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Mar 15, 2011

What I Learned At A Lady Gaga Concert

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1. I’m old.

2. Because I’m old, I was only a little sad that I didn’t splurge on the standing-room-only floor tickets. When there was a 90 minute intermission between the opening act and the appearance of the Mother Monster, my feet and lower back appreciated my little seat. And the cup holder for my drink.

3. I’m not so old that I feel concerts are too loud. Sure, it was loud, but that’s exactly what I wanted.

4. I am old enough, however, to appreciate the role of Madonna in getting Lady Gaga to where she is today. Yes, Gaga has a great message of unity and accepting yourself, but you know Madge went there first. The torch has been passed and in its passing has been made brighter and stronger, but I remember when Madonna was first running with it.

5. It’s a lot harder to get out of your row to go to the bathroom when you have to step over the girl in a blue corset top and fishnet stockings who is already passed out in her seat from too much alcohol. And the opening act just finished.

6. I was severely under-dressed. I somehow missed the memo that this was a costume ball. The younger folks, however, did get the memo.

7. What I may lack in youth and beauty, I make up for in experience, wisdom and knowing how to dress for my body type.

8. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to wear spandex. Or fishnets. Or duct tape. Don’t they have friends?

9. Governors should not be allowed to attend Lady Gaga concerts. Because no matter how badass and free you feel at the concert, you lose some of that when you look over and see Governor Kasich sitting in section 205. It kinda felt like having your dad watching you at the concert.

10. But then I realize, hey, at least I’m not as old as him.

11. And I thank all that is mighty that he didn’t dress as a Little Monster. In spandex.

12. I apologize for planting that last image in your head.

13. I miss going to concerts. Aaron and I had a great time, and for 2+ hours I forgot about all of my responsibilities. (Other than remembering I had to go to work after the concert.) I may be old, but I realized I need to get out more often and just have fun.

14. But I won’t wear spandex. Or fishnets.

Filed Under: me me me, pop culture, random ·


Mar 10, 2011

Temptation

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Now that we’re in the season of Lent, temptation seems like a topic worth discussing. Seems like everyone I know is giving up something for Lent, with the most popular shunned items being desserts, chocolate, or candy. It’ll probably only be a few days before some of them will be faced with temptation as they walk past the pastries in the grocery or are offered a chocolate by a friend. They’ll have to make the conscious decision to say no and accept that they can’t have that food they so long for.

I’m not participating in Lent, but I’ve been feeling the steady pull of temptation for months now as I work at giving up my old ways to create a healthier lifestyle and body for myself. I’ve had to look temptation in the eye and say “no” many times. This includes second helpings of dinner, bags of potato chips and chocolates placed in front of me, and the urge to remain on the couch rather than make the effort to exercise.

When I first started this, I had to go nearly cold turkey with many foods. It was too tempting to have a bag of chips in the house, because I knew that even if I only meant to eat a few, the urge to finish the bag would be too strong and I’d lose my willpower. Seemed easier to simply avoid my trigger foods as much as possible until I could learn to live without them.

But I knew this wasn’t a good long term plan. If you cut out all of your favorite foods forever, you’ll eventually be overcome by temptation and feelings of being deprived. You know where that leads: eventually you scream “Screw it!” and dive into a bag of Hershey’s Kisses mouth first. After you polish off the bag, you’re left feeling miserable, both from the physical stomach-ache and from beating yourself up mentally with guilt.

I completely avoided trigger foods for a short while, then began slowly allowing myself reasonable portions. I still don’t keep potato chips at home, but when I see them at work, I allow myself to grab a handful and enjoy them slowly. At work I’m less likely to overeat, so it was the perfect place to reintroduce trigger foods. I’ll even buy foods I love and bring them to work rather than take them home – sharing them with others helps keep me from overeating.

However, this time of the year – and I’m talking about Shamrock Shake and Girl Scout cookie season for those who might not know – is particularly hard for me. I know these are LIMITED TIME foods that I’m urged to shovel into my mouth as fast as possible because soon they’ll be GONE GONE GONE! The marketing message is clear: eat all you can while they’re still here!

In the past, this trick worked well. I love Shamrock Shakes, so once the sign was up at my local McDonald’s, I was making sure to get one each time I stopped by, and I was more likely to stop there for a meal because of the shake. When they’d run out before the end of the month, I was genuinely sad. I didn’t know if I had managed to drink enough of them to satisfy my craving until the next year.

Sad, isn’t it?

This year? I have yet to have a Shamrock Shake, but I won’t go without. I’m planning to get one on St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m going to love every last sip of it. I’ve told myself for weeks now that I only need one shake to enjoy the taste – 12 shakes aren’t going to help me remember the taste for the rest of the year any better than one.

As for the Girl Scout cookies – we’ve purchased several boxes, and in our house they tend to go quickly. This year I bought snack-sized baggies and we opened up each box and immediately separated the cookies into individual serving size baggies. If I want Thin Mints, I grab a bag, which has a single serving size of 4 cookies in it. It reminds me what a serving is and keeps me from absentmindedly eating an entire sleeve of them or letting temptation whisper in my ear: What’s one more cookie? Look, it’s right there, no one will notice. Now how about another?

Losing weight sucks. It involves making several hard choices every single day, often choosing against behavior patterns I’ve been set in for years. Sloth and temptation are my enemies, disguised as the “old” me. But I’ve learned their game, and I know that it’s not an all or nothing deal. I can still have foods I love, just in moderation. I won’t let an ice cream cone bring on waves of guilt or shame – I’ll savor every bite and remind myself that small treats are awesome occasionally.

Temptation won’t defeat me.

Filed Under: food · Tagged: ,


Mar 7, 2011

Losing My Mind (And Finding It Again), Part 3

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(Continued from part 1 and part 2)

I’d like to say everything was sunshine and rainbows after that first pill, but that’s not the way it happened. I continued taking the pills as instructed, although I quickly found there were some side effects I didn’t like. My muscles tensed up sometimes. Occasionally my heart pounded hard and my head felt like it was in a vice. I wasn’t so sure the clear thoughts were worth the physical trade-offs. But it was easier to fall asleep without all of that noise in my head.

At my next check-up, I told everything to my doctor. First, she was amazed that I could sleep while taking the medication, saying many aren’t able to sleep and she often has to prescribe a sleeping pill as well. For the other symptoms, we agreed to try cutting the dose in half to see if it helped. She also suggested trying a different medication, but due to health insurance not covering any of these drugs, I needed to stick to the cheapest option.

Cutting the dose in half did help, and after a year and a half most of the physical symptoms have vanished. What I like the most about this medication is that it’s short-acting, so I only take it when I need it. This goes a long way in helping me feel like I’m not chained for life to a drug. If I know I’m going to need focus for a task, I take it. If it’s the weekend and we’ve got nothing planned, I skip it. My doctor encouraged me to take vacations from the medication, too, so that I don’t build up a tolerance and need a higher dose later. So far it seems to be working.

Even though the first time I took the medication I experienced complete silence in my head, it hasn’t remained that way. I still have to struggle for focus every single day. Some days are worse than others, but give my brain a chance to spin off in some random direction and it’ll quickly jump on it. The medication just makes my efforts for focus a little easier, and it provides a temporary defense so I can build up greater mental discipline against the waves of sensory onslaught that threaten to drown me on a daily basis.

At the end of last year, with my doctor’s guidance, I tried to stand alone without any pharmaceutical help. It had been over a year and I thought maybe I was ready. I wasn’t ready. By the end of a week I was a disorganized mess.

The hardest part of all of this has been the mixed reactions I get when I do tell people I have ADD. Some have been genuinely supportive and wonderful. Others have nodded and listened, but I could tell they didn’t quite believe me.

And some have been outright mean, stating that there’s nothing wrong with me and I’m just looking for an easy way to cope with a mind and life like any other. These people don’t believe in attention-deficit disorder, especially not for adults. I’m just lazy, weak in mind and discipline, and either I don’t have enough to do in life to sit around and think I have ADD, or I’m too busy and would be fine if I just cut out all of this “online” stuff and stuck to work and mothering.

(As you might guess, some of these people also don’t believe much in autism and think Cordy just needs more discipline.)

I can function now. I can carry a thought from the beginning to the end without losing it halfway through. I can do my job without struggling to push past random thoughts to retrieve the knowledge I need. I can focus on a conversation with a friend. It’s awesome.

I’m also still me, just more anchored in the moment than I was before. I can still recall obscure facts rapidly, I can still think several steps ahead of what I’m currently working on, and I have yet to be told that my personality has changed in any way other than being happier with my life.

This is all a journey, and I’m continuing to find my way through it. My focus still isn’t perfect. I may not need the medication in the future, or I may try a different medication when we have health insurance again. I don’t know how it will all play out. But I’m thrilled with the progress of the past year and a half, and I’m so thankful to feel like I’m in control of my mind again.

I’ve learned that mental disorders and illnesses are simply conditions and not something to be ashamed of. Seeking out help isn’t weakness, it’s taking care of yourself, just as you would diabetes or heart disease or an infection.

It’s good to be comfortable in my own head again.

Filed Under: clearly insane, me me me ·


Mar 4, 2011

Losing My Mind (And Finding It Again), Part 2

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*continued from part 1*

Attention-deficit disorder? No, I’d never really considered that possibility for myself. Sure, I’ve jokingly claimed that I have ADD at conferences from so much going on, but actually having ADD? That condition had never crossed my mind.

My older daughter has autism, and there have been plenty of times when I’ve thought that maybe her autism came from me. I certainly have several of the traits, but don’t quite fit the overall profile for it. However, ADD is a diagnosis for hyper kids, right? Like, someone who bounces off walls and can’t sit still and is too loud and too talkative? I have never, ever, ever been what someone might call hyperactive. The couch and I have always been good friends.

I gave my doctor a puzzled look. “ADD? But I don’t have any energy at all.”

She explained the difference between the hyperactive type of ADD and the inattentive type of ADD. It made sense, but hearing that I might have ADD – something I thought was primarily limited to kids – frightened me.

I told my doctor I was honestly unsure if that was the problem. She suggested a one month trial of medication to find out.

Having taken antidepressants before, I was unsure if a month would be enough time. Antidepressants usually take 4-8 weeks to begin working, so wouldn’t ADD medications work the same way?

“How long will it take to know?” I asked.

“I think you’ll have a good idea after one pill,” she responded.

One pill? Really? What the hell was in this stuff?

I left my doctor’s office with my prescription, went to the pharmacy, and took my little bottle of pills home. I still remember it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in October – not too warm, not too cold. Aaron wasn’t home, the girls were in school. It was just me and that little bottle.

Sitting on the couch, I took one pill out of the bottle and studied it in my hand. How could I know if this was the right diagnosis with just one small, round pill? Had my doctor lost her mind, too?

And then I wondered what would happen if it worked. Would I be chained for life to a pill? Would it change who I am? Would people treat me differently if they knew I had ADD?

I took a sip of water and swallowed the pill.

And then I waited.

My doctor said it would take 30 minutes or so for the medication to take effect. I counted the minutes on the clock as I sat in my quiet living room, mind racing with anxiety over what I had just done. All of my worried thoughts slammed into each other in a chaotic jumble that left me desperate to get out of my own head.

Unable to stand it anymore, I went upstairs and did some laundry to distract myself from my internal drama. After sorting clothing and starting the washer, I went back downstairs and resumed my wait on the couch.

I looked at the clock and realized it had been over 30 minutes. I didn’t really feel any different. Huh, I thought, maybe I don’t have ADD? I decided to stretch out on the couch and take a nap, disgusted that I got myself so worked up over nothing.

And that’s when I noticed it.

Silence.

No eight televisions all blaring thought fragments in my head. No songs competing for my attention. Just…quiet, along with intense focus and awareness.

My current thought about wondering if the med didn’t work was bouncing around in my head without any interference. It was crystal clear, like someone had taken a squeegee to my brain and removed all of the grime fogging it up.

I smiled. It felt great. I called Aaron and told him everything that had happened.

And I did take that nap, falling asleep more easily than normal.

Before I drifted to sleep, I remember saying out loud, with no one else to hear, “Apparently I do have ADD.”

—-
*Must break here. I didn’t intend for this to be so long, but it’s harder to write than I thought! The final part on Monday, and I swear it’ll be the final part.*

(Edited to add: Part 3 is now available.)

Filed Under: clearly insane, me me me ·


Mar 3, 2011

Losing My Mind (And Finding It Again), Part 1

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Different ways I considered to start this post:

“I’ve been called scatterbrained. Funny thing is, they were right.”

“Do I owe you an e-mail or a call? Sorry, that happens a lot with me.”

“I’m on a drug, it’s called Charlie Sheen…”

—-

There’s no easy way to start talking about losing your mind. I’ve already deleted and started over several times, scared what people will think of me for sharing this. But it’s felt like a big dark secret holding me back, and it’s possible others are going through the same struggle, so I’m going to tell my story.

*deep breath & imagining all of you in your underwear to reduce my anxiety*

—-

I love to sleep. When I sleep, everything is quiet. Getting to sleep, however, is always more of a struggle. Because even if the room is completely quiet, it sounds like a busy New York street in my head.

When I was younger, thoughts in my head were rapid and clear. I was bored in school because I picked up the subject quickly and was ready to move on long before everyone else. When working on a project, my mind was always focused one or two steps ahead of what I was doing.

High school and college were periods of time when I both loved and hated my brain. I was proud of being smart, of being able to pull answers to obscure questions from my grey matter in split seconds. It also didn’t make me popular – when a question was asked in class, it was nearly impossible for me to not raise my hand, as my brain was screaming at me I KNOW THE ANSWER! SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT!

But I also started to notice that it never stopped. My thoughts raced from dawn to well into the night, and if I went to sleep exhausted, it was mental exhaustion, not physical. I hated working on long projects or reading long books, because I was distracted long before it was finished. I was also a champion procrastinator, preferring the rush of cramming it all in at the last minute. I never thought it was a problem, just a side effect of having a good brain. I had youth on my side and used that youthful energy to battle the negative aspects and keep my brain in line.

As I’ve grown older, the speed at which I think is still the same, but I’ve slowly grown more and more unable to deal with it. After all, it never stops. Never.

The best way to describe it is to imagine being in a room with 8 televisions and 2 radios on. They’re all loud, and all feature things you are thinking about. The songs compete for your attention, and as soon as you’re interested in something on one television, another one becomes even louder and drowns it out.

I hate having a brilliant thought for a post in my head, and just as I start to ponder how to develop it, another thought cuts in and suddenly I can’t remember the first one at all. Gone, just like that. Sure, it happens to all of us at some point, but I’m grasping at stray thoughts all day long, trying desperately to give my attention to the thoughts that are important, thoughts I can’t risk forgetting.

My memory is actually pretty good, when it makes enough of an impression for me to remember. If I’m eating lunch while distracted, though? I wouldn’t even be able to recall what I ate later that day. And at night, my thoughts keep going even when I want to stop. Moments of the day replay, random thoughts make quick drive-by passes just to perk my mind and keep it alert, and of course a song is always stuck in my head.

What I hate the most, though, is letting people down. Forgetting to send an e-mail to someone to check on them. Being unable to have a long talk with a friend who is hurting – looking them in the eyes while fighting internally to keep my thoughts on what they’re saying when my mind tries desperately to wander. (And I DO care! I want to listen! My mind is just bringing up random thoughts and there’s a bird in the tree behind you that is really pretty.)

Throughout my twenties, I visited my doctor several times for symptoms that I thought were depression: I was tired all the time, I had trouble falling asleep, I had no attention towards my work, I felt fuzzy-headed and down. Each time I was treated for depression, despite everything going well in my life at the time. The meds helped me cope, but did little to help stop my racing mind.

After becoming a mom, my coping abilities failed as my responsibilities increased. If I only had to take care of myself, I could get by, but adding kids to the mix quadrupled the number of things I had to keep track of and guaranteed that something was always forgotten. And, to add to the cacophony inside my head, I now had bone-chilling anxiety screaming what if? at me as well.

A year and a half ago, I went back to my doctor. I was exhausted, I was fuzzy-headed, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I nearly broke down in tears as I told my doctor about locking our door at night, telling myself that I locked it, going upstairs to bed, and then being completely unable to remember if I’d locked the door or not, requiring me to go check again. I explained how my mind was a jumble, and it was getting harder and harder to think through an entire thought without losing it somewhere along the way.

I was convinced I had Alzheimer’s or early onset dementia, and I was scared. My thoughts were clear and speedy when I was younger, why were they failing me now? Was this the beginning of a slow slide into forgetting everything?

That office visit went far longer than I expected. My doctor looked back through my history, and we discussed practically everything I’ve written here and so much more. Blood tests were run to check practically everything that could be checked, and they were all amazingly normal.

And then my doctor asked, “Have you ever thought you could have attention-deficit disorder?”

Really?

Part two coming very soon, I promise. 

(Edited to add: Part 2 is now available.)

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Filed Under: clearly insane, me me me, memories ·