Like Opening a Vein

I’m going to start by putting a big stinking !!!WARNING!!!! on this post that it is not a pleasant topic.

I’m also going to say I’m not posting this because I want pity, reassurance, or any of that other nonsense.  I’m posting this because I don’t believe I’m the only one who feels the way I do.

Okay, now that we have all of that out of the way, on to the topic at hand. I'll admit talking about this stuff is like cutting open a vein so you can see my bleed.  But here's my cut: I am indifferent to whether I live or die. I told you it wasn’t going to be a pleasant topic.  My indifference is actually an improvement because three years ago 99% of me wanted to die. Yay! I’ve made improvement! It’s been a long, hard fought, battle that the tiny 1% of me had to fight to get me to being 50/50 on whether I want to live or die.

That 1% of me should be celebrated because there were many, MANY times I thought that the 99% would win out.  I think the 1% was the only part of me that the Holy Spirit could still reach.  The still small voice that said there is something better. You have a purpose. Just hold on. It is the only thing I had to hold onto. 

Now I’m at 50/50. Great! So, you may be wondering what is prompting me to write this blog post.  Well, the thing is, I can honestly say I want to want to live.  I’m also sure that with more long hard fought battles I can get off the fence I find myself embracing life.  Awesome, right?!

What’s not so awesome is that I feel like I’m running out of time to get off the indifference fence.  My blood pressure is dangerously high and my blood sugar is out of control.  Three years ago I would have been relieved.  How do I know?  12 years ago when the doctor sat down and explained what would happen if I continued down the road I was on. That it would severely shorten my life the first thought that came to my head was, “oh darn, that would be tragic”.  It struck me as a very wrong response to the news I was just given but it was a genuine response.  And you know what everything that I was told would happen is happening.

My response now is, “eh”.  Again I know it’s not the right response but it’s where I’m at.  I’m not scared of dying AND I am scared of my indifference to living.  Remember I’m 100% certain that I want to want to live.

I’ve been reading this book, ‘Constant Cravings’ by Doreen Virtue.  (I haven’t stopped trying to get off of the fence.)  This book appealed to me because it talks about what food cravings mean and how to overcome them.

My top food craving is fattening foods.  You know, cheeseburgers, ham, pizza (on occasion but not so much), tacos, burritos - protein, protein, protein.   When I get upset about something, nothing can cure it like a big old fattening rib eye steak.  True story.

Those that know me, know that my persistent complaint is that my life has no purpose.  I don’t know what I need to make it have purpose.  Okay, well that’s not entirely true but there is a difference between what is possible right now and what is possible in the future.  Right now, I’m not sure what I need to feel like my life has a purpose.  I know that my life does have a purpose because the Holy Spirit tells me so. That 1% was strong enough to believe it and now so is the 49% more of me.

In this book it talks about cravings for high fat foods.  Remember what I just said?  This is what the book says about high-fat cravings, “High-fat diets indicate a fear of feeling empty.  Fatty foods stay in the stomach much longer than low-fat foods…Often, the High-Fat Eater is deeply afraid of something. Of being alone. Of facing a terrible truth. Of taking responsibility. Of making changes. These fears and insecurities are quelled by a consistently plugged stomach...

High-fat food cravings include those for cheeseburgers, soft french fries, or onion rings. Fatty versions of meat, such as soft-fried chicken, marbled steak, fatty prime rib, ham, and pork also fall into this category.

The emptiness that High-Fat Eaters fear often stems from a lack of meaning or purpose in their lives.”

Hmmm…well with the exception of onion rings (ick, gag) everything else is all the stuff I’d go for.  I’ve thought it strange since I was little that while most people’s “go to” snacks where sweets and salty, crunchy items, mine was meat.  Ice cream or ham sandwich?  Most of the time ham sandwich.  Not to say I discriminate against sweets. I do not. It’s just not my top craving of choice.

I’m feeling a sense of urgency about needing to get off the fence of indifference.  I’ve already done irreversible, lifelong damage to myself.  It wasn’t enough to shake the indifference.  A week ago I was told my blood pressure was dangerously high.  I’ve managed to take two blood pressure pills.  Yesterday, I found out my blood sugar was out of control and I haven’t yet taken my diabetes medication that is within arm’s reach of where I’m at right now.  And I’ve still eaten like crap!  WHY?????

The book offers advice to overcome my fat cravings.  “Fat Cravers endure an especially painful struggle, because they compound their feelings of emptiness by eating foods virtually guaranteed to add pounds to their body.  With the added weight comes a degree of social ostracism and prejudice…These signals that the overweight people somehow aren’t as valuable as think people, hurt. They make the Fat Craver feel even more alone and empty, which, in turn, trigger still more Fat Cravings.

To break this cycle, Fat Cravers need more courage than any other Constant Craver. The emptiness inside of Fat Cravers makes it difficult for them to trust other people’s advice, even when they know that a great deal of wisdom may be imparted to them….

Fill you heart with substance. Distract yourself from your thoughts about food by keeping busy with soul-nourishing activities. Exercise (agree, such a help!). Work on the issues triggering the feelings of emptiness.”

I admit that my soul craves soul-nourishing activities but finding and sustaining those things is an area of weakness for me.  It’s easier to numb myself to all of the fears I don’t want to see than it is for me to face them.  Occasionally, I’ll see them but I haven’t quite figured out how to keep them out and not slip back into avoidance. 

I can’t be the only person that feels this way.  It’s not a topic that people readily talk about.  Oh yeah, sure I’m indifferent to living. I’m curious if anyone else is in this situation now or was in the past.  I feel like I’m in a catch 22.  I know without a doubt that I want to want to live.  The problem is that I feel time running out and that stirs anxiety, which I like to numb by eating, which digs the hole even deeper, which keeps the clock running, which leads to more anxiety, which leads to giving into cravings, which digs the hole even deeper, which…

You get the point.

Somehow, someway I need to get to 51%.  At 51% the tide starts turning in the direction I want to go. 50% to me is like trying to walk on solid ice with tennis shoes on.  51% - gripper shoes!  You know the ones that you put over your shoes for icy weather that helps grip the ice so you don’t fall flat on your butt. If you’re not careful you can still end up on your butt but if you pay attention to what you’re doing you manage to stay on your feet (yep, I’m very versed in gripper shoes).  I need my gripper shoes! 

I really feel that my gripper shoes are of the spiritual variety.  I felt I had a full spiritual cup - for a while and for the first time in my life. When I felt I had a full spiritual cup I lost a lot of weight… but then I started poking holes in my spiritual cup until it became a strainer.  Change is hard!  I slowly started slipping back into my old ways.  Oh, I’ll just skip gospel doctrine this one time. Oh, well I’ll just skip gospel doctrine and relief society this one time.  Oh, I can just skip sacrament, gospel doctrine, and relief society just this one time.  Ugh, money is tight. I’ll skip tithing just this one time. I can go out to eat on Sunday just this once…the movies just this once.  Next thing you know I haven’t been to church in 2 months, I stopped keeping the Sabbath day holy, and I haven’t paid my tithing in 10 months.

I’m actually fighting two battles.  I need to get right spiritually. I have to plug all of the holes I put into my spiritual cup.  When my spiritual cup was full I was able to lose 100 pounds. It's also the only time I truly felt happy and content with life ...AND I can’t ignore the physical issues.  It’s too much! It overwhelms me. Instead of doing something, I do nothing but give into cravings that are digging the hole even deeper.

The Good Lie

I admit I've been uninspired to blog lately.  I saw a movie that moved me and made me think of all of the unimportant things in my life that seem so important.  As the title of the blog post suggest the movie is called 'The Good Lie'.

'The Good Lie' is inspired by a true story of the Lost Boys of the Sudan.  I saw the trailer for the movie a while back and while it seemed like a movie I would be interested in, the trailer did not do this movie justice.  The trailer shows kids orphaned by war and then cuts to them going to America and their struggle to fit in.  It seems almost criminal that this movie hasn't made a million dollars at the box office yet and I totally blame the trailer for this injustice.

What made this movie so impactful to me is that it didn't sugar coat the journey these kids took to get to America. The movie is so strong when it is focusing on the pre-America journey. It falls off when the kids finally make it to America. It was almost like the movie was written by two different people.  In the America part of the journey I was left with wanting more substance, more heart because the pre-America journey got me invested in what happened to the kids.

A good portion of the movie followed the loss of their parents and then their journey to safety. It was hard to watch (SPOILER ALERT!!!!) and hear the screams of innocent children and know they were being slaughtered by soldiers.  Theo the oldest boy sensed danger was ahead and he stopped his "brothers" and sister from following the group up the river.  Instead he knew they had to cross the river right away.  As soon as he started to cross a body floated past him, then a few more, and by the time the last kid crossed the river there were so many bodies floating down the river it was hard to watch.  Who knows if this exact scenario happened but similar things did actually happen (END OF SPOILER).

It hit me that this is what happens in the world in which I live.  The Sudan is still a war zone.  I've known for years about the wars in the Sudan and I've been too self absorbed to really pay attention to the lives that are effected by this.  It was the same reaction I had then I realized that the world turned a blind eye to the Jews being slaughtered by the Nazis before World War II.  I naively thought that people must not have known because surely they would have done something.  I was horrified to read that the world knew what was going on and they didn't care because it wasn't their problem.  The world started to care when Germany made it their problem by invading other countries.  At the time I wondered how people could be so cruel. Now, I know it's not cruel but self absorbed, and I am "those people".

According to beliefnet.com, "Since 2003, the massacre of African Muslims by Arab Muslims in Darfur, a Texas-sized region in the African nation of Sudan, has resulted in more than 400,000 deaths and 2.5 million displaced people. And despite a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the largest Darfur rebel group, the killings, mass rapes, plundering, and crop-burning continues."

The Huffington Post ran an article in January of 2014 explaining the Sudan has since been split but that hasn't stopped the violence in the new South Sudan.

The hard thing for me is questioning whether knowing what has happened in the Sudan, and what is still happening in South Sudan, makes a difference. Yes, my heart hurts for them AND my life will go on. Compassion is a great trait to have but is it enough?  People are suffering but in all likelihood it won't inspire me to try to help in any lasting way.  We as a society have a very short memory and I definitely know that I do.

It did motivate me to do a Google search on ways to help and the two most popular suggestions were to donate money and to raise awareness that this is going on through social media.  It seems like such an insignificant request on the surface but if it raises money for the people who have the knowledge to help then it's a good thing.

The movie helped open my eyes to other people's struggles and it doesn't have to be the struggles of people half a world away.  People are struggling in our community.  I recently met a woman that is working on a project to buy coats for homeless teens.  She said that there are 14,000 homeless teens in Maricopa County.  That's mind blowing and sadly I had no idea that there are so many homeless teens in my own community.  I was moved by her desire to help the teens but it didn't inspire me to take action.  Without action my compassion means nothing.

It's crazy how self absorbed I can be and that isn't who I want to be.  Granted you can't be everything to everyone but I can do a better job of paying attention to the needs of those in my community and the world.  When I'm on my death bed I want to know that I did my part to serve others. I am taking action by writing this blog post.  I'm not going to write it off as an insignificant thing because nobody truly knows how we impact other people.  We can share what matters to us and hope that it inspires others to think about and act on what matters to them.

“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.” ~ Mark Twain 

Side note:  (SPOILER ALERT) I love the concept of the good lie.  It was introduced in the movie as part of a discussion of Huckleberry Finn.  Huck lied about Jim to protect Jim. As such, the character, Mamere, in the movie explained that this was a good lie because Huck's only intention was to protect Jim. Mamere powerfully shows the impact a good lie can have later in the movie.  I won't spoil how it happens because I want you to see for yourself, but I will say that everyone should strive to have at least one good lie in their lifetime.

If you want to be moved and inspired you need to watch 'The Good Lie'.