Dueling Thoughts
It’s been at least 4-5 months since I last sat down to write...a few months since I logged into Instagram. Since the pandemic hit in March, I felt like I had nothing worthwhile to say out loud and everything I was consuming felt forced, superfluous, superficial.
I recently read a memoir by The Minimalists and they talked a lot about how if they were going to publish something, that it needed to add value to someone’s life. Even though a lot has been going on in the background, none of it felt particularly share-worthy or insightful...but then I started thinking about how I can’t really know if anything I write will ever actually add value to someone’s life, so I may as well just get it out in the open anyway. Seems kind of arrogant to assume that anything you write will ever even get read, much less valued or appreciated.
Maybe I’m embarrassed or ashamed of my constantly dueling thoughts these days. As fellow community members are leaving the safety and comfort of their homes to demonstrate against police brutality and racism and standing up for the Black Lives Matter movement, I’m hidden away in the suburbs, drenched in privilege and white liberal guilt.
When I started to go on and on about these dueling thoughts to a dear friend, she recommended I see a therapist. “But isn’t EVERYONE struggling with these same things?! I can’t be alone in this?!
She said, “I learned that we’re really only wired to deal with 1-2 major life changes at a time.”
Well, that explains a lot.
Pandemic and three-month quarantine
Working from a living room office with my partner
Major (needed) social unrest and resulting civil division/polarization
Recent Lupus diagnosis and everything that comes with that
Bitsy the Cat Hyperthyroidism diagnosis and everything that comes with that
Uninhabitable apartment due to bird shit being sprayed all over it and now having to find a new apartment in the middle of a pandemic in 7 days
Experiencing feelings that nothing matters and everything matters all at once
Unsteady relationship due to all of the above
Months ago, I was struggling with serious health issues, but kept getting stuck with doctors who tried to diagnose the surface-level problem and not the underlying cause.
“You’ve got some kind of skin irritation happening. I’m not a dermatologist, so let’s just put you on a blood pressure medication that also happens to help with acne.”
“But I’ve already got really low blood pressure and this isn’t acne.”
“Here’s your spironolactone prescription. Get a urine test in a few weeks. It can mess with your potassium levels.”
“Oh, okay, great.”
After a month of suicidal ideation, extreme mood swings, chest pain, continued eczema, and severe exhaustion, I saw a dermatologist.
“Yeah, this isn’t acne. Get off of that medication immediately and instead use this topical hydrocortisone cream. You’ve got severe eczema.”
“But why?”
“Don’t know. See you in a month to see how the cream works”
“Oh, okay, great.”
A few months of using the cream, my eczema was clearing up, but the skin on my fingers was nearly translucent from such harsh ingredients rubbed on it daily.
I slowly started to notice that I was constantly picking piles of hair off my shoulder. Probably just a side effect of the stress of everything going on right now. But then I started clogging up the shower drains and the dustpan and the vacuum and noticed that my hairline was recessed and my bangs were nearly bald.
This is more than eczema. Something is not right.
Although I continued to train for my April marathon, I could feel that something was off. While I was running nearly every day, my fitness was seemingly getting worse, I was gaining weight like crazy even though I didn’t increase my calorie intake, my skin was getting rough and red, and after my long runs I was in such bad shape that I’d shut down on the couch, vomit, and pass out.
This is just what happens when you’re running 30 miles a week though, right?
Since I was 19, I’ve been a vegetarian and on-and-off-again vegan. For the last 16 years, I’ve normalized and giggled away my severe flatulence and bloating. All those bowls of beans, right?! hehe. #VegetarianLife, amiright? We only know our own bodies, so we’ll talk ourselves silly into believing that what we’re experiencing is normal because we don’t know anything else. Beans make us farty. I eat a lot of beans = this is what it feels like after I eat food.
A few years ago, one of my friends was experiencing incredibly painful periods, but talked herself into believing that this is how periods feel, until finally she sought some help and learned that she had one of the most severe cases of endometriosis that one can have.
If talk about gas and poo makes you uncomfortable, I’d highly recommend skipping this section.
As my hair started covering all of our apartment surfaces, I also noticed a drastic uptick in my gut discomfort. Nick and I have been dating for five years, so he just politely smiles at me now when I’m “recovering” after a meal. Even he mentioned that it sounded like the majority of my time was now spent “decompressing” (I’m trying to be polite here, but there are only so many alternative words for fart). Soon enough I no longer had any regular poo consistency or poo schedule and was gathering that something that I was eating on the daily was not working in my favor.
During the quarantine, one of my few daily routines is going on an afternoon and evening walk with a podcast. An hour into one of my evening walks, I was struck by an immediate need for a toilet. Since all of the public restrooms were closed, I knew that this was not going to end well. I was a mile from home and there was no way that I was going to make it. I called Nick, begging him to hurry up or I was going to shit my pants on a public street. A minute after hanging up, I dove into some bushes off of a major road and prayed that nobody could see me. I hung my head, slowly climbed out when the cars had passed, and waited for Nick to come save me from the horror that is white shorts and Indian food.
That was the third time this had happened in a month.
I looked up a different doctor the next day and told the nurse all of my symptoms:
Joint pain in my hands, knees, and ankles
Severe eczema
Gas, bloating, inability to go on walks without shitting myself
Major hair loss in a few weeks
Chest pain
Gained 12 pounds
Lost 20 pounds
Oral ulcers
Nasal ulcers
Never-ending ruminating anxiety
Constant exhaustion
“I know that you’re limiting the types of appointments that you’re seeing right now due to COVID, but please, I need to be seen as soon as possible.”
“Let me share all of this with the doctor and see when we might be able to get you in.”
I was quite fortunate that they took me seriously and scheduled an appointment for the next morning. A pal from high school who had recently been diagnosed with Lupus reached out to me and shared that a lot of what I was experiencing was similar to what she was experiencing.
“I think you have Lupus too.”
Her biggest piece of advice for me going into my appointment was to know exactly what tests I needed them to run and to not be told that it is acne, or eczema, or a simple food allergy, but something that is connecting all of this together - an autoimmune disease - probably Lupus.
I went in armed with pages of notes from research and told this new doctor exactly what I needed her to do for me. She was attentive, empathetic, and completely on my side the second I sat down. She ran an EKG for my chest pain, all of the blood tests, urine tests, etc.
A few days later, she called with the results.
“All of your markers point to Lupus. I’m going to refer you to the Lupus specialist at UW Health who can look at your numbers and decide if my diagnosis aligns with theirs, but your numbers are well over the “high” markers. There’s really no debating what we’re seeing here. You’re also one number away from the range of being diagnosed with Celiac, so you probably have that too, but we can test again in a few months.”
If you don’t know anything about autoimmune diseases (I didn’t until I did my pre-appointment research), if you get diagnosed with one, you’re probably going to find out that you have an accompanying little AI disease that goes with it. Mine seems to be Celiac disease, which would explain why I’ve felt terrible for 16 years and why I’ve been pooing in the woods out of nowhere.
This is where my dueling thoughts begin.
This is where my avoidance comes in.
This is where my white fragility comes in.
This where my guilt comes in.
I’m so healthy! I eat right. I’m training for a freaking marathon. I move my body every day. I don’t eat red meat. I don’t smoke. I rarely drink alcohol. My biggest vice is orange sparkling water. My wildest entertainment is books and coffee! Why is my body rejecting itself at 35 years-old?
At least it’s not cancer. This is chronic and lifelong, but it’s not a death sentence. It’s two pills a day for the rest of your life. It’s not radiation. It’s not terminal. I just need to change my diet, avoid the sun, and never run again! I’ll be FINE. Fine. Fine.
I hate this. I hate losing my hair. My lifestyle is changing too much, too quickly.
Why are you getting so worked up about an autoimmune disease? There are issues so much bigger than your personal health right now. There are innocent black people being killed by police! There are protesters being kidnapped by the military! Our media is being hushed. Our democracy is crumbling! Truth is no longer truth! Innocent tiny children are
still caged without their parents!
I wish I could afford a mortgage. We need more space if we’re going to work from home for the next year. I wish we made more money. I wonder if I’ll ever get a promotion? I can’t believe how expensive Madison is. We’ll never be able to afford to buy property here.
I am so lucky. I am so fortunate. I love my company. People have lost their jobs, are struggling to pay their bills, are losing their homes! I’m making personal, professional, and financial progress right now. Stop being so damn greedy. These “problems” are insignificant.
I want to get involved. I want to stand up for what is right. I want to be a part of the movement. I don’t want to be a bystander. I can’t stomach the idea that I was a person who just stood by and watched this happen from my living room.
I’m too scared to leave the safety of my apartment right now. I’m scared that I’m going to get even sicker than I already am. I’m scared of being pulled off of the streets by my own government. I’m not courageous. Other more courageous people are doing the work. You’ve shown courage before - what makes this feel so different? What will happen to me if I get sick? I don’t want to die.
It’s okay to not be okay right now.
I have no reason to not be okay! I’m just sitting at home, retreating to my books, working my normal job from the comfort of my apartment!
I’m avoiding.
I’m distracting myself.
Gotta keep busy.
Everything’s fine.
Everything’s normal.
What can I do today that feels normal?
Time to pick up the skill of bookkeeping.
Time to start a small bookkeeping business.
Time to finally take that real estate licensing class.
Time to buy that new house.
Time to research other potential cities.
Time to obsess over my daily budget.
Time to research other countries to move to.
Time to pick up a part-time job.
Time to start investing.
Time to start home brewing.
Time to pick up that ukulele.
Time to pick up that keyboard.
Time to pick up another part-time job.
I’m okay with working around a ton of people at a grocery store, but I’m telling myself that it’s too dangerous to join the protests?
I’m a hypocrite.
I’m a scared hypocrite.
I’m a white, fragile, scared hypocrite.
Therapy starts on Monday. We’re only meant to deal with 1-2 big life changes at a time.