I have no idea how healthy (or unhealthy) I am.
For example, I had a killer idea for a subject for the second half of this blog entry, and now I have forgotten it.
It will come back in time. I hope.
But mainly, what I am talking about is that I don’t know how to assess my own health because I have no concept of what is normal for other people.
The example that brought this to mind is that after getting up to make my supper. I experienced a period of dizziness and lightheadedness. Not one strong enough to make me stagger or otherwise overwhelm me, but that might simply be because I am used to it and therefore can relegate it to the back of my mind while I get on with things.
No matter what, I just keep going.
Now I dunno if that happens to other people on a regular basis. maybe that is perfectly normal for people when they have been sitting a while and get up too fast. Maybe it’s nothing to be worried about at all.
Either way, though, I dunno.
Part of the problem came when, all those years ago, I overcome my paralyzing hypocondria more or less by sheer force of will.
I got sick and tired of being sick and tired and I set out to conquer the damned thing by making myself eat and drink water and build myself back up while telling myself repeatedly that whatever the doctor says, I will believe them.
It seemed like the only sane escape route from hypervigilant hypochondria.
But I can see now that this transferred far too much of the authority and the responsibility for my health over to doctors who are, after all, only human.
And being only human,they can’t know about things I don’t tell them about. They can’t see into my life and say “No, that’s totally normal’ or “EMERGENCY ROOM NOW. ” or anything in between.
I have gotten both of those responses. Remind me to tell you about my carbunkle some time in the future.
Anyhow, no matter how awesome your doctor is, he or she cannot actually personally take charge of you healthy. Existentialism says that no matter what happens, we are the ones in control of our lives, and it’s true.
You might not have the power, but it’s always you making the decisions.
And that goes double for health. The doctor can only meet you part way. The rest is up to you, whether you feel you are up to the job or not.
Backtracking a bit, my point is that I probably overcompensated when I dragged myself out of hypochondria. I stopped paying attention to and monitoring my health because as far as I was concerned, after all I gone through with psychosomatic symptoms and nervous exhaustion and pretending to be sick so hard I got sick, all messages from my body were now considered so suspect as to be worse than useless and I learned to simply ignore them as a result.
That…. is BAD. If my body needs something or if something has gone terrible wrong, it can only tell me about it if I pick up the call, so to speak.
The thing is, though, that I truly do not know how to stop. The very idea of opening my mind to all the conflicting and confusing messages from my body feels like a descent into madness and chaos to me. I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know how one aquiires a sense of what is normal and what is alarming. I don’t even have an image of a “healthy me” to compare myself to.
As far as I know, I have always been kind of sick. I don’t even know what “healthy” feels like. Between my depression and my “nervous stomach” and my anxiety and all my other mental strangeness that has been with my since I was 4 year old, I don’t think I have had a single moment when I did not feel sick on some level.
And that… is also BAD. And presumably abnormal.
But then again, maybe what I am feeling is totally normal and it is only my neurotic nature that makes me call it illness.
The truth is, I just don’t know.
I am too intense for most people.
And I think that’s one of my problem with interpersonal relationships. I emote and evoke so hard that it burns people out over time.
And once they pass that burnout point, they want nothing to do with me. It doesn’t matter that I am as sweet and charming and funny as ever. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t changed one bit.
The person has changed, and what was once great they are now so sick of that they avoid dealing with me at all if they can help it.
Some of them must wonder what is wrong with them. But it’s like a diet of rich foods. Sure, they are delicious., but eating too much of them will make you ill and you will want nothing to do with them for a while.
I am that rich food.
And I know why. It comes from a deep feeling that nobody is listening and noboy cares and so on an emotional level, I am screaming at the top of my voice.
I have so much going on it my head that I can’t express the normal way so it has to come out via vividly expressing myself around others as hard as I can.
And again, that wears people out. And then they just don’t want to ever deal with me again. They are as averse to me as they would be if they were allergic to me.
And it doesn’t mean they hate me or think I suck. It just means I was too much for them.
And that’s a lot for me to think about. Part of me wants to learn to moderate my output and the other part of me wants to say “Fuck them if they can’t take my awesomeness. ‘
Somewhat between those two extremes, I may find peace.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.