In the past year, I have noted consistently how my low blood sugar either triggers or mimics anxiety for me. I feel ill much of the time, the way I did for all nine months of my pregnancies, and most of my childhood. Most mornings begin with me feeling simultaneously revolted by the idea of eating and desperate for calories. It is impossibly stressful–food and drink gagging and disabling me-the lacking nourishment and the blood sugar crushing me. I recall feeling this way as a child, maybe this is what helped me to get labelled impossible pain in the ass. I cannot help but contemplate how much I stressed my mother by not only this combination of dueling needs but also by my sensory driven preferences of the 7 non-overstimulating foods which I found to be manageable. Also, my mother has difficulty accepting anything which she personally cannot relate to. She managed rheumatic fever, polio, scoliosis, cancer with more resilience than I can muster on a regular morning after a decent night’s rest.
My struggles were neither accepted as unpleasant facts nor treated with a solution driven attitude. Seems as if everyone may have naturally agreed upon a “Fuck her” mentality. I was just a young girl and as I grew older, so did my discomfort and my reaction to years of dismissed,judged,unmet needs, manifesting in ways less easy to ignore & dismiss, and twice as easy to judge. Judgment and banishing never really helped with anything but a strengthened bond by those disturbed by me.
I am grateful to abandon the tradition of banishment and shunning to discipline and teach my children that they must hustle for acceptance and weep when they have failed to gain it. My natural inability to effectively process sugar (and what felt to me like abuse) made me different. My anxiety made me different. My sensitivities made me different. My brown skin, weird nose and name and non-Christian family made me different. My height and weight made me different. My lame and ill -fitting clothes and shoes made me different.
I was reminded both in and out of my home that I was not the same and did not belong. I wanted sameness and belonging badly and confused them for being the same. Recovery teaches me that genuine belonging has nothing to do with being the same. My reaction to being cast an outsider was unfortunate. I cannot help but wonder if I would have found a talent or a passion/hobby with which to busy myself, things might have turned out better. My obsession with trying to understand my pain and to impersonate a worthy unpained person robbed me of ever genuinely knowing who I actually was(am). Was there ever even was a passion or hobby inside of me? I never fantasized or longed for much of anything other than “not this” and “make it stop RFN” PLEASE
Today, I practice managing my blood sugar and my anxiety through eating smarter and sticking close to those who practice love, the promise, no less so when I am difficult/struggling. Changing the things I can one day at a time. Accepting and detaching, when possible from those I cannot. All of those things that made me different were not crimes or defects. Struggling is not a defect. But non-compassion is 100% defective. I am learning to practice compassion, one day at a time..and have not yet found a way to feel compassion for anyone still convinced that diminishing me, is a thing to be accepted.
