Where to start?
Mar. 16th, 2010 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwyn_bywydSooo much has gone on since I last posted that I don't know what to post about.
A Wedding Expo stand? Pulled together in 3 days, I just had to wall off my fury and despair at the heterosexism, gender stereotyping and too-cutesiness inherent in this event for the duration (although I continue to believe these things are not essential to the nature of weddings altogether) Mind you, there was the joy of wielding my brand-new hammer, and feeling perfectly competent without having to rely upon any males, which gave me a certain satisfaction! :-)
My wonderful, wonderful friend? Prepared to drive several hours with a fractious three-year old to come and help with the above, and with the playgroup yesterday. Who made me nearly cry when she said that at her son's preschool they have a wall with pictures of each of the children's families, and on this wall is a picture of our group of friends. Who nearly made me cry again when she looked at me in utter horror at the idea that after doing 6 hours of the wedding expo I would turn around and do the evening service, and then a gruelling meeting. Talk about family - although unrelated by blood.
Talking a parishioner through writing a feminist liturgy? And the mixed feelings of joy, to be sharing and teaching this stuff again, mingled with despair at how this educated, intelligent person with an enquiring mind still hadn't really heard much of the basic stuff yet.
The way I've realised that my mother constantly rewards being foolish with regards to my health? Whenever I speak to her about some ridiculously huge day or project, and how worn out I am by it, or how much pain I'm in, the response is how proud she and my father are of me. Now on the one hand, that is a big warm fuzzy - I am so, so fortunate to have such a loving family. But my mother is very much of the "there is nothing that one can't push on through" school (as mentioned in a previous post, this is a woman who as child saw her mother set her own broken nose) and I wonder what impact the constant reinforcement of self-harming behaviours* is having on me. I'm a text-book eldest child, and I know perfectly well I'm all about the parental approval!
* I thought very long and hard about using this term, but while it is not used in the sense that we often hear it used, it rings true. I know a particular behaviour is going to result in pain and debilitation a few days down the track, and I go and do it anyway. That's kinda messed up.
Or the feelings of despair and anger at the stuff of Dr Smith's website? www.me-cfs-treatment.com/ I really, deeply hope that the regime works formewithme and, as she says, it is essentially what her body is telling her to do at the moment anyway. But several aspects of Dr Smith's whole thing send me into just a spiral of guiltdespairpanicanger. One of the things he says is that when sufferers overdo it, not only are they going to pay for it in a few days' time, but they are also adding those days to the duration of their illness. Now, there are a few assumptions built in there. One is that a sufferer will recover - when you got zapped by the evil cfs gnome, he gave you (let us say) 3 years of illness, after which you'll recover. Another assumption is that you get any choice in how you spend your time, which is not true for people in a fair few jobs. And I think there is something of a built-in bias in the program against those living alone. But then my thinking goes "Oh God, am I bringing this on myself? Would I be better now if I had followed this program in the first place?" (which probably would have meant not getting my degree finished as quickly (which was still agonisingly slowly) and ordination delayed for many more years) And I know there are worse things in this life than boredom, but I have spent so much of the last 4 1/2 years being so very bored that I feel this disproportionate panic at the thought of actively increasing how dull my life is. And then there is angry - 'cause some of Dr Smith's stuff feels like it is blaming the victim. Sure it is a different way than normal, but it is still "all this suffering is your fault for wanting something approaching the life you had before." The fact he might be correct in a medical sense increases that panic I mentioned.
So, that's me at the moment - and Easter is bearing down on me like a freight train of poor preparation, liturgies I wouldn't choose and sleep-deprivation!
A Wedding Expo stand? Pulled together in 3 days, I just had to wall off my fury and despair at the heterosexism, gender stereotyping and too-cutesiness inherent in this event for the duration (although I continue to believe these things are not essential to the nature of weddings altogether) Mind you, there was the joy of wielding my brand-new hammer, and feeling perfectly competent without having to rely upon any males, which gave me a certain satisfaction! :-)
My wonderful, wonderful friend? Prepared to drive several hours with a fractious three-year old to come and help with the above, and with the playgroup yesterday. Who made me nearly cry when she said that at her son's preschool they have a wall with pictures of each of the children's families, and on this wall is a picture of our group of friends. Who nearly made me cry again when she looked at me in utter horror at the idea that after doing 6 hours of the wedding expo I would turn around and do the evening service, and then a gruelling meeting. Talk about family - although unrelated by blood.
Talking a parishioner through writing a feminist liturgy? And the mixed feelings of joy, to be sharing and teaching this stuff again, mingled with despair at how this educated, intelligent person with an enquiring mind still hadn't really heard much of the basic stuff yet.
The way I've realised that my mother constantly rewards being foolish with regards to my health? Whenever I speak to her about some ridiculously huge day or project, and how worn out I am by it, or how much pain I'm in, the response is how proud she and my father are of me. Now on the one hand, that is a big warm fuzzy - I am so, so fortunate to have such a loving family. But my mother is very much of the "there is nothing that one can't push on through" school (as mentioned in a previous post, this is a woman who as child saw her mother set her own broken nose) and I wonder what impact the constant reinforcement of self-harming behaviours* is having on me. I'm a text-book eldest child, and I know perfectly well I'm all about the parental approval!
* I thought very long and hard about using this term, but while it is not used in the sense that we often hear it used, it rings true. I know a particular behaviour is going to result in pain and debilitation a few days down the track, and I go and do it anyway. That's kinda messed up.
Or the feelings of despair and anger at the stuff of Dr Smith's website? www.me-cfs-treatment.com/ I really, deeply hope that the regime works for
mewithme and, as she says, it is essentially what her body is telling her to do at the moment anyway. But several aspects of Dr Smith's whole thing send me into just a spiral of guiltdespairpanicanger. One of the things he says is that when sufferers overdo it, not only are they going to pay for it in a few days' time, but they are also adding those days to the duration of their illness. Now, there are a few assumptions built in there. One is that a sufferer will recover - when you got zapped by the evil cfs gnome, he gave you (let us say) 3 years of illness, after which you'll recover. Another assumption is that you get any choice in how you spend your time, which is not true for people in a fair few jobs. And I think there is something of a built-in bias in the program against those living alone. But then my thinking goes "Oh God, am I bringing this on myself? Would I be better now if I had followed this program in the first place?" (which probably would have meant not getting my degree finished as quickly (which was still agonisingly slowly) and ordination delayed for many more years) And I know there are worse things in this life than boredom, but I have spent so much of the last 4 1/2 years being so very bored that I feel this disproportionate panic at the thought of actively increasing how dull my life is. And then there is angry - 'cause some of Dr Smith's stuff feels like it is blaming the victim. Sure it is a different way than normal, but it is still "all this suffering is your fault for wanting something approaching the life you had before." The fact he might be correct in a medical sense increases that panic I mentioned.So, that's me at the moment - and Easter is bearing down on me like a freight train of poor preparation, liturgies I wouldn't choose and sleep-deprivation!
