Saving Myself

Hello my blessed darlings!  I am sending you love and light from here.  I’ve spent the morning reading threw my articles trying to figure out, where I left off with you.  I forget sometimes you are not here with me.  So the small stuff first and then we will have time to talk about my big developments.

Team Ilsa

In May it seems I pulled a muscle in my hip and knee.  We believe that because I pushed myself so hard in the beginning, ignoring the pain, believing it was part of the process from years of not using my muscles, that I did in fact injure myself.  At the urging of Coach Jay, who used to work training football players, I took almost two weeks off and did no floor exercises and walked no farther than the barn.  I was extremely upset at the whole process.  My muscles that had lengthened and relaxed with exercise, contracted again, and caused me pain again when I worked them. 

I have had to start everything back over.  I had to start my floor exercises back at 5, down from 30.  I had days where if I made it to the gravel road, I was doing good.  We have learned that I just cannot push myself that hard.  I cannot walk and do floor exercises on the same day.  So now I am doing my floor exercises 3 days a week and walking the other four.  No matter how upset I am at myself for being fat, I have to let my body rest. All of this is still an adjustment. Just in the last few days I have made it to the first driveway, on the road across from my house. a victory, for me for sure, but a bittersweet one.  My back spasms had started to get bad again, but in the last week or two they have gotten better.  Slowly and surely it is all coming back. 

I am happy to say the new medicine the dr. put me on seems to have stopped most of my swelling, but I still continue with my exercises for fear it will return. 

I finished reading my book on nutrition.  I took many notes and it has helped, so has listening to my own body, and honoring my wants and desires.  The world of fruits and vegetables continues to be exciting one for me.  I am learning to keep certain vegetables on hand.  I have learned what is in season, is usually what is on sale.  I am learning how to freeze what I buy, but also how to incorporate more vegetables in what I cook.  My tastes seem to rotate on what vegetables I want to eat like, for instance, the last two pay checks we have bought cabbage and squash.  I probable will not buy them again this pay check.  I am kind of tired of them. 

We have also learned that a half a cabbage is plenty for us for dinner.  Three squash, sweated down with half and onion is also enough for a side dish.  I usually only want 1 or 2 bok choy and Jay does not like them.  We buy meat in bulk, divide it and freeze it ourselves.  Before we would put 4 pork chops in a container, now 2 is plenty, same with chicken.  So there has been a substantial reduction in the quantity of food we eat, verses what it was a year or even 6 months ago. 

As I have reduced my usage of salt in my diet, I have picked up my love for hot stuff again.  I just can’t get enough heat in my diet.  In the fajitas the other night I sautéed 3 jalapenos and a half a green Serrano in with my onions, garlic, and mushrooms.  Oh it was so good!  I finally got enough heat!  My craving for sugar has been going for some months now, but the other day I went to make myself a bowl of Lucky Charms, and it was just way too sweet for me.  I cannot explain it.  Maybe it is tied to us reducing our salt, maybe it is tied to my emotions.  I am still not sure.

Mom

Those of you who are following along know that I posted my article, All her sins laid bare, in May.  What most of you don’t know is that it had been on my blog almost a month before that.  I waited, kept trying, and finally gave up.  On May 27^th, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, I sent my mom an intensely private and condemning email.  I have shared it with a few of you privately, but will not print it here.  It was 7 pages and 3,700 or so words.  It was a goodbye letter.  I have finally given up that our relationship will ever get any better.  She will continue to emotionally, mentally, and verbally abuse me, whenever she thinks she can get away with it.  As I did four years ago when she robbed me (My mother - part 2), I am trying to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and go on.

I pray that this time will be different and that I will not go back, no matter how much it pains other family members, or how I feel I am causing them pain, or hurting them.  I for the first time in many years, perhaps my life, am putting my own health and feelings ahead of everybody else.  Something, perhaps some of you will condemn me for.  That is something I will have to learn to live with. 

I have received no contact from her, since I sent the email and posted the link to my article on my Facebook.  The fact that I have blocked her from my Facebook also helps I think.  She has blessedly not responded by letter, phone, carrier pigeon, text, or email to any of this.  And for that I am grateful.  My father, Jef, has at this time remained silent on this subject as well.  I miss him dearly.  I also sent him an email, at the same time I sent mom’s, telling him how sorry I was that I had caused him any pain, and how much I loved him.  Telling him that the last year and a half that I had contact with her was because I loved him so much. 

I have picked up a good book called, “Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers:  Will I ever be good enough?” by Dr. Karyl McBride.  It is a tremendous book.  It is causing me to look at all that was skewed in our relationship.  Why she did the things she did?  How we functioned as a family?  And I think a major cause as to why I have so many mental problems.  I know I am not alone in all this work.  It is my hope by going public with my mother’s abuse and working diligently threw all of this crap, threw all of this dirty laundry, I will in the end save myself.  And by posting this, perhaps it will help you too.

Ilsa

 

 

Team Ilsa

So it has been almost a month since Oh Goddess here we go again! was written and there have been many little victories and improvements.  I happy to say that many of you have offered not only your good wishes, but your expertise as well.  I am calling this endeavor Team Ilsa.

No I was never able to afford to see the nutritionist.  So I have a friend who I am talking with about my food issues, and nutrition in general.  I checked out a book on nutrition from the library.  Even thought it makes me want to vomit with anxiety every time I look at it.  I am at least trying.  I may only make it through a page or two, at a time, but hey better than nothing right?  Oh it gives me the same anxiety as math does!  I just look at it and go, nope I can’t do it.  I just keep reminding myself, if I can survive 9 hours of French in one summer and leave an abusive marriage, I bet I can do this too.  This shit is real confusing so y’all stay tuned for new developments on that front too.

No, I never was able to go to physical therapy.  That so many of you who have gotten down on the floor to show me exercises that you learned in PT, that have helped you, means the world to me.  Thank you.  Every day I get on the floor and do my back exercises.  And it is the craziest shit y’all, my back and hip hurt less.  My back spasms, that have controlled my life for so long, are down by at least 50%, my general and over all pain is down by 30% or so.  I even think it has helped my IC pain.  I am able to stand for longer periods of time, without having to sit because of a spasm.  Last night I had another little victory, I stood in the kitchen long enough to work on my pork stock, make dinner, make tea, unload and then reload the dishwasher, and dish up dinner.  Yes there was some leaning, but no sitting.  A total of maybe 15 or 20 minutes?  Unthinkable before all this started.  I noticed this morning I am not turning over in my sleep.  I have tossed and turned for years.  I fall asleep on my left side, have for a really long time, last night woke up twice on my right.  Also sleeping more on my back, never been able to do that.  I am standing to do my morning and evening bathroom routine, you know brush your teeth, wash your mask, take your meds, etc.  I had been sitting half way through. 

The exercises are getting better.  At first when I started doing them I screamed, cried and moaned a lot, cause they hurt so incredible bad.  Some of the worst pain I have ever had!!!  Now that is down by 85%.  Mostly now when I get down on the floor to start and when I work my left side.  I started with 1 rep, of 5 (you know 1,2,3,4,5) on each of my exercises, now I am up to almost 5 reps, of 5 (you know 1,2,..25) or hope to be by the end of the week.  I am trying to add 5 a week, to get to my goal of 10 reps (you know 50), which is what the Orthopedist originally prescribed.  Crazy man wants me to do this twice a day!  Well maybe one day, but for the moment I am damn proud to be at 25!  It’s kind of like asking somebody to move a dump load of dirt, and giving them a teaspoon.  Yes it can be done, it is just going to take a long time.  Hey I didn’t get in this condition over night, I ain’t going to get out of it in just a few weeks. 

I started out only being able to raise my left leg, when lying on my right side, about a foot, I am close 90° at this point.  Maybe I will be there next week.  When I do my back relax, it’s the first thing I do (lay on back and put legs in chair, hold for 15 minutes), I put my arms out to the side, slowly they are relaxing.  I didn’t realize how much tension I was carrying in my shoulders and arms.  I wonder if it is the boobs?  At first I could not do this exercise without a pillow under my head, now I don’t need it.  My arms would not go down all the way.  I would stretch out my arms, but could not rest them, palm side down.  I am there now with my left.  My right is better.  I can finally get it to lay almost all the way on the back of my hand, I am close to being able to turn it palm down and leave it there.  As more and more of my arm relaxes I feel different parts of it hit the floor, first my under arms, and now almost all of my fore arm.  Thought I could not get them down ‘cause there was just too much fat, nope, muscles were just to freaking tight. 

My time has gotten better, as far as how long my floor exercises take me.  When I started out it took me about an hour and a half.  I’ve got my time down to about 45 minutes to an hour.  Slowly but surely right?  Turtle won the race.  I was telling Jay yesterday, that I am kind of glad I did not go the PT route and I am doing it at home.  I think they would have pushed me beyond where I was comfortable in the beginning, 5 would not have been enough for them and once I started screaming that would have upset everyone in the building and I would have been embarrassed and not come back.  Or felt I did not please the PT and not come back.

I am also continuing with my walking.  It is helping with the swelling, even though I have had several setbacks for unknown reasons, as far as that is concerned.  Every day I walk at least once, if I do nothing but let the goats out (about 100 steps from house to gate and back) or make a loop around the barn (about 175 steps).  I will measure for you this week.  I got myself a handy app for that.  My goal daily is to walk twice, that has kind of been fucked up this week with all the rain, but I keep out it.  I even went shopping the other day, just so I could walk.  My first goal was to actually get up on gravel road, and make it back without sitting.  I made that within the first few weeks.  My second goal was to make it to the main road, and back without sitting down, about 500 steps, 0.2 miles.  I am happy to say that I made it last night, and again this morning.  I know there will be setbacks.  I know there will be days I am lapping the barn again.  But I have to keep trying, I don’t want the pain back.  My next goal is to walk the end of the dead end road, across the street from me, without stopping.  Maybe even one day run it.  The road is a mile down and a mile back.  And why do we say it that way.  Like it’s going to be a mile down to the end and then 4 miles back.  What, are they physics and geography suddenly going to change?  LOL!

So I am reading about nutrition, doing my exercises, and walking.  I am also experimenting with vegetables.  I am trying to determine what are the most economical vegetables to buy.  This pay check we experimented with collard greens, cabbage, celery, carrots, cilantro, Bok choy, and lemons.  We are trying to not use salt in anything, other than flavor pasta water.  Jay is even trying to limit the amount of season salt he is using.  Bless him!  I love him so!  Season salt to him is like garlic powder, he puts it on just about everything! 

Below is how my vegetable experiments turned out:

• I made collards in the slow cooker, with onion, garlic, and ham hock.  Tiny bit of salt and sugar.  They were really great!  Served with cornbread.  Next time might do hot water cornbread instead, and change ham hock to another kind of meat.  Was not crazy about the smoke flavor with it.
• Draped the seasoned cabbage in bacon and steamed on the stove with some water.  Really good.  No change needed, except perhaps less bacon.
• Jay made a really good sauce, was really like a pesto.  Had the juice of 3 fresh squeezed lemons, cilantro, minced garlic, little lime juice, jalapeno juice, olive oil, basil, and dried oregano mixed in the blender.  Then we marinated chicken breasts in it, and baked at 350°.  Was really good. 
• Shanghai Bok Choy is a really cool vegetable.  We tried at first steaming it in the rice cooker for 45 minutes.  They were still kind of crunchy.  Next marinated it over night in Jay’s left over pesto, then microwaved it for 10 minutes and it was perfect!  One Bok Choy per person.  Jay does not like Bok Choy.  Kind of like greens, lends itself to whatever flavors you give it. 
• Put a bag in the freezer to put all my ends and nibble bits in to make stock.  Used my pork chop bones, ham hock, carrot ends, and onion peels from this week.  Cooked it all day long in the slow cooker.  Added onion powder, black pepper, and garlic powder.  Kind of flat without salt.  Slow cooker did not reduce water in it.  Had to take it out and boil it on the stove to remove half the liquid.  Will do it on the stove next time.  Plan to freeze it in greased muffin tin and then pop out and put in freezer bags.  Need to invest in ice cube trays.

Well so that is kind of where I am at with all this y’all.  Thanks for letting me prattle on.  I just pray to have the strength and desire to keep doing all of this.  It’s an awful lot for me to juggle.  I have no idea if I will, what tomorrow holds, or if this time will be any different than all the other times before.  I have no faith that it will be.  But then again, I felt the same way when I started writing almost a year ago.  I am 350lb, the odds that I can lose 200lb on my own, naturally, with no help of surgery is pretty astronomical.  So I am not being crazy and focusing on that.  I want to ease into this gently and slowly, maybe then it will stay.  I am focusing on not having as much pain.  If I could have less pain, than that would be a victory I would take any day of the week over being skinner.  And that people you can take to the bank.

Ilsa

Oh Goddess here we go again!

I just got off the floor doing exercises and I am just soundly pissed.  Went to pen the goats and Mr. Henry in the rain, and my heart beat is racing.  I hate exercises.  It’s got to go back to the days of mom forcing me to walk.  One day she was going walking with a friend, I told her I would be right there.  I laid on the floor and pretended I tripped and fell, and was unconscious till she got back.  I think she got the point.  She never asked me to go walk with her again.

She was obsessed with her weight and made me weigh everyday for a long time, till I think I finally raised enough hell.  She used to write her weight down on a sheet of paper hanging on the wall above the scale.  Mine was beside her’s.  She always weighed naked too, first thing in the morning.  She would get up at 4 and blaring Gloria Estefan and ride her stationary bike or walk on the treadmill, even at one time bouncing on her little trampoline.  Then of course there was the bar under the door so she could do sit ups.  I think the funniest thing that ever happened, was one time she was doing pushups or leg lifts or something like that on the floor, and the dog came up and humped her arm.    

She was obsessed with her diet too.  She made us all eat wheat germ, she measured her food, and ate off a little plate for years and years.  I would go to school and come home and suddenly be on a slim fast diet when I came home.  Every time ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­she started me on a diet or told me we were going to start exercising.  I always felt inadequate.  Why did she want to change me? Why wasn’t I fine the way I was?  I look back at the pictures now and do not see a fat woman, perhaps a bit chunky, but dear Gods not fat.  Was it her way to control me, to compete with me, or was she trying to set a good example and be concerned about my weight?

At some point I think it all became a revolt.  Not just to her regime, but to her entire way of life.  If this was what it was to be a woman, I didn’t want it.  I didn’t want to cry all the time, manipulate people, be two faced, exercise all the time, and be obsessed with my health and what others ate around me.  But I fear I am repeating myself.  I have talked about this subject at length in both Blood in the Water and Behind a big woman’s eyes.

I have shared on my Facebook, but not recorded it here yet about the health problems I have been having recently.  On the weekend of March 13^th, 2016 was a good one.  It was a payday weekend so Jay and I had been grocery shopping, both Saturday and Sunday.  I am so pleased to say that with the breathing exercises , it has been 6 months since I have had an panic attack strong enough to require a pill.  I can count on my hand the number of times I have even come close in that time frame.  With all that has come to light about my mom in the last few months (All her sins laid bare), my anxiety is almost completely gone, as I begin to understand its true root.  I have been to the new Wal-mart on North Market, twice without the need for Sophia.  In fact I have not needed her assistance in 3 or 4 months.  Just me and Jay, by ourselves going to Sam’s, Wal-Mart, and Brookshire’s, like normal people.  It has been extremely freeing.  I understand now that just because I panicked in a place once, does not necessarily mean I will panic there again.  I am treading carefully, but so far it all seems to be working.

So we are getting in bed Sunday night and I notice that my feet and legs are really swollen and my toes are red, and they hurt.  I thought what the hell is this!  Oh crap I am going to have to go to the Dr.  So I cancel my councilor for the next day and spend all that Monday the 14^th, trying to reach my Dr.  When I do hear from them at 5 they say, “If you are having pain go to the ER.  It may be a blood clot.”  Jay comes home and I tell him the news. 

We go across the street to the fire station and get in the ambulance, because we know we will be seen faster in the ER if I come in this way.  They get me in the back of the ambulance and they go to take my pressure with that little machine they have.  It is so high it won’t register.  I saw it pump up past 252.  I am in agony with this thing around my arm.  I try to be good and not scream.  I grab Jay’s hand to get threw the pain.  It is hurting me so bad I left claw marks and bruises on his hand.  After the 3^rd time of it trying to take my pressure and failing, I tell the EMT.  Please no.  Don’t let it do it again.  At that point he takes it off.  When we finally do get a pressure a few minutes later it is 220/100 or so.  We thought oh this is just a fluke.  Nope!

While I am at the ER it never drops below about 160/90, several times registering over 200.  They do an ultrasound of my legs, no clot!  Thank Holda!  X-ray my knee, cause it has been hurting since I slipped in the bath in December, and do blood work.  Nothing.  Dr. walks in after two hours and goes, “I don’t know what is wrong with you.  All your test are fine.  Follow up with your Primary Care Physician (PCP).”

So I do.  Dr. Warren, pcp, and I have been together lots of years, and I really like him.  He’s good people, as my daddy says.  I go see him that Wednesday the 16^th.  He says, “Ilsa I think your pain level is so high that it has jacked your blood pressure, and that is making you swell.” He puts me on a new blood pressure med with a diuretic in it.  So far it is working.  I had gained almost 10 pounds in just water weight. 

 In December I took a gamble and told him again, for the first time in 8 years, that the pain in my hip never went away.  He believed me and took x-rays of my hip.  He did not see anything.  When I go to see him recently he asks after my hip pain.  I tell him the steroids he gave me last time helped, but we all know we can’t live on steroids forever.  They are bad for your liver and they make you fat.  I tell him, that no, the pain is less now that I am on daily pain meds, but it still flares up.  He takes x-rays of my back, and says, “I don’t think it is your hip.  I think it is your back.  We are going to set you up with an Orthopedist.” 

I went to see the Orthopedist on the 29^th, and he diagnosed me with Pelvic Girdle Dysfunction.  He and I believe the pain is not coming from my hip, but instead from my sacroiliac joint.  An anatomy lesson for a moment, when your spine quits it forms your sacrum, and that is what your pelvis is attached to, at the end of your sacrum is your tailbone.  This sacroiliac joint is where your sacrum and your tailbone attach.  That is where my pain is coming from, for years from the left and now from the right as well, also the pelvic bone in the front, over you bladder and uterus can be infected and inflamed as well.  There seems to be some kind of imbalance there.  It can happen for no reason at all, or after a trauma.  I have no idea what has caused this.  I know a lot of pregnant women get this, and there is little information out there, on those that have it, but have never been pregnant.  We also discussed my weight did not help all this.

I am still working on finding out more about this disease.  The Dr. wanted to send me to Physical Therapy.  The insurance says, no probable.  You are covered.  It’s a $100 per visit.  So if I am to go 3 times a week, it will be $300 a week.  Um, no.  Sorry.  So I am going to have to do the exercises I have in the little book the Orthopedist sent me home with, and whatever information I can find on line. 

And on top of everything else, cause you know the Gods love me so much, I got Pink Eye.  From where and who, I know not.  So I go see Dr. Warren on the 30^th.  He says, blood pressure is a little better, but he wants to up me on meds again.  Warren confirms Pink Eye, and then begins to have the dreaded weight talk with me.  We have been down this road many times before.  I tell him I am walking, in short spurts everyday.  It is one of the few things that helps the pain in my legs.  He tells me to cut out carbs and eat more vegetables.  I tell him I can’t afford vegetables.  I tell him I can’t cut out carbs with a husband who loves rice, gravy, sweet tea, and biscuits, and does not considerate a complete meal without a carb in it!  So poor Dr. Warren is trying to fight poverty and hundreds of years of Southern tradition.  We talk about me seeing a nutritionist.  I am down for that.  Insurance says, sure no probable.  You are covered.  It’s a $100 a visit.  Ugh!  Beat head against the desk!

So it looks like my options are grow my own food, walk, and do floor exercises at home.    We have been here before, and failed many, many times.  I have no idea why this time would be any different.  Just, just when I am getting to a point about changing my relationship with food, they ask me to lose weight again, and all this garbage starts coming up.  I was just beginning to think of food as magic.  And seeing that I am classist when it comes to eating some of the poverty foods that others in the South grew up on, that experts are now saying are so good for us, beans and greens, squash and tomatoes.  Y’all know when I ended up in the hospital (A little crazy, just like me) a week after I saw the nutritionist.  I tried following it for a week, but felt such pressure I believe that is what caused that first major panic attack.  That and it was close to Oma’s death date. 

All of this has happened just as I was having a small miracle in my life occur.  I love sweets, and I am crazy for chocolate.  I have been for years.  But I think I am losing my obsession with it?  I am not sure about all of this myself.  It is too new for me.  The girls in OA used to say that after they had been off of sugar for a while, they were relieved of their sugar cravings.  Not me.  There was never a day that I didn’t crave sugar, even though I had been abstinent from it for almost a year.  It never left me. 

Now I am doing things like sitting on the couch with a bag of carrots, munching my heart out.  Weeks before Dr. Warren told me to lose weight.  When I want crunch and sweet, I am craving apples, not fiddle faddle.  I am even now interested in learning how to cook more fresh vegetables, like greens.  I am serious here people, if you know how to message me.  It’s odd and bizarre to me.  I have changed nothing in my diet to have this occur.  The only thing I can tie this all to is a recurring thought I have had. 

As a child I remember thinking, I need to gain weight so that people will think that I am Daddy (Jef’s) child, to hide and conceal the fact that I was a Smith, that I was really Beau’s child.  In the last few months as I have begun to understand the depths of my mother’s lies and the affect it has had on my psyche.  I have come to believe it is not a bad think to be Beau Smith’s child.  It is nothing I need to conceal, or hide, or fight.  That it is perfectly fine for me to go back to being the thin, athletic, and beautiful girl I was like when I was 6 years old. 

As I have sat with the Smith family over these last few holidays, and I as I plan for more with them, they are not that much different than the Fisher’s.  They love each other, they try to understand and support each other, even if they don’t agree with what the other is doing.  Yes some of them are confused as to who their real dad is.  It doesn’t matter.  They are not the bad, stupid, dirty, disgusting people, I was told they were.  I feel loved and accepted when I am with them, although I am not sure they all understand that I am a witch and democrat.   I am not sure I will tell them, I am terrified they will ask me to leave, but then again I have a lingering suspicion that they might not.  Every time I am with them, just like every time I am with JM, Elisha, and Ashley they heal me.  I come home smiling so much my face hurts. 

I am just not sure of any of this.  It is all still a work in progress.  I will keep y’all up to date.

Ilsa