#i am. so fucking normal and i have healthy coping methods yes :3

[just-jammin]

hey, uh, sry if i disrupt the current supposed mood but

I GOT MY FRICKIN MERCH YEAHHHHHHHH YIPPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I FUCKIN LOVE IT, ESPECIALLY MY DORKY FINGER PUPPET

i squeemsh the goob hehehehehehe… >:3

#YESSSSS I CAN EXERT MY CUTENESS AGGRESSION ON MY PAPE NOW YESSSSS #i am. so fucking normal and i have healthy coping methods yes :3 #NOW ONWARD TO TMRW WITH MY PAPE GORLIE YEAHHHHAHAHAHAHA #(btw my cousin was the one who actually bought this tho i paid him my share) #(the notebook’s his gift to me so thx dude :D) #the meaningful jargon

[whentherewerebicycles]

i have to wonder if there's an implication that can be drawn the other way around wrt playfulness and stress - not that un-playful individuals experience stress more acutely, but that people who experience stress more acutely become less and less playful. i have intense, disproportionate shame/fear reactions due to Childhood Trauma(tm) and it's inhibiting as fuck - my work with my singing teacher to relax and (though i've never framed it this way) play(!) w/out embarrassment has been (1/3)

one of the most healing things for me... so i think there's this nexus of inhibition & confidence/security & perspective/scale & playfulness & resilience. to be playful you have to be a bit silly and vulnerable and willing to take a risk on doing something "wrong" i.e. not take yourself too seriously, but if you feel chronically unsafe you'll take yourself & everything else too seriously and want to do it "right" so you minimize the perceived risk of harm. going back to my singing teacher (2/3)

the most important thing she did for me was create an explicitly safe, non-judgmental environment where it's not only ok but even desirable to "fuck up" and "look/sound stupid" and to reinforce that message multiple times. so anyway that quote just made me think that "don't take things/yourself too seriously" sits at this interesting intersection between increasing playfulness & coping strategies for emotional damage. sorry to ramble about it in your ask box lol! (3/3)

*

yes I think this is so so true!! all of this, lol, but especially the part about how acute stress can make it increasingly difficult to be playful. i have written a lot about working through internalized shame here in the past, and especially about the ways that shame causes you to both physically and emotionally shut down parts of yourself. (i actually gave a talk about this subject recently! it was like, a layman’s intro to the neuroscience of shame, with a specific focus on how shame responses affect people’s ability to learn & to connect socially with others in learning spaces.) 

i do just want to clarify that the excerpt i posted was from a study that was very narrowly focused on answering the question: “is there a link between playfulness levels and positive/adaptive coping mechanisms in responding to stress?” the study wasn’t designed to answer larger questions about what kinds of life experiences might produce higher levels of playfulness vs. make it difficult to be playful (such as past trauma, not having one’s basic needs for security met, etc.). in the conclusion the authors note that their findings (i.e., that playful people seem to be more able to readily access and use positive coping mechanisms) means that we should be doing more research on how to cultivate playfulness and how to help people unlearn maladaptive coping mechanisms like self-blame. so the point of the study was not to blame individuals or place the responsibility on individual people (“if you could just lighten up, you wouldn’t be so stressed / unhappy / bad at coping!”). it was more like, an attempt to establish that playfulness (as a way of engaging with the world) seems to be associated with all of these positive ways of coping and managing stress, and so we might want to research playfulness more deeply and/or focus on cultivating it in college students.

so i think you are absolutely right that when we talk about playfulness it’s important not to think of it as something that something people just “have” or don’t have (detached from any consideration of people’s backgrounds, lived experiences, etc.). and we also want to avoid pathologizing its absence (“if you don’t have a playful attitude then there’s something wrong/flawed/messed up about you that needs to be fixed”). my research is focused on understanding how we can better create learning environments like the one your singing teacher has created for you -- i.e., spaces where people feel more secure and less vulnerable to scathing or hypercritical judgment; where failures and mistakes are encouraged & normalized as a natural, healthy part of the learning experience; where instructors are modeling self-compassion and deliberately not using shame-based methods; and just in general, where students are getting the kind of gentle, compassionate, consistent messaging you describe receiving from your teacher. basically I’m interested in creating classrooms that provide the stability and consistency people need in order to learn adaptive coping mechanisms that will serve them well outside of those learning spaces.

i think these questions are so important because most college instructors are VERY aware that our students come into our classrooms carrying many different kinds of trauma—whether it’s the more extreme forms that we tend to think of when we think about trauma (childhood abuse, sexual assault, trauma experienced by combat veterans or refugees from warzones), or the forms of pervasive lowgrade trauma associated with financial precarity, racialized stress, etc., or even just the “lighter” or harder-to-classify forms of trauma that rachel naomi remen calls “the cultural shadow” (i.e., the toxic dominant culture that many of us grow up immersed in). and anyone who has taught at the college level (or taught any age level) knows that as a teacher you often have to at least temporarily play aspects of counselor / social worker / person adept at navigating university bureaucracy to help keep students in crisis from slipping through the cracks. (that is obviously NOT ideal, as those roles should be filled by trained professionals! but we have all been in those situations, where you are the first line of support for a student in crisis, or sometimes the last line of support because they have slipped through the giant holes in our country’s social safety nets.)

i think there’s been a shift in recent years towards “trauma-informed pedagogy,” but the slightly watered-down version of this approach many instructors receive tends to be very focused on mitigating harm in the classroom (ie, avoiding certain things or framing material in certain ways so as to avoid re-traumatizing students). this work is obviously HUGELY important (and my own research project is v much informed by it!). but i sometimes feel like these approaches are very damage-centered, ie very focused on understanding how students are “damaged” by their experiences and how we can “prevent further damage” in the classroom space. again, wanting to adopt teaching practices that avoid retraumatizing students is a good thing!!! but i think what i am hoping my work can do is suggest that we can and should strive for more than just limiting damage. to put this another way: i’m looking for ways to go beyond asking “how can we avoid re-traumatizing students in our classrooms?” to thinking more broadly about how we (as teachers, mentors, etc) can design learning environments and learning experiences that help students grow into healthier, happier, more emotionally resilient versions of themselves—and hopefully help build a foundation of social-emotional skills that they will take with them into their adult lives.

play is not the sole "answer” or solution! but i think that for me, it’s been one useful way to think about things like trauma-informed teaching, restorative practices, and social-emotional mentoring strategies, in ways that center a more positive, joyful understanding of what happy and emotionally well-adjusted adulthood can look/feel like. does that make sense?? i think about cultivating playfulness as just one angle onto answering these questions, or as one approach or set of strategies that people could have in their toolkits as they think about how we design learning environments. it won’t work for all students or all teachers or all learning environments, and it won’t solve all of the problems in higher ed (or in a culture where traumatic experiences are so prevalent and yet are so often left unacknowledged and untreated). but i think for me at least it’s been one generative way to reimagine some of the common structures and norms that structure higher ed learning environments.

anyway sorry to use your ask as a springboard into a long “thinking aloud” post!! but i really enjoyed reading your thoughts and i feel like it’s prompted me to articulate some thoughts that have just been sort of murkily floating around in my mind for the last couple weeks. i am also so glad for you that you have a space in your own life (and a trusted teacher figure) where you feel secure & can practice and explore being vulnerable, making mistakes, being silly/playful, etc. it sounds like she is a really wonderful teacher, and it’s so cool too that you are able to describe the ways in which that learning space has felt healing or healthy for you.

#long post #to think further #!! #playfulness project #play project #mw #teaching #mentoring #edit to add: i know that trauma-informed pedagogy is also thinking about these things & i don't mean to suggest that this is #the first time anyone has ever thought of this lol #but i think a lot of young instructors especially (or older instructors who don't do a deep dive into trauma-informed practices) #do tend to get that watered-down version that focuses more on damage and less on restorative / reparative practices

[quercussp]

Inside

Rating: M

Word count: 1.7k

Summary: Even though both Dan and Phil spent most of their time indoors, being forced to stay inside during self isolation has started getting to them both.

Authors note: Written for @phanworkschallenge. 

Giant thank you to @dayevsphil and @insectbah for betaing!

Warnings: there is a very minor mention of a character accusing another character of using sex as a tool for emotional manipulation. It's very minor, and no actual manipulation takes place, it's said out of anger and is totally resolved. But just in case I thought I would mention it.

[read on ao3]

There were only so many blowjobs a man could endure in a day. And if anyone snorted in disbelief and said that there was no such thing as too many blowjobs, Phil would just remind them that they couldn’t judge because they had not had the experience of Dan Howell going down on them 7 times in one day.

 Even though both Dan and Phil spent most of their time indoors, being forced to stay inside during self isolation had started getting to them both. However, Phil was able to manage that by staying busy filming, chatting with his family over Skype every 3 or 4 days, and playing endless Animal Crossing.

 Dan, on the other hand, was going a little crazy by this point. Phil knew that Dan’s brain was a little trickier to settle down; Dan had a difficult relationship with productivity and self worth, but also Dan relied on his routines to keep his depression at bay. He had a standing appointment with his therapist once a week. He would do his morning runs and go to the gym three times a week. He would schedule a lunch or afternoon tea with a friend every now and then. All those things were necessary to keep the darkness away, and when all of those things had to be indefinitely postponed, Dan turned to his other coping mechanisms. Which brings us back to the issue of sex.

 Dan and Phil had always had a very healthy sex life. Sex was an important communication method for them, and they both genuinely enjoyed it. But for Dan, sex was also a method of escaping reality, something to quiet his mind, and being cooped up for so long, along with the existential dread and anxiety, had transformed Dan into a horny teenager that Phil just could not keep up with.

 “Come on Phil, I’ll make it so good for you!”

 Dan was currently sitting in Phil’s lap, wearing only a t-shirt, and placing wet kisses on Phil’s neck. Normally, this would have been a very welcome sight, but it was only 3 pm and this was literally the 4th time today that Dan had tried to fuck him and Phil’s dick was just not having it. Neither was Phil.

 “Dan, come on, give me at least another couple hours!” Phil tried to gently push Dan away, but Dan just kept grinding down on Phil’s lap, rubbing his hard dick against Phil’s clothed crotch.

 “Phil…” Dan whispered in his best seductive voice, “What are we, eighty? Let’s go again, since when have you ever been against getting your dick sucked? You don’t even have to do anything; I’ll do it myself, just lie back and enjoy!”

 One of the problems with Dan in this type of mood was that it wasn’t really about Dan getting an orgasm. That, Phil could do. Giving Dan a quick hand job or quickly going down on him, Phil could handle that. But Dan in this type of mood was only satisfied if Phil enjoyed himself. And by “enjoy,” he meant that Phil had to have a mind shattering orgasm every time, or it didn’t count. Dan treated this type of “coping” sex like a mission, and his own pleasure came secondarily. He got off on making Phil feel good, making him fall apart and lose control.

 On a particularly chatty and intimate night after a couple glasses of wine Dan had explained to Phil that the sex was not only to have a physical pleasurable sensation, but more to remind himself that he, Dan, could bring pleasure to his partner. That it made him feel like he was worthy and accomplished, that it silenced that little voice in his head telling him he's worthless, all things that were difficult to maintain while on quarantine. And of course Phil wished Dan knew that he was worthy and wonderful and perfect without that, but brains were often not cooperative, and Dan’s brain in particular sometimes had a hard time seeing himself objectively.

 “Dan, come on, have mercy!” Phil tried to stop Dan jokingly. “I’m not 18 anymore, I need some recovery time!”

 “Is that a challenge, Philly?” Dan mumbled into Phil’s neck, his hands snaking down and slipping into Phil’s pajama bottoms.

 “No, Dan, it’s not a challenge; I’m serious.”

 The change in Phil’s voice must have startled Dan, because he sat up and looked at Phil with surprise.

 “You really don’t want to?” he asked after a bit of a pause. Phil could tell that he was trying to sound casual, but the little notes of Dan being hurt were obvious to someone who knew him so well.

 “Dan,” Phil brushed his hands through Dan’s sweaty curls and gave him a peck on the cheek, trying to stay calm. “Dan, come on. I am just really not up to it right now, ok?”

 Phil could almost see the thoughts starting to spiral in Dan’s eyes. That Phil didn’t want him. That he was not attractive. That Phil was bored of him.

 Usually Phil had the presence of mind to remind himself that these doubts Dan would sometimes have weren’t rational thoughts. That it wasn’t the real Dan doubting their relationship. That there were demons in Dan’s head that he couldn’t fight but just had to do his best to calm down. Usually it made him want to do everything in his power to make Dan feel good again. Usually.

 But right now was not normal and Phil was tired of it. He was on edge, he was anxious, he was cooped up indoors, and he was just tired. He wanted to put on his earphones and play Animal Crossing for 5 hours and escape the world they were living in. So when Dan looked at Phil like a hurt puppy, Phil lost his temper a little bit.

 “Dan, this isn’t about you okay? You know this. What do you want me to do, have sex with you just to prove that I love you? Do I not prove it enough?”

 That was a low blow and Phil knew it. The moment he said it out loud he regretted it, but the damage was done.

 Dan stood up, his hands pulling on the edge of his t-shirt as though to cover himself up. His face was white and his eyes were shining with what looked suspiciously like tears. He walked towards the door, turning his head before leaving, as though waiting for Phil to say something.

 Phil didn't know what to say so he remained silent.

 When Dan closed the door behind him, Phil angrily put his earphones in and turned up the volume. He knew they needed to talk. He knew that not talking it through with Dan was going to be hard for him, that Dan needed to solve conflicts as soon as possible. But right now, Phil was just not up to it.

 ***

 By the time Phil exited out of the game, the sun had set and the living room was lit only by the screen of the TV and the lamps outside. He put down his headphones and stood up, stretching his legs and popping his shoulders.

 He walked through the dark, quiet house to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. Then he got the cereal out of the cupboard and slowly crunched on it while looking at the window. Putting away the box and rinsing the glass, he slowly walked up to the closed door of the bedroom and lightly knocked.

 “Hm..?” came a muffled response and Phil took it as a yes.

 The bedroom was mostly dark, with only the screen of Dan’s laptop illuminating his face. Dan was sitting in bed, covered in blankets, looking at his screen. Phil waited for a second for him to look up, but Dan seemed to avoid meeting his eyes.

 Phil climbed into bed next to Dan and carefully took the laptop out of his hands and put it on the table.

 "Come here." He put his arms around Dan and pulled him to his chest. Dan’s body melted into Phil and his head rested down on the crook of Phil’s neck in a practiced motion. Sometimes Phil wondered if they were made to fit so well together, or if it was the years that made them connect seamlessly like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

 “I’m sorry for using you as a stress relief sex toy,” Dan mumbled into Phil’s neck and they both giggled.

 “You know I don’t mind, Dan. Sex with you is literally the best thing. It’s just that there’s only so much my dick can take. I’m sorry for implying that you make me do something I don’t want, I’m just tired.”

 Dan looked up to him and in the darkness of the bedroom Phil could almost feel Dan’s sadness.

 “I just want things to be normal again,” Dan whispered.

 “So do I, baby.” Phil pressed their foreheads together. “I miss doing things.”

 “I miss going out on dates,” Dan mumbled.

 “I miss mum,” Phil replied.

 “I miss your mum too,” Dan smiled. Phil pulled him closer.

 “I miss going to the cinema.”

 “I fucking miss Starbucks,” said Dan.

 “I miss Martyn and Corn.”

 “I miss buying you flowers,” Dan whispered almost as though it was a secret.

 “You’re a sap,” Phil chuckled.

 “Shut up. I’m romantic.” Dan paused for a minute. “I love you, you know?”

 “Of course I do, you idiot.”

 “And I know you love me. I really do,” Dan continued.

 “I know that too. It’s gonna be okay.” For some reason Phil felt like crying. Maybe he could get away with it. In the dark no one would know. 

 “Can we have sex now?” he asked. “My dick has rested plenty,”

 The ‘I’m sorry it’s hard’ and the ‘let me love you’ and the ‘let me show you how much I adore you’ was left unsaid, but Phil knew Dan heard it.

 “Well, Phil, while you were sulking upstairs I wanked like 4 times, so I don’t think I can get it up right now.” 

 Phil chuckled. “Is that a challenge?”

 Dan placed a wet kiss on Phil’s lips and snaked his hand to squeeze Phil’s butt.

 “I believe it is, Mr. Lester.”

 “Bet you pizza that I’ll get you hard as rock in 10 minutes so you can fuck me,” said Phil, pressing kisses to the spot on Dan’s neck he knew would drive him crazy.

 “Aren’t you cocky,” replied Dan, pulling Phil’s shirt off of him and nipping his ear.

#phan #phanfiction #my fic

[necromaniackat]

I AM NOT FATPHOBIC

I know at this point in my blogging career I’ve gotten the reputation of being “fatphobic” but let me tell you something; I used to be fat. I used to be an overweight social justice warrior scrolling through tumblr, self diagnosing myself with all these mental illnesses. Guess what happened: I grew up. I learned what the real world is like and I learned it all first hand. Let me tell you a few things I learned about the real world.

1) Yes, people treat you differently. People tend to be harsher on people who are bigger rather than someone who’s a normal size or even someone who’s underweight. WHY?! Because, you are not seen as conventionally beautiful or appealing. There are some very beautiful overweight people but the majority isn’t beautiful. It takes an upwards of 2,000 calories a day to maintain your weight so if you’re 200+lbs and gaining then that means you’re consuming more than the recommended daily calories. That means if you’re gaining, say 5lbs in a week, you’re eating enough food for two or three people. People don’t pity you because you see what you’re doing to yourself and you demand to be considered beautiful. People like Eugenia Cooney are seriously mentally ill, who don’t see the damage they’re doing to themselves. Yes, I recognize people who are overweight have the same type of mental illness but let’s not kid ourselves. The majority doesn’t have that type of mental illness.

2) There is no such thing as medical fatphobia. I would know, I used to be fat. I was 147lbs at 4′7. I was severely overweight during my late teens. I also had the beginnings of MDD and bipolar disorder. When my doctor told me my depression would lessen if I lost weight and started to eat right, I did that and I started to feel better. My meds also worked a bit better.

Also my grandmother was morbidly obese. She was bed ridden for YEARS. I used to go to her doctor’s appointments with her and my mom. Please note my grandmother is a polio survivor so that affected her health as well. When I was around 4/5 years old my grandmother overdosed on her medications; we don’t know if it’s suicide or an accident. My mom and I have had many conversations about this issue and we both agree that if my grandmother had lost a significant amount of weight then she may still be alive. He quality of life would’ve improved so much. I asked my mom if my grandmother ever experienced “fatphobia”, my mom told me that if anything she was coddled for being as heavy as she was. She got high dosages for medications and was a doctor’s wet dream so to speak.

3) Your loved ones pay for your weight. Going off of my grandmother’s experiences as a morbid obese person, I’m going to add the effect it had on her family. My mom was a single mother looking after three kids -two under the age of six- on top of working full time, on top of having to look after my grandmother because my grandmother couldn’t look after herself. My mom put her life in danger every time my grandmother fell and she had to help lift her up. My grandmother weighed 500+lbs when she died and the last time she fell the firefighters literally told my mom not to try to lift her up because my grandmother could crush her to death.

My grandmother also didn’t get a chance to play with her grand kids the way a normal grandparent should. 90% of the memories I have with my grandmother are stationed in her bed. She was 62 when she died and my little sister doesn’t have any memories with our grandmother, and me and my older brother only remember the times she fell or was in her bed. It’s not fair to any of us that those are the memories we have of her. She was so much more than just her weight but at the end of her life all her troubles were caused by her weight. She was a special needs teacher and a middle school teacher. She taught for 25 years. I miss my grandmother every day. It’s not fair that she died so young.

4) Enablers. Cut those fuckers out of your life. If they loved you they would want you to be healthy. It doesn’t matter if it’s mentally, emotionally or physically; if they loved you, they would want you to be the best version of yourself. When I was overweight I found I was most miserable when I was surrounded by people who enabled my behaviour. They didn’t care that I was slowly killing myself. If somebody loves you, they’ll want you to be healthy. If that means they’re “mean” to you.

When my depression was at a low point my uncle showed me zero pity because I wasn’t doing anything to help my situation, I wanted to wallow in myself damnation and bring everyone in with me. He hated the person I was because he knew I could be such a better version of myself and he kicked me in the ass to become that person. At the time I despised him to my very core but today, I love and understand him and his methods.

5) Social media. Oh my God! Where do I even start with this one? Let me start with, you’re not untouchable. The F/A is an echo chamber of people pulling the wool over each other’s eyes. If you love someone, you tell them the fucking truth. If you hate someone, you tell them the fucking truth. If I get made fun of for being short then you get made fun of for being fat because that’s the truth. I’m abnormally short and you are abnormally large. Social media is the viper’s den of the world, you’re not safe. People are going to make fun of your weaknesses and if you’re fat, you’re going to be made fun of for being fat. Simple.

The F/A throws a temper tantrum when their delusional bubble is burst. Being fat is unhealthy and not pretty to look at. Now, I know what you’re going to say “if you don’t like it don’t look at it then”. But as soon as I voice an opinion you just have to look at the post, click my blog, look through my blog and then message me rude things. “But Kat, that’s hypocritical of you.” I KNOW! I’m not untouchable either and I realize you have your right to send me those messages, but I’m not holding a gun to your head and telling you to waste your time. This is where your delusional bubble bursts. If you’re going to message me horrid things, I’m going to ask just this one thing of you, don’t do it on anon. Show me that you have a thick skin and can deal with people having opinions that make you uncomfortable. 

6) Habits. I know the F/A is going to use smokers as a scapegoat. Let me just tell you, I begged and pleaded my family to quit smoking when I was a kid. But as I grew up I realized people needed their coping mechanisms or habits that they do. For me, I have a smoke when I go out on the town. I also pre-game. I have the terrible habit of drinking energy drinks. They’re not good for you but I moderate my consumption. If I drink a red bull one day, I go two days without coffee. When I was 147lbs my diet consisted of deep fried pizza and junk food but I also did zero exercise. I wasn’t moderating my habits. 

Also using food as an emotional coping mechanism is not cool. You shouldn’t do that because food isn’t meant for that. The same way alcohol isn’t meant for it or working out. You need to deal with your baggage. You need to face your shit and deal with it another way so you can get your head on straight and deal with your weight. Am I saying adapt an eating disorder? No! Eating disorders are a mental illness not a lifestyle.

Anyways, that’s my opinion on F/A and such. My inbox is open and all I ask is for you to not use anon if you want to give me hate. You can’t change my mind.

#fat acceptance #fat activism #fat #fatphobia #haes #anti haes #body postivity #mental illness #eating disroders #health at every size #thin privilege #fatphobic #fatphobes #health

[skinny-boy-endeavours]

Warning: this message might shock most people, although I assume only people with an interest in these issues are likely to read it till the end, and if you are an ex-anorexic or bulimic, or a person scanning the web in search for potential culprits against your good sense, this is perhaps not going to please you. All the same, I will write it.

Since I have been living with eating disorders, more than a decade, and very nearly two decades have elapsed, and since I have joined Tumblr in a hope of finding some comfort and expressing myself at times like “these”, not even one decade has elapsed. I am a boy, I am twenty-eight, I have suffered from eating disorders for as long as I can remember, at about when switching from childhood to adolescence. I have taken a lot upon myself, and am still taking quite a lot, either out of habit or by sheer automatic resignation. I have finished my studies, I have my university diploma, I have remained at the same workplace for several years and I am both reliable and disciplined. But in the last ten years, I have been hospitalized a dozen of times, most of which upon my own free decision, and always seemed to recover a little more each time from I knew not what exactly, but that made me heartsick to the extent of driving myself to suicide on several occasions (at least 5, almost successful, by severe poisoning). I did not heed, at first, that my parents and their controlling temperament and conduct towards me might have the invisible cause behind all my self-destructive behaviours. I still find it hard to evaluate to what extent their pressurizing and eternally unsatisfied influence has driven me to hate myself only, to bear all the pain and to live only a small percentage of what is normally called “life” only to justify my existence and temper their grave looks upon my miserable person. The first thing to be said is that anorexia, bulimia, eating disorders in general and all feverous afflictions, when befalling a young person, girl or boy, is never a “fancy”, nor an invention of problems that were nonexistent beforehand, but a real discomfort, if not a living pain that is being converted into self-destruction, for want of a proper way out to an every-moment-guilt of being alive, under the control pf one’s parents, for they are authorities that are not to be gotten rid of as long as the child is a “minor” or is under their tutelage. Even when this comes to pass, the sentiment of the child who has lived under such a control for years, legally speaking, may and sometimes will inevitably reproduce his unhealthy patterns, either by the constant skin-deep memory of his former captivity of lack of freedom, which, after all, and I understand it now, is the sole and only motive for eating disorders in an adolescent and for an entire-life-wrecking nervous indisposition. I have noticed that at a healthy distance from my parents, I thrive rather well, although I still am fragile, and that when I am intensely with them for at least three or four days, this fragility is increased twice, thrice or more, proportionally to the albeit small time I have passed in the fateful company of my parents, who, despite what might be concluded from the above-written, are loving and caring, and wish nothing but my wellbeing. How then is it possible to feel, to declare oneself oppressed and pressed if one’s parents do not beat or ill treat one ? This is the whole issue: the pain inflicted by controlling parents is infinitely more subtle than any amount of “Physical” beating or mistreatment. All the more, that it is involuntary, and the parents do not realize the pain they are inflicting, and their ignorance of their very own misbehaviour is greater as they don,t understand that their love for their children is being counterproductive and is actually undermining their child’s development into healthy adults, and most of the time, driving them to self-destructive behaviours. This is no victim-playing, one has better things to do than looking, and even finding, guilt where it dos not have an actual existence. But in this lies the problem of nervous disorders into young people and their subsequent mark left upon the young people who have become adults and have to live with their self-destructive envies or direct behaviours, probably until they die, having half-lived only, become the ghost of their either living or dead parents has taken much of their energy and has achieved its final task: make oneself self-hating although alive and “functional” in society. I know why initially, eating disorder suffering patients were rightfully and tactfully removed from their families, from the sickening environment almost entirely manifested by the parent(s) or care-giver, of whoever while wishing the best for one’s child, drives her or him to seek freedom from the yoke through means by which they can escape, both physically and emotionally, and breathe, and while in the presence of the yoke-masters, feel themselves free, at least temporarily, by taking control over the only things they have any over: in this case, food intake, calorie outtake, etc. Drug problems, self-harm, and the like, are all ways of coping with a pressure than has become internalized and persists even when the subject is withdrawn from his familial environment for one’s best recovery or when one is definitely away from it. So tis is what I feel today, and what I come to realize. Of course, I am aware that this may be my case only, and that for all sorts of people, all sorts of circumstances are accountable for all sorts of joys and pains, and consequent self-building or self-destructive behaviours; that all cases of nervous indispositions are not imputable to the familial environment or the parental controlling facies, yet, this is my case and for my wellbeing, I must try to formulate it in a rational manner both for myself and for those whom it might be of use to to read these sentences and find that, as invisible as it is, the cause of their nervous disorders (I must insist, also, that a nervous disorder is not a mere nervosity or stress felt from time to time, but a fundamental indisposition of the whole nervous system, that affect the entire life and both physical and mental health of an individual, and it often drives one from depression to anxiety and back again, until one either is taken into a hospital for rest, or commits suicide although the material conditions in which he lives are what most of our “gentle-natured philanthropists would consider to be far above 2/3 of the world’s average material conditions). The whole point of this is not to throw guilt everlastingly upon one’s parents for all that happens, far from it. But if one is of a fragile nervous disposition and his parental environment does not help this disposition otherwise than retrogressively, as in my case of a till-here lasting eating disorder and as I imagine, of several if not most other people, girls or boys, with eating disorders, then severance from those austere parents is perhaps the first and most important step to be taken, either by the patient’s initiative or by his therapist. It may not be advisable in all cases, as the patient’s have different personalities and have received the more or less bad influence from their own different environments, but I am quite certain that in many instances of anorexia or bulimia or other EDs, this severance is salutary, and may, at the patient’s will, be prolonged as indefinitely as needed, for the invisible controlling influence can follow the patient, as I have already said, like a ghost, it matters not if the parents are still “physically” alive or not, or have been “objectively” demanding/austere/controlling/oppressing. The goal of this is not to spend one’s life in accusation of one’s parents, nor to remain mournful of one’s past, but once this step made, this important step, for the patient to be able to distinguish the part of himself that WANTS to suffer, to destroy himself and punish himself (eating disorders are self-harming coping methods, again, that can become internalized and last within the individual even years after the last definite severance from the individual’s unheeding parental environment/influence. I have repeatedly insisted upon this point, because once understood, as an underlying rule to unlock a difficult calculus of mathematics or physics, it will become not only easier, but truly feasible for the patient, whether he his 12 or 30, to know herself or himself and, as I had started to disert upon a little earlier, to know that his unhappiness is rooted in a self-hated that is rooted in a distorted perception of one’s worth and value as a human, as she or he perceives herself of himself as the direct product of his parents and must be perfect in every way and every instance, until it becomes untenable and metamorphoses itself into an altogether endeavour for irreproachability and self-control, which in its turn becomes what we call an “eating” disorder”. This is no freudian explanation of the mother or father sense within the child who either wants to kill the latter in order to freely fuck the former or simply hates them and eventually, himself, and strive never to resemble either of them by saying yes when they say no and reversely. This only means that the motive for an eating disorder is, in many cases, whether felt immediately and clearly or not, or only later, and to various degrees, a consequence of one’s unhealthy parental behaviour. I have written all this because it has become clear over time, gradually, and not all at once nor in a very definite and clear perception, for it is likely to change over time, as I live on, but these two tendencies, I have observed to remain constant and increasingly self-evident over time, regardless of individual circumstances: that is, 1) that my self-observation has always led me to understand that my self-destructive tendency varies along with my frequentation and near-sensing of my parents, who renew my self-hate, diminish or augment it proportionally, 2) that as long as eating disorders have been observed, whether they had already received a name of some sort or this generally nowadays accepted name, the tendency of the observer was that either the mother or the father had a devastating influence upon their child, an influence which, albeit invisible or at least very subtile, is very real and real enough to drive the child to self-destruction although their material condition is either normal or above the average. They are unhappy and feel oppressed enough to starve themselves, or to purge themselves, or have suicidal thoughts and or behaviours. Even in ancient cases, such as the all-too-famous on of Santa Caterina da Siena, the anorexic behaviour was associated if not entirely attributable to the mother’s controlling influence. In some other cases, modern or ancient, it may be the father’s controlling influence, which, of course, might not be physically agressive, but, upon a subtler plane, emotionally, intellectually, agressive, often when he has achieved some degree of intellectual authority and tries to impress it upon his child’s senses that she or he is to be at least equally rigorous, important or what not, which the child would have fain achieved even, and better so, without this moral pressure upon her or his nerves. Now, there are things upon which one cannot go back, but it is important, at least for me at this moment, to identify this cause, and to work from the knowledge of that efficient cause of the nervous/eating disorder to move forward, and have a decent life, because one cannot have it unless one makes this turn upon oneself and sees that what impedes one is the parental ghost, and I mean this without any psychoanalytical sentiment, for I do not see it as intervening in the eating disorder instance. This is equally true in the case of the freudian explanation of anorexia, that the mother being the material feeder of the child, the child stops eating when his mother’s will she or he fells antagonistic to its own. This is good for allegorical mythology, but not for practical problems that demand a practical solution: in this instance, what has to be understood, and what indeed HAS a relationship with either of the patient’s parents or with both, is that across time and space, this relationship is the root of the problem, which itself is not a one-sided guilt, it would be too easy, but rather a bad or shock meeting of genetic nervous indisposition on one side and of an austere or controlling parental influence on the other. Eating disorders become the only way out imaginable for this situation that involves no culprit but that involves as surely as possible at least one victim: the child who seeks freedom from a legal bondage, and tries to grow and to develop herself or himself under this constant nervous strain. The formerly eating-disordered children who, like myself, have gone into the adult age still carrying their self-destructive patterns and have tried to be a good citizen while waking with the envy of suicide in the morning and going to bed in tears, sleeping by the grace of strong drugs and working like a normal person by who knows whose grace, must, I declare it bluntly, turnabout and sweet is the cause of their lasting pain and poor mental health, which, in this instance, affects the whole physical organism equally, and can damage it permanently (the nervous indisposition has already a disabling effect upon the entire being, both during the adolescent growth wherein the individual is normally meant to build himself, and after the end of hormonal growth when one is an adult; the added problem of an eating disorder, superposed upon this already fragile nervous system, may be very destructive physically, and even more so as time rolls on, but also on the mind and the emotional faculties, which become prematurely tired and strained, especially when entertained over years, and eventually decades). I therefore conclude my long word, and also congratulate my reader upon his patience, by saying that an eating disorder is controlling parental influence + genetic nervous disposition and that the recovery can neither be forced upon the patient as an evidence nor even occur in the mind of the patient while her or his father or mother has not been identified as the cause of her or his emotional imbalance, and subsequently and consequently, been put aside from one’s life and definitely either discarded or healthily dealt with (by regulating, if not abolishing, the rapports one has with one’s parents or with the one in question that has an unhealthy bearing upon the child’s nerves). Now, this is only my opinion, and I perhaps imagine everything and I am not sick after all and all this is but a bad dream... But, on the other hand, I know not why, I feel that most eating disordered people, young or less young, will relate with the few statements I have abode made, and find that they describe their own cases quite accurately, because what I have singled out as the one invariable ou almost invariable tendency across time and space, in the case of EDS, is the parental influence, and it is a tendency because it cannot, totally at least, be dissociated from the very problem of EDs, and I am quite sure that those who have read this hitherto shall feel that they are not alone, and that behind their apparent madness, and underneath their emotional pain, there is something quite similar across the cases, and that something subtle lies at the foundation of it, something that has its constancy across the circumstances, and that determines the appearance of the coping method known under the name of eating disorders.

Saturday the 18th of May, 2019

[just0nemorepage]

Gracefully Grayson || Ami Polonsky || 243 pages ------------------------------------------------------- Top 3 Genres: LGBTQA / Middle Grade / Realistic Fiction

Synopsis: Alone at home, twelve-year-old Grayson Sender glows, immersed in beautiful thoughts and dreams. But at school, Grayson grasps at shadows, determined to fly under the radar. Because Grayson has been holding onto a secret for what seems like forever: “he” is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender’s body.

The weight of this secret is crushing, but leaving it behind would mean facing ridicule, scorn, and rejection. Despite these dangers, Grayson’s true self itches to break free. Strengthened by an unexpected friendship and a caring teacher who gives her a chance to step into the spotlight, Grayson might finally have the tools to let her inner light shine.

Finished: December 19th, 2018.

Progress: 13 / 50. 26% complete.

My Rating: ★★★★★. [5/5]

My Review: [Under the read more - NOT SPOILER FREE]

Boy oh boy oh me oh my did this book give me the feels.

I genuinely haven't figured out how I want to put any of my feelings into words, and it's been over a day since I finished this. All I know is this book is utterly PERFECT, and I had to take a good half hour to myself after I put it down to compose myself and try not to burst into tears.

Things of note as I think of them:

Grayson is a sweet cinnamon bun and is too pure for this world and is my child now. It's official. I've decided. I am her adoptive mother.

This felt so messy and real and I love how not everything was fully resolved or ended on a happy note. It painted a very realistic portrayal of a situation revolving around a young trans girl and how shitty people will become about that. Not everything was resolved – a respectful nod to what I imagine the real struggles of trans people are – but things were starting to head in the right direction near the end. Grayson never learned the word "transgender" (the number of times I wanted to hold her and yell "There's a word for this! There's a name! What you're feeling is real!" cannot be counted), and hadn't yet reached the point where she started using the correct pronouns or changing her name. But the book ended at her openly wearing girls' clothes to class for the first time, and I just – CINNAMON BUN, OKAY.

Aunt Sally is a shit. Ryan and Tyler are shits. Jack might be starting to redeem himself, but that may be up in the air. FUCK I wish Grayson's parents hadn't been killed – they were doing such a good job raising Grayson to be herself. Thank god Uncle Evan was on Grayson's side – she would have been worlds' worse off if she didn't have him there to protect her from Sally and keep her in check.

I don't know, I just feel like so much more was going on throughout the whole story that we didn't get to touch on cause we kept following Grayson, and I love how multi-faceted it was and how well it was carried out. The whole thing going on with Finn being in trouble for casting Grayson as Persephone. Amelia dropping Grayson as a friend after she caught her trying on a skirt in a store, still otherwise presenting as a boy. Sebastian being unsure whether or not he really was friends with Ryan and Tyler. Jack's behavioral issues and coping methods from feeling like Grayson was favored over him. PAIGE. PAIGE AND HER MOM. The WHOLE CAST, just accepting Grayson for who she was, with no questions whatsoever and being fiercely protective over her. They NEVER questioned it. ONCE. They ALWAYS just treated her like a regular person and holy shit thank you for writing it like that.

I don't even know what else. This was so good. The writing was excellent, the characters felt messy and real, the trans experience felt well researched, well respected and well written, the pace was excellent, the story itself was excellent – and this is written for MIDDLE SCHOOLERS. Holy shit. This is such a healthy book for middle grade kids to read.

I'm too hungry right now to put my normal energy into asiduhfilhd'ing about how much I just adore everything about this book, but I think you get the point. I ADORE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BOOK.

Go read it, okay? Okay yes good. #incoherentsobbing

#book reviews #gracefully grayson #ami polonsky #★★★★★ #lgbtqa #middle grade #realistic fiction #contemporary #favorites #owned #print book #stand alone #jomp original

[chloemill]

On what I’ve been up to the last nine years

I have always been obsessed with food. It seems silly, honestly, to be obsessed with something that’s a basic human necessity. Food, water, shelter. Too bad there aren’t water disorders or I’d be all over that. Alcoholism, I guess, is a liquid-based disorder? This is getting dark quickly but I guess we should all know what we’re getting into with this one, shouldn’t we.

So, yeah, I’ve always been obsessed with food. I have alarmingly clear memories of food from childhood, and the sad(dest) part is most of it’s not even real fucking food, it’s like, cartoon food. I could probably describe every illustration from the Berenstain Bears installment where the dad bear and the kid bears randomly decide to go balls to the fucking wall and just mainline junk food until the mom bear is like “what the fuck is going on here” and gives them all apples or some shit and then everyone chills the fuck out. The pizza in A Goofy Movie when Goofy and Max randomly stop at a themed motel and the kids eat pizza while Goofy and Pete share what I remember to be a vaguely sexual moment in the hot tub? (There was definitely at LEAST a questionable power dynamic at play.) The kid at school whose weird helicopter mom came at lunch and hand-delivered her McDonald’s nuggets to the playground. Bake sales in the second grade - the cookies and brownies and “nachos” that were just round Tostitos with that terrifying and delicious fake cheese sauce that still honestly casts a spell twenty years later. It wasn’t quite normal, but as a kid, I didn’t think twice. When your parents are feeding you and your brain is the size of a baseball, you just kind of roll with the punches and settle for buying as much crap as possible at the bake sale with the two bucks your mom gave you. Shortly after I finished elementary school, actually, I think they stopped having bake sales as fundraisers because the school was trying to promote healthy eating. Go figure.

In high school we were allowed to go off campus for lunch and once or twice a week my sainted mother would give me money to buy lunch. It very rapidly became the bi-weekly Let’s See How Much Shit We Can Stuff In Our Body For Ten Dollars Challenge, but that’s not at all uncommon for high schoolers. At home we ate healthily, and I have a pretty fast metabolism thanks to my Slenderman of a father so I was more or less the size of a pencil for first few years of school. We’re talking, like, size double zero at Hollister. I actually used to peel the 00 size stickers off my low rise (!!!) jeans whenever I’d get a new pair and stick them on the side of my desk in my bedroom, which, as I became a normal-sized adult with not-normal-sized body image problems, morphed into a very creative form of self-inflicted psychological torment. I have some journal entries from the first few years of high school with “diet and workout plans”, but in teenage girl fashion, most of them were quickly forgotten about or amended with “forgot and ate mac and cheese today - whoops!” Stupid teenage shit. It’s actually kind of hilarious reading it back now until I remember how spectacularly fucked up everything got. ANYWAY!

My first real memory of hating my body was on a school trip to Scotland my junior year. I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of high school musical theatre and we were performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, which was an incredibly cool experience that I absolutely did NOT take full advantage of and instead did shit like drink way too much rum (fucking RUM because apparently I was a character in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), try to climb out the window of the dorms we were staying in to go see my boyfriend in his building, quickly remember I was on like the fucking fourth floor, throw up all over the carpet of my room and then pass out. My room smelled like puke the rest of the trip but that, though tragic in its own right, is not the point of this anecdote. Being both across the pond and left to my own devices, I was eating nothing but beige-colored fried food to the point that I’m certain ketchup and fruit juice used solely as a mixer for alcohol were the only things saving me from full-blown scurvy. My clothes felt tight, and not in the 2010s way that everything was tight, but bad tight. My stomach poked out of my jeans in a way that my stomach wasn’t supposed to poke out of my jeans. Keep in mind - I was probably a size 0 instead of 00 at this point, and most of this change was just a product of being sixteen instead of fourteen and growing, but to me it felt ominous in a way I didn’t know how to explain. During a group trip to some Scottish landmark or another (see how much attention I paid to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity my parents spent their hard-earned money to give me?) I remember sitting next to my close friend on the bus as we pulled over to stop for food. I was having relationship trouble with the aforementioned boyfriend, one of the first of many Musical Theatre Straight Boys™ that I would lose my fucking mind over, and I was getting emotional - more emotional than I expected. I realized something else was bothering me, and I turned to her and said “On top of everything else, I just feel… fat. I know I’m not fat, but I’m fat, like, for me.”

Two things here: first and foremost, yes, for that I know I am now the recipient of the Most Annoying Sentence Ever Spoken Aloud award and will provide the mailing address for my trophy at a later date. Second, I said that over ten years ago, and I remember it so clearly that I’m entirely sure that’s exactly what I said, verbatim. We got off the bus, and I walked into the restaurant and, after scanning the menu desperately trying to convince myself I should order something “healthy”, I ordered large steak fries and got back on the bus. I think this was the first time I ever really, consciously used food as a coping mechanism - the first time something small but powerful snapped in my head that told me fuck it - who the fuck cares? You’ve done enough damage already, what’s the point of stopping now?

High school ended, I graduated and we sang “Journey On” from Ragtime at the ceremony (baffling choice but the school was doing Ragtime next year and wanted to squeeze a promo out), I got into several of my top-choice musical theatre colleges and was so excited to go to the one I picked, which, you’ll be charmed to hear, was the absolute worst choice I could’ve made. I was 18 and a little bigger now, firmly in size 0/2 instead of 00 territory, had maybe graduated to a 32B bra instead of A, but still very thin by most standards. This was my first summer as a Very Online Person - I would stay up tlil probably 3 or 4 AM most nights blogging and watching Harry Potter movies for the umpteenth time. Because the rest of my family was, how do I put it, fucking normal, they’d go to bed at 11 or whenever and I’d be up alone for hours on the  computer. This is when I started bingeing. We didn’t really keep junk food in my house, nothing legit like Cheetos or Ben and Jerry’s or whatever, but we did have sugar cereal and reduced-fat Oreos and cheese and the occasional box of Triscuts. It became a nightly ritual for me - I’d wait for everyone to go to bed, then tiptoe in to the kitchen and, though I’d eaten dinner hours earlier, start eating again. Stacks of Oreos, multiple bowls of cereal, shredded cheese out of the bag. After a while my mom heard me banging around in the kitchen and told me (in so many words) to shut the fuck up, so my methods changed. I’d bring the box of cereal - Rice Krispies or Cocoa Puffs or whatever - a bowl, and a carton of milk into the bathroom with me. I’d run the sink and open the box and pour the cereal with the water running so no one would hear, and then I’d creep back out to the couch and eat it. Box of Oreos into the bathroom, water on, peel open the plastic, take out the biggest stack I thought I could with no one noticing, eat. Three or four granola bars into the bathroom, water on, wrappers off and hidden behind my bed or the couch or wherever, eat. Rinse and repeat.

I didn’t really know what binge eating was at this point, and some tiny, dark part of my brain buried way in the back told me that this wasn’t normal and it wasn’t good, but I pushed it away because of course I did. I did a few Google searches about it and came across the term “binge eating disorder” but was convinced that could never be me. This was just a thing, just a thing I was doing, and it would go away at the end of the summer when I went away to college because that’s when life was actually starting and it was going to be awesome and I wasn’t going to let this - whatever this was - fuck that up.

But I did, in fact, fuck it up. I fucked it up fast and hard (that’s what she said, ok back to being depressing) and college was not awesome, it was difficult and painful and I was drowning in something I had absolutely no chance of controlling on my own. I accepted very quickly that this thing I was doing had a name, and it was binge eating disorder, and I was all in. I gained weight - not a ton, maybe twenty pounds, and I was never actually overweight, but to me that didn’t matter. I hated how I looked. I overdrew my bank account spending money my mom gave me for groceries on binge food. I spent hours alone in the dining hall eating till I felt physically ill and sometimes threw up involuntarily because my body couldn’t handle what I was doing. One time I stood in the bathroom of my dorm and drank mustard mixed with warm water because I read online that makes you puke and I was so full I wanted to die (it didn’t work, please for the love of GOD don’t drink mustard water or, for that matter, anything else for the express purpose of making yourself vomit). I cancelled plans with friends and skipped classes to stay in and binge, or because I’d binged already that day and could barely move. I stole food from roommates, convincing myself no one would notice, even though of course they fucking noticed. I hid food and packaging and wrappers under my bed, in my closet, in my backpack, wherever I could because I didn’t want anyone to catch on. Lied about why I needed money so my parents would send me some and I could buy more shit. I ate stale food, food from the trash, once I literally ate straight up chocolate sauce (mustard water and chocolate sauce: 10 out of 10 doctors recommend!) because I had nothing else. Waking up for 8 AM ballet classes and seeing my body in a leotard under fluorescent lighting felt like a form of torture Dick Cheney might think was a little too harsh. I saw a therapist over the summers and ate with my parents at home, and things got better, and then I’d go back to school and everything would unravel again. I’m still kind of shocked I made it through.

I’ve been done with school and living in the city for five years now, and I can honestly say that things are better. I mean, not “better”, in the sense that this chapter of the book is still pretty fucking open. But I’m better at dealing with it. The majority of the time now, I eat normally. I still binge, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, but I carry on and try again the next day. I don’t really restrict to make up for binges anymore. I can eat some foods now that used to send me straight into Eatin’ Town USA, like cheese and bread and maybe even Oreos sometimes. I started enjoying working out, not just logging time on the treadmill as a punishment and feeling like Jean Valjean in the opening number of Les Mis (look down look down you’RE HERE UNTIL YOU DI-IE). 

To be honest, I think I’m writing this mostly because the last couple months have been hard. I’ve fallen into some old stupid shitty habits, and I’ve been plugging along like normal and trying to claw myself out. But it’s not quite working like it normally does, and I don’t know why. I know I’ll make it through, because I always have, and what other option is there? But some days lately, I feel like twenty-year-old me, sobbing (very theatrically, natch) on the floor of my apartment because I should be over this by now - how am I not over this by now? This is my ninth year as a binge eater. Almost a decade! Far and away my longest and most committed relationship. When I hit 10 years strong, I should take myself out to a fancy restaurant or something but I don’t know what I’d order.

When I tell people this, I usually get some kind of “I had no idea”/“I’m sorry I didn’t notice”/“I would’ve never guessed” and the truth is that I didn’t, and still don’t, want anyone to notice. Of course I don’t. You don’t hide candy wrappers and empty pizza boxes in your closet with your winter boots because you want people to notice. It’s a very strange and secretive brand of shame that binge eating disorder brings and no one really get it unless they get it, and that’s not something I’d wish on anyone. (Okay, honestly, I’d wish it on some people, like it’s hard as hell but some people suck ass and probably deserve it? Anyway.) As I’ve grown up, I’ve started talking about this more and more. The first time I went public with all of this shit - I think I made a dramatic Instagram post a few years ago whilst day drunk during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (absolutely incredible and Very Me start to a sentence) - I was shocked at how many people reached out to me privately and were like, hey, me too, and thank you for saying something. I’m still ashamed, but I’m trying not to be, and the more I talk about it the less alone I feel. “There are dozens of us! DOZENS!”

I guess one nice thing about this whole stupid nightmare is it’s kind of a reason why I am who I am. Not the only reason, but still. I started using jokes to cope with this while I was in school, and my sense of humor, whatever the fuck it is today, grew out of that. Except now I don’t joke about this stupid shit because I’m in denial, I do it because it’s real and I’m staring it in the face and it’s not going away, and the absurdity of something so excruciatingly difficult yet so entirely in my control gets fucking terrifying. I guess laughing at it makes it seem small.

[restlesswondergirl]

New Year Resolutions to Health... and not what you think

While most set up their new years with new gym memberships and making plans to wake up early and bust their butts with exercise before heading to work... that is not my plan around my health this year. For me, I have a chronic illness. I struggle with severe asthma. When others hear that they usually think of someone else they know with asthma or themselves -  I guarantee you that most people I meet with asthma do not have it as severe as mine. I’m not saying it to be in competition, or to brag because believe me I don’t want that, I’m just stating as I have not received the amount of understanding around my flare ups from others with asthma as I have expected. But I also used to have less severe asthma, where at that time I would have never understood what it is like to be in the shoes I am in now with the severity of the flare ups that I get. I would have never understood until actually going through it. 

In addition to the asthma, I also have physical injuries that I acquired from years of dancing and other physical strenuous activity that probably wasn’t the best for my body. In addition, I have mental health conditions, and one in particular that I spent years recovering from, an eating disorder, which has affected me physically and mentally overall. For years, I ignored my body, I was not connected with it, was not listening to the messages that my body spoke to me. As a dancer, I learned to suck up the pain, work through the misery, and shine as best I can. “Fake it til I make it” was the motto!

I have been years recovering from an eating disorder, found myself to be in a very good place with it, but still struggled to find the balance of eating and exercise that really meant “health” to me. “Health” being unique as it did not depend on a number, weight or size. “Health” meaning what was right for my body, mind, and recovery. It meant moderation, trying to live in the moment, doing things for pleasure and for internal satisfaction, other than external validation. I was making tremendous progress in living a happier, more confident and balanced life, still in this recovery process, and was finding all the right control over my health and lifestyle. Still having that control over my body was a huge factor to helping me move forward. It wasn’t until recently where I was forced physically to refrain from physical activity, forced away from pleasurable activities with friends and for myself, and also some days forced to be bedridden and even hospitalized that “health” for me became another meaning. My physical condition of my asthma and respiratory health got so severe that I was not in a place to make any more decisions. I couldn’t choose to be balanced with anything. Everything with my body was out of my control. I was unbalanced naturally no matter what decision I made, with everything happening so fast. Learning to accept and give in, surrender to what was, was my only option. 

I've gotten severely worse over the years with no reason or cure, and I'm pumping my body with so much medication that it feels overstimulated and unproductive at this point. I'm at my wits end with feeling this disabled and helpless when I have flare ups!

When my only option is to sit, and be decision-less, to give up control to the universe; it is scary. The grey area, the unknown, it’s out of my comfort zone. My health is not within my own planning per se, I have realized that it is just given to me and I have to ride the wave. With my asthma as severe as it is, some days I’m at a disadvantage feeling helpless and out of control, out of breathe grasping for air and grasping for an answer that I will be ok. Other days I can breathe freely, believing I have all the control and power in the world, seeming like the normal 27 year old girl that my friends my age see me to be. Every day is different. Some days I have more choices than others. If I were to reference the spoon theory - some days I have more spoons than others and it’s never in my control to know when that is. 

On the days I have plentiful spoons to use, I am eager to use them up as best I can - It may be my only shot! - but at the same time I’m crippled with fear on what is to come next, and fear of judgment from others on what they would think of me if I couldn’t pull through. I am single as well and want to go out and date, but fear of revealing this part of me, fear that I cannot commit to something, fear that I cannot enjoy an intimate relationship because of this condition comes up for me, it is so real and daunting. My days are filled with anxiety and fear, but also wanting to enjoy each moment as I’m given them. 

When others see me, it’s usually at my best. I appear normal, or at least someone not struggling as much as I truly am. I feel like a fraud some days because of this, as I am faking well most days than not.

So as I say all this, I’ll bring it all back to the point of this particular blog post. My new year of health goals with this new perspective and new way of living that I need to accept.... 

NEW YEAR HEALTH GOALS FOR THOSE WITH CHRONIC ILLNESS:

1. PLAN LESS/DAY TO DAY MINDFULNESS - keep things open and flexible - take things day by day, moment by moment - which is difficult for a TYPE A PERSON! Be honest with my loved ones about what’s going on. Know that each moment is precious and can change instantly. Do not commit 100%, be hopeful that it may work out, but also expect that it may not. When it doesn’t work the way you had hoped - have a plan B to help you physically and emotionally process what the reality is. 

2.  DO WHAT YOU CAN IN YOUR CONTROL - keep up with medical treatment, try new things if you can, find support. 

I'm still young. I'm only 27 fucking years young and I'm going through days as if I was 50+. I am determined to still find better solutions if at all possible. The meds I’ve been on have seemed like bandaids, covering up one side effect after the next with more meds. Recently, I've gone the more holistic and natural route to find what can work better for me. To be honest, I used to criticize those who tried these alternative methods, not knowing their worth until I tried them. So far I have tried energy healing, body work massages, essential oils, acupuncture, cupping, natural supplements. Some stuff has worked on some days to help me feel better, and other days not so much. It’s still a process. I am trying what I can with expectations that things may not work but at least I’m trying because that is something I have control of - to try. 

Other things I have control over are finding coping and self soothing skills that I can do, going to therapy, reaching out to support networks (knowing who is actually supportive and who is not, making the right boundaries with others), and managing my expectations better. 

3. ACCEPT AND MOURN WHAT YOU CANNOT CONTROL - Part of this condition is accepting this new way of life and mourning the old one. Mourning the good health that was once before this stage, and also appreciating what I do have to be thankful for. I myself am a therapist helping others go through similar issues, however I have my own therapy as well to help me accept these things. It is recommended to invest in your emotional health. I see someone for sliding scale fee, which is a great option out there or there’s always community mental health services for those who cannot afford someone. 

Part of accepting is also managing expectations around others, and their possible judgments and misunderstanding of your life and health. Especially with social media, we all put on that brave, happy, healthy face to the world. I get judged when I can’t go to plans one day because of a flare up but then show up doing something fun the next day on social media. Like I said before, chronic illness is a day by day thing so life really is just unpredictable and different on the daily where not everyone will understand and be supportive. The age old “well you don’t look sick” line comes into play. While it’s sad, and FOMO sure does come up for me as well when I do have to miss out, it’s an opportunity to practice my “I don’t give a f**k” muscle when it comes to what others think of me, and focus my attention on me and my needs and happiness in those moments, appreciate what I can enjoy doing and block out what other’s think. 

4. FACTOR HEALTH INTO EVERY DECISION/BE PREPARED - While this doesn’t sound fun, and is very difficult for me because I have always been low maintenance in plans with others, i believe it is necessary for health here to be as prepared as possible for the worst. I want to be that chill girl, low maintenance, low stress, independent and strong in making my own decisions, however that's not reality always to what's actually needed for me. In relationships, and in activities that I plan with others and at work, I can’t always say YES. I have to think before making the decisions, think carefully around my health as a factor, not always commit, not always be the one that steps up to the plate, be HIGH maintenance sometimes by making some commitments conditional to factors essential to my health, and ALWAYS consider health before moving forward. While I don’t want to think about it, I have to, and while in the moment it is not fun, it saves me from disaster later and sets me up for better enjoyment of the decision if I prepared myself correctly. 

An example of this may be buying the insurance on travel so that you can change your flights last minute. I love to travel, but with my conditions lately I don’t know what to expect. I recently bought a ticket to travel and see family, however, I did make sure to buy the insurance that allows me to cancel and change the flight at no fee last minute if that ends up being the case. 

Other ways I am prepared is sometimes just preparing my mind for plan B’s. While I love working and want to be able to work daily without an issue, I purposely found a job with medical leave options in case that were to ever be an issue. I have not had to use it yet - while I have called out of work on occasion for flare ups - I haven’t had to be out long term yet. But it is in my mind as something that may very well happen unfortunately, so I am prepared for this in case it does. 

5. MY HEALTH IS UNIQUE TO ME AND MY BODY - no one else can define what health is for me. The magazines, tv, doctors, friends, family, etc. all will have opinions. However, even doctors who are supposed “experts” are not living in my body. They also have bias and are human. So far, I have plenty of stories where medical professionals have wronged me. I have plenty of stories where I have blindly followed anything that anyone would tell me in desperation to find what they called was better health, when in reality sometimes the suggestions led me to worse health for myself. One thing may work for one person which will not work for me. Health, while some may say otherwise, is NOT an exact science equal to all. Health is unique to each individual. It is a multidimensional, forever changing topic. I plan to listen intuitively and holistically to my body. Listen in to it’s uniqueness, and take things day by day to define personally what better health is for me this year. 

Steps I have taken so far towards these goals already:

1. canceled my gym membership (if I want to work out I’ll go outside, or buy a single class- otherwise the guilt and shame that comes from a paid membership with no ability to use it is not worth it).

2. stopped planning activities ahead of time for right after work as I may not have the energy.

3. answered friend invites with “maybe”, explaining that it will depend on how I feel that day.

4. cut negative, unsupportive people out of my life or developed new boundaries around those relationships. Prioritized all those that support my lifestyle and decisions.

5. made appointments with new holistic health doctors

6. continued therapy around accepting this new lifestyle

wish me luck as I continue this journey!

#chronicillness #newyear newme health

[invisiblenotbroken]

Ehlers Danlos, Fibromyalgia, POTS, & MCA Collect Them All {Invisible Illness Podcast}

"What you do is not who you are."  -- Monica MIchelle

Invisible Illness: Which one do I qualify as sick? Also, a little window into my daily world

Every time I rattle off my disorders I almost have to count them off on my fingers. Did I forget one? Would it even matter when they all fall under the umbrella of ok no you're not crazy, no cure, and wow that's really a thing? I will leave links at the bottom if you would like to know more about the wonderfully creative ways my body attempts to make itself into modern sculpture.

This is my interview. It is candid and though I am writing this before recording I am guessing littered with swear words. If I have to live like this, be inspiring, be funny, and do all of the other things I need to I get to lean on my favorite four letter word. If this is offensive to you please know that being in constant pain every day is offensive to me.

If You Want To Know More About My Disorders

Ehlers Danlos

POTS

 Mast Cell Activation

Fibromyalgia

NOT one of my diagnosis but mentioned Chiari Malformation

Thank you so much for listening. Please share with a friend and don't forget to leave a kind if not glowing review on ITunes.

Until next time

Be Kind. Be Gentle. Be a Bad Ass.

My Questionairre 

Monica Michelle

I became symptomatic at 8 and have gone through different levels of disability and surgeries from my teens to going on disability in my late 30’s.

1. Who were you before your illness became debilitating?

I think I am lucky. I have been in chronic pain my entire life so I was never completely someone else. I don’t have a memory of being healthy or not in pain. I was a ballerina, a teacher, a jeweler, and a photography studio owner. I am and always will be a storyteller and an artist. I do miss being a photographer. I miss being a part of the community of women in business in the silicon valley. I desperately miss traveling. I miss bike rides. I miss being able to plan. I very much miss hiking and bike riding. I miss walking around Pescadero with my kids. I miss being able to take myself to Drs. Appointments or taking the dogs out. That was the person I used to be before this disorder became impossible to hide.

 2. Is there anything you would do if you were not sick?

This is a hard one. I would still be a photographer. I would still be living across the Bay. I don’t know if either of those things would be good for me. If I wasn’t sick I would ride my bike again. I would travel. I would have liked to have become an art teacher for High School. I have binders full of business plans for non-profits I would have loved to have the energy to run.

 3. What should other people know about our daily life?

It changes minute to minute. My heart rate can plummet or race. I can be walking normally and in the next step my hip can dislocate and I won’t be able to walk for a long time. I search for words. I am smarter than I can articulate. Moving in healthy world is X Games for me. In my wheelchair I get dumped on the ground thanks to roots, people stopping suddenly in front of me, and poor city planning with ramps that are only for the truly adventuress.

 4. What would make living and moving in the world easier for you?

If BART would make sure their elevators worked and were clean (whatever is on the ground will end up on my hands). If you see someone in a wheelchair and you are crossing the street don’t cross right in the middle of the ramp. That is where it is flattest. That’s the part I need. If I am struggling please come by, say hello, offer to help. I know this isn’t an everyone thing but it is a me thing. I have trouble balancing everything with my canes or opening doors with my wheelchair.

 5. Life hacks?

My IPadPro is my world. It is my extra brain. With the pencil, I have an unending source of paper to write my ideas down. I use fiverr for technical things I don’t know how to do. I use TaskRabbit for physical things. My sticks are my favorite way to get around. Mine have been discontinued but these look pretty good. Send me a review if you like them.

 6. Support from family or friends?

I am beyond privileged and lucky in this department. My mother has helped me with everything. I would like to underline everything. I get worse as the day goes on and she picks up my children from school most days. She takes me to my doctor's appointments. My husband does most housework and cooking. My children have really stepped up helping with chores. I made a shelf on the refrigerator that has microwave meals on it that the kids can get to. I am trying to get better at asking friends to come over.

 7. Do you find that people do not believe you are sick because of your appearance?

I am lucky. I use canes and wheelchair when I am doing badly and it is hard to ignore a bone sticking out of my wrist or the shoulder pushed forward so I don’t often have these moments. I have had a woman rush up and glare at me pointing to the handicap sign and back at me while I was waiting for my daughter to bring my canes. She had the good grace to just walk away.

 8. How has this affected your relationships?

I lost a lot of friendships when I stopped working. I think I scared people who were my age running businesses in the Silicon Valley. No one expects you to retire at 38. I was fortunate that my husband was my best friend for 3 years before we got married so he had already seen a picture of what for better or worse would be. I had people I had been in relationships leave because I was sick so it was probably the only way I would have ever gotten married again was knowing that he had already seen some of the worst and was still all in.

 9. What are you afraid to tell even the people closest to you?

I’m lonely. I’m fucking terrified each time things get bad that this will be the new normal. That I can get so depressed I feel like I'm drowning. I’m scared I am scaring my children. I HATE disappointing people or my animals. It takes almost nothing to push me into guilt or into doing something I really shouldn’t be just because I don’t want to inconvenience them. I will agree with you or change the subject if an argument goes beyond my ability to pay attention or to keep standing or sitting.

 10. Does the fact that your disease is invisible change how healthcare professionals treat you?

Yes, I spent most of my teens being told I was crazy. I was told I was nervous. That I was depressed and overreacting. If a doctor can’t pin something on a disease they will usually pin the fault on the patient.

 11. Best coping mechanism?

My dogs. My cats when they aren’t evil or when they are. Drawing, when I can. Reading when the book is great. The rare days I can bike ride are magic. Scrolling on Pinterest needs to be reclassified as transcendental meditation. Talking with my son. Curling up with my daughter. Laying next to my husband watching our next ok just one more episode show.

 12. Favorite swear word?

FUCK. It is versatile and no word feels the same level of expression and relief when shouted.

 13. What are you the most fearful of and what are you the most hopeful for in the future?

I am fucking terrified I won’t travel out of the country. I am terrified I won’t make my own money again.That my children will blame or resent me. That life will pass me by while I sit in bed waiting for a bone to come home or for my heart to stop its' jazz improv. I am scared I will get worse. That I will have to give more ground.

Hopeful isn’t much in my wheelhouse tonight. I wish it was. I wish I could say something fabulous and witty that would soften all the dark I wrote but when I began this podcast I decided on complete honesty. I am feeling sad and dark right now. Maybe if I wrote this last week or even tomorrow I would have a bright answer for this but I am writing this now and now I am not feeling it.

Links To Some Of My Favorite Things

Quickie Wheelchair              Dyson V7                 Midnight Texas     

Marijuana  Topical               Apple Watch            Dr. Who                  

Single Payer                            Fitbit                         Supergirl

Hearst Castle                        Go Beyond Physical Therapy

Trigger Point Release         Task Rabbit               Slow Cooker   

Muldowney Method           5 Calls App              Pinterest

Resistbot (texting as poltical actavism)                  HelloMD

Shameless Plug For My New Bedtime Story Book!

#Ehlers Danlos #POTS #Fibromyalgia #Fibromyalgia Symptoms #Invisible Illness