When I'm Not Vixen Strangely...

 

I don't know how much of an explanation this is, but it'll have to do. Maybe someone will find it useful. Maybe it'll make sense to you. Maybe it won't. I don't think it will hurt. 

 Being me sometimes hurts. Not in a big way--just in a "wake up feeling as good as I'm going to" kind of way. My knees started to sound like bubble wrap popping back when I was unloading pallets of copy paper over a quarter of a century ago. They hurt when it rains. So do my hands. So do my ankles. Not in a big way.

Usually. And different things would just rattle or seize up or feel weird sometimes, but it would pass. Or I'd be run down. 

This isn't going to be a post about an awful diagnosis. I really sort of checked out and never followed up because it wasn't bad. My problem was I was in my thirties and full of stress and could stand to lose some weight. Then it was I was in my forties and full of stress and could stand to lose some weight. And more recently, well, my birthdate is on my driver's license, and I buy my own pants, so no one could tell me a damn thing I didn't know. Maybe it was from having mono in my teens. Maybe it was just getting old. 

I just figured I would pace myself--and I self-medicated. 

Yeah. It's that kind of post.

I don't drink any more. It would be impossible to drink any more than I did. Fit grown men have failed to go toe to toe with me at arm-bending. People half my age would be burned out on my version of therapy. It was not good for me, but I managed hangover-free, high functioning, and could even write into the small hours of the morning. 

That's why I never really saw the problem. I mean, I had breaks when things felt a little too much, but I was in control. I wasn't physically dependent. I could stop at any time, and start at any time, and that was how it went.

And it wasn't good enough anymore. Not for me. Not for the person I am when I'm not Vixen Strangely.

See, Vixen Strangely, my blog persona, she is smart. She remembers stuff. She has a mean mouth. She isn't afraid to say things. And the person behind the persona didn't feel that way anymore. I felt soft in the middle and was ready to have a nap at lunchtime somedays, and you can't do that at work, they frown on it. I felt like my memory was slipping and it scared me. 

So, in late April I decided I would just change my life before I needed to shop around for aftermarket parts. Say goodbye to the bottle for good. Dump carbs. Work out. The more I read about fitness, the more it seemed to me I'd always been doing it wrong. You know, living. 

I was living wrong. 

I didn't find religion. I didn't go to meetings. I didn't get therapy. I just said, "I'm doing this differently. Things have got to change." I didn't decide health influencers on YouTube knew everything, but I also decided I didn't know everything either and I also didn't want to go to a doctor and get told I was in my fifties, full of stress, and could stand to lose weight. I wasn't going on jabs or tabs. I was just going to do it the old-fashioned way.

You know. reduced rations and forced marches. 

Things were cruising. I felt better at first until I didn't. Apparently, I was self-medicating pain, insomnia, and buttloads of anxiety. Drinking was like a load bearing vice and pulling it out was like stripping the insulation off my nerves. And then, and you need to understand this, I can be stubborn as a motherfucker and do not love myself like I should, so when things got tough--I treated myself tougher. I was fasting. I wasn't counting calories-- I should have been. Not because I would go over. Because I'm a maniac. And liked the deprivation. I even quit some of the things I took during the day, just to see what it felt like.

So what was that doing inside of me? I think of it now like having a car alarm going off in my head, and it was definitely my car, and I couldn't get the remote to work. I stopped being able to write. And then could just about function at work.

What the hell--I got sober, and now I felt unreliable?  I would open my mouth, and words--my fucking gift--failed me, HARD. I probably made a miserable impression on people because I was miserable.

It took having a near-medical level of brain fry when I finally examined what I was doing. Was I trying to be healthy, or punishing myself for all the times I wasn't? Did I want myself to feel better, or did I just want to try and find a new, scarier way to fuck myself over?  I went back to the drawing board. 

Fucking up isn't failing, it's learning one way to avoid failure in the future. And I was going to get my damn life straight. 

I added calories. I went back on CBD oil for the anxiety--and my brain started to work again. 

I'm not there yet.  But this is the last damn time I'm giving up booze--this time, it's for good. This is the last damn time I'm losing weight--this time I'm on board for life. This is not the last time I'm posting here--I have things to say, and I will always mean them. 

I am someone when I'm not Vixen Strangely, and I've been off trying to figure out what it means to be her. 

The work in progress continues. What did I learn--I'm not going to be comfortable.  I'm going to need to be uncomfortable a lot. But stress promotes growth and I guess that's good? 

It will have to do. But I'm not torturing myself over it.