the best thing that has ever happened to me in terms of food. I don't have crap in the house because I don't want them to eat it. Well, we eat ramen a few times a week becaus like always hat is one of the primary things I can handle eating without pain. Yay simple carbs. When I am really really anxious it is one of the only things that doesn't cause violent stomach cramps.

Doesn't everyone spend all day every day fighting with how much pain they are in because they were stupid enough to eat vegetables?

Eating vegetables hurt as a child. So I wouldn't eat them. So people hit me and told me I was bad. And ungrateful. Let's not forget ungrateful. I am ungrateful stupid bitch because I won't eat what someone has made for me. Even though it will cause violent stomach cramps and horrible burning diarrhea. stupid stupid stupid bitch.

When people tell me to just "get over" my childhood I don't even know what that means. Should I have a lobotomy? Should I surgically cut out all of these memories? There will still be all the damage to my body. I don't know how to undo it.

I feel so scared.

(This started over here so it will be cross posted.)

I was asked a question! I

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"Triaging you mental health? That sounds really useful; I'd love to know more about this process if you're willing to share!"

tri·age

/trēˈäZH/

Noun

The action of sorting according to quality.

Verb

Assign degrees of urgency to (wounded or ill patients).

I are fucked up. If you want to know why, now there is a book! I'm pretty excited about that. 🙂 The whole being able to post a link thing. Anyway.

Ok, not all of my fucked up is in the book. I have other stuff too. Lots of stuff. Sometimes I feel like I am drowning.

I'm not very good at talking to doctors. I have had a very high number of extremely negative experience with doctors. When you're starting off by being institutionalized and strapped to a table it's hard to not go downhill. I went to a gynecologist once, asking her about extreme pain in my vagina and lack of libido. She told me to just think of something else because it didn't matter how it felt to me I was only doing it for the man anyway, right? I have had doctors refuse to treat my stomach until I get on psych medication. I have a lot of stories. I don't like doctors.

Sometimes whether I like it or not I need help with my body. I try to get by without seeing doctors but there are things that I need them in order to accomplish. I want my arms to stop hurting. I understand that this is self-imposed damage; the problem is I really don't understand how to undo it or how to stop doing more. I require help. I need to sleep; without sleep my crazy is totally unmanageable. I've been having pain in my abdomen since Calli was born. the problem is that as more of a phantom pain. It will be hard to figure out what's going on there. It will take somebody trusting that I understand why this feels weird for my body; finding a doctor who will respect what I have to say about my body has been a pretty impossible task so far in life. I have been getting terrible headaches for a long while. I knew my vision had degraded. My eyes are working too hard. I have a lot of ambient stress in my life. I've had some really nasty bacterial infections that only got treatment because friends came to my house and dragged me to the ER. I don't seek medical care unless I feel like have no choice. Usually because I think there is a chance of something killing me or a bone is broken.

When I decide to take the step of involving a doctor it's a big one. I need people to pressure me to go. I spend my life with the default expectation that I should be in pain. That is just life. I have been depressed for most of my life. It just makes everything hurt more. Keeping going when it hurts that bad feeds my masochism. Of course it is supposed to be this hard for me I'm a fucking loser.

Somehow I always keep walking. I get slower. I drop balls. I bring my focus of life in closer and exclude more and more people. But I always get up every day and am productive.

So if I want to make a change in my body that is not about immediate death or injury or bleeding… it's kind of complicated The very action of scheduling an appointment and then knowing it is coming up aises my stress level throughout every level of my life. Everything is harder when I have the horrifying impending visit with yet another person who may dismiss me and refuse to help me because I am a fucking loser who doesn't deserve help. I dont really need more confirmation of how unworthy I am.

My abdominal pain is going to be hard to track down. It could be. I don't know. I thought about scripts of how to introduce the problem and I couldn't figure out how to word it for a stranger I don't trust. I can explain it to someone I trust. I can't say it to someone who is going to be nasty to me. I jus can't.

Walking in and saying, "I'm a writer. I hurt my arms." is one of those things wher they just believe you and then start treating you as a writer who is someone of status. quot;Oh what do you write? Do you write professionally?"

A murky conversation revealed that getting paid for writing does make you a writer. I'm just starting in the transition after being a teacher and now I am a stay at home mom so things aren't instant. I told him I was just a blogger. He corrected me and said I published a book–which people bought thus I am a professional writer.

I like the doctor.

When I say I need to triage I mean I need to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse scripts in my head for how I will present data to a doctor in order to get what I want. If I can't come up with a good script I just can't visit that issue on a given day. I just can't. I have to perfect the script or I can't talk about it. So I try on a whole bunch of different ways of presenting information.

This time I focused on what would bring me the most instant benefit and the easiest available scripts for building trust. My abdomen is hard for me to talk about. I'm very serious about wanting to not damage my arms. I will gosh darn be proactive about that. I have friends who are in really bad places. I'm scared. Obviously there is information I need to learn in order to not seriously hurt myself. Ok. I can take that seriously.

And I feel like I have taken too much over the counter sleep aid in my lifetime. I need to stop. So I rehearsed how I wanted this problem approached.

I am not a long term insomniac. Since having children I have become an early waker. I'm aware that is a common depression symptom. I deal with atypical depression. Medicating it in the standard ways do not work. I have PTSD. It causes a lot of problems for me but they tend to happen around anniversaries and milestones and holidays. In the scheme of my life they are kind of brief.

My problem is when I get one night of sleep disruption it starts a cycle. If I let it go I can end up being seriously sleep deprived and it can go on and on for weeks. I've been using the over the counter stuff to stop it at about a week. I want to change my approach.

I asked for something that would be safe to take every three or so days if needed. In general I hope I won't be taking it that often. I will be taking it as soon as I get home from therapy on Tuesdays because that night of lost sleep is a particularly rough one. I slept about six hours last night with .5 mg of Lorazepam. Usually Tuesdays are nights when I get two or three hours of sleep. That's a big step in the right direction. I can't take the over the counter stuff in the same way because I am too groggy the day after. I get home too late at night and I would spend all of Wednesday a zombie; I have to take over the counter stuff by 8pm or it is just a bad plan. I don't get that with the Lorazepam. I have used it in the past for anxiety. I am far less groggy than with over the counter meds.

So the triage process was realizing that I really need to treat my stomach issues, but that will require trust. So I need to go build a relationship. Which means I need to be honest about some of my other sub optimal body issues and kind of pick from the list. My arms aren't something that I experience shame talking about. It's a common, straight forward issue. I knew I could start there and have that be probably taken well.

I was scared about sleep. I probably wouldn't have brought it up only I know I have to stop taking so many over the counter sleep aids. I'm going to die in a car accident driving the next day. Seriously. They just aren't great for my body.

I have to have sleep or I can't manage the stress of my life. Right now my life isn't very stressful. I have a pretty easy life all things considered. But I still can't function without sleep. Sometimes I can't get myself to sleep. I understand my cycles. I've been living in them a long time. I've done hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of reading about my set of issues. I understand how my atypical depression/anxiety/ptsd bounce around. I can describe the process. I can point at dates on the calendar when I will have bad spells. Inevitable as the sun rising.

Figuring out how to explain it was hard. I worked on that script really hard. I am so ridiculously grateful it went well.

I expected him to send me home with 5-10 pills and instructions to email him and ask for a refill. Instead he gave me 30 pills with three refills. I feel kind of overwhelmed because he asked me point blank questions and I told him that I overdosed on sleeping pills as a teenager so pills are kind of weird for me. I can't swallow larger ones very well–I have a really overactive gag reflex. I don't take pain meds like ibuprofen because I can't deal with swallowing the pills. I barely manage sleeping pills. Those suckers are blessedly tiny. And half a Lorazepam I can't even feel. It's great.

I will be able to make an appointment to talk about my abdomen. And I'll find other things. But I'm going to wait until after the glasses arrive because I want to see how much difference in general pain the headaches are. I feel like right now I don't have a concise and clear enough case. I will. I'm working on it. I will go to PT and talk about posture and all kinds of aches and pains and ask for advice. I'm going to bloody well take advantage of having this access. I'll be user. Then I will ask for help with my abdomen.

That is what I can handle dealing with right now. If I try to do this faster than I am ready for then I will experience a general uptick in anger and frustration and I will take it out on my kids. That's not acceptable. It is not acceptable to raise my stress level beyond what I can handle while being nice to my kids. That's the line.

The triage process is slowly increasing how much I think about a given problem until I figure out how to solve it while carefully watching how I behave with the kids. If I start slipping I know I need to distract myself and stop trying to solve the problem for a while.

I need to settle in to this level of progress. Find out what it feels like. See what it does for me. Then think about more change.

Baby steps.

Holy crap am I glad to be back with Kaiser.

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That went so well. The optometrist remembered me from 3.5 years ago (he asked me how teaching was going and how my daughter was–that's not a level of being remembered I expected) and I was right about my eyes going downhill. My degree of vision issue has doubled. Totally time for new glasses and explains the blinding headaches.

The primary care doctor was quiet and kind of distant at first but then he mirrored what I said, validated my experiences, trusted what I had to say and gave me exactly the plan of treatment I went in there requesting. He commented that I am obviously extremely educated about my body and my needs and he thinks I am making good decisions about the next few steps.

That feels good. So three hours and $700 later I have new glasses, sunglasses, sleeping pills and a scrip for physical therapy. That's what I wanted. Excellent.

I will be willing to go back and talk about my stomach. I triaged my mental health and decided I wasn't up for fighting a potentially hostile stranger about something that feels harder to pinpoint. I am very clear about where I am with my depression/anxiety/ptsd/sleep and my arms. Those are clear cut for me. The stomach stuff is murkier and will require more trust. I feel like the first step was made. I feel really grateful.

I hate doctors so much.

Somehow appropriate.

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I was curious what I weighed the day I got back from the marathon trip. I stepped on my scale. Apparently a battery burst. It totally fried the electronics. So I can't weigh myself. I haven't weighed myself since before my birthday.

Maybe I should decide that now that I am over 30 I just don't get weighed any more. That information doesn't actually affect my life in a positive way. Hm.

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I've had a few people ask me for a running update. Sure. I love requests. My attitude has been better while running. I am past the hump of it feeling "too hard" to do what I am doing. This week I am running sixteen miles. Next week is twenty. I'm not up to ten miles on Saturdays yet. Next month. Most days and most runs I've been maintaining 5.10-5.30 mph. Occasionally I crawl for a bit and come in just under 5mph but that is rare lately.

One of the things that I am disliking the most is my changing perception of my body.I've mostly been on the chubby side but I've never been all that big. My lifetime maximum weight was 212 while pregnant. Not-pregnant it was 208. I spend a lot of time hanging out in the 180's with occasional dips down into the 160's when my activity level goes up. That seems to be my "active" weight range. Occasionally in times of great mental/emotional distress I drop down into the 150's. I have usually had a lot of mixed feelings about these periods. On one hand they are by far the most psychologically unhealthy periods of my life on the other hand random people in public no longer stop me to tell me I should lose weight.

Lately I feel like I am bordering on body dysmorphia. I have always had an hour glass figure. That's just how my body looks. I have hundreds of pictures to prove it. I don't any more. Right now I'm doing the apple thing. I don't tend to feel hostility about other people having that basic body shape but right now I feel intensely bad about being shaped that way. I think about it a lot. I'm having to deal with the fact that my clothes don't fit at all the way I am used to them fitting and I feel angry and ashamed and bad because my body isn't looking like me. It's weird. I'm used to my waist being a size smaller than my thighs. Now my waist is at least a size bigger. I feel fat in a way I haven't ever felt before. I feel repulsed by the way I look. I think about it a lot. A really lot.

I watched the Harry Potter movies recently. At the very end there is this long panoramic pull back shot of Harry, Hermione and Ron. I was fixated on the fact that it looked like I could put my hand between her thighs and be able to hold my hand horizontally and barely touch skin on either side. Holy moly she has skinny thighs. It felt really dramatic. It looked very childlike to me. I'm used to women having thighs that touch. This isn't to say that all women have heavy thighs. There are lots of grown up women with thing legs. I know this–I still had this visceral reaction to Hermione in that shot. For the past few days I keep standing in front of mirrors and feeling very perplexed because if I stand with my feet directly below my shoulders and look in a mirror my thighs barely touch. Mine have touched full on down to the knees for most of my adult life. Now the top inch touches. I don't think my thighs will rub by the time I get to the marathon.

I feel weird in my body. I feel like I am borrowing a body. I am pretending to be an athletic person. I feel disconnected from my legs–like they represent someone else. They just don't fit the rest of me. I feel weird and bad about the baby belly. Like all of a sudden it is magically a problem. My body has always been proportional! I liked being proportional! Fuck you belly! Everything else is getting smaller what is your fucking problem? But I this attachment in my mind to not trying to lose weight. So I eat a lot trying to keep weight on. My belly is not getting smaller. Ahem.

Especially with my hair this short. Especially with how dark of a tan I have now. I no longer look pale and goth-like. I savored that pallor for many years. Now I garden and run and spend the whole f'in day in the park. I don't wear sunscreen. I don't burn so I don't see the point in putting cancer causing agents on my skin. Noah needs to wear sunblock. Oh man.

I feel very uncomfortable about my body. I don't recognize it. I don't know it. I have a lot of time understanding its pleasure sensors and food needs. I feel very disconnected. I'm not sure if I have always been this disconnected or if it is a recent change. But all of a sudden I feel loathing for my body I am not used to. I was fairly cheerful about being fat. I knew how to dress to look good. I was "friendly fat" so to speak. I had some size 18 clothing, but not much. Mostly I was in the no-womans-land between Misses 14 and Womens 14. I certainly was encouraged by society to feel bad about my size. I was told by the media that I was disgusting. I didn't feel disgusting. I liked my body. I thought I looked quite good naked and that was what I cared about.

I don't like how I look naked right now. I feel lumpy and floppy and disproportionate. I feel like my breasts and my hips look sad and deflated next to my belly. I don't like looking at my belly and yet I do it compulsively. I think this is just my lizard-brain looking for another way to self-harm. If I decide that my belly is my enemy and disgusting and I should do something about it while I am simultaneously training for a marathon I am going to hurt myself quite badly.

I'm afraid of a lot of the process of training for running. If I want to meet my goals I have to treat my body gently. I have to meet its needs. I'm not sure I even know what its needs are. I'm struggling with finding balance between needing to "work on my diet," because I do need to work towards more nutritious food, and not wanting to obsess and punish myself for being bad. It's hard when I realize that my approach to myself in my head is entirely punitive. If I breathe too loudly I should be punished. I'm taking up space in this world that wasn't meant for me. I am struggling with the size of the box in my head I am allowed to fill.

Right now my weight is hanging out in the upper 150's/lower 160's. My legs are thinner than they have ever been in my life. My arms thinned out in pregnancy. My face thinned out in pregnancy. My upper back thinned out in pregnancy. Now my upper body really wants to hang out in a size 8. My hips would probably be happiest in a size 10 or 12. My waist is quite firmly still in size 14. With muffin top. I feel like my body is taking up the wrong space. I am wrong. I am out of place. I am out of order. I tell the kids my belly is awesome. Shanna is very affectionate with my belly and I encourage and support that. But I feel distant from this body. I want her to have only positive associations with her mothers body. I talk to her about fat redistributing on your body at different stages and sometimes you have more and sometimes you have less. I keep it very value neutral. I am extremely verbally positive about heavy people being attractive.

And I look in the mirror and I see not my body. I feel gross. I feel like I am not right. I am bad. I am too big and I am too small. I am not me. I'm trying not to show any actual panic. I really am a good actor.

It's interesting and useful for me to think about this current set of obsessive thoughts just as this week's version of self-harm. I'm really enjoying Over the Influence. It's the book on Harm Reduction Therapy. If the goal is just to be always moving towards less harm then I can give myself a little bit of a break. I know how much less harmful this thought process is than most of what I've done. I can see that I'm trying to justify feeling bad. I know that really I just feel bad and I don't need a why. If I can talk to my Lizard brain about it a bit I can see where the need to feel bad lives.

I've been spending a fair bit of time in front of mirrors. I try to close the door so folks can't hear me. I look at myself. I say all of the things I wish that other people would say. I need to stop looking outside myself for validation. I can't have it. So I'm trying to give it to myself. I feel silly. I cry. But I say it.

You are good. You are kind. You are patient. You are generous. You are honest. You are trustworthy. You work very hard. You have come a long way. Your body is perfect. Your body made two of the most delightful creatures in the world. What could possibly be wrong with it? You are strong. You will get stronger. Keep working. You will be able to do all of the things you say you will. You keep your fucking word. You are gentle. You are smart. You are resourceful. If you do not find a way you will make a way. Keep going. There is a lot left to do and not a whole lot of time.

I am no longer defined by my sex appeal. I no longer need to worry about attracting attention the way I once did. I no longer particularly need to worry if my hip to waist ratio is appealing. It feels like I am getting a divorce from my body. I no longer live in it. I'm doing other things. I want to come back but I don't know this person. This person is invisible in different ways and visible for different reasons. I don't know how to handle it. I feel scared of this person. Not because this person will hurt me but because this person is vulnerable in ways I don't fully understand. I can't see the scope of it properly. I don't have much experience being this person out in the world. I have only been this person a short time. I'm still adjusting. I hear it takes four years to be properly past the postpartum period. My organs don't even know where they are going to live forever yet. What kind of home do I want them to live in? How much control do I have?

It's all quite terrifying, really.

I feel like I should be tracking the running…

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Today I did 3.37 miles on the treadmill. According to my rough scheduling I only need to do 3 miles today but Born This Way came on right at the 3 mile mark and that song is good to sprint to. I alternated between going 3-3.5/mph and sprints of faster for a minute each. I can't sprint for much longer than a minute yet. Most of my sprints were at 6mph but during the last song I did sprints at 7mph and 8mph. When I'm running at 8mph I have to flap my hands to deal with all the energy in my body. I feel like I am flying. I felt like my entire body wanted to keep running like that forever, only my heart would explode. Only my weak heart is holding me back from being able to fly.

Normally I don't know how fast I am going because I think if you are going to run a marathon outside you need to train outside. I wussed out today and went to the gym because it is cold and raining. I figured that was better than not running at all.

Because I was playing around with incline and I did a lot of walking I was on the treadmill for 50 minutes. I really wasn't going all that fast, but it was fun to experiment with different strides and see what different speeds really feel like. The machine told me I burned 385 calories. I just came home and ate and drank that back again.

I weigh 154 lbs. My waist is 32.5". That's 6" smaller than it was a year ago. My bust is 38" and my hips are 41". I should start doing nekkid pictures once a month like when I was pregnant. Bodies are hella weird.

Dramatic

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Calli is just about to turn one. So I’ve had twelve months postpartum. I’m more than fifty pounds lighter than I was a year ago. I am not doing anything resembling a “diet”. I eat as much food as I want whenever I want. It’s kind of weird. When I weighed myself in the last week I was one pound over the lowest weight I hit on Weight Watchers years ago. (I lost a little bit more after stopping WW.) My body is very different from how it used to be, I feel. I should post some nekkid pictures. 😛 Because other people care, right?

This getting older thing is freakin weird.

fashion/body image crisis.

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SHIT! Noah’s new company is having a party today. It’s a family thing. I’m feeling more than slightly fussed because this guy I had a really hot, intense multi-stage, intermittent fling with over several years works there.

HURRY UP AND STOP BEING ALL LOOSE SKIN LIKE YOU FREAKIN POSTPARTUM BELLY SO I CAN GO FLIRT WITH GUYS AND THEY WILL WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ME.

Not that I’m all that into having sex. See my ~~broken~~ vanity. It is mighty. Erf.

Stomach trouble

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I think the problem is that I am overtired and a stress monkey. But I’m really ready to be done with my stomach hurting. I kind of feel like I should go off sugar again because right now when I have something sugary it feels overwhelming and kind of awful in my mouth. I feel intensely overwhelmed by the experience. This is weird for me because I am putting my ‘normal’ amount of sugar on things (oatmeal, tea, pancakes[that one is actually maple syrup, but it is sweet]) and I feel kind of gag-ready. Hm. Interesting body feedback there. Maybe that part of my development cycle is ending and my body knows I really don’t need that kind of massive calorie surge any more.

Bodies are weird.

gym!

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I don’t go to the gym that often. Kids are complicating factors. However I went this morning! And it was glorious! I felt lame because I used to bust out 5 sets of 30 crunches and barely breathe hard. I got through 2 sets of 20 and wanted to die. Ugh. This will be a long road. Alright abdominal muscles, your four year vacation is over.

In other news there was a beautiful older Sikh man across the room from me on the elliptical. He was wearing a Bright Neon Fuck-You-I’m-A-Sikh Turban. He had to have been in his mid 60’s (I couldn’t tell this till the end.) I watched him throughout my workout because his body was poetry in motion. He was so obviously powerful. Me being me, I felt skeezy and creepy because I stared for almost an hour. So I went over and introduced myself. I told him that I was sorry for staring, but he is in such amazing shape that it is inspiring. He smiled and asked me about when I like to come to the gym. I told him it was random because I have young children. He smiled again and told me he hopes he sees me again. 🙂

Fake it till you make it?

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Today I feel compelled to wear a belt because I am tired of yanking my jeans up all day long. I consider this a neutral to positive thing. I’m getting smaller slowly. I am not calorie counting in the slightest and I don’t want to. I’m mostly eating what I want. I’m trying to substitute a small amount of fat for large amount of sugar when I know I am comfort eating and that seems to make me feel ‘satisfied’ better. But when I wear a belt with these jeans I have a bulge above and below the belt. Because regardless of my overall size, I had a baby 7 months ago. My belly is very saggy right now. And I feel like I should try to hide that with some big tent-like shirt because I know those instinctive style rules. I know how to ‘slim’ my line. But I want to wear the bright purple shirt with ruffles. And it’s pretty fitted at my current size/shape.

Fuck ’em. I’m wearing the shirt.

Yuck.

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If Noah hadn’t gotten the all clear from his doctor I would be peeing on a stick right now. I’ve been seriously nauseated for days. I’m having weird lower abdominal discomfort. My dizzy is outrageous recently. COME ON BODY! KNOCK THIS SHIT OFF!!!

A journey of a thousand miles…

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Tonight I did two. Miles that is (ok it was actually more like 2.28 but whatever). It was both less and more challenging than I expected. This is me formally, officially, publicly (ack the horror!) stating that before September 10, 2012 I will complete a marathon. Yes, I know lots of good reasons not to do it (oh my poor knees) and yet this is something that’s kinda on my bucket list. I really really want to do this for a lot of reasons that are hard to explain. It’s important to me. And you know what? That’s a good enough reason. 🙂

So tonight I went to the gym for the first time in…. I’m not willing to think about how long. But I did it. I don’t think I will be hitting ‘badass’ any time soon, but hopefully I will no longer feel too out of shape to do the things I want to do. 🙂

(This has virtually nothing to do with weight loss, though I expect some of that to happen. I just don’t have a good exercise icon…)

Bits and pieces

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I do not have to argue with every thing that makes me angry. It’s ok to walk away.

Shanna is arguing with every single thing I say and I feel like I am going to lose my mind. I’m feeling very frustrated with her yelling at me. And her saying, “Stop saying that!” is just… AHHHHHH

I’m really sick of nightmares. I don’t know why I am having so many. Not sleeping is keeping me on edge all day long and it’s not good for me.

I’ve had a headache for days. It is also keeping me on edge. I’m tired of wanting to whack my head off with an axe just to stop the pain.

So I’m bitchier than average but I’m not generally feeling bad. It’s kind of weird. In between bursts of anger I’m feeling pretty cheerful. Don’t like my mood? Wait three minutes. *sigh*

I need to get on ordering a new oven. I’ve been wanting to bake for a while and my oven just doesn’t work. I’m waiting until we have steady paychecks again. Then! A new oven! So thrilling! I am such a grown up.

I am ‘stripping’ a lot of diapers in preparation for selling them. I’m doing so much laundry it’s insane. Soon I can be done with this stage. I look forward to it. And I’m really unhappy about Shanna’s 100% regression to diapers. This is problematic when she’s outgrowing her diapers.

And through this all… Calli continues to be astoundingly mellow. Thank you second child.

Not amused.

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Apparently my body got the memo that we were turning off Noah’s fertility so mine better HURRY UP AND REAPPEAR CAUSE GOD DAMNIT WE HAVE TO TRY ONE LAST TIME!!!!! I was looking forward to the year off. fuss. See–this is the unintended irritation of a good sleeper.

On being fat

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Since not long after marrying Noah I have met my own qualifications for being fat. It makes sense with how he feeds me. 🙂 I don’t have a problem with this. I don’t think I am gross or ugly or even particularly unhealthy. I don’t use the word in a self-hating way 95% of the time (though I admit I have very rare moods where I’ll add that word to every other hateful thing I say about myself). The main thing I mind about being fat is that I can’t wear most of my awesome dress up clothes. Not really a huge complaint in the scheme of things. I’m in fact slowly acquiring awesome clothes in larger sizes and not worrying about it.

I have a problem with the knee jerk reaction of “Oh, you’re not fat” when I make reference to being fat. Uhm. I can’t buy clothes in ‘regular’ stores. According to the BMI I’m obese (I think that’s bullshit though). According to the last sane/rational doctor I talked to I have been ~40 lbs above my optimal weight for years. Uhm, that’s fat, folks.

That said, it’s hard to tell if I currently have postpartum hyperthyroidism popping up or if I am just not able to consume the 4,000 calories I need to maintain stable weight with two nurslings. My midwife suggested postpartum hyperthyroidism because I’m dropping weight so quickly. I’m 8 lbs. below my pre-pregnancy weight as of this morning. I have 4 lbs. to go before I hit Shanna’s pre-pregnancy weight. I gained weight with both miscarriages. I’m not especially worried about the weight loss in either case. Postpartum hyperthyroidism cures itself after a while (and you usually gain the weight back pretty quickly) and more generic weight loss when I am eating like a horse is ok with me. So neither is worth much concern. I am so not going to be on anything resembling a diet anytime in the near future if ever again.

So I’m reaching the nebulous point where I start questioning my own usage of the word fat. Once I start shopping in ‘regular’ stores again, once I hit a point where my own view of my body is, “Ok I still have chunk -here- but mostly not so much” then I start feeling like I shouldn’t use the word. Mostly because I think it is no longer accurate, but at least partially because when I use it people seem to take it as a judgment of *them* and that’s a mixed bag. I really wish I could describe myself using terms I feel are accurate and have people just accept them as is. I don’t hear people arguing with me when I say, “I’m a brunette” and I wish that fat had about the same impact. For me it’s absolutely about word reclamation. Probably similar to how I use queer.

And I can feel my brains being sucked out of me by a nursling. I’m going to lose all coherence now.

You just keep going

Do the best you can