For the past two weeks, I've been getting random bellyaches. It's not only unpleasant and painful, but also scary. I wonder if I am getting an ulcer, if my fibro-related IBS has taken a turn for the worse, or worse yet, if I have cancer. Because I have so many "food sensitivities" (I am told not to call them allergies), I of course suspect that I am eating something that disagrees with me. But what?
Yesterday, I ate breakfast and had no pain, but after lunch, I developed a stomachache. This is what I ate: a small stir-fry with ¼ pound of shrimp, broccoli and mushrooms. For seasoning, a little white wine. Since I've never had a problem with the veggies or seafood, I suspect the wine. For dinner, I have ¼ pound scallops, red cabbage and mushrooms. No white wine, no tummy ache.
Today, I have a different breakfast, no tummy ache. For lunch, I have 6 oz tilapia with broccoli and mushrooms, no wine, no tummy ache. For supper, salmon, mushrooms and yellow squash. No wine. So far, no tummy ache—BUT I may not have waited long enough yet.
If I get no tummy ache, does it prove anything? Nope. Could have been a bug that is gone now, or something else. What I need to do is repeat it, without and WITH the wine—see if I can replicate the results. Even then, it could be coincidental. Or not.
I don't know any reason why wine would give me a tummy ache. I don't know it's the wine. But it might be. I don't know any other way to find out, do you? The doctors never seem to have any answers. Or, not enough of them to help with all the issues that crop up. So I keep trying, a little bit at a time, to keep myself healthy and safe, experimenting with a sample size of one: me.
I had a bad night last night—again. And my fibro is worse again, after a couple days of much improvement. I don't know why. I wish I did!
I am reading (rereading) Opening Up by James W. Pennebaker, PhD. It is a book about the importance of opening up, sharing talking, disclosing. Those who talk and write about their problems are supposedly healthier according to a whole slew of studies than those who don't, unless the people have a role-with the punches personality. Apparently, according to this book, there are three major ways to divide personalities for the purpose of this discussion:
Pennebaker says a large portion, 30-50% (and he gives studies) of the personality is genetic and another large portion is environmental (the old nature-nurture issue). People are born with a tendency toward one of those personality types and either strengthen or weaken that association as they grow.
The general conclusion seems to be that talking and writing about stress and trauma helps the mind AND BODY heal.
However, there is a limit to how much "complaining" we can do. He writes in the book that the social pressure of our society is toward inhibition and nondisclosure—no one likes a "complainer." But studies have shown (and I have read this else where as well), that complainers tend to live longer and compliant quiet people die sooner of breast cancer, heart disease etc.
Unfortunately, you just can't keep complaining to the same people because they get burnt out!!!! That's why I created The Unbearable Darkness of Being—as a place to complain without repercussions.
I think I am a strange mixture of types 2 and 3—I am very uninhibited in some ways and very inhibited in others. Asthma, fibromyalgia and insomnia are all stress-related diseases, diseases that are exacerbated by stress. I tend to take things hard and be more stressed by them than most people. I need to find ways to ameliorate stress, but on the other hand, I can't spend the whole day sitting cross-legged saying "om" or doing T'ai chi or running or relaxing, and if complaining helps, I am going to wear out all my friends.
The problem is that the problems don't go away. Long after everyone is tired of hearing about it, I'm still in pain, I still have trouble walking, I still can't sleep (and it drives me nuts.) I guess that's why they have groups for those afflictions—people who suffer the same problems. You can keep talking to them about it because they keep suffering too and know what long term ongoing chronic pain is like.
Thursday, September 08, 2005; 7:42:47 AM
I am feeling sad again. It's not something that I want to keep talking about—no one wants to hear it. I am sad and depressed. I think the main reason is that I couldn't sleep last night and now I am tired. I'm discouraged because in spite of trying really hard to not eat any offensive foods, I still couldn't sleep! Of course, I'm not sure that the foods are the culprit. But they seem to be.
When I don't sleep, I feel really tired and my fibromyalgia seems to be worse. There was a study where they took healthy people and deprived them of sleep and they developed fibromyalgia. Or fibromyalgia-like symptoms.
I should be happy, or at least a little happy, because we actually took one step toward making my office in the ex-TV room upstairs. We removed the TV and the big chair with its pile of junk and moved the couch into a new position to make room for my desk. But I can see that all the other junk is not going to fit in here, the filing cabinets and so on. I don't want to move the couch out because at least at the moment, it is where we gather for stories at night and that is an important family ritual. But if we don't move the couch, half the office will be in one room and half in another or maybe even spread out more than that to several rooms. This will spread the clutter around the house and make organizing my stuff more difficult. Well, we'll have to see how things develop.
I am happy in an intellectual way, but I don't feel happy. I do feel slightly encouraged, because when the desk is ready, I will move my computer and the bird and be over the hump where I am really living more here than there. Maybe eventually, I will actually get rid of the house in Kimbrook and live in Detroit. Get divorced and get remarried. I hope so, I cannot believe how long this is all taking. It seems absurd!
I think I don't "feel" happy because my emotions are "depressed" by tiredness. I like it much better when I actually feel happy. Of course I prefer to feel happy and energetic rather than tired, depressed and sluggish. I wish I could sleep at night and feel better during the day.
Right now, I am sorting through the pile of junk that has been sitting for months on one cushion of the chair. Some of it is mine and some of it is Keith's. Some of it is garbage and some is important. I need to do that in order to make a space to move the card table that the computer (Della, Keith's computer) is on so that we can begin setting up the desk. YAY! YEBA! Slow progress is better than no progress, right?
The whole thing creates its own "downward" or negative spiral. What I want to know is, what can I do to turn it around to create a positive spiral.
--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary
050906 MP Tuesday, September 06, 2005; 11:11 AM I feel a sense of pressure. I feel a little overwhelmed. I feel tired and depressed. I feel as if I am on the edge—on the edge of exploding, on the edge of anger. I am not happy or well and for no particularly good reason that I can readily determine. I AM TAKING A BREAK TO WRITE BECAUSE I FEEL AS IF I must WRITE. I FEEL DESPERATE. Oh dear, those cap locks were not intentional but they may as well have been. I suppose.
I love Keith and I am happy to be in a relationship with him, but at the same time, I feel as if somehow I am being lost.
He may well feel the same way.
I just read this morning that widowers tend to remarry within two years and those that do tend to be unhappy, because they need to talk about their dead wives and the new wives, for appropriate reasons, don't want to talk about the other women their husbands loved. The lack of ability to talk about their dead wives and their grief is not good for their health. They need to talk about it. They need to discuss what happened and how they feel about it.
I believe this and I have upon occasion invited Keith to talk about Susan in the past, but he rarely does, and I can't blame him, because of course it upsets me terribly to imagine him loving another woman, being intimate with her and so on. I don't even like to write about it.
I understand of course that he hadn't met me yet and he wasn't being unfaithful to me or anything, and I too had previous husbands. And previous intimacies, of course. But knowing that intellectually does not make it feel any better—it still hurts. I don't know why. I hate for my hurt, my possibly unreasonable hurt, to hurt Keith. If he needs tot alk, I wish he could—to a counselor, to a friend, or even to me—he would just have to approach it with care and caution. He would have to preface his remarks by saying something like: "I really need to talk about Susan, would you be willing to listen?" And then to also listen to my own fears about it.
I keep taking deep breaths and sighing, as if there were something heavy weighing on me, but I don't know what it is. There are a lot of little things, but I am not sure what is upsetting me so much.
Here are some things that are bothering me right now:
Well, I could go on and on, but I guess this isn't doing a bit of good.
I guess I will go out and walk around the block in the sunshine. Maybe that will help.
11:51 AM even the sun through the window is cheering me--a little!
