Monthly Archives: August 2012
The clouded mind.
I found myself caught in the rain yesterday.
In a summer where rain has been lacking, where all the vegetation is dry and crisp, I went for a walk at lunch and got caught in a brief shower of rain.
I kept going, with damp hair and wet clothes. I just kept going. I kept going, until the sun began to shine through the clouds.
***
Someday, the sun will shine through the clouds of the anxious mind. The pause button will be released, and progress will finally resume.
Until then, I keep going. I just keep going, with the hope that the sun comes out soon.
Weekly Grace, #34.
- Finding a new-to-me sushi place near work with a great lunch deal.
- Elly‘s weekly ukelele session.
- Accepting the need for a complete day of lazy once in a while.
- Taking time to cuddle with the cats, with entire attention on them instead of problems and fears.
- Watching trashy movies, reading trashy books, and looking at trashy magazines.
You might not get the job…
This post is my August entry in the DSMA Blog Carnival. If you’d like to participate too, you can get all of the information at http://diabetessocmed.com/2012/august-dsma-blog-carnival-2/.
Your pancreas is in a job interview and totally bombed the question about its role in type 2 diabetes. It wants to take the blame for something that has roots of unknown origins.
Let’s face it – everyone associates diabetes with the pancreas or blood glucose levels. In type 2 diabetes, that is not where the disease process begins. It starts with insulin resistance, which means the pancreas is indeed producing enough insulin. However, the body cannot use it effectively to move glucose out of the bloodstream and into various cells for fuel. How insulin resistance develops is unknown – some would say lifestyle and/or genetics, but it might even be an autoimmune reaction.
Over time, the pancreas MAY begin to slow down insulin production. Come on, it is hard work producing higher and higher amounts of insulin to compensate for that insulin resistance. No wonder that some people with type 2 diabetes must supplement with or even depend on insulin.
So while you still can, pancreas, why don’t you play up what still works? You’re still producing digestive enzymes, that other function of the pancreas that is often overshadowed. You do what you can when it comes to producing insulin, and you want to work well with the body’s cells as a team player, but the glucose receptors just won’t cooperate.
It’s okay, you’re still a valued and important organ to me. (Unlike that friend of yours, the thyroid, who is totally lazy and incompetent.)
Weekly Grace, #33.
- Friends who know exactly what to say when you’re down and out.
- Running more than walking.
- Older nephew on to the next adventure with dorm move-in.
- Fighting off anxiety to go see The Bloggess.
- Fighting off anxiety to go to a Chicago Bears preseason meetup.
A quick capture of the moment.
Descending into Boulder during the usual morning commute.
Listening to Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill”.
Smiling, feeling so at peace. If even for just a moment.
Weekly Grace, #32.
- Catching up on sleep.
- Laughing out loud on the bus surrounded by strangers.
- NFL preseason has begun, only 24 days until the first regular season game.
- Roasted garlic.
- Cooling off.
I know other people who are like me.
After a few mornings spent laughing out loud on a bus full of strangers, there was no reason to believe a little lunchtime reading would not bring the same.
Except it did not, not with one particular chapter of the book I am reading.
***
“I know other people who are like me. They take the same drugs as me. They try all the therapies. They are brilliant and amazing and forever broken.” - Jenny Lawson, (aka The Bloggess), Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.
I knew that anxiety would be touched upon in the book. I knew because I had seen The Bloggess take leave inside the women’s restroom when the going got rough at one of the BlogHer conferences I attended.
I knew, and I kept reading.
I ended up crying alone in the women’s restroom at work.
Because I felt less alone, a little less broken, knowing that someone else who seemingly has it all together lives with this thing called generalized anxiety disorder.
Because there are very few people who understand it, even fewer who will talk about it or write about it. I understood it from a very young age. I started talking and writing about it a few years ago. I even disclosed it to my latest supervisor a few weeks ago, after a panic attack occurred unrelated to work but in the presence of a co-worker. (I know, right? I choose to disclose anxiety over diabetes, WTF?)
***
“It is exhausting being me. Pretending to be normal is draining and requires amazing amounts of energy and Xanax.” – Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.
Substitute Ativan for the Xanax, and I could have written this.
Just because I seem highly functioning in the workplace or a social event does not mean that it is not taking all the strength I do have (and some Ativan) to stay presentable, to be focused, to not panic.
And just because I may have held it together in public does not mean that I keep it together as soon as I am alone again. The aftermath of a panic attack that did not happen can be just as devastatingly exhausting as having one.
***
So here’s the thing.
Jenny Lawson will be at a book signing Monday night in Denver.
I want to go, really I do, but I think she, of all people, would understand if I cannot attend.
