Love, Pain, the Whole Damn Thing*

*Love that song.

I watch The Bachelor. Yes, I know. I am a feminist and I watch The Bachelor. It is my guilty pleasure. I am completely unrepentant about the other reality shows I watch, but The Bachelor? It's hard to admit in public. However, it's pertinent to today's post, so I'm hangig my inconsistencies out there.

On season that has just wrapped, one of the "contestants" told the guy that she wouldn't be able to love him and be in love with him unless he loved her back. Under the circumstances, that might be a smart thing to say, but it's been rattling around in my head ever since. Because we don't, do we? In any relationship, romantic and otherwise, we don't give our hearts until we're sure it's reciprocated (children hopefully excluded). Until we have a guarantee that it'll "work out". We protect ourselves, build a fortress around our hearts (thank you, Sting) and hold it tight, not giving it away until we are sure it’ll be treated well. Which, again, can be argued to be a smart thing, but I think sometimes, we focus so much on avoiding the pain, on the end goal of it "working out", that we hold back too much.

We live in a culture where pain is invisible, be it physical or emotional. Not only are we not supposed to express the pain, we are supposed to pretend it doesn't exist. The first time I noticed this - well, the emotional pain, that is, I already knew about the physical - was after my father died. Within a very short time, life went back to normal. I remember being stunned that the entire world was still spinning, operating normally, when mine had stopped. When I was scrubbed raw with grief and found it very, very difficult to pretend otherwise. I remember wishing for the social construction of the grieving process in the Victorian age where you wore black and were socially limited for a year and then gradually lightened your clothes and equally gradually re-entered society. I used to think it was restrictive and didn't make sense until I experienced a loss where it would have been really helpful if it’d been easy for others to see I was grieving, to adjust their expectations and actions accordingly. Instead, the grieving became a private thing I mostly did alone and I understood that the Victorians were onto something - that mourning needs the assistance of a public recognition of grief.

Several years ago, I chose to be in a relationship that for various reasons wasn't going to "work out". It wasn't going to last for the rest of my life, we wouldn’t get married and live happily ever after. My friends had difficulty accepting my choice, were afraid I was going to get hurt. I knew I would, but did it anyway. And I don't know if I chose it because I was madly in love (which I was) or because I have lived with pain for most of my life and understood that being in pain isn’t the worst thing that can happen. At the time, the worst thing that could happen was to not experience the love. Which he and I did for 4 years and it was glorious and it hurt like a sonofabitch when it ended. But I am still grateful for the experience, have never regretted a minute of it and I'm pretty sure I learned something big about love.

Which brings me back to the fear of pain and the actions – and inactions – guided by that fear. And to wondering how much we miss out on by focusing exclusively on the end product, rather than the process of love. Whether you're in a romantic relationship that won't be forever or have a friend who is very ill or any of a number of other examples, it makes me think. Think about why we avoid painful situations, why we focus on the hurt rather than the terrific things that will happen before the pain comes. That are worth the pain at the end.

It's a challenge, sure. It challenges you to live in the now, leaving the future to itself. And when you think about it, all those guarantees of things "working out" are illusions. There are no guarantees, there are no sure things. Aside from the divorce rates of 50%, any one of us could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Yet we live as if we have forever, we plan as if we have forever. We love as if we have forever. And so we peel the layers of protection off our hearts carefully, guardedly and conditionally. We are not taught to love with an open heart, to love unreservedly within the knowledge of a certain end and I don't think it does us any favours.

A few years ago, I practiced spirituality more than I do now - these days, I am too busy to be still. Back then, I was struggling with finding meaning and joy while living with severe pain and continuing losses of ability. And I found some meaning in Buddhism, in the concepts of nonattachment and impermanence and began to understand that the more expectations I had about a specific outcome, the more unhappy I was. I tried hard to not get attached to a specific hope of progress, to focus on the now, to accept suffering for itself, to believe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I'd forgotten about that. Although I still incorporate these beliefs in my life to an extent, I had forgotten about being exactly where I'm supposed to be. It makes the pain less painful if you are not attached to an expectation of not having it. Because why wouldn't you? Life is pain and suffering, just as it is joy and love. You cannot live without experiencing pain. You cannot love without taking the risk to be hurt, to have loss and we like to forget about that. We like to believe the fairytale, that there is such a thing as "living happily ever after". Except the fairytale forgets to tell us that our job is to live happily, even while in pain. No one tells us that it is possible to be happy while you are in pain. Or that it is quite possible to love in full awareness that it will not be forever.

And isn't that what love is? The giving of your heart because you have to, pure and simple. Because that's the way it is, because you can't not love. Not because someone loves you back and not because you have a guarantee.

Messing with Reality

Some time ago, I believe I had a little rant about a miniseries called Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which chronicled the displacement of Native Americans during the white settlements. Specifically, the rant was about the glossing over or direct alteration of historical facts occurring in the miniseries, which was defended by an HBO VP as “[w]hen we look at historical accuracy, we look at history as it plays in the service of a narrative”. I took issue with that and would link to the post, as well, but have only the vaguest notion that it might have been part of one of my monthly Random posts. Besides, I'd rather use my energy on today's rant.

Which is about filmmakers (and authors and TV) and their propensity to mess with reality “as it plays in service of a narrative", rather than making the narrative serve reality. And maybe it's having those blasted university degrees that makes this such a hot button for me, as during those many years of schooling, professors beat into me over and over and over again that you don't make the facts fit your theory. But I digress.

The first time I remember having an apoplexy over Hollywood messing with the facts, was when I watched Disney's The Little Mermaid. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before, as well, but will re-rant (is too a word) briefly. The Little Mermaid has been my favourite fairy tale for as long as I can remember and the ending was what made it perfect (for the full text, with original ending click here). The story was about the transformative powers of love, about a love so deep that you would rather sacrifice yourself than to hurt your beloved. It is a deeply spiritual, profound story and the rat bastards made it into a happy ending. For quite some time I opinionated about altering art, about how nobody makes the Mona Lisa a blonde because they don't like the brunette and I’m not even getting into the North American propensity for bubble wrapping their children. I believe wholeheartedly that children should be exposed to reality, including stories of illness and death, in age-appropriate doses while having the safety net of their parents to guide them through it because otherwise, how will you grow capable adults? If they have never learned what to do when things get hard, how will they cope when they are required to? But I digress again.

I rented a couple of movies over the weekend and being in the mood to see something not infused with testosterone (hence still not getting on with the Six Degrees thing), I got Juno and Untraceablee. Watched the latter first - I'm a geek, like a good thriller and it looked interesting. I lasted 40 minutes and only the fact that it was a rental and therefore not my property, kept me from hurling it into trafiic where it could be mashed to pieces under the wheels of SUVs. One of the things that irked me was how the main character is a computer specialist in the FBI cyber crimes division, but all of a sudden she's part of the SWAT team that's breaking down doors in a house suspected to contain the bad guy. Okay, so I assume that if you're an FBI agent, you're required to learn how to use a gun, but if you spend all your worktime trawling the Internet, looking for scumbags, why am I supposed to believe that you will be included in the SWAT team? Seriously?

Fiction requires a suspension of disbelief and if your basic audience member has a big red flag in the back of their head saying "hang on, this wouldn't happen in real life", then maybe you should do a rewrite. And sure, most of us don't know much about the intricacies of most law enforcement agencies, but it doesn't take many viewings of a couple of crime shows to realize the basics. Also, a smattering of logic helps.

One of the quotes on the box said that this movie is the Silence of the Lambs for the Internet age and yes, I know that they get those lines from the weirdest sources, often quoted completely out of context, but I'm having one of those "I knew Jack Kennedy and Sir, you are no Jack Kennedy" moments. The Silence of the Lambs had class, suspense and was genuinely thrilling (still scares me every time I watch it despite having seen it so many times, I know exactly what happens). One of the reasons that it was genuinely thrilling was that Jonathan Demme (the director) didn't lovingly linger on hideous dismemberment – he understood that less is more and that horror works much better with a suggestion, because we can take it further in our minds that anyone can go on the screen. In Untraceable - and I'm about to ruin part of the plot, but only up until 40 minutes into the movie - the killer puts his victims on the Internet and the more hits the site gets, the faster the victim dies. The first one dies by an IV drip of an anticoagulant speeding up, causing bleeding from all orifices (orificii?) and the second victim is slowly roasted to death as increasing hits on the site turn on an increasing amount of heat lamps. And the filmmaker, whose name I will not bother to look up, lingers and lingers and lingers on the bleeding and the blistering and after 40 minutes, not only was I so pissed off with the facts being made to fit the narrative in a way impossible to ignore, but felt my eyeballs and soul so polluted by the violence porn that I had to turn it off. There is a horror and then there is horror. And this bears all the hallmarks of a bunch of guys sitting around in a room egging each other on to come out with increasingly "cool" ways of killing people. And yet again, one of my personal mottos fits the situation: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

And I think is possible that I digressed again from my original point about messing with reality, but I'm pretty sure the segue worked?

p.s. Juno was really good.

Don't Worry, You're Among Friends

Being marginally less pestilent, I have 37 things to do before the Victoria Day long weekend hits (in approximately 4 hours) and have therefore come up with an idea that gets me out of writing something thoughtful and interesting.

Today, we're going to pretend even more than usual that we are hanging out with a pitcher of margaritas, cosmopolitans, beer or other beverage of your choice and once we're well lubricated come upon the idea to share entertaining/slightly embarrassing stories about ourselves. With specific emphasis on stress coping mechanisms and although that doesn't sound entertaining yet, bear with me for a minute and it'll all make sense.

Everyone has different ways of dealing with stress. I don't mean the everyday kind of stress that gets alleviated by a chocolate bar, rant with a friend, banging your head against the wall (what? Doesn't everybody do that?), slamming a door or sitting quietly by your desk, seething into your afternoon coffee. No, I mean the kind of stress that walks in and leaves your life turned upside down, in shambles, where you keep going with gritted teeth well past and 80 insurance and in the end must do something to regain if not actual control over your life, then a feeling of control.

I alphabetize my CD and DVD collection. Within categories, naturally. I find it incredibly soothing and it may be the reason why there’s a theory going around that I have the soul of a librarian. Come to think of that, alphabetizing anything (within categories) makes me happy, as does general organizing, but when the big stress hits, when my life has been out of control for some time and I started dreaming of tornadoes (which I do whenever my life is out of control), I seek out the CDs and DVDs and spend a few hours alphabetizing. I know someone who polishes the silver in similar situations, another who scrubs the baseboards with a toothbrush and someone else who talks, usually at great length, about taxes (whether it's tax season or not).

So have a gulp of your martini and spill. And have a fabulous weekend - see you on Tuesday!

Suspect

Monday was the day for Blogging for CFS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrom/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), as well as Fibromyalgia Awareness Day and I missed it due to being too pooped to come out and play. I’m sure the irony isn’t lost on anyone. Last week, I was so focused on avoiding an injury that I forgot my body has other ways of making me pay. Enter a nasty sinus infection, Which slowed me down, but didn’t stop me (because apparently, I can't be taught). In retrospect, it was clear that my body was standing with hands on hips, irritably tapping a foot, completely exasperated with my lack of cooperation. So it made my voice go away and as I write using Dragon, which requires talking, that did the trick. Or maybe not, as I’m currently pecking out a blog post the old-fashioned way, using the system of one paragraph, rest, then another. Sensible people among you might wonder why I’m not posting a photograph and calling it a day and I’ll tell you why.

Beth wrote about CFS/ME and in her post, she linked to an article about Laura Hillenbrand, who wrote Seabiscuit and lives with CFS. Go ahead, read the article - reading about her condition and her perseverance is humbling, as well as fascinating. I'll wait for you.

Back? Alright then.

I was struck by both Hillenbrand's story and some of the background information and it is the latter that I'm going to have a wee rant about today. The article (and Beth's post) mention the stigma associated with CFS, the way it was sneeringly referred to as "yuppie flu" and provide several examples of people with CFS who were told by the medical field that it is all in their minds. A little further on, the article mentions how historically, doctors treat mystery illnesses as psychological problems - e.g., multiple sclerosis was once attributed to "stress linked to Oedipal fantasies". And it reminded me of my own story - the first symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis came when I was four and for five years, my mother took me to doctor after doctor, often suggesting to them that it looked an awful lot like RA, but always being dismissed. Several went as far as to tell her it was all in her head and one gave her a referral to a psychiatrist. And then I thought of a few of my friends, who have a clear illness so far undentifiable by the medical profession and how all of them have been told that perhaps it is "stress" or even going so far as to diagnose "hysteria", a diagnosis I'm quite sure was discredited in the 1950s.

Multiple sclerosis happens most often in women, as does CFS, RA, fibromyalgia and the list goes on. And this is where the rant comes in or maybe it's more a ranty question. Why is it that when a doctor doesn't know the answer, they blame the patient? Why are these people made suspect by an illness that cannot be easily identified? Why is it that so many of these patients whose disease isn't "real" are women?

When I was studying for my undergraduate degree, taking a course in medical sociology, I remember a study discussing the bias towards patting women on the head and sending them off with some antidepressants other than believe that they had real, honest-to-goodness symptoms. That's a quarter of a century ago and apparently, nothing has changed.

Why is this okay? Why has this not changed? Why is this not a more high-profile feminist issue? Is it only because the women caught on the sticky end of this particular stick are too tired or too busy managing the disease and their lives to get political? If so, why is it exclusively up to them to effect the change? Why isn't the medical profession doing more to educate its practitioners? Any ideas?

And it is one of the reasons that I am a feminist and why I will happily debate anyone who claims that there is no more need for feminism. As long as a woman and a man with the same symptoms are treated differently… Let me rephrase that: As long as the man is treated and the woman is given a prescription for yoga, antidepressants or a psychiatrist - there is a need for feminism.

If you need me, I'll be on the barricades. Feel free to join me.

There's A Market for Those?

Newton’s Law of Stopping

By Tuesday evening, it was evident that I was thisclose to hitting the wall. Said wall being that point where I want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head, lie quietly weeping on something cool or, frequently, the point where my body after days of asking nicely, decides to make me sit still, causing a crash of monumental proportions, while it mutters invective and in general disparages my intelligence. Considering the fact that I'm still recovering from the last time that happened, I decided to prove to my body that I do indeed have an IQ larger than my shoe size and am occasionally inclined to use it. Which meant taking yesterday off and prescribing relaxation, yummy food and trashy books as preventative measures. And which was the only reason I didn't cry upon being rudely awakened by my alarm clock on Wednesday morning.

Sometime around noon, after a morning spent responding to e-mail that has languished in my inbox for way too long (if you haven't received a reply yet, it's because the inbox is very, very full), cleaning up a few piles, organizing the results neatly into three categories of Garbage, Deal With Now and File, updating my calendar and making several phone calls, I stopped to wonder what happened to my day off. It appears that going full bore for several weeks creates a problem. The problem of being unable to stop, thus proving Newton's first Law of Motion: "An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force". Although I would like to quibble with the speed part of the law, as it is my experience that the more overdrawn your energy bank gets, the faster you move. It is truly astonishing what you can accomplish when you're overtired and overworked to the point of hysteria. I have personally witnessed more than one woman breaking the sound barrier in this state.

I reassessed. I decided to let go, to stop e-mailing, to stop writing, stay away from the phone and somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice said, much in the tone of a SWAT team leader, "Put. The calendar. Down!". So I did. I managed to sit still for about 1.4 minutes before the twitching became unbearable and I came upon an idea to circumvent the urge to dosomething!rightnowthisveryinstant!. So I opened a new file on my computer, entitled the document “May 2008” and proceeded to do a list of everything I need to do this month.

Surprisingly (or not), this was not conducive to relaxation, either. Although everything that was spinning around in my head had been transferred to the file in my computer, my brain continued whirling like an F4 tornado, except now it had nothing to whirl. According to Newton, in order to stop, I need to be acted upon by an unbalanced force and I'm pretty sure it doesn't count that by now, I myself could be considered a very unbalanced force.

So I decided to consult the collected wisdom of you. Any tips?

A New Chapter

Today marks the first of my new, monthly column/post for HealthCentral.com. It’s a great website community. There is medical information and expertise - very useful (I’m learning new things all the time) and there’s a large and growing community of people who’ve “been there”, living with various diseases and conditions, sharing advice, opinions and stories about life.

I'm thrilled to be part of the HC team and look forward to raising hell contributing to their content.

You can read my first post here.