bitterfig

My period started yesterday which goes a long way towards explaining why I’ve felt so lousy the past few days—tired, cold and basically hopeless as if every possibility was exhausted. 

 

It’s interesting, but I’ve been having difficulties with menstruation since I got my first period when I was thirteen.  Almost as if I’ve at odds with my own reproductive capacities.  When I was a teenager I’d have two week long periods with heavy bleeding and severe cramps.  It was a bit of a nightmare.  I’d get spots on my clothes which people pointed out with contemptuous disgust.  I remember once going to the nurse for a note to get out of gym class (swimming) and getting a lecture about how she couldn’t give every girl in the school a note every month.  Of course when I gave the note to the gym teacher (who it pains me to say was the living embodiment of every negative stereotype about female gym teachers) she demanded to know why I needed to be excused…. 

 

Despite all these physical problems, I didn’t really notice any psychological disturbances related to menstruation until I was in college.  At this point I was menstruating very irregularly, only two or three times a year, but my periods tended to last a week or more during which I’d become deeply depressed. 

 

Of course when I became anorexic at 23 all that pretty much went away.  Eating disorders serve a purpose and I think one of the functions of mine was that it eliminated the whole painful, messy business of my female biology.   For a few years I simply didn’t menstruate and for several more years I did so only because I was on the pill, I was still underweight was I wasn’t actually ovulating.  Within the last two years however, that’s changed and I’ve been having authentic menstrual cycles which unfortunately includes some low low lows. 

 

In this most recent case, I’m pretty sure that not taking proper care of myself over my vacation didn’t help things, plus I haven’t been taking evening primrose oil for a few weeks (I ran out and never bothered to get more despite the fact that I work in a health food store with a fully stocked supplement department).  I also need to keep track of when I get my period.  I don’t really have to worry about pregnancy because I’m sexually inactive so I tend to be a bit negligent about keeping track but it might be a good idea to start marking the calendar with the proverbial red x.  That way if I start feeling really bad about everything four to six weeks since my last period I’ll at least know it’s premenstrual and that it’s only going to last a few days.  I find it’s a whole lot easier to bear with depression when I know that it isn’t going to last forever. 

When I was 22 and 23 years old (in 1994 and 1995) I lost over 100 pounds.  I've managed to keep most of that weight off (though at a tremendous cost-- the time and energy I devote to keeping my weight down has pretty much crippled me in a lot of other areas.  For instance, I don't exactly have a social life or a career.)

While I was at my parents house last week I was looking through some of my things and found some pictures of myself from when I was college age.  Photos of me from this time are fairly rare, I was very reluctant to pose because I thought I was so disgusting.  Looking at them however I can't help but think that I wasn't quite as bad as I thought.  In all honesty the first thing that strikes me when looking at them isn't my size but  my glasses.  They're hideous.  I really should have gotten smaller frames but that wasn't the sort of thing I'd have  ever considered doing at the time because all I could think of was that I was fat and I had to fix that before I could even consider anything else.  I guess I've always had tunnel vision where my weight is concerned. 

I got back from my visit to my parents yesterday evening and tomorrow I’m back to work.  Today was devoted to reacquainting myself with everyday life, things like going grocery shopping and collecting the Kitty from my sister’s where he stayed while I was away (thankfully he didn’t scratch my niece or nephew). 

 

Upstate New York is breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, fields of wildflowers—tiger lilies, Queen Anne’s lace and blue chicory.  I saw turkeys, deer, hummingbirds, a rose breasted grouse beak and several fat, furry woodchucks, visited my grandmother everyday, went to a fascinating exhibit on Synagogue carvings at the local art museum and read a pile of comic books, mostly back issues of Elfquest and Urusei Yatsura.

 

I can’t say I’m exactly refreshed from my vacation however.  The tension between my parents grated on me like fingernails on a blackboard during the entire visit and perhaps to drown it I sort of created my own internal white noise by drastically cutting down on my daily caloric intake while drinking huge amounts of caffeinated diet soda in addition to sampling some of the prescription grade painkillers Mum had left over from a root canal she had last month (a Hydrocodine tablet and half a Vicodin a couple of days later—I didn’t really get buzzed at all but they did help with the shin splits I had from walking on hilly terrain).  

 

I’m not sure what gets into me when I go back to my parents.  Half of me that strives to be the perfect daughter and the other half works equally hard to be a perfect horror.  Interestingly I got some insight into this watching Batman Unmasked a History Channel special on the psychology of Batman.  It talked about how Batman is a person who is filled with overpowering rage and fear yet is able to master it and how in a way that strength of will is his superpower.  Joker on the other hand is described as seeing the world through a mad kind of logic wherein the existence of injustice cancels out the possibility of justice and where the fact that innocence is corruptible means that no one is innocent.  Sometimes (like this last week) I feel like I contain both these persona and they’re warring it out in every decision I make.  No wonder Batman has always appealed to me so much.

Yesterday was really the first day of full on summer heat we’ve had this year.  I had appointments with both my psychiatrist and therapist.  Between the whole double-whammy treatment sessions and driving to Pilsen and back with the sun beating down on me it ended up being a really draining afternoon. 

 

The therapy session was difficult because it involved a lot of discussion of things that are way outside of my comfort zone at this point (though they weren’t always).  Things like how I need to try and make myself go to work even when I feel like I just can’t, looking for a new job and most daunting of all getting out once in a while and doing something fun or social. 

 

Very scary stuff given that for the past few months my comfort zone seems to involve staying in my apartment, doing a bit of useful stuff like writing and reading but mostly numbing myself by messing about on the internet, obsessing over what I eat and what a horrible, useless person I am and being lonely and miserable.  Just getting groceries, going to the Laundromat or returning library books seems to take a huge amount of planning and anxiety. 

 

Still, I’m going to try and make the effort to make things better.  I really wasn’t always this way.  In the past, I was willing to take risks and put myself out there—I was in that  writer’s group two years ago, I went to a book club for a while, I went to things like author appearances and poetry readings on a fairly regular basis, once upon a time I even dated. 

 

I already have my “fun” outing lined up for this week.  Tomorrow night my brother-in-law is going to be supervising an arranged meeting between myself and a friend of his from his monster store days who’s interested in meeting “weird girls who like weird movies.”  Given that I consider Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and I Spit on Your Grave to be cinematic masterpieces I suppose I qualify. 

 

I’m sort of nervous but I’m trying to keep things lite, treat this meeting casually—really, it’s no big deal and there’s nothing at stake.  If we hit if off fine, if not it got me out of my apartment for an evening in accordance with my therapeutic goals.  I don’t need to kill myself trying to impress this guy and I don’t need to make myself sick worrying about how things will go. 

After a week of eating in the 1700 to 1800 calories per day range I’m feeling better.  Not good mind you but better.  I’m totally dragging my ass at work but at least I’ve been able to drag said ass to work which is an improvement over last weekend, physically at least.  Despite eating more or maybe because of it I’ve been very sad for the past few days and I feel revoltingly, hideously ugly.

 

I met with my new therapist for the first time on Thursday.  It wasn’t too bad, it may actually prove helpful but I’m finding it really exhausting to present myself again and again to all these different people- the intake worker, the psychiatrist, and now the therapist.  The whole experience of going to a community mental health clinic is really making me aware of my middle-class prejudices. 

 

I don’t like the fact that they have a “cash only” policy.  It seems like such an insult, like I can’t be trusted to write a good check or pay with a valid credit card.  It just seems icky to me that there’s a selection of condoms available in the ladies room.  When my therapist suggested that since I’m not happy with my job that when my depression is under control she could refer me to their “ready to work” program all I could think of was myself in a room of semi-illiterate people who have been on disability their entire lives being told things like “Don’t use excessive profanity during a job interview.” 

 

I hate myself for being sure a snob.  I know part of it is that I equate low-rent, half-assed recovery with my ex-boyfriend and his whole marginal lifestyle.  He didn’t have a bank account and he had to take jobs that paid in cash because he had all these creditors who would have garnished his wages if he’d gotten a check.  Most of our dates seemed to involve AA meetings and most of his friends were on welfare and/or disability.  I think I was finally convinced to leave the relationships when he started talking about how someday we would have a place together and when his friend June’s boyfriend got out of jail we could have them over for dinner. 

 

Basically when I go to a place like the mental health clinic I feel like I’m stepping back into a kind of life I’ve made every effort to distance myself from. 

The weather here in Chicago has been bouncing back and forth between wintry and spring like over the past couple of weeks with each new front being ushered in by heavy winds.  I think I must be affected by barometric pressure because I’ve been very lethargic recently, taking naps during the day and not doing much beyond dragging myself to work and watching a whole lot of DVDs.  

 

Maybe in an attempt to remedy this I’ve made a couple health related decisions recently.  First I’ve gone off the pill.  I initially went on it in January in hopes that it might lessen my pre-menstrual depression however something is amiss and during the three months I’ve been taking it I’ve had my period five times.  So I’m still having the pre-menstrual depression, just every two weeks instead of every six. 

 

Also I’ve stopped drinking diet soda.  Again.  I got hooked on diet soda circa 1994 and have alternated between periods of abstinence (several of which were a year or more in length) and periods of massive consumption (three to four 20 ounce bottles a day, a liter over the course of an evening).  When I started working at whole foods back in September of 2006 their “no artificial sweeteners” policy inspired me to cut out diet pop and I managed to avoid it completely until December of 2007 when I started up again at my usual excessive levels which was a big mistake. 

 

Drinking diet soda not only makes me feel like I’m freezing cold from the inside out it increases my appetite, which is already pretty substantial to begin with.   Even though I’m at a normal weight and I’ve been eating nearly 2000 calories a day I still feel really hungry sometimes and I expect that has to do with drinking diet soda.  I really think the taste of sugar that isn’t really there makes your body want calories.  In addition to the screwed-up physical things it does when I drink diet soda I tend to go into a weird obsessive compulsive mode and treat it in the same way an alcoholic might treat liquor—that is to say I spend an inordinate amount of time planning and working out things so that I will have access to diet soda at all times (caffeinated for during the day, non-caffeinated for evenings), stocking up for the next day, and going out of my way to get certain flavors I’m fixated on (Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper is to me the holy grail of diet pop.  The only place I’ve ever seen it in 20 ounce bottles is at CVS at Chicago and Western).  It’s actually quite a load off my mind not to have to be doing all this extra worrying and plotting. 

Yesterday when I was talking to one of the store higher-ups about what was going on with the forum he asked me an interesting question-- Why did I feel I felt that I needed to go through the whole process of writing a letter and gather signatures? If I had seen problems, why hadn’t come directly to Store Leadership with my concerns?

This question really made me think about the way I view structures of authority. Quite simply I don’t have a lot of faith in them. I don’t trust the system, even when I know the people who it is made up of. I don’t believe that they care about my well being or that they will protect me or look out for my best interest.

Looking at my personal history, it’s fairly easy to see where I get this mistrustful attitude—it can be traced back to the bullying and abuse I experienced as a child and the fact that neither my parents nor teachers did anything about it. When I complained about what was happening to me it was seen as something that was my fault. It was up to me to change. If I was being picked on for being fat, I should lose weight. If I was mocked for my shyness and awkwardness I needed to be more outgoing and friendly.

When I was in sixth grade I had my first serious depressive episode. The symptoms were fairly obvious. I gained about sixty pounds, cried frequently; spoke rarely, lost interest in everything. The only memory I have of anyone noticing was my teacher telling me sarcastically to “have a good cry, go down the river.”

I’m only 36 years old but when I compare things in my childhood to the way my niece and nephew are being raised it seems like it was another era, a harsh, brutal, primitive time where things like peer abuse and mental illness could be ignored by those in authority.

I think most children grow up believing that their parents and teachers will help them and look out for them. I grew up believing they wouldn’t, that they didn’t care, that I wasn’t worth their notice. As a result I have always felt cut off and on my own. If I have a problem I see it as my problem. I don’t ask for help because I don’t believe it will be given.

Unfortunately, this point of view was reinforced later in my life. When I was living in Upstate New York working for the county government one of the social workers in the office where I was secretary was viciously mean to me on a regular basis. It was a pattern with her. The secretary before me had actually left because of the way the social worker mistreated her. The office supervisor knew what was going on but her way of dealing with the problem was to advise me to wait it out as the social worker was going to be moving on to another job eventually.

Most of my life, I’ve gotten the message to put up and shut up and I’ve taken that message to heart. I didn’t go directly to Store Leadership because at this point in my life, I honestly can’t think of a time when a system has ever worked in my favor. The idea that what I had to say, just me personally, would count for anything never occurred to me.

That seems like sort of a sad statement. I’ve really internalized the idea that I lack value and power and I want to change that. I want to feel like I’m worth something, like I deserve to be happy and well treated. Yet even writing those words makes me cringe. I feel like it’s wanting too much, feeling entitled to something I don’t deserve.

Given that it has not been so terribly long since my complete physical and mental collapse I probably haven’t been taking the best care of myself the past couple days.  Sunday and Monday my schedule was as follows—Wake up at 6:30 a.m. and be to Biff’s office by 7:30 or quarter of eight.  Work there till noon, go home and get in a fifty minute workout before heading to work at the market till closing.  Yesterday I didn’t work at Biff’s at all but I had a long shift at the market and I ended up being so tired I didn’t work out.  I tell myself that this is okay.  Most people do not workout everyday.  My sister-in-law works out four or five days a week and it doesn’t seem to have affected her ability to run marathons so I’m going to try not to worry about it too much. 

Today was my day off but I had to go for training at the North Halsted store (which is actually only a couple of blocks away from my home store).  We’re getting new registers put in next week and had to learn the basics.  It wasn’t too bad though I always get a little rattled when faced with any kind of new method of doing something I’m used to doing a certain way.  Still, I think I can handle it.  It’ll be tough going at first, I’ll actually have to concentrate to do things I’m used to doing automatically but after a few days the new way will be automatic and I think it’ll actually be easier to do a lot of things and save time during cash up. 

It was cool to finally see the North Halsted store.  It opened in July but I’d never been there before.  It has more room than the Lakeview store where I regularly work and seemed fairly quite and slow paced.  Of course the thing that appeals to me the most about this particular branch of Whole Foods is that it’s located smack dab in the heart of teh gay.  It’s in the same building as the Howard Brown GLBT Health Center and Biff tells me it’s a very popular cruising spot.* I spent the training scanning the aisles for lesbilious ladies but it seemed like most of the shoppers were women with kids, not unlike at the Lakeview store. 

Of course having children in tow doesn’t automatically rule someone out as gay—I’ve mentioned Biff and his partner Jorge are going to have a baby.  A sonogram was done on the 15^th and they know for sure now it’s going to be a little boy!  Very exciting.  I’m going to start campaigning for Biff to name him after a Dr. Who character.  Not that I’ve ever watched Dr. Who mind you but Biff has a Dr. Who obsession that goes back about 25 years so I think it would be cool for him to name the baby after a Dr. Who character. 

I’m sure this is the sort of thing only a safely single, non-parent would think.  I’m still a little disappointed that my brother-in-law prevailed on my sister not to name my niece Calliope after her favorite Days of Our Lives character from the 80’s. 

After the training I went to Brown Elephant, the thrift store run by the Howard Brown Health Center which is right across the street from the North Halsted Whole Foods.  I bought a knitted pink hoodie which miraculously fit me despite being a small (no matter how thin I get I will never be a small person) and an armload of books.  I got copies of Slow River by Nicola Griffith and the poems of William Butler Yeats to replace the one I left at my parents in Upstate New York,  as well as a couple anthologies of erotica to help me with my writing, an oversized Spanish language comic book adaptation of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, a book on Goddesses by comic book artist and historian Trina Robbins,  Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forester, The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit (which I’ve long wanted to read) and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (which somehow I’ve never read). 

 

*It should be noted that Biff and his husband have been together since the mid 90’s so he probably has about as much clue as I do about popular cruising spots.

Yesterday I actually ate 2100 calories. According to thedailyplate.com with the amount of exercise I did this is in the range to maintain my weight. I have trouble believing that but I'm going to try not to panic and keep to the recommended calorie levels for a few days and see if my energy level improves.

I had a chance to go out on Saturday evening with my sister, brother-in-law and his sister and mother who I haven't seen since Thanksgiving but unfortunately I botched it up. Yesterday I got a call from work asking me to switch my day shift on Saturday to an evening shift. I had forgotten about my plans and agreed. When I remembered I called back and said I couldn't do it after all but the girl I switched with refused to back down let me bow gracefully and since I can't stand any sort of conflict I caved in and agreed to take the shift.

The whole thing left me feeling pretty lousy. Not only am I missing out on the rare chance to go out and see people but also I'm angry with my co-worker for insisting on having her way and with myself for for giving in. I really hate myself for being such a nice, accommodating, self-sacrificing wimp. I assume I’d hate myself even more if I felt like I was being “selfish” (one of my mother’s favorite words of condemnation) but maybe, as with eating more, if I did it for a few days I'd start feeling a lot better.

I seem to be recovered from my flu and will be returning to work tomorrow after a long absence (I had to leave work early on Saturday, was home sick Sunday and Monday and I was scheduled off for today). Maybe it’s just being tired and still a little sick but I don’t want to go back, I never want to go back.

I don’t want to deal with people. I remember Saturday before I left there was a lady who was so horrible. She was wearing a real fur coat which I admit I automatically hold against people and she ordered me to stop the automatic belt before she would put her groceries down. Then she spilled lentils all over the place and acted very annoyed, snapped at another woman’s little girl upsetting the mother and finally after the order was done came back and informed me that I’d rung something up in error and acted indignant when I explained that she’d have to take it to customer service. Part of me really doesn’t want to go back tomorrow or ever.

On the other hand I am getting a little restless stuck in my apartment wrapped up in blankets.

During the course of my illness I finished reading Vanity Fair and read the whole of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, finished watching Rose of Versailles and started on Princess Tutu, watched the first two episodes of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, three episodes of I, Claudius and listened numerous times to Sweeney Todd, both the movie soundtrack and the original stage version with Angela Lansbury.

This morning I worked at Biff’s office for a few hours and it was sort of a relief to be doing something and actually interacting with another person again so maybe it won’t be so bad going back. Of course I was nearly in tears as a result of interacting with Biff because there were some complications with the schedule and I might not get as many hours as I need which means less money....

I saw the reports of Heath Ledger’s death earlier this evening.  I’ve always though he was very talented.  I’d just watched A Knights Tale a couple months ago and even though it’s not the sort of film I usually enjoy it really was delightful and to me Ledger’s character Ennis in Brokeback Mountain is one of the most compelling, true portraits of stoic, emotionally suppressed masculinity ever captured on film.  As a lifelong Batman fan I was fascinated by the smudged, grotesque images that were recently released of Ledger as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Dark Knight film.  Very horrifying and exciting, really promising to draw the blood out of the familiar mythos…  It really seemed like it would be a significant role, then suddenly it’s all over.  Just very abrupt and final.  Shocking but also frightening, sobering in a way. 

No one knows if it was suicide or a stupid accident but people can die from both these things.  People can die from mental illness or misusing medication.  If someone who has a child and a measure of success can die like that I certainly could.  I don’t consider myself a suicide risk at all but I’ve been playing fast and loose with my health for years and part of me has always believed I can, because I’m still at the beginning of the story, I have too much untapped potential, too much left to do.  Only there’s no rule that says you get to fulfill your promise. 

I saw the reports of Heath Ledger’s death earlier this evening.  I’ve always though he was very talented.  I’d just watched A Knights Tale a couple months ago and even though it’s not the sort of film I usually enjoy it really was delightful and to me Ledger’s character Ennis in Brokeback Mountain is one of the most compelling, true portraits of stoic, emotionally suppressed masculinity ever captured on film.  As a lifelong Batman fan I was fascinated by the smudged, grotesque images that were recently released of Ledger as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Dark Knight film.  Very horrifying and exciting, really promising to draw the blood out of the familiar mythos…  It really seemed like it would be a significant role, then suddenly it’s all over.  Just very abrupt and final.  Shocking but also frightening, sobering in a way. 

No one knows if it was suicide or a stupid accident but people can die from both these things.  People can die from mental illness or misusing medication.  If someone who has a child and a measure of success can die like that I certainly could.  I don’t consider myself a suicide risk at all but I’ve been playing fast and loose with my health for years and part of me has always believed I can, because I’m still at the beginning of the story, I have too much untapped potential, too much left to do.  Only there’s no rule that says you get to fulfill your promise.  No rules at all to this business of living and dying.

In college I had a new age friend who said that the weeks leading up to a person’s birthday tends to be a period of lull as your annual allotment of psychic energy is running low. 

 

This is sort of true for me, maybe not for the reasons my friend would think but because my birthday is in January which is generally cold and nasty and also follows the Christmas season which tends to be pretty draining. 

 

Whatever the reason, I’m feeling fairly burnt out as I draw near my 36^th birthday.  I feel like my last couple of stories really emptied my creative batteries and I haven’t really felt like writing anything the past few days.  Nor do I especially feel like doing anything.  Given the choice I’d probably just stay home and do nothing.  I’m not even feeling intellectually passionate about anything.  I’m still reading Vanity Fair and I went to see There Will Be Blood on Monday but it took a huge effort. 

 

The problem with being like this is that I get bored and lonely.  I usually have so much stuff going on in my head that this isn’t an issue but I’ve been very tired and foggy the last couple of days.  Consuming way too much caffeine doesn’t seem to make me more alert, just shaky. 

 

There could be a couple of physical things contributing to this.  Because my pre-menstrual depression has gotten so bad I started taking the pill again on Saturday after about a year and a half break.  That could be influencing how I feel.  Also, because taking the pill can result in weight gain I’ve cut down I’ve cut down on my daily food intake.  I’m sort of disappointed with myself for doing this.  I was hoping I could allow myself to be at a normal weight and take advantage of the extra energy to focus on getting another job.  Unfortunately I seem to have a strong propensity for self-sabotage. 

 

 

Amazing as it seems I've made it to and through Christmas without completely losing it. 

I was really dreading Christmas Eve, especially as I'd felt quite ill on the 23rd but didn't even have to work my full shift at the market.  I got sent home early and took advantage to go to a matinee of Youth Without Youth, the Francis Ford Coppala film starring Tim Roth.  It was very ambitious film.  Somehow it reminded me of something that might happen in Henry James, an American filmmaker aspiring to emulate the European masters but not quite knowing where they were coming from.  There’s some interesting stuff going on but it doesn’t quite come together, the scope is too broad and it ends up seeming haphazard and bizarre.  I was a bit disappointed; I’d really been hoping it would be a success.  Roth seems to make a point of working with interesting, prestigious directors (among them Coppala, Tim Burton, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog) but for some reason the films they make with him are rarely among their best.

 

My father wanted me to go to a Christmas Eve church service and I wanted to be lazy and stay home where it was warm so I ended up handling the situation in a passive aggressive sort of way and not finding out when local services would be then looking on the computer and not being able to find any and even going out and driving around and not being able to find any. 

 

Today I just kind of loafed around and read and worked on the bread dough ornaments I’m trying to make for gifts.  In the afternoon I went to see Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd  which is basically about what Leonard Cohen called “the homicidal bitchin’ that goes on in every kitchen to determine who will eat and who will serve.”  I liked a great deal, the design of the whole thing (Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp’s ghoulish make-up alone would have been quite enough to keep me captivated) and the songs.  Stephen Sondheim is such a wonderfully witty lyricist, so dark and funny and horrible.    The barber singing to his razors is as chilling as John Hinkley Jr.’s love song to Jodie Foster in Assassins.  I was also rather amused to note that Sweeney Todd starred half the cast of the Harry Potter films—Alan Rickman (Snape), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange) and Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew).  Of course I loved the fact that Rickman played a nasty judge pursuing a much younger woman because it made the whole thing seem like a deliciously warped version of Sense and Sensiblity.

 

Presents.  Can’t forget presents. 

 

My parents and grandmother actually got their presents yesterday even though I didn’t mail them until Saturday.  I was very happy about that.  I was also very happy that I got a digital camera.  I’ve been wanting one for about a decade.  I am still in the process of figuring out how it works, but I managed to take some photos of myself looking ugly, both without make up and in my amateur attempt to duplicate the Sweeney Todd make-up….

( Trying out my new camera )

 

After my quasi-meltdown a few days ago I’m feeling a bit better.  Not good mind you but better.  I think I was rather ill and that had a lot to do with my level of despondency.  I had a long shift on Saturday (9:15 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) and felt completely ill the entire time.  When I got home I ate dinner, took a shower and slept from 8:00 p.m. till I got up for work at 6:30 a.m.   I felt a bit better yesterday, though I did fuck up and have a $20 difference in my drawer.  It’s sort of a bind—I get written up if I take off sick too often and I get written up if I come in when I’m sick and can’t focus and make mistakes. 

 

Well, basically it comes down to this—if I’m dissatisfied I have to find another job and the only way to do that is to look through listings and send out resumes and go to interviews even though I feel like I can’t and I’d rather not.  It always comes down to that, me doing something.  I keep hoping someone will take care of things for me but it just doesn’t work that way but maybe that’s for the best.  I’d happily curl up and let things be handled for me if I could but there’s a price for security and safety.  Every time you let someone take responsibility out of your hands you give them that much more power over you, whether it’s my mother or the Bush administration.  In the long run it’s better to be anxious and uncertain.  It makes you stronger and braver.  I guess if you want freedom sometimes you have to put up with the drudge work. 

 

Though I must say I’m rather appalled by how few jobs there seem to be right now.  Looking over the Chicago Reader it seems like there were a fraction of the positions being advertised when I was looking two years ago.  Come to think about it I seem to find myself in crisis mode every December.  Two years ago it was work related-- I was working full time at Biff’s then and right after Thanksgiving he informed me I was going to be let go at the beginning of the new year (2006).  I wound up being able to stay on until mid August, 2006.  Last year it was vehicular, my stupid car kept breaking down with gave me a fine excuse for drinking to excess at my sister’s Christmas party and again on Christmas day. 

 

Well, none of that this year though I have to admit it’s a big temptation.  All those lovely bottles of wine that go past me in the market…. It’s so easy to think “everyone drinks, why shouldn’t I be able to.”  However I’ve managed to keep in mind that as bad as I feel now, mentally and physically I will feel many, many times worse after one of my binges. 

The monthly All Store Team Meeting was at 6:30 a.m. this morning.  Nothing like getting up extra early to drive to work in the freezing rain. Grrr.

 

I went to Biff’s office to work immediately afterwards and received what will doubtlessly be the biggest surprise of my holiday season—Biff and his partner Jorge are having a baby! 

 

No I haven’t been reading too many Mpreg fics.

 

A friend of theirs is carrying the child as a surrogate, Jorge is the biological father and the egg is from Biff’s sister so the baby will be a combination of both of them which is sort of weird but very amazing (keep in mind that in general I view the whole process of reproduction with a combination of horror and fascination).

 

I had no idea they were going to do this.  I’d known that they’d looked into adoption several years ago (before I moved to Chicago) and hadn’t had any luck and had considered another woman as a surrogate once upon a time but I’d had not inkling that they were still pursuing the idea of becoming parents. 

 

Apparently they went to see Biff’s parents over the weekend and told them and now are letting their friends know.  It wasn’t something they really wanted to let anyone know about until they were sure of the pregnancy but now the surrogate mother is past the first trimester (the baby is due in June) and there haven’t been any problems so they decided to start letting people know.   

 

It’s funny, Biff said that when he told his parents there was going to be a baby they thought at first he was getting a new bulldog because he always calls the dogs “the babies.”  Of course my first thought was that if the baby is a girl he should name her either Zoe or Petunia after the two bulldogs that died though I guess that would be a bit odd. 

 

Very exciting news.  I’m really happy for Biff and Jorge and I think this could be a really good step for Biff.  He’s a wonderful person but running his business (or rather his uncle’s business) has just consumed his life over the past few years.  His office is in his basement and he pretty much lives down there, arguing with Chicago Housing subsidy programs, crazy tenants and even crazier work crews for hours and hours.  He used to be really involved in preserving historic buildings but I don’t think he does much besides work anymore.  At least that was the case when I was working for him full time.   I’ve more or less detached myself from his world since I got laid off—I come in once a week and pay the bills—so things may be a little more balanced but basically I think fatherhood will be good for him.  As I observed with my sister and brother-in-law having small children about basically forces you to rearrange and re-prioritize your life around their needs. 

I do hope it's a girl.  I do I do. 

I missed celebrating Hanukkah at my sister’s on Saturday because I had to work.  Knowing me of course attending would have probably provoked numerous anxiety attacks but I’m still feeling a bit resentful towards the market.  Working evenings is very hard for me this time of year.  I’m leaving around sunset, about the time I’d like to be coming home and I can’t seem to sleep much past 7:00 a.m.  I actually spoke to one of the supervisors last week about how I’m having difficulties and asked if it would be possible to schedule me more daytime shifts.  I was told that it would absolutely not be possible which struck me as dismissive and high handed and made me feel more or less helpless and worthless.  This happened last Saturday I believe and since then I have been seriously lacking enthusiasm in the performance of my job, especially since they once again disregarded my request to have either Tuesday or Thursday off so I could work at Biff’s. 

 

All this makes me rather ANGRY. 

 

I do not handle anger well.  I’ve basically been coping by making snarky remarks about the supervisor in question.  As long as I can remember I’ve dealt with difficult situations by saying nasty, cutting things about the people who have upset me behind their backs.  It’s something I really dislike about myself and more than once doing this has blown up in my face.  The worst case of this was in high school when I had a crush on a female friend who was completely oblivious to me and very much interested in boys.  After a few years of unrewarded devotion I started to get angry and tell anyone who would listen that she was a pretentious little tart.  Of course this got back to her and rather ended the friendship, much to my distress.  A lot of what I said was true and much of it was quite funny but it was still wrong of me and not something I want to fall into again. 

 

Is there a sane, non-destructive way to cope with hurt and frustration and anger?  I notice that in addition to being snarky the past couple of days I’ve also started drinking diet soda again after avoiding it for well over a year.  Of course I suppose of all the dysfunctional methods of handling life I could resort to (cutting, shoplifting, restricting, binging, and purging) slamming a bottle of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper is probably fairly harmless. 

 

At least I was able to get to ANAD, my eating disorder support group on Saturday for the first time in I don’t know how long.  It really helps put things in perspective for me.  I find it too easy to accept people at face value, to assume I’m the only one who struggles, that I’m freakish and completely isolated and that no one can understand me when in truth there are so many people going through the same things I am.  I notice for instance that so many of the women in the support group have issue with their mothers, problems with boundaries, difficulties with being too connected and taking responsibility for the well being of others. 

I’ve been reading Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, which is essentially a biblical style mythology/history of Middle Earth.   It’s proving slow going on account of all the unfamiliar words—names of characters, races, and places.  Because of my learning disability I’ve never been able to “sound things out.”  Since I can’t do this my method of reading is based around recognizing common words and patterns of letters.  Words that I haven’t encounter before are pretty much lost on me so I have to repeatedly go back to figure out exactly what or who is being referred to. 

 

Not surprisingly I find myself being distracted by books that are, simply, easier to read. 

 

Last week I polished off A Ruby in the Smoke and A Shadow in the North, the first two (of four) Sally Lockhart Mysteries by notorious corruptor of children and enemy of the faithful Phillip Pullman (I’ll get into that in a later post).  While this series isn’t quite on the same level as Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy it was quite enjoyable.  They’re atmosphere heavy Victorian thrillers with plucky orphans, smart mouthed office boys, opium dens, illusionists, evil industrialists (Blake supposedly is a great influence of Pullman’s and I can tell when he describes the dark satanic mills of a factory  that makes weapons in A Shadow in the North) and murderers who go around cutting people’s throats.  They have well drawn characters and a bit of wry satire and social commentary thrown in as well. 

 

My holiday weekend reading was Laurie Lindeen’s memoir Petal Pusher, which recounts her days as a member of the early 1990’s all-girl indie band Zuzu’s Petals.  I was actually a fan of Zuzu’s Petals back in the day.  I still have a cassette of their first album “When No One’s Looking” kicking around somewhere and I’ll occasionally find myself quoting random snatches of their lyrics “God calls on the telephone, she has a temper…”  “Wish I may, wish I might find what I’m wishing for…” “Cinderella, you’re dreaming.  Wake up your conscience is screaming…” “Aye carrumba and I surrender and I guess it’s got something to do with my gender…”  So when I stumbled upon Petal Pusher at the Bucktown library I couldn’t believe my luck. 

 

Reading the cover blurb, I was rather shocked to learn that Lindeen has multiple sclerosis, a disease that I find especially baffling and frightening.  Also that she’s married to Westerberg from the Replacements which doesn’t mean a lot to me.  I was obsessive about indie and punk rock for many years but I only ever paid attention to the women.  As a result I’m intimately familiar with many obscure bands while there are Gods and giants I’ve never listened to.

 

Excited as I was to read Petal Pusher I ended up having pretty mixed feelings about the book.  It seemed sort of sloppily written, jumping between past, present and future through a sort of free-association that I couldn’t always follow.  Also it seemed like there were huge areas of her life Lindeen really didn’t want to go into.  Having MS was something she repeatedly states she didn’t want to think about and therefore seems to sort of side step the subject of living with her disease in favor of a lot of antidotes about life on the road and gossip about the Madison, WI and Minneapolis, MI rock scenes that seem sort of petty in comparison.  There were some good bits but overall I never got a sense that being a musician or a member of Zuzu’s Petals was something that was fulfilling to her and I honestly found myself wondering why she bothered.  I was kind of disappointed.

 

I found myself really disturbed by the section of the memoir where Lindeen describes having an abortion, particularly at the end of the scene where she writes about being picked up by her band mate who will be in the same situation in a few months.  Part of what bothers me is knowing that these are educated women in their late 20’s.  It seems like there are so many options available to them that they shouldn’t have to be having abortions.  Because as much as I support legalized abortion and the right to choice I’ve never been able to go along with the “it’s just a piece of tissue” argument.  I hate the idea of anyone having to go through something like that…  Maybe I’m just particularly sensitive about this issue right now because last week I gave a co-worker, a 20-year old girl, a ride and somehow she ended up telling me about how she’d had an abortion in June.  She works in a supermarket, lives with her parents, has taken a couple of college classes… It’s almost like Sophie’s Choice, you can have a child or you can have a future.  No one should have to make that kind of a decision.    

 

I never want to be in a position where I have to make that choice.  I’ve never been pregnant and if I can help it I’m never going to be. When I was with my ex-boyfriend I remember it was an area of contention between us that I used birth-control.  He was Catholic (though obviously selective in his morality as he was divorced and had two children by a woman he had never been married too, plus having non-marital sex with me plus being a liar) and considered it wrong that I was on the pill.  He was always telling me I was neurotic and that he’d never known any women who were as uptight about using birth control as I was.  He may have been partially right.  I have a lot of issues regarding bodily integrity and view becoming pregnant in a sort of David Cronenbergian manner.  Still, I don’t really see how it’s possible not to take something like birth control really seriously considering the consequences.  I know I can’t be a mother, I simply don’t have the resources emotionally or financially and the idea of having an abortion just seems very devastating to me. 

I went to the doctor’s yesterday. I was a year overdue on my annual physical (on account of not having insurance last year) so it was probably good to get that taken care of. However I was a bit disappointed in that no solution for my recent problems was forthcoming. While my doctor suggested the possibility of adding wellbutrain to my medication because I’m close to maximum dosage of Effexor RX there’s a chance of side effects and she felt I ought to see a psychiatrist before any medication changes were made. I called the psychiatrist she recommended but they didn’t have any openings till February, which frankly doesn’t do me a whole hell of a lot of good.

In the meantime I’m put in a call to my therapist asking if she might know of a psychiatrist, maybe affiliated with the clinic I go to. Beyond that I was advised to go to the emergency room if it gets too bad. Elizabeth Wurtzel does it all the time in her books, but I’m a bit lower key than her. Showing up at an emergency room seems like an awfully grand gesture, which of course is followed by about four hours of mind-numbing boredom waiting to be seen. If I’m going to sit around doing nothing I’d rather be home watching movies.

As part of my physical I was weighted and I was rather distressed at the results. My weight has gone up, I’m at about 150 pounds, 10 pounds higher than what I deem acceptable. I’d known I was over, but I thought it was closer to 5 pounds. The question is what to do about it—start restricting and take it off or just accept it and be heavier. 150 pounds at 5’8 sounds awfully high in a world where the ideal seems to be 5’ll and 110 pounds but I’m actually still fairly thin even at this high weight. I think a lot of it is from muscle mass, and I do like being strong. I take a secret delight in the fact that at the market I’m the only girl who carries the bales of paper bags by myself instead of using a cart.

Still, I think I could do with eating a little less. I sort of upped my food intake when I was recovering from my bike accident but I’d spent the whole month prior to that riding nearly 10 miles a day. I’m not doing that anymore so really I don’t need as many calories. Of course I don’t want to mess up my metabolism by cutting back to dramatically. I think that’s what I did when I cut back by several hundred calories a day in February. That might actually be the reason I’ve gone out of my “safe” weight range (140 thru 145 pounds) to begin with, I’m not eating any more calories per day than I was a year ago.

I’ll have to figure it out. In the meantime as the whole psychiatrist situation doesn’t look like it’s going to be resolving itself in the near future I’ve taken the step of replacing the light bulbs in my apartment with broad-spectrum “natural light” bulbs. Maybe that will help and I doubt it will hurt.

Neither my computer nor I have been in optimal condition these past few days.

 

Probably due to a combination of my period and the colder weather plus biking to work and back everyday in nasty winds I was exhausted all weekend, to the point where I was going to bed at 9:30 p.m. even before the time change.  On Monday I really bottomed out.  I was “spoken to” by one of the supervisors about how I manage my credit and debit card slips.  I’m a bit obsessive compulsive as you know and I keep my slips divided by credit, debit, American express, Discover gift cards, electronic food stamps etc.  Each pile is paper clipped and each slip is numbered as I add it to the stack.  This method has worked for me for the better part of a year.  I’ve never lost a slip and at the end of the shift I can count down quickly because my slips are all in order already and I only have to count my cash (and they’ve been harping about reducing count down times at the last few meetings).  A few of the other cashiers also use this method, but one of the supervisors apparently decided that keeping an orderly drawer takes valuable time away from customer service and that I should just shove my slips in the drawer and deal with them later.

 

I did not take this very well.  Two of the things I deal with the worst are being told I’m doing something wrong or have made a mistake and changing anything.  Plus I was already exhausted and strung out from all the things I’d mentioned before, my period, coldness, darkness, working 5 days straight, and biking to work 4 days straight (which adds up to about 26 miles, maybe a little much).  So I was really upset and got pretty depressed, thinking things along the lines of “I am a complete loser.  I am 35 years old and I don’t even have the authority to determine something so petty as how I organize a bunch of stupid credit card slips.” 

 

Needless to say when I was given the opportunity to go home about an hour and a half early I jumped at it even though I’ll sure that decision will bite me in the ass come payday.  That night, my mother called and at one point in the conversation started talking about a gift my sister had sent her.  I told her it sounded lovely then asked why Vienna had sent a gift when Mum’s Birthday wasn’t until next month.  At which point I realized that it was Mum’s Birthday and that I had completely forgotten about it as well as my father’s birthday which is 11/07.  I don’t know how I could have done this.  I think it’s practically that it just doesn’t seem like November because of the unseasonably mild weather but mainly it’s because over the past few years I’ve been becoming increasingly  wrapped up in my own difficulties that I don’t give a lot of thought to anyone else anymore.  I’d always thought that one of my rare good qualities was generosity and concern for others but apparently that’s gone out the window. 

 

In addition to forgetting the parent’s birthdays, the next day I managed to return the DVD case for Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train to the library while leaving the actual DVD in my player and the day after that I managed to cut off a nice sized bit of my finger while making lunch.  Not doing great.  At least I did manage to get to Paper Doll, my favorite gift shop and get my parents some lovely, if belated birthday cards.  I love going to Paper Doll because the girl who owns it has a little pug dog named Maude who runs free in the store and wiggles and snorts and is beyond adorable. 

 

At the same time my brain seemed to be fragmenting, my computer got infected with a horrible spyware program that mimics windows security alerts then ends up directing you to buy a program called Bestseller Antivirus.  It’s really an evil program, relentless faux-alerts and pop-ups to the point where you can’t do anything.  I finally had to research it on the computer at the breakroom at work to figure out what it was and I think I’ve managed to get it under control now through the combined efforts of Norton antivirus, Zone Alarm, AVG and Spybot.  I get very nervous when my computer is not functioning. 

 

At the moment, things are more under control.  I’ve been scheduled to work 6 days straight which I’m not thrilled about but I’m trying to take care of myself to get through it.  I’m not biking to work, I’ve just been walking 45 minutes for the past two days and I’ve also started taking Evening Primrose oil supplements which will hopefully help with the depression and fatigue I get around the time of my period.  I’m also started taking ginkgo biloba, which is supposed to be good for mental functions (mine seem to be disintegrating) and may also help with my Raynaud’s Phenomenon which is bothering me now that cold weather is returning.  Raynaud’s Phenomenon is a weird circulatory condition where when you get cold blood flow to extremities decreases.  It mainly causes loss of sensation, then arching as circulation returns.  A main symptom of it is discoloration (red, white and purple) of hands, feet and knees.  It’s not serious.  Quite a few people who have it are never even diagnosed.  The only reason I know I have it is because years ago during a physical the doctor noticed my blotchy red and purple knees. 

I generally eat an extremely low fat diet, probably not more than 20 grams a day when 50 or 60 grams is probably the recommended amount.  It lately occurred to me that this might not be healthy, so for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been making a conscious effort to add a couple of grams of fat to each meal (though I’m compulsively careful to keep the overall calorie content the same). 

 

I’m not sure if this has anything to do with my increased fat intake, but I got my period today and it’s actually a couple of weeks early—I generally menstruate every other month and it’s only been a little over a month since the last time.  Also my pre-menstrual depression wasn’t nearly as bad as usual.  I usually feel absolutely miserable for at least a few days but this time I was more or less okay except for a brief bout of self-pity and weepiness at work last night (I don’t think anyone noticed, over the years I’ve become fairly apt at performing my job while undergoing various forms of angst).  Physically I felt sort of queasy but nothing nearly as bad as I’m accustomed to. 

 

So maybe there are some beneficial side-effects to eating a little more sanely. 

 

Sometimes I wish I’d just gone in the hospital 13 years ago then all this started and stayed there until all my mental issues worked out.  Back then I actually had decent insurance that would have covered hospitalization, unlike now, but I had to finish grad school then I had to take a high paying job working at a deli followed by a two year stint as a bank teller followed by a five year stint as a secretary…  I feel like I could have used the relatively cushy time I was living with my parents so much better. 

 

Now I can’t even manage to get in to see my intern therapist more than once every few weeks, which is frustrating. 

 

I feel like I still have so many issues with food, anxiety, and depression that make it a constant struggle to function but I have no choice but to keep functioning, keep getting to work, keep getting through work, keep paying the bills, keep working out…. It really seems like an endless treadmill sometimes.  For me getting sick has always been the way off the treadmill but technically I haven’t been sick in a long time.  I’m at a healthy weight for my height (one which I find uncomfortably high and which seems to be creeping ever upwards); I probably eat close to 2000 calories a day.  I’m not really anorexic any more, I haven’t been for years but I still have all the issues and am struggling with food everyday. 

 

On Monday I finally got into see my new therapist.  This was only our second session together so we’re still in the introductory phase and it’s still too early to know if we’re going to work well together.  At the Eating Disorders Clinic I go to there’s a shelf of books you can borrow and I picked up a copy of Marion Woodman’s The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and the Repressed Feminine which I just finished reading this afternoon. 

 

One of the things I really like about The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter is that it recognizes that obesity and anorexia are not opposites of each other counterparts which I really believe is true.  “In both pathologies,” Woodman writes, “the girls are repressed, too compliant, too desirous to fulfill their parent’s expectations, even to fulfill their parents’ unlived lives… Both want control and seek that control through denial of food.” 

 

When I was overweight, I often tried not to eat but would inevitably rebel at the restrictions and binge with tremendous shame and self-hatred.  I stopped binging for the same reason I recently stopped drinking.  Living with myself after I did it had become too hard.  Now I only binge a few times a year, or every few years but everyday I’m aware that I have the capacity to binge, to over eat, to gain weight, to get fat.  Everyday I still feel that shame and self-loathing.    

 

The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter approaches eating disorders from the standpoint of Jungian psychology and as such treats fear and compulsion as serious, soul killing maladies instead of trying to make them light and harmless as most self-help and pop-psychology does.  Unfortunately this had the side effect of making me profoundly sad as I was reading this book but maybe that’s for the best.  I don’t often feel a lot of compassion for myself. 

 

I’ve always been very much attuned to Jungian theory.  I’m a superstitious person who tends to see things in terms of witchcraft, ghosts, demons, Gods and superpowers.  Jungian psychology, which places importance on religious imagery, mythology, dreams and symbols very much speaks my language.  Not surprisingly, when Woodman writes of being “possessed” by eating disorders it resonates deeply with me. 

 

I really did feel like the book articulated many of the conflicts underlying my problems with weight and food.  In a summary of factors in family background many seemed to describe the environment I grew up in.  In fact it’s almost scarily accurate—

 

“Mother usually unconscious of her own femininity, out of touch with her own body and sexuality.”

 

“Mother tended to be domineering towards whole family rejecting the girl as an individual, and projected her own unlived life onto the child.”

 

 “Mother probably considered the father weak and incompetent in his relationship to the world”“

 

“All spontaneity in the home was rigidly disciplined.”

 

“Daughter felt the hopes and dreams of both parents were pinned on her.”

 

“Daughter forced into maternal role too early, therefore rejects mature maternal role, prefers to remain a child.”

 

A summary of the personality problems likely to develop from a background of this kind describes me fairly well—

 

“As an adult, still dependent on the mother or father, at the same time rebellious against them.”

 

“Inability to cope with reality,,, flights of fantasy.”

 

“Feels herself manipulated and victimized by evil forces from outside (e.g., parents, Devil, God).

 

“”Passivity” terrifies her… “To surrender” for her means giving up, cowardice, loss of control, annihilation.  Can not understand “losing one’s life to find one’s life”, either sexually or spiritually.”

 

“Devoted to Apollinian order and discipline.  Terrified of anything remotely smacking of the Dionysian, therefore prone to possession of it (e.g. midnight binges).

 

“Fantasies of perfection lead to “all or nothing” attitudes which discourage moderate dieting.” 

 

Woodman sees the way out of eating disorders as “surrendering control, opening herself up to fate.”  This involves accepting the chaos of the world, accepting and even embracing co-existing opposites.  I know this is something I have a huge problem with.  It you want to see the evidence go to my entry of a few days ago where I made a snide but fairly mild comment about people on food stamps shopping at whole foods. 

 

Yet the minute someone took offense I became convinced I was a horrible person and wrote voluminous responses trying to assure myself and anyone who would listen that I was indeed a decent person that I was non-judgmental, resented no one, and harbored no incorrect thoughts.  It never occurred to me that you can be a decent person and still be cranky, judgmental, irritable, insensitive and even wrong.  I don’t think in those terms.  I’ve never been able to accept contradictions in either myself or the world. 

 

I could give thousands of examples of this but it would only illustrate what I already know, that I have a serious problem existing, being myself, living any kind of a life.  I get angry with my family because they don’t seem to understand how hard things are for me.  They tell me what I ought to do and all I want to do is cry because it seems impossible to me.  How do you meet new people or sell yourself at a job interview when you hate yourself so much that it’s an effort not to cut yourself or starve yourself or eat or drink to the point of insensibility?