So far, the only side effect of my antibiotics is loss of appetite.
Which is always a pain. Right now, I feel like I have a brick in my stomach. I’m not nauseous or sick, but my stomach feels full even when I should be hungry.
But as patient readers know, this is old hat for me. My IBS kills my appetite all the time, and I have learned to eat when I don’t feel like eating.
It’s always hard, though. It involves tangling with one our most primal and powerful drives, namely hunger, and it always puts up a fight.
So it’s always a negotiation. It’s a lot like trying to get a cranky toddler to eat.
Me :How about this? You like this.
My stomach : No. It’s icky.
Me : Well how about this? It’s one of your favorite foods.
My stomach : No. It’s weird and gross.
Me : Well we have to eat something!
My stomach : Nuh uh!
And so forth and so on.
Consider this the budding beginnings of a business plan. I’ve talked about this before in this space but I want to pull the ideas together into something more coherent so I am going to “talk them out” by writing them down.
What I want to do is open a sugar free candy store called Sweet Nothings. In it, you would find sugar free versions of as many of life’s sweet things as possible.
So not just candy, but also ice cream, chocolate pudding, pies, cakes, pop, cookies, and anything else you can think of that is sweet.
It would be a brick and mortar business because a huge part of the appeal is having everything in one place.
That requires a place.
But of course, we’d sell online too. The idea would be to build up Sweet Nothings as not just a store but a brand synonymous with delicious treats for everyone.
Ideally, I would be able to develop it into a franchise. Because this is a business with a mission : to bring sugar free delights to everyone.
If I had my way, it would grow so big that it becomes one of those businesses people just expect to be around, like Pizza Hut or 7-11.
Back here on Earth, the most important thing about the decor is that it should convey the feeling of a regular old-style candy store as much as humanly possible.
We want our shoppers to feel that magical childhood feeling of excitement and wonder when they come in the store. As if they have stepped into a magical world where they can have whatever they want regardless of their dietary restrictions.
Which brings us to marketing : This business plan started because it’s the sort of business I wish existed as a diabetic. And diabetes is running rampant right now, to the point where endocrinologists say it’s not a matter of if you will become diabetic but when. Elderly onset diabetes in particular is on the rise.
But it would also be for anyone who wants to cut sugar out of their diet for any reason. Maybe they just want to eat healthier. Maybe they are dieting. Maybe they like the candy store atmosphere. Maybe they are just curious.
But it’s not just for diabetics. And absolutely nothing in the store(s) would suggest anything medical, clinical, or “healthy”.
This is a candy store, period!
More after the break.
Bleed a little more
Sometimes, it just feels good to bleed.
It’s never been a mystery to me why some of my fellow depressives cut themselves.
The pain releases endorphins and those combat depression. Physical pain also cuts through the emotional numbness which is depression’s main mechanism – hence so many cutters talking about how “they just wanted to FEEL something”.
On a more emotional level, bleeding maps neatly onto catharsis. If you are dealing wit an intolerable conflict and the emotional pressure has no other way out, watching yourself bleed can substitute for letting yourself talk.
Plus, cutting yourself is a daringly subversive thing to do. It violates all the rules of nature, and as such can give a person the same sort of rush of power and mastery that other transgressive acts can trigger.
You’re being bad and getting away with it! Yeehaw!
Myself, I’ve never been a cutter. I get it, but I have never done it. I think it’s done mostly by people who on some level feel pressured to be perfect, so much so that their own true feelings get pushed way down in favor of continuous flawless performance.
Nobody ever pressured me to be anything. In theory, I was pressured to get good grades, but in reality, those came so easily to me that there was never any conflict.
My problems flow in the opposite direction. Nobody took any interest in shaping me in any way. Nobody tried to motivate me either. Nobody did anything.
So I was left to raise myself. I got up and went to school alone and it was up to me whether I had breakfast and whether my clothes or body were clean.
From the first day of school on, I was on my own.
Metaphorically speaking, I was that last hour on Friday when everyone has already mentally checked out and no work gets done.
My parents checked out when I started going to school. Where I got bullied.
And they kept checking out all through my childhood. They stopped paying a babysitter to make me lunch at home in favor of Mom packing me a lunch.
On the one hand, walking home and back for lunch sucked.
On the other hand, so did bologna sandwiches and having to sit in the lunchroom with the other kids.
Eventually, Mom gave up on making my lunches too. Didn’t replace it with anything. Sje just… stopped. No explanation. No justification. She just…stopped.
And I was far too timid to ask why.
So I didn’t have lunch for around a year. That’s how long it took for me to get up the courage to make them myself, sure that at any second, someone would appear to tell me I am doing it all wrong and that I shouldn’t have tried and that I am making a huge mess and I should be ashamed of myself.
But that was wishful thinking. Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. As far as they were concerned, I shouldn’t exist and they were doing me a huge favour in letting me stay, even though it was a huge imposition.
The less I reminded them I existed, the better.
But you nice people know all this already. Forgive me. I know I repeat the same sort of things over and over.
Believe me when I say that it helps me every single time. The more I write about it, the more emotions I process and release.
That’s how I bleed : by writing.
Thank you for helping me bleed.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.