Monday 09 September 2002

Accept

Yuk, yuk, yuk. Monday. I hate Mondays, and it's not even me who's getting out of bed and suited up and heading off to start another week (though how I wish it was - this no work/no money/no friends/no life thing is getting kinda old). At least I didn't cry when Sam left, this time. Mostly because I was too busy whimpering with pain and feeling foul from not enough sleep. I don't believe there's many nastier things than waking up wishing you were comatose because reality is just not fun.

Anyways, we did have a good weekend (and a ridiculous amount of incredible wonderful mind-blowing sex - ummm is that TMI?) despite my spazzing pain levels. And us a boring married couple and all, such shocking behaviour.

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So yeah, about this acceptance thing, referred to in the previous entry. There's all this shit going on in my life, and no matter how I look at it, or how Pollyanna-ish I try to be, it's all stuff I can't do much about. That would be all the health shite, the self esteem issues that just won't go away, that kinda thing.

I've realised, in writing in this space and in talking to others that I have a severe acceptance problem. Or rather, I don't accept the things I cannot change. I rage and froth at the mouth and make myself ill from crying - or trying not to cry, whichever - and I get frustrated and pissed off and hate myself and the situation even more. And I rage some more. Not exactly healthy, right.

Healthwise I cannot change my musculo-skeletal system and biochemistry, oh that I could. I remember when I was first diagnosed with EDS I searched a few sites on the web (there being no support group in Western Australia - I have never ever even met another sufferer for crying out loud) and one of the first points each site made, whether USAn or UK, was "accept this". Okay I thought, that's basic, I have this, that's the facts, therefore I accept.

Um, no. And it's only about now that I realise how wrong I was in that assumption that mere acknowledgement of the fact of a medical condition was acceptance. If I truly do accept this genetic hand I've drawn, would I be raging and pissed off? Would I be angry at myself for my limitations and constraints? Would I be over-reacting and placing emotional weight on events such as falling off my bike (when I haven't ridden in years and some little shitty kid put me off my balance and hey, everyone has a spill some time or other) and instead of saying "fuck! dammit! I fell off my bike" I go into an emotional spin of "I am nothing" ...  Would that happen if I accepted myself, and my limitations as a human being, regardless even of the whole medical issue?

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I think not. I haven't accepted myself yet. I have this whole self-image thing which is really just effing stupid. I mean, who cares! I have many wonderful people who love me for me and my personality, and really I'm not vilely ugly at all. I really have to get over that whole thing, mostly because it is exceedingly boring but also because it is not accurate or rational and me, I pride myself on being logical. Ha.

I haven't accepted my physical limitations. It's easy to understand the whys and wherefores, of growing up not knowing why I was like I was, and having the twin - equally unhealthy - pressures of parents alternatively cotton-woolling and neglecting (because they also lacked the facts - I am not blaming my parents here, okay? I think they did a damn good job keeping me alive, and if they stuffed up in a few areas, so what they did their best which was a damn good best and that's what parenting is about, far as I can see) - and experiencing years of physical and mental bullying and hassling from vile little thugs aka my peers.

But now I'm an adult, and I've known the whys and wherefores for the past six and a half years. I've been through ups and downs and you'd think I'd be used to pain and a restricted life by now but by miscellaneous pagan gods, I still rage and fume and splutter. I hate when I'm so wracked by pain that won't respond to painkillers that I whimper and cry (so I have the double whammy of pain and extreme tension and stress). I hate that I make plans to do xyz and then can't because I'm out for the count that day. None of this is good for me. I need to learn to accept myself and my somewhat doowally body and not get angry at this circumstance.

What I want to know is; how do other people, with chronic diseases/illnesses/pain/crap situations accept and deal and go with the flow? I'm asking here, I really want to know.

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Listening to:

Afrocelt Sound system.  Volume I Sound Magic.  Very cool fusion of African and Celtic rhythms, sounds, instruments. Not at all Enya-ish or doctor's-waiting-room New Age-y - pretty boppy actually.

Reading:

Reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game to Sam - as expected he's really enjoying the war games and military tactics and I'm enjoying reading it to him. We had a great conversation about children; how adults who have criticised the novel because "kids don't talk/act" like that; and of course both Sam and I know from bitter experience that kids are nasty, cruel, calculating little bastards who certainly don't think of themselves as children.  I really wish I'd had Ender's philosophy as a child though, instead of all that stupid "turn the other cheek" business. Bleh.

Eating/cooking:

Cream of mushroom soup (from scratch). It really needs some brandy or something in it to give it a little kick, but I don't have any.  It is also a rather unappetising shade of dark grey ,,, Tastes bloody good, but.

 

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