About two months ago I took a large step, which I never thought that I would. I finally went to my doctor’s office and asked to be prescribed medication for depression. Depression is something that I have dealt with for a long time but I have also been very against taking medication to try and help with it. Partly because being on a medication for it would make it more real and not as easy to ignore and partly because I work in a pharmacy and I see the side effects that people have to deal with and how long and how many trial and errors can happen before they find the right medication. For the past couple years, I have gone back and forth trying to decide if I should go on medication or not. When I would have good days, or even weeks I would think no way I need medication I’m fine but then the bad days and weeks would hit and I would be stuck in bed wishing that I had something to help me because I no longer can do it on my own. Finally, after discussing it with my therapist and my pharmacist I decided to take the leap and get prescribed medication. So far it has been helpful and I notice that I do not feel so down all of the time which is nice. It is not a huge change, and I’m not fully convinced that my feeling better is not just a placebo effect but I am glad that I was able to finally take this chance and really start working towards bettering myself and not just suffering through to the next day.
Author: jcs5011263
No one knows your body like you do
For the past seven to eight years I have been dealing with chronic lower back pain. Though this has been an ongoing epidemic in my life for a long time I have never viewed myself as disabled. About a year or so after the pain started I was at my doctor’s office to get a physical done so that I could continue swimming for my high school team. I mentioned to my doctor that I was having pretty intense pain in my lower back and wasn’t exactly sure what was causing it. Without doing any type of further examination he simply suggested that I “work on my posture.” Years go by and the pain increases as well as others starting to notice more and more that I am in pain. I was stretching and slouching more at work and laying on a heating pad more often at home. I am thankful that I have an unreasonably high pain tolerance otherwise the pain I was experiencing would have had a much more negative effect on me and my life. Finally, my mom made me another doctor’s appointment, without my knowledge, and the doctor suggested that I have x-rays done on my back. After the x-rays it turns out that I have scoliosis in my lower back and that has been the cause of my pain. The doctor then suggested that I should try out physical therapy to help with the pain, which I have been doing and has been helping. When I found out that I have scoliosis I was extremely frustrated by this because it is something that I could’ve been working on if the first doctor would’ve taken the time to help me and not just brush off the issue. This has been a lesson for me that people, including medical professionals, can all be guilty of not paying attention to a problem in someone else’s life if it is not physically visible to them and that I need to not let myself be dismissed so easily. It is my body and no one knows better than myself the difference between needing actual medical assistance and simply “working on my posture.”
“Oh, but you don’t look gay”
When I tell people that I identify as a lesbian I find that I often have people make comments to me like “oh, but you don’t look gay” or “yeah, I could tell by the way you dress and carry yourself.” I have always found it very strange how people can have such different opinions and views of someone simply from the way they dress and look. It has always bothered me when people would say to me that “I don’t look gay.” What is gay supposed to look like? How am I supposed to respond to that? In this class we have discussed a lot about how our bodies are mediums and are really important for expressing ourselves to the world around us. Not everything that I do is to express that I am gay. I dress the way I do because it is comfortable and because it is what I like, not to make sure that my sexual orientation is known. Some days I wear dresses, and other days I wear jeans and boots which some would say make me look more “masculine” but I dress and carry myself the way I do because it is what is comfortable for me. Which is really important for me since it has only been recently that I have felt comfortable with my body and my style. Most people wouldn’t respond to someone who says that they are straight with “oh, you don’t look straight” so why is it believed to be okay to say it to someone who is not. Especially when people follow the statement with, “it’s a compliment that you don’t.” How a statement like that is supposed to be a complement is beyond me. I am just living my life in the most comfortable way that I can and know how to at this point.
Just take the complement.
Growing up, I had never been very comfortable with my body, specifically in terms of my weight. Throughout high school I was never the most girly or skinny but I was generally okay with that. Uncomfortable at times yes, but I had friends, I played sports and did generally well in school academically so I didn’t have a very unpleasant high school experience. I enjoyed it a lot actually. It wasn’t until after l left my home town and would come back to visit friends and family that I started questioning the way I viewed myself as well as how others viewed me then and now. Without a doubt every time I go home and see someone from high school, close friends, and sometimes even parents of friends, that I haven’t seen in a while, one of the first things that they comment on is my weight. Usually things like, oh my god, you’ve lost so much weight or you look so good now, have you been working out a lot? What’s your secret? And every once in a while someone will add to the end of the comment “not that you ever looked bad or big, you just look really good now.” I tell myself to just take the compliment, but it’s hard to just take it when there is an underlying negative aspect that I can’t help but to associate with it. These comments really have me self-reflecting a lot because I weigh maybe five to ten pounds lighter than I did in high school, do I really look that different?
Most of the weight loss is not a healthy weight loss. Which took me a long time to realize. More so result of not taking time to eat properly because of stress and anxiety and a general lack of appetite because of it. But everyone responds to my body like I have lost a drastic amount of weight. This has caused me to think excessively about a time in my life that has long since passed. Was I just the funny fat girl who happened to have pretty friends, and that’s why people hung around me? Or were people friends with me because they genuinely enjoyed my company? Even my mother has made the comment of “she just doesn’t eat anymore” when people comment on my weight loss around her. To everyone else, I have lost weight and that’s such a good thing, but for me the weight loss and comments serve as a constant reminder that I have become temporarily incapable of taking care of myself and body because of the stress, anxiety, and depression that I deal with every day. The past couple years have been the most trying for me mentally so having this constant reminder of that adds another layer to the hardship. Work, school, and other obligations are always put first over making sure that my body is healthy and well taken care of, both physically and mentally.
Unruly Bodies 