Category: let’s talk

I learned the terms prosopagnosia–or face blindness–probably in my early thirties (I think because I was reading about Oliver Sacks, who both had it and wrote a book about an extreme case). A few years before then, I was talking to my BFF about a dream, and said, “You know how people’s faces in dreams are never really faces, they’re just a blur?” and he said, “No, that’s not how most people dream faces.”

I’m entirely self-diagnosed and in my 30s, the main tests out there were to check for the appercetive type, in which you don’t recognize ANYONE. I can recognize people but most of it’s from external cues–beards, hair, voices, clothing style, they’re where I expect to see them, etc.

I randomly decided to read the Wikipedia article about face blindness last night and learned that there’s a developmental type of prosopagnosia, too, which sounds like my case: It’s not an utter inability to recognize people, it’s just hard; it’s been around from birth; and it might even be genetic?

There’s even a newer test out there to screen for the milder types and wow, did that confirm my self-diagnosis:

There’s nothing to be done about it and, because my brain doesn’t know anything else, it’s not bothersome; it’s just an interesting neural thing (maybe something didn’t develop in the fusiform face area of my brain? Yes, I went on a deep dive last night). But thinking of my own history and just assuming everyone was like this, I thought, “Let’s talk about it!”

I’ve been having “female trouble,” as my friend puts it, and it turns out it’s uterine fibroids. Let’s talk about it in public!

My issues started in July, I got a transvaginal ultrasound in August, and ended up with a biopsy in September–I didn’t handle that news well and also a uterine biopsy HURTS, even with pain meds. (The gynecologist wanted to make sure the thickened uterine lining was benign and not the beginnings of a tumor.) (It was benign, just thicc.)

Then this month I started noticing that everything at the gym felt REALLY hard and I was getting out of breath doing things like going up the stairs or even just walking. I asked my primary care D.O. for blood work, since all signs pointed to an iron deficiency–which makes sense, given that I’d been bleeding since July. Despite her saying, “It could be stress or perimenopause, you could try acupuncture,” it turns out I AM anemic. Good times.

I finally was able to get an ablation scheduled for the week of Thanksgiving, which should help with the bleeding (most of my fibroids are on the outside of my uterus so only a hysterectomy can get rid of them, which I want to avoid). I’ve also started prescription iron this week. So in the grand scheme of Women Trying To Get Treated, this is a pretty good timeline. (It took my friend twenty years to get diagnosed with endometriosis; another friend’s symptoms of DVT were passed off as perimenopause and now she’s rehabbing her leg after a blood clot wrecked it.)

Why am I blogging about this? Uterus stuff and being taken seriously as a woman is on my mind this election season. One of the treatments for fibroids is a D&C–a procedure also used for abortion. What happens if that’s not available? How many women have already died from lack of abortion care? Why are we still begging to be believed when we say something’s wrong?!

I’ve also been waiting for a chance to post this, which–even with my overall positive experience–is way too accurate:

 

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In September, I saw my general practitioner for a yearly checkup. It was the height of seasonal allergies, so I told her I’d be curious to talk to an allergist about what could be done. She referred me but the appointment wasn’t until December; I almost didn’t keep it because I thought, “I don’t have allergies in December.”

The allergist’s first question was, “Do you have a cat at home?” I told her I did but was emphatically NOT allergic, since I’d been around cats my entire life. She looked in my eyes and nose and recommended a nasal spray “to help improve my sleep” and then we did the skin test for environmental allergies.

Can you guess what’s coming next? That circled C and Ce below stands for “cat hair” and “cat epidermis.”

Thankfully, it’s a really mild allergy, as compared to the “grass, tree and pollen” arm:

Nothing in Prince Toby’s kingdom will change, of course, and I still continue to bury my face in his fur and kiss him at every opportunity, but this explains SO MUCH: I’ve just kind of always had a stuffy nose my entire life. I assumed it was normal to wake up and not be able to breathe. I thought everyone kept a Kleenex in their pocket at all times for nose-blowing. (In fact, I learned that from my mom–I bet she was allergic, too.)

The nasal spray the allergist recommended is making a huge difference already–I don’t wake up stuffy! I blow my nose so much less! At some point next year I’m planning to do the shots for a long-term solution, but the whole experience honestly feels as magical as starting therapy or Zoloft: There is a reason you feel this way, and there’s ways you didn’t even know about to feel BETTER.

Better living through science, indeed.

Firstly, no, he is not literally a younger Yoda, but no one knows what else to call the species Master Yoda belongs to. Secondly, I haven’t seen any parts of The Mandalorian; yet–like the rest of the world–I am obsessed.

Baby Yoda moved Werner Herzog to tears! A completely understandable reaction! This opinion piece posits that we should all mother our collective son Baby Yoda instead of bringing human children into the world! I agree!

I have Just the Baby Yoda Parts of The Mandalorian bookmarked to read when a new episode comes out (or whenever I just need to see Baby Yoda being adorable). I recommend you do the same.

Until next time, Baby Yoda!

I’ve been drinking my entire adult life. Even after my partying 20s, I’d have at least a glass of something a night, every day of the week, without fail. Often more than one glass.

I told myself it was French, it was good for my heart, I wasn’t drinking to the point of a hangover, I didn’t have a problem. (I could honestly say that it wasn’t hard to give up…because I’d never tried to give it up.) But two things changed back at the beginning of November: My bottle of Zoloft told me DO NOT DRINK WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION and I thought, “Maybe I should stop ignoring that?”–and I realized that I wasn’t even enjoying my nightly drink. I was just drinking it because it was there, because I always had.

So I tried not drinking for a few days. Then for a week. Then for a month. Now I generally don’t drink, and never on the weeknights. I thought I was waking up stiff and creaky, with bags under my eyes and blackness in my heart, because I was old. Nope, it was the booze.

I sleep better, I look better (honestly, sometimes vanity keeps me from my allowed weekend drink, because I know it will make my face puffy and gray), and I feel so much happier in the mornings.

Recently, this essay has been making the rounds and it’s been my experience pretty much exactly. File this under “Things That Are Obvious But Make You Feel Like A Wizard,” like getting enough sleep and getting help for your mental issues–but not ingesting a poison every night really makes you feel great!

From “The Unifying Theory of Alcohol,” by Dan Kiernan:

I’m eight weeks into taking an SSRI for anxiety and six weeks into cognitive behavioral therapy and I honestly feel like I’ve discovered a magic trick. If you’ve been on the fence at all about getting help, here’s my story–I hope it will help convince you, because it took a long time to convince myself.

I’ve been anxious my whole life. Even as a little kid I worried obsessively about things that were never likely to happen. As an adult, worrying about everything seemed like a normal way to live and people who didn’t were just too stupid to not worry. I had panic attacks. I judged everyone constantly and gave myself the worst of it. I lived with so much fear about the present, the future, relationships, job performance, planes falling out of the sky, car crashes, animal welfare, social situations, doing it wrong, where “it” could be literally anything…I COULD GO ON. And on. And on.

Here’s the kicker–I thought I was coping pretty well. It took a whole combination of things to push me to get help: My favorite coworker talked openly about his wife taking medication for anxiety, at length, many times over the course of a couple years (thanks, Karl). My mom was diagnosed with cancer this year, so “coping” got a little harder. And a loved one sat me down and said, in short, “You’re really negative and it’s hard to be around.”

I didn’t know until I was taking the GAD-7 survey in the doctor’s office that irritability and judgment were a symptom of anxiety. And I had NO IDEA that therapy–especially CBT–gives you tools to help change your thought patterns. This seems as obvious as realizing that getting enough sleep makes you feel rested, or that lifting weights gives you muscles, but mental health was a mystery to me–maybe because I was so profoundly unhealthy, or maybe because I heard depression discussed a lot more than anxiety.

So I’m talking about it here. SSRIs are, in my opinion, a miracle of the modern age. I’m not a zombie; I don’t feel like my issues have just been numbed. I’m still myself–but it’s so much easier now to not let that self spiral into worry/negativity when things get rough. Therapy is fucking hard work and I have lifetime of distorted thinking to change, but feeling stronger mentally makes doing that work easier. And that work is so worth it. I can already feel the difference.

If I know you in real life (or even if I don’t) and you want to talk to me more about this, hit me up. And if I can help you find a doctor or therapist, let me know. If you are struggling, hang in there. There’s people and tools out there that can help. I didn’t really believe that until two months ago.

Back on New Years Eve I posted that video of “JB style” skating and joked that maybe I should learn how to do that in 2018. Since it warmed up, skating has been at the back of my mind, hand-in-hand with my disco fever.

There was a glorious moment back in about 1979 when roller disco was popular enough to merit making B movies about it. I force the topic to come up in conversation just so I can share facts like, “Did you know Patrick Swayze made his film debut in Skatetown, USA as Ace Johnson, the leader of a skate gang? You can watch the whole movie on YouTube RIGHT NOW!”

Of course, there’s also Xanadu and Roller Boogie and my buddy dug up a whole other genre from about 10 years later of post-apocalyptic roller blading movies. (No, really.) Clearly I have been doing my skate research by watching all these films.

Can I even skate? Well, I could back in 1988 and I loved it. I skated down on the cement basement floor in the winter. I skated around the neighborhood in the summer. Going to the roller rink was magical. That same roller rink is still open and putting on disco nights on Saturdays.

So why haven’t I gone? Well, firstly I’m a little afraid that one whiff of the rink from my youth will force me to write a multi-volume novel about my past; and secondly, I’m afraid I will be like this:

(Props to my same friend for finding something that so perfectly matches my brain.)

But this is the summer of being brave, so maybe I’ll work up the nerve soon. I can always practice in my basement first.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been growing my hair out since spring. Just last week it FINALLY got long enough to pull back into the tiniest of pony tails–literally, an inch–but I felt exactly like this:

Also, when you tell your 25-year-old stylist that you’re going for a “young Robert Plant” look for your hair, you get a tight, confused smile and the confirmation that you are the Weird Old Lady.

I’ve been growing my hair out and so far progress is non-noticeable. (At least it’s curlier than the last time we talked about hair, but I attribute that to finding a better stylist who doesn’t hack it to death with a razor.)

Anyway, my goal was to get to a nice chin length that I could pin back, but then I saw the Wonder Woman movie and now all I want is a Connie Nielsen/Queen Hippolyta mane of loose curls:

And a sword. I think a sword is really what that hairstyle calls for. This is gonna be a good look for my 40s.