The Cheese Grates It + Fat Friday: Is It Worth It?

Image by Erich Westendarp from Pixabay

I approached this post with trepidation and end my experience with applause because the author is that rare person who takes a position similar to Health At Every Size.

I became bulimic at twelve. My thyroid burned itself out in my early teens. I had PCOS (I say "had" because I've gone through menopause and now my ovaries are atrophied so I don't think it's an issue anymore.) I struggled with yo-yo dieting, orthorexia, and trying to hate myself thin for 33 years. None of it made me thin, it just made me hate myself. I had to stop dieting so I wouldn't gain more weight because every time I lost weight it always came back with friends. I can tell you from personal experience that it is NOT worth it.

These days I won't let people get away with being jerks. This includes medical professionals. Think what you want about my appearance, but you are not entitled to be abusive about it.

I still struggle with my abusive life partner, ED (Eating Disorder.) People don't believe me, but I am actually very good at restricting food. I went through a couple of days this past week where I refused to eat all day. Considering that I have diabetes, this is not a good thing.

This time of year is rough because so many people take up the rallying cry of "new you in 52," "I'm going on Keto (or whatever diet is currently in vogue)," or other such crap that I don't want to hear about any more than I want to hear about their bowel movements.

Thank you so much for being a voice of reason.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Dehumanizing Language

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

I am not providing a link to the blog that I left this comment on. I don't think they intended to be insulting, and I don't want to start a war of some kind. 

The author of the post used this quote regarding the effects of the herbicide glyphosate.

“Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease”

MDI

I responded thusly:

I think most autistic people, my high-functioning 29-year-old autistic son included, would be insulted to have autism referred to as a "disease". It is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder, but many autistic people do fantastic things and many of them do not exhibit the stereotypical "autistic" behaviors that people unfamiliar with the condition expect. Autism encompasses a wide spectrum of manifestations. People with the condition are more sensitive to environmental stimuli and react in different ways. Some people with the condition react with self-soothing behaviors such as rocking and some become hysterical when overwhelmed. However, there are those like my son who do not act out when overstimulated but will withdraw for a time when able to be away from the stimulus.

My son is much more aware of sounds than most people are. He can hear the sounds of water running through pipes, for instance. I did not know until he was older and he informed me that some sounds are very unnerving to him and that he has an urge to strike his head to get the sounds out. He will notice anomalies in sounds, for instance, if the furnace fan sounded "off" in even a subtle way, he would be aware of it.

Like many autistic people, my son finds comfort in weighted items such as heavy blankets. He will turn fans on surrounding his bed so he can still use his comforter in the warm months because it helps him sleep.

My son processes information a little differently, but I think it is quite unkind to refer to him and other people like him as being "diseased." Listening to and reading the writings of autistic people, I know they find such terms insulting.

As for the word "obesity," pathologizing people's bodies is unhelpful and dehumanizing. People labeled "obese" are treated as inhuman and receive worse care in medical settings. A person's body type is the result of multiple complex influences, not the oversimplified "calories in, calories out" that uninformed individuals love to spout. A larger body type is primarily the result of DNA, but can also be influenced by endocrine conditions and medications. My endocrine system, for instance, is a trash fire. None of it works properly. Unless I contract some sort of flesh-wasting terminal illness, I will never be thin. I do not accept dehumanizing and pathologizing terms such as "obesity." I am a person who has a fat body. I am a fat person. In other words, I am a person, not a disease.

My intent is not to start some kind of war, but to call attention to the fact that it is very easy to pathologize and dehumanize those different from ourselves. When we do this, our message tends to end up getting lost and we may end up shutting out people who could benefit from what we were attempting to promote.

Further thoughts:

I concur with the belief that glyphosate and other pesticides and herbicides cause health problems. They may, in fact, contribute to higher incidences of autism and higher body fat percentages. There are a few things we can take away from this.

Having a larger body is not in and of itself a disease. It may be one of the manifestations of certain diseases or disorders, but it is not itself a disease.

Fat (adipose tissue) is an organ. It grows in response to certain conditions. Some people naturally have more of it. It exists to protect other organs such as the heart, liver, and kidneys and to provide nutrition to the organism in times of food scarcity.

Instead of accusing people with larger fat stores of lacking self-control and gorging themselves, isn't it about god damn time that the medical community instead studies the real reasons why people are getting fatter? Rather than making fat people miserable, how about some unbiased scientific studies about why people are fat? If adipose tissue is growing in response to certain stimuli such as exposure to environmental toxins, wouldn't it be good to know that rather than shaming people and promoting eating disorders?

These are diseases:

gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Depression can have several possible causes. Some of these are environmental or situational. It is not a disease in the same way that the aforementioned conditions are diseases.

Autism is a condition with a wide spectrum of expressions. Referring to it as a disease pathologizes and dehumanizes the people who have the condition.

Obesity is a slur. That fucking word needs to die in a fire. It is used to dehumanize and deny medical care to people. 

Having autism is nothing to be ashamed of. Being big is nothing to be ashamed of. 

Be careful when imparting your message that you don't alienate people who might potentially benefit from your message by pathologizing and dehumanizing them.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Fat Friday #18: Wouldn't It Be Nice for a Diabetic to Find Low-Carb Options Without the Weight Loss Shilling?

So I ordered something from Amazon which ended up being fulfilled by Wal-Fart, and there was a free sample of an Atkins lemon bar in there. I ate it, and it was pretty tasty. I decided that as a diabetic, it might be nice to have a supply of these things on hand for those times when I want candy but don't want to inject extra insulin.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a product that was a tasty snack with a low glycemic impact where it's true purpose was being helpful for diabetics rather than SO U CAN LOOSE WEIGHT!!11!1!1 AGAIN!!11!1!1 FOR THE TEN FUCKING TRILLIONTH TIME!!11!!1! UNLESS YOU'VE ALREADY DIETED SO GOD DAMN MUCH THAT YOU'LL NEVER LOSE ANOTHER POUND IN YOUR LIFE UNLESS YOU FUCKING GET CANCER!!!1!1!1!1

Yeah. I hate that shit. 

It's like if I eat one of these things I have to do it in a dark closet or something because otherwise, people will start congratulating my WEIGHT LOSS EFFORTS!!!11!1

Like, no.

I'm 999% done with that shit.

I will never diet again.

Diets don't work.

Fuck diets.

I don't care about the number on the scale.

I'm concerned about the one on the blood glucometer.

As for exercise, I'm not doing that to fucking LOSE WEIGHT!!!11!!! either. 

I'm trying to rebuild my strength and endurance.

I'm not able to go very far very fast yet. 

"But you'll get stronger..."

Sounds good, I hope I do.

AND THEN THE POUNDS WILL START COMING OFF!!!1!1!1

Fuck right off before I power-slam your ass through a wall. I may be physically compromised, but the rage inspired by crap like that will make me a beast.

Fuck your fucking weight loss rhetoric.

Just let my diabetic self enjoy the god damn Atkins bar.

Fuck's sake.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Fat Friday #16: Would I Have Gotten This Fat Without the "Help" of Diet Culture?

Diet Culture:

It makes about this much sense

And actually believes this shit

A response to this post on Dances With Fat.

I will admit to wondering at times whether I would have gotten as big as I did if I hadn't fallen into diet culture's clutches when I was just a kid. I became bulimic at twelve. I would see those ads for Ayds candy in my mother's magazines. Does anyone else remember these things? They were chocolate caramels with lidocaine in them. I bought a box of them once as an adult. They didn't work, by the way. Shocker, I know.

I have a myriad of endocrine problems, but I still wonder if I would have kept gaining weight or had ravenous cravings for food or alternated between binge eating and restricting food if it hadn't been for diet culture. I do know that it's internalized fatphobia that there's a part of my psyche which says: "you might not be this fat if you hadn't started dieting." Logically, I know that the number on the scale doesn't matter. I don't even own a scale. But I also wonder if my overall health wouldn't be better if I'd given diet culture a miss. 

Orthorexia caused me a few problems which have come back to haunt me in my middle years. I'm trying to rebuild my strength and stamina without making weight loss part of the equation. It isn't easy and I get no support for my efforts at all. If you aren't trying to lose weight, you will find no cheerleaders for any other efforts relating to physical fitness or overall health.

I also tend not to mention any efforts I may be making, because the first thing people say is something like: "keep it up and you'll start dropping those pounds in no time!"

Like, no, Asshole. Whether I lose any weight or not is not important to me. Fuck right off with that shit. Obsession with weight has only impacted my health negatively. Kindly stop trying to kill me.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Crazy Cheerleading Camp's Come as You Are Party: Hoarding Hurts

Image by Frank Winkler from Pixabay

This is one of those "it doesn't get any realer than this" posts, and I will tell you right now that this wound is one of those that may be healing around the edges but it isn't closed. It's still raw, and any unsympathetic or hateful bullshit will either be outright deleted or the sanctimonious sack of crap saying it will be ripped a new asshole. Choose your words carefully, and if you feel the need to be judgy, ask yourself what exactly you're getting from being that way.

I have had a problem my entire life: a problem which I was pretty well forced to keep secret, which meant that rather than being dealt with, it festered and grew out of control. Shit shows like "Hoarders" sure as hell didn't help, they just created a forum for people who don't understand the problem to say crap like: "I'm going to watch "Hoarders" now. At least my house isn't that messy--LOL!"

My thought regarding "Hoarders" has always been:

"And next up, just look at what those whacky Schizophrenics are doing this week! Woo-hoo! It's so great to look down our noses at people with mental health problems, isn't it, Folks?"

Hoarding is a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (which I have in other forms as well). It is not a sign of "laziness." Having hoarding disorder is exhausting. People with hoarding disorder try to clean and get rid of things but crippling, obsessive thoughts take over. Medication helps some people, but others (myself included) can't tolerate the side effects of medication.

Finally, with sympathetic help from my son, we got rid of a storage unit which was costing us close to $400 per month. We did move some of the items to a smaller, cheaper storage unit. We still have a dilapidated mobile home full of items to go through. In packing for our move, we have gotten rid of a lot of trash, but there are some cases where we boxed things to deal with when we are in our new, more stable environment.

The "normal" people in my life never helped me with this problem. Instead, they shamed me for being "lazy," came into my home and threw things out willy-nilly, which traumatized me, and then commanded me to "never let this happen again." It took a young autistic man (my son) to help me start getting an actual grip on a very serious problem. My son is a planner, and he has helped me develop a realistic plan. Together, we are getting through this.

 I was having a panic attack this morning looking at the haphazard shelf and pile of junk in front of me. My son and I worked on it together. We ended up with many bags full of garbage and recycling. There are some boxes which contain stuff which people who don't struggle with this crap condition would have been able to dispense with without a qualm, but they are coming with us to be dealt with in the new place.

One constant in my adult life is always feeling that my house was built on quicksand. Everything was always temporary. I would hope for new situations to work out, and they inevitably fell apart. I did not know until I was almost 40 years old the magnitude or nuances of the neuro-psychological anomalies I was dealing with. I often wonder what could have been if I had been treated with compassion instead of disdain and if I had learned coping skills at a younger age.

Before you judge, educate yourself.

Now you know a little more than you did before about a person who doesn't quite fit into a world with very rigid rules for "rightness."

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

WTF Wednesday: Overkill

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

A while ago, I wrote this post about sometimes having problems responding to comments right away.
Before I get around to what leads me to revisit this post, allow me to just say that I had a very difficult day.
As my -666 readers on this blog may be aware, my son purchased a house in a very small town using inheritance money, and I am going to be living there with him. I am unemployed except for freelance work due to my deteriorating health. This house is a little over 125 miles from the townhome where my son has lived for 10 years. It has to have electrical and plumbing work done before we can move in. We've had to go up there twice this week to deal with contractors, and today the people from the Historical Society came to view the place, which is on the Colorado Historical Registry to see if my son might qualify for a grant of some kind.
I was all ready to help out when suddenly my blood sugar decided to take an express elevator straight to hell.
There were five people in the group, but I was seeing ten people. I was pasty and diaphoretic. I was drenched in foul-smelling sweat. I excused myself and went to sit down before I fell down while my son took the group on a tour of the place.
I took my blood sugar reading and it was in the hole. I ate a mini-Danish and checked it again ten minutes later. I still felt like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound sack. It was ten points higher but still in the hole. I ate a glucose tablet, waited ten minutes, and checked it again. It had risen to 102 and I didn't feel like fainting anymore, but I felt like I had just run a marathon.
I needed to lie down, but there is no bed or couch in the place yet. I rolled up a blanket inside my old pizza carrier from when I was delivering food and created a makeshift pillow. I lay down on the floor to take a nap. I knew I would pay the piper, but I had to be able to drive home.
Sure enough, every inch of my body ached. Bone, muscle, skin, I think even my hair. I took Naproxen, but it didn't help much. I sat down to see if there was a new poetry prompt, hoping to relax a little. I wrote a snarky little Senryu and went to answer comments.
Lo and behold, because somehow the Universe always know when I need bullshit the least and that's when it always delivers a steaming pile to my doorstep, I received this honey of a comment.

If you made comments on other poems, you might have some on yours. I have made positive comments on your poems and you never even said thank you. So this is the last time I am commenting on ykur lost. Don't be a prick slick.

I'm not correcting any of the typos. I wonder if this individual was drunk typing. Whatever. She's been contentious towards me (and others) in the past, and this is why I tend to avoid interacting with her. The "Don't be a prick, slick" remark is a dig at my Rules of Engagement, which go like this:
We love comments, with three caveats.
Be cool, Fool.
Don't be rude, Dude.
Don't be a prick, Slick.
That's all, Saul.

I replied:
That's fine with me. I sometimes have difficulty returning comments. You do whatever you want. I sometimes reply to comments right away, sometimes I have trouble doing so due to mental health issues or circumstances. You could just opt to not comment rather than be contentious.
Seriously, there are times when I comment on people's blogs and they never return my comments. I don't get in a dither about it. Either I go ahead and comment anyway because I feel like it, or I don't comment. It's really that simple. You don't know what another person may be dealing with. Which is the way I'm trying to look at you because I'm dealing with a great many other things and it isn't worth it to put myself in a tailspin about a person I don't even know getting upset with me about something which at worst is a minor social faux pas. I apologize that you're offended that I haven't always replied to your comments (or other people's) immediately. However, it really is not worth scolding someone over. I hope you feel better for having "put me in my place." I'm a bit gobsmacked, so, mission accomplished, I suppose. Go you.


The unfortunate outcome of this is that I no longer feel comfortable sharing links at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads blog hops because this individual is one of their admins. I really cannot deal with her unpleasant personality at this point in time.
She attacks other people too. She wasn't always part of the admin team, so I suppose she must be friends with someone there. In any case, having a blog admin who goes off like Donald Trump on Twitter when people don't respond in the correct way tends to drive participants off. Losing me won't hurt the Real Toads blog much because it's fairly popular, but it's a shame nonetheless because I've participated there for many years.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Come as You Are: Preaching to the Choir and Pissing Into the Wind

Probably what I’m doing with this post, but I’ve got something sticking in my craw, so here goes.

I don’t believe in lambasting another person’s physical appearance. Even if I really dislike that person. Their behavior, not their physical appearance, is what makes them a good or bad person. There are physically attractive people who are really awful people and people who are not conventionally physically attractive who are very nice people. I’d rather point out what’s wrong with a person’s actions than make derogatory statements about their looks. Attractiveness is subjective.

I also find scornful statements about people “aging badly” dismaying. We age at different rates for different reasons. Many times people who “age badly” have health issues that contribute to their haggard appearance, and making derogatory comments about a given person’s appearance is hurtful not only to that person but to other people who may not have “aged well” themselves, or who care about someone who hasn’t “aged well.”

My ex-husband, with whom I have remained friends, had a serious health scare earlier this year. He had cardiac problems, previously undiagnosed diabetes, a serious infection, and it turns out that he has a chronic condition called giant cell arteritis which is more common in people of Scandinavian ancestry than people of other backgrounds. (My ex-husband has Swedish ancestry.) He is 56 years old but looks much older due to all the health issues he has endured.

I was shocked when I saw this photo of the late Malcolm Young as he seemed to have aged twenty years in the space of five years. I watched the video from which this image was taken and thought that he might be developing Parkinson’s disease. His stance and facial expressions resembled those of Parkinson’s patients. 

I was correct that he wasn’t well but wrong about the reason. He had Alzheimer’s disease. His brain was literally being destroyed. He certainly didn’t deserve the cruel comments about his appearance or how he was “aging badly.” He was always a humble person who tried to treat others with common decency. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.

I watched my father age badly as vascular disease and congestive heart failure caused his body to retain fluid and caused him to have vascular dementia. At the end of his life, his legs were the color of dark purple grapes because of the lack of circulation. 

I’ve spent my life trying to see myself as simply ordinary rather than hideous. I shouldn’t have to fear the inevitable cruel comments that will accompany any image of myself that I share because I’m not conventionally attractive or young. On a good day, I don’t give a fuck about people’s shitty comments and small minds. On a bad day, it can make me suicidal.

Since I don’t want anyone making me feel bad about my physical appearance, which is one of those “luck of the draw” things and I drew the wrong lot, I have a policy of not dragging other people for their physical appearance, no matter how much I dislike them. Not Mishmash (who, to be honest, is ordinary looking as far as I’m concerned, but behaves like an utterly reprehensible asshole.) 

Not even tRump, whom I despise with a burning passion. I may sometimes ridicule his clothing choices because with the money he has you’d think he could afford someone to advise him on what to wear, but I will not ridicule his physique. His physique is not what’s causing derision and damage to the United States. His crap demeanor and rubbish policies are.

I will call them out on their behavior at any time, every time, all the time. Their looks? Pfft. Whatever. It has no bearing on anything.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Cheesy Cinema Review: The Christmas Chronicles Would Have Been Better Without the Side Order of Size Shaming

I may be a curmudgeon, but I'm not unrealistic. I expect holiday movies to be trope-laden and sappy. Unless you're watching Santa Slasher 666 or, as Beavis would say, a "Christmas Classic" starring such fine quality thespians as Tiny Johnson and Bob Scratchit, you can expect either barf-inducing heartwarming romantic drama or family-friendly drama probably involving cute but weird elves somewhere in the mix. Knowing these things, I steeled myself for whatever extra helping of syrupy sweetness might be lurking in the Christmas Chronicles to raise my blood sugar levels.
First, the positives. The kids are adorable and the young actors performing the parts of Katie and Teddy did a marvelous job. Kurt Russell really hits the mark as a slightly grouchy, no-nonsense Santa. However, I was dismayed by the amount of size shaming and diet culture promotion.
Had it happened only once, I would have rolled my eyes and moved on. However, it happened multiple times, including a scene where the sleigh hits a billboard advertising Coke products with the image of a portly Santa enjoying a Coke. Santa shouts: "take that, Fat Man!"
Shaking my damn head. Not only was the size shaming not necessary, but the levels of at the very least subconscious vehemence and hatred towards larger people was absolutely uncalled for. Also, do the writers really thinks that Santa is so vain that all he cares about is being perceived as slim and sexy? I honestly find such people quite a bore and I would hope that if Santa were real, he wouldn't be a self-centered dullard.
As a curmudgeonly adult, I found the size bashing dismal and enraging. I can only imagine how it would seem to a big kid watching that movie. The inherent message they will take away is not "family needs to stick together," but "fat is the very worst thing you can possibly be. Even Santa hates fat people."
Hollywood really needs to stop with the lame-ass fat jokes whenever they find themselves at a loss for comic relief. If you can't include larger people in your story in a positive way, at the very least don't include them just to make them the butt of mean-spirited "humor".
Every kid deserves to feel like he or she is okay just as he or she is all year 'round, but I feel that a positive, family-friendly holiday movie needs to take a bit of extra care to make sure they aren't alienating and shaming certain already stigmatized populations.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Insecure Writers Support Group + The Cheese Grates It: Banned on Tumblr

Image copyright prettysleepy2

Note: This post contains profanity. If that is a problem for you, please don't continue reading.

You may wonder what this post has to do with the Insecure Writer's Support Group. I argue that freedom of speech is something all writers should be concerned about, and that is why I think this post is appropriate.

Tumblr shadow-banned my slightly naughty Supernatural fan blog.

Not for filthy, filthy Wincest pictures, like you might think. You actually have to go to about the 13th page to find an even remotely NSFW image. 

Nope. I can’t publish or reblog anything to this blog because I was being snarky about Tumblr becoming a kid-friendly playground instead of a platform for adults.

I’m moving wincestshippingtrash to nibblebit, a platform that is similar to Tumblr in the way it functions, and which is a platform geared to adult bloggers. Which is what Tumblr used to pride itself on, but now that they've sold their souls to Yahoo and Verizon, they're trying to present themselves as family friendly. Heck, a lot of the stuff that Tumblr was proud to allow was too rich for my blood, and I'm the founder, editor, and co-writer of the very torrid tales at Naughty Netherworld Press. If I'm nope-ing out because it's too raunchy, you know that shit's raunchy.

Here’s what’s funny. I have blogs on Blogger which I’ve deemed NSFW, even though most of them only contain harsh language. I flag these blogs as “adult” and when people type in the URL, they come to a notice which says “material on this blog has been flagged as only appropriate for adults. Do you wish to continue?” 

Tumblr has something called "safe mode," which prevents adult-flagged blogs from appearing in searches. Wincestshippingtrash was flagged as “adult” by me. It shouldn’t appear in Safe Mode, like, ever.

But it wasn’t even adult content that got the blog banned. It was the fact that I was being cheeky to Tumblr Staff, and they couldn’t deal.

I may be a mess health-wise at this point in my life, but I would fight to the death to preserve freedom of speech. I think that what Tumblr is doing is some East Block level shit. I guess we’ll see how long my primary Tumblr blog remains active what with me speaking out against the Evil Empire this way.

Also, what is this “female presenting nipple” bullshit, Tumblr? To me, that’s sexist AF.

Tumblr looks the other way when it comes to cyberbullying, including telling people to kill themselves or death threats. It's okay to call someone a "fat, ugly cunt," apparently. It's okay to promote violence by encouraging people to "punch a TERF." But Heavens forbid someone shows a bit of butt crack or a "female presenting nipple."

Folks have been circulating this around Tumblr to see how long it takes for it to get flagged. This is how ridiculous things have become.

Tumblr will either do what Blogger did a few years back and backpedal on their decision to ban adult content when they saw that their longtime users were leaving in droves, or they will become a wasteland like Myspace.

Nobody (well, nobody who shouldn't be in jail) wants child porn. The way to deal with that problem is not to ban all adult content. It is to remove the blog presenting it from public view, and do not delete the content because the FBI and Interpol will need access to it, but report the content to the FBI and Interpol. 

Again, freedom of speech is an issue which every writer needs to be concerned about. There are a lot of things which I find offensive, and there are a lot of things that I'm just plain not interested in. However, I believe it is appropriate that even things I deem offensive (such as Stormfront) are allowed a platform. If they go underground, they become even more dangerous. If they are allowed to spout their rhetoric, it is easier to refute them, and also easier for agencies such as the FBI to keep an eye on them.

Tumblr really screwed the pooch with their blanket adult content ban. This pooch. It is not a happy camper and is coming back to bite them on the ass.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: The Holiday Season Broke and Mentally Ill Style

Today is the eighth anniversary of my father's passing. I thought about that day early this morning. I didn't appear to be grieving because I wasn't wailing and gnashing my teeth. I had already grieved watching him deteriorate as he did. There wasn't anything left in me. I've felt for a long time that there isn't anything left in me. I'm not cold, which I've been accused of a lot. I just don't have anything to offer.

The memory that comes to the forefront of my mind is my mother leaving two messages on my phone. The ringer wasn't working on my phone; I would be soon to get a new one. I was sleeping with the phone under my hand, but I didn't feel the vibration. The first message was her telling me that my father had died. The second was her telling me that again, demanding that I call her back, and finishing off the message with "you're never there when I need you." She didn't apologize for saying that, which doesn't surprise me. I informed her that my phone's ringer wasn't working correctly, that I had tried to be aware if a call came, but hadn't felt the vibration. Well, she never apologizes when she says hurtful things, so I guess she and I are even.

I fucking hate this new YouTube push to force people to pay for the service by pausing the playlist every so often to ask "are you still there?" No, Bitch, I died, but my zombified body keeps responding by saying I'm still here. The joke's on you.

In other frustrating news, I guess I paid the price for thinking I could buy yarn and get away with it. I ordered three skeins of yarn to keep working on my blanket, and some payment clashed with another, so I ended up getting an overdraft charge and am now $36 in the hole. Those fucking overdraft charges should be criminal. They only ever harm people who are struggling financially anyway.

Tonight's supper will be turkey chili and baked potatoes. At least those are two things I can ensure that my son will actually eat. My mother's right that he's kind of fussy, but there again, she refuses to believe that he's actually autistic. People with autism tend to have issues with food textures far more than people who don't have the condition. But, of course, my mother is always right.

I was just talking to my son about how we are both, in spite of what has been drilled into us by members of the extended family, very productive. However, we are not productive in the ways they deem worthy. We are terrible with housework--absolutely rubbish, let's be real. We are unable to work the kinds of jobs that they deem worthy. 

If I had ever been able to make my writing pay, they might be proud of me. A little. But it still wouldn't have been the kind of work that they would truly have deemed worthy.

All I'm doing as far as holiday decorations this year is putting a string of lights up on the fence at my son's townhome. We can't have a tree because the four-legged dumbasses will knock it over. When I was a kid, my father became a kid again every December 24, because that was when we decorated the tree. He loved decorating the tree so much and went way overboard. We had so many decorations. Now they never see the light of day.

Maybe one day I will decorate for the holidays again. I don't know. The first year we had a really nice tree was when I was ten years old. That was the year my father got a good position as a professor at a small college and we moved from Albuquerque to a suburb of Denver. Everything was so wonderful on that Christmas when I was ten years old. 

I realize now that my bipolar disorder onset when I hit puberty, which is why I was an emotional wreck during the holidays when I was eleven and trying to hide it so I wouldn't fuck things up for the rest of my family. 

We always took the tree down on the day after New Year's. The year when I was twelve years old, I was once again in a tailspin but trying to hide it. We got the call that my paternal grandfather had died from a massive heart attack while he was out feeding his horses. I burst into tears. I thought it was my fault that he was dead because I hadn't been grateful enough, so God took my grandfather.

I learned a lot about my father's side of the family that year. I wrote a cheeky poem about it recently, which is titled "My Family Skeletons." You can read it here. 

At the time, it was actually very traumatic. My twelfth year of life was not a lot of fun. It seemed like everything was falling apart. There was a lot of contention surrounding my grandfather's will, and I was being bullied mercilessly. I started self-harming, and on one occasion, I swallowed a bottle of aspirin. I ended up with a sick stomach and throwing up. I didn't tell anybody what I'd done.

So, I guess what I'm getting to in my long-winded fashion is that the holidays are not happy-happy-joy-joy for some people. I tend to have kind of a neutral approach to them at this point, but that's because I'm emotionally numb. For some people, the holidays are extremely difficult. It's supposed to be a happy time, and people who are already struggling get added guilt heaped on them for not presenting a happy face to the world.

Please do not shame or berate people who aren't "in the spirit" during the holidays. The joy is not universal.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It Festively~

The Cheese Grates It: Fake Friends, Fibroids, Incontinence, and Keeping it Real

Me (puffy endocrine face and all) and Crowley

I don't give one single fuck if you find me attractive or not

Every person is deserving of basic common decency, not just the ones you've deemed "fuckable"

This post is a response to Nicole at Cauldrons and Cupcakes. I tried to leave a comment on her blog, but. like so many Wordpress blogs, the overly aggressive Spam filter ate my comment. See "why Cie hates Wordpress."

Nicole, thank you for sharing your struggles. I started being real about my health struggles back when I was first diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder at age 38 and have been doing so ever since. I was raised in a family that believed in hiding their problems. I've since had to become used to more and more physical issues while trying not to hate myself for having them, because ill health was seen as a weakness when I was growing up.

The one thing that I was disinclined to discuss even after I started being honest about my psychiatric and endocrine issues was the incontinence that I've suffered with since I was 40 years old. I never saw a doctor about it until this past year because of a history of trauma and because I didn't want to be humiliated for my size while in a compromising position. I am a big person, and, given my endocrine issues, it would be almost impossible for me to be anything but and still be standing. The treatment of larger people by the medical establishment is unconscionable and leads larger people to avoid treatment until they experience critical health problems. 

I finally found a doctor that I felt I could trust to discuss my "plumbing" issues, including my "annual period" that I've had even after menopause. She told me that this sort of bleeding was abnormal and referred me to an OBGYN who turned out to be wonderful and compassionate. She never once made an issue of my weight. I had a D&C done, which revealed that my uterus is chock full of fibroids and polyps. Given that I no longer have a need for this particular organ, it is coming out in three weeks.

I've read that fibroids can promote urinary urgency. I have urge incontinence as opposed to the more common stress incontinence. I'm crossing my fingers that the hysterectomy might help improve this problem. I'm not one of those people with "light bladder leakage." Sometimes I can stop it before it becomes a full-on flood, but not always. Those dainty little panty liners wouldn't do doodly squat when I lose urine. I have to wear the big overnight incontinence pads.

It's possible that I should have had a hysterectomy years ago. I've always had really miserable, heavy periods, but I attributed them to my endocrine problems. People with hypothyroidism are, apparently, prone to heavy periods. I might have done something about it sooner, but because of the trauma I've suffered, I really don't like people "up in my business." Not that anyone likes gynecological exams, but I am psychologically traumatized by them. The idea that I might be belittled for my size made it a real no-go, and, thus, I avoided having such an exam for close to 30 years.

The medical establishment really needs to change their approach to larger people, to women, and probably to people as a whole. Many people who go into medicine lack compassion. I am a former nurse (still licensed, no longer practicing) and I can attest that nursing school was one of the most fatphobic environments that I ever had the displeasure of finding myself in. If we want a healthy population, we need to treat people of all sizes and with all issues including addiction with respect and compassion.

As for your "friend," I'm sorry that you discovered that she really wasn't one. (One of Nicole's "friends" berated her for being open about her health issues and sharing "unflattering" photos of herself.) I hate those discoveries. But in the end, it's kind of freeing to drop away from the people who like to imitate millstones.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Deep Thoughts With Cheesy and Barack

I wish there wasn't so much onus placed on being perfectly healthy. Nobody's perfect. Everyone has shit that goes awry, even those people who have supposedly "perfect" bodies. For instance, my cholesterol readings are actually stellar. You could frame that shit and put a blue ribbon next to it. But my endocrine system is a fucked-up mess, and my triglycerides are elevated. 

None of this shit says anything about my mind, my soul, my work ethic, my devotion, or anything else that I think is truly important. But a lot of people act like shit like blood sugar levels, abnormal labs, or a number on a scale defines a person on a moral level. It doesn't and can't.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Holiday Size Shaming: Thanksgiving 2018 Version

Image from food52.com

Your holiday feast should not come with a side order of body shaming

The inevitable holiday size shaming.

Trigger warning for size shaming and a brief mention of weight.

Disappointed but not surprised.

It is stressful for my son to go over to visit my mother on holidays, but he agreed to it because my mother was worried that Denny's would be terribly crowded. (I had suggested that we just meet at Denny's so no-one has to cook.)

My mother bought a flannel shirt as a gift for my son. My son is a tall, burly fellow with a little bit of a belly, either an in-betweenie or possibly a small fat. My mother made a point of patting him on the belly and saying "you need to lose this gut."

I wasn't aware of this until my son brought it to my attention after we left. He said that the funny thing is, last time he was weighed at the doctor, he actually dropped seven pounds for reasons unknown because he hasn't been dieting. He said the technician was praising him and he told her it didn't really make a difference to him, to which she responded with a look of surprise.

My mother refuses to acknowledge that leaving his home environment can be difficult for my son, who is high functioning autistic and has issues with anxiety (including a degree of agoraphobia) and depression. He becomes overly stimulated with my mother's insistence on keeping the television on, to Dr. Phil or the news or such. The constant barrage of advertisements is even more distressing to him than it is to people who don't become overstimulated. He doesn't react to stimulus in any perceptible way, but he will become withdrawn for a time after the fact.

It makes me sad that my mother continually shoots herself in the foot when it comes to her relationship with my son. I guess she knows that I'll flip my bitch switch if she mentions my weight, so she has to inflict her opinion on somebody, and she thinks since my son is a guy, he should be "tough enough to take it" when someone is "being real" with him.

I don't know if it's even worth bringing it up with my mother, because she will be "terribly hurt" by my "attack" on her and ask me why I'm always so "angry" even when I am speaking in a perfectly even tone and not doing any name-calling or making accusations, none of which I can say about her past interactions with me.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Ending the Stigma: Hoarding Disorder

This is a response to a post on The Mighty about what gifts to give and what gifts to avoid giving to a person who is struggling this holiday season.

Do not give a person who struggles with hoarding disorder (a subtype of OCD, NOT laziness, and if you think it is laziness please unfollow me now) things, unless it is something like socks which everyone can use and which are going to wear out. I appreciate money (helps to pay down debt or maybe buy some yarn for my craft projects), gift cards, and socks. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't mind some organizational bins either.

I don't know why I wear out socks so quickly, although, admissibly, some of them do fall victim to the Sock Gnomes. I have a whole bagful of socks which have lost their mates, and I've never figured out where they've gone.

My son and I are working on getting rid of the huge amount of stuff that I accumulated through my years of hoarding disorder which was only treated with blame and shame by those around me, and thus became even worse because it made it a bigger source of anxiety and so my reaction was to stuff things away and not deal with them. We have the storage unit about halfway cleared out and are aimed at having it entirely gone by early next year. 

This has been an enormous struggle for me, and it has pretty much destroyed my life. I'm trying to get my life back so whatever I have left can be spent doing things that are worthwhile rather than struggling with a surplus of stuff.

I still have a shed full of stuff and three spare rooms full of stuff.

I've known people whose hoarding disorder, probably combined with depression, was so severe that even doing basic cleaning was impossible for them. I've been down that low a few times. What didn't help one bit is hearing things like "lazy," and "disgusting." These television programs that exploit people with severe problems for the entertainment of assholes wanking to schadenfreude make me sick. To me, it's like watching someone being tortured or raped to watch those programs. It's disgusting the lows to which people will stoop, where instead of trying to help someone who has a serious problem we point fingers and ridicule them.

Many years ago, I rented out a townhome to a woman who had severe hoarding disorder. I was getting Section 8 payments from the government for allowing her to stay there. She wouldn't allow the inspectors in, and the HOA eventually wrote me a letter threatening to have me thrown in jail if I didn't evict her because there were huge numbers of flies in the windows.

When I got in, the place was beyond a nightmare. There were a few bags of things which were salvageable and which I took to give to the local thrift store to sell. Other than that, everything was trash and there was also dog feces everywhere. For reasons unknown, she had disconnected the pipes under the sink and had slime-covered dishes soaking in two basins in the sink.

This woman had two sons. One had a predilection for violence and eventually ended up in the Fort Logan state mental health center. The other one wasn't violent but he seemed totally "at sea." 

I never hated this woman for what she did. I felt sorry for her. I knew she had a serious mental illness. There was a housekeeper who was sent by the county to help out. (I did have to pay her, but it was at a reduced rate.) She was very disdainful, said she'd been here to help the tenant before, and that all said tenant did was "lie on the couch on her fat lazy ass and apologize for the condition of the place.) The tenant had a heart condition, which is why she was on section 8.

Being disdainful and hateful and exploiting rather than assisting people with a serious disease helps no-one. It is a barbaric society which turns people who are suffering into sideshow entertainment.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Manosphere Morons and Other Idiots on the Internet vs. Reality

(via Why the "cock carousel" is bullshit, according to SCIENCE)I 

I wanted to share with you all my response to this post, first because David Futrelle is really cool and I love the way he takes apart the assholes who populate the so-called “manosphere.” 

Second, to rip a new one for all the assholes who love to claim stupid shit like “if you ship Wincest, it means you want to fuck your relatives” or for whom “pedophile” means “you ship something I don’t like.”

The following is part of my reality, and here are a few other delicious tasty morsels to chew on. Trigger warning for discussion of self-harm and sexual abuse.

I am celibate. I am not having sex with anybody. I don’t want to have sex with anybody. I don’t do relationships right, and casual sex is toxic to me. I don’t like it at all. Above all, I most assuredly don’t want to have sex with my relatives. When I was 19, my cousin hit on me. I handled it poorly. She was a broken person, and my running off to the other room rather than talking to her about what had happened destroyed our friendship. I regret that. But I most assuredly did not want to have sex with her. In all honesty, though, even though I am heterosexual, I would have been twice as upset if one of my male cousins had hit on me.

My cousin and I were both molested by her father. I was very young when it happened and I don’t really remember any details. I started having nightmares after my son was born and I eventually put the flashbacks together. My parents moved away from there when I was still pretty young. Obviously, my cousin would have memories of it happening to her because she was still with him. I was never alone with him after that.

So, the reality is, I don’t really like sex very much, and I certainly don’t like the idea of sex with my relatives.

This doesn’t mean I should get a pass to ship Wincest because I’m using it to work for trauma. I should be allowed to ship what I damn well want without being bullied and so should everyone else. If you think that people need to have been molested to earn the right to ship something, you can go fuck yourself.

I ship Wincest because I see a romantic dynamic between Sam and Dean. I love the idea of a relationship that triumphs despite impossible odds and societal taboos. I do not have an “incest kink.” Sam and Dean are the exception, not the rule. I never thought I’d ship an incest pairing, but they shipped themselves. I just write the stories.

Anyway, the following is my response to the blog post. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but maybe there’s a tiny chance that some ship shamer has a spark of humanity in them and will learn something from this revelation.

My 28-year-old son's high school friends who have married got married older than my high school friends, many of whom married right out of high school. Maybe better sex education and a generation of parents who were less reluctant to talk about topics like sex and drugs helped. 

Personally, I lost my virginity at 16 and I was definitely not emotionally ready for such a thing. Much though I joke about riding the cock carousel, I really never did. The guy I lost my virginity to was this gangly fellow about six foot six and he looked a lot more like Bob Denver than Brad Pitt. 

I was totally in love with him, was planning the wedding in my head and all, and he broke my heart. That colliding with a bunch of other fucked up stuff in my life earned me a trip to the mental hospital over the weekend with superficial cuts on my arms. I was treated like shit in that place which led to my pact with myself that I have kept for the past 37 years: I would die before I ever allow myself to be institutionalized again, even for a second.

What I didn't know at that point and what I wouldn't learn until I was 38 years old was that I had type 2 bipolar disorder, which is trickier to spot than type 1, and I had borderline personality disorder. 

Far from wanting to ride the cock carousel, I had a very romantic mind and a very low self-esteem, which led to my being taken advantage of by a number of less-than-honorable guys. After a horrific and extremely psychologically abusive relationship with a misogynist who would force me to watch really awful porn--we are talking bestiality and scat here--and who would force me to do things like kiss his feet under the threat that he would take his "love" from me, I ended up at his place one night with blood dripping from both wrists because, surprise surprise, after the initial thrill wore off he replaced my position as his "best girl" with someone who hadn't yet "hit the wall." She was in her early 20's. I was 34 at the time.

I wasn't done with ill-advised relationships yet, but even dense as I was I realized that I could not allow myself under the thrall of a creature like this ever again, if not for my sake than for my son's.

Admissibly, my situation was a bit extreme because of my undiagnosed mental illness. But make no mistake, guys like this prey on vulnerable women. They even say things like "the crazy ones are great in bed," and the line from Orange Is the New Black where Sophia tells her son about the philosophy of practicing on an insecure girl isn't a lie. These assholes don't think of women as people, they think of them as things to be used.

Maybe women of my son's generation are savvier about these creeps than women of my generation were. Women of my generation expected a certain level of misogyny. The younger generation may be less willing to put up with it. I certainly hope so.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It Hardcore~