the modernity ward

I Don't Wanna, But I'm Gonna

I really don't feel like writing this post. You'd think that that the opaque fog of self-loathing might prevent me from inflicting myself upon the internet, but you'd be dead wrong. I'm like a human whitehead of emotion, welling up into some hideous pustule that eventually breaks unbidden at some inopportune moment in front of a classroom of my social betters. 

That was disgusting and not just because of its vivid depiction of something that I know -- I know -- you watch YouTube videos of when there's nothing happening on Facebook. Look. I don't feel right in the head and I haven't for a while, and I suspect that's been obvious to everyone but me. It feels terribly indulgent to admit it, and I won't detail what exactly has been going on because frankly I feel like enough of a bore already, but suffice to say I have ups and downs and both of them are rather intense and I'm always unusually irritable with my children and hard on myself and doing weird behaviors that make me feel like I have a sense of control and when those get taken away -- if I miss a run or eat more than I intend to or go off-plan in any way -- I panic. 

And part of me is sitting in the back seat, arms folded, shaking my head, saying, look, dude. You are a decent worthwhile person and you are beautiful no matter what your body looks like and the world will not collapse if you miss a run and no matter what an ass you make of yourself people will tolerate you and some will even like you. I know all this, on some level. But logic is no match for the part of my brain that's on the fritz. The volume is turned way up on the ugly voices and I cannot make it stop. Either I hate myself and I'm wading through mud or I'm amazing and I start a million things and the engine is just revving revving revving and my brain won't stop shouting at me, either way, either ugliness or great ideas.

So I made an appointment. One of those first-step get-you-into-the-system appointments. You know what I imagine is going to happen? I will walk in there and describe what I'm experiencing and the effect it's having on my family and friends and the therapist or whoever will say: Yeah, you know what, you're just an asshole. Nothing you're describing is a real problem, and if you're letting minor shit like that affect the people you care about it's your own self-indulgence and weakness. Diagnosis DICK. Correction: Attention-seeking dick. You're making it all up. Now stop.

It's not an unreasonable expectation. I did once have a therapist do something like that. I was being treated for depression, oh, maybe 15 years ago I guess, and I told the therapist, hey, sometimes I'm really really depressed but sometimes it lifts and I feel soooo good, and I go out and I spend all my money and rack up the sex partners like you wouldn't believe and I make all kinds of great art and pretty much stop sleeping, and what's up with that, is that a problem?

And she told me: Oh, you're just feeling relieved not to be depressed. Let's not make a big deal out of that.

That was the last time I saw any therapist ever. My Zoloft ran out and I never refilled it. The end.

It terrifies me, the possibility that I will have to confront this instability as my own character flaw, pure failure. Every time I regain my footing a bit, in those little in-between times neither up nor down, I think, oh, that was all temporary, god, can you believe I was acting that way, what an asshole, what utter silliness. I won't do that again. So let's forget all about it and who wants ice cream?

But it is hurting my kids, when I can't stand to sit next to them on the sofa or pay attention to them, when I stare off into space instead of interacting, when I can't think two weeks into the future. It hurts my husband in ways innumerable. It hurts my friends. It hurts my sisters. I made everyone tell me, again and again: How it affects them. How it sucks, how it makes them uncomfortable, how sometimes they have to get a little distance from me. I make them tell me again and again so I don't minimize it away. I don't give a shit about myself -- I have lived in this mildly unpleasant purgatory like an ill-equipped waiting room, on and off, since I was very young -- but I do care about other people, and I don't want this for them. 

I hesitate to share this. Not only because of the aforementioned self-indulgence but because I am afraid that y'all, amazing as you are, will try to comfort me and I cannot handle it. A curt nod and a clap on the shoulder is about all I can take if you are inclined that way. Or better still: your own story.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for sharing it but hell, for some unfathomable reason I can't not.  

 

I Think "Desogen" Would Be a Pretty Name for a Girl

Like "Desiree" and "Imogen" together, no? 

No?

Well, eff off.

The RE said:

• Yeah, you still have PCOS
• That's nice that your internist wanted to take you off met but you're a lifer, baby
• Everything you're doing for yourself is awesome
• But we still need to keep you metabolically fit (hence the metformin)
• And it sure does look like the antiandrogenic effects of oral contraceptives would help you
• I mean we could control your bleeding with periodic applications of progesterone
• But that would just mask the underlying problems (at this point I swooned)
• So Desogen it is, darlin', and keep it up with the full dose of met since you tolerate it well.
• Great job with the diet and excercise, and
• See you in three months.

The difference between "We'll put you on the first pack of OCPs I put my hand on just to 'regulate your cycle', okay?" and "blah blah antiandrogenic effects blah double pronged approach metformin metabolism blah" is HUGE. It was so nice to talk to a professional who actually knew his shit and wanted the underlying metabolism and hormone profile to make sense and wasn't just interested in making the bleeding all orderly-like.

Also I got Mad Props (tm) for my attention to the specifics of my diet. No sugar, no flour, no omega 6 oils, lots of protein and vegetables and omega 3s. I was a little unnerved by the resident's shock at my lack of facial hair -- I mean, the dudes don't always get that ladies wax and laser and bleach, but I would expect a woman to have a better sense of what was possible in terms of hiding that stuff -- but I explained about how long I'd been managing my issues and she got it. 

So there you have it. Metformin and birth control. I'm a lifer. It ain't the worst thing. 

 

String of Pearls

Let's get a little help from Glenn Miller, mmkay?

Sing along, now:

Baby, here's a five-and-dime

Baby, now's about the time 

For a string of pearls a la YOUR BROKEN OVARIES THAT WILL NEVER WORK RIGHT EVER NO MATTER WHAT YOU EAT AND HOW FAR YOU RUN AND HOW MANY SUPPLEMENTS YOU TAKE AND HOW WELL YOU MANAGE YOUR INSULIN LEVELS DOOT DOOT DOOOO BAAAAHHHH

So. I went in for my wanding this morning, at a place so calming, so elegant, so womanly that I actually had to check myself for a leather-and-beaten-silver bracelet reading LIVE-LAUGH-LOVE upon leaving. I mean, there was a swoopy-lined abstract picture of a woman on the glass door! And a dish of tiny dark chocolate bars at reception! 

More important, there was a changing room with a reed diffuser, you know, so you can get "waist-down" before the wanding in peace and without having to smell your own chooch, which you and the tech both will spend the next twenty minutes you don't actually have. Oh oh but MORE important than that is a giant monitor on the wall so you can SEE what your wanding reveals, without having to crane your neck or rely on the dismayed expression of the ultrasound tech.

Now. As any of you who have endured a wanding can testify, the tech is not allowed to say what's popping up on the screen. Dead baby? Set of car keys? None of your business, lady. That's for the doctor to interpret and explain to your stupid little layperson self. 

But I have spent enough time with a plastic rod in my cooch to know an ovary when I see one, and more to the point to know an ovary riddled with cysts. (Not mine, but exactly like mine.) Of which I sport two -- and I counted at least six or seven cysts per ovary. That's many moons worth of not-quite-ovulatory cycles, of eggs insufficiently fired to burst through a tough-as-hide thecal layer into the vastness of my inner space. 

In other words: that IUD was pretty much just for fun, as no actual babies were in danger of being conceived.

Also, now I understand why my ovaries hurt so much, midcycle. And why, after a while, there ceased to be a midcycle, or a cycle at all.

All my health was an illusion. I don't know if it was the reduced dose of metformin that set the cyst formation in motion -- allowing enough of a hormone surge for follicle development but not good follicle development -- or what. I do know that I'm going to see a reproductive endocrinologist for follow-up, because nobody without a bunch of specialized knowledge is getting anywhere near me with a birth control prescription. I am Out of Your Ken, internist and certified nurse-midwife. I am a Special Case -- in that I am not satisfied to mask symptoms and call it good, in that I am not willing to let things slide now that my fertility is not of paramount concern. 

And also in that I am a total dick about this stuff, so you're probably just delighted to pass me off to someone else.

Hey but I didn't see any fibroids in there so yaaaay. Then again, I might not know a fibroid on ultrasound if it bit me in the myometrium. 

In any event: I am angry and disheartened and frustrated and smugly satisfied that I knew what I'd see and then I did in fact see it. I'm girding my loins (because that's where the action is) for the next round of masterminding good health care aimed at protecting not my fertility but my overall health, and wishing like heck we could get this all settled out before school starts. 

 

 

Beclam-ed

The verdict is:

Huh. Dunno. Go get an ultrasound Monday and report back.

OH HOW I HAVE MISSED THIS! :clasps hands beneath chin:

Ovaries and uterus both feel a little enlarged. My bet is that my ovaries are cystic as all hell, string-of-pearls style, and maybe there's a little fibroid or two in the trunk? Maybe not? But definitely the ovaries. 

Anyway I Said No To Drugs (meaning birth control pills), I resolved to look up that coil thingy they jam in your fallopian tubes after your child murders the family pet and you decide you don't need any more kids, and for good measure we dethroned the Tiny Copper Scarecrow. I got to look at it, all bloody and sinister on a paper towel. Don't let the labia hit you on the way out, asshole. Because that would hurt. Me.

I'm flying without a parachute now! Whee. 

 

Twang (Another Insufferable Running Post)

I had a "long" run -- 7.4 miles, my longest in some months as I train for a half-marathon at the end of the month -- and sure enough, that IT band started hurting again, along with some grabbing pains in the outside of my calf. Same old same old. I figured I'd back off the running, cross train, and know that I could, in a pinch, run 13.1 miles without having run more than 7 in the weeks previous and just pay the price in a couple weeks of discomfort.

It did seem a little unfair, though. Here I'd spent weeks retraining my muscles to work together in the right order, getting so much stronger, and then same old pain. And then I got to thinking about my weird balance problems, the proprioception that never quite recovered after foot surgery, and something my physical therapist said about putting her balance-problem patients in Vibram FiveFingers so they could really squat down on their heels.

Which is hard for me to do in these super built-up stability running shoes with their big old heels.

So I started doing kettlebells (which require balance and core stability) barefoot and it worked pretty well. Started doing my physical therapy balance stuff without my shoes. 

And then this morning I took the kids down to the park and I took off my shoes and I walked a bit -- and then broke into a run.

I felt a definite "twang" right where my IT band crosses a knobby bone on the outside of my knee (the top of where I felt pain) -- like a too-tight guitar string plucked really hard -- and then? 

Nothing.

No pain. I could still feel the muscle soreness along the outside of the calf, but as I jogged and walked around the mile loop, barefoot on asphalt path and often in the grass alongside the trail, I felt no new pain at all, no increase in pain anywhere.

It blew my mind. I have problem feet: frozen joints with arthritis, flat loose arches (although they really aren't any more -- with running they have gotten strong and as I point my feet forward instead of out they seem to actually be improving in their arch-ness). I should need the most built-up shoe they make, right? 

Or maybe not. Maybe I can (slooooowly) transition to running in something with no stability heel, no arch support, no padding. Maybe that'll make some new awful thing happen, who knows. I'll let you know.

I'm still kind of in shock from the idea.

 

 

Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Jo

First: My Paragard IUD that I loved so well a year ago, I'm not so sure I love it. For the past about six months I've developed midcycle spotting that turned into midcycle bleeding and then there was no midcycle anymore. Past two months I've had near constant at least spotting, often actual bleeding, enough to need something not marked "light days." With peaks around periods but still, I never don't have to deal with it.

Second: My midwives said, okay, come in, we'll talk about other options plus we need to evaluate you for fibroids, because duh.

Third: My mom had fibroids. For which the treatment was total hysterectomy. 

Fourth: I have been tapering my metformin dose. Maybe this bleeding is not related to the IUD or to any fibroids, but to hormones that are still messed up no matter how much I exercise or how well I eat. Maybe the PCOS is going to get me no matter what I do.

Fifth: After considering the previous, I very much hope it's the IUD. I would even settle for fibroids. 

Sixth: I mean, I would happily raise my metformin dose again if I needed to. I don't have any side effects or long-term concerns about it but...there was something very rewarding about believing I'd healed something about myself. But, hey, maybe not. Maybe the trashed ovaries always win.

 

SLUT

I self-identify as a slut.

And it doesn't matter what I'm doing (or not doing) with my vagina, or my hands, or my mouth right now, or this year, or the past two decades: I am a slut at heart. Because I get to do with my cunt and my hands and my mouth whatever the hell I want. And nobody else gets to say dick about it.

I decide. No one else. And I own my decisions and I am completely okay with every last one of them. 

And if Rush Limbaugh wants to call me a slut, that's fine, because for once in his stupid, stupid life, he'd be right.

Except being a slut doesn't make me any less worthy of things like medical care. And good manners. And basic human dignity. 

I know that the men of the Republican Party would largely disagree with that, but I don't care. The only way to rob that insult of its power is to say, yeah, you know what? I am a respectable married mother of two, a homeowner, a taxpayer, a voter, a regular visitor to an Abrahamic house of worship -- and I am a slut, down deep in my soul.

And you will take me seriously.

 

 

Swing Time

A few weeks ago I made some offhand joke about being in the middle of a hypomanic episode. So much energy! Up at 5 no problem! Starting lots of projects, generating a lot of creative work, staying on top of the housework! Happy happy comedy time all the time! Plus I lost 5 pounds without even really trying!

Then I started having a hard time filling my sketchbook page, or even getting any of the basic stuff done around the house. It wasn't that I was out of energy, I was just overwhelmed with how much STUFF there was and how it all needed doing and it was utterly paralyzing. Which is what I was doing with my free hour this morning: panicking about how I can't get anything done. Or lose the five pounds I put right back on when I started running low on energy and actually being hungry again. Panic panic. Then I leaned against a freshly painted cabinet (I *did* manage to accomplish one household task this morning, even if the kitchen still looks like a coffee grounds bomb went off) and got paint on my pants and burst into tears.

Can't blame PMS for this one.

If I am honest I will admit to some mood swings. There are periods of my life where they are more pronounced and this seems to be one of them. How much of a mood swing is a problem? I function just fine, even at the lull of the swing -- not the frenetic productivity of the top of the peak, but I get done what needs to get done, even if I spend a lot of time feeling frozen by all the things that need to happen and the impossibility of dropping that stupid five pounds that I now know I am capable of living without. 

Shit, I don't even know. What's it like for you? How much is okay? When do I worry and when do I chalk it up to personality quirk, because Lord knows I have plenty of those.

 

The Big Homage

To start: Martin Scorsese, The Big Shave. 1967

I have this plan to purchase and consume an entire box of Thin Mints all by my lonesome. Happily I am having my period right now (AND HOW! Oh my GOD!) and the Girl Scout Cookies come in tomorow so this plan is really working for me.

And I had this idea to record myself eating this box of Thin Mints, because it's just funny for some reason, in a 64-slices-of-American-cheese kind of way, to do a thing like that. I mean, you are ALL going to do it. I know you are. You are going to buy those cookies and you are going to eat them all, and we will collectively pretend we are sooo disgusted by ourselves and this completely unanticipated behavior has taken us entirely by surprise and we just looked down and found two empty plastic sleeves on the table in front of us and who could have foreseen such a thing?

But we knew all along, didn't we?

So we have this pristine white bathroom, now. White vintagey sink, white floor tiles.

Wouldn't it be great to film myself eating those cookies in front of the bathroom mirror? Standing over the pure white sink? Sean remarked upon the superficial similarity to Scorsese's The Big Shave and damned if some shit didn't fall right into place.

Here's what I would do, were I so inclined:

Stand there in a white towel, contemplating myself in the bathroom mirror. Set the Thin Mints box on the sink. Open the box.

Take out a sleeve and open it up. Watching myself in the mirror, eat the first cookie. Second, third, so on. Okay.

Fish out the second sleeve of cookies. Open it.

Cut to the white tile floor between my feet. SPLAT. Blood.

Trickling down my leg. More blood.

Up to the mirror. More cookies. Cookies cookies cookies.

Floor. Blood blood blood. Running down my legs. Splattering everywhere. (At this point I don't even think I'd need special effects.)

But how to end it exactly? I'm not sure. I am sure, however, that this film needs never to exist except in our collective imaginations, so I promise not to actually make it. What would it be talking about? The tyranny of hormonally driven eating as it intersects with Big Agriculture's refined grain and sugar combination and the futility of resisting it? How we pretend to lie to ourselves about our intentions regarding that box of non-nutritive foodstuff? How fucking awesome it is to make things that look like other, well-known things?

All I know is that it made Sean almost throw up. So mission accomplished, is what I'm saying. That dude has been sharing my bathroom and headspace for twelve years, and I can still gross him out. 

It's Time for the Internet to Talk About My Period Again

Dude, you know how I can tell my period is a scant week away?

I bounce around like I'm on club drugs and I eat like I just met a bong and don't know how to handle my shit.

Thanks to many months of eating Primal with a side of intuition, I have no other physical symptoms, and I don't crave brownies or chocolate or pretzels or any of that crap. I'm just really fucking hungry. All day long. 

Oh and I get an extra five pounds of water weight that disappears all at once on the second day of my period. 

Back to the hunger, though. I figured it for something psychological -- everybody knows PMSing Women to be Totes Craycray -- but Google turns up a lot of (poorly substantiated) claims that under the influence of progesterone your metabolism kicks into higher gear, burning as much as 300-500 extra calories a day. And your body notices a thing like that.

 

 

I can't find a nice source for the caloric amount, but it stands to reason. See that jump in the basal body temperature? Means you're running a little bit hotter. And that big bump in the purple progesterone line corresponds pretty nicely to when I start feeling like if I don't eat an gallon pot of broccoli and maybe a cow leg, I'll faint dead away, and are you going to eat that stick of butter?

I tried an experiment last month. When the hunger kicked in, I told myself I could eat as much as I wanted -- as long as it was very strictly Primal, and almost entirely protein and fat. No grain at all, no sugar, very limited amount of fruit. I gorged on macadamia nuts, coconut oil, meat, and vegetables.

I stopped feeling so hungry about a day before I started bleeding -- and by the time my period ended I was down four pounds from where I'd been before I gained the water weight. Are you totally fucking stunned? Because I was. 

I'm going to have the opportunity to try the same experiment again in oh about RIGHT NOW. I'll let you know how it goes. I still haven't gotten over the fact that I actually do crave things like kale and cashew butter and pumpkin seeds and red meat, instead of the bag of Twix I thought I needed.  

Not that I don't intend to purchase and consume an entire box of Thin Mints all by myself, of course. That's a social justice thing. You have to do right.