Do you have a pamphlet on that?

Oh look, light.

Today I am recovering from a migraine headache. I don't have them often and I don't handle them well. In addition to the face-melting pain, I can't deal with light, or high pitched noises, my eyes can't focus, and I usually am in a really FOUL mood until the whole thing is over. Oh, and I throw up. A lot. The good thing is that, today, I can open my eyes, focus, and speak in full sentences. The pain and the foul mood are still very much intact. Wheee!
The only reason I am back among the living is because the Gipester took me to see a chiropractor yesterday. She was fantastic, more therapist, really, than medical doc. She scolded me soundly for the huge knots of muscle in my neck and shoulders. "I get the feeling you're not loving yourself the way you should," she said as she tried valiantly to get me to relax. Since I was face down on her scary-looking chiropractic table I couldn't really see what she was doing... There was tapping and an industrial strength massager that sounded a little bit like a belt sander.

Anyway, when she gave me the bit about "loving myself," I really wanted to open my mouth and make a joke about how long it had been since I'd owned a decent vibrator, but I didn't really get the chance. I opened my mouth to make my stupid joke, and I started crying. Not three-year-old-choking-on-your-own-snot crying, just crying. I will be forever grateful that she didn't mention it, or even ask me what was wrong. Which is good. If she had asked me, I don't know that I'd even be able to tell her.

I didn't cry for long. I don't anymore. A minute or two at a time is really all I can sustain. In some warped way, I think I'm trying not to inconvenience those around me. I cry enough to make whatever issue I'm dealing with just small enough to shove back in its file drawer. I wonder where the migraines come from...

I would never pretend that the way I deal with stress is healthy. It's actually pretty insane. I keep my minor irritations and tiny hurt feelings locked up because I don't think they are valid. I don't think they are valid, because if they were, the person who is currently hurting or irritating me wouldn't be hurting or irritating me. But they are, so hurting me must be the right course of action, therefore, I have no right to complain or be upset. When I complain about hurt feelings, I am irritating to others and that must be avoided or no one will ever love me and I will die alone. That about covers it.

Whew.

I realize that there are myriad things wrong with this line of thinking. You have to realize that this is me at my most irrational. These are the thoughts that are birthed directly from the id, before the ego and the superego have their chance to talk some sense into them. Assuming people know that they are being irritating or hurtful is ridiculous, especially if you choose not to engage them in conversation about the situation. But our gut reactions, the ones untempered by logic and reason, tend to guide much of what we do, so I thought mine deserved a little stage time.

So, the doc was right, I have a little bit of a self-love issue (who doesn't?) But here's the thing about all of this "loving myself" bullshit. It's one of those things that people will tell you to do, but they never really tell you HOW. They tell you to spend money on self-help books, CD recordings of Wiccans chanting in the rainforest, organic diet granola, mineral spa treatments and other useless shit, but isn't the lesson there that money equals love? I have to buy myself tantric yoga classes so that my self will love me? How dysfunctional is that?

So, my goal for the next month or so is to make a conscious effort to love myself in a healthy way. I will express my hurts, frustrations, joys, and excitements. To not do so is as unfair to the people I love and who love me as it is to myself. I will express opinions that I have thus far held back for fear of expressing something as silly as the wrong movie or restaurant preference. I will stop feeling embarrassment about being divorced and almost 30.

And maybe I'll take a tantric yoga class.