The next step, disconnection, love/hate me

The last several days have flown by. I've been a bit busy and had to stop and ask myself or consult my phone to remember what day it was. Anyway, I have been out of the house a lot, helping some friends run errands and taking them to appointments. It kind of caught up with me yesterday. Last night I had pain from the middle of my back down to my toes and it hurt to breathe. I had to take a pain pill and go to bed early. However, it didn't do me much good because I couldn't get comfortable and ended up only sleeping two hours. I've spent the last three surfing the internet with that groggy, hungover, heavy feeling from the pain pill.  

I am too fucking young for this shit.

But it brings me to something that is uncomfortable: the disconnect between myself and my body. My therapist is moving me toward addressing it since I've had the hysterectomy and my new depression meds seem to be working out for me. She also has me reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. The books is basically about learning to let go of all the crap and learning to be self accepting and  'enough'. The second chapter has been difficult for me, it's about cultivating self compassion. That seems to be a theme of sorts that keeps popping up. 

Yesterday a friend of mine shared this video by Dove about 'real beauty'.  

 

In it the woman talks about a disconnection of her with her body and love affair she'd been missing. It made me cry because I have the desire to love my body, to be happy with it, to be 'enough', but I hate it. I feel that my body has betrayed me. When I look at myself in the mirror I see me but I don't feel connected to it. It's like I see myself but I think that's not my body. It doesn't feel right. It's complicated, compounded by years of PCOS, Fibromyalgia, and a herniated disk in my lower back. I feel as if my body has stolen so much time and life from me. It has ripped dreams from my hopeful hands and laughed in my face replacing them with pain and blood. I hate it. I want to punish my body for being a monstrous, vicious whore bitch. I have punished it before. I've been so angry that I've beaten myself with my fists. I've cut myself. I've fantasized about taking a gardening trowel and raking my skin off or just cutting chunks of me off. And all the while I hear my Grandpa's voice in my head saying "you used to be such a pretty girl". 

I told Amanda yesterday that I really would be content being heavier if I could wear the clothes I dream of wearing. I don't need to be a size 10 or less. I would be happy at size 18-20. I don't need perfect. I need functional. I need to be able to live, to go places and do things and not be afraid to do so. I don't even care about being pain free, I can deal with pain, I have for a long time, we are old friends. I know how to navigate the fibro and bad back days. I just want to enjoy life, to love myself and be connected to all of me, to kick ass in my own unique way not struggle through anymore. 

All of that said, there is some light in all of this. I've let go of trying to be the 1950s house wife with a career and kids and avid church goer that my Grandma wanted me to be. I'm a house wife for sure, but I'm slowly letting the expressions of me come out and saying fuck all to anyone who has a problem with it. That's progress for a people pleaser I think.

Death Parade, Pissed off Grandma a little bit, a world of anger, frustration, and hurt, can't stop crying.

I really want snow, even more than I did the last time I posted. 

Amanda and I have begun watching Death Parade. It;s an interesting anime about beings who judge where people go when they die. 

In other news I pissed off my Grandma by saying that my friend Felicia's eldest sister insisting that she take her Autistic and probably psychopathic daughter to church will basically be a cure all wasn't going to help anything or be worth it. I said that church can't and won't fix her. My reasoning is that the person going to church has to want to go, has to have a desire for it help. The child in question doesn't care about anything or anyone but herself. Its not her fault, mentally she just doesn't operate that way. What is important is getting her into extensive therapy so she doesn't end up hurting herself or those around her in the mean time and in the long term, doesn't end up dead or in jail.

Speaking of said child, I admit to hating her last night. I allowed myself to hate her for a few hours, let myself feel that emotion, and told myself that I could be irrational and selfish but that tomorrow- which is now today- I needed to let that go. So far so good. The reason for my hostile feelings spring from the fact that Felicia and her husband told us last night that they are moving back to Arizona. It all boils down to their eldest daughter. Felicia is the first person since I left Kansas that I could feel completely relaxed around, let my guard down around, and she didn't judge me for just being me. She's my soul sister and I got attached her and her family, and now they are leaving. So, I can't stop crying. I cried the whole way home from their house, I cried a couple of times last night, and I've cried off and on all morning. Felicia admitted to me last night that she is worried about me. Yeah, well, so is my therapist to be honest. 

I've seen some upsetting things on the internet- mostly facebook- the last couple of days. Someone shared a video of speech by some guy of a group called Alt-Right. I saw hitler salutes in the vid, I heard disturbing things said, and I was left a little scared and disgusted. I can't believe in this day and age, when this fucking planet has so much going for it, there is still so much racism. I've seen a story abut a little black boy getting attacked too. Hate crimes are on the rise, there was even a guy in South Africa who was kidnapped and two white men tried to stuff him in a coffin. Who does that to a person?! On top of it, there's all the crap happening in South Dakota with the stupid pipeline. Plice are spraying Native Americans with water cannons, shooting them with rubber bullets, and mace and just because they want to protect water. I am tried of racism, politics, stupid people, and I just want snow. 

On a more positive note, I now have a gynocologist. Amanda took the day off to go with me because I don't want to go alone. Still working on a new doctor. I have to wait until the office is open again and go fill out a medical records release form, have my doctor fax my records to the new doctor where he will look them over and let me know if he wants to take me on or not. 

Other than that, I did do a little black friday shopping today. I went to Joann's fabic and craft store and spent 35 dollars and apparently saved 106 dollars. I basically just got some supplies for xmas/yule presents, found a couple of Halloween clearance items, found 5 sewing patterns (they had a 5 for 5 dollars sale), and got the heck out of there.   

On the matter of Fred Phelps Sr. A well hated man, black mark on my home state.

Yesterday I learned that Fred Phelps is dead. On Facebook I wrote: "Oh it's that kind of a day. On the upside, Fred Phelps is gone from the world. I don't think I am going to celebrate that no matter how disgusting I thought he was. I just don't care enough to feel anything." Later I learned that his family isn't a going to hold a funeral. Wait what? You're kidding me? Okay, I'm a bit peeved, but I will get to that in a moment.

Now, I am from Kansas, Wichita to be exact so I've actually seen the Phelps family and their cohorts, in Wichita, protesting with their ugly signs of hate. I think my Dad has even run into Fred Phelps' daughter (the lawyer), and if he hasn't I've at least heard him talking about her. In order to better understand the Phelps, I even watched a documentary on their family that Skoora found on the Internet. And there have been so many news articles about them plastered all over the web. Needless to say, I know who they are and what they are about.

The Phelps family delights in horrible events, in war, and they shit on the very country they seem to enjoy living in and the freedoms and rights this country grants them. Don't even get me started on what they say and do to the military. They "Thank God" for cancer and IEDs (improvised explosive device). They scream that everyone is going to hell because we don't believe the way they do, because some of us have different sexual orientations, different religious and political views, and different lifestyles. In the interview I saw, they seemed to have delighted in digging up the interviewers background and told him repeatedly that he was going to hell because he didn't live like they did. They picket funerals. Why picket a funeral, the person is dead, all you are doing is causing the family and friends of the deceased pain and that what's more, they seem to get off on it. Causing others pain makes them happy. That's not the true mark of a Christian.

As a Pagan and as a young woman in a 6 year lesbian relationship, you'd think that I might find them threatening. Well, I don't. The Phelps have made me very angry in the past, furious even. What they say and do disgusts me. Sometimes, when I see them mentioned, or I see one of their signs via a news article I get upset, but I try to just let it go. If I let them affect me, they win. Why should we let them win? Why should we let them have any sort of satisfaction what so ever? They don't deserve it.

Now as for them not giving Fred Phelps Sr. a funeral, that's just plain cowardice. What? Are they afraid that the very people they've hurt and alienated might show up to give them a taste of their own medicine? It would certainly serve them right! However, you know what I've seen from most of my friends (Christian, LGBTQ, Pagan and so forth), you know us 'evil-going-to-hell-folks'? Nothing of the sort. A lot of people feel sad for the family that they have to go through the loss of losing someone they cared about. A lot of people are reminding their friends to pray to the Phelps family, to extend sympathies and love to these walking monsters.

That's wonderful! Good for you for taking the high road. Hell, some people might be trying to "kill" the Phelps' brand of hatred with kindness and that's good I suppose, but why extend the effort at all? They don't care. They hate you remember? You're nothing and you're going to hell in their opinion. For my own part, I just don't care. I say we do nothing. I say we don't send them love, prayers, sympathy, or even best wishes. I say we ignore them. Become indifferent to them. Sure, it won't stop the problem, but if we stop letting them bother us, then their words and ugly hate signs don't mean anything.