Transspotting

Subtitled: I See Trans People

So we were out walking Bernie two or three weeks ago now (that's how long I've been mulling this over, having progressed no further than I started, the subject's become so fraught - one doesn't want to get a word wrong) and while he was stealing peanuts from the squirrels I realized why I never weigh in on arguments about people who transcend gender, which is how I like to put it now I just thought of it.

I asked my blond companion, "Can a man have a baby?"

But he was trying to wrestle Bernie away from the squirrels' peanuts and didn't hear me.

For the record, Bernie's allowed two peanuts - only.

So I answered, "Well, I know a very good man, a solid New Democrat, not in the least transphobic or anti-trans, who would argue a definite 'No!'

Biology.

But I know a very good woman, a solid New Democrat and his dear lady friend, who would argue a definite 'Yes!'"

Sociology.

😀

I lived in an apartment building with a trans woman, although not physically transitioned. This was according to her, but since one couldn't believe a word she said, who knows. She lived in the apartment above me and was my eventual reason for moving. I never interacted with her, except to be as pleasant as possible because she was as crazy as a bag of hammers. But she hated me anyway, no matter how pleasant I pretended to be, and for whatever reason told anybody who'd listen (like they had a choice when she cornered them in the tiny laundry room she was constantly in) I'd stolen a pair of her underwear.

Thick and tight to create a smooth look and no doubt not cheap.

She would also pretend she had her period, go on and on to other residents about her cramps, moaning and groaning, daring anyone to contradict her.

No one ever did because, like I said, as crazy as a bag of hammers.

Also 6'2" / 200 lbs.

Alas, she had a master key, our landlord being an idiot who gave her one and a break on rent for showing vacant apartments and pretending to sweep the halls, and once entered my apartment when I was alone. It was likely an accident, but I still had to move. She'd made it clear she hated me, but loved my blond companion, so that was it. I no longer felt safe.

It happens. She was also inconsiderate and woke us up at all hours, fighting with her boyfriend, a teenager I heard yell once, "But I'm gay!" It was fifty shades of not good, but he was more or less a hoodlum who'd tried to stab another tenant at one of her after hours parties, and I just didn't want to get involved.

She'd water her balcony, festooned with flowers meant for the building's front garden, soaking us if we happened to be sitting on ours, enjoying the view of the parking lot, where many of her and her boyfriend's frequent screaming fights took place.

My regret, really, is her being my kids' first introduction to a trans person but, like I said, it happens.

She was a woman, yes. But no, she wasn't having periods.

I know, I know, "Lots of women can't have babies! Menopausal women don't menstruate! Caitlin Jenner's a woman!"

Exactly.

And Elliott Page is a man and Elliott Page can have babies.

It all comes down to us as individuals, really, and this is why I don't weigh in. Pedantic semantics. A word in a sociological context vs a word in a biological context vs no two snowflakes alike, as the principal of my kids' elementary school put it.

😀

I had a temp assignment at Correctional Services a few years ago. A couple came in to do a talk about being trans. They were two men who'd met and married when one of them was a woman. I tried to tell which one but I couldn't. They looked like a couple of middle-aged men. Eventually they clarified which of them had transitioned, why, how, and I could see it then. I wish everyone could have attended, especially R, my co-worker, who wanted no part of it.

He was afraid, the very definition of transphobic, also homophobic. I got to know him quite well. He was in the Sixties Scoop, several foster homes before being adopted into a strict Ukrainian Catholic family. Very well educated with a PhD in something to do with his Cree culture.

PhDs are all the same to me, boring.

We both had sons we were concerned about. Young men are having a hard time finding their sea legs these days. He had a daughter, too, but she was with his ex-wife, and he was annoyed with her character, which was too much like her mother's for his liking.

He had issues with women, at least two ex-wives, an old-fashioned sexist who believed the women in his life were the root of all evils, at least, the evils that had befallen him. He liked men, but he liked me, too, and we got on. I didn't take it personally, rare for me, but he didn't mean it personally, either. In fact, he liked me so much he couldn't bear to come in on my last day to say goodbye.

I'd brought him my homemade butterscotch chip oatmeal cookies he loved as a parting gift, too, left them on his computer with instructions to everybody who passed his desk to leave them be.

They are the best cookies ever. Incredibly addictive. And R wasn't exactly popular with our other co-workers, who were more... up-to-date.

😐

Also, for whatever reason, R had decided because we were the same age and had the same television references (to bore the student working for him with) our childhoods were same/same. Finally, one day when he was out for lunch I told her, "R's childhood was my worst nightmare. I went to overnight camp when I was seven and cried so much with homesickness the orphans from Sudbury started crying with homesickness too. He thinks we had similar childhoods because we both watched The Beverly Hillbillies. The other day he told me one of his sisters - a woman he said he wouldn't turn his back on - took him to meet their birth mother. She was living in a vacant room with a few other people, one of whom went out to gather cigarette butts and Lysol to celebrate the reunion. R told me he recoiled when his mother tried to hug him and left because he doesn't smoke or drink and can't abide people who do. He has several brothers and sisters the youngest of whom was rescued from a dumpster. Oh and his father was of Scottish ancestry, our other commonality, although mine was a lawyer who died of cancer when I was four and his, I'm not sure what he did to make money, but he was murdered in a bar fight."

She was a smart young woman, a precious only child, who reminded me of my oldest. She said, "R's opinions are so different from how he is, too. It's weird. He's been really helpful and understanding. And when we did the presentation he was so supportive, giving me all the credit. He's trying to get me a job here now."

I should say, too, I probably learned more Canadian history from R in six months than I did at four years of university.

Anyway, like I said, I wished he'd attended the presentation. It was probably the second most educational event during a temp assignment in the government I'd attended, the first being a talk from the daughter of a residential school survivor explaining the effect of that part of Canadian history on her present.

😬

Alas, it was voluntary. But wow. And when the partner spoke of his experience within the marriage, wow again. "We used to hold hands, kiss, hug in public. But we're two men now. I'm not gay, but I love him, and he's a man. I'm not comfortable showing affection in public now. It's the reaction of other people. It's a big deal to some of them, so it's a big deal for me, too."

It was a shame having to go back to work, entering data from inmate evaluations of educational programming in our federal institutions no one will ever look at, instead of spending the rest of the day listening and learning from a fascinating couple and how they were navigating their lives together - 31 years at the time and going strong.

Love is love. People are people. If my blond companion decided he was a woman or wanted to present as a woman, live as a woman, or I decided I was a man, we would continue on together as each of us wanted to be. I love my blond companion. My blond companion loves me.

Who knows? Maybe it would have been the change to keep our previous relationships with others together.

I see trans people everywhere now. Or rather, I see people as trans. I look at a woman and turn her into a man. I look at a man and turn him into a woman. Young people especially are androgynous looking to me. I barely have to try to switch their gender. Old people, too. It's wild once you start. Try it.

And when I see a trans person I don't see gender at all. I see an individual. It's very inspiring. Freeing.

Oh to be free!

When I was young I went through a phase wherein I wanted to be seen as a boy. I didn't want to be a boy, exactly, but I also did want to be a boy. Jo Pete was my chosen name. My older sister even helped me sneak off to Mrs. Scott's to get my braids chopped off, not knowing why, of course.

It was always there, still is.

Also the sexual attraction to men. It was always there and still is.

On a Wild Women camping trip I went on several years ago now we were sitting around the campfire singing show tunes no one could remember the lyrics to except me, when I thought to ask, "Is everybody here gay except me?" and K answered, "Oh, you're gay, you're a gay man. You're wearing Ralph Lauren pajamas on a camping trip ferchrissake."

Totally tracked, too. I was a walking stereotype. I thought back to Jo Pete and the cap I insisted my mother buy me. Very natty. How annoyed my older sister was when she realized how she'd facilitated Jo Pete in the natty cap by taking me to Mrs. Scott's to get my braids cut off. Even as I sit here writing this I'm eagerly awaiting the day I can show the world the long loose linen pink shirt I picked up at the thrift shop for a song, which I'll wear over a tee-shirt, ala Miami Vice, maybe hunt down comfortable loafers I can wear without socks for the summer.

😎

I'll leave off now, hoping I didn't get too many words wrong, but also kind of not caring too much if I did. I don't bother keeping track of whether I'm saying gender when I should say sex and vice versa. I won't argue about any of it either. It's stupid. A waste of time and energy. I should add I learned a lot reading "Unmasking Autism" by Devon Price, a trans person, who points out the strong correlation between neurodiverse people and trans people. I identify as neurodiverse myself now thanks to Devon (and my son for sending me the book) and realize I want to transcend gender as so many other people are doing.

Why?

Because I want to be me, not somebody else's idea of me.

Me.

😍

SNAFU

I think if politicians took public transit where they live it would make a big difference in their understanding of what a housing crisis actually looks like. As a citizen who depends on it to get around I can attest to the fact other citizens are depending on it for housing. I bring this up because context matters and having to "sacrifice" a family vacation because the interest rate for the mortgage on your half million dollar plus property has increased is not a crisis. Nor is being unable to afford a mortgage at all.

And if you can afford to pay your rent you're doing just fine. Rent is higher than it should be for sure but it's only a crisis if you can't afford to pay it.

Looking for an apartment in Toronto was always a nightmare. In the 80s we were lined up competing with each other for anything decent. I once had a landlord ask, "How tall is your boyfriend?" When I answered, "About six feet", he shook his head.

"Too tall", he said, and closed the door.

The couples I knew buying homes were double income boomers born in the 50s not 60s. And they were doing it when mortgage rates were closing in on 20%. Certainly my boyfriend and I couldn't afford a home in Toronto in the 80s. Not downtown where we always rented and why live in Toronto if you're not living downtown?

Lots of rose-coloured glasses looking back these days. Not that I don't think it's self-defeating as a society, high rents and the stress of having to compete with each other for a decent apartment. If only politicians had to do it, although I guess they're making six figures now like so many middle-class people and can afford to buy.

Ferfuckssake people have so much money now we have to put adjectives like "uber" in front of rich when discussing our co-citizens we think should have to pay more taxes.

😀

Yesterday I shared public transit with someone I'm pretty sure has to live on it. I watched him get on the bus then mime searching for the fare in empty pockets while the driver looked on. I was about to get up and pay it for him - I even had the exact change (you can't use your Presto card to pay for someone else because once you pay for yourself it's on a timer until you have to pay again) - when I saw the driver give him the nod to sit down.

Nothing like a free ride on OC Transpo.

That's a joke for those of you who've never had the pleasure. Although I have to say, lightrail has worked well every time I've taken it. Sure you have to say a prayer and cross your toes every time it creaks around Derailment Corner, and there's the eye watering stink permeating through a couple of stations, but it's a dream compared to the bus.

Ottawans, so pampered.

😀

But I feel for politicians trying to sort it all out in the wake of the pandemic we're still in. Repeat after me: Everybody and Everything Everywhere is f*cked up. This is how it is. The new normal. So my advice to us all is to make the best of it by mustering patience.

I used to read a book to my kids, Betsy Goes to the Doctor, and there's a line in it: "Be patient, patient." So be patient, although try not to be a patient.

By the way and not to add to it all but I noticed the stress level of my doctor, who I was lucky enough to inherit when my real doctor retired mid-pandemic, and who I've seen twice, was significantly higher on the second visit. Ditto the surgeon who repaired my wrist. I'd put them both in their 40s.

But speaking of kids back there, my son sent me a book recently, "Unmasking Autism" by Devon Price. I can't recommend it enough. Aside from identifying very strongly with its chapter 4, it way upped my empathy quotient for all of us and really brought home the message to be kind because you never know what someone else is going through.

We really need that now, empathy. It's all too too too much. 

Anyway, I'm currently unemployed (there are supposedly jobs going begging but if that's the case then why was I laid off mine?) and so can afford to be patient and will try to set an example for my co-citizens with less time. Nobody is at their best right now. Nobody. We're all struggling in various ways. Our collective anxiety right now is through the roof, never mind our anxiety about the future.

By the way, the next apocalypse forecasting boomer who says "glad I'll be dead" re climate change gets unfriended.

Die now. More oxygen for my grandcat to breathe.

Oops, kindness and patience, this is going to be harder than I thought.

😀

Dream a Little Dream of Me

My last Galaxy Brain assignment was to interpret the meaning of a particular dream, which I did "in character", by way of pointing out how boring the dreams of others are, then making my answer all about me and a scary dream I used to have growing up.

😀

I also mentioned a dream study course a relative took. She told me our dreams are all about ourselves, our subconscious revealing itself in weird and wonderful ways through our dreams.

Since then, though, I've had a couple of therapy sessions to go with the medication I'm on as a result of the panic attacks I started experiencing last spring. She's young, young enough to be my daughter, so it's different than I'd imagined it would be, but what had I imagined?

Magic.

Well it's not magic, it's a process, and she's trained in it, has the skills required to help someone else make the necessary connections between brain, body, thinking, behaviour to calm an over-active flight or fight response. Oh, and freezing. We never mention freezing but it's another reaction to anxiety.

It's all very helpful, even hearing myself tell a familiar tale I remember lost details or recognize overlooked significance. Maybe a pattern. I even learned of a possible approach to the panic attacks called "radical acceptance", which just knowing is a possibility has lowered my anxiety about the next panic attack.

Typing that just reminded me of The Greatest Generation (although surely not as parents) threatening crying children with "Stop that crying before I give you something to cry about!"

Panic attacks sure gave me something to be anxious about.

😀

I found out, too, I'm not alone in needing help after the Freedom Convoy attack on downtown Ottawa last February. It's apparently quite common. I should have known. Three of my panic attacks occurred after encountering people who continue to support it. But here radical acceptance comes into play, doesn't it. There will always be people who do. Accept it. Move on.

Get off Twitter. It won't get you published and it's just another addiction. Either do the work of shopping your book around or don't but stop with the magical thinking. Lots of people write books. The reward is in the writing. Getting published is the work.

😀

Meanwhile, write another one. Find the humour in trading time and effort to make money. The stuff of life some of us find rewarding and some of us don't. At all. Except without doing it, without having done it, what would I have to write about that others can appreciate as a break from being who we're paid to be and not who we are.

My dreams?

😀

The other night I had a dream my mother got better. I went home to visit her and found she'd left the nursing home and was back in our house, healthy, younger looking. Smiling. Happy to see me but a little confused by my concern.

"I quit drinking" she laughed. "That's all it was."

Then I asked her where all her friends were.

"I haven't told them."

Well I told her they'd like to know and she should tell them because they'd been very worried about her. So she did. Then they all showed up, filling the house, and it was a party. Her best friend was there and suggested I move back home, I could drive everybody around because nobody had their licence anymore. They'd pay me to do it. I'd have a job. Then I saw my mother walking up the street with an empty glass. She said she was going for some water. I wasn't sure I believed her but she seemed so happy and confident. I wanted to make sure it all lasted so I decided, yes, I should move back home and look after her. Not even should, I wanted to. Start over at the beginning but all grown up, find fulfillment in keeping this irresponsible mother of mine on the straight and narrow.

😀

Aftershocks

 I had another panic attack yesterday evening. I think I felt it building over the course of the day but I'm not sure. By 7:30 pm though I knew it was happening so I propped myself up in bed, a cold cloth on my forehead, tried to concentrate on my breathing.

The nausea was fairly intense, coming in waves, but I felt less alienated than during other panic attacks. I wanted to lie on the bathroom floor at one point (the attacks are very tiring) and did, briefly, but decided that was falling into back into an earlier pattern, and made myself go back to bed.

Also, while lying on the bathroom floor starting to wish for the crabby hand of death to slap me off this mortal coil, I kicked my rational brain into gear, "you're not going to die of a panic attack, get a grip, let it play out, you will feel better".

My mantra for next time: This too shall pass.

My blond companion lied with me in bed, holding my hand. This too was an improvement on previous attacks when I didn't want anybody around, couldn't (wouldn't?) allow myself to be comforted.

Suffering should be borne in private? Me? Who is this person having panic attacks?

But I get anxious if I think I'm inconveniencing someone, no matter how willing they are to help. It's ironic because my neighbour, of whom I make much fun, won't be beholden to anyone no matter how much he needs the help.

(Just to be mean I make him meat pies he can't resist accepting, even gracing me once with, "it was good".)

Eventually, pill averse me said yes to a couple of gravol. Gravol hasn't been enough in the past, but I figured it was worth a try again, even though I was worried about interactions with the daily medication I've been taking, fluoxetine. I need two gravol (at least) and tried to have faith they would work.

Well of course they did and next time I'll take the gravol as soon as I start feeling nauseous.

After a while of counting breaths, I fell asleep, which I guess is the effect of the gravol.

I always have to get up in the night to pee and when I did I noticed I wasn't nauseous anymore. I also suddenly remembered as a kid having had the stomach flu and being so afraid afterward of being nauseous that my mother took me to Dr. Tiltons (an Estonian who escaped when the Soviets invaded, landing in the Sault and with an accent so strong we often had no idea what the diagnosis was). She prescribed some sort of peppermint concoction, and I insisted on taking a spoonful of it every night before bed.

But here's something, it's the anniversary of the Freedom Convoy attack on us in Ottawa last year and yesterday I'd posted on Facebook about having to avoid seeing or hearing Pierre Poilievre, which is getting harder with the House back. I was listening to CBC radio and all of a sudden there was his whiny drone assaulting my ears. In my post I joked about him making me nauseous, which I'd forgotten about until my blond companion reminded me of it this morning.

Surely hearing Pierre Poilievre's voice on the radio (I mute CBC news on television if he's in a clip from the House or elsewhere) didn't spark a panic attack a couple of hours later, but I suppose it's possible. In any case, he's not going away so I'm going to have to figure out how to avoid being exposed to him.

(I just remembered that episode of Seinfeld where Mary Hart's voice sets off seizures? in Kramer.)

(Also, today I read an interview with Erin O'Toole in which he complained about Conservative MPs having gone down internet rabbit holes, and I wondered why then he'd wanted to lead them to power.)

Anyway, I think today will be my last day (re)posting Freedom Convoy memories as they pop up on Facebook. I tend to think it's my duty to bear witness but I did it already and belabouring it isn't healthy. Time to trust in the process and let it go.

Maybe time to ditch a habit or two and establish some new routines, too. If I'm going to have panic attacks I want to at least learn from them. In the meantime, I wrote out a list of tips for dealing with anxiety, although not necessarily panic attacks, that I'll share here.

1.    2 inhales, 1 long exhale (I like this one because I have to think about it to do it).

2.    Focus on right now, the lack of need for action, and bring your attention to breathing.

3.    Exercise, preferably fresh air exercise, move your body (not possible in a panic attack for me).

4.    Eat good food (I include my baking in this now I'm on medication because I only want a small portion).

5.    Prioritize sleep (I sleep better and more than I used to because as soon as I'm even a bit tired I go to bed).

6.    Overcome catastrophizing and keep perspective (well, good luck - #7 helps with this).

7.    Make peace with the worst case scenario (this one has been good for me and came in handy last night).

8.    Use the anxiety decision tree: What's making you anxious? Can you do something about it? If so, do it. If no, distract yourself by doing something else productive. (this is a tricky one, at least, I find it hard, partly because not being pro-active enough is partly why I'm anxious, sort of a chicken/egg thing.)

If anybody has any other tips let me know.

Also, I don't think the panic attacks are menopause related, but they could be.

Calm Waters Amid Stormy Seas

Several times between my last post and this one I've been seized with the urge to blog about a topic, but after thinking it over decided against making the effort.

Is this a byproduct of anti-anxiety medication kicking in, this "on second thought" life I seem to be living now?

The other day I found myself enjoying memories of living downtown Ottawa in a one bedroom apartment, my three kids and Kasey (sheltie/beagle) coming every weekend to camp out, my new partner eventually moving in to make us a party of five. This is new, too, looking back on this part of my life as "Hey, I did that!" instead of "Oh dear, I did that...".

So 😊 instead of 😟.

It's not nothing, either, this clean living, part... 4? I've been doing, and although some people would suggest it alone is making the difference in how I feel, I believe the medication led to that, too. I'm paying attention to what I can do for my health now, instead of worrying about others, what I've done, what I might do.

Finally I get it: one day at a time, one foot in front of the other, and not AA's accept the things I cannot change, but Toni Morrison's change the things I cannot accept.

It suits me better at this stage of life. Not reactive, proactive. I've read the opposite of indecision (sometimes mistaken for procrastination, which is quite different) is impulsiveness. I can certainly identify with it, decision-making being paralyzing for me, until boom - I'm living downtown Ottawa in a one bedroom apartment.

But that's not what this entry is about because this entry is about not believing everything you read on the internet, and last week deciding to use a bag of frozen pineapple pieces by way of baking a pineapple upside down cake.

I've returned to baking as a pastime. I grew up with Gram's baking and want to become accomplished at it, particularly sandwich cookies of various types. I've watched Paul, one of the judges on the Great British Baking Show, delight in appreciating - so eating - good baking and aspire to get back to it myself.

Anyway, suffice it to say I followed the recipe on the internet - very carefully - and when I turned the cake out onto a plate, brown sugary buttery slime splashed all over it, the counter, the floor.

I'd basically dolloped cake batter (the cake was sublime, by the way, one of the best I've ever made) over 1/2 cup of melted butter, brown sugar, and pineapple pieces. When I checked the recipe later, yup, that's what it said, but really, I should have realized the mistake. Indeed, I did wonder at no butter actually IN the cake batter, but such a trusting soul of Chef Google am I that I forged ahead.

Fortunately I had a carton of whipping cream - expiry date in February, bought in December? - and the pineapple upside down cake was saved as a... trifle!

Also I live with a 6'/180lb man who's been known to eat gas station pepperoni sticks - by choice. Oh and a dog whose nose then tongue found any lingering bits of brown sugary buttery slime not visible to the human eye.

But here's the part where the medication meets an eating/drinking/drug disorder (even a smoking disorder at times!) - when my partner served me up a bowl of "trifle" the next day, I decided immediately, right in front of him, no sparing of feelings, eye contact made, to return 3/4 of it to the pan. So show him what a serving size for a 5'5"/100lb woman with an eating disorder should be. And I thought it was for him but then realized, "Aha!" it was for me, I am now consciously, deliberately, thoughtfully choosing to do what's best for me, which is also what I want to do, never mind externalities.

In other words, the medication is working, which I find hard to believe, the therapist suggesting it's addressing a chemical imbalance, which I find even harder to believe. But why? Why do I find it hard to believe I've been challenged by a chemical imbalance? Clearly I have been. And whether I always had it or developed it along the way, accidentally, consequentially, who cares?

What's with all the blaming anyway? It's everywhere, too. Someone must always be blamed.

Absurd. Guilt, shame, blame. Rinse, repeat.

And speaking of therapy, also guilt, shame, blame, I thought the panic attacks I was having had to do with others, particularly my mother, childhood, young adulthood, middle adulthood, but now I know they just had to do with me, an imbalance in, not the force, my force.

So now when I look back, which I'm only doing to reclaim it from guilt, shame, blame, it's not "Oh dear, I did that..." (to me, to others) - it's "Hey, I did that!" (for me, for others).

I even did that trick the other day of "I don't have to walk Bernie, I get to walk Bernie."

It's January in Ottawa.

I've reference my mother a lot, too much, and not fairly (widows can be a lot) but she always told me "You have to put yourself first" and "You can't care what other people think"

Well I didn't get it then but I get it now.

Beta blockers for the win.😀

From Freaktown To Normville

So to continue the journey I find myself on, I had an intake interview connected to the prescription my doctor gave me to deal with the baseline anxiety behind the panic attacks I've been having.

I'm relieved to say I qualify for therapy.

It was an interesting process. The person doing the interview sounded young which I find reassuring nowadays. I have three Millennials of my own and they're definitely more attuned and empathetic to the effects of life on our psyches than we tail-end Boomers.

Cripes, no sooner did "parenting" become a verb than a Boomer put "helicopter" in front of it.

(Sorry GenXers, I keep forgetting you're there.)

There's resiliency, and then there's a stubborn failure to recognize we're freaks and should avail ourselves of help from others qualified to give it so we can experience life as norms.

(For context, please see Marge Simpson in The Simpsons "Freaks Vs Norms" episode.)

Here's irony for you, I've gone for help before, but it was on behalf of others. Or so I thought. But listening to myself throw in everything I could think of during the intake interview, so desperate am I to get to the bottom of these panic attacks, was eye opening. Hard even for me not to draw a line from purging to be slim, in spite of being vomit-phobic when actually nauseous, in my teenage years, to panic attacks accompanied by nausea requiring I purge to feel better in my 60s.

Yikes, eh? I guess there's a reason I include having had an eating disorder in the story I tell about myself. And yet it only came up as a "by the way" towards the end of the interview, at which point I thought I should probably mention beer and pot use on and off over the decades.

Why? Why would a health nut like me play with the fire of known carcinogens? My father died of cancer when I was four ffs. Carcinogens have been on my wick ever since. I was critiquing the Canada Food Guide in grade school, reading diet books focussed on fibre, doing yoga, jogging, worried sick about my younger sister eating too much sugar, directing Gram to go easy on the white, double up on the brown, more vegetables, less meat, on and on and on I went.

I started making ratatouille, bran muffins (just a bit of honey for sweetener), glass of water with every bite.

Now for the first time in my life I'm on prescription medication that puts a distance, a distance I imagine normal people are born with, feel naturally, between me and everybody and everything else.

Life, as it were. A little distance between me and life. And if a lion jumps out from behind a bush and eats me, well, I suppose it's my own fault my fight or flight response didn't kick in.

But at least I won't have spent hours nauseous and lying on the bathroom floor before I'm eaten.

I won't cite specifics here but suffice it to say a recent situation that would've had my fight or flight response revved up to 11 prior-to-medication (I know this because p-t-m me keeps trying to do it) has been relegated to: "At ease, soldier, situation normal. Also, others are on it, anyway. Your job is actually done here so go have some lunch or something."

Anyway, I'm blogging about this because I realize now I had the same fear of prescription medication to treat my own mental health condition as so many other people in need of it do. Or maybe it was a blindspot. Certainly I had no trouble advocating it for others. But when it came to myself I finally had to make myself go back to the doctor and say it for me: "I need help".

Because I did and I do. Never mind everybody else right now. I have to put my own oxygen mask on first.

Who Am I?

A Facebook friend posted an interesting graphic this morning that connects to my mission to take the story I tell myself about me in a different direction. This has to do, of course, with the panic attacks I've been experiencing since last spring. Although I'm on medication now to treat what the doctor I'm lucky enough to have refers to as the "base level of anxiety", it may be a while before I can access the requisite therapy to cope with the actual attacks.

Having said that, the other night, after receiving a morning call from a sibling involving another sibling and the death of an uncle (the last of my mother's siblings, much younger, and unexpected) I started to feel the now familiar onset of symptoms. Fortunately, I'd only had a small dinner - at home - and knew there was no reason I should have to rid myself of it. So I laid down in bed with a cool cloth on my forehead and breathed my way through the (this time milder) waves of nausea. Eventually I fell asleep to have first one dream and then another that together implied I'd always had the power to get home to Kansas, so to speak.

It's funny, I think of myself as an ally to other people claiming their human and civil right to change how they identify themselves from male to female, but what kind of ally am I really if I can't do the same for myself in less essential ways?

One of my favourite stories of reinvention comes from a cousin, a doctor, whose very socially inhibited (at the time) young adult son decided on a beach holiday with his family to make himself talk to a couple of young adult women also on a beach holiday. When nothing other than a brief friendly exchange of pleasantries came of it he realized he could do it again. And again. And again. And so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.

He reinvented himself as a young man comfortable engaging socially with people he didn't know, and maybe never would beyond a friendly exchange of pleasantries, and realized it was a way of being in the world he enjoyed.

Families are terrible for pigeon-holing us and in early days I was identified as a hypochondriac, anxious, saver for a rainy day. In short, a worry wart. As time went on decision-making became fraught, and whether to do something or not do something, however innocuous, it didn't matter, I'd be paralyzed. Along the way I came across "the flip side of procrastination is impulsivity" and recognized the truth in it. I'd even had a psychologist suggest to me "it's not a good decision or a bad decision, it's just a decision" but by then I was nearing 40 and my story was firmly entrenched.

Panic attacks are powerful calls to action, though, and so I want to change the story I tell myself about me. I have fallen into a pattern and mistaken it for my identity.

I will now step outside of it and allow myself a new way of being in the world.