Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2012-01-08 12:41 am
azurelunatic) wrote2012-01-08 12:41 am
Entry tags:
And then this is how my brain "entertains" itself.
The current project of getting me diurnal again is going vaguely reasonably. We shall see.
While several of my fellows were watching politicians debate and screaming at their screens, I was listening to some back episodes of the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
slashreport podcast. I think that I got the better end of that deal, because I'm getting the highlights of the debates in Twitter, without the head-pounding frustration and urge to stab someone, and I got fanfolks chattering merrily while I chopped onions and mashed kiwifruit.
In the department of cooking: Today was Deal With Fruit From Farmers' Market day, where I got out the four-cup containers and sorted the fruit out for the days remaining until next market. Doing that keeps me from eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas at once, and also reminds me to eat my day's allowance of fruit and not leave me eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas on Wednesday so I'll have used up all my fruit by Thursday.
I looked at mywikis kiwis and realized that some of them weren't going to last, but I wasn't likely to eat quite that much kiwi in one sitting. So I peeled those suckers, and mashed, and cheerfully nibbled on bits, and the upshot was three popsicles' worth of green goo.
Come suppertime, I was planning orange chicken, and had done the fruit and vegetable prep for frozen orange chicken, but looked in the freezer and found no such thing. Since I'd sort of sideswiped a proper lunch by way of fruit, it took a bit of doing to actually get me out and retrieving orange chicken. (Apparently that is what I am eating this month. I'm not going to argue.)
So the link that I linked, the ranty review of the menstrual cup, has been bouncing about, and one of the reactions to it in my circles was a frustrated pushback against the "this is crazy, you're crazy, wtf" reactions to menstrual cups.
Which is, you know, a valid response, especially on account of that sort of reaction happens a lot, but that was not the impression that I took away from that particular rant.
That particular rant sounded to me like a "this is new, this is difficult; this is in fact more difficult (especially for a neophyte) than all of the stuff out there was telling me; it worked, but this was my experience, and my experience of it was difficult and fucking sucked in places."
And oh god, do I get that.
I'm 31 this year, and I no longer have the flexibility that I had when I was 16 or even 25. I tried the disposable cup, it was awkward, I got better at it, I remember overflowing it, I had to wear backup, and eventually the fact that I had to wear backup anyway and it was still awkward and getting more so as I lost flexibility...
Tampons are an iffy proposition for me now. I resent my body so much. I know I am not too bad off because look at the list of things that I can still do, but I'm looking at the list of things that I cannot do anymore and I do not like that list. And things that remind me of it poke me in the sensitive spots, and I get resentful and furious and either triggered or the sort of screaming defensive that happens when I know that something's about to hit one of the danger spots in the minefield of my head. There aren't that many bad spots anymore. Ro and Darkside took care of most of them. There are a few left, which makes the reaction all that much worse to bystanders, because I'm not a seething ball of general hostility anymore, which makes the sudden flip-out that much more unexpected and therefore worse.
I can't use menstrual cups anymore (even though I found them only kind of mediocre when I could), and every time I think about saying that, I anticipate a flood of kindly and helpfully-meant advice attempting to figure out what exactly I mean by "can't", telling me that maybe I'm not trying hard enough/right, and oh here are some helpful tips on getting back lost flexibility ... and I simultaneously want to shut each and every one of the "helpful" people up, cry, and kill myself.
It's that last that's the problem, naturally. Since my actual goal is to die of old age at a vigorous 90-something or further up there (the result of a compromise I made with my brain during a sleepless face-punching session: sure, asshole, I'll make a suicide plan: OLD AGE, FUCK YOU, THAT'S IT, HAPPY NOW?) killing myself (now) would put a fatal crimp in that plan. Thus my exceptionally unfriendly response to even imagined "helpful advice" of the sort that I know would set me off, but would be natural and helpful to someone without the same hidden issues.
My brain helpfully fills in that only a complete douchebag responds to well-meant offers of help from friends with the social equivalent of a flashbang and high-powered rifle, so that means I'm rubbish and hardly fit to exist. And that trips off another fun round. And so it goes.
Fortunately for me and everyone who cares about me, the combination of meds, training, and just plain old tired means that I know this mental state, and I stare it in the face and remember that fear is the mind-killer, et cetera. (Fear, the Ectogenesis universe, K, and Rose, remind me, is the little death that's going to lead to the big death if you slip and fall.) I'm cranky, but functional; I probably wouldn't even be mentioning it if I weren't trying to set the habit of actually talking about what's going on inside my head on a daily basis in the new year. I've taken basically two years off from daily self-analysis, and that's been driving me crazy. Crazier.
... yeaaahh, how's that for the department of things-looking-ok-until-you-actually-think-about-them, huh?
So last night I was thinking about how when I was presented with those items that were bothering me, how I was getting alarms but misinterpreting them.
It would reliably go like:
Party A: *cheerfulness* *statement that ought to be worrying*
Me: "Oh hey, things are going well for my friend!"
My brain: *CLANG CLANG*
Me: "... though that's a weird thing to be cheerful about."
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Yeah, that *is* a weird thing to be cheerful about.
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Something doesn't sit right with me about that cheerfulness.*
My brain: "...duh!" *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "I mean, why they gotta be so cheerful over that totally normal thing?"
My brain: "...dumbass." *CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!*
Me: "Dang, that weird thing is sticking in my head. How annoying."
My brain: "...do you even *listen*?!" *sirens*
Me: "It's so weird. It's like something about that simple statement is stuck in my brain and it keeps circling over and over trying to get my attention."
My brain: "... do I have to re-enact the sinking of the fucking *Titanic* in order to get your attention here? *Something.* *Is.* *Not.* *Right.* *With.* *Your.* *Friend.*"
Me: "Auuuugh, brain, shut up. I know something is weird about that statement, but they're having a perfectly OK and normal day, give it a rest."
And thus my day/night/whatever would proceed with me eyerolling and trying to stuff my brain back in the box so I wouldn't say anything eyerolly with my outside voice, and my brain shouting for attention inside the box.
And of course Passage is about (among other things) the shenanigans and symbols that brains use in order to get attention to a crisis that the characters don't realize on a conscious level. And they're barking up entirely the wrong tree for a good portion of the book, and it's only when they get a second perspective on what was going on do they figure out that it wasn't literally the fucking Titanic, it was just that her brain picked the symbol of the Titanic as its best representation of an "All hope is lost! Alarm! Alert! FML!" full-on panic that required action from the whole damn team of brainbits in order to avert actual disaster.
The real focus of my sudden fascination is not so much on the "damn, some people have had some real shit going down in their lives" as it is "So what *else* has my brain been trying to signal me about that I've been brushing off as something entirely different?" and that's a much harder question for me to answer.
While several of my fellows were watching politicians debate and screaming at their screens, I was listening to some back episodes of the
slashreport podcast. I think that I got the better end of that deal, because I'm getting the highlights of the debates in Twitter, without the head-pounding frustration and urge to stab someone, and I got fanfolks chattering merrily while I chopped onions and mashed kiwifruit. In the department of cooking: Today was Deal With Fruit From Farmers' Market day, where I got out the four-cup containers and sorted the fruit out for the days remaining until next market. Doing that keeps me from eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas at once, and also reminds me to eat my day's allowance of fruit and not leave me eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas on Wednesday so I'll have used up all my fruit by Thursday.
I looked at my
Come suppertime, I was planning orange chicken, and had done the fruit and vegetable prep for frozen orange chicken, but looked in the freezer and found no such thing. Since I'd sort of sideswiped a proper lunch by way of fruit, it took a bit of doing to actually get me out and retrieving orange chicken. (Apparently that is what I am eating this month. I'm not going to argue.)
So the link that I linked, the ranty review of the menstrual cup, has been bouncing about, and one of the reactions to it in my circles was a frustrated pushback against the "this is crazy, you're crazy, wtf" reactions to menstrual cups.
Which is, you know, a valid response, especially on account of that sort of reaction happens a lot, but that was not the impression that I took away from that particular rant.
That particular rant sounded to me like a "this is new, this is difficult; this is in fact more difficult (especially for a neophyte) than all of the stuff out there was telling me; it worked, but this was my experience, and my experience of it was difficult and fucking sucked in places."
And oh god, do I get that.
I'm 31 this year, and I no longer have the flexibility that I had when I was 16 or even 25. I tried the disposable cup, it was awkward, I got better at it, I remember overflowing it, I had to wear backup, and eventually the fact that I had to wear backup anyway and it was still awkward and getting more so as I lost flexibility...
Tampons are an iffy proposition for me now. I resent my body so much. I know I am not too bad off because look at the list of things that I can still do, but I'm looking at the list of things that I cannot do anymore and I do not like that list. And things that remind me of it poke me in the sensitive spots, and I get resentful and furious and either triggered or the sort of screaming defensive that happens when I know that something's about to hit one of the danger spots in the minefield of my head. There aren't that many bad spots anymore. Ro and Darkside took care of most of them. There are a few left, which makes the reaction all that much worse to bystanders, because I'm not a seething ball of general hostility anymore, which makes the sudden flip-out that much more unexpected and therefore worse.
I can't use menstrual cups anymore (even though I found them only kind of mediocre when I could), and every time I think about saying that, I anticipate a flood of kindly and helpfully-meant advice attempting to figure out what exactly I mean by "can't", telling me that maybe I'm not trying hard enough/right, and oh here are some helpful tips on getting back lost flexibility ... and I simultaneously want to shut each and every one of the "helpful" people up, cry, and kill myself.
It's that last that's the problem, naturally. Since my actual goal is to die of old age at a vigorous 90-something or further up there (the result of a compromise I made with my brain during a sleepless face-punching session: sure, asshole, I'll make a suicide plan: OLD AGE, FUCK YOU, THAT'S IT, HAPPY NOW?) killing myself (now) would put a fatal crimp in that plan. Thus my exceptionally unfriendly response to even imagined "helpful advice" of the sort that I know would set me off, but would be natural and helpful to someone without the same hidden issues.
My brain helpfully fills in that only a complete douchebag responds to well-meant offers of help from friends with the social equivalent of a flashbang and high-powered rifle, so that means I'm rubbish and hardly fit to exist. And that trips off another fun round. And so it goes.
Fortunately for me and everyone who cares about me, the combination of meds, training, and just plain old tired means that I know this mental state, and I stare it in the face and remember that fear is the mind-killer, et cetera. (Fear, the Ectogenesis universe, K, and Rose, remind me, is the little death that's going to lead to the big death if you slip and fall.) I'm cranky, but functional; I probably wouldn't even be mentioning it if I weren't trying to set the habit of actually talking about what's going on inside my head on a daily basis in the new year. I've taken basically two years off from daily self-analysis, and that's been driving me crazy. Crazier.
... yeaaahh, how's that for the department of things-looking-ok-until-you-actually-think-about-them, huh?
So last night I was thinking about how when I was presented with those items that were bothering me, how I was getting alarms but misinterpreting them.
It would reliably go like:
Party A: *cheerfulness* *statement that ought to be worrying*
Me: "Oh hey, things are going well for my friend!"
My brain: *CLANG CLANG*
Me: "... though that's a weird thing to be cheerful about."
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Yeah, that *is* a weird thing to be cheerful about.
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Something doesn't sit right with me about that cheerfulness.*
My brain: "...duh!" *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "I mean, why they gotta be so cheerful over that totally normal thing?"
My brain: "...dumbass." *CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!*
Me: "Dang, that weird thing is sticking in my head. How annoying."
My brain: "...do you even *listen*?!" *sirens*
Me: "It's so weird. It's like something about that simple statement is stuck in my brain and it keeps circling over and over trying to get my attention."
My brain: "... do I have to re-enact the sinking of the fucking *Titanic* in order to get your attention here? *Something.* *Is.* *Not.* *Right.* *With.* *Your.* *Friend.*"
Me: "Auuuugh, brain, shut up. I know something is weird about that statement, but they're having a perfectly OK and normal day, give it a rest."
And thus my day/night/whatever would proceed with me eyerolling and trying to stuff my brain back in the box so I wouldn't say anything eyerolly with my outside voice, and my brain shouting for attention inside the box.
And of course Passage is about (among other things) the shenanigans and symbols that brains use in order to get attention to a crisis that the characters don't realize on a conscious level. And they're barking up entirely the wrong tree for a good portion of the book, and it's only when they get a second perspective on what was going on do they figure out that it wasn't literally the fucking Titanic, it was just that her brain picked the symbol of the Titanic as its best representation of an "All hope is lost! Alarm! Alert! FML!" full-on panic that required action from the whole damn team of brainbits in order to avert actual disaster.
The real focus of my sudden fascination is not so much on the "damn, some people have had some real shit going down in their lives" as it is "So what *else* has my brain been trying to signal me about that I've been brushing off as something entirely different?" and that's a much harder question for me to answer.
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Sometimes, no wait, Mumfish Honesty, okay, fine, REGULARLY, I want nothing more than a flashbang and a rifle. My current coping mechanism is a screaming breakdown involving throwing dishes at the wall and/or window until there is nothing but shards on the floor. (No, I haven't done it in the group home yet. Yes, I have done it regularly in hospital, both psych and physical sides. They took it amazingly well.) On the plus side? I'm cutting less.
But anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I grok, and it's not that abnormal. When one loses, one mourns. When one's nose gets rubbed in it, one gets angry. *more snuggles*
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...We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. This has been a test of the
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However, as I am incapable of using even a freakin' TAMPON, there is NO WAY that an object PLUS fingers (note plural!) is ever going to work for me.
Hmm. Maybe I should tell them, in long form, what it took to get a tampon in, the one time I was successful -- that might convince 'em to, if not shut up, at least go darken the next doorstep over. :D
(The short form is: 25 minutes of growling, porn, and positions most suited to Cirque du Soleil gymnasts, with the cooperation of several pieces of furniture in two rooms.)
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I mean I can see where out at all would be harder for you than me due to physics because out with tampons was harder when I was bigger, but out without making a literal huge bloody mess of things is also a consideration, because there's a point at which you can get it out but you don't have much fine motor control, especially not in a tiny space while trying to keep your pants/skirt, panties, socks/stockings and shoes safe plus not wanting to look like you just axe murdered a guy when you come out of the stall.
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Once was enough to make it abundantly clear that they weren't going to work for me outside of very specific and unlikely circumstances, such as perhaps being high on painkillers and with nothing to do for a half hour before and after the tampon-requiring outing...
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Because really, unless I have a relationship with someone which includes them being intimate with the interior of my vagina, what I do or do not put in there does not affect them in any way and is not their business.
The ones that really piss me off are the reusable menstrual pad enthusiasts. Dude, I do not have a washing machine in my house, I cannot do laundry every day, this is not going to happen.
None of this has anything to do with internalised shame. It has everything to do with the fact that strangers have no right to be up in my business, especially not THAT business. If I want someone to know what is under my clothes I will take them off, and if that hasn't happened, they need to back off.
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Anyway, you ARE affecting them, because they cannot sleep at night knowing of the tampon fields you are destroying (assuming you use tampons). There's probably an entire acre of cotton planted every year just for your vagina, you know. Just for yours. Multiply that times all the ladies! Excuse me. I ran out of Kleenex (awful allergies here since the weather's been weird in FL), so I need to go get a menstrual sponge to pass to them so they can soak up their tears.
PS, I saw your comments on the discussion post for the Food Security Carnival thing today, and I didn't even have to look to see who it was. I knew who was talking about GF eating and privilege! I can't wait for that carnival to go up.
Edit: I just wanted to let you know that I picture a "tampon field" looking like a field of cattails. Only with tampons.
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Also, the tampon field image cracked me completely up in a way that made me glad there's a door on this office so not everyone hears me.
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High-pressure salespeople
Religious evangelicals
Rapists
... and that is the unwillingness or inability to accept 'no'.
*ponders*
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This is also why I react very badly to certain mutual friends when they think they are being "helpful" and insist that I do/try/consider/whatever doing it their way.
I do not think it is the LEAST bit bad or wrong of you to react badly to offers of help that do not take into consideration the idea that maybe you don't really actually want to do the thing they're offering to help you do, or that you might want to do it, but not badly enough to expend the necessary number of spoons required per attempt till you get it down.
(see also: why I don't want to carry books back and forth to and from the library* and try to keep track of when they are due; why I have zero desire to ride a bicycle; why I don't want to install iTunes on my fucking computer, ever; why I hate "lactivists"; why you are not allowed to tell me whether or not you think I should eat something unless you know me well enough to have an informed opinion--don't eat that it has gluten in it/don't drink that, you show every sign of needing glucose right now, not sucralose--fine--don't eat that IT HAS CALORIES/IS MURDER, fuck off; and so forth.)
I think you (like most of us) may have been trained not to recognise boundary violations masquerading as "help". There is nothing at all wrong with feeling defensive when your autonomy/boundaries are threatened. It's normal and healthy and the fact that lots of people treat boundary violations as friendly attempts to help (and then wonder why they feel bad about resenting them) does not actually say good things about the kind of society we live in.
(* I do use the library when I need to do research. I go there and read the books there and take notes; this is useful when I don't want to buy the book because I only need a small amount of info on that topic or know for a fact that I will buy ALL the books on the topic and never actually do anything with the information I needed. If I take them home, I will forget when they are due or where I put them, or a cat will do something obnoxious. This never happens with books that belong to people I care about, only ones I will have to pay fines on if they are late. I am not sure what the universe is trying to tell me here.)
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The lacktivist thing is an especial point of contention because, while my one attempt to carry a pregnancy to term ended amazingly badly and without a baby, I will never forget the frustration that ensued when attempting to explain to some of these people that I can do nothing about uterine exposure to psychotropic drugs since I need them to keep me sane, but there is absolutely no reason a baby needs to continue ingesting these once it's born, given that we do live in a part of the world where the clean water required for infant formula to be safe exists.
Plus that whole "my hormones make me crazier so getting them back to normal levels sooner rather than later is safer for me and the kid" thing. Postpartum psychosis is much more dangerous for a baby than not breastfeeding.
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I can get away with it + pantiliner, which is much cheaper than tampons or pads, so yay. It's sometimes uncomfortable, and sometimes the angle is wrong and then it leaks a lot. The best thing about it is that I can keep it in its little cloth pouch in my purse ALL THE TIME and then if I've lost track of my schedule I don't have to go into panic about eep I ran out of tampons last month and forgot to buy new ones.
I miss Insteads. Which are apparently not recommended in combination with IUDs. (For all I know, the cup isn't recommended with an IUD, but I DO NOT CARE; after over 15 years of use, it's obvious to me that the risks are pretty small, at least in my case.)
I don't get the evangelizing THIS DEVICE WILL CHANGE ALL OF WOMANHOOD thing; it's not like we all have the same shape of body, externally or internally.
I have failed to convince either of my teenage daughters that tampons might be worth trying. (I have no idea if this is a normal reaction, and my adaptation to tampons was because I'd been voluntarily inserting various objects into that area for years and had no discomfort with the general idea.) I would like to see more variety in menstrual products; I don't need to see any one of them touted as THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION. We're not going to have an "ultimate solution."
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