Re: Delurking and asking..What's the use?




<trezrhunter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1147714617.145180.231540@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Have lurked here on and off for a few years, never posted. The d word
is something I don't like to dwell on. And, if some take me for a
troll, I can't say I blame them. When you hate something as
ferociously as I do 'd', a post like this one is going to be may set
off all kinds of denial that someone could feel that way, hence, let's
call it a troll - it's easier to deal with that way.

What's the point of hating it? Better to simply accept it and then do
something about it.

What prompted me to post is, oddly, a rerun eps of Law & Order: SVU I
saw last night. It concerned a very obese young Black man with d, who
was beaten up by fat-haters and later shoots his assailant and is
convicted. At the end, when the detectives learn he's been convicted,
another notes (I may not have the quote exact, but its close) 'A
conviction doesn't mean much when you're living with a death sentence.'

I've never seen the show so I can't comment on that.

Like it or not, that sums it up. I admire the producers/writers for
having the guts to tell it like it IS. No candy coating, no FALSE
optimism, no FALSE hope. Just the cold truth.

Telling what like what is? It's just a TV show.

A little about me. All I know is, I didn't have d in 1996. I was
heavy, true, but my bloodwork was fine, not even 'borderline'. Years
of stress, harrassment and verbal abuse at work caused this. I can't
'prove' that, in a legal sense, but I know it's the truth. Years of
being in a constant state of 'fight or flight', and being able to do
neither, ravaged my body and my mind. Your body produces adrenalin
when it's under stress, and when there's no way to dissipate it -
'fight or flight' - it can be lethal when it continues for days,
months, years. When your job feels like a 'little Viet Nam' - you're
in a constant state of heightened alertness and apprehension, knowing
the 'enemy' is out there, intending to harm you, but never knowing
where or when the attack will come. You don't sleep much, or very
well. Years of that STOLE my health. Why didn't I leave? Probably
for the same reason many women don't leave abusive husbands. Fear.
They've been convinced by their abuser they can't survive without him.
Never been married, but I understand 'battered wife syndrome' *very*
well.

I too had a job like that. I tried for years to leave it but didn't find
anything that seemed to be better. Then I finally left when I got married.
My husband is in the military and we moved to another state. I found
another job once we got there that was much less stressful than the old job
but hardly worth my going in because the pay was so low. And the marriage
caused me far more stress than the job ever did.

Now I have never been a battered wife. But I do not see why that situation
would relate to a job. Your job will never hunt you down if you leave them.
Unless perhaps you are doing something illegal!

Even after I was forced to take medical retirement for stress and
depression, it didn't end. I can't help but think of a line from 'First
Blood', when the Colonel tells Rambo 'It's over!' and Rambo shouts
back, 'It's not over! It's never over!' I know what he meant. It's
been five years since I saw any of those people, but I still have
nightmares about them. The kind Viet Nam vets I've known had - where
you wake up soaked with sweat, screaming and shouting, flailing against
'the enemy'. 'Thanks' to d, I'll NEVER be free of those
motherfuckers, or be able to 'forget' what they did. Hate them? I
don't 'hate' them. Hatred is reserved for human beings. What I feel
for those people who did this to me is so far beyond hate, I don't know
a word for it. I know this: if I ever found myself in a position like
that woman back in - was it Kenturcky? - who overheard the two Middle
Eastern guys talking about 'blowing things up' (it turned out they were
messing with her), and I overheard some gentleman of Middle Eastern
extraction plotting to blow up my former employer's office, unlike her,
I wouldn't report it. The only thing I'd hope for, is that they'd give
some indication of when they were going to do it, so I could be there
to watch those people die. It's only a 3 story building, so it would
probably be over waaaaaay too soon, but still, I'd relish every moment
of their suffering. Hate? Hate doesn't come close to describing what I
feel for them.

I'm afraid I'm not really following this part, but it seems that you need
help.

It may not seem this has much to do with 'd', but it has EVERYTHING to
do with it. That's what my life has come down to - thinking about,
worrying about, fearing this fucking disease. And they GAVE ME THIS
DISEASE. So far, I'm only on pills, and have decided I will NEVER go
on insulin. It comes to that, hasta la vista baby. If not for my
animals, I'd check out now. None of them are young anymore, and
hopefully I will remain functional until I see the last one safely
gone. They are my 'family', and I suspect losing the last one will
make leaving life myself awfully easy.

Nobody "gave" you this disease. Neither did you cause yourself to get it.
It's just a fact of life. Some of us get it, some of us do not. Get used
to the fact that you have it and work with it. Heck, if diabetes were my
only medical problem, I'd be happy! Instead, I've got an assortment of
things that cause me to be disabled. I'd love to go back to work but am
unable to. So I do what I can. I volunteer at my daughter's school and am
working at her dance recital. Now again, I can't do as much as I'd like to.
I have to really limit what I do so I don't put myself in more pain than I
already am. But doing something useful makes me feel good!

The last couple meters I got never worked correctly, so I don't bother
checking the blood anymore. It's too depressing. Too much of a
constant reminder.

That's your choice. And it's also your choice to be depressed. Yes, I know
there is such a thing as clinical depression. And you may well have it.
But it sounds like you are choosing not to deal with that as well.

I used to belong to a diabetes support group in another state. The people
there would ask me how I could maintain such a positive attitude. At that
point in time, several of my medical problems were still un or
mis-diagnosed. I could barely walk and often used a walker to assist me. I
was extremely limited as to where I could go or what I could do. Often I
couldn't drive because my legs had no feeling or were cramping too badly.
I'd suffer from bouts of hypos I couldn't seem to pull myself out of. Or
I'd go for days with high BG that I couldn't bring down no matter what. I'd
get upset stomachs. Weird rashes. I'd be so exhausted I'd sleep all day.
Or have insomnia and couldn't sleep for days despite being exhausted. I had
horrible side effects from the pills my Drs. gave me trying to fix my
problems.

Now I could have just sat around crying. And in fact I did do that a few
times. But it sure didn't make me feel any better. All it did was make me
feel worse!

So what did I do? I decided to focus on those things that I "could" do, no
matter how slight. I went to a store almost every day because if I had a
shopping cart for support, I could walk up and down the aisles. At first I
could only do 2-3 aisles without having to sit down and rest. But I kept at
it until I could do through the whole store. I got out and talked to
people. Met a woman with one of my other medical conditions. We talked.
Compared notes. I did arts and crafts with my daughter and her friends. I
read books. Surfed the Internet. Found some penpals. And continued my
writing. I write poetry and novels. So far have only had some poems
published, but it's a start.

And now I am MUCH better off than I was at at time. I've had many more
medical conditions diagnosed and treated. Yes, I am still disabled. But I
rarely need the walker so long as I do what I'm supposed to and don't push
myself too hard. Yes, there are times I am sad. Like when I had to decline
a field trip with my daughter's class because it involved too much walking
for me. But it does me no good to dwell on things I can't do. And
realistically, this would apply to anyone on the face of this earth. There
is no one person who can do everything! Everyone has things they can't do,
no matter how much they want to do them. I used to want to be a rock star.
But I finally had to face reality and realize that the guitar wasn't for me
and no matter how hard I tried, I simply didn't have the voice for it.

I refuse to listen to anything on tv that involves
'd', and if I'd known it would become an issue in that eps of SVU, I
would have changed the channel. I DESPISE the commercials for Liberty
Medical, or whatever it's called, and wish Wilfred Brimley would just
f'king DIE ALREADY! Him and all the others who make it sound like you
can have a real life, that d isn't a death sentence. For the sake of
my companion animals, I eat a fairly healthy diet, but the depression
makes most exercise an uphill battle. I'm just too tired, and too
depressed.

Maybe you shouldn't watch TV then. I don't watch it very often.

MY wakeup call to the truth came from going to Estate sales. Yeah,
those are the ones where someone has died, and their 'stuff' is being
sold. I love yard saling, swap meets, etc., it's one of the few things
I really do enjoy, but the dark side is always waiting to ruin my day.
Almost every single Estate sale I've been to, there is evidence aplenty
that the person had 'd'. Leftover monitors, strips, etc. Books on d.
All for nothing. Useless. It got them anyway. So why bother? This
disease leaves nothing to live for.

Everyone will die of something. And one of my endos told me everyone will
get diabetes if they live long enough. He said most people over the age of
80 have it. Just another fact of life. The body wears out. For some of
us, it seems to wear out earlier than for others.

My theory is that modern medicine has allowed some of us to be alive who
otherwise might not have made it past childhood, if even beyond the womb.
Diabetes used to be a death sentence. It isn't any more. Now we have tools
and medications to deal with it. Now you might see this as a good thing or
a bad thing. You might say that if this were 100 years ago, you'd have died
a slow and painful death not long after the diabetes took hold. But so
what? That's not how it is. It is how it is today and that's what you have
to deal with. You now have two choices. Do nothing. Wallow in pity and
wish you were dead. Or decide to embrace those things that you do have and
try to live life to the fullest.

Sorry for the long post. If you want to think I'm a troll, whatever.
That's the least of my problems. But I had to get this out, and I
figured maybe one or two here might possibly understand.

I don't really understand because I've never suffered from clinical
depression. But I had a friend who did. I've seen him through many changes
of medical and times when he was suicidal. That wasn't pretty. Have
another friend in the same boat but he is also elderly and has diabetes as
well. Both have suffered from depression since their late teens. Both have
said it was an uphill battle. But with therapy and the right meds, their
life has gotten better.

--
See my webpage:
http://mysite.verizon.net/juliebove/index.htm


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