Harnessing the healing power of snark
A few days ago I saw that one of my Facebook friends had started a thread asking, “If you wrote a book about 2020, what would you call it?”.
Given that so far this year in addition to COVID-19 we have dealt with a Saharan dust cloud, murder hornets, yesterday’s hurricane, and salmonella’s hostile takeover of all the onions, my book would be titled as follows:
2020: Anxiously Awaiting The Final Five Plagues
If you haven’t yet responded to my 2-question survey, it’s not too late. You can leave you answers in the comments, or email them to me using the contact form.
Thanks so much for your help!
Questions:
If you’ve been visiting Cranky Fibro Girl for a while, you’ll have noticed that I haven’t been around much lately. Part of that has been due to our uprooting ourselves last fall and starting over in a new place. But another part of that is due to time: 12 years, to be exact. I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of sharing my stories with you here for the past 12 years. I’ve been so blessed by all the comments and emails you’ve sent me as we’ve shared this chronic illness journey together. And now the time has come for me to take a break.
I’ve sort of been on an unofficial hiatus, in that I haven’t been writing anything. But now I am officially announcing that I’m taking the rest of this year off, to let my mind know that it has permission to focus on other things. Or no things; I’ll. just have to wait and see. I’m creating a container of time and space and energy and permission and rest for myself, to do whatever I need to do to fill up and reset. To discover what I need to reconnect with the joy of writing and creating.
But before I leave for my blog break I have a request. I know there will be ideas percolating for me over the next 4 months. So when I come back I want to make sure that I’m writing about the things that matter to you, and creating things that help support you through your biggest challenges. If you would leave a comment with your answers to the two following questions, or email your answers to me through the contact form, I would really appreciate it.
I hope you all have a wonderful fall, and I will see you again in the new year!
Questions:
Frequently when I’m out walking I pass the truck for a lawn service that’s used by a number of our neighbors. It brands its work as “realistic” which always strikes me as kind of odd, because of all the words I could think of to describe professional yard care, “realistic” is not one of them.
My first reaction is to wonder just what kind of crazy-ass unrealistic services they were asked to provide that caused them to have to specify that this is the only kind of work they offer. Maybe something like, “No, ma’am, I’m sorry, but we cannot turn your yard into a fully functioning replica of The Magic Kingdom as expressed solely through the Art Of Bonsai” ?
Then I feel kind of sad, because it makes me imagine a young, eager lawn guy or gal being told to lay down their lofty dreams of yard care glory (Bonsai? Magic Kingdom? Why not?!), and instead just settle for what is “realistic”.
But mostly, it makes me want to call them up and ask really obnoxious questions. Such as,
“How much do you charge for “Tragically Disenchanted” lawn service?”
Or, “Can you recommend anyone who provides ‘Utterly Unfeasible’ care? What about ‘Fleetingly Quixotic’?”
Or, “Would you give me any kind of discount if I combined ‘Existentially Angsty’ with ‘Vaguely Fraught’?”
But luckily for everyone involved, my deep and abiding phobia of Talking To People On The Phone means they are safe from my trying to poke them with giant snark sticks.
It’s always nice when I can use my illness to help others.
Yet another chapter in my rocky relationship with August.
(Originally published August 31, 2005)
Much as our nation utilizes the various DEFCON levels to alert us to potential external threats, I myself have a finely tuned system of personal alerts which let me know when my internal systems are getting a little out of whack. I’ve pretty much passed through all of them over this last week, so they are fresh in my mind to share with you here.
Level 5: It’s All Good
Level 4: Lack of Interest in Food
This can also show up as Only Eating One Thing, like butter sandwiches, for days on end.
Level 3: Lack of Interest in Reading
Level 2: Lack of Interest in Cleaning
This is also frequently accompanied by Never Changing Out Of My Pajamas, as well as An Extremely Sharp Decline In Personal Hygiene.
Level 1: Spirals Of Doom
By the time I hit Level 1 I’m spending most of my time on the couch, partly because I lack the energy to go anywhere else, and partly because I believe that the couch has natural, inherent healing qualities. As a matter of fact, when we had the opportunity to get a new couch a couple of years ago I didn’t want to. As I told my husband, “The couch we have now has Magical Healing Powers, but if we get a new couch, thenthat one might not.” If I never knew that my husband loved me before I certainly did then, because not only did he NOT laugh, he said, “We’ll make sure we get one that does.”
While I’m stuck on the couch I generally pass the time by watching the process my mind goes through where, seeing that I’m feeling bad, it attempts to create a really depressing story in order to make me feel even worse. Here is an example of one of my recent “Spirals of Doom”.
As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I have been experiencing some difficulties with migraines this summer (and of course, “difficulties” is a euphemism for “searing pain up and down the entire right side of my head, neck, and shoulder, accompanied by razor blades in my stomach off and on for three months”.) So one evening as I dragged myself off the couch to take yet another pain pill, I happened to look in the mirror and notice that my eyes were really red and irritated. My mind took in that data, processed it, and came up with the following story:
“Well, here I am having to take medicine AGAIN for this horrible migraine, which will never go away no matter what I do, which means that I will be sick and miserable for the rest of my life. I will never ever feel well again. I’ll just be an invalid, miserable and in pain forever, a drain on my family and friends because I will never be well enough to be productive or contribute ever again. And, the fact that I keep having to take all of this medicine is raising my blood pressure, and I just know that soon the pressure will become too much and my head will explode, and my eyes will pop out, causing all of my insides to ooze out everywhere, making me gross, disgusting, and repulsive, and this will cause everyone I love to cast me out because I am too hideous to be around, and so I will end up homeless, penniless, and wretched, to die on the streets alone.” And in that moment, I totally believed that every single piece of this was absolutely true.
The good news is that I know myself well enough now to know that this is part of a whole process that I go through, and eventually I do come out again on the other side. So these days when it is going on I am able to keep a tiny part of my brain detached, as an observer, to kind of monitor things and remind me that, “this too shall pass”.
This is the part of me that takes notes and gathers materials from all of my experiences, and is considering putting out a “Greatest Hits” collection of my most popular spirals. This collection would include such popular favorites as, “Everything Is Just An Illusion, So Nothing I Do Matters”, “We’re All Going To Die One Day Anyway, So What Is The Point Of Doing Anything?”, and “No Matter What I Do I Just Can’t Fix This, And I’ll Never Be Able To, So I Am Going To End Up Poverty-Stricken And Alone, And Then I Will Die.”
Then again, maybe I’ll just fix myself another butter sandwich, and go stretch out on the couch for a while.
as I was reminded this weekend while trolling my archives. For example:
Dear August: Please Stop Trying To Kill Me
(Originally published August 14, 2009)
You know those days where you sit down and look at your blog, and you realize that there are like 80 billion humor bloggers out there, and apparently they must know something you don’t because they seem to be getting all of the traffic, and so you decide that must mean that you really suck at this, and so you decide to murder your blog and eliminate any evidence indicating that you ever had any sort of online presence whatsoever, and the only thing you can think of to help you go on is to ask your ex-tre-me-ly long-suffering husband to put a picture of Adam Baldwin on your desktop, which is nothing against your husband, but given that he is the only person in your household with a job, and the one who earns the money that allows you to continue living in a house, and not in a box on the street, it’s not exactly like he can stand around all day and be your own Personal Internet Cheerleader, and then you get a sinus infection and have to take antibiotics, and then all of a sudden you are plunged into a severe depression, as severe as you’ve ever been through before, and it absolutely terrifies you, because what if you’ve somehow broken your medicine, and now there’s nothing else that can help you, and this is how the rest of your life is going to be, and then you talk to your coach about it and she says, “You know, I just read that for some people going on antibiotics causes them to spiral down into depression like that,” and you think, “Wow-that sure would’ve been some great information to have a few days ago!”, and so as you are recovering you decide that maybe eating some fresh fruits and vegetables would help, so you go to the grocery store to pick up some green peppers and ranch dressing, but then you are standing in front of the display and there are too many dressings to choose from, and so you start to cry because you just want someone to tell you what to do, and WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SO HARD?!, and then you are so happy to return home, until you are reminded that your house is so, SO hot, you don’t know why, but clearly the only option left is for you to live naked on your bathroom floor until October, and hope that your husband doesn’t mind occasionally airlifting in some food for you, and then, and you have no idea why it took you THE ENTIRE SUMMER to realize it, even though between the two of you you hold two Master’s Degrees, and one of you (not naming any names or anything), is an actual engineer, but you finally figure out that the batteries in the thermostat don’t work, and that the ceiling fans have all been circulating the air up instead of down, and then there is nothing left for you to do except to write about it on your blog, the blog that you are most likely going to erase just as soon as you can work up the energy to do anything more strenuous than lying prostrate on the nearest flat surface?
Yeah, me too.
About this time last year I slid into a little bit of a funk. There was nothing wrong, nothing bad that happened to provoke it, and it wasn’t that I was depressed or miserable. Everything just felt sort of muted and opaque until this past spring, when we got the invitation to our first 25th high school reunion.
Both my husband and I have reunions this year, but his rolled around first. Which meant that it became the catalyst that brought into sharp relief all the unfocused thoughts that had been swirling around in my head for the previous 9 months or so. Not surprisingly, they were all different versions of, “This is not where I thought I’d be by now.”
Most of the time I’m actually amazed at what I’ve accomplished, where I am, and most especially, who I am. But having to step out of the world I’ve created here for myself and go back-even just for one night-into the arena of more traditional life choices really threw me off.
Part of it is the grief I always feel as a chronic illness patient in the middle of a group of healthy people. There’s no way I can help noticing the difference between their physical capacity and mine, in even the simplest activities like sitting, standing, and socializing. I hate being reminded of how sick I am.
And I am sick. Over the past 3 years my symptoms have worsened significantly, and my body is weary and worn down. My external world has gotten smaller and smaller, and I’ve become more and more housebound and dependent on medications. So it’s incredibly painful to be in an environment that constantly highlights this, especially on a night that is basically all about toting up your accomplishments of the past 20 years.
Part of it is the fact that, at almost-43, I really can’t deny any longer that I’ve entered into Middle Age. There are lots of physical changes, like grey hairs and the inability to read small print, but then there’s also the realization that I’m probably not going to become some kind of world-famous superstar. I’m not actually going to be able to do ALL THE THINGS! I can’t keep all life possibilities open all the time. And when I choose one thing over another, there’s a good chance that the other one is gone for good. It came as a complete surprise to me, but it turns out that I’m only human, and there are limits to this human life.
Then there’s the fact that, compared to the majority of our classmates, I have taken many of the paths less-traveled.
My husband and I went to college-prep high schools and universities that focused on preparing students for mainstream professions like business, law, medicine, finance and the like. Not everyone went this route of course, but there are enough that did to make me obsess over the fact that I don’t have A Thing, by which I mean a neatly summed-up, easily recognizable answer to the question, “So what do you do?”
So I scheduled a couple of super-intense, emergency situations with Lynne where she gently questioned the stories I was telling myself about this whole situation, WHICH WAS NOT AT ALL ANNOYING when all I wanted to do was freak out and feel victimized by life. But eventually I was able to get over myself enough to hear her when she reminded me of the things that are true about who I am:
-I do not actually want A Thing. My Thing is that I am a freedom-seeker; always have been, always will be. I like the idea of A Thing, something pithy to print on business cards and post in our annual Christmas letter, but every time I’ve tried to fit myself into the mold of A Thing, it has slowly leached away my soul and sucked away my will to live.
-Also, I like to choose. When I’m honest I remember that I don’t like trying to do ALL THE THINGS!, because I just get so overwhelmed that I say “Screw it!” and go eat some Thin Mints or buy something on Amazon. Saying yes-and no-is a big relief.
-I don’t really want to be a world-famous rock star. That would cut too much into my Daydreaming-and-Following-All-The-Rabbit-Holes Time.
But the most important reminder of all is that I love my life. Even suffering from fibromyalgia and bipolar disorder, my everyday life is really good. And I am damn proud of all the work I’ve put in to be able to say that, because it was NOT easy. And yes, I may have had to buy bifocals, and I may now be too old for many of the fictitious objects of my television show crushes, but I am super-comfy in my own skin, and only becoming more so. So, BRING IT, 40s.
It’s true that the way I’ve chosen to live my life means I don’t have a lot of external achievements to show for myself in comparison to someone who’s pursued a traditional career, and sometimes that’s hard. Especially when one of your husband’s best friends during high school was the wife-half of the husband-and-wife team who wrote the score for “Frozen”. (Who, incidentally, is one of the smartest, funniest, most creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, so I was actually really looking forward to seeing her again. Things just got funky when I fell into that whole trap of “comparing my insides to someone’s outsides” thing.)
So after hacking through all my mental drama, and then unexpectedly learning I’d gone down 2 sizes when I went shopping for a new outfit, the reunion turned out to be a lot of fun.
Although that’s not to say that it wasn’t weird at first. As I told someone (whom I later remembered was a psychologist), because we don’t have children, I feel like I’ve never had to grow all the way up (and there’s the material for your next article-you’re welcome). So when we got there and I first saw all these grownups with big houses, and jobs, and teenagers my brain sort of exploded from all the cognitive dissonance because all I could think was, “There is NO WAY I am as old as all of you!”
But then that wore off, and I started to enjoy myself.
It was fun to remember ourselves as teenagers, and then see how far we’d all come. And since my husband and I started dating at the end of our senior year of high school, it was fun to be around people who were there at the beginning of our history together.
Then there was the time I was talking to the Lopezes about their post-“Frozen” projects, and then they started asking really nice questions about my blog and, drawing deeply on my skills as a careful crafter of language, I lost all ability to form coherent sentences. I wanted to yell, “Wait! I didn’t study for this part of the test! I only reviewed, ‘How Not To Have A Meltdown’; I forgot to look over the section on ‘How To Talk Intelligently About My Work’.” But they were very nice, and there’s always the chance that it was too loud for them to actually hear anything. A girl can dream.
So the bottom line is that I not only survived but also had a good time and, unexpectedly, the whole experience somehow busted me out of my funk. And given the intensity of the angel-wrestling I did to prepare for this, I’m putting life on notice that when my reunion comes up in the fall, I expect it to be as easy as a hot knife through butter. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
