December 15, 2000: body and/or soul
I'll be honest, here.
I was the reason Chris didn't get any sleep last night. He was far too tactful to say it, but...I was.
And no, not in a *good* way, either.
See, I've been sleeping by myself a lot lately. When I'm by myself, I tend to sprawl across the bed, managing to take up the entire thing all by myself. And last night, I was tired enough that something very rare happened--I fell right into a deep sleep, the kind that it's impossible to wake me out of.
And I took my half of the bed right down the middle.
Oops.
After I woke up at 3:30 AM to three cats and no Chris in bed, I took a few minutes to sort out my confused, sleepy brain (was I dreaming he'd been there when I went to sleep? what day was this, anyway?), and I heard him breathing in the next room. Turns out he'd extricated himself from me (I'd thrown myself over him, in a departure from my usual technique of sneakily snuggling up to the other person in bed) and gone to sleep on the futon in the office.
I woke him up, told him I was sorry, and he came back to bed, where I fell back to sleep almost immediately (I think) and then the alarm went off at 5:30.
I maintain that I'm not responsible for things I do in my sleep. I'm still sorry, though.
But, yes, cookie night was fun. There were only three of us, but we mixed and rolled and baked and mixed and rolled and baked some more. We made a triple batch of two different kinds of sugar-like cookies, a double batch of rice krispy treats, and some fudge. I had to finish up the fudge tonight, as by the time the fudge was cold enough to put the second layer onto I was dead on my feet and only interested in taking Sterling home and crashing. I also left almost all the kitchen cleanup, which is sort of weird because I'm actually being really good about cleaning up after myself these days. (It's less overwhelming if it doesn't build up. Ah, the wisdom I've come into.)
So now I have lots and lots of cookies to give away, and I don't really want to see another sugar cookie for a while.
Actually, it's weird--I don't really want to see much of any sort of food for a while. I've finally taken to listening to my body and eating only when it tells me it's hungry, which leads to days like today--eating a couple of bagels and some orange juice at 9:30 for breakfast, and then nothing but some water until I got home tonight at 8. I just wasn't hungry. My workout was probably harder than it would have been otherwise, but otherwise, I just wasn't very interested in food.
I have no idea what this is all about. It's only in the past few years that my body has actually been giving me reliable signals about what it wants; I stopped being able to trust it when I hit puberty. They don't tell you that when you become hypothyroid that the link between what your body needs and the signals it sends to you is utterly broken. They don't tell you that after you're under adequate treatment you have to relearn everything you thought you knew about your body, its capabilities and desires.
Part of this is the fact that I was so young when my immune system went on the attack that I never really got a chance to learn what my body was like when it wasn't ill. Part of this was the fact that I was already a bit mentally and emotionally fragile (and very dissociative) when puberty hit, and my defenses against trauma were up and running all the time, effectively cutting me off from whatever communication might have been left between my body and my brain.
And they don't tell you that the damage that you have done to your body while you were untreated and then undertreated will take years to undo. If it ever comes undone. Nothing will change the fact that you will likely get diabetes sooner or later. Nothing will change the fact that you have more white freckles on your arms each summer, vitiligo spots where your immune system has destroyed the pigment in your skin.
But there are things you can do. Exercise religiously. Eat a diet low in carbohydrates. (Yes, I suck at doing this. It's the holidays, I'm laying off myself until afterwards.) Remember to take your meds on a regular basis, because they keep you sane and whole. And sleep. Don't forget to sleep.
No caffiene. No processed sugar.
(no fun!)
I'm starting to understand my body more and more. The exercise really helps, by forcing me to actually live in my body for at least a little while five days a week. Routines help.
And the fact that I'm going for longer and longer periods of times out out of my own personal little depression zone helps, too. The cycle is reversing itself--where I once would go for a long period of time depressed, a short period of time in a near-manic state, and then a little while of being normal, I'm going a long period of being normal, a shortish period of depression, and I'm not sure where my manicness went but I haven't had an episode of *that* since last summer. (I actually kind of miss it. I got so much *done*.)
It's all connected. And it's a hell of a lot of work.
But I think it's worth it. At least, so far.
