You have questions? I have answers! I don't guarantee them to be free of snark or profanity.
January 4 questions -
Do you have a word of the year?
Yeah, it's the same word I have every year. It starts with an F, ends with a K, and has a U C in the middle. I intend to use it a lot.
Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year?
For instance, in 2021 my word of the year was Finish. I was determined to finished my first draft by the end of the year. In 2022, my word of the year is Ease. I want to get my process, systems, finances, and routines where life flows with ease and less chaos. What is your word for 2023? Why?
It isn't a word, it's a phrase. I need to stop being such an asshole to myself. Like, for real. So, I suppose the word could be STOP.
I have a huge problem with getting angry at myself whenever I have a health setback. Growing up, I was instilled with the belief that people brought all their problems on themselves. Since I didn't do everything perfect, I deserve my ailments. It's a pretty terrible way to think. I no longer judge other people that harshly, but I still give myself the business.
Seriously, this way of thinking was so strong in my family that when I called my mother to tell her the doctor was sending me to the hospital to induce labor because I had toxemia, her response was "what did you do to cause this?"
Yah. So, that shit is really ingrained. By the time this posts, I will have had selective laser tribeculoplasty performed on my left eye. The damn "holy fuck this burns" eye drops aren't lowering the optic nerve pressure enough. As procedures go, it's relatively low risk and apparently not painful. It has an approximately 75% success rate of lowering optic nerve pressure.
Hopefully, I'll be one of the people it works for. Otherwise, I'm looking at microsurgery to implant little stents in the eye, which will involve being sedated, which means I'll have to make arrangements to have someone drive me to and from the procedure, which is a massive pain in the ass because I'm a friendless fuck who lives in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway, it does me no good to berate myself for having glaucoma. I'm not sure how I could even erroneously blame myself for having the condition, but I manage to. If only I was pretty and popular and not an ugly fuckup, I wouldn't have glaucoma. This is how irrational the levels of self-loathing inherent in this thought process are.
Glaucoma is kind of like Alzheimer's for the eye. With Alzheimer's, the individual suffering from it has an impaired ability to clear proteins from the brain, so plaques start to form. With glaucoma, a patient has impaired circulation of the aqueous humor in the eye, so protein deposits build up in the tribecular meshwork. The laser tribeculoplasty clears away these protein deposits, which helps lower the pressure on the optic nerve.
The procedure should only take about 10 minutes, and I trust my opthalmologist. Still, I'm a bit of a nervous wreck about it. I'm not a good patient. I have a lot of trust issues when it comes to medicine. Without dragging things out, I have good reasons for these issues.
Anyway, happy new year. I hope you don't have glaucoma. I hope you never develop glaucoma. But if you do have it, know that I know where you're coming from. I'm not sure how much that helps.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
I really, really hope your surgery goes well. Sadly I know exactly where you are coming from on the self blame game. If you find a way to stop it please let me know.
ReplyDeleteThat's my favorite word as an adult with grown children, too. Such freedom comes with just blurting it out (tho I'm not so free as to flaunt it in public). I don't use it as a regular part of speech . . . yet. I'll just pretend to be old and senile.
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