I realize my last couple posts have been a bit depressing. In spite of the beautiful scenery around me, I am reminded every day about how little energy I have. For the past year or two, I have lived in a constant state of low-energy, like I’m on a mild depressant or something.
I’ve decided to return to taking multivitamins. I’ve been monitoring my health fairly closely over the past year since foregoing eating meat, though I haven’t been to a doctor or gotten stats. I remember getting tested for anemia when I worked at Chevron, and was disappointed when the tests came back negative. I’ve always FELT a little anemic, but have never been able to prove it.
Some other strange symptoms have returned this year…in February, I began pulling at my split ends again. I believe I have at least a mild form of trichotillomania, which started around age 12/13. Pulling your hair out is a funny disorder. Basically, it does what other addictions do, which is to focus the mind when it becomes overwhelmed by either boredom/ennui or overstimulation. It’s like your brain is a CD or record (for those of you that kick it old-school) that skips for a while, and while it is skipping you kind of transcend time and circumstances. My hairstylist told me it is always the girls with the beautiful, thick, healthy heads of hair that end up with this habit. For the past couple of weeks, it has been under control.
Boredom seems to be the biggest trigger for me, and boredom actually can become more of an issue the busier you try to be! When you are completing task after task during the day, the pauses between the business feels like boredom, or a kind of uneasy indecisiveness.
I have a theory that there are many things that ly dormant in our bodies and just wait for stress to bring them out. For example, my father has had all his toes amputated in the past couple of years. As far as he can recall, he thinks it may have stemmed from an injury he had as a boy scout when he was 8 years old. He had a shoe problem on a long hike and ended up with an infection. It was supressed for about 50 years, then came back when his foot was re-injured during a construction accident.
Similarly, since I was a child, I would get cold sores on my lower lip when stressed mentally or when I would be in the sun for too long. The last one I had was probably 3-5 years ago. I’ve learned to pay better attention to my stress levels, and had avoided them pretty well until this past week, when my excitement and mental planning for my class reunion and vacation got the best of me.
Another disturbing thing I’ve noticed this year is that the left side of my face will start to go numb if I hold onto any negative stress at my day job. Luckily I caught this one early enough and recognize the triggers. I know people who have had one side of their face paralyzed (Bell’s Palsy?) and it’s not pretty!
So I know I sound like a mess right now, but that’s what I get for volunteering for a crazy, chaotic lifestyle this summer! Routines are probably good for people to have, and I should probably get back into one when I return from my 1.5-week vacation.