Things about me most people know:
I’m divorced
I have a kid who just turned 21 who lives at home
I get migraines
I have allergies
I work in healthcare IT
I come from a large family
I love to eat
I am a geek
Things most people don’t know about me:
I have had seven surgeries
When I was 4 they thought I had a form of cancer. I overheard the discussion the doctors had with my mom about this. This greatly shaped my view of death.
The first surgery I had they cut me open completely from chest to pubic bone. They weren’t sure where the what turned out to be a cyst was. Because of this I had to learn how to use my stomach muscles again and learn to walk again. It also means my abs will always be kinda weak. No 11s for me.
I spent almost the total of a year in hospitals between the age of 2 and 10.
My kidneys work at 75% and 50% of normal
When they had to do another surgery at 15 they went through and cleaned out a bunch of scar tissue. It had formed (very painfully) while I grew up because I grew. Scar tissue looks like cling wrap on an ultrasound.
I have asthma
I have POTS - postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome
My thyroid likes to randomly break on me
I have been dealing with depression, anxiety and survivors guilt pretty much my whole life
I have impeccable recall (was a lot stronger when I was younger but you know, getting old) - example, I still remember my Aunt’s credit card number she used to order a pair of jeans from the yellowed phone at my grandparents when I was 4. I have been trying very hard to turn it off my whole life, it is actually not fun.
Though I remember events and actions, I am actually not good with dates and names. This is why I use lists.
Though I have never been formally diagnosed with ADD, I do present a lot of the symptoms. This can make me come across as rude when I get sucked into something with intense focus (my family teases me about how I watch movies) or scattered because I can jump from thing to thing very quickly (hence the need for lists).
I have lost a lot of people. Part of the reason for survivors guilt - I got to leave the hospital, not everyone else did. But I have lost a lot of others along the way. I had buried roughly 30 people I cared about by the time I graduated high school.
Okay - I know - a lot there - not even all of it (only covered through 18 - life is funny that way) but you probably need a breath and are wondering - WHY IS SHE TELLING ME ALL OF THIS?
Honestly, because I don’t talk about it. I might make reference in certain circumstances where it is relevant. Normally just to help give credence to what I am saying if someone is going through something similar. But I don’t normally talk about it.
Why? Because it’s pointless to. When I was younger I was obsesses with the things that have happened to me. In an effort to make sense of it I felt I need to take a deep dive into all of it. It was all part of my identity, right? It made me who I am. But as I got older, I realized that was incredibly dangerous.
If I focus on all of that, it’s overwhelming. It feels like a giant weight holding me down. I can’t do something because of those issues. They told me no before I even asked the question or someone like a doctor could. I help helpless and hopeless. Which of course fed right into the depression.
But here’s the thing. That’s all bullshit. Yes, that list can be seen as a lot but so what. People have it way worse than me who do a lot more, so it isn’t an excuse unless I make it one.
I practice aggressive ownership. I am responsible for everything that happens in my life. So if I can’t do something, that’s on me. Not something from the list, not some other person, not the government, school, job, etc. It’s on me.
I do this because first and foremost because it’s true. I am responsible for my own life. All of it. It is a hard thing to accept but once I did, things got a lot easier. I have one life to live, why the hell do I want to give control of it to anything or anyone else? That’s why I make jokes about my body trying to kill me or when ugly thoughts from depression pop in my head separate it out from me. By taking control I acknowledge that things can impact me, even things that my own body and mind do, but it is still not necessarily ME. And I can do things to help address it. It becomes a challenge to overcome, not something to victimize me.
Now I know what you are thinking - what if you get hit by a car, you are not responsible for that. Well as long as I didn’t do something careless like turn left on a red light then yes, technically I’m not. But to show you what I really mean lets take a much more insidious example from right after I became an Adult.
I was raped in college. I worked at a Dairy Mart, it was winter and I just got off my shift, a classmate from my Physics class offered to drop me off at my dorm on his way to a party. He wanted to swing by his off campus apartment to pick up some CDs. He invited me in while he grabbed them. I still have a small scar on the back of my head from where it hit the wooden arm of an old 80s couch.
Was I responsible in any way for the rape? Fuck no. That piece of shit was. He decided to do it. He is the one that had to prove he had control over my body instead of me (let’s be honest, rape isn’t about sex, it’s about control, it just uses sex in the way a murderer uses a knife). It is ENTIRELY HIS FAULT. And as a person who has some AMAZING guy friends who I have never once had to be concerned about so I know that asshole is the exception, no, there is no excuse for his behavior and I did nothing wrong. I could have not accepted the ride or gone upstairs to his place sure, but neither of those change the fact that asshole is an asshole and fully responsible for his own actions.
Now I might not be responsible for the rape, just like I am not responsible for a cyst growing, my thyroid breaking or being part of a mass layoff or my boyfriend cheating (examples folks, I’m good at the moment). But I am responsible for how I handle it.
At first I curled up and dove deep into it. Like couldn’t walk across campus because of the fear and anxiety I had. I tried to work on processing how I felt and kept going deeper and deeper into it to try and address it. That failed, miserably.
Then after a couple of years, I tried to ignore it. Treat it like it didn’t happen. Not super helpful. Would pop up and mess with me, normally in relationships. Not good.
Then I finally realized a few things. I need to take responsibility for it. Not the act itself, but how I was handling it. Dwelling on it didn’t let me move on from it and ignoring it just ignored something that did shape who I was now. But if I took responsibility I got to own it. That ass was never going to apologize for what he did, and even if he did, would it change anything? No. So I had to own it. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to for my own sake. And by owning it, it became a challenge to overcome. I wasn’t a victim anymore but just another thing I had to take care of.
And like a
Holy crap that changed everything. Do you know how much easier life is when things are in essence items to be addressed instead of happening to you?
I have had two of the seven surgeries as an adult. Dealt with divorce, post-partum depression, job layoffs, going back to school, breakups, hospitalizations, deaths. But I have an easier time rolling with it because I’m not focusing on why this is happening to me. Life is random. Shit will happen. I can’t prevent it. I can do things to prepare for some of it but lets be honest, a meteor could come tomorrow and no idea how to prepare for that.
But what I can do is take a step back and see it for what it is. A challenge. Even if it was sentient and for some reason and hated my guts and was like “I will destroy you!!!” it’s on me on whether I let it’s view of the situation (it wants me to be it’s victim of destruction) be my view too. Now obviously I might want to have a conversation with this meteor and see why it hates me so much. Did I do something that ticked it off? Should I apologize? Do I even care that this meteor I never met before hates me? But those are my decisions and actions to make. It doesn’t get to tell me how to feel, act or think. That’s mine. I own it.
I know for some this probably seems a bit crazy, but I have been through somethings and this works for me. I am fairly successful in my career, have had pretty decent relationships and have pretty strong ties to my family and friends. So at least it works for me.
But this is why I don’t talk about that stuff. Not because it isn’t important, not because it hasn’t impacted me, it’s just not important that you all know about it. I am who I am because of all of it. So you either like me or you don’t. The reasons for who I am shouldn’t need to come into play.