at what point is it okay to answer, "can I help?" with, "FFS, SHUT UP."
…this post is rambly and TMI and made of ~FEELINGS, and… probably not that interesting. Very very self-indulgent and ridiculous. But it's a summary of what's been going on since Tuesday and I needed to get it all out there somewhere, so.
…the title of this post may be a mostly rhetorical/stupid question, as I just snapped at my mother for doing her domineering, overbearing bullshit all day, every day, without stopping, since I came out of general anesthesia on Tuesday (and before that, really, since she was doing the same thing but for different reasons starting LAST WEEK, before pre-op prep stuff had even started. SHE MANAGED TO HARASS ME WHILE SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TREATING HER MOTHER TO A WEEKEND IN VEGAS WITH LORD ONLY KNOWS WHAT MONEY, BECAUSE I'M PRETTY SURE WE DON'T HAVE THAT SPARE CASH).
…But, seriously. Just. AUGH. As I just told her, if I needed help for any reason, then I would ask for it; since I haven't asked, it follows that I don't need help, especially not with every. last. freaking. thing, right up to her whining because I got up to take a shower without clearing it with her first or something.
Yes, I just got home from the hospital yesterday. Yes, it was a pretty major surgery*. Yes, I had to stay an extra night because there was something on some chart that looked wonky, so the doctors wanted to throw general spectrum antibiotics at it, which made things better. No, I don't need everything done for me, or to be talked to like I'm freaking five.
*: since I've told all of five people and should… possibly get around to fixing that, not least since I still haven't told a high school friend why I couldn't make her birthday shenanigans on Friday and wouldn't have been able to partake in most of them, if I had: gastric bypass.
I have a laundry list of reasons why that I really just don't want to go into right now, after justifying/explaining them over and over and over again for… my parents, my sister, the five people I have told (except for secondplatypus, since she lives in my brain and whatnot), my grandmother (on dad's side), my aunt (again: on dad's side; I'm pretty sure I've discussed this with absolutely no one on mom's side), about four different doctors at the outset (my surgeon, my primary care doctor, the dietician on my surgeon's team, and my psychiatrist - OH WAIT. FIVE. There was the guy who did the scope-thingy that involved sticking a tube down my esophagus to peek in my stomach), random hospital personnel (doctors, nurses, PCAs, chatty people from the lab who came to draw blood, the folks in radiology, SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT WHEN I SAY "RANDOM"), ET FREAKING AL.
The special emphasis is on the "random hospital personnel," just because I dealt with them more recently and SO MANY. SO DAMN MANY PEOPLE. And if they weren't asking about it, they were trying to ignore it, like, "ohmiglob, so you know X, Y, Z, and Q things are off-limits now~" "…Yes, that was covered in everything I've been reading for the past six months." "Well, blah blah something something NEVER ACTUALLY SAYING, 'So you've had gastric bypass huh' or even mentioning the name, it's always your surgery or this procedure," which is just like… why even bother making it an elephant in the room? IT'S THE ENTIRE REASON I'M HERE, IN THIS HOSPITAL; I THINK I'M PAST THE POINT OF BEING HYPERSENSITIVE ABOUT HEARING IT SAID.
……I'm apparently not past the point of being hypersensitive about telling people about it. And I've yelled at my mother a handful of times for freaking GOSSIPING ABOUT IT WITH HER FRIENDS, AS THOUGH IT IS ANY OF HER BUSINESS TO TELL PEOPLE FOR ME. But… I have reasons for that, too. The big ones being that: 1. no matter how ready you are for surgery, it's nigh on impossible to be ready for the reactions other people will have to it, and I… well, to be blunt, I'm made of emotionally unstable things that overthink everything and try to do risk assessment of everything, especially when it involves other people's reactions in which I have any kind of emotional investment;
and 2. …I go on a lot about body positivity, size/fat/whatever acceptance, "love yourself, be healthy, and fuck arbitrary societal beauty standards right in the face," they're kind of important to me, and… I don't know. Maybe this is massively irrational, maybe it isn't, but the fact is that once upon a time, I saw this picture of fat acceptance activists protesting outside of not a LIPOSUCTION clinic (which I would've understood, since liposuction IS a mostly cosmetic procedure), but the office of a doctor who performs the various gastric surgeries*. With signs going like, "STOP GASTRIC BYPASS NOW."
and… I don't know how common these people and their beliefs are in the body acceptance community. And that scares me. Because it means that there's something that I now can't talk about, after being able to talk about… pretty much everything, from self-esteem issues to my history of negative-to-borderline-disordered relationships with food, to all the times my mother emotionally berated me because… hey guess what, fat Polish guy plus fat Irish/German lady does not equal skinny blonde cheerleader, to… like I sad everything, in an open and candid manner, without fear of being judged.
…But now that I've made a hugely life-altering decision that is primarily motivated by, "I don't care so much that I'm fat; I care that for this laundry list of reasons, I'm massively unhealthy, and THIS THING IS THE BEST AVAILABLE OPTION TO FIX THAT," I feel like I can't talk about it. Never mind the healthy part**. Never mind that it makes me happy. Never mind that it doesn't change my feelings on body positivity, or symbolize some rejection of my body (aside from the fact that, on an internal level, it sucks and has been trying to kill me some way or another since I was twelve-ish). It means weight will be lost, which… is apparently universally bad forever. Or worse, oppressing someone else. …yes, because I'm totally going to tell YOU what to do for YOUR body, when I don't know what YOUR body needs, as it's not MINE, etc etc, LOGIC WHERE IS IT.
*: …so, lap-band, gastric bypass, and my personal favorite, just because it sounds really silly: the banana. …the technical term is, "gastric sleeve," but. well. Dr. Wood (my surgeon) calls it the banana. Because the basic idea is that they remove 85-ish% of your stomach and the resulting thing looks like a banana. …slightly disgusting and painful to think about, really, but also kind of amusing. …if you are like me, which is to say: a terrible person with a morbid sense of humor.
**: And never mind how, seriously? The motivation here is not and was never, "I want to be skinny and pretty in a societally acceptable fashion," because that's never going to happen. I'm tall (as in, "I'm about 5'8", five-eight-and-a-half, but I'd be closer to 5'11" if I didn't have scoliosis in my spine"). I have a large frame. I have broad shoulders, and childbearing hips (not that they'll necessarily amount to anything because PCOS but hey), and yes, big bones.
Seriously. My bones are freaking enormous. There is little-to-no fat on my wrist and it still measures eight inches around. I come from a family of LARGE PEOPLE, and I take mostly after the Polish side thereof, where all of the women are LARGE AND HARDY. I'm built to survive freezing climates and their long, cold winters, then go work the fields and drink Manly Menfolk under the table. It turns out, I was actually lowballing my longterm goal weight by a lot, since… when I told Dr. Wood, "oh, I think about 150 would be hard to reach, but cool?" he looked right at me and went, "Not unless you want to be so thin as to be unhealthy."
So. Yeah. Skinny and I aren't happening. Societally acceptable and I aren't happening, either, more just because I'm… kind of obnoxious, offensive, and difficult to be around for any extended periods of time.
…so. yes. This is where I've been. This is what I've been doing. This is what I've been up to and dealing with instead of everything I'd rather be dealing with (like, for instance, things that actually make me happy because they don't involve my mother trying to control everything). As ever, I suffer from a case of the, "NO I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE" stupids… I mean, I tried to do ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE while still thoroughly doped on pain meds.
And… doing ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE didn't really happen because. Well. Thoroughly doped on pain meds. But… at this point, I'm going to just conk out for the night and be back tomorrow. To do stuff.
…the title of this post may be a mostly rhetorical/stupid question, as I just snapped at my mother for doing her domineering, overbearing bullshit all day, every day, without stopping, since I came out of general anesthesia on Tuesday (and before that, really, since she was doing the same thing but for different reasons starting LAST WEEK, before pre-op prep stuff had even started. SHE MANAGED TO HARASS ME WHILE SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TREATING HER MOTHER TO A WEEKEND IN VEGAS WITH LORD ONLY KNOWS WHAT MONEY, BECAUSE I'M PRETTY SURE WE DON'T HAVE THAT SPARE CASH).
…But, seriously. Just. AUGH. As I just told her, if I needed help for any reason, then I would ask for it; since I haven't asked, it follows that I don't need help, especially not with every. last. freaking. thing, right up to her whining because I got up to take a shower without clearing it with her first or something.
Yes, I just got home from the hospital yesterday. Yes, it was a pretty major surgery*. Yes, I had to stay an extra night because there was something on some chart that looked wonky, so the doctors wanted to throw general spectrum antibiotics at it, which made things better. No, I don't need everything done for me, or to be talked to like I'm freaking five.
*: since I've told all of five people and should… possibly get around to fixing that, not least since I still haven't told a high school friend why I couldn't make her birthday shenanigans on Friday and wouldn't have been able to partake in most of them, if I had: gastric bypass.
I have a laundry list of reasons why that I really just don't want to go into right now, after justifying/explaining them over and over and over again for… my parents, my sister, the five people I have told (except for secondplatypus, since she lives in my brain and whatnot), my grandmother (on dad's side), my aunt (again: on dad's side; I'm pretty sure I've discussed this with absolutely no one on mom's side), about four different doctors at the outset (my surgeon, my primary care doctor, the dietician on my surgeon's team, and my psychiatrist - OH WAIT. FIVE. There was the guy who did the scope-thingy that involved sticking a tube down my esophagus to peek in my stomach), random hospital personnel (doctors, nurses, PCAs, chatty people from the lab who came to draw blood, the folks in radiology, SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT WHEN I SAY "RANDOM"), ET FREAKING AL.
The special emphasis is on the "random hospital personnel," just because I dealt with them more recently and SO MANY. SO DAMN MANY PEOPLE. And if they weren't asking about it, they were trying to ignore it, like, "ohmiglob, so you know X, Y, Z, and Q things are off-limits now~" "…Yes, that was covered in everything I've been reading for the past six months." "Well, blah blah something something NEVER ACTUALLY SAYING, 'So you've had gastric bypass huh' or even mentioning the name, it's always your surgery or this procedure," which is just like… why even bother making it an elephant in the room? IT'S THE ENTIRE REASON I'M HERE, IN THIS HOSPITAL; I THINK I'M PAST THE POINT OF BEING HYPERSENSITIVE ABOUT HEARING IT SAID.
……I'm apparently not past the point of being hypersensitive about telling people about it. And I've yelled at my mother a handful of times for freaking GOSSIPING ABOUT IT WITH HER FRIENDS, AS THOUGH IT IS ANY OF HER BUSINESS TO TELL PEOPLE FOR ME. But… I have reasons for that, too. The big ones being that: 1. no matter how ready you are for surgery, it's nigh on impossible to be ready for the reactions other people will have to it, and I… well, to be blunt, I'm made of emotionally unstable things that overthink everything and try to do risk assessment of everything, especially when it involves other people's reactions in which I have any kind of emotional investment;
and 2. …I go on a lot about body positivity, size/fat/whatever acceptance, "love yourself, be healthy, and fuck arbitrary societal beauty standards right in the face," they're kind of important to me, and… I don't know. Maybe this is massively irrational, maybe it isn't, but the fact is that once upon a time, I saw this picture of fat acceptance activists protesting outside of not a LIPOSUCTION clinic (which I would've understood, since liposuction IS a mostly cosmetic procedure), but the office of a doctor who performs the various gastric surgeries*. With signs going like, "STOP GASTRIC BYPASS NOW."
and… I don't know how common these people and their beliefs are in the body acceptance community. And that scares me. Because it means that there's something that I now can't talk about, after being able to talk about… pretty much everything, from self-esteem issues to my history of negative-to-borderline-disordered relationships with food, to all the times my mother emotionally berated me because… hey guess what, fat Polish guy plus fat Irish/German lady does not equal skinny blonde cheerleader, to… like I sad everything, in an open and candid manner, without fear of being judged.
…But now that I've made a hugely life-altering decision that is primarily motivated by, "I don't care so much that I'm fat; I care that for this laundry list of reasons, I'm massively unhealthy, and THIS THING IS THE BEST AVAILABLE OPTION TO FIX THAT," I feel like I can't talk about it. Never mind the healthy part**. Never mind that it makes me happy. Never mind that it doesn't change my feelings on body positivity, or symbolize some rejection of my body (aside from the fact that, on an internal level, it sucks and has been trying to kill me some way or another since I was twelve-ish). It means weight will be lost, which… is apparently universally bad forever. Or worse, oppressing someone else. …yes, because I'm totally going to tell YOU what to do for YOUR body, when I don't know what YOUR body needs, as it's not MINE, etc etc, LOGIC WHERE IS IT.
*: …so, lap-band, gastric bypass, and my personal favorite, just because it sounds really silly: the banana. …the technical term is, "gastric sleeve," but. well. Dr. Wood (my surgeon) calls it the banana. Because the basic idea is that they remove 85-ish% of your stomach and the resulting thing looks like a banana. …slightly disgusting and painful to think about, really, but also kind of amusing. …if you are like me, which is to say: a terrible person with a morbid sense of humor.
**: And never mind how, seriously? The motivation here is not and was never, "I want to be skinny and pretty in a societally acceptable fashion," because that's never going to happen. I'm tall (as in, "I'm about 5'8", five-eight-and-a-half, but I'd be closer to 5'11" if I didn't have scoliosis in my spine"). I have a large frame. I have broad shoulders, and childbearing hips (not that they'll necessarily amount to anything because PCOS but hey), and yes, big bones.
Seriously. My bones are freaking enormous. There is little-to-no fat on my wrist and it still measures eight inches around. I come from a family of LARGE PEOPLE, and I take mostly after the Polish side thereof, where all of the women are LARGE AND HARDY. I'm built to survive freezing climates and their long, cold winters, then go work the fields and drink Manly Menfolk under the table. It turns out, I was actually lowballing my longterm goal weight by a lot, since… when I told Dr. Wood, "oh, I think about 150 would be hard to reach, but cool?" he looked right at me and went, "Not unless you want to be so thin as to be unhealthy."
So. Yeah. Skinny and I aren't happening. Societally acceptable and I aren't happening, either, more just because I'm… kind of obnoxious, offensive, and difficult to be around for any extended periods of time.
…so. yes. This is where I've been. This is what I've been doing. This is what I've been up to and dealing with instead of everything I'd rather be dealing with (like, for instance, things that actually make me happy because they don't involve my mother trying to control everything). As ever, I suffer from a case of the, "NO I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE" stupids… I mean, I tried to do ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE while still thoroughly doped on pain meds.
And… doing ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE didn't really happen because. Well. Thoroughly doped on pain meds. But… at this point, I'm going to just conk out for the night and be back tomorrow. To do stuff.