SHOOTING STARS

I know that there is a metaphor that is going to illustrate my point. I hope that I figure it out by the time I get to the end of this post. Yeah, it is one of those kind of days. The ideas are swirling around in my brain and I am reaching around and plucking them out, but I am not catching them in the "right" order so they aren't making a whole lot of sense. I know that once I have them all there will be a picture. Well, let's see what we get and go from there.

I always was this sickly kid. Turns out that I have tons of allergies. None of them are bad enough to kill me in singular doses, so I don't have to carry around an Eppi-Pen. However, my immune system is under constant attack ~ and frequently breaks down. It usually manifests itself in a sinus infection, sometimes bronchitis, occasionally pneumonia.

Obviously, allergies can be a serious business because they can be severe enough to kill a person. See the aforementioned Eppi-Pen. Some people have a severe enough reaction to a food that it shuts off their airway in minutes and they die. Allergies. People talk about them like they aren't a big deal. Not true. They can be a very big deal. If you have other problems, they can be an even bigger deal.

One more thing on someone with a host of allergies... They wear out the adrenal system. By making it work overtime (because the immune system is under constant attack), the adrenal system breaks down. This leads to chronic fatigue and hormonal imbalance and probably other problems. It's like a car breaking down. One system doesn't go down without it affecting other systems.

My grandpa was a verbal abuser. On Thanksgiving Day 1995, he was dressing down my mother, and I verbally let him have it. No one had ever done that before. It wouldn't be the last time I verbally knocked him out when I felt like he was out of bounds. The days of me standing around listening to him verbally beat people up ended that day.

I married a verbally abusive person. I never was able to stand up for myself, to him, the way that I stood up to my grandpa for other people. I don't understand that even now. I hope to get a handle on that one day. I was married to that guy for three years.

Eventually I dated another verbally abusive person. After I divorced the verbally abusive husband. Apparently, there was still a lesson that needed learning. His abuse was more manipulative than the husbands. It was different, but still bad. There was theft, cheating, lying, and he had a way of making me feel like I brought all of those things on myself. That is where the abuse part came in.

I have been dealing with migraines for years. Migraines are a disease. They have triggers. Some of them you can control. You can try to control them. I had the migraines more or less under control until I got married. Since then, they have not been under control. Actually, they started slipping out of my control before I got married. That should have been a sign. Stress is a big trigger. I kept telling myself that weddings are stressful.

People asked me for years if I had fibromyalgia. I told them no. I had no idea what it was. I looked it up on the Internet about three months ago after talking to a friend who had it because she thought my symptoms sounded a lot like fibromyalgia. Turns out that about 90% of the symptoms on the list were things that were my other aches and pains. Turns out you really shouldn't say "no" to something if you don't know what it is.

I think we are here for a reason. We experience every single thing for a reason. All things, good and bad, are giving us something to bring to the table for something in the future. It's a big picture thing that I don't have a handle on.

In Third World countries the doctors don't tell terminal patients that they are dying and how long that they have to live. Because they don't tell them, their brain doesn't hear that message and they don't die. Because they don't hear that they only have six months to live, they end up living five years. Our brains are very powerful.

Our brains can beat disease. Migraines are a disease. Fibromyalgia is a disease. Even battered women's syndrome is a mindset.

Am I pushing forward with the SSD to get the medicaid? Yes. Am I filing for bankruptcy? Yes. Am I going to continue to take my medication and see my doctors? Yes. I think I have good doctors. They are both willing to travel traditional and non-traditional paths. They both are interested in the root. They both understand that this is a system breakdown and they have their parts to play in helping my system get better.

Chris, over at A Deliberate Life, has written over and over again that her weightloss journey has been mind over matter. Obviously, just thinking about exercising is not what I am talking about. The most crucial moments in keeping going happened in her head. It was a mental battle. Isn't that the case with all of us? Quit or keep going? That decision-making happens in our heads. Am I going to give up or keep fighting?

And so am I back to what I said before. Our brains can beat disease. Damned if I know how. But I know it is possible because it has happened. People have done it. There is living proof out there. So, while the lawyers do their thing and the doctors do their thing, I am going to do my thing. I am going to figure this shit out. Thank you Linda Pressman for this song. Before this is said and done I might start liking something I used to hate. Egads. There is no "video." It's just the song. It's about what happens if you don't take chances. If you quit. So, no way am I quitting.

Don't forget to turn off my music player at the bottom of the page.