Witchy Woman

Try to imagine that depression is like being in a dark tunnel. The person with depression can’t see a thing, because everything is surrounded by darkness. Every sound is amplified, every fear is magnified. All they want to do is get out of the tunnel, but they can’t see where to go, they don’t know what to do. Your natural reaction is to lead them out of this dark tunnel, back to the light.

This is the WRONG approach.

I find myself at a unique stage of my life in which most people assume I have children.  Being that I am 29, this is not an unusual presumption.  The oddity is, is that the person in question assumes that I want or will have children.  Since I work in a nursing home, I am surrounded by elderly residents and nosy female coworkers, so the following conversation (or variations thereof) occur on a regular basis.

Me: "Happy Mother's Day!"

Them: "You, too!"

Me: "Oh, thank you, but I don't qualify."

Them: "You don't have kids?" in surprise.  "Oh, you will someday," reassuringly as I shake my head.

Me: "I don't think it's in the cards for my partner and I, but that's ok."  At this point, if the person in question feels that children are necessary in order to be complete, they usually drop the subject because the ambiguous phrasing could indicate fertility issues.  (For all I know, with my health problems, this could very well be true).

For some reason, there's a part of me that just won't smile and nod.  Perhaps it's because I refuse to kowtow to public opinion that all women of childbearing age desire offspring, perhaps it's because I am opinionated, or maybe it's because I don't know when to shut my mouth.  It's part of my charm.

I don't feel a need to justify my decision, but rather I feel that others need to justify why they project the stereotype of the nuclear family onto others.  One would think that we have reached the point where women, whether single or partnered, need not defend their decision to live childfree.  Having been adopted, I am firmly of the belief that every child should not only be wanted, but also planned.  While I was certainly wanted, my biological mother could barely take care of herself, let alone a baby.  

I suffer from much the same illness that plagued her, meaning that caring for myself can be a struggle at times.  I recognize that having a tiny, helpless person dependent upon me would be negative for both my and its well-being.  Not to mention that my partner does not wish to begin procreating in his early 40's.

By simply stating that I do not have, nor intend to have, children I feel I am doing my best to politely subvert the cultural paradigm without baring my soul for the scrutiny of strangers.  Perhaps next time they will ask someone if they have kids, rather than how many or how old they are.  Perhaps that person will realize that in assuming someone has or desires children they might be opening a whole can of emotional worms for other person.

Then again, I might just jump straight to grandmother considering the way my youngest cockatiel is chasing my eldest across the keyboard in an attempt to court her.  Although, judging by how she's avoiding his advances, she may just follow in my footsteps yet.

To all those who decided to make the wisest decision for themselves as an individual and their hypothetical offspring, Happy non-Mother's Day!

Another step in my weight loss was learning to love my body.  When starting out, find something that you like about yourself.  Even something that might seem silly like your hands, hair, anything.  Look at yourself in the mirror every day.  Most of us who are larger have developed the habit of only giving ourselves a cursory glance to ensure we are ready to go out in public.  Stop and admire your body.  Stop and move on before you begin to focus on the flaws, real or imagined.  Over time you will begin to like what you see more as you change.  Even at my heaviest I had strong, muscular legs with decent definition and focused on those.  Then I began to admire the same attributes in my arms.  Now I'm noticing that my tomach is shrinking, too, although it will never be as muscly as my limbs.  No one will ever love their entire body 100% of the time, but the point is to develop your working relationship into a more intimate one.

It is ok to like yourself.  Really, you have my permission.  Without devolving into a diatribe, let's just summarize with mainstream media and various industries make more money if you hate yourself.  Add a female gender to the mix, and you've got a wonderful barrel of monkeys of image issues.  Listen to the little voice in your head that says, "Damn, I look good."  (It's even quieter than the one pointing out the not so fine points of your physical being).  Don't worry that you'll come off as arrogant because what you are really developing is confidence, and there is a difference.  As a friend once put it, confidence is "I'm pretty good."  Arrogance is, "I'm better than everyone else."  So don't worry about your self-esteem being too strong until it crosses that line.

Sex counts as exercise!  Unfortunately, you aren't likely to find it listed on myfitnesspal, sparkpeople, or Fitocracy.  Even masturbation burns calories.  Obviously I haven't found any scientific studies to give a more definite idea of the math involved, but sexual activities that result in sweat, heavy breathing, and lethargy obviously counts as physical exercise.  If you're wanting numbers to plug into your calorie counter, then use your best judgment.

The mental battle is harder and has to be won before the physical will follow suit.  The more you like your body, the more confidence you will have which means you'll be perceived as being sexier, thus leading to more sex.  Make the Psycho Hamster Wheel of Doom work for you in a positive way.

Several of my friends have asked me how I managed to lose 30 pounds.  The quick answer is: I cheated.  I went from a sedentary lifestyle to working as a CNA on my feet all day with heavy lifting.  Now I actually have to work at it by learning how to cook, unable to go to the gym, and deal with stress eating and a junk food addiction.  One of my ex-girlfriends loves to tease me about when we were together because I'd habitually eat two cheddarwurst dogs and a pomegranate Rockstar energy drink for breakfast.  So I've got some major hurdles to overcome.

I started with little changes, and am working my way up.  If you have anxiety issues and an addictive personality, you will become too disheartened and overwhelmed by everything and fall off the bandwagon.  So don't look at my advice and go whole-hog, you want to make lifestyle changes.  If you want to lose weight quickly and then go back to the life you were living before, I can tell you now that it's not going to work.  You have to change your whole self.

Most "experts" will tell you to ask yourself why you want to lose weight.  Being the woman I am, I sure as hell knew my reasons.  I did not feel good in my own body.  I didn't like the way I felt, looked, or moved.  I would constantly refer to myself as a "hideous, fat cowbeast."  It started out as a joke about when I was emo and tried to laugh off my depression and body issues with exaggeration.  The problem was, was I had brainwashed myself into believing it.  I wanted to get into SCA heavy fighting, but knew that I couldn't physically do it until I lost some weight.  My body simply wouldn't be able to handle it.  I wanted to make later period garb, but didn't want to put forth the time, money, and effort until I was where I felt I would look good in the dresses.  So I have some very personal, practical reasons.  You need to assess your motivational factors to ensure that this is something to which you want to commit.

The very first thing I told myself is, "You are not on a diet."  Say it with me: "I am not on a diet."  Again.  "I am not on a diet!"  Doesn't that feel good?  There is so much stigma, marketing, and general insanity in American culture regarding the word "diet" that I refused to burden myself with that.  Hell, I had 75 extra pounds to lug around as it was along with the baggage that society associated with my weight.  Not to mention that diets are seen as something temporary or something that can be ruined by one piece of chocolate.

Don't set yourself up for failure and accept now that you will make bad choices.  You will make excuses for your bad choices.  Acknowledge your mistakes, figure out what to do next time, and stop before you slide even further.  Ok, so you had an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's.  Not the best choice of lunches in the world, but deal with it and move on.  No, it doesn't mean you should go ahead and eat out at the all-you-can-eat buffet.  Nor does it mean you can only have celery and carrot sticks for dinner (unless you like that, in which case you are either insane or a were-rabbit).  It means you should have a well-rounded dinner that's especially low in fat.  Don't beat yourself up, and don't keep backsliding just because of a mistake or three.

Drink water.  I know, I hate water and am very picky.  Yes, I know that living off of soda, juice, and tea is not good for me, but I'm addicted to the caffeine.  Water will help make you feel fuller, flush toxins and other crap from your body, yadda yadda yadda.  I will only drink purified water, preferably with tons of ice.  There are flavoured waters, packets to add to your water, and other products on the market.  The possible chemical content of those scares me, so I haven't looked at them yet.

Good fats are good.  I'm not an expert, but natural occuring fats are fine in moderation, such as olive oil, avocado, and nuts.  Just don't go deep-frying an avocado stuffed with walnuts.

Speaking of moderation: stop when you're full.  That's one of my biggest problems.  If it's yummy then I just want to om nom nom nom nom and some more nom.  It's so good I don't want to stop.  No, I don't have impulse control problems at all.  Luckily I'm also easily distracted.  For lunch today I threw some hummus, salsa, and lettuce on a tortilla and wandered off to play on the computer while drinking some water from my Brita pitcher that's kept in the fridge.  After checking my email, my stomach informed me I was still hungry.  Rinse and repeat.  Also, don't eat straight from the container, that's kind of a no-brainer.

Buy fruits and vegetables that you like.  I hate celery so much I used to have disturbing dreams where I'd go to the grocery store and all I would buy was celery.  I had some anxiety issues when I first lived on my own and had no idea how to grocery shop or cook.

More to follow as it percolates through my un-caffeinated brain.  By the way, quitting soda cold turkey sucks.

Today's post is brought to you by fevered delirium. Now remember, boys and girls, when using communal stethoscopes ALWAYS disinfect the earpieces first.

I have an extremely overactive imagination. As such, I have been forbidden from ever watching scary movies. Unless they are in the mood to be scared because of my jumps and screams, which evidently helps frighten them in ways that cinema can't.

I was living in downtown Eugene when my partner at the time and I went to see The Village. On the way back, I thought about how I do not conform to my society's standards and boundaries. That was sufficient impetus to conjure my own personal bogeyman. So by the time that he dropped me off at the curb, sprinting 25 feet across the tiny yard mud-wrestling arena in flip-flops and long, tight skirt seemed like a good idea. A kind neighbour, who spoke little English, summoned my roommates from their Bacchanal celebrations to haul me off to the ER, where I had to browbeat them into taking x-rays to confirm that I was correct in that two bones in my ankle had snapped like green twigs and that I wasn't overreacting to a sprain.

That was just a Shyamalan movie. Now, if it's anything involving zombies, I turn into a gibbering pile of paranoia clutching my sword and wondering why I seem to be the only one in this podunk town who doesn't own enough firepower to defend themselves when Obama comes 'round to revoke the second amendment.Zombieland is one of the scariest movies ever because it includes many of my terrors: public restrooms, clowns, and crappy processed snacks.

If I am anywhere for any length of time, I automatically assess the defensive capabilities and survival supplies in case of zombie apocalypse. As much as I'd love to watch The Walking Dead, I am more fond of sleeping ever again. A former boss thought I was joking, until I told him that the warehouse was theoretically a fortress, but lacked weaponry, food, and water. He started to back away slowly when I mused aloud as to what equipment and product could be altered for optimal decapitation.

When visiting friends and leaving after sunset, I ask them to escort me to my car. Now, I don't tell them the real reason because that just sounds crazy. (Crazy, until I'm holed up in the woods in my very own treehouse and enough ordinance to take out a one horse town). Sometimes they will assume that I'm afraid of axe-murdering rapists. If they start looking like they think I'm coocoo for cocoa puffs, I tell them it's ninja squirrels.