Hi y’all,

I know it has been a very long time since I shared a story. The only way to overcome the writer’s block I have been mired in for a while now is to just start typing–so here are today’s thoughts:

Ever put a picture on facebook which you don’t think is that great and everyone goes bat-crap crazy about how great(!), hot(!), and thin(!) you look? Yeah, I never did either until yesterday. I went out yesterday and interacted with other humans–it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t that great either. I had a friend take a few pictures of me because I was hoping to get one I could start using as a profile picture without utilizing the classic, “chunky-girl face-tilt” pose. The pictures were okay–not great, but okay. I thought I looked kind of stressed out and a wee bit haggard.

Here is the deal–I descend from women who were very strong, but not really ‘delicate flower’-types. You know, the ‘my people were supposed to be able to carry the cow in from the field’ kind of people. In addition to my solid muscular frame I carried a large amount of, well, fat. I was lush, zaftig, a bbw….whatever–I was me. For that matter I am *still* me.

So, the me that is medicated properly is a me which is about 60-70lbs lighter than where I used to be–but people? Please know this–removal of fat does not automatic happiness make. I know! I was shocked as well! Based solely on seeing pictures of my mother looking creepily skeletal in her teens in my humble opinion she was incredibly anorexic during her youth. As a mother she became very “concerned about my health” and supported me starting on a diet–I was 7. Because being thin was being beautiful and being thin was happiness. So, now at 35, for the first time in my whole life I look “normal-sized” and guess what? there has been no extra happy.

I remember as a child laying in my bed at night with my hands on my tummy and saying to myself that breathing in made me big but while breathing out I was thinner and I was hoping that my size would be judged while breathing out. As I got closer to puberty I was a voracious reader. I would read books where the main character fought to be thinner and became anorexic and after almost dying finally got better–whenever I finished those books I would pray to become anorexic (please understand; I knew of the dangers but they seemed worth it because thin equaled happy).

So fast forward almost 3 decades from my first diet to see how my world has changed–I post pictures of myself and more than 75% of those who have commented are referencing my weight loss. Wanting to know how much was lost and/or how I did it.

Wanna know how I did it? Wanna know my “secret”? Ready?

I. Was. A. Diabetic. And. Wasn’t. Fucking. Diagnosed. For. Most. Of. My. Life.

Yep. Food is stupid. So now that my body is no longer sending my brain these shitty “we are starving, bitch!” messages I wasn’t nearly as hungry as I used to be. In fact, I understand what ‘full’ means now. So, my big ol’ secret? I removed all the self-imposed restrictions and if I want it; I eat it. If I don’t want it; I don’t eat it. So, between the medical crap and the mental crap from being restricted regarding food most of my life (as soon as I said I couldn’t eat something that was all I wanted) it turns out that getting thinner was not nearly as hard for me as it always was….but getting happier is a goddamn BITCH.

So, my suggestion for attempting to make this a better damn world for everyone? Don’t give a fuck about what someone look’s like; find out if they are happy. Happiness is beauty. I do not care what size I am–I want to be happy.

Okay, so I have been all intimidated to get back to writing ye ole’ blog here because there is so very much to say. So I think the only way to get over the writers block of doomery is to stop thinking of it as a giant project and just start writing shit. A little bit every day and the story unfolds. Not that there are any great reveals to be shared—I am still me, still (mostly) alone, still living on a tropical island, still figuring out my place in the world. Writing every day helps me; so why did I stop? Because I have been healing and I am getting better. <smiles>

I figured something out last night. Benadryl is *not* my friend. In my past Benadryl was always the crappy cousin to Zyrtec; I would take it and it would work but it made me so sleepy that it ruined the day or conked me out at night with a sleepy dozy hangover in the morning. So, when I ran out of money and couldn’t afford any more Zyrtec I dug out the old bottle of generic Benadryl and started taking one or two per night due to cat allergies. It did not occur to me that Benadryl could be the reason that I kept waking up and feeling like there were skittery ants crawling on the inside of my skin about an hour after bedtime. Then I came down with Dengue Fever. No, I am not kidding. I sincerely thought I was dying and to be perfectly honest I am still quite drained from it. During my epic ($150) trip to the pharmacy (that would be *with* insurance by the way) I purchased me some generic Zyrtec. Last night I realized I left my ‘med kit’ in my office and I dug out the last two generic Benadryl to stop the cat-induced sneezing and about an hour later I was all SKITTERY. It was horrible. I turned my computer and began with the search ‘benadryl makes me feel weird’ and there are apparently entire groups of people deliberately causing these sensations with the use of Benadryl. Now, I knew about people attempting to trip using dxm (and actively causing brain damage) but Benadryl? For realzies? The magic of the interwebs taught me much last night as I stayed awake until 3AM (ugh!) reading ‘trip reports’. Yes, there are people who actively take the time to write about their trips to educate the less adventurous on what it is like. May all the Gods bless them for their reports. My favorite one likened his Benadryl trip as being the scariest thing that had ever happened to him and that he was definitely going to do it again, however he warned anyone who didn’t really love horror movies to never try it. Alrighty then, count me out. I need the ability to turn the movie off a’thankyouverymuch. For the record the guy was taking 10 times the dosage I was; but I fear the “old” in my bottle of Benadryl did the thing where instead of decreasing in potency with age it became stronger. Regardless, I think I am done with Benadryl for a long while.