Eyes are complicated things.
They, and all those associated wonky brain things, like to deceive. Last night, I went out with a friend, and coincidentally, in a less than sober state, saw myself in the mirror. (My house doesn’t have full length mirrors, and I avoid them elsewhere). I was tipsy enough to have disabled that screwy sense of perception that adds anywhere from ten to twenty pounds to what is in the mirror–and it was glorious. I just saw myself. Anyways, eyes are funny.
As of today, I’m changing things around a bit.
I’m going to tell you some fun things, and some sad things, and some important things.
As of today, I’ll be disconnecting my twitter widget from Pervasive Goodness. I’ll still be making bird noises, but I’ll be doing it under my name. This is why.
The last couple weeks I’ve had have mostly looked just like this.
As I’ve mentioned before, I write at another blog. That blog is Teen Skepchicks. I write under a more accurate version of my name there, which you can likely find without much trouble. I dearly love it, and all the other wonderful people who work in the Skepchick Network.
As of today, I’ve begun writing at the Friendly Atheist as well, also under my name. Words do not describe how happy I am. Nor how much fun I’m having.
However.
This means a lot of work for me, and I’ll be spending much less time at Pervasive Goodness. I love it, but I am restricted to the same 24 hours a day everyone else gets.
I adore writing here. I’ll continue to document my therapy and squash all those mental illness stereotypes, something I won’t be doing quite so much of at Friendly Atheist or Teen Skepchick.
So why am I telling you this?
My anonymity policy is pretty important to me. That’s why I’ve deleted Twitter off PG already. If you weren’t following me before, this doesn’t change much of anything. I won’t link between my work on the other blogs from here, or vice versa. It’s important to me that readers on the other sites don’t connect to this, and I have zero interest in my parents following the breadcrumbs either.
I would, however, like to think that some of you would enjoy reading my work elsewhere, and don’t want to confuse those lovely tweeps who have cheerfully and kindly helped me, in waiting rooms before treatment, sending me 140 happy characters on bad days, retweeting my posts, and commenting. I love you all very much. To that end, I’d like to show you some wonderful, supportive people’s work. It does not repay the happiness they’ve given me, but perhaps you can see why I like them so much:
Thank you all.
This is me, here to tell you some personal things about her brain box.
I’ve been very blog-absent this week. That might continue. Mostly, I’ve been feeling like this puppy:
Mixed episodes have been the flavor of the evenings. If you’ve never had that rattling, itchy feeling, my jumble of words likely isn’t going to enlighten you, but I’m a champion of mostly-lost causes.
Edit: It’s been pointed out to me that I’m using words without explaining them well enough and appropriating a bit of terminology. Mixed episodes are a feature of bipolar disorder, which I do not have. I’ve rewritten a bit to clarify.
If I raced up to you, clipboard in hand, and demanded you tell me if you were happy or sad and why, you could do it. You could tell me how happy or how sad. You could even be neutral. Being mixed is everything that isn’t.
I can’t tell you my emotions, I can just tell you that I’m feeling things. I’m up and down at the same time, and all the emotions make me feel like my brain is tearing. In a moment, I am viciously angry that I can’t focus on studying, trying to calm myself so I don’t lash out, sad because I know I’m having an episode, happy because I recognize what’s going on and can get help. All at the same time.
And then it’s gone. And what settles in is Other.
Other isn’t really an emotion, I think. It’s not being able to settle, feeling overwhelmed but with no reason. Other is effect without cause. The worst of coffee jitters and being starved and stuffed and having too much to do and not enough distraction, Other is being in the middle of a contradiction. I feel itchy and sleepy and achy and far too awake. I can’t hold up conversations or locations. I feel raw. My skin is hyper-sensitive.
And I’ve been feeling Other every single day. It is a few hours of awful. I’m functional, but barely. I’m rude–overly chatty or unresponsive, so I hide out. I sit in my room and distract myself, walk through the lobby of our house just to make small talk, walk from study spot to study spot on campus. I try not to pin myself down into visiting with one person. I leave conversations abruptly, citing work to do.
I know why it’s happening–I’m fucking with my sleep and my food and using my will to make sure I don’t do anything but eat food when I’m hungry and every single time I’m hungry. I’m timing my sleep and my meals and somehow managing to write and read and go to class. It’s a huge change to my body, and it makes sense that at night, when I’d either feel too full or happily hungry, now, I don’t know how to feel. So Other perches on my brain, and kneads it’s claws into grey matter.
It’ll get better. I’m making my way out of the Bad Times. Someday I’ll have more Good than Bad. But until then, I’m going to spend some time in Other.
On an unrelated note, screw you everyone who voted to ban gay marriage AND civil unions in North Carolina.
Via reddit:
To everyone who opposes gay marriage and believes your Bible gives you the moral authority to dictate the rights of others, your children will look at you the way we look at those who told blacks and women they didn’t have the same rights of white men. You are on the wrong side of history and your bullshit will die with you.
I wish.
I went to my first ‘real’ therapy appointment yesterday. My feelings towards actual accomplishment approximate my feelings about oatmeal. It’s nice, I’m sure it’s good for me, but you can’t expect me to feel instantly better when I eat it.
We talked about my family and our interactions this year (limited, by my choice; I’ve been home once all year)….and this is where the good, the bad, and the mixed came in.
I’m eligible for an exception to the 12 free sessions limit.
Cool, right? Awesome, no?
Well.
Counseling & Psych. Services for my university has a policy of 12 sessions with a therapist in their office. After that point, you’re on your own to find help, at some cost. I understand why they do this–they’ve got limited resources, most of their staff is supplemented by interns, who have quick turnover, and can’t commit to long term care, and they offer a lot of other emergency counseling services. I was happy enough not to end up on a waiting list–lucky to get a counselor so quickly.
At my first meeting with the sweet, elfin woman who is my counselor, we talked a bit about steps towards telling my parents about my illness. In her mind–and I didn’t disagree–it was a necessary part of finishing treatment. I need a counselor for longer than a couple months, and the only way to get that would be to somehow, tell my parents, and find a therapist through our insurance. She offered to, with my permission, be the one to have that conversation with them. I felt I had to, but knew this wasn’t the time or place yet. I was hoping therapy could get me there. After all, there wasn’t any other choice.
Well.
There’s another counseling center on campus. It deals mainly with sexual violence, relationship trauma, and sexual assault. Next year, I’ll be transferring over there. My relationship and inability to get care through my family has been deemed problematic enough to merit it. The ‘team’ that plans my care (current counselor, head of eating disorder group of therapists) met, and conclusively decided that that encouraging me to tell my parents could do more harm then ethically acceptable, in even the best circumstances. They felt that, to paraphrase, involving my family in any way could damage the happiness, calm, and place I’ve found here. So we won’t be. I’ll have 52 more sessions, enough to finish out my university time.
I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I’m happy: over-the-moon, joyously, cartwheelingly, happy. I can continue to live the life I’ve built without my parents, a life where I’ve built a support system, a life with proper care. I want that, so badly.
On the other hand? I’ve never considered myself or my relationship with the people who raised me to be negative in a way that approaches ‘relationship trauma’. I had a roof and a bed and money and clothes, and someone who asked about that math test, and would study with me if I needed it. I got books read to me at night. Shouldn’t ‘trauma’ be a label for someone else? Have I just missed a little bit of understanding, by being so close to the situation? I have no idea. So for right now, I’ll just be happy to have people who care.
Wow. This week. I have no idea what to make of it, but it’s going to be something good. Also, crazy busy, which is why your giddiness is late!
I had my first real therapy session yesterday, with a counselor. Good things happened. I’ll write about it laterish.
I’ve been offered the possibility of blogging somewhere, paid. I think I’m going to be taking it, but an unfortunate side effect is renegotiating how and with what name I appear on the internet. I’ll be posting some sort of explanation that’s less vague than this.
Onto the fun!
#WhatShouldWeCallFeminism means good .gifs with feminist captions.
Don’t believe me?
“When Someone Says It’s Not Misogyny to Say That Girls Are Bad At Math, It’s Just Scientifically True”
There’s another godless billboard in Texas. San Antonio is, relative to Texas, a liberal-ish place. It isn’t Austin, but i don’t think the San Antonio Coalition for Reason will be experiencing a huge outcry. (via Friendly Atheist).
Mad Art Lab is doing a collaborative project all May, where readers and tweeters submit their best and glossiest (or iPhone + Instagram) photos based on a word of the day. Today’s word was dancing. I thought I’d elaborate a little on my submission. To do your own, go look at the list of words (hint: Sunday’s is Bristle)
This is half of the last shoes I danced in, and half of the shoes I quit thinking of myself as a dancer in. On the left, Grishko 2007′s in a medium shank, size 6, 5X wide. On the right, Sansha Recitals, size 10, medium width.
The broken in shoe smells a little musty. It’s fully ‘dead’, all squishy in the toe and right above the nail in the arch. I wore it in a flapper dress, with a huge feather. I wore it in a full length silk skirt, dancing to music from the African Symphony Orchestra, flirting with the audience to Santana, and in my last performance, when I cried because the audience applauded, and I was shaking tired and my feet were bloody, and I just wanted to keep making them clap.
The new shoe still isn’t sewn all the way. The come without ribbons, in pink boxes. You pull them out and spend an hour jabbing away at layers of canvas and silk to put all the ties on. I never finished adding the elastics. The shoe isn’t broken in. I’ve stood up on my toes in them, but I haven’t rubbed them with water and rubbing alcohol, or banged them against the floor and heated and bent them in my hands. New shoes hurt. And because I figured out that summer that too many mirrors meant eating too little food, they’ll never get that treatment. No matter how well I made myself behave, and eat, and like my curves, being in that room tore it to shreds.
So I stopped being a dancer. I was one, for 15 years. I’ll always walk like one, love moving and dipping and turning. But right now, I’ll treasure those two shoes, and leave my leotards in a box on a high shelf.
Baby chimps increase this post’s happiness +5
So, uh, I like alliterations. And I want this post to be light, or at least a little. I went to two long appointments (read: 4 hours spent in offices) as part of my disorder treatment team. I’m officially in therapy and treatment for disordered eating. This is day one.
I’m going to try to document as much as I can. One of the reasons I waited so long for treatment was not knowing how it worked….and not having anyone to talk to about it. So lets crush some stigmatization underfoot. I’m this happy, outspoken, person, who is always going to be dealing with this. So what?
But…this is your Trigger Warning. One of the things I find really stressful about reading others’ experiences with anorexia is the…ideas…I get. If you tell me how you starved yourself, how you tricked your body into not eating, I might try it. I’m going to try to make these posts as friendly to the ED sufferers and friends alike as I can. I can’t promise, but I’ll try. Today is mostly about diet and a physical, and should be mild.
The Dietician.
I get one of these for free, for my entire university experience. Words do not describe how important this is to me. I think it will probably do more for my peace of mind than therapy can.
Simply put, I don’t know how to feed myself. I don’t feel hungry or full unless I’m absolutely starved (only coffee or fruit for an entire day) or stuffed to the gills. Hardly conducive to knowing when I should be eating. Then there’s knowing how much to eat. I don’t know portions. During the time I lived in Texas, and over breaks, my mother has gone through probably at least five different beliefs about how to eat. Since she, as the main cook and food-shopper for the house, controls what we can eat on a given day, we did too. Sometimes meat was supposed to be most of what we ate. Sometimes fruits were. Sometimes vegetables. I have no idea how to demarcate even how much of things I should eat. And, of course, we only heard about how mainstream health practices got it wrong. This means even a simple lunch is oodles of stress, with no resolution.
Therese and I spent a full two hours planning how I’m going to feed myself. We had to work around a few things that are really important to me–but we did! I have a food plan, and a journal, and a general idea of the foodstuffs I should be putting down my food tube. Each time I eat I’ll chart, record how hungry I think I am, and try to hit the right proportion of fruit and protein and veggies. Then I’ll check in every Friday. I think I can do this.
For the time being, I simply won’t be having sweets. They tend to trigger a whole heck of a lot of bingeing type behavior in me–or just replacing meals with a muffin or pastry. Then I reverse into not eating. Bad plan. So I’ll just be avoiding dessert and baking for a while. This is theoretically easy for me…I feel so much better when I eat real meals…but people like baking things and sharing. The polite deprecating moue is going to become an art, and fast.
Therese taught me to measure food in handfulls. Instead of measuring (which can quickly tip into obsessive). I’ve got a much better grasp on portions than before. I’m feeling good about this. What I really needed was solid directions, a plan, and someone to check up on me. I think I can make it work.
The Doc
This was a pretty basic exam. She, too, is part of the eating disorders team, which made my experience much easier. I got my blood pressure, heart rate (I’d had some previous experience with bradycardia), and thyroid examined. There was a lot of intake paperwork, question after question about family history and illness history (I have no idea if I’ve ever had pneumonia, bronchitis, or strep, and had to explain my family’s relationship with modern medicine).
Then there was my vaccination history. I was under the impression that I was up to date–I’d had all the shots to go to my university, after all! False. Turns out I’m not fully immunized against chicken pox. Great–I’ve been spending my weekends working with elementary school kids. Nor do I have my meningococcal vaccine. Or HPV, which I thought I had missed the window for. I should probably get a flu shot. Argh.
The worst bit? I have two choices. I can pay out of my own pocket, which will come to upwards of $500, at $170 for each of the three HPV shots, and and around $100 for varicella and meningococcal. I don’t have even close to that amount of money in my account. Or I can go through my insurance coverage–which may not cover it all, and means a huge fight with my parents. Varicella I might be able to convince them to accept, but my mum’s response to the idea of getting a meningococcal shot when I was midway through high school? ‘Well, you know not to share food or drinks with people, so it’s not worth the risk!” I thought I’d gotten it prior to coming to school here, but that was just a tetanus booster. HPV? Not a chance.
I don’t have a clue what to do. I’m at risk, and putting others at risk by not being vaccinated fully. Anti-vax sucks, and I’m really damn upset.
Guess I know what I’ll be saving up for next.
My favorite surly–multipolar neurons for my inner psych nerd.
Surly Amy Davis Roth is doing something secular and spectacular. If you don’t know her from woo-busting advice at Skepchick, art at Mad Art Lab, or her ‘surly’ ceramic necklaces at her Etsy Shop, well, you’re missing out.
Now Amy’s started a project to prevent more women from missing out on something else fun–The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) 2012!
She’s a got a special line of necklaces that will help fund tickets to the event for women who apply. Details for the application, buying a necklace, or simply donating a little to the fund (also awesome) can be found here.
This post could alternatively be titled Watching Cinema Go Down in Flames.
Fireproof is the highest grossing indie film of 2008. It made more than 33 million dollars. It won awards. I, anything-but-a-movie-buff girl, recognize it. It stars Kirk Cameron…and that’s where I start getting concerned. (Trailer is at the bottom–go check it out to see why)
I watched this because I love you, dear readers. I watched it because there’s nothing like ignoring a research paper on a Wednesday night, or pretending you can read those chapters for psychometrics sometime in between class and a showing of Loren Cameron’s photography.
Mostly I watched it so you don’t have to.
It wasn’t easy. The plot itself bugs me, and nearly every stopping point along the way was worth some sidebar rage. I have a healthy respect for women as thinking, reasoning beings–you know, since I am one–and this movie trounced all over the definition of respect. If I didn’t value you my computer more than my sanity, I would have thrown it across the room in a haze of rage.
Hyperbole aside, (though I did have to take an hour break halfway through dramatic proclamations half-drowned by the soundtrack), I made it through Fireproof without losing my tenuous grasp on sanity.
Plot. I’m optimistic about this word.
Caleb (Kirk Cameron) is a firefighter married to Catherine (Erin Bethea). He doesn’t notice strain on their marriage until–suddenly–Catherine starts being actively upset with him. He gets upset by her lack of ‘respect’ (we will return to that in a bit, with more snark), yells at her, snipes back, lectures her about not doing her duties as a wife, and you can see their marriage go downhill fast.
Enter Caleb’s Dad. He presents his son with the Forty Day Challenge, in which Caleb does a different action each day to show his wife how much he loves her. Catherine is fairly unreceptive, Caleb half-asses quite a bit of it, and is ready to give up. His father re-enters in time to give a Caleb a spiritual transformation and discuss God. Caleb is renewed somehow by this, and decides to work harder with his wife. And also pray.
Catherine, meanwhile, has been flirting with a doctor at her hospital, who is interested in her, but appears to never notice she wears a wedding ring. Caleb finds out, is upset, and makes a grand gesture of donating the money he’s been saving for his boat to pay for some medical supplies Catherine has been saving up for to give to her mother, who badly needs them. Catherine believes her doctor friend has donated them, but upon realizing that it was Caleb and that Caleb has found God and become a good person as a result (‽), comes back to him. Everything wraps up in a nice package, and Caleb’s father tells him that it was his mother who did the Forty Day Challenge on him. There is hugging and crying, and the credits roll.
What’s wrong with Fireproof:
Look, I know a ton of movies do these awful things with either gender or race stereotyping. It’s not good, it should be protested as well. But, Fireproof bills itself as a movie about morals and good relationships and being better than what comes out of Hollywood today. And I think that’s as far from correct as you can get.
This movie talks about respect as much as Aretha Franklin. What it doesn’t do is present any examples of how to actually do it. We’re just going to highlight a few of the most egregious problems with ‘respect’ here.
Catherine: Caleb’s main problem with Catherine’s behavior (and make no mistake, Catherine is the one who is considered ‘lost’ in this film) is that she isn’t doing her ‘job’ as a wife. This includes making sure he has breakfast and dinner. Sigh. Caleb continually treats his wife like a little spoiled child–even saying she is at one point. This is NOT good husband behavior. This is all the bad things. To be sure, Caleb does take more of an active role in the household as part of the challenge, so I can sorta deal with it. He is supposed to be a bad guy in the beginning….he just doesn’t particularly improve when he is working to win back Catherine.
BUT, what exactly is the key to winning back an unruly woman? Why flowers of course. Bitches love flowers. (/sarcasm). And it is this that infuriates me. Sure, I like flowers (you send me gardenias, I will forever be yours), but never ever ever does Caleb get around to asking Catherine what actually would improve their marriage. He just buys her some cheapish flowers, which doesn’t work–in what world does this actually fix an impending divorce?!–and then when his dad reprimands him for not trying, he buys expensive flowers…and that works. He doesn’t communicate, he doesn’t sit down with Catherine, they don’t talk about their problems. Buying things is the solution, folks. The entire happy ending is brought about by Caleb buying the medical supplies his in-laws need, instead of the boat he’s been saving for. One, who on EARTH would want to be involved with someone who prioritizes their need for a boat over medical care for family? Why isn’t this a central issue? Why? Two, when has buying expensive things been more important than talking to your significant other? Augh, the agony.
Porn
Caleb apparently watches porn–though it’s never said explicitly, his wife chastises him for doing dishonorable things in front of a computer. I was particularly baffled, since despite my utter disinterest in porn, I have picked a few things up. Are we supposed to believe Caleb was watching porn fully clothed, on a computer in full view of both the windows and front door? Isn’t he the fallen man, trying to be all upstanding and moral?*
My frustration comes with the resolution of this porn-watching problem. Caleb takes the family computer outside, smashes it with a baseball bat, tosses it out, and writes Catherine a note explaining he loves her more. Say what?
You destroyed the computer that belongs to both you AND your wife, and all it takes to wipe that away is an brief expression of love? That’s not respect, that’s destroying shared property, poor communication, and a bad storyline. There’s porn-blocking software cheaper than a desktop computer….and I’m sure some of it is sold by the very sponsors of Fireproof.
The Nurses
I’m of the opinion that black women shouldn’t exist in movies solely to give an ‘MMMhmmmm’ with extra attitude. You know, because extra-super-stereotyping isn’t respect.
So.
Fireproof doesn’t show a healthy relationship in any way. Caleb never improves, and I’m left wishing Catherine would just follow through with the divorce. Maybe Caleb’s next 40 day challenge can be talking to his wife about improving their marriage together, instead of treating her like an angsty teenager. A beautiful marriage means caring, means being there, means working together as partners. Let’s advocate for that, instead of buying more flowers. **
*I’m using moral in the context of this movie. I think it’s absolutely silly to advocate that partners abstain from porn entirely.
**But seriously, gardenias.
