Rants in my pants

I'm better than I was a couple weeks ago, but I am not well. Not yet. And the last two weeks, I pushed too hard, and now I'm feeling a bit worse again. It's so hard not to jump back in full on, into life.

I went to counseling this week for the first time in a while, I said I'd been struggling with a lot since getting really sick last month. Mainly, I am terrible about asking for help. And I am terrible at not pushing myself too hard once I start feeling better. I don't want to miss out on things, and I don't want to let people down.

My counselor asked me, so what? What is your greatest fear if you just stopped doing everything, and rested... And in all honesty, the only thing that came to mind, is if I stop doing everything I want and need to do, that I would feel like I don't exist. BAM. Biggest fear in life right there. Scares the bejeezus out of me even thinking about things like that.

But I am so exhausted, after just two weeks (admittedly full-on weeks) back at it. This week, my stomach has been feeling worse again... and last night I started getting a bit of a sore throat, so I think I am fighting off this stupid cold everyone has on top of it. I just want so much to feel better. Moo.

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

  - Whitman

People ask me all the time why I can't do certain things. People who know me; who've known me for ages. People who mean well.

Why can't I come out to socialize in the evening on a day when I worked at the office?
Why did I drive to work today instead of taking the bus?
Why do I have to work from home most of the time (why is that any different than going to the office)?
Why is travelling so hard?
Why can't I walk all the way across downtown?
Why can't I stay up late one night on occasion?
Why....?

I've never found a way to explain this to people so it makes sense to them. Other than saying, I don't have as much energy as a "normal" person. My counselor has asked me a few times why I think people just don't get that, and the only thing I can think of, is that it's because I seem so cheery, I don't look like I feel terrible all the time. But that is just because when I feel terrible, I stay home. And I try to keep a good attitude, regardless. But it's not representative of what I live with.

But I just read something Zak sent me - a simple analogy using toothpicks, and that's it. THAT'S EXACTLY IT. I looked up the "Spoon Theory" that's mentioned at the end, and it's a longer, more detailed version of the same concept, and if you've ever asked me any of those questions, or want to understand what I live with, please do read this (start at the heading "But you don't look sick" and update: no I don't have MS, it's just a way to look at chronic illness). It's a bit long, but it's the best description I've ever read. That is exactly what my life is like.

And right now, I have about 2 spoons (or toothpicks) per day. I can do dishes, and make food. And that's it. I can go out for coffee with a friend, and do a little work from home. But that's it. If I do laundry, that uses up both of them for the day. Same for grocery shopping. Going to the office uses 6 if I take the bus. Yes, 6. 2 for being at work, 2 for taking the bus, 2 for packing food and unpacking/cleaning after. 1 day at the office means I am exhausted for 3 days.

I have been running a deficit of spoons since I got sick last month. And a weekend isn't long enough to get back in the black. That was the sickest I think I've ever been. It was scary. The friends who were really keeping tabs on me and who knew how bad it was were scared for me. And I want to be well again so much that I've been acting like if I just do normal things, normal life will return. But that's not working. I really need to scale it back a TON.

And I don't know what that looks like. But I know I need to figure it out damn fast, or else this is going to drag on and I will be forced to face my fears in a not so nice way. I am so afraid of having to face what is really at stake here.

And my head may as well be too.

I am officially failing at my intentions for 2010 the past few days. I have been feeling super frustrated and anxious, and generally out of sorts. Being that nothing in particular has triggered this, I am pretty inclined to associate it with not having felt too well again for the last couple weeks. I just don't recover well from any disturbances in the force, and it can take me weeks if not longer to get back to "normal" (whatever that is) after something goes off balance.

After randomly getting a really bad rash the week before, and then having a bad IBS flareup, I am feeling pretty run down emotionally and physically. And yet, the world keeps racing along, so I never feel like I can really stop and rest to a point where I actually feel rested. Just enough to keep trucking along and not totally fall apart.

It's all so damn frustrating. I had blood tests done (again) last week, though they seem to always come back normal, so I'm not really anticipating anything coming of them, other than a big bruise on my arm. I feel like no doctor I've ever seen has cared at all about how shitty I feel on a daily basis, or even made any significant attempt to help. As soon as they run a couple tests and don't see anything, they give up and send me on my way. And sure, maybe they can't do anything. But geez. I shouldn't have to fight so hard just to make sure I get proper medical care. I am just one small person, on my own, taking care of myself. I could use a little damn support.

I mean, I don't really know what to do. I've tried pretty much everything. And regardless, things just are what they are. A little up and down, but almost always a struggle. I decided to stop weighing myself back in the summer when I was really sick for about a month, because seeing my weight drop just stresses me out. For whatever reason, I finally decided to weigh myself today. I thought I was probably doing okay, since (shockingly) nobody has been remarking lately that I look really skinny or unwell. And yet, I actually am down like 3 lbs more than I was before I had the flareup back in June (which was already way down from university days).  That's just so incredibly frustrating to me, I don't even know how to deal with it. I eat as much as I can, but my stomach doesn't handle large quantities of food at a time, or very fatty food, or any of the myriad of things I'm allergic to. And on top of that, I've been trying not to eat quite so much sugar, as I have had crazy candida problems since I was a teenager too. So losing a few pounds might not sound that bad, but over years, as it continues and I'm not able to gain the weight back... well, it sure isn't good.

All this amounts to me feeling just super frustrated and run down, and to be honest it's hard not to get sort of freaked out. I know those feelings don't really help it any, but seriously, it's just hard.

SIGH.

So that's all just me venting all my stress and worry. The other side of this, and what really starts getting to me, is because I have no way of really doing anything about what's going on, I think I start projecting my stress and frustration into the areas of my life that are actually going fine, but where I have more tangible power to affect things. And that doesn't always materialize in a very positive way.

It means, I end up pushing away friends (who I know would be there for me if I could find a way to communicate what I need from them, which is a whole other challenge). It means I stress about work (which is actually one of the best things going on for me right now). It means I cancel on plans so I can just get through the day, which makes me bummed out. It means I start feeling like I'm grasping. And I don't like that feeling, or any of it really.

I try to just cope with all of this crap I'm dealing with in my own head, take it day by day, and not trouble other people with it, but then now and again, it just all starts boiling over. And then I end up letting it all out in a blog post that I'm really not sure should be unleashed on the world.

I don't write too much about dating on here, because lets face it, Vancouver is a small city and everyone knows everyone, and that could just get awkward.  But this is a pretty meta post, so I'm just gonna go for it.

I am done with "dating".

There, I said it.  I've been single for the most part for the last 2.5 years, and at this point I've had my fair share of awkward first dates, and awkward few week to few month long "relationships."  Granted, probably the first 1.5 years of that was that sort of messed up dating where I was still working through everything from the previous relationship and finding myself again.  But the last year and a bit, I have really been in a frame of mind where if I met someone who was also in that place, and we hit it off I could actually see myself being ready for it.

That hasn't happened yet, but in the meantime, I have been meeting new people, testing the waters of what I would call "dating" and keeping an open mind when it comes to different types of people.  Though there have been some great people that I've met, obviously nothing has gotten more serious to a point where I would say someone was actually my "partner" (ugh all these labels are so awkward!).

Anyway, I started feeling like it was just me, that I sucked at dating.  I mean, really this is the first time I've dated to any extent, but it really does feel different than navigating meeting people while in university for instance.  And I started to think about why, and I realized it wasn't me, but dating that sucked!

In school, I feel like because there was such a social vibe all of the time, it was easy to get to know people in a more casual or "friend" context, and actually get a good feel for their personality before even getting to the point where you would consider getting involved on a serious romantic level.  But when I found myself single, in my mid-twenties, living downtown, and working at a small company where I didn't meet a lot of new people, the dynamic was all of a sudden different.

I actually had to put some effort into it if I wanted to stay in touch with new acquaintances or meet people who were outside of my circle of friends.  And it seemed like "dating" was more grown up - that's what you are supposed to do when you're an "adult" right?

But this whole time it just hasn't sat quite right with me.  It has seemed like there is so much pressure, so many expectations, so much miscommunication, so many labels that I haven't been comfortable with.

Then this weekend, a wise friend was the catalyst to my epiphany, which had been brewing for a few weeks but just not quite solidified: I don't believe in "dating."  It doesn't make sense in my world.

There is a reason I used to feel more comfortable getting to know people in school, and why the people I did spend time with were more upfront, honest, and easier to understand.  Why there weren't the same sort of labels, expectations, and assumptions about what spending time together meant.

It was because the first question was always, do I want this person to be my friend?

Friends first sounds cheesy, and can also sound like a lot of effort, but that really is what works.  I want to be able to figure out what someone's about without the pressure of whether or not we're a couple, without having to factor in anyone's expectations of what role their girlfriend is going to fill, and what kind of timeline things will run on.

I'm not saying I'm against having anything physical go on during this getting to know process, and everyone has their own comfort levels and boundaries.  But for me this means not jumping to conclusions: snuggling does not = I'm your girlfriend.  Seeing you a couple times a week does not = I'm your girlfriend.  Calling just to say hi and see how your week was does not = I'm your girlfriend.

For me, that slippery slope of spending time with someone and all of a sudden having to label yourself, so that there is an obvious way you fit into someone's life, is a danger zone.  I believe that it should be a conscious decision, the choice to get into an actual serious, committed "relationship" with someone. And that it shouldn't be done hastily of half-heartedly.

And so, regardless of how grown-up and proper dating is, I am over it.  It doesn't work for me.  It leads to mixed messages, and pressure, and awkwardness.

All I want to do is spend time getting to know people I think are cool, and who feel the same way about me, and if we keep feeling that way once we actually have a grasp on who each other are, the good, the bad, and the ugly, then we can talk about what role we want to have in each others' lives.

The labels, I can take em or leave em.  Actions speak louder than words, and they don't mean jack to me.

Sayonara "dating," good riddance to you, I am movin on.

Scorpio Horoscope for week of April 2, 2009 c/o Freewill Astrology

The three tasks I think you should work on in the coming week are among the hardest any human being can attempt. Luckily, you now have an unusually strong aptitude for them, and are likely to receive unexpected assistance if you're brave enough to plunge ahead. Here they are. 1. Interrupt and overthrow negative trains of thought right in the middle of their flow through your brain. 2. Negotiate partial solutions to complex problems. In other words, do the half-right thing when it's impossible to do the totally right thing. 3. Understand that in order to graduate from a certain batch of weird karma that has persisted, you must completely accept the situation as it is, acknowledge your role in precipitating and prolonging it, and feel gratitude for all that it has taught you.

Freakishly accurate?  Don't mind if I do.

This applies so well to the three main aspects of my life that are perplexing me and/or requiring a lot of energy right now: health, work, and relationships/friendships.  I could use a little blind hope, so okay horoscope, I'll take your challenge!

Number 1  Work in progress (ongoing).  Especially when it comes to interacting with people, especially new people, need to keep working on not assuming the worst.

Number 2 is extremely exciting for me, as being a bit of a perfectionist and hard on myself, I could totally handle some half/partial solutions when I don't feel like I know how to do the whole, or haven't been able to.  This particularly relates to work, which as much as I love it, has been tiring because of having this recurring bronchitis on top of my usual stuff.  But I know I'm always pushing myself to do everything at my regular level just because I hold myself to those standards, when really perhaps I should be focusing on doing what needs to be done and then taking more care of myself.

Number 3 is interesting, because I feel like I really have been having some "weird karma" affect me the past while, and it's been lingering, and I haven't been able to completely shake it.  But it's true, I haven't accepted all the various situations.  I'm a problem solver, and I tend to always believe there is some way to resolve things.  But maybe that's the difficult lesson that I'm meant to learn: that you can't win 'em all, so you just have to embrace the crap with the good (and what ever role you had in causing it), and really accept it and then learn from it.   So alright, crap, I give in.  I admit defeat, and I own up to the myriad ways I am responsible for what's been going on.

I'm going to be wholehearted (as per previous post) about surrendering myself to the fact that I still do think negatively about myself a lot, that I don't have to do everything 100% right all the time, and that I'm really not healthy right now and that I can't do everything all the time, and by continuing to push myself, I'm probably not helping myself get better any faster.

Whatever I have to do to feel better (physically and mentally), that's what I'm going to do, cause gosh darnit, I could really stand for my life to be a little more normal (read: fun and active) again sooner than later.

A while back I found a bunch of stuff I'd written ripped off on one of those stupid sites that rips all the content off other people's blogs, and ever since I periodically search the net to see if there are any obvious ripoffs of my content. I just came by a particularly interesting one, ripping the info from my SpendLocally.ca About page on The Green Pages (UPDATE: the Green Pages post has now been updated, with an extensive comment on the issue on the page as well) on a post about Spend Locally, written by "thegreenpages editor" but actually word for word content that I wrote for my site, as you can see:

My About page:

I feel really weird about it to be honest--although I'm not familiar with the site and whether it's actually legit and they just made a mistake, but I do recognize one of the (supposed?) contributors, and there's actually a Creative Commons "license" though there's no actual license at the bottom of the site. Which would be great...if my stuff had the same license, but it doesn't (though arguably maybe it should!). Even stranger is the extensive Terms on their site, seems they have a lot of legal consulting going on to be involved in this sort of shenanigans!

Anyway, I am totally not cool with plagiarism, and not entirely sure what the best approach is when dealing with this sort of thing, as I've found previously that contacting the site admins is often not productive. I know that Rebecca (Miss604) among others has written about how to prevent this sort of thing, but that page wasn't even in the feed!

I'm sure lots of you have dealt with this before--any wisdom or advice? Much appreciated!

Just when I started getting excited about everything that was going on, life gave me one more hurdle to jump--I thought I was on the upswing from the flu that I caught a couple weeks ago, but then Thursday night when I walked to the Safeway, I realized something just wasn't right.  It's only six blocks or so, but by the time I got there I was exhausted and felt kind of like I had asthma, but it just wouldn't really go away.  I went into work the next morning, but was still having the same feeling, and knew I had no choice but go to the doctor's.  I headed over there on my lunch break, only to find out that I'd actually developed both a respiratory and sinus infection.  Fun!  I guess sometimes I shouldn't be so tough on myself thinking I'm a wuss for being tired and not getting better fast enough, sometimes it really IS just that I'm not better yet!

So the doctor prescribed me some antibiotics and I called work telling them I wasn't going to make it back in, and headed over to the pharmacy.  My good friends will know how much of a fan of swallowing pills I am, so I was not to thrilled to begin with, but sucked it up and choked down the first dose.  The pamphlet about the antibiotics warned that it tended to irritate people's stomachs, but the pharmacist had said that there weren't really many options, so I just toughed out the bit of discomfort.

It was after I took the second dose later that evening that I all of a sudden started feeling really ill, incredibly nauseous, and crazy stomach pain.  I ended up on the phone with Scott at midnight, sobbing because I thought I was going to throw up and didn't feel good.  Which made me feel like a goon, cause I totally lost it, but it was just one thing after the other, and I was incredibly frustrated and tired.

Eventually I calmed down and went to bed, but when I woke up I still felt nearly as bad as the night before, so Scott came to get me and back to the doctor's office I went.  This time, I got prescribed a medication I had taken before (when I had my wisdom teeth out), but which isn't as strong of an antibiotic.  Scott headed back to work and Parveen and Alex came over to hang out and check up on me. Unfortunately, shortly after I took it, I got this weird itchy bruise rash thing on my hand.  I was kind of just in disbelief by this point, like seriously?! Cut me a fucking break!!!  I called the pharmacy and they told me it was probably an allergic reaction and to go back to the doctor AGAIN.

So Parveen took me back to the doctor...except since I just go to the walk in clinic, I got a crappy doctor who was really snippy with me, and then prescribed me a medication that is similar to one I'm allergic to, which didn't exactly make me feel very comfortable after everything that had already happened.  I was just too freaked, so we went to the clinic near my place to get a second opinion (I rarely go there because it kind of sucks and there's often huge waits), and waited 2 hours to see the doctor, Parveen the star friend that he is toughed out an incredibly long 2 hours by my side.  Luckily, the doctor was actually really good and seemed to know what he was talking about.

He said that the bruise/rash on my hand was not at all what kind of rash you get from the antibiotic I was on and that I could either try a different really strong antibiotic (not so recommended), or just keep taking the stuff I had since he didn't think that's what had bothered me (which is what he was recommending).  So even though I was a little (lot?) nervous about it I decided to stick with the stuff I was taking.  And it seems *knock on wood* that he was right.

My stomach's still feeling rough after that first antibiotic, and just because they are usually pretty tough on it anyway, but I think the infection is starting to clear.  So hopefully that will keep getting better quickly enough.  I'm just totally wiped after all this, and kind of wondering how I'm going to get through this last week of work in one piece.  I feel like I've been pushing myself so hard for the last month or so that I haven't got much push left in me at this point, but I know that I'm actually pretty strong and that I've made it through worse things.

I just have to try and stay calm about it and take one day at a time.  That, and I stocked up on frozen dinners and canned soup so I don't have to cook dinner all week.  Do what ya gotta do, right?

I am going to be so relieved when this week is over and I can just focus on getting my body back in fighting shape, and start to figure out where my new, and might I add more balanced, adventure will take me.