I've never become addicted to a substance, but I've felt its clawed grasp.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Saturday, May 5, 2018
FINALLY
The LSU Professor and I, after apologies from both sides, have resumed emailing each other again (he's currently in Australia). I sent him the entire email conversation I had with Morpheus on Jan 10, 2018.
His response:
"This sucks. But at least he's FINALLY clear to you, and the honesty he needed to use, to match your level of honesty...I'm sorry for your dreams of u and [Morpheus]..."
Why do we assume when someone is hurtful that he/she is being truthful? It's like always discounting those compliments you receive. It's not true, it's someone being nice.
I don't have much doubt that Morpheus means what he says. He doesn't want me in his life, but I sent to the LSU Professor all the ways that Morpheus was lying in that tiny conversation. He lied. If he lied about one thing, how do you know what is the truth from the bullshit?
You mean to tell me that Morpheus harbored those feelings for years, tucked them away in his jacket pocket, just revealing the depths of his dislike for me--because he was afraid of hurting my feelings-- until one day, one special day, he had finally had enough: he was officially sick of me and my emails, and he wanted to be done with it! Finally!
I am done with you. I no longer find you attractive or witty or useful in any sense, and I've felt this way for a long time, and I just didn't know how to tell you, how to be a gentleman about it because I could hurt your feelings, and I don't ever want to hurt your feelings until today and today, yes today, I will no longer be held back by common decency.
Deep down, I was just a toy he played with for his musings.
His response:
"This sucks. But at least he's FINALLY clear to you, and the honesty he needed to use, to match your level of honesty...I'm sorry for your dreams of u and [Morpheus]..."
Why do we assume when someone is hurtful that he/she is being truthful? It's like always discounting those compliments you receive. It's not true, it's someone being nice.
I don't have much doubt that Morpheus means what he says. He doesn't want me in his life, but I sent to the LSU Professor all the ways that Morpheus was lying in that tiny conversation. He lied. If he lied about one thing, how do you know what is the truth from the bullshit?
You mean to tell me that Morpheus harbored those feelings for years, tucked them away in his jacket pocket, just revealing the depths of his dislike for me--because he was afraid of hurting my feelings-- until one day, one special day, he had finally had enough: he was officially sick of me and my emails, and he wanted to be done with it! Finally!
I am done with you. I no longer find you attractive or witty or useful in any sense, and I've felt this way for a long time, and I just didn't know how to tell you, how to be a gentleman about it because I could hurt your feelings, and I don't ever want to hurt your feelings until today and today, yes today, I will no longer be held back by common decency.
Deep down, I was just a toy he played with for his musings.
Monday, April 30, 2018
I Am a Great Writer
"I am a great writer, a conviction I kept private for fear of sounding obnoxious."
--Jessica Knoll in "I Want to be Rich..." The New York Times
If only I could tell that to myself at night.
--Jessica Knoll in "I Want to be Rich..." The New York Times
If only I could tell that to myself at night.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Layers Beyond the Hurt
"Ever since I was a little girl, my fairy tale ending involved a
pantsuit, not a wedding dress. Success meant doing something well enough
to secure independence. My something was my writing...I decided I could not consider myself successful unless I was somebody
powerful, somebody nobody could hurt. Success became a means to wrest
back control, literally to increase my value..."
--by Jessica Knoll, "I Want to Be Rich and I'm Not Sorry," The New York Times
While my mother and I were driving home, my mother mentioned that I used my intellectualism as a shield, to keep people at a distance, to keep from being hurt.
"That's exactly what my last therapist said," I remarked.
--by Jessica Knoll, "I Want to Be Rich and I'm Not Sorry," The New York Times
While my mother and I were driving home, my mother mentioned that I used my intellectualism as a shield, to keep people at a distance, to keep from being hurt.
"That's exactly what my last therapist said," I remarked.
Nice to Have
"When someone says they have nothing to say to me, I'm out of there. That includes everyone in my life, not just you."
--from The LSU Professor's email, written 10/17/17
My response:
I just read your email five minutes ago.
Nice that you have your pride.
For me, only a brittle of that exists in me.
A mere illusion.
--from The LSU Professor's email, written 10/17/17
My response:
I just read your email five minutes ago.
Nice that you have your pride.
For me, only a brittle of that exists in me.
A mere illusion.
All Roads Lead--Somewhere
" [Jae],
It may be better to discuss at our next appointment since I am currently on the inpatient pain service. But to answer your specific question, I would not recommend tramadol for you based on its frequent interaction with drugs like duloxetine as well as many others. In addition, I do not think that tramadol is less or more addictive than other opioids, Addiction is a complex disease that depends on many individual-based factors as well as exposure/accessibility to opioids. I hope I have answered your questions to your satisfaction.
Be well, Dr. [M]."
I decided to talk their language, and quoted some research papers on why Tramadol is used for treatment of FM (fibromyalgia). I sent the doctor at Stanford Pain Management Clinic a list of studies, with a quote from each on the decision to use Ultram.
The doctor didn't care. She emailed me back the same day, within hours, saying she couldn't recommend Tramadol because it is known to interact with Cymbalta (see above).
I received her message, and then I sat down at the desk and cried miserably for an hour.
It may be better to discuss at our next appointment since I am currently on the inpatient pain service. But to answer your specific question, I would not recommend tramadol for you based on its frequent interaction with drugs like duloxetine as well as many others. In addition, I do not think that tramadol is less or more addictive than other opioids, Addiction is a complex disease that depends on many individual-based factors as well as exposure/accessibility to opioids. I hope I have answered your questions to your satisfaction.
Be well, Dr. [M]."
I decided to talk their language, and quoted some research papers on why Tramadol is used for treatment of FM (fibromyalgia). I sent the doctor at Stanford Pain Management Clinic a list of studies, with a quote from each on the decision to use Ultram.
The doctor didn't care. She emailed me back the same day, within hours, saying she couldn't recommend Tramadol because it is known to interact with Cymbalta (see above).
I received her message, and then I sat down at the desk and cried miserably for an hour.
Women's Anger
"One area of focus in the original edition was patient as victim; by the
second edition, women were no longer characterized as victims of doctors
— at least not so loudly. But they weren’t their equals, either. In the
early editions, women were medical subjects, objects of study. Learning
to challenge institutional knowledge, and their treatment by those
institutions, was as important as learning about their own bodies."
--https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/opinion/sunday/the-forgotten-anger-of-our-bodies-ourselves.html "Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Anger" by Elizabeth Gumport, The New York Times
--https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/opinion/sunday/the-forgotten-anger-of-our-bodies-ourselves.html "Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Anger" by Elizabeth Gumport, The New York Times
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Of course in those more bitter moments, I picture him picking up his phone and dialing me. Before he even speaks to me, I spat, "Well....well...well...if it isn't the world's leading expert on health and happiness....You know what? You only care about three things: one, making money; two, sticking your dick into something wet and warm, and lastly, drinking."
Then, I hang up. A man's entire core personality summed up by three little desires.
Then, I hang up. A man's entire core personality summed up by three little desires.
The Lady's Last Thought
I learned through a few private sessions with Stanford's psychologists on the unit, going through all the messed up shit that happened before my semester even began. I also attended group meetings on the ward, and that helped also. Although these "gifts of insight" never come as planned. They just happen.
When you talk about core beliefs in cognitive behavioral theory, I really believe that you're ventured into psychodynamic territory, which is refreshing. What's a core belief you have about yourself?
I learned that I had two that governs my everyday experience. One, is that I'm stupid. Two, is that I'm unattractive.
The idea, though, is to change these harmful beliefs. How? Maybe you have a good couple of years, you lose weight, you finish graduate school, and then in some twist in your life story, all those fears come right back up--it starts small of course, some extra ice-cream because work is stressful, with the thought that "I'm not equipped to handle this, and my peers are doing much better than me."
I love my greatest rationalization: I might as well eat.
An enormous amount of my day is spent worrying about my physical appearance . Every women knows that a impulsive need to touch the dress they are wearing--is to admit, in some way, that the dress frightens them because social expectations are surrounding that dress, and you pull on the skirt because it's just too short.
When you talk about core beliefs in cognitive behavioral theory, I really believe that you're ventured into psychodynamic territory, which is refreshing. What's a core belief you have about yourself?
I learned that I had two that governs my everyday experience. One, is that I'm stupid. Two, is that I'm unattractive.
The idea, though, is to change these harmful beliefs. How? Maybe you have a good couple of years, you lose weight, you finish graduate school, and then in some twist in your life story, all those fears come right back up--it starts small of course, some extra ice-cream because work is stressful, with the thought that "I'm not equipped to handle this, and my peers are doing much better than me."
I love my greatest rationalization: I might as well eat.
An enormous amount of my day is spent worrying about my physical appearance . Every women knows that a impulsive need to touch the dress they are wearing--is to admit, in some way, that the dress frightens them because social expectations are surrounding that dress, and you pull on the skirt because it's just too short.
All Roads Lead to Hell, Part IV
Of course, the issue is that the patient feels invalidated. The pain management doctors do not ask how you're doing (and if they do, they're not interested in the answer), They don't ask, "Tell me about your pain" or "What has helped your pain in the past?" or "What can I do to help you?"
Instead, decisions are divorced from the account of the patient to the god-like grip on an hammer as he slams down his orders without even caring for whom those orders were for in the first place.
They don't even see faces, they just see a diagnosis, and even that is often times boring to them. Shouldn't a patients' feelings and opinion matter when the doctor doles out treatment?
Instead, decisions are divorced from the account of the patient to the god-like grip on an hammer as he slams down his orders without even caring for whom those orders were for in the first place.
They don't even see faces, they just see a diagnosis, and even that is often times boring to them. Shouldn't a patients' feelings and opinion matter when the doctor doles out treatment?
All Roads Lead to Hell, Part III
I feel like going on some rant, explaining that we do a better job at pain management with companion animals than we do with humans, simply because doctors aren't afraid to give suffering dogs strong opioids when needed because--why?--all the political bullshit hasn't hit vet clinics yet.
Of course, I could rant and rave, but as they say, people with little knowledge are the most dangerest, and to argue with well-educated Stanford doctors appears (on the surface) to be folly and futile.
But I just might anyway.
Of course, I could rant and rave, but as they say, people with little knowledge are the most dangerest, and to argue with well-educated Stanford doctors appears (on the surface) to be folly and futile.
But I just might anyway.
All Roads Lead to Hell, Part II
Dear [Jae],
I appreciate the question. Opioids, like any other treatment, have to be initiated, continued or discontinued based on a benefit to risk ratio. In your case, and again this is my personal risk/benefit stratification, the risks outweigh the benefits given the impact of opioids on mood, hormonal balance, respiratory drive, constipation, immunity, etc. I am happy to chat with your general doctor ( with your permission of course) if need be .
Best,
[Dr. M.]
All Roads Lead to Hell
While visiting the Stanford Pain Management Clinic, probably the best in the entire West, my new doctor said within moments of meeting me that he really didn't like using opioids for chronic pain. He never gave justification for that statement, and I was too slow at the time to question it. Everyone in the health profession is concerned about opioids and addiction, but no one talks about it.
I didn't like the man, even though he was probably one of the brightest people in medicine, but when you get use to Stanford's levels of excellence, in life, in general, you learn to be more critical. You can sort out the extraordinary from the lowly "only-above-average." Dr. Daniel Mason (look him up!) is not only a writer of two novels (in an interview he complained about not being able to decide to be a writer or a psychiatrist), but--this part always amazes me--he graduated top of his class in Biology at Harvard.
My mother doesn't like him because, as people have noticed, his bedside manner sucks.
I caught him in the hallway of the psychiatric outpatient clinic, and he actually smiled at me (I felt blessed like God-himself was gracing him with his presence).
This doctor at Stanford's Pain Management clinic is young, and according to Dr. Mackey, all of his staff understands that pain is subjective, and that people can look rather ordinary, and yet be in severe pain. My doctor there at the clinic, well, I don't think he took this idea to heart like perhaps Dr. Mackey wanted him to.
This young doctor looked at me like I was simply a case, and an uninteresting one at that, although he assured me that a team of doctors looked over my documents, and came up with the best solution possible.
Do you want to know what the big revelation was?
Physical therapy.
When I returned home, and saw my GP, his initial reaction was that if Stanford knew I was on opioids and didn't think it was a problem, then he would continue to prescribe the medication (My young doctor at the pain clinic said that he wouldn't prescribe it himself because he wants someone local to me to manage it).
Then my GP's assistant mention that in the case notes from my visit at the Stanford Pain Management Clinic that this young doctor suggested I titrate off the Norco completely.
Immediately, my GP was telling me about how this was what was best for me, and he said he would prescribe 10 pills every ten days for a month, and then cut that to five pills for every ten days for another month.
That was a joke, so I decided to avoid the power plays and the bullshit and just stop taking the Norco completely on my own without dragging out the process over two months.
So, I returned to the Stanford Pain Management Clinic to see Dr. Mackey himself, and his fellow, Dr. M.
Dr. M and I discussed the opioid prescription, and she suggested that if it was helping me stay active then it was worth it to continue.
That's great, but my GP isn't going to believe it unless it's written down somewhere, so I made that request, and haven't heard back.
It's been a few days now without Norco, and at several periods throughout my day, I'm in serious pain, which starts out localized and then spreads outward like coming down with a bad flu. The first 24-hours were the worst. I spent the day on the couch, and Mom suggested that I drink a lot of water, and I did so.
I made an appointment with J. my physical therapist (after I paid off the clinic, a sum of $390), but then I canceled at the last minute. I was too ashamed to go. He's beautiful (single or not single?), and I hate myself for being fat. I realize that this is twisted logic (wouldn't someone who's overweight want to get in better shape?).
I didn't like the man, even though he was probably one of the brightest people in medicine, but when you get use to Stanford's levels of excellence, in life, in general, you learn to be more critical. You can sort out the extraordinary from the lowly "only-above-average." Dr. Daniel Mason (look him up!) is not only a writer of two novels (in an interview he complained about not being able to decide to be a writer or a psychiatrist), but--this part always amazes me--he graduated top of his class in Biology at Harvard.
My mother doesn't like him because, as people have noticed, his bedside manner sucks.
I caught him in the hallway of the psychiatric outpatient clinic, and he actually smiled at me (I felt blessed like God-himself was gracing him with his presence).
This doctor at Stanford's Pain Management clinic is young, and according to Dr. Mackey, all of his staff understands that pain is subjective, and that people can look rather ordinary, and yet be in severe pain. My doctor there at the clinic, well, I don't think he took this idea to heart like perhaps Dr. Mackey wanted him to.
This young doctor looked at me like I was simply a case, and an uninteresting one at that, although he assured me that a team of doctors looked over my documents, and came up with the best solution possible.
Do you want to know what the big revelation was?
Physical therapy.
When I returned home, and saw my GP, his initial reaction was that if Stanford knew I was on opioids and didn't think it was a problem, then he would continue to prescribe the medication (My young doctor at the pain clinic said that he wouldn't prescribe it himself because he wants someone local to me to manage it).
Then my GP's assistant mention that in the case notes from my visit at the Stanford Pain Management Clinic that this young doctor suggested I titrate off the Norco completely.
Immediately, my GP was telling me about how this was what was best for me, and he said he would prescribe 10 pills every ten days for a month, and then cut that to five pills for every ten days for another month.
That was a joke, so I decided to avoid the power plays and the bullshit and just stop taking the Norco completely on my own without dragging out the process over two months.
So, I returned to the Stanford Pain Management Clinic to see Dr. Mackey himself, and his fellow, Dr. M.
Dr. M and I discussed the opioid prescription, and she suggested that if it was helping me stay active then it was worth it to continue.
That's great, but my GP isn't going to believe it unless it's written down somewhere, so I made that request, and haven't heard back.
It's been a few days now without Norco, and at several periods throughout my day, I'm in serious pain, which starts out localized and then spreads outward like coming down with a bad flu. The first 24-hours were the worst. I spent the day on the couch, and Mom suggested that I drink a lot of water, and I did so.
I made an appointment with J. my physical therapist (after I paid off the clinic, a sum of $390), but then I canceled at the last minute. I was too ashamed to go. He's beautiful (single or not single?), and I hate myself for being fat. I realize that this is twisted logic (wouldn't someone who's overweight want to get in better shape?).
Sugar and the Bitter Truth
I've told myself over and over that I want him to be happy, but when I'm tired, and I'm slipping away into sleep, all I can hear from myself:
"You can't forget me because I made you the happiest, I am not replaceable..."
Then I wish misery and sorrow...
"You can't forget me because I made you the happiest, I am not replaceable..."
Then I wish misery and sorrow...
"Damn your love, damn your lies..."
--Fleetwood Mac
He can trivialize our relationship, he can minimize it to a fuck buddy-type situation, and he can deny all sorts of things, but even though I've lost 99% of all memories of him, I still remember the way he looked at me, the way he said my name, when he whispered "I can't stop thinking about you..."
In relationships, we're bound to occasionally say things we don't mean--either positive ("That hat looks great on you!") to the negative ("I hate you!") after a particularly bad argument.
Maybe he said a bunch of things that he never meant--maybe they meant something in the moment, and then they faded away like the way a bright shirt will become grey after too many warm washings.
Did I remember the events so much differently than he did?
He can trivialize our relationship, he can minimize it to a fuck buddy-type situation, and he can deny all sorts of things, but even though I've lost 99% of all memories of him, I still remember the way he looked at me, the way he said my name, when he whispered "I can't stop thinking about you..."
In relationships, we're bound to occasionally say things we don't mean--either positive ("That hat looks great on you!") to the negative ("I hate you!") after a particularly bad argument.
Maybe he said a bunch of things that he never meant--maybe they meant something in the moment, and then they faded away like the way a bright shirt will become grey after too many warm washings.
Did I remember the events so much differently than he did?
Three Months and So Many Days
I don't want to end up one of those "bitter ex's."
I suppose that the line "how can I contact you" was his way of testing what mode of communication would be best when delivering the bad news--phone, TXT-message or email?
This is not to say that he had a plan of what he wanted to say. He might have wanted to start the conversation with one intention, and then--something led to a different course.
I am, of course, proof of all that can go wrong in a marriage--how someone could be overcome with lust, forgetting for minutes and hours and days of the respectable ways of living. I am some bad reminder of relationships being confusing and hurtful. Perhaps all he wanted was to get rid of me before I manage to fuck up his next relationship with this girlfriend.
He doesn't want to feel guilty, so he'll twist the situation into whatever suits him best. I never loved him, therefore he doesn't have to love me back. He wanted me to go away, he told me that we could only be friends, he said this and that, and yet, I ignored him, and continued to cling. He took no part in encouraging me, because that would be unfair. He's blameless because he told me.
I've asked myself for many times, usually at night, am I trying to make him into a villain? Or am I just now seeing the truth? There's no quick, suitable answer to that.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
The Beginnings of a Psychotic Episode
I was hospitalized at Stanford on March 8th. I am currently on the waiting list to be readmitted on the psychiatric unit. I am currently experiencing an increase in psychotic symptoms, including paranoia and auditory hallucinations. It took a while, but I convinced my psychiatrist (at Stanford) to put me back in the hospital. My mother agreed with that decision.
My paranoia is confined to being about just strange men, not my family or friends or doctors. Sometimes I feel like these men are going to hurt me.
It was decided by my outpatient psychiatrist that I go back to taking clozapine, replacing the Seroquel.
My paranoia is confined to being about just strange men, not my family or friends or doctors. Sometimes I feel like these men are going to hurt me.
It was decided by my outpatient psychiatrist that I go back to taking clozapine, replacing the Seroquel.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Evolution of Desire
Perhaps I read the book, Evolution of Desire, looking for answers. Why did the email conversation go from "how do I contact you" to I never want to hear from you again in less than an hour? Why did he tell me about those other women he was seeing? Why is it that he didn't choose me to be his official girlfriend? Why was I never chosen? What exactly was wrong with me?
Probably no single book is going to explain Morpheus' behavior, and even an entire library might failed.
Evolution of Desire is the academic, literature version of Someone Like You (in fact, even the "new cow" study was talked about in both).
No matter your feelings on evolutionary psychology, you can't help but notice the overriding sexism guiding this book; however, that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to offer in way of insight.
What are the general principles explained in the book? Men care most about physical attractiveness in finding a romantic partner for marriage, and this is a cross-cultural phenomenon. People have "mate value," which for women is based on their appearance, and this "value" determines what kind of man they can obtain and latch onto. Most of us date around with people whom are close in "mate value." In other words, if you're a six on the ten attractiveness scale as a woman, you will find yourself dating other sixes. Women, what do we value? Material success and financial stability in a mate. The book goes into the evolutionary reasons behind all of this, which I will skip.
What do men avoid in a female companion? They have a particular aversion to promiscuity in women (of which I qualify), and even today, they like women who are modest, and will not sleep around on them after they're married. The percentage of men who cheat on their spouse? About 40%, which isn't comforting if you're in a long term relationship with someone. For women, it's slightly lower, but still significant.
Falling in love is not a modern phenomenon, and it is not a Western invention. Most cultures around the world have some version of it. For women, I have to wonder, why get married at all, if your spouse is likely to cheat, if you no longer need his financial resources because you have a rewarding career? Maybe because we fall in love, maybe because society expects us to marry, maybe because we want to raise children with two parents, maybe because loneliness sets in, and we can't escape the romantic ideals of our time.
We get trapped into a bad bargain that supposedly lasts for life.
Evolution of Desire talks about certain behaviors that keep our spouse from cheating on us or leaving us for a better mate. One of those behaviors was vigilance, the impulse to check emails of our partner, look through TXT-messages on his phone, etc. Sexual jealousy, and on and on. I find these behaviors, especially in a marriage, to be disturbing and controlling. But, I'm not an evolutionary psychologist.
Probably no single book is going to explain Morpheus' behavior, and even an entire library might failed.
Evolution of Desire is the academic, literature version of Someone Like You (in fact, even the "new cow" study was talked about in both).
No matter your feelings on evolutionary psychology, you can't help but notice the overriding sexism guiding this book; however, that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to offer in way of insight.
What are the general principles explained in the book? Men care most about physical attractiveness in finding a romantic partner for marriage, and this is a cross-cultural phenomenon. People have "mate value," which for women is based on their appearance, and this "value" determines what kind of man they can obtain and latch onto. Most of us date around with people whom are close in "mate value." In other words, if you're a six on the ten attractiveness scale as a woman, you will find yourself dating other sixes. Women, what do we value? Material success and financial stability in a mate. The book goes into the evolutionary reasons behind all of this, which I will skip.
What do men avoid in a female companion? They have a particular aversion to promiscuity in women (of which I qualify), and even today, they like women who are modest, and will not sleep around on them after they're married. The percentage of men who cheat on their spouse? About 40%, which isn't comforting if you're in a long term relationship with someone. For women, it's slightly lower, but still significant.
Falling in love is not a modern phenomenon, and it is not a Western invention. Most cultures around the world have some version of it. For women, I have to wonder, why get married at all, if your spouse is likely to cheat, if you no longer need his financial resources because you have a rewarding career? Maybe because we fall in love, maybe because society expects us to marry, maybe because we want to raise children with two parents, maybe because loneliness sets in, and we can't escape the romantic ideals of our time.
We get trapped into a bad bargain that supposedly lasts for life.
Evolution of Desire talks about certain behaviors that keep our spouse from cheating on us or leaving us for a better mate. One of those behaviors was vigilance, the impulse to check emails of our partner, look through TXT-messages on his phone, etc. Sexual jealousy, and on and on. I find these behaviors, especially in a marriage, to be disturbing and controlling. But, I'm not an evolutionary psychologist.
Sunday, March 18, 2018
But Not Yet
On March 6, I was at the local ER, in the waiting room, and I was crying. I had just left a pain management clinic, and was told that there were no therapies to help me, besides the ones I was already taking (namely, the Cymbalta and the gabapentin). I asked the pain management specialist how I could handle my pain now, when it was enough to keep me from attending class. The woman, a PA, just stared at me, unsympathetically like I was one more bother in her day. I mean, cancer patients are lining up outside, the elderly with severe arthritis, but who can look at a thirty-four-year old woman complaining of moderate-to-severe pain? I'm just not sick enough.
In the ER, I was put in the hallway, and the nurse came to me, and asked why I was there. I explained that I was having a flare up of fibromyalgia, and I need some relief. She asked what had worked in the past, and I replied honestly that morphine helped. She was ready to give me the shot when the ER physician vetoed it. She and another nurse asked again, and again, the ER doctor told them no.
Doctors and staff alike keep telling me that nothing serious is going on, my MRI show some degenerative changes, but then again, most people's do. As the ER doctor put it, my back pain was not "life threatening."
The bouncing around from doctor to doctor, and even ending up in the ER due to pain is not an unusual experience for women. And there is a gender difference in how doctors treat pain. I've read the suffering of women, especially with endometriosis, a pain that honestly, male doctors cannot relate to nor do most of them have a firm grasp just how horrible it is. We're just expected to deal with it. It's not uncommon for women to say that menstrual cramps put them in bed for a few days every single month.
I've been told (and read) a great many things about fibromyalgia, and every single doctor whom I met with at Stanford Pain Management Clinic asked me what I thought causes fibromyalgia, like I was being tested at a medical school oral exam. To answer, I simply summarized what I had heard Dr. Sean Mackey, MD, PhD say about it. One doctor recited a rather old theory, that fibromyalgia is a muscular and ligament condition, in which normal activity produces micro-tears in the tissue. We know (or at least Dr. Mackey knows) that fibromyalgia affects the central nervous system because people with the disorder experience brain atrophy over time, a condition of the disorder that I'm not looking forward to.
This morning, the pain woke me up. It was a solid seven out of ten on the scale. I took some Norco, and then attempted to go back to sleep, but something about being in bed made the pain worse. So, I made coffee and wandered around the house, waiting for the pills to take effect.
I'm asked to lose weight, go to the gym five days a week, go to yoga class, maintain A's in my academic classes, go to Stanford a couple times a month (missing school), and on top of it, manage two chronic conditions. At times, it seems all a bit too much. I'm a self-improvement project. Someone who will get there someday. But not yet.
In the ER, I was put in the hallway, and the nurse came to me, and asked why I was there. I explained that I was having a flare up of fibromyalgia, and I need some relief. She asked what had worked in the past, and I replied honestly that morphine helped. She was ready to give me the shot when the ER physician vetoed it. She and another nurse asked again, and again, the ER doctor told them no.
Doctors and staff alike keep telling me that nothing serious is going on, my MRI show some degenerative changes, but then again, most people's do. As the ER doctor put it, my back pain was not "life threatening."
The bouncing around from doctor to doctor, and even ending up in the ER due to pain is not an unusual experience for women. And there is a gender difference in how doctors treat pain. I've read the suffering of women, especially with endometriosis, a pain that honestly, male doctors cannot relate to nor do most of them have a firm grasp just how horrible it is. We're just expected to deal with it. It's not uncommon for women to say that menstrual cramps put them in bed for a few days every single month.
I've been told (and read) a great many things about fibromyalgia, and every single doctor whom I met with at Stanford Pain Management Clinic asked me what I thought causes fibromyalgia, like I was being tested at a medical school oral exam. To answer, I simply summarized what I had heard Dr. Sean Mackey, MD, PhD say about it. One doctor recited a rather old theory, that fibromyalgia is a muscular and ligament condition, in which normal activity produces micro-tears in the tissue. We know (or at least Dr. Mackey knows) that fibromyalgia affects the central nervous system because people with the disorder experience brain atrophy over time, a condition of the disorder that I'm not looking forward to.
This morning, the pain woke me up. It was a solid seven out of ten on the scale. I took some Norco, and then attempted to go back to sleep, but something about being in bed made the pain worse. So, I made coffee and wandered around the house, waiting for the pills to take effect.
I'm asked to lose weight, go to the gym five days a week, go to yoga class, maintain A's in my academic classes, go to Stanford a couple times a month (missing school), and on top of it, manage two chronic conditions. At times, it seems all a bit too much. I'm a self-improvement project. Someone who will get there someday. But not yet.
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Baby Heroin
Apparently, opioid overdose killed about 42,000 people in 2016. That's a town of people.
If you go to Stanford Pain Management clinic, in one of their small, examining rooms, there is a letter on the wall, signed by the Surgeon General (a copy of course), asking the staff to help fight the "opioid crisis." There's another piece of paper on the wall, explaining that even patients with legitimate pain can become addicted to opioids (I read recently that 1 in 6 pain patients will become addicted), contrary to popular belief (although I never believed that).
"I don't think opioids are good, especially for chronic pain," the doctor tells me within the first few minutes of us meeting.
When he asked my history of pain medications, I mentioned that I was on MS Contin for a while.
"You got off of it by yourself?"
I nod.
"That's really good. That's a dangerous medication."
Morphine is one of the best medications we have. It eases suffering around the world.
I explain to multiple doctors that the pain has interfered with my studying, and my ability to attend lectures (most days, I only stop studying because the pain is too much for me to sit anymore, not because I'm sick of studying). I've missed a lot of class, due to the fact that I was hospitalized recently (for psychotic symptoms), and some mornings (and afternoons, for that matter), the pain becomes so great that I can't even walk across campus with my bag. Does the staff at Stanford Pain Management care? Maybe. The lead doctor (I can't tell if he's a resident or not) explains that the room was full of people in evaluating my case, including several researchers/professors.
"You're a complicated person," he continues, referring to the fact that I have schizoaffective disorder-bipolar type, and any medication that treats my pain will affect my emotional and mood state. He suggested one medication, a low-dose of naloxone (you cannot take that and opioids at the same time), but later realized after the conference, that it would possibly increase my auditory hallucinations (and also my nightmares). So, that idea was nixed. But he didn't have any other solutions, reassuring me that Cymbalta and gabapentin were the best at treating fibromyalgia, even though I haven't received much benefit from the Cymbalta.
He seemed rather confident that physical therapy would help (it will, and I'm not against the practice, as I told my mother over the phone, I would go to physical therapy once a week for the rest of my life, if it was required). Exercise is the one treatment that all doctors who see patients with fibromyalgia agree actually works. The doctor at Stanford Pain Management Clinic told me to consider myself an "athlete in training" and to exercise as such (from what I've read, your average athlete exercises 2 to 3 hours per day). He also, when pressed by my questioning, believes that losing weight will help my condition.
He was against the use of opioids, and said that the Norco should be used "sparingly." I believe that two pills per day qualifies, but he had a differing opinion on that.
While hospitalized at Stanford's G2P, I was able to get by on two Norco's per day because I had the ability to recline in bed with a large, hot water heating pad that was connected to a small motor. I could prop myself up, and then do my Microbiology homework. One particular day, the pain was steadily increasing, even though I had taken my two allotted pills, and the resident in charge of my case allowed me to take a Norco #10 in addition, which solved the problem.
I asked the doctor at the Stanford Pain Management Clinic if he felt the same about methadone as he did about Norco. He seemed a bit surprised and then horrified by the suggestion, telling me that methadone was more potent, and was even more addicting than Norco because it acted on additional, different types of pain receptors than Norco. Which, of course, made me want to try it more.
I find it interesting that detached doctors who are not experiencing pain can look at a person who is in pain, and tell them to needlessly suffer. We all know the risks of addiction, but the medicine has value in taking care of health. Seroquel has terrible side effects, most remarkably "metabolic syndrome" which includes high cholesterol and diabetes, but--and yet--we still use it in an alarming amount of patients, including in the elderly even though it increases their risk of "sudden death."
It wouldn't be so bad, but the issue of prescribing opioids has now turned political (medicine should be immune to politics), and doctors are influenced by the media, which highlights terrible cases of overdose and addiction, but rarely bothers to include that morphine and other strong opioids make a huge, positive difference in peoples' lives. If you learn a little history about morphine, you will find that backlash has happened before against this drug.
The controversy surrounding OxyContin and the misleading advertising campaign really fucked everything up for chronic pain patients.
(By the way, you can chop Seroquel up and snort it, and apparently, it puts you gently to sleep, and they call it "baby heroin")
If you go to Stanford Pain Management clinic, in one of their small, examining rooms, there is a letter on the wall, signed by the Surgeon General (a copy of course), asking the staff to help fight the "opioid crisis." There's another piece of paper on the wall, explaining that even patients with legitimate pain can become addicted to opioids (I read recently that 1 in 6 pain patients will become addicted), contrary to popular belief (although I never believed that).
"I don't think opioids are good, especially for chronic pain," the doctor tells me within the first few minutes of us meeting.
When he asked my history of pain medications, I mentioned that I was on MS Contin for a while.
"You got off of it by yourself?"
I nod.
"That's really good. That's a dangerous medication."
Morphine is one of the best medications we have. It eases suffering around the world.
I explain to multiple doctors that the pain has interfered with my studying, and my ability to attend lectures (most days, I only stop studying because the pain is too much for me to sit anymore, not because I'm sick of studying). I've missed a lot of class, due to the fact that I was hospitalized recently (for psychotic symptoms), and some mornings (and afternoons, for that matter), the pain becomes so great that I can't even walk across campus with my bag. Does the staff at Stanford Pain Management care? Maybe. The lead doctor (I can't tell if he's a resident or not) explains that the room was full of people in evaluating my case, including several researchers/professors.
"You're a complicated person," he continues, referring to the fact that I have schizoaffective disorder-bipolar type, and any medication that treats my pain will affect my emotional and mood state. He suggested one medication, a low-dose of naloxone (you cannot take that and opioids at the same time), but later realized after the conference, that it would possibly increase my auditory hallucinations (and also my nightmares). So, that idea was nixed. But he didn't have any other solutions, reassuring me that Cymbalta and gabapentin were the best at treating fibromyalgia, even though I haven't received much benefit from the Cymbalta.
He seemed rather confident that physical therapy would help (it will, and I'm not against the practice, as I told my mother over the phone, I would go to physical therapy once a week for the rest of my life, if it was required). Exercise is the one treatment that all doctors who see patients with fibromyalgia agree actually works. The doctor at Stanford Pain Management Clinic told me to consider myself an "athlete in training" and to exercise as such (from what I've read, your average athlete exercises 2 to 3 hours per day). He also, when pressed by my questioning, believes that losing weight will help my condition.
He was against the use of opioids, and said that the Norco should be used "sparingly." I believe that two pills per day qualifies, but he had a differing opinion on that.
While hospitalized at Stanford's G2P, I was able to get by on two Norco's per day because I had the ability to recline in bed with a large, hot water heating pad that was connected to a small motor. I could prop myself up, and then do my Microbiology homework. One particular day, the pain was steadily increasing, even though I had taken my two allotted pills, and the resident in charge of my case allowed me to take a Norco #10 in addition, which solved the problem.
I asked the doctor at the Stanford Pain Management Clinic if he felt the same about methadone as he did about Norco. He seemed a bit surprised and then horrified by the suggestion, telling me that methadone was more potent, and was even more addicting than Norco because it acted on additional, different types of pain receptors than Norco. Which, of course, made me want to try it more.
I find it interesting that detached doctors who are not experiencing pain can look at a person who is in pain, and tell them to needlessly suffer. We all know the risks of addiction, but the medicine has value in taking care of health. Seroquel has terrible side effects, most remarkably "metabolic syndrome" which includes high cholesterol and diabetes, but--and yet--we still use it in an alarming amount of patients, including in the elderly even though it increases their risk of "sudden death."
It wouldn't be so bad, but the issue of prescribing opioids has now turned political (medicine should be immune to politics), and doctors are influenced by the media, which highlights terrible cases of overdose and addiction, but rarely bothers to include that morphine and other strong opioids make a huge, positive difference in peoples' lives. If you learn a little history about morphine, you will find that backlash has happened before against this drug.
The controversy surrounding OxyContin and the misleading advertising campaign really fucked everything up for chronic pain patients.
(By the way, you can chop Seroquel up and snort it, and apparently, it puts you gently to sleep, and they call it "baby heroin")
Saturday, March 3, 2018
"Knowing What Makes Us Happy"
"One study examined the expected impact of breaking up with a romantic partner and compared it to its actual impact...Students who had not experienced a romantic breakup, called 'luckies,' reported on their own overall happiness and then predicted how unhappy they would be 2 months after a breakup. The researchers compared this estimate with the happiness of people who had recently broken up, labeled 'leftovers.'...Leftovers were just as happy as luckies, but luckies predicted they would be much less happy 2 months after a breakup than leftovers actually were...
Although some breakups are indeed devastating, and divorce has many costs, people tend to overestimate how much a romantic break would diminish their life satisfaction [emphasis is my own, not the author's]."
--Social Psychology, pg. 220, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
Although some breakups are indeed devastating, and divorce has many costs, people tend to overestimate how much a romantic break would diminish their life satisfaction [emphasis is my own, not the author's]."
--Social Psychology, pg. 220, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Grandmother's Death
"Your grandmother did die by suicide, she just didn't do it with poison," my mother says to me after I tell her about a nightmare I had.
In the nightmare, my mother comes up to me about news from the coroner, who said that grandmother's death was ruled a suicide by intentional poisoning. In the dream, I was hysterical, and turned violent. I trashed the bar I was in, and got arrested. I kept saying that it was my fault because I didn't go visit her often enough.
In the nightmare, my mother comes up to me about news from the coroner, who said that grandmother's death was ruled a suicide by intentional poisoning. In the dream, I was hysterical, and turned violent. I trashed the bar I was in, and got arrested. I kept saying that it was my fault because I didn't go visit her often enough.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Losing People
Within a span of a few months, I lost three people who were important to me. First and foremost, my grandmother, who towards the end of her life seemed to have lost the capacity to be around other people, and instead, pushed everyone away for reasons that remain a mystery to me. She denied herself care, she denied herself comfort, and she denied herself support--all of which was offered to her.
Next, of course, was my best friend, the LSU Professor, who unfriended me on Facebook because I sent him an email saying, "I just don't have anything to say" recently after my grandmother's death. I thought that was an immature, hurtful stunt, and I have found myself unable to forgive him for it.
Obviously, Morpheus would be included in this, and I have found myself going over the last emails he sent me (only in my mind, not literally), and have found no real evidence that could support any firm conclusion. They just don't make any sense in my mind. Last night, I had a dream about him. I was so happy to see him (in the dream). It's as if whenever I'm around him, I'm always in a dream (hence the name "Morpheus"). I realize now that maybe those emails will be the last conversation we will ever have, and that somehow ten years of a relationship (however you want to define it) will come down to this.
Honestly, even though I believe he is a selfish bastard, he's still the love of my life.
Next, of course, was my best friend, the LSU Professor, who unfriended me on Facebook because I sent him an email saying, "I just don't have anything to say" recently after my grandmother's death. I thought that was an immature, hurtful stunt, and I have found myself unable to forgive him for it.
Obviously, Morpheus would be included in this, and I have found myself going over the last emails he sent me (only in my mind, not literally), and have found no real evidence that could support any firm conclusion. They just don't make any sense in my mind. Last night, I had a dream about him. I was so happy to see him (in the dream). It's as if whenever I'm around him, I'm always in a dream (hence the name "Morpheus"). I realize now that maybe those emails will be the last conversation we will ever have, and that somehow ten years of a relationship (however you want to define it) will come down to this.
Honestly, even though I believe he is a selfish bastard, he's still the love of my life.
Monday, February 26, 2018
If My Night's Labours Should Be Burnt
"I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the Beautiful even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning and no eye ever shine upon them. But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself; but from some character in whose soul I now live--"
--John Keats
--John Keats
The Woes of Microbiology, Part Three (Why I was not Comparing myself to Bill Gates)
Dear Readers:
I realized that my entry made no sense, and that the jump from Bill Gates to my B in Microbiology didn't "compute."
I'm not comparing myself to Bill Gates in any way, but the main point of the social psychology's textbook (at least in that chapter) was that people who believe that hard work and effort brings about good grades perform better in college than people who believe in innate ability that will carry them through. The book also mentioned that Asian students spend a lot more time studying than American students.
People are often also afraid to know exactly how smart they are, so often times they "self-handicap." They find all sorts of outside reasons why they couldn't study enough, etc.
I realized that my entry made no sense, and that the jump from Bill Gates to my B in Microbiology didn't "compute."
I'm not comparing myself to Bill Gates in any way, but the main point of the social psychology's textbook (at least in that chapter) was that people who believe that hard work and effort brings about good grades perform better in college than people who believe in innate ability that will carry them through. The book also mentioned that Asian students spend a lot more time studying than American students.
People are often also afraid to know exactly how smart they are, so often times they "self-handicap." They find all sorts of outside reasons why they couldn't study enough, etc.
The Nightmare
"Being in [the Desert] was more important to her than being with her family," my mother says about her mother.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
The Woes of Microbiology, Part II (It Isn't All Bad News)
My Social Psychology textbook would like to lead you to believe that Bill Gates was a product of his environment, that he had unusual access to computers, even to a "keyboard system" before it was widely used, and the ability to use the computer lab at University of Washington, opportunities that many, many children did not, and that by the time Gates was a teenager, he probably had more programming experience than any other youngster in the United States. He wasn't a gifted genius, he wasn't even special, he was a rapid combination of "dumb" luck. What they really don't make much notice of is the fact that something inside of him compelled him to use this computer lab at University of Washington, even though it was only available to him from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. in the morning. He was, I would say, unusually dedicated to the craft. That, at least in my eyes, makes him remarkable. His mom complained, apparently, that she couldn't wake him up in the mornings for school, because why? He was sneaking away to study programming at an university.
And we all know what happened. Despite the lack of sleep, he still managed to keep up the grades well enough to make it into Harvard--not that it mattered.
On my second midterm in Microbiology, I scored a little over 84%, which is remarkable. Most of the time, you don't get a jump from a D to a B from one test to the next.
I told my mother that I've decided to go to medical school, something I've wanted to do since I was about ten years old. Most of the prerequisites I can get here at the community college (I will have to take biochem at an University, along with histology and others).
What's interesting about Microbiology? Since it's made for nursing students (we have one student who is pre-vet), it's focused on clinical studies, and this next exam is all about pathogens--disease-producing germs, which is fun. My very first interest in medicine, as a young child, was in food-borne illness, infectious diseases.
At least for the state of California, for the year 2017, accepted medical students had an average GPA of 3.71, and for their science courses, it was around 3.6. I find it odd that the science course GPA was lower than the overall GPA, but that probably speaks to how rigorous the program is.
And we all know what happened. Despite the lack of sleep, he still managed to keep up the grades well enough to make it into Harvard--not that it mattered.
On my second midterm in Microbiology, I scored a little over 84%, which is remarkable. Most of the time, you don't get a jump from a D to a B from one test to the next.
I told my mother that I've decided to go to medical school, something I've wanted to do since I was about ten years old. Most of the prerequisites I can get here at the community college (I will have to take biochem at an University, along with histology and others).
What's interesting about Microbiology? Since it's made for nursing students (we have one student who is pre-vet), it's focused on clinical studies, and this next exam is all about pathogens--disease-producing germs, which is fun. My very first interest in medicine, as a young child, was in food-borne illness, infectious diseases.
At least for the state of California, for the year 2017, accepted medical students had an average GPA of 3.71, and for their science courses, it was around 3.6. I find it odd that the science course GPA was lower than the overall GPA, but that probably speaks to how rigorous the program is.
The Problems of Life, Which No One Really Cares About
My GP explained to me the last time I saw him that he was "uncomfortable" prescribing me opioids, which is not news. He asked that I see a pain management specialist.
There is, of course, this debate, and it surrounds the idea of pain being the "fifth vital sign" (I forget what organization started this action, but at Stanford, they take your blood pressure, your temperature, and then ask you your pain level, every few hours, no matter what the previous results were). Many people believe that adding pain as a "sign" is contributing to the opioid abuse crisis.
The issue is that about 100 million people in the United States, roughly 1/3 of the population will deal with chronic pain at some point in their lives. Not all of these people will require opioids to deal with their pain, but many might have pain severe enough to warrant a prescription.
Pretending that people aren't in pain by refusing to treat the pain is misguided, and even in some cases, unethical.
Why do we prescribe so many opioids? Well, a lot of people are in pain, that's why. Are some doctors over-prescribing? Yes, and we have research to back that up--but--a lot of people are in pain.
Back to my case, specifically, I am on several pain medications, Cymbalta (which doesn't work very well), gabapentin (which works in reducing pain), and then, of course, Norco #5. The problem is, the pain is going up, and the effectiveness of the Norco #5 is going down (probably a mixture of yes, the pain going up, and then the nature tolerance that occurs since I've been taking opioids now for a year straight).
Honestly, no one seems to care enough to intervene. If I went to my GP, and I was honest with him, and said that the pain is severe enough that I'm missing class because of it, he wouldn't do anything. I've been on the waiting list for Stanford Pain Management Clinic for months, and was just told recently that they are booked until April, and that there is a small possibility that I could be seen in May. In the mean time, I don't have enough Norco to adequately treat my pain.
On March 6, I'm seeing yet another pain management specialist, but I am not holding out any particular hope that he will listen to me carefully, and take me seriously, that I have fibromyalgia.
In the Defeat by Only One
"The triumph over many can get lost in the defeat by only one."
--Social Psychology, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett, pg. 167
--Social Psychology, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett, pg. 167
Monday, February 19, 2018
Living the Fat Life, Part II
"I want you to join a weight loss group, because you haven't been able to lose the weight on your own," The Neurologist says.
I've only been overweight for a year and a half out of thirty-four years of life, yet she acts like this has been a life long problem. Haven't been able to do it on your own.
I've only been overweight for a year and a half out of thirty-four years of life, yet she acts like this has been a life long problem. Haven't been able to do it on your own.
Wordsworth
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:"
--William Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
--William Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
Thomas Gray
"I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear
And weep the more because I weep in vain."
--Thomas Gray, "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West"
And weep the more because I weep in vain."
--Thomas Gray, "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West"
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Living the Fat Life [REVISED]
In Secrets From the Eating Lab, Dr. Mann states that eating 1,500 calories a few decades ago was considered starving yourself (scientists did a study with conscientious objectors to the Vietnam war, who submitted themselves to a diet of only 1,500 calories, and lost an average of 25% of their body weight over a period of six months, and they called the study, guess what?, starvation study, in order to learn more about what POW's endure)--today, it's considered a sensible diet.
In fact, one of the doctors at Stanford (whom I no longer work with) told me to eat 1,500 calories per day, and that if I did so, I would, of course, lose weight. The diet app I'm using tells me to eat 1,500 calories per day, and that I'm currently eating over 3,500 calories per day in order to maintain my body weight. Which may or may not be true.
The Neurologist suggested that I join "Overeaters Anonymous" because it's support, and it's free.
"OA believes that compulsive eating is a threefold disease: physical, emotional and spiritual, which, like alcoholism and drug abuse, can be arrested, but not cured."
I have major problems with that philosophy. How is being obese a problem with my relationship with God? If you want to take a much broader idea of spirituality, fine--but still, I get headaches thinking about it.
Obesity is probably a very complex problem. But, thanks to Dr. Mann, I believe it is at least in part a social problem. We encourage people to eat. Not only eat, but eat a lot. And then, we blame them when they do. We shame them when they do. I blame to a large extent advertising and the ubiquitous messages that we receive every single fucking day. You can't get away from food, even if you wanted to. Then, we have evolution, which says to eat while the gettin' is good (and, thankfully because of agricultural and technological advancements, that good is good all the time in our country). Not only are we programmed to eat when food is plentiful, but we are programmed to save it in our thighs, and in our stomachs (depending on the person and biological gender) until the last possible moment because there will come a famine, I know there will. And then, I read this, we are programmed to hate exercise because exercising means losing that hard-earned weight we scavenged for. I won't even get into the side effects of many medications of weight gain, which doctors don't understand (no one can explain to me why Seroquel causes weight gain). And we're beginning to see the complicated relationship we have with the microbes in our gut, how they might even affect our behavior, and our cravings for sweets, and how easy or how difficult it might be to lose weight.
The weird part is, which most people don't understand, I have a diet better than 90% of Americans. I can't remember the last time I had a piece of bread (although I do occasionally have pasta, and yes, I had rice with my sushi). My parents simply don't keep processed foods around in the house, although we have a bag of chips and a bag of popcorn that no one eats but occasionally (for the most part, I don't eat that either). My father does the cooking, and he always includes a vegetable and protein. Sometimes, he fries a piece of fish. For snacks, we have nuts. For breakfast, I eat fresh berries and low-fat, plain yogurt and then almonds mixed in. For lunch, depending on the day, I have a salad. In fact, I'm eating a salad right now that I bought at Costco.
My problem is, and it's quite obvious, I have a bowl of Dove milk chocolate candies on the counter in the kitchen. I gave up ice cream, and then a few days later, I found myself buying Valentine's candy.
I started eating healthier because I realized something that may or may not be true (researchers don't even know): what creates the link between obesity and certain diseases? (say, metabolic syndrome?)
Is it the fact that someone who is obese has a lot of adipose tissue?
Or is it the fact that this same person is relatively sedentary compared to his/her thinner comparisons and/or is it the fact that this same person has a less healthy diet compared to his/her thinner comparisons?
Maybe being fat kills, but maybe living the fat life kills.
I guess we'll find out.
In fact, one of the doctors at Stanford (whom I no longer work with) told me to eat 1,500 calories per day, and that if I did so, I would, of course, lose weight. The diet app I'm using tells me to eat 1,500 calories per day, and that I'm currently eating over 3,500 calories per day in order to maintain my body weight. Which may or may not be true.
The Neurologist suggested that I join "Overeaters Anonymous" because it's support, and it's free.
"OA believes that compulsive eating is a threefold disease: physical, emotional and spiritual, which, like alcoholism and drug abuse, can be arrested, but not cured."
I have major problems with that philosophy. How is being obese a problem with my relationship with God? If you want to take a much broader idea of spirituality, fine--but still, I get headaches thinking about it.
Obesity is probably a very complex problem. But, thanks to Dr. Mann, I believe it is at least in part a social problem. We encourage people to eat. Not only eat, but eat a lot. And then, we blame them when they do. We shame them when they do. I blame to a large extent advertising and the ubiquitous messages that we receive every single fucking day. You can't get away from food, even if you wanted to. Then, we have evolution, which says to eat while the gettin' is good (and, thankfully because of agricultural and technological advancements, that good is good all the time in our country). Not only are we programmed to eat when food is plentiful, but we are programmed to save it in our thighs, and in our stomachs (depending on the person and biological gender) until the last possible moment because there will come a famine, I know there will. And then, I read this, we are programmed to hate exercise because exercising means losing that hard-earned weight we scavenged for. I won't even get into the side effects of many medications of weight gain, which doctors don't understand (no one can explain to me why Seroquel causes weight gain). And we're beginning to see the complicated relationship we have with the microbes in our gut, how they might even affect our behavior, and our cravings for sweets, and how easy or how difficult it might be to lose weight.
The weird part is, which most people don't understand, I have a diet better than 90% of Americans. I can't remember the last time I had a piece of bread (although I do occasionally have pasta, and yes, I had rice with my sushi). My parents simply don't keep processed foods around in the house, although we have a bag of chips and a bag of popcorn that no one eats but occasionally (for the most part, I don't eat that either). My father does the cooking, and he always includes a vegetable and protein. Sometimes, he fries a piece of fish. For snacks, we have nuts. For breakfast, I eat fresh berries and low-fat, plain yogurt and then almonds mixed in. For lunch, depending on the day, I have a salad. In fact, I'm eating a salad right now that I bought at Costco.
My problem is, and it's quite obvious, I have a bowl of Dove milk chocolate candies on the counter in the kitchen. I gave up ice cream, and then a few days later, I found myself buying Valentine's candy.
I started eating healthier because I realized something that may or may not be true (researchers don't even know): what creates the link between obesity and certain diseases? (say, metabolic syndrome?)
Is it the fact that someone who is obese has a lot of adipose tissue?
Or is it the fact that this same person is relatively sedentary compared to his/her thinner comparisons and/or is it the fact that this same person has a less healthy diet compared to his/her thinner comparisons?
Maybe being fat kills, but maybe living the fat life kills.
I guess we'll find out.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
"I Will Be Filing A Student Incident Report..."
--My History Professor via message, referring to another student, who verbally attacked me during class on Wednesday.
I don't know, it was just one of those days.
Here's what happened.
The afternoon before, I decided to include some running and weight lifting in my program at the gym, even though I was told by doctors not to do that (but my physical therapist said it was okay, so, whom to believe?). Doctors say only yoga and walking for people with fibromyalgia, and for me, specifically, I'm not to exercise more than 30 minutes per day (which I ignore). So, here I am, sweating, running, and noticing that a lot of thin, beautiful women are at the gym, wandering around aimlessly in shorts and tight t-shirts, listening to music, and none of them are--actually exercising? Did they get thin by exercising, hence showing up to the gym, but then realized that they were thin, and didn't need to exercise, but felt guilty for not exercising, so they show up to the gym to pretend to exercise???
I wake up the next morning, getting ready for history class, and I quickly realize that I hurt from my neck all the way to my feet, and that this is an extreme amount of pain, even for me. Pills, lots and lots of pills.
I'm high, but still somewhat functional, and I show up to history class, and I talk about watching the movie Lincoln with the professor as everyone is settling in, which will change the average person's perception of Lincoln. He wasn't exactly as idealistic as we all would like to think he was (which I didn't know until I took History 207A with the same professor as I have now in History 207B). In fact, your average Northerner Senator during that time period was actually quite racist, although a few "Radical Republicans" did exist--but--
I ask my usual amount of questions since we're talking about Western expansion, and that's interesting, right? We're discussing the railroad, and cattle, and farming, and all that fun shit--and maybe I'm being more annoying than usual, who knows, right? When, in the middle of one of my questions, one of the girls in the back, who I never get a good look at her, bursts into a sort of rage about how many questions I've been asking, "Like it's been eight or nine by now, not even five or six! I'm paying for this class too, you know!" And she goes on and on.
I'm sitting there, a bit stunned (the entire episode is caught on my voice recorder if anyone is interested in listening to the entire thing).
The professor replies that she decides which questions are appropriate for the time allotted, and that my questions are on topic.
And still, the girl won't stop loudly talking from the other side of the room.
I get up to leave.
"Please don't leave, [Jae]," my professor says.
"No, I need to go." I really don't see the point in staying and listening to this since she doesn't show any sign of slowing down.
"You're not going to listen to what I have to say?!? I have a right to my opinion!" The girl continues.
"Come and see me, okay?" The professor says to my back as I'm headed out the door.
I give a weak "okay" on my way out.
I grab Beck, and leave the classroom, somewhat relieved because this day has just gotten shorter. And shorter means the sooner I can go home, and lie on my bed in comfort.
When I tell my mother the story, she asks why I let a bully run me out of the classroom. In reality, I'm not sure why I left, other than I couldn't think of a good response that wasn't rude or aggressive. I mean, a "fuck you" is not appropriate for a class setting. To just sit there and silently take it seems too docile and weak. You can't get into a screaming match with an irate, irrational nineteen-year-old on the other side of the room.
About an hour after class ended, a random classmate sent me a message, the title of which was "We Support You!", and it was, indeed, a supportive message. She commented that she found my questions helpful with understanding the material (which was nice to hear).
In the message, the professor tells me that I can file an incident report too. My mother thinks that I should since the girl's actions were severe enough to cause me such discomfort that I had to leave the room. I understand that point of view, but as I told my professor via the messaging system, the young woman did not engage in the legal definition of hate speech--she didn't disparage me by my gender nor by my disability. She did not threaten me physically. I said that if she approach me privately, and did so, I would not hesitate to go to the campus police. But as it stands, I will take no further action. If she continues to be a disturbance in the classroom, I told the professor that I knew she would handle it properly and swiftly.
All-in-all, I walked around in a haze (could have been the drugs, who knows?) for a few days afterwards. The next morning, because of the pain and lack of motivation, I missed another English class (I've now missed three lectures). I attended Microbiology lecture, but then missed lab because the pain was too great to sit in a chair for three hours.
It's interesting that when I sat down with my Microbiology professor and talked with him privately for about an hour on Wednesday (immediately after the drama-filled history class), he mentioned that he knew from my questions in class that I understood the material. He didn't mind the questions at all; in fact, at times, he seemed to rather enjoy them.
I have no idea what I'm going to do when I sit down in history class again. I have a feeling in my gut that this girl, whoever she is, I only have her first name, that she's not going to be quiet. Perhaps this is only my cynical nature speaking.
I've considered dropping the class (it's the only class I'm taking this semester that I don't need to graduate), but kind of message is that sending to not only myself but also other people?
I don't know, it was just one of those days.
Here's what happened.
The afternoon before, I decided to include some running and weight lifting in my program at the gym, even though I was told by doctors not to do that (but my physical therapist said it was okay, so, whom to believe?). Doctors say only yoga and walking for people with fibromyalgia, and for me, specifically, I'm not to exercise more than 30 minutes per day (which I ignore). So, here I am, sweating, running, and noticing that a lot of thin, beautiful women are at the gym, wandering around aimlessly in shorts and tight t-shirts, listening to music, and none of them are--actually exercising? Did they get thin by exercising, hence showing up to the gym, but then realized that they were thin, and didn't need to exercise, but felt guilty for not exercising, so they show up to the gym to pretend to exercise???
I wake up the next morning, getting ready for history class, and I quickly realize that I hurt from my neck all the way to my feet, and that this is an extreme amount of pain, even for me. Pills, lots and lots of pills.
I'm high, but still somewhat functional, and I show up to history class, and I talk about watching the movie Lincoln with the professor as everyone is settling in, which will change the average person's perception of Lincoln. He wasn't exactly as idealistic as we all would like to think he was (which I didn't know until I took History 207A with the same professor as I have now in History 207B). In fact, your average Northerner Senator during that time period was actually quite racist, although a few "Radical Republicans" did exist--but--
I ask my usual amount of questions since we're talking about Western expansion, and that's interesting, right? We're discussing the railroad, and cattle, and farming, and all that fun shit--and maybe I'm being more annoying than usual, who knows, right? When, in the middle of one of my questions, one of the girls in the back, who I never get a good look at her, bursts into a sort of rage about how many questions I've been asking, "Like it's been eight or nine by now, not even five or six! I'm paying for this class too, you know!" And she goes on and on.
I'm sitting there, a bit stunned (the entire episode is caught on my voice recorder if anyone is interested in listening to the entire thing).
The professor replies that she decides which questions are appropriate for the time allotted, and that my questions are on topic.
And still, the girl won't stop loudly talking from the other side of the room.
I get up to leave.
"Please don't leave, [Jae]," my professor says.
"No, I need to go." I really don't see the point in staying and listening to this since she doesn't show any sign of slowing down.
"You're not going to listen to what I have to say?!? I have a right to my opinion!" The girl continues.
"Come and see me, okay?" The professor says to my back as I'm headed out the door.
I give a weak "okay" on my way out.
I grab Beck, and leave the classroom, somewhat relieved because this day has just gotten shorter. And shorter means the sooner I can go home, and lie on my bed in comfort.
When I tell my mother the story, she asks why I let a bully run me out of the classroom. In reality, I'm not sure why I left, other than I couldn't think of a good response that wasn't rude or aggressive. I mean, a "fuck you" is not appropriate for a class setting. To just sit there and silently take it seems too docile and weak. You can't get into a screaming match with an irate, irrational nineteen-year-old on the other side of the room.
About an hour after class ended, a random classmate sent me a message, the title of which was "We Support You!", and it was, indeed, a supportive message. She commented that she found my questions helpful with understanding the material (which was nice to hear).
In the message, the professor tells me that I can file an incident report too. My mother thinks that I should since the girl's actions were severe enough to cause me such discomfort that I had to leave the room. I understand that point of view, but as I told my professor via the messaging system, the young woman did not engage in the legal definition of hate speech--she didn't disparage me by my gender nor by my disability. She did not threaten me physically. I said that if she approach me privately, and did so, I would not hesitate to go to the campus police. But as it stands, I will take no further action. If she continues to be a disturbance in the classroom, I told the professor that I knew she would handle it properly and swiftly.
All-in-all, I walked around in a haze (could have been the drugs, who knows?) for a few days afterwards. The next morning, because of the pain and lack of motivation, I missed another English class (I've now missed three lectures). I attended Microbiology lecture, but then missed lab because the pain was too great to sit in a chair for three hours.
It's interesting that when I sat down with my Microbiology professor and talked with him privately for about an hour on Wednesday (immediately after the drama-filled history class), he mentioned that he knew from my questions in class that I understood the material. He didn't mind the questions at all; in fact, at times, he seemed to rather enjoy them.
I have no idea what I'm going to do when I sit down in history class again. I have a feeling in my gut that this girl, whoever she is, I only have her first name, that she's not going to be quiet. Perhaps this is only my cynical nature speaking.
I've considered dropping the class (it's the only class I'm taking this semester that I don't need to graduate), but kind of message is that sending to not only myself but also other people?
Friday, February 16, 2018
Am I An Asshole Part III
When I tell my mother that the Neurologist wants me to join a weight loss program (which makes its money on the idea that you will lose weight only to regain it), my mother tells me that she will pay for it. Then she adds, "But do you really need someone to tell you how to eat right? You know how to eat right."
I complain that Noom wants $148 for an eight month program (they explain that it will take eight months for me to lose 72 pounds in which my BMI will then be around 21). "You know what I had to eat today?"
"You starve yourself, and then you gorge...Just reduce your portion sizes, and you will lose the weight."
Right, because someone will wave a magic wand, and I'll weight 130lbs again. And, by the way, I am a recovering bulimic.
I complain that Noom wants $148 for an eight month program (they explain that it will take eight months for me to lose 72 pounds in which my BMI will then be around 21). "You know what I had to eat today?"
"You starve yourself, and then you gorge...Just reduce your portion sizes, and you will lose the weight."
Right, because someone will wave a magic wand, and I'll weight 130lbs again. And, by the way, I am a recovering bulimic.
Am I An Asshole? Part II
I told my mother the story about my social psychology professor, and she says to me, "Well, you have been acting selfish lately."
Am I An Asshole? Maybe
Perhaps it should be noted that my social psychology professor has a Ph.D. in social rejection.
I was waiting for my History professor (who I have developed a minor crush on, and have considered asking her if she's gay or bi, but always talk myself out of it) because I have been missing a lot of class thanks to the Stanford team being concerned that the stress of the semester is making me sick (and yet, missing lectures is their answer).
I notice my very thin and very pale social psychology professor is walking into her office. I walk over to her door, and ask her if she's busy, if we can talk for a moment.
"It would be better if we could talk in the afternoon, but you said you have class," she says.
I explain my class schedule again.
"So, go ahead."
I ask a couple of questions about the upcoming midterm, and then a question about the last chapter we covered. Finally, feeling like this question has to be answered, "Do you find my questions annoying?"
She's not looking at me when she answers that they're usually not on topic, and that she has to get through her lecture material, etc.
"I'm not saying this to make you feel uncomfortable, but--" I pause slightly. "Why don't you like me?"
She just stares at me with those big, brown eyes. I notice how large her eyes are. She is pretty in her own way. I wonder briefly if she might be gay or bi. Then, she starts to cry. "I don't know what I did to make you think that--that you would think that--I never thought that--I hardly know you--"
Oh, shit. "I'm sorry. Obviously, this is my mistake. This is about me, okay? This isn't about you."
She nods her head, but she is still trying to control her emotions. She's trying not to cry. "I don't want hard feelings on either side, okay?"
"Sure."
"Let's hug."
We hug.
I was waiting for my History professor (who I have developed a minor crush on, and have considered asking her if she's gay or bi, but always talk myself out of it) because I have been missing a lot of class thanks to the Stanford team being concerned that the stress of the semester is making me sick (and yet, missing lectures is their answer).
I notice my very thin and very pale social psychology professor is walking into her office. I walk over to her door, and ask her if she's busy, if we can talk for a moment.
"It would be better if we could talk in the afternoon, but you said you have class," she says.
I explain my class schedule again.
"So, go ahead."
I ask a couple of questions about the upcoming midterm, and then a question about the last chapter we covered. Finally, feeling like this question has to be answered, "Do you find my questions annoying?"
She's not looking at me when she answers that they're usually not on topic, and that she has to get through her lecture material, etc.
"I'm not saying this to make you feel uncomfortable, but--" I pause slightly. "Why don't you like me?"
She just stares at me with those big, brown eyes. I notice how large her eyes are. She is pretty in her own way. I wonder briefly if she might be gay or bi. Then, she starts to cry. "I don't know what I did to make you think that--that you would think that--I never thought that--I hardly know you--"
Oh, shit. "I'm sorry. Obviously, this is my mistake. This is about me, okay? This isn't about you."
She nods her head, but she is still trying to control her emotions. She's trying not to cry. "I don't want hard feelings on either side, okay?"
"Sure."
"Let's hug."
We hug.
Am I just in a bad mood?
Apparently the district manager of the Starbucks around here, well, she came up to me, and told me that my dog, Beck, was blocking the way to the bathroom for the customers, and she had to be moved.
I wanted to tell her that in a store this small, and a dog this big, that no matter where I put Beck, she was going to be in the way--and then I wanted to cry--DISCRIMINATION!
I HAVE MY RIGHTS, DAMNIT!
I wanted to tell her that in a store this small, and a dog this big, that no matter where I put Beck, she was going to be in the way--and then I wanted to cry--DISCRIMINATION!
I HAVE MY RIGHTS, DAMNIT!
Sunday, February 11, 2018
The Woes of Social Psychology, and Why Amara Should Be in the Class With Me
I feel like, in general, my social psychology professor doesn't like me. Sometimes she ignores me outright (I admit that I ask annoying, somewhat philosophical questions that would take up the entire class period to answer, but alas), sometimes she gives negative feedback like, "but that's not really answering the question."
For instance, we were given a problem. Suppose there was a baby, who never saw another human being. Who grew up on a desert island (she meant deserted, but never mind). Who had food, water, and shelter and survived to adulthood, would this person, this human being have a sense of self?
As a class, we decided that the human would have self-awareness. He/she/it would look into a pool of water, and recognize that yes, that is me. However, would he/she/it know anything beyond that?
(I immediately thought of Tarzan during this discussion, but didn't mention it).
Now, realize, this person wouldn't know language, at least, we think she/he/it wouldn't know. But I suspected that yes, this human would have language, just not anything recognizable by us. He/she/it would know--that's a tree. That's a rock. That's something separate from me (my social psychology professor argued that that is vocabulary, not language, something very different).
About thirty minutes after class, after everyone decided that the person wouldn't have a sense of self because self comes from other people, I realized something big from being around a bunch of cognitive behavioral therapists at Stanford. Our sense of self is constantly regenerating despite our self because we are constantly talking to ourselves--about ourselves. In depressives it's called rumination. In normal people, well, it's just consciousness. Even if I never met another person, I would still have thoughts about myself, the content would just be different. I wouldn't be able to compare myself to my social psychologist, by saying, "She's thinner than I am. She's smarter than I am." I would say something similar like "blah, ah, eh..." Etc. I don't think being alone can stop us from talking about ourselves to ourselves. It's like breathing. Try to stop thinking. It's impossible.
I wish someone would lean over, and say, "Great idea, [Jae]." And then shake my hand.
For instance, we were given a problem. Suppose there was a baby, who never saw another human being. Who grew up on a desert island (she meant deserted, but never mind). Who had food, water, and shelter and survived to adulthood, would this person, this human being have a sense of self?
As a class, we decided that the human would have self-awareness. He/she/it would look into a pool of water, and recognize that yes, that is me. However, would he/she/it know anything beyond that?
(I immediately thought of Tarzan during this discussion, but didn't mention it).
Now, realize, this person wouldn't know language, at least, we think she/he/it wouldn't know. But I suspected that yes, this human would have language, just not anything recognizable by us. He/she/it would know--that's a tree. That's a rock. That's something separate from me (my social psychology professor argued that that is vocabulary, not language, something very different).
About thirty minutes after class, after everyone decided that the person wouldn't have a sense of self because self comes from other people, I realized something big from being around a bunch of cognitive behavioral therapists at Stanford. Our sense of self is constantly regenerating despite our self because we are constantly talking to ourselves--about ourselves. In depressives it's called rumination. In normal people, well, it's just consciousness. Even if I never met another person, I would still have thoughts about myself, the content would just be different. I wouldn't be able to compare myself to my social psychologist, by saying, "She's thinner than I am. She's smarter than I am." I would say something similar like "blah, ah, eh..." Etc. I don't think being alone can stop us from talking about ourselves to ourselves. It's like breathing. Try to stop thinking. It's impossible.
I wish someone would lean over, and say, "Great idea, [Jae]." And then shake my hand.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
The Woes of Microbiology
"I got a 66% on my Microbiology midterm," I tell my team at Stanford.
The attending physician looks at me with a smile. "We have something in common...Microbiology almost kept me from sitting in this chair right here."
"Really?" I say, incredulously.
"Yeah, I literally made the least possible passing grade. If I had gotten one more answer wrong on any exam, I would have not passed, and it would have been a major pain to re-do the course. Yep, microbiology, pathology, and histology. Which is why I do not use those courses now in what I do."
Just earlier the resident had told me that she spent a lot of time in office hours battling with chemistry and physics. What was remarkable, after they were discussing the struggles with both undergrad science courses, and parts of medical school, is that if these set backs affected these doctors, it did not stop them from being part of arguably one of the best hospitals in the West Coast, if not the whole nation. We're not talking about your run-of-the-mill doctors, these are people who are bright and accomplished, and have proven, in one way or another, to be special. To be stand out's. To hear them speak of struggling with organic chemistry was encouraging. They did not let these difficulties undermine their beliefs about how intelligent they thought they were or whether or not they thought they should be doctors. They just plowed through anyway. They greeted the challenges with strength and determination, which is a sign of character.
Month One
"Don't you think it was strange that he asked why I was hanging onto this so tightly--why I was so 'concerned' about him? I mean, isn't the answer kind of obvious? Why ask a question that you already know the answer to? Did he just want to humiliate me somehow when I answered that I loved him, so he could say, 'well, I don't love you back...I'm in love with this new person...I've moved on,' or something similar? Did he want to trap me into saying something to embarrass myself? Or did he really need to hear that I cared about him? Because the last time we saw each other, I told him that I loved him, and his answer was, 'no, you don't.' "
"We probably won't ever know the answer to those questions," the imaginary female therapist answers in her coolly objective manner. "You would have to ask him, directly, and you won't have that opportunity. At least for a while, and maybe never."
"Why would he want to humiliate me? Because if I said, 'it's because I love you,' that's me being vulnerable."
"Maybe he doesn't understand himself well enough to understand why he said it. Maybe he does. It's hard to say from what little evidence we have to work with."
"You know what is the sick part? Last time we had a conversation over the phone, granted he was drunk, but he said, 'I've been a dick to you' when I told him that I cared about him, that I worried about him, wondered how he was doing. And you know what, I didn't correct him. But he knows how he's treated me isn't right. He knows. He has a soul, but at the same time, he can be merciless and cruel. It's like now, he no longer has a use for me, so he wants to get rid of me..."
"People outgrow relationships and they move on. It's a natural part of life. And yes, it hurts. That doesn't make it hurt any less."
"We probably won't ever know the answer to those questions," the imaginary female therapist answers in her coolly objective manner. "You would have to ask him, directly, and you won't have that opportunity. At least for a while, and maybe never."
"Why would he want to humiliate me? Because if I said, 'it's because I love you,' that's me being vulnerable."
"Maybe he doesn't understand himself well enough to understand why he said it. Maybe he does. It's hard to say from what little evidence we have to work with."
"You know what is the sick part? Last time we had a conversation over the phone, granted he was drunk, but he said, 'I've been a dick to you' when I told him that I cared about him, that I worried about him, wondered how he was doing. And you know what, I didn't correct him. But he knows how he's treated me isn't right. He knows. He has a soul, but at the same time, he can be merciless and cruel. It's like now, he no longer has a use for me, so he wants to get rid of me..."
"People outgrow relationships and they move on. It's a natural part of life. And yes, it hurts. That doesn't make it hurt any less."
Friday, February 9, 2018
"Dreams"
"Now here you go again, you say
You want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It's only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost, and what you had, and what you lost
You want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It's only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost, and what you had, and what you lost
Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
Say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you'll know, you'll know..."
Players only love you when they're playing
Say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you'll know, you'll know..."
--Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams"
Thursday, February 8, 2018
The Least Reliable
"Some doctors told me that the fibromyalgia diagnosis was a crock of shit," my uncle tells everyone in the room, including me.
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
The Questionable Conclusion, Part VIV
"I'm waiting for him to apologize," I say to my imaginary female therapist.
"You might be waiting for a long time," she says under her breath.
"What?"
"Even if he is sorry, even if he feels remorse, he might not say anything because that would re-open the lines of communication, and potentially be very confusing--for the both of you."
"You might be waiting for a long time," she says under her breath.
"What?"
"Even if he is sorry, even if he feels remorse, he might not say anything because that would re-open the lines of communication, and potentially be very confusing--for the both of you."
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Summary of My Life, Part II
"People also choose to enter into relationships that maintain consistent views of the self, even when those views are dark, ruinous, and tragic. These sorts of preferences guarantee that our personal lives will probably confirm our self-views."
--Social Psychology, pg. 96, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
--Social Psychology, pg. 96, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
Summary of My Life
"People engage in a number of self-verification strategies. We selectively attend to and recall information that is consistent with (and therefore verifies) our self-views. People with negative self-views, for example, spend more time studying negative rather than positive feedback about themselves; they remember negative feedback better; and they prefer to interact with others who are likely to provide negative rather than positive feedback [emphasis is my own]."
--Social Psychology, pg. 96, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
Which pretty much explains my whole life.
--Social Psychology, pg. 96, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
Which pretty much explains my whole life.
Why I Didn't Apply To Stanford
"We like to feel good about ourselves, though, so our search for similar targets of comparison tends to be biased toward people who are slightly inferior to, or worse off than, ourselves."
--Social Psychology, pg. 83, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen and Nisbett
Which is why I didn't apply to Stanford this year.
--Social Psychology, pg. 83, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen and Nisbett
Which is why I didn't apply to Stanford this year.
Friday, February 2, 2018
The Questionable Conclusion, Part VIII
"Why do you think he rejected you?" The imaginary female therapist asks.
I rest my chin in my hands. "Because I'm fat."
"Because you're fat?"
"I know. It doesn't make much sense. He rejected me plenty when I was thinner, but I'm surprised he didn't put that in one of those emails. '[Jae], you know you got fat, and I just don't want that...' "
"Maybe he didn't notice?"
"He noticed, okay? Everyone notices, and [Morpheus] notices everything. Some people are just more polite than others, and don't say anything."
"Have you thought maybe he didn't care about that?"
"He cares. Every man cares. Every woman cares even more. There are men, of course, who prefer plus-sized women, but I don't think he's one of them...In stupid social psychology class, we're learning about attraction and physical appearance, like your average young adult needs more to be insecure about. And that beauty is programmed from birth. Little babies know. You respond to beauty, and you are either beautiful or not. What kind of fucked up shit is that to tell a class of eighteen year olds?"
"You said you had lost some weight. Five pounds right?"
"Yes, and I gained it back, plus three more. So, really, I hit a new record, the most I've ever weighed in my life a few days ago. I have this app on my phone where I record my weight, and every time I put in a number that is higher than the first weight ever recorded, it shows up in red, and there's this upward slope on the graph. So, not only am I not losing weight, but I'm actually slowing gaining weight still. Encouraging, right?"
I rest my chin in my hands. "Because I'm fat."
"Because you're fat?"
"I know. It doesn't make much sense. He rejected me plenty when I was thinner, but I'm surprised he didn't put that in one of those emails. '[Jae], you know you got fat, and I just don't want that...' "
"Maybe he didn't notice?"
"He noticed, okay? Everyone notices, and [Morpheus] notices everything. Some people are just more polite than others, and don't say anything."
"Have you thought maybe he didn't care about that?"
"He cares. Every man cares. Every woman cares even more. There are men, of course, who prefer plus-sized women, but I don't think he's one of them...In stupid social psychology class, we're learning about attraction and physical appearance, like your average young adult needs more to be insecure about. And that beauty is programmed from birth. Little babies know. You respond to beauty, and you are either beautiful or not. What kind of fucked up shit is that to tell a class of eighteen year olds?"
"You said you had lost some weight. Five pounds right?"
"Yes, and I gained it back, plus three more. So, really, I hit a new record, the most I've ever weighed in my life a few days ago. I have this app on my phone where I record my weight, and every time I put in a number that is higher than the first weight ever recorded, it shows up in red, and there's this upward slope on the graph. So, not only am I not losing weight, but I'm actually slowing gaining weight still. Encouraging, right?"
The Questionable Conclusion, Part VII
"There is an upside to this," the imaginary female therapist tells me. She crosses her legs at the knees.
"Okay, what's that?" I say. I'm game.
"He's let you go. He's given you an answer. You don't have to worry about him anymore. You don't have to wonder about the what if's. You're no longer responsible for carrying on this one-sided conversation anymore. You can stop now. You don't have to save him. You don't have to make him better. He's on his own...You did all you could do."
"Okay, what's that?" I say. I'm game.
"He's let you go. He's given you an answer. You don't have to worry about him anymore. You don't have to wonder about the what if's. You're no longer responsible for carrying on this one-sided conversation anymore. You can stop now. You don't have to save him. You don't have to make him better. He's on his own...You did all you could do."
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
The Questionable Conclusion, Part VI
"Some people sabotage their happiness because they don't believe they deserve any," I say to the imaginary female therapist, no doubt quoting another therapist or some psychology book I read at some point.
"Do you look back at your life, and see you doing that to yourself?" She's scribbling on her pad.
I can't tell if she's writing or doodling. "When it comes to romantic relationships, I just don't think there was that much happiness to be had. I remember spending three days with [Mr. FS], who had asked me to marry him, three days, mind you, and after that, I was like, 'I have to get away from this man.' I hated being with him that long. He was a mean person....I could just go down the list..."
"Do you ever remember a time you were happy with someone?"
"Yeah, every time I stepped through that door at [Morpheus]'s house. Even if I'm mad at him, I'm still happy to be with him. I mean, if you could bottle that shit, I'd be IV'ing it all day long."
"Is this getting in the way of your studies? Your thoughts about him?"
"I don't know. I got my score back for my microbiology midterm. I got a 66%. That's the lowest grade, by far, that I've received in the past two years at [community college]. So, who knows?"
"Do you look back at your life, and see you doing that to yourself?" She's scribbling on her pad.
I can't tell if she's writing or doodling. "When it comes to romantic relationships, I just don't think there was that much happiness to be had. I remember spending three days with [Mr. FS], who had asked me to marry him, three days, mind you, and after that, I was like, 'I have to get away from this man.' I hated being with him that long. He was a mean person....I could just go down the list..."
"Do you ever remember a time you were happy with someone?"
"Yeah, every time I stepped through that door at [Morpheus]'s house. Even if I'm mad at him, I'm still happy to be with him. I mean, if you could bottle that shit, I'd be IV'ing it all day long."
"Is this getting in the way of your studies? Your thoughts about him?"
"I don't know. I got my score back for my microbiology midterm. I got a 66%. That's the lowest grade, by far, that I've received in the past two years at [community college]. So, who knows?"
The Wonders of We
"The field of forces in the case of human behavior is the role of the situation, especially the social situation, in guiding behavior. The main situational influences on our behavior, influences that we often misjudge or fail to see altogether, are the actions--and sometimes just the mere presence--of other people. Friends, romantic partners, even total strangers can cause us to be kinder or meaner, smarter or dumber, lazier or more hardworking, bolder or more cautious. They can produce drastic changes in our beliefs and behavior not only by what they tell us explicitly, but also by modeling through their actions what we should think and do, by subtly implying that our acceptability as a friend or group member depends on adopting their views or behaving as they do."
--Social Psychology, pg. 9, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
--Social Psychology, pg. 9, by Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett
The Questionable Conclusion Part V
"You're not going to find anyone unless you go out and are interacting with new people, like taking up a new hobby or joining a book club. How does that sound?" The imaginary female therapist looks at me earnestly, like she has the whole world figured out.
"Number one, I don't want to find anyone new. Okay? I realize that maybe it seems very odd or even abnormal, but I don't want to be in a relationship, and number two--number two, I don't have time for a book club. I have plenty of books to read just with my four classes."
"You want to be in a relationship with [Morpheus], but you don't want to be in a relationship?" She asks, thinking she has me trapped in some uncomfortable place.
"I never said I wanted to be in a relationship with [Morpheus]. I mean, yeah, if things were different--sometimes I imagine coming home to him like a normal individual, but--"
"It's okay to have needs and wants. To want to be close to someone. And it's okay to believe you'll find it."
"Really? I told my mother the other day that the only reason why I'd ever marry would be for money. My opinion on that hasn't changed. My friend [Rosa] once said that I acted like long term relationships were cancer." I smile slightly.
"Why for money?"
"The oldest reason ever. Financial stability. I remember a life when I didn't have to worry about where money came from. I wouldn't mind returning to that life...What if that's the last conversation we ever have?" I say, changing the subject, and suddenly frightened.
"What if it is?"
"Whenever I think about it, it just stops me in my tracks. Like it's impossible to digest."
"Number one, I don't want to find anyone new. Okay? I realize that maybe it seems very odd or even abnormal, but I don't want to be in a relationship, and number two--number two, I don't have time for a book club. I have plenty of books to read just with my four classes."
"You want to be in a relationship with [Morpheus], but you don't want to be in a relationship?" She asks, thinking she has me trapped in some uncomfortable place.
"I never said I wanted to be in a relationship with [Morpheus]. I mean, yeah, if things were different--sometimes I imagine coming home to him like a normal individual, but--"
"It's okay to have needs and wants. To want to be close to someone. And it's okay to believe you'll find it."
"Really? I told my mother the other day that the only reason why I'd ever marry would be for money. My opinion on that hasn't changed. My friend [Rosa] once said that I acted like long term relationships were cancer." I smile slightly.
"Why for money?"
"The oldest reason ever. Financial stability. I remember a life when I didn't have to worry about where money came from. I wouldn't mind returning to that life...What if that's the last conversation we ever have?" I say, changing the subject, and suddenly frightened.
"What if it is?"
"Whenever I think about it, it just stops me in my tracks. Like it's impossible to digest."
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Racism is Okay if You Keep It In Your Own House
My parents and I and my uncle are all in the den. I'm working on my microbiology midterm. My mother brings up the idea of Oprah running for president.
"That's just what we need, another nigger in the White House," my uncle says.
I am leaning over the bottom freezer, grabbing a Coke Zero, when I say, "Hey, easy with the racial slurs."
My mother defends her brother, "This is a private residence."
"That's just what we need, another nigger in the White House," my uncle says.
I am leaning over the bottom freezer, grabbing a Coke Zero, when I say, "Hey, easy with the racial slurs."
My mother defends her brother, "This is a private residence."
"Secrets From the Eating Lab," And Why You Should Avoid That Book Like Ben&Jerry's
According to the author of Secrets From the Eating Lab, our weight is largely genetically determined (I spoke about this earlier), and that we have a range of what is normal for us to weigh, and that without dieting, we can weigh on the low end of this range. Normally, during the course of my adulthood, I would gain and lose about thirty pounds, all within the normal weight range for my height, anywhere from the verge of being underweight to being about five pounds from being overweight--until recently anyway. Again, as the author said, it's hard for people to gain weight out of this range, and keep the weight on (she cited some studies), just as it is hard for people to diet out of their livable weight by being too light. If you try to mess with this range, you suffer some fairly drastic consequences.
There's a big problem with this argument, of course, and that's the fact that 2/3rds of the American population is either overweight or obese and that number has increased dramatically, just in my lifetime. It can't be due to genetic variability because there haven't been enough generations to naturally select for fat people, and therefore produce more of them, and therefore change the population. I've heard this argument before, I didn't come up with it, but I believe it to be fairly sound reasoning, even if it is evolutionary (which I'm personally not fond of for reasons I won't go into here).
So, are overweight and obese people just living in their genetically predetermined weight range?
I say no on that one. I read Fat Chance by Robert Lustig, brilliant researcher and doctor, who cited some possible environmental toxins as explanations for the increase in everyone's weight. There's this theory going around that the reason why people gain weight on Seroquel is because the drug changes the microbes in the gut (which is why I'm researching this very topic right now). I asked my doctors at Stanford as to how Topamax (which I'm currently on) works to help people to lose weight, and they didn't know.
Unfortunately, Dr. Mann doesn't offer much in the way of solutions. Her non-dieting dieting advice were things I had heard before. Like don't keep tempting things in the house because you will have a weak moment and eat them. Like eat a salad before your main course. Like don't eat to receive an emotional boost because it won't work. Etc. Honestly, if you want really good, non-extremist dieting advice, read the O Magazine. There are always helpful tips in there. Plus, Oprah, no matter how successful she is, she constantly struggles with her self-image and her weight, something that a lot of us average people can connect with.
Dr. Mann writes a full chapter on weight-based discrimination, but then later writes another chapter where she talks about being "okay" with your overweight body. She says we have better things to do with our time and energy than build the perfect body (even if we could), and therefore we should stride forward with other goals.
But if she's right, then someone's weight, and physical appearance, affects everything, including the job this person could potentially get or not get. I can understand that some people don't want to conform to society's standards and norms because they want to accept themselves as they are, and want other people to do the same. When I think of this, I think of trans and gender nonconforming.
But isn't it just all a hopeless message for those of us who are overweight or even slightly obese?
Do we buy into the stigma?
Yes.
Does that make us part of the problem, especially if we pass that message on down to our daughters (like my mother did to me)?
Yes.
But what do we do?
There's a big problem with this argument, of course, and that's the fact that 2/3rds of the American population is either overweight or obese and that number has increased dramatically, just in my lifetime. It can't be due to genetic variability because there haven't been enough generations to naturally select for fat people, and therefore produce more of them, and therefore change the population. I've heard this argument before, I didn't come up with it, but I believe it to be fairly sound reasoning, even if it is evolutionary (which I'm personally not fond of for reasons I won't go into here).
So, are overweight and obese people just living in their genetically predetermined weight range?
I say no on that one. I read Fat Chance by Robert Lustig, brilliant researcher and doctor, who cited some possible environmental toxins as explanations for the increase in everyone's weight. There's this theory going around that the reason why people gain weight on Seroquel is because the drug changes the microbes in the gut (which is why I'm researching this very topic right now). I asked my doctors at Stanford as to how Topamax (which I'm currently on) works to help people to lose weight, and they didn't know.
Unfortunately, Dr. Mann doesn't offer much in the way of solutions. Her non-dieting dieting advice were things I had heard before. Like don't keep tempting things in the house because you will have a weak moment and eat them. Like eat a salad before your main course. Like don't eat to receive an emotional boost because it won't work. Etc. Honestly, if you want really good, non-extremist dieting advice, read the O Magazine. There are always helpful tips in there. Plus, Oprah, no matter how successful she is, she constantly struggles with her self-image and her weight, something that a lot of us average people can connect with.
Dr. Mann writes a full chapter on weight-based discrimination, but then later writes another chapter where she talks about being "okay" with your overweight body. She says we have better things to do with our time and energy than build the perfect body (even if we could), and therefore we should stride forward with other goals.
But if she's right, then someone's weight, and physical appearance, affects everything, including the job this person could potentially get or not get. I can understand that some people don't want to conform to society's standards and norms because they want to accept themselves as they are, and want other people to do the same. When I think of this, I think of trans and gender nonconforming.
But isn't it just all a hopeless message for those of us who are overweight or even slightly obese?
Do we buy into the stigma?
Yes.
Does that make us part of the problem, especially if we pass that message on down to our daughters (like my mother did to me)?
Yes.
But what do we do?
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Being Fat is Fair Game, Part VII
I don't suggest reading Secrets From the Eating Lab (I'm almost finished). But if you're overweight or even obese, here's what you're in for:
1. Here's a real documented case for weight-based discrimination and stigma. Congrats. People judge you just because you weigh a little more, and think you are less intelligent and less hard working, and doctors are less likely to treat you properly, and on and on.
2. The odds are incredibly stacked against you if you ever want to lose enough weight to be within the BMI's idea of normal weight. According to one doctor, you have better odds of beating rare forms of cancer.
3. Weight loss companies build their business models on the idea that people will regain their weight that they loose, and therefore be repeat customers.
4. Most of us know most of the reasons why people can't lose weight to begin with. One of the additional reasons that I learned that I didn't know was that being on a diet actually causes stress, and as most of us know, stress causes weight gain. Perfect! Dieting also causes loss in executive function, you know, that part of the brain that helps you to stop yourself before you reach for that cookie at nine pm. Decreases. Why? According to the author, no one is quite sure. Oh! And yes! Dieting makes you temporarily less smart! Who knew?
5. Obesity won't kill you. Actually, people who are overweight live longer than people who are normal weight, and people who are underweight, well, it's suggested that they could live shorter lives. But does obesity give you disease? Maybe. What we know for sure is that inactivity gives you disease, and people with obesity are less active. But who cares, right? If the world looks down on you if you're fat, do you really care that you live another five, six years from the skinny sister you have?
6. Theoretically, it's impossible that I'm overweight. My parents, both biological and adoptive, are thin. Weight is 70% inherited. I'm a bit of a fat miracle. It was also said that the people around you influence your eating habits. My mother barely eats. What's wrong with me?
7. One good bit of information that men don't want you to know, they watch a lot of porn with fat women in it. True story. The experts at Google figured this out.
8. Reducing your caloric intake to 1,500 calories per day makes you obsess about food to the exclusion of all other things or needs, including sex. If you want to be thin, and you're not genetic predisposed, it will have to be your life's focus.
9. Anorexics have enormous amounts of focus and self-control, which most of us don't. But never mind.
1. Here's a real documented case for weight-based discrimination and stigma. Congrats. People judge you just because you weigh a little more, and think you are less intelligent and less hard working, and doctors are less likely to treat you properly, and on and on.
2. The odds are incredibly stacked against you if you ever want to lose enough weight to be within the BMI's idea of normal weight. According to one doctor, you have better odds of beating rare forms of cancer.
3. Weight loss companies build their business models on the idea that people will regain their weight that they loose, and therefore be repeat customers.
4. Most of us know most of the reasons why people can't lose weight to begin with. One of the additional reasons that I learned that I didn't know was that being on a diet actually causes stress, and as most of us know, stress causes weight gain. Perfect! Dieting also causes loss in executive function, you know, that part of the brain that helps you to stop yourself before you reach for that cookie at nine pm. Decreases. Why? According to the author, no one is quite sure. Oh! And yes! Dieting makes you temporarily less smart! Who knew?
5. Obesity won't kill you. Actually, people who are overweight live longer than people who are normal weight, and people who are underweight, well, it's suggested that they could live shorter lives. But does obesity give you disease? Maybe. What we know for sure is that inactivity gives you disease, and people with obesity are less active. But who cares, right? If the world looks down on you if you're fat, do you really care that you live another five, six years from the skinny sister you have?
6. Theoretically, it's impossible that I'm overweight. My parents, both biological and adoptive, are thin. Weight is 70% inherited. I'm a bit of a fat miracle. It was also said that the people around you influence your eating habits. My mother barely eats. What's wrong with me?
7. One good bit of information that men don't want you to know, they watch a lot of porn with fat women in it. True story. The experts at Google figured this out.
8. Reducing your caloric intake to 1,500 calories per day makes you obsess about food to the exclusion of all other things or needs, including sex. If you want to be thin, and you're not genetic predisposed, it will have to be your life's focus.
9. Anorexics have enormous amounts of focus and self-control, which most of us don't. But never mind.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Lessons in Microbiology, Part III
It's the end of microbiology lab, and my professor is turned away from me, sitting on a chair in front of a computer. He's looking through scientific research articles for something on the link between intestinal microbes and obesity.
"So, you understand Italian and Portuguese?" I ask.
He turns around. "Yes."
I'm a little impressed. He does have near-perfect English. Sometimes he switches his "this" and "these" and simple errors like that. I'm always amazed when people can speak multiple languages because I can barely deal with English.
"So, you understand Italian and Portuguese?" I ask.
He turns around. "Yes."
I'm a little impressed. He does have near-perfect English. Sometimes he switches his "this" and "these" and simple errors like that. I'm always amazed when people can speak multiple languages because I can barely deal with English.
Lessons in Microbiology, Part II
"How many nursing students are here?" My microbiology professor asks in our first lab section. Almost everyone raises their hands, except for me and a couple of other people.
A few labs later, yesterday, I come up to him at the end, and ask, "Any parting words of wisdom?" We have a midterm on the 30th, or on Tuesday.
He is about to say "study," but then stops himself. A few other students circle around him as well, ready to listen. "Microbiology is not a complex subject, you just have to put your time in. You need to be in the 92nd percentile if you want to be a nursing student."
Damn, I thought. Good thing I don't want to be a nursing student. I just want a Ph.D.!
"I know!" One of the women says. "I'm right there! I can't afford to let this class drag me down!" She's always very nervous. We took chemistry together. She was nervous then too.
A few labs later, yesterday, I come up to him at the end, and ask, "Any parting words of wisdom?" We have a midterm on the 30th, or on Tuesday.
He is about to say "study," but then stops himself. A few other students circle around him as well, ready to listen. "Microbiology is not a complex subject, you just have to put your time in. You need to be in the 92nd percentile if you want to be a nursing student."
Damn, I thought. Good thing I don't want to be a nursing student. I just want a Ph.D.!
"I know!" One of the women says. "I'm right there! I can't afford to let this class drag me down!" She's always very nervous. We took chemistry together. She was nervous then too.
Lessons in Microbiology
The very first lecture, my microbiology professor pointed to a skinny, red-haired student in the front row, and said that the young man had taken the class in the past, and was willing to tutor anyone, and was "brilliant."
I thought to myself, "That's the man to beat."
I thought to myself, "That's the man to beat."
Thursday, January 25, 2018
The Questionable Conclusion IV
"[The Poetry Professor] asked me today if I had been writing. I didn't want to tell him it was all about my ex," I tell the imaginary female therapist.
She tilts her head to the side. "Who's [The Poetry Professor]?"
"Just this handsome English professor I had. Boyish charm. He has this classic bipolar II personality. Up all the time." I put my hands on my lips. "His girlfriend is probably younger than me by a few years. Very thin, and very blonde." She had that I stole an English professor look about her. "I have a bad record with trying to seduce English professors."
"What do you mean?"
"We'll skip that story. Or stories, as it happens to be."
"Do you idolize women who are 'very thin and very blonde,' as you put it?"
"Of course because they represent my mother, and all the qualities I don't have, although not completely unattainable. I can buy blonde by the bottle, and theoretically I could wear a size four again, but it would require sacrifices. However, I'll never be my mother."
"Did you try to seduce [The Poetry Professor]?"
"No, don't mix up the English professors, okay? They were a lot of them. I never slept with any of them, much less while they were my teachers. [The Poetry Professor] is handsome, but he's not my type. First of all, he's single." I laugh a little at this, not without bitterness. "Funny, right?"
"Why didn't you call this Lindsay back?" The imaginary female therapist says, changing the subject.
"I was afraid I was actually right, and that she was his girlfriend, and I really, really didn't want to have some awkward conversation with her. Of course, I'm totally twisting this whole scenario into another woman being jealous of me, which is great really. It's happened in the past, of course, but not recently. I can make anything be about me. I had one woman call me, threaten to kill me because her husband sent me a dick pic, which I never solicited. I never touched the man. Who fucking knows, right? People are fucking crazy. I'm crazy, but at least I know it, and I try to keep it inside."
"Are you hoping [Morpheus] will contact you? Do you find yourself checking your phone all the time?"
"My phone is on vibrate. Most of the time, I ignore it. It's in my bag, put away, during the day. I have no idea if I want to talk to [Morpheus]. If he called, and he was genuine, and he apologized, and said he loved me, and on and on, maybe I would forgive him, but I'm not sure we would accomplish anything. [Morpheus] has always be ashamed of me. I don't know why. Was it my job? Was it the way I dressed? Was it my family? How did I just not measure up in his eyes? Well, I doubt that will ever change. I doubt I will ever be good enough for him. I don't know what it is that I lack. Why he doesn't take me seriously. I would like to say that someday he'll regret that decision, but everyone says that about at least one of their ex's, so that's pretty typical. I don't regret breaking up with any of my ex's, so why should he?"
"Maybe this is more about how you feel about yourself, rather than how [Morpheus] feels about you, or how you think he feels about you."
"I don't know. If I could drag him into therapy, I would. I would have his brain picked by a hundred psychologists...A real monster can tap into a victim's own insecurities and hurts and vulnerabilities and use them against her."
"Do you think he's a monster?"
"Well, I don't think he's a saint. Last time we were together, I told him I thought he might be a psychopath. He didn't really seem to understand what that meant."
She tilts her head to the side. "Who's [The Poetry Professor]?"
"Just this handsome English professor I had. Boyish charm. He has this classic bipolar II personality. Up all the time." I put my hands on my lips. "His girlfriend is probably younger than me by a few years. Very thin, and very blonde." She had that I stole an English professor look about her. "I have a bad record with trying to seduce English professors."
"What do you mean?"
"We'll skip that story. Or stories, as it happens to be."
"Do you idolize women who are 'very thin and very blonde,' as you put it?"
"Of course because they represent my mother, and all the qualities I don't have, although not completely unattainable. I can buy blonde by the bottle, and theoretically I could wear a size four again, but it would require sacrifices. However, I'll never be my mother."
"Did you try to seduce [The Poetry Professor]?"
"No, don't mix up the English professors, okay? They were a lot of them. I never slept with any of them, much less while they were my teachers. [The Poetry Professor] is handsome, but he's not my type. First of all, he's single." I laugh a little at this, not without bitterness. "Funny, right?"
"Why didn't you call this Lindsay back?" The imaginary female therapist says, changing the subject.
"I was afraid I was actually right, and that she was his girlfriend, and I really, really didn't want to have some awkward conversation with her. Of course, I'm totally twisting this whole scenario into another woman being jealous of me, which is great really. It's happened in the past, of course, but not recently. I can make anything be about me. I had one woman call me, threaten to kill me because her husband sent me a dick pic, which I never solicited. I never touched the man. Who fucking knows, right? People are fucking crazy. I'm crazy, but at least I know it, and I try to keep it inside."
"Are you hoping [Morpheus] will contact you? Do you find yourself checking your phone all the time?"
"My phone is on vibrate. Most of the time, I ignore it. It's in my bag, put away, during the day. I have no idea if I want to talk to [Morpheus]. If he called, and he was genuine, and he apologized, and said he loved me, and on and on, maybe I would forgive him, but I'm not sure we would accomplish anything. [Morpheus] has always be ashamed of me. I don't know why. Was it my job? Was it the way I dressed? Was it my family? How did I just not measure up in his eyes? Well, I doubt that will ever change. I doubt I will ever be good enough for him. I don't know what it is that I lack. Why he doesn't take me seriously. I would like to say that someday he'll regret that decision, but everyone says that about at least one of their ex's, so that's pretty typical. I don't regret breaking up with any of my ex's, so why should he?"
"Maybe this is more about how you feel about yourself, rather than how [Morpheus] feels about you, or how you think he feels about you."
"I don't know. If I could drag him into therapy, I would. I would have his brain picked by a hundred psychologists...A real monster can tap into a victim's own insecurities and hurts and vulnerabilities and use them against her."
"Do you think he's a monster?"
"Well, I don't think he's a saint. Last time we were together, I told him I thought he might be a psychopath. He didn't really seem to understand what that meant."
Being Fat is Fair Game, Part VI
For my social psychology class, I have to read Secrets From the Eating Lab for my reading report that's due sometime at the end of the semester. I've been trying to figure out who or what I should blame for being overweight--the drugs? The doctors? My parents? Myself? Society? Ben&Jerry's? Time? Stress? Other unknown circumstances?
Somebody should be to blame, right?
Somebody should be to blame, right?
The Questionable Conclusion, Part III
"I've been doing horrible since [Morpheus] and I had that conversation," I tell my imaginary female therapist. "I've been so fatigued, feeling like there's lead in my limbs. I talked to my doctors at Stanford, and they don't know what's going on. They don't know if it's the fibromyalgia or depression coming back. I missed a week of my morning's English classes. I've just been completely unmotivated to do anything...I've just been so stressed out about this microbiology class because I want an A in it. I need an A. I've never been able to manage an A in a college-level biology course, and I'm trying to decide if I want to get a medical research degree or if I just want to study English and then teach...I have my locket, I've been wearing it, but there are no pictures inside...I've been in a lot of pain, and some days, there are just not enough pills in the world to get rid of it. At least not the kind of pills I can get my hands on. And the pain isn't at that point yet where I can go to the ER. Somedays I just want to go back to dancing, and spinning on a pole, and getting naked for money, although I'm not sure that would make me happy either...I sent a TXT-message to [the English instructor] because I realized after surfing through the English classes this semester that he's not teaching. I don't know where he went. I probably should have just left him alone." I pause and come back to the subject of Morpheus. "Maybe I just missed some really big hints that [Morpheus] gave me. Maybe I got it all wrong. He wrote in one of those emails, 'you know I'm in a relationship.' He never said that. He said he was having casual relations with some girls, but that none of it was serious. He even went as far to say that he wasn't interested in getting to know any of them. He was numb to them. It was like he was talking to someone else. I just had this weird feeling that he wasn't even talking to me. I think all I'm trying to do is figure out why he was being so mean, find a reason for his behavior. It's more about that than it's about keeping a relationship with him."
The Questionable Conclusion, Part II
The imaginary female therapist is tapping her pen on her pad like a drummer in a band. "So, how did you come up with this idea? Instead of maybe just facing the fact that he wants to end your relationship with him."
"First of all, [Morpheus] is a lot of things, including an entitled prick, but he's not stupid, and the biggest mystery of him is that he bends the truth to whatever motive suits him at the time, he just uses lies at his discretion the way some people order sex toys or porn over the internet. It's always through an anon email account, and then they tell their wives they're shopping for shoes. He just lives this life that only he knows the whole truth about it. I can't figure out if he's lying because he's ashamed of who he is, if he's trying to protect people or if he's just manipulating people as it's convenient for him. But he's definitely lying in those emails. He's got some kind of game going on, okay? Have you read The Girl on the Train or watch the movie?"
"No. What does that have to do with anything?"
"At least watch the movie, but realize that in the book, Rachel, the main character, was fat, and her ex-husband and his new wife both made fun of her for being fat, which changes the whole story. It's about the things we do to other people when we want to avoid the truth about ourselves, and how other people abuse us with lies."
"But what evidence do you have about [Morpheus]?"
"Fine, first, while I was having this ridiculous conversation with him over email, this woman called my phone twice, the caller ID came up as being from 'Lindsay [last name].' She left a voicemail message, said her name was Lindsay, and wanted me to call her back. She's obviously not a telemarketer, she's not from one of my doctors' offices, so who is she? I guess a couple weeks ago that she was his new girlfriend, but I don't have any proof. Number two, years ago, sometime during '08 or '09, [Morpheus] calls me in the middle of the afternoon, probably drunk, and tells me that his mother went through his TXT-messages, and found a message I left him saying that I loved him. He denied the entire thing to his mother, but he was so upset that it could have, and probably did, expose him as a liar and a cheater to his family. What kind of fucked up Mom searches her son's phone? Isn't that extraordinarily controlling? Why didn't he just say to his Mom, 'Hey, I'm in love with this woman named [Jae], and I want to be with her. I'm getting a divorce.' But [Morpheus] never told anyone about me. His best friend to this day doesn't even know I exist. So, he lies. What makes you think he wouldn't lie about this?"
"But that doesn't exactly prove that his new girlfriend went through his email account, and saw past emails from you, and he found out about it because she complained, and therefore he planted those new emails all as a ruse. Doesn't that seem like a bit of a stretch?"
"People are complicated, and if you read any psychology book, you learn one thing: there's always more going on than what is on the surface."
"First of all, [Morpheus] is a lot of things, including an entitled prick, but he's not stupid, and the biggest mystery of him is that he bends the truth to whatever motive suits him at the time, he just uses lies at his discretion the way some people order sex toys or porn over the internet. It's always through an anon email account, and then they tell their wives they're shopping for shoes. He just lives this life that only he knows the whole truth about it. I can't figure out if he's lying because he's ashamed of who he is, if he's trying to protect people or if he's just manipulating people as it's convenient for him. But he's definitely lying in those emails. He's got some kind of game going on, okay? Have you read The Girl on the Train or watch the movie?"
"No. What does that have to do with anything?"
"At least watch the movie, but realize that in the book, Rachel, the main character, was fat, and her ex-husband and his new wife both made fun of her for being fat, which changes the whole story. It's about the things we do to other people when we want to avoid the truth about ourselves, and how other people abuse us with lies."
"But what evidence do you have about [Morpheus]?"
"Fine, first, while I was having this ridiculous conversation with him over email, this woman called my phone twice, the caller ID came up as being from 'Lindsay [last name].' She left a voicemail message, said her name was Lindsay, and wanted me to call her back. She's obviously not a telemarketer, she's not from one of my doctors' offices, so who is she? I guess a couple weeks ago that she was his new girlfriend, but I don't have any proof. Number two, years ago, sometime during '08 or '09, [Morpheus] calls me in the middle of the afternoon, probably drunk, and tells me that his mother went through his TXT-messages, and found a message I left him saying that I loved him. He denied the entire thing to his mother, but he was so upset that it could have, and probably did, expose him as a liar and a cheater to his family. What kind of fucked up Mom searches her son's phone? Isn't that extraordinarily controlling? Why didn't he just say to his Mom, 'Hey, I'm in love with this woman named [Jae], and I want to be with her. I'm getting a divorce.' But [Morpheus] never told anyone about me. His best friend to this day doesn't even know I exist. So, he lies. What makes you think he wouldn't lie about this?"
"But that doesn't exactly prove that his new girlfriend went through his email account, and saw past emails from you, and he found out about it because she complained, and therefore he planted those new emails all as a ruse. Doesn't that seem like a bit of a stretch?"
"People are complicated, and if you read any psychology book, you learn one thing: there's always more going on than what is on the surface."
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Final Nail, Part XXXI (The Questionable Conclusion)
"I figured it out, figured it completely out," I say as I get up off the imaginary couch, and start to pace the room. "The whole email thing with [Morpheus]."
"What did you figure out?" The imaginary female therapist asks.
"Okay, did I ever tell you about my ex-boyfriend [Dirk]?"
"No."
"Well, I gave up everything for him. I move to New Jersey to be with him. I left my job, I sold my horse, I gave my dog to my mother. I mean, everything, and after we broke up, a year later, we were best friends. He was a way better friend than [the LSU Professor] could ever be. I mean, I could call [Dirk], night or day, drunk or sober, and he would talk to me. But when he got his new girlfriend, he said that she was jealous, and that he couldn't talk to me. This happened years later, so I stopped talking to him. He said that she was the one, so I respected that, and let go of him. Today, he's gone. I called his cell phone, his parent's house, his Facebook account is closed, no trace of him, nothing, I can't even get in touch with his parents. I think he might be dead because he had heart failure even when we were together. So, anyway, the guy just disappeared from my life because of this controlling bitch of a girlfriend, not that I ever told him that to his face, mind you. I miss my friend, every day."
"What does this have to do with [Morpheus]?"
"Okay, remember how the conversation started with 'how do I contact you'? I mean, wasn't that odd?" I pause. "Here's the thing, this new woman, she has access to his email account because it's on his phone, and she's snooped through it. He wrote those subsequent emails so she would believe that he doesn't want anything to do with me. The end. And the first email, the 'how do I contact you' was genuine, he was asking in case he wants to call me at some later point."
"So, why hasn't he called you then?"
"Why hasn't [Dirk] called me at some point in the past seven years? I don't know. Dirk isn't an asshole. He's the truest friend I've ever had. Maybe he just figured it was easiest not to call. I think that's why I'm blocked on [Morpheus]'s phone even though he never said to stop calling him, even though I never called him with any frequency because on the iPhone, if you block someone, there's no record of a blocked person ever making a call, unlike my Galaxy where it says on the home screen, 'blocked caller so-n-so.' Obviously, I've done research on this. I think she saw some woman calling him, and got curious. I don't think he would admit to knowing me voluntarily because then he would have to explain how we met, and when....I think this might also explain why when I called him the last couple of times from my parents' home phone he pretended not to know who I was, because maybe she was standing right there. Of course, that doesn't quite answer why he didn't just ignore the call--"
"Maybe you need to take a break from this, step back--"
"You know, I've been thinking about this. We're learning in social psychology class about how much other people affect us in our lifetimes, and I've realized that other people in everyone's lives affect them as much as they affect me in mine, it's just that I'm more aware of it. I don't needlessly obsess over an ex-boyfriend or if you want to call him an ex-lover, I just understand better the ways in which he's influenced me and my psyche. The way [Dirk] has or even break up with [The LSU Professor]. That has its advantages and its disadvantages, right? Does that make me crippled? Ill?" I sit back down on the couch again, and put my head in my hands. "I know [Dirk] loves me, but I also know that he was never in love with me, and I was okay with that because I was never in love with him. That was partially why I was willing to let go of him, and wanted him to be with someone who could make him happy. I also know that the most likely scenario is that [Morpheus] doesn't give a flying fuck about me, that he never thinks about me, and that he flipped his fucking switch writing that email, and wanted to hurt me, and push me away because he no longer feels entertained by me. And that I am coming up with these crazy theories so I don't have to face the fact that the love of my life doesn't love me back. I can accept that. But, maybe, I'm just human--and I don't want to believe the whispers in my head--at least not today--"
"What did you figure out?" The imaginary female therapist asks.
"Okay, did I ever tell you about my ex-boyfriend [Dirk]?"
"No."
"Well, I gave up everything for him. I move to New Jersey to be with him. I left my job, I sold my horse, I gave my dog to my mother. I mean, everything, and after we broke up, a year later, we were best friends. He was a way better friend than [the LSU Professor] could ever be. I mean, I could call [Dirk], night or day, drunk or sober, and he would talk to me. But when he got his new girlfriend, he said that she was jealous, and that he couldn't talk to me. This happened years later, so I stopped talking to him. He said that she was the one, so I respected that, and let go of him. Today, he's gone. I called his cell phone, his parent's house, his Facebook account is closed, no trace of him, nothing, I can't even get in touch with his parents. I think he might be dead because he had heart failure even when we were together. So, anyway, the guy just disappeared from my life because of this controlling bitch of a girlfriend, not that I ever told him that to his face, mind you. I miss my friend, every day."
"What does this have to do with [Morpheus]?"
"Okay, remember how the conversation started with 'how do I contact you'? I mean, wasn't that odd?" I pause. "Here's the thing, this new woman, she has access to his email account because it's on his phone, and she's snooped through it. He wrote those subsequent emails so she would believe that he doesn't want anything to do with me. The end. And the first email, the 'how do I contact you' was genuine, he was asking in case he wants to call me at some later point."
"So, why hasn't he called you then?"
"Why hasn't [Dirk] called me at some point in the past seven years? I don't know. Dirk isn't an asshole. He's the truest friend I've ever had. Maybe he just figured it was easiest not to call. I think that's why I'm blocked on [Morpheus]'s phone even though he never said to stop calling him, even though I never called him with any frequency because on the iPhone, if you block someone, there's no record of a blocked person ever making a call, unlike my Galaxy where it says on the home screen, 'blocked caller so-n-so.' Obviously, I've done research on this. I think she saw some woman calling him, and got curious. I don't think he would admit to knowing me voluntarily because then he would have to explain how we met, and when....I think this might also explain why when I called him the last couple of times from my parents' home phone he pretended not to know who I was, because maybe she was standing right there. Of course, that doesn't quite answer why he didn't just ignore the call--"
"Maybe you need to take a break from this, step back--"
"You know, I've been thinking about this. We're learning in social psychology class about how much other people affect us in our lifetimes, and I've realized that other people in everyone's lives affect them as much as they affect me in mine, it's just that I'm more aware of it. I don't needlessly obsess over an ex-boyfriend or if you want to call him an ex-lover, I just understand better the ways in which he's influenced me and my psyche. The way [Dirk] has or even break up with [The LSU Professor]. That has its advantages and its disadvantages, right? Does that make me crippled? Ill?" I sit back down on the couch again, and put my head in my hands. "I know [Dirk] loves me, but I also know that he was never in love with me, and I was okay with that because I was never in love with him. That was partially why I was willing to let go of him, and wanted him to be with someone who could make him happy. I also know that the most likely scenario is that [Morpheus] doesn't give a flying fuck about me, that he never thinks about me, and that he flipped his fucking switch writing that email, and wanted to hurt me, and push me away because he no longer feels entertained by me. And that I am coming up with these crazy theories so I don't have to face the fact that the love of my life doesn't love me back. I can accept that. But, maybe, I'm just human--and I don't want to believe the whispers in my head--at least not today--"
Monday, January 22, 2018
Final Nail, Part XXX
"Maybe he feels guilty," I tell my imaginary female therapist during one of our imaginary sessions.
She straightens herself a little, and readies her pen. "What do you mean?"
"Well, maybe he's lying. Like--he feels guilty that he's still in love with me, and he wants to give this new relationship a start, so he has to push me away because my presence in his life puts all of that at risk. And, he doesn't want to run the risk of what happened last time, happening again."
"What happened last time?" In the imaginary world, the imaginary therapist always asks the right questions, and seems genuinely interested.
"You know, when I lost my shit, and contacted the wife about the relationship between [Morpheus] and me."
"Would you do something like that again?"
"No, of course not. I feel horribly guilty about doing it the first time, but he might never trust me again--but--he tells me to go away because that's easier than to say that he still has feelings for me."
She straightens herself a little, and readies her pen. "What do you mean?"
"Well, maybe he's lying. Like--he feels guilty that he's still in love with me, and he wants to give this new relationship a start, so he has to push me away because my presence in his life puts all of that at risk. And, he doesn't want to run the risk of what happened last time, happening again."
"What happened last time?" In the imaginary world, the imaginary therapist always asks the right questions, and seems genuinely interested.
"You know, when I lost my shit, and contacted the wife about the relationship between [Morpheus] and me."
"Would you do something like that again?"
"No, of course not. I feel horribly guilty about doing it the first time, but he might never trust me again--but--he tells me to go away because that's easier than to say that he still has feelings for me."
Friday, January 19, 2018
Final Nail, Part XXVIV
Recently, like in the past two years, since his separation, whenever I've asked Morpheus what he wants from me, he's given me this bullshit answer, "I just want you to be happy." I mean, if he really wanted to be friends, why not just say, "Let's be friends"?
Being Fat is Fair Game, Part V
"Some women who are overweight are very beautiful, and some women who are skinny are ugly," my mother tells me.
Yes, but isn't it better to be skinny and beautiful? And if you are ugly, let's just say, to be skinny? What if you're fat and ugly?
Yes, but isn't it better to be skinny and beautiful? And if you are ugly, let's just say, to be skinny? What if you're fat and ugly?
Being Fat is Fair Game, Part IV
If I lose four pounds every week this semester, I will have lost the weight by my birthday on May 28, 2018. You can do the math if you want to figure out how much.
I mock people in those commercials, who get excited about losing 22 pounds on Weight Watchers. That's a pant size. That's like a mere drop in the bucket. I want to lose seventy-two pounds!
And then, as everyone knows, most people don't lose weight at all, and the people who do lose weight, gain most, if not all, of it back within a year. Why? No one really knows. No one can explain childhood obesity. Why are some babies born so hungry? Mothers writing to doctors, who write for the New York Times. Am I supposed to feed my baby every time she's hungry? She's hungry all the time! And the doctor writes back that we can't do for ourselves what we're supposed to be doing for our children.
Last weekend, I went on a pro-ana messageboard, because if you want real dieting advice, tried-and-true, you have to listen and read about anorexics. They are accomplishing great mental and physical feats. They had one board dedicated just to fasts. Some girls were going as long as 100 hours without food. Just water and coffee (they claimed that coffee was key). They also were reluctantly admitting to feeling like passing out, messing up their electrolyte levels and just coming back from rehab.
My Microbiology professor correctly commented that part of the puzzle is that microbes living in our guts regulate our cravings for sweets. I recently read another article in the New York Times talking about the link between inflammation of the intestine, even of the joints, and of our intestinal microbes, and how that is helped by injesting more fiber.
So, I've been eating more fiber. And I lost four pounds this week (the real trick is to make it through the weekend without gaining it all back). I also ate a sticky roll today, but don't judge.
I mock people in those commercials, who get excited about losing 22 pounds on Weight Watchers. That's a pant size. That's like a mere drop in the bucket. I want to lose seventy-two pounds!
And then, as everyone knows, most people don't lose weight at all, and the people who do lose weight, gain most, if not all, of it back within a year. Why? No one really knows. No one can explain childhood obesity. Why are some babies born so hungry? Mothers writing to doctors, who write for the New York Times. Am I supposed to feed my baby every time she's hungry? She's hungry all the time! And the doctor writes back that we can't do for ourselves what we're supposed to be doing for our children.
Last weekend, I went on a pro-ana messageboard, because if you want real dieting advice, tried-and-true, you have to listen and read about anorexics. They are accomplishing great mental and physical feats. They had one board dedicated just to fasts. Some girls were going as long as 100 hours without food. Just water and coffee (they claimed that coffee was key). They also were reluctantly admitting to feeling like passing out, messing up their electrolyte levels and just coming back from rehab.
My Microbiology professor correctly commented that part of the puzzle is that microbes living in our guts regulate our cravings for sweets. I recently read another article in the New York Times talking about the link between inflammation of the intestine, even of the joints, and of our intestinal microbes, and how that is helped by injesting more fiber.
So, I've been eating more fiber. And I lost four pounds this week (the real trick is to make it through the weekend without gaining it all back). I also ate a sticky roll today, but don't judge.
Being Fat is Fair Game, Part III
When was the last time you were at the gym?
If you go to the gym I go to, you will notice that there are no overweight women there. They're all young, very thin, and very elegant, like deers who became classy part-time strippers. Last time I was there, one girl was on a machine directly in front of me, and took her long, beautiful dark hair out of her ponytail, and swayed her hair gently, left to right, like she was waving her locks, trying to get my attention. She had it.
If you go to the gym I go to, you will notice that there are no overweight women there. They're all young, very thin, and very elegant, like deers who became classy part-time strippers. Last time I was there, one girl was on a machine directly in front of me, and took her long, beautiful dark hair out of her ponytail, and swayed her hair gently, left to right, like she was waving her locks, trying to get my attention. She had it.
Being Fat is Fair Game, Part II
My mother ordered me three pairs of leather English riding boots (but no one actually rides in them, it's just the style). When they arrived, she wanted me to try them on.
I put the tan pair on, and tried to zip them up my calf. I couldn't--my calf was too fat. "Send them back," I say saltedly. I went into my bedroom, and shut the door.
"You need a wide calf," was her only reply.
I put the tan pair on, and tried to zip them up my calf. I couldn't--my calf was too fat. "Send them back," I say saltedly. I went into my bedroom, and shut the door.
"You need a wide calf," was her only reply.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Final Nail, Part XXVIII
"I'm going to get a tattoo down my arm that says, 'Please move on,' so that every time I roll up my sleeve or take a shower, I see it," I say to my imaginary female therapist.
She doesn't know how to react. Is she kidding?
She doesn't know how to react. Is she kidding?
Monday, January 15, 2018
Being Fat is Fair Game
My mother kept telling me it wasn't about my weight and looks, because it was about my weight and my health. My father was just worried about my health.
But I don't buy that. I don't even buy that the Neurologist is worried about my health. I mean, the woman is thin, probably a size two or four, at the most. A woman who would never understand about wearing the fat suit.
Or what it's like to be in the fat suit, and have people casually comment that you're--well--overweight.
But I don't buy that. I don't even buy that the Neurologist is worried about my health. I mean, the woman is thin, probably a size two or four, at the most. A woman who would never understand about wearing the fat suit.
Or what it's like to be in the fat suit, and have people casually comment that you're--well--overweight.
Creative Writing Class, Fall Semester 2017
My creative writing class grade was sitting at an unfortunate B+, bordering on an A-, until I turned in my poem, "Paresthesia"--which allowed me to obtain my A in the class.
It was the only piece of mine that my professor had anything good to say.
It was the only piece of mine that my professor had anything good to say.
Final Nail, Part XXVII
"No one ever wants to be 'the other woman,' " I tell the imaginary female psychotherapist in some imaginary office somewhere downtown Yuppieville.
She doesn't understand, though, she's never been "the other woman." She couldn't understand how you fall in love or maybe just love the sex, and then you make all sorts of excuses for yourself, for him.
Rationalization. Justification.
Looking back was it wrong? Maybe. But I don't believe in morals. I believe in social and personal costs and benefits--consequences. As human beings, we have to look at ourselves to see what kind of effect we're having on our psyche (some people call it a "soul"), and then on our community. Is lying a step towards our mental health? Depends on the lying. Sometimes lies protect us, from ourselves, from others. Sometimes we rely on lies, to guide us, to give us purpose, and even to give us meaning.
Lying makes the ends meet up, the road to smooth out, the smile to bend.
She doesn't understand, though, she's never been "the other woman." She couldn't understand how you fall in love or maybe just love the sex, and then you make all sorts of excuses for yourself, for him.
Rationalization. Justification.
Looking back was it wrong? Maybe. But I don't believe in morals. I believe in social and personal costs and benefits--consequences. As human beings, we have to look at ourselves to see what kind of effect we're having on our psyche (some people call it a "soul"), and then on our community. Is lying a step towards our mental health? Depends on the lying. Sometimes lies protect us, from ourselves, from others. Sometimes we rely on lies, to guide us, to give us purpose, and even to give us meaning.
Lying makes the ends meet up, the road to smooth out, the smile to bend.
Why is Everyone So Angry? Part II
My mother just yelled "Jesus Christ!" to no one in particular in the kitchen.
She gets her habit of constantly complaining from her dead mother.
But don't tell her that.
She gets her habit of constantly complaining from her dead mother.
But don't tell her that.
Why is Everyone So Angry?
If you ever at all wonder what my relationship is like with my mother, then watch "Unforgettable (2017)," and watch how Tessa interacts with her daughter and with her mother. And, of course, Tessa goes psycho because her ex-husband gets a new girlfriend and then gets engaged.
My parents are two very angry people, or they're not that angry, but they express their anger frequently so it appears that they're angry all the time (while some people might just brood in silence). My father will often bang around in the kitchen and cuss, which doesn't seem like it would be too disturbing, except it's really loud, and sounds like the world is coming to an end in the kitchen.
My mother got pissed at me today because when I opened the door, Beck ran out, and down the driveway without being on a leash. The manager of the ranch has said in the past that if he catches Beck off-leash one more time, then my parents will receive a 30-day notice. Mom yelled, "Do you really think that Dad will give up where we live just because of your dog?!?"
I guess I would then return to a life of whoring and living in hotels.
My parents believe that they have righteous claim to their anger, which I suppose is a privilege a person might have if living or being raised in a household that allows for the emotion to begin with.
My parents often perceive slights in life that I believe are just normal human occurances, that we can't really get angry over something that happens to virtually everyone through no one's particular fault. I mean by this, the most recent example, my mother's insurance company (through her state employer, which covers both her and her husband) requires a "Prior Authorization" for her opioid prescription. I'm not exactly sure what that is, other than an obstacle so the insurance can refuse to initially fill a prescription, but I know it happens to me multiple times per month. When my mother came home, she was filled with indignation, and my father quickly joined her, saying he was going to go down to the pharmacy and yell obscenities. I'm not sure he would actually do it, but he might throw a fit in the store anyway. First of all, it's not the pharmacy's fault, although it does suck to go through withdrawals because you can't get your opioid prescription filled. My mother then quickly proclaimed that it was "Obamacare's fault."
So, why don't I start screaming every time I have to wait for a prescription because the doctor's office is filling out a "Prior-Author"? Because you can't control it, and you really can't do anything about it.
If I could afford it, I definitely wouldn't be on Medicare, but that's not likely to change soon.
My father also annoyingly calls people he does deals with as being "stupid." And then he gets angry about them being "stupid."
My mother just yelled at me because while I was spooning out some mocha mix for my coffee a few minutes ago, I spilled some and left it on the counter. She claims that I need to wipe it up, and that it will attract ants. I commented that I do more wiping in that kitchen than anyone, and that only pissed her off more.
I don't cook, but I do 80% of the cleaning inside the house (I refuse to do any yardwork, although I do pick up the dog poop on occasion). I do all of this even though my hours either in the classroom or doing homework add up to a lot more than my mother's palty 40-hour work week, and my father works even less than that. I try to argue this, and it just makes them even more pissed off, so that hasn't work out well for me in the past.
My parents are two very angry people, or they're not that angry, but they express their anger frequently so it appears that they're angry all the time (while some people might just brood in silence). My father will often bang around in the kitchen and cuss, which doesn't seem like it would be too disturbing, except it's really loud, and sounds like the world is coming to an end in the kitchen.
My mother got pissed at me today because when I opened the door, Beck ran out, and down the driveway without being on a leash. The manager of the ranch has said in the past that if he catches Beck off-leash one more time, then my parents will receive a 30-day notice. Mom yelled, "Do you really think that Dad will give up where we live just because of your dog?!?"
I guess I would then return to a life of whoring and living in hotels.
My parents believe that they have righteous claim to their anger, which I suppose is a privilege a person might have if living or being raised in a household that allows for the emotion to begin with.
My parents often perceive slights in life that I believe are just normal human occurances, that we can't really get angry over something that happens to virtually everyone through no one's particular fault. I mean by this, the most recent example, my mother's insurance company (through her state employer, which covers both her and her husband) requires a "Prior Authorization" for her opioid prescription. I'm not exactly sure what that is, other than an obstacle so the insurance can refuse to initially fill a prescription, but I know it happens to me multiple times per month. When my mother came home, she was filled with indignation, and my father quickly joined her, saying he was going to go down to the pharmacy and yell obscenities. I'm not sure he would actually do it, but he might throw a fit in the store anyway. First of all, it's not the pharmacy's fault, although it does suck to go through withdrawals because you can't get your opioid prescription filled. My mother then quickly proclaimed that it was "Obamacare's fault."
So, why don't I start screaming every time I have to wait for a prescription because the doctor's office is filling out a "Prior-Author"? Because you can't control it, and you really can't do anything about it.
If I could afford it, I definitely wouldn't be on Medicare, but that's not likely to change soon.
My father also annoyingly calls people he does deals with as being "stupid." And then he gets angry about them being "stupid."
My mother just yelled at me because while I was spooning out some mocha mix for my coffee a few minutes ago, I spilled some and left it on the counter. She claims that I need to wipe it up, and that it will attract ants. I commented that I do more wiping in that kitchen than anyone, and that only pissed her off more.
I don't cook, but I do 80% of the cleaning inside the house (I refuse to do any yardwork, although I do pick up the dog poop on occasion). I do all of this even though my hours either in the classroom or doing homework add up to a lot more than my mother's palty 40-hour work week, and my father works even less than that. I try to argue this, and it just makes them even more pissed off, so that hasn't work out well for me in the past.
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