Category Archives: Science

Accepting One’s Physicality

Siona has such a way with words:

I’m inordinately affected by the weather. It took me a long time to admit this; for years I refused to acknowledge that my moods might be linked to something as improbable and distant as the sky. I was a rational person, I thought; my emotions were linked to that which mattered, and not some butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon. Now I’m less embarrassed by my sensitivity. I’m an animal. I reside in a body that resides in the world that itself reclines under a pulsing membrane of pressure and weather and rain. How can my own cells ignore the atmosphere around me? How can my bones disregard the heaviness of the air? How can I not fail to respond to the sun on a clear day? It’s more embarrassing to me now to think that I once believed I should be capable of ignoring all this. I’m attuned to the world. We all are. And I no longer mind.

Speaking Of Unspeakable Things

I had a wonderful encounter with Tish yesterday. Five hours of glorious conversation! It did my mind and heart good. I can write more about this, but the hour is late. I’m sure tidbits of what we processed will inspire a number of future posts.

We discussed, among many topics, the issue of cultural responses to fat and to bodies that are different from the “norm.” I remembered an article I read in the New York Times last year that I’d blogged about in my retired original blog (The Hestia Chronicles). I dug it out of the archives and am re-posting the excerpt. The Times requires registration; since this is an old article, you’ll have to pay if you want to read the entire piece. It’s worth the cost. It’s the most provocative essay I have read on the topic. Ever.

He insists he doesn’t want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.

Whenever I try to wrap my head around his tight string of syllogisms, my brain gets so fried it’s . . . almost fun. Mercy! It’s like ”Alice in Wonderland.”

It is a chilly Monday in late March, just less than a year ago. I am at Princeton University. My host is Prof. Peter Singer, often called — and not just by his book publicist — the most influential philosopher of our time. He is the man who wants me dead. No, that’s not at all fair. He wants to legalize the killing of certain babies who might come to be like me if allowed to live. He also says he believes that it should be lawful under some circumstances to kill, at any age, individuals with cognitive impairments so severe that he doesn’t consider them ”persons.” What does it take to be a person? Awareness of your own existence in time. The capacity to harbor preferences as to the future, including the preference for continuing to live.

At this stage of my life, he says, I am a person. However, as an infant, I wasn’t. I, like all humans, was born without self-awareness. And eventually, assuming my brain finally gets so fried that I fall into that wonderland where self and other and present and past and future blur into one boundless, formless all or nothing, then I’ll lose my personhood and therefore my right to life. Then, he says, my family and doctors might put me out of my misery, or out of my bliss or oblivion, and no one count it murder.
–from Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson; New York Times Magazine, 2/16/03.

Elaboration

When I make personal disclosures on this blog, I strive for more autobiographical vignettes attached to a broader thought or message, rather than writing as though in a diary. I have another blog for that kind of writing.

That said, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I manage to live with (around, despite) ongoing clinical depression. Years and years of talk therapy helped create insight as to part of its origins; it mostly taught me to be aware of symptoms and to be gentle in my self-assessment (one aspect of depression is a tendency toward rippingly negative thinking about oneself). Talk therapy is also what made me the counselor I am, possibly more so than the graduate courses.

On the other hand, I also take medication, and have for six years; it has helped immensely, and so I believe the depression has its roots in the physical as well as cultural/social. In other words, it’s not all my parents’ fault — it’s their genes’ fault! (Smile, please, that was an attempt at humor.) Medication therapy has its place.

I expected this transition to challenge my equanimity. What I wasn’t certain about was the degree to which I’d experience the undertow. Since my credentials are invisible according to the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and I’d have to undergo training all over again — which I am simply not going to go through after five years of education and clinical training, an exam, and $60,000 — I’m at a loss. I had a private practice in Austin, but here I do not have the connections yet to establish one — and it would have to be as a “life coach” or other euphemism, without the cachet and seal of approval that official recognition (licensure) provides. Jobs I’ve seen require licensure, even for positions such as utilization management. I’ve kvetched about this here before.

The well part of me knows that it’s hard to reestablish onself, that it takes time, but it can be done. I simply need to put myself out into the world, tell people my vision, explore, connect, and trust that the right situation will arise.

However.

That’s the well part of me, the aspect of myself that shines when my life is mostly trundling along its course in other ways. Yet here I am trying to recreate a social network, a sense of place and home, a spiritual community. The loss of these things, along with the loss of professional qualifications (or at least my sense of them), along with the latent depression, are converging. I’m struggling to establish a routine, a vision, goals. I’m struggling with depression — or some of the symptoms. Significantly.

I know I will be all right. I know what is needed to take care of this. I just wanted to write about it (part of the process of taking care), to let my blog community know that I am grappling with this nemesis again. I am so grateful; my life is a gift. I feel vexed with myself that this crud covers my spirit, that I can cognitively understand I am blessed but still feel lost, listless, hopeless, sad. But there it is. I need some good vibes, folks, some prayers or encouragement or a job in my field (which includes counseling, coaching, teaching, academic advising, writing, librarianship, non-profit program management, and information management).

I am going to take tomorrow off. I shall go into San Francisco to have coffee and lunch with Tish. I’m heartened by this, as I think we have much in common. And just for fun, I’m posting in the extended entry the “flower picture of my ideal job” (from exercises I’ve done in What Color Is Your Parachute). In case you happen to have a job to offer (or know of one) that fits, or mostly fits, the description. Ideas, names of people to contact for information interviews, guidance on finding cameraderie in the job search are also welcome.
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Who, Indeed?

An incisive polemic from a unique perspective:

Look at the shit that’s passed off as food these days. Look at the sugar-soaked, over-fatted (or defatted), over-preserved, artificial, neonized, irradiated, modified, processed, pesticide-smeared crap that’s fed to children. Look at the non-food that wrapped and packaged and stamped with a decade-long ‘sell-by’ date. Look at the tallow-injected, deep-fried, fortified, refined and shrink-wrapped products in our supermarkets. Who would eat this?

—Nomen est Numen

Excellent question. Click on the link to read more.

How To Eat Normally

God must have loved calories… he made so many of them.

–from a magnet on my refrigerator

I love to eat — I really enjoy the experience. As I get older, my body is slowing down, and the weight has crept up. It’s not just age; inactivity is a significant factor too. In my youth I flirted with bulimia, bingeing, overexercising, using laxatives, starving myself. This, fortunately, was a short-lived experience that did not hurtle me into a dangerous disorder.

I look at photos of myself 10 and 20 years ago and think, “If only I could have seen then that I really was a normal weight…” Recently, I was referred by Siona to explore a site called Normal Eating. I highly recommend it as a sane approach to understanding food, emotions, and one’s body. One can hope to enjoy many of those calories God made and stop obsessing over each one.

Dax’s Case: Issues Of Living And Dying

I wrote an essay in 1998 for one of my graduate classes that dealt with legal and ethical issues in my profession. At the time I was battling an episode of major depression which was made more acute that year by: a significant loss, and an unwisely created emotional attachment to someone completely unavailable as I grieved that loss.

I’m pondering issues of life and death again, in part because my fiancé’s father is gravely ill, and also because transitions of any kind — even good ones, such as my move — bring reminders of the ultimate passage we humans face. I’m applying to volunteer at The Centre for Living With Dying. Answering the application questions reminded me that I’d written a paper on the topic. Since a blog is the writer’s forum for inflicting expounding one’s views, I’m laying it out here. It’s very long (don’t say I didn’t warn you). I’m also closing comments due to the personal nature of this essay. Comments can be emailed to me directly. Without further ado…
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The Way Of Transformation

The way of transformation lies in surrendering our illusions of control and learning to live with uncertainty. It means taking pleasure in our fundamental questions about life rather than rushing toward simplistic answers. It means we strive not just to understand but to embody our understanding. The way of transformation requires a special kind of toughness and willingness to experience emotional intensity. It requires humility and a foolishness born of the desire to live and love with abandon.

And the payoff? The payoff is the ecstasy that comes through seeing, with openheartedness, things as they are, and allowing feeling, sensation and love to flow through us. Ecstasy is a word we can hardly use without conjuring thoughts of drug use, madness, or inability to function. But when I speak of ecstasy, I am not talking about some dangerous state where we are out of control of our actions or out of touch with reality. (The only threat that ecstasy poses is that it breaks down our illusions of separateness and it reveals the madness of heartless competition and greed). Instead, it is an intense joy available to most everyone. The mystics say it is our essential nature, our natural state. Once we open ourselves to the ecstatic flow of feeling and energy in our bodies, we are less bound to old ideas about the kinds of protections that are needed to live in this world. Our own ability to open and connect becomes a source of power in times of conflict or adversity.

–Kenneth Robinson, Alaya Process facilitator

You can also read an essay he wrote reflecting on his experience with yoga and healing here. I miss working with him and his co-facilitators. I miss the group. But hey, I’m in California. This place, if nothing else, is rich with venues for growth. I’ve only just arrived. Patience. In time, I’ll see more. (Patience is one of my developing traits!)

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Mirrors Can Make Women Feel Worse About Working Out:

A study published in Health Psychology found that sedentary women who exercised in front of a mirror for 20 minutes felt less energized, less relaxed and less positive and upbeat than women who performed their workout without a mirror.

Women who exercised without the mirror also reported that they were less physically exhausted at the end of their workout, while those with a mirror reported no change in their exhaustion level.

The findings could have implications for encouraging physical activity among sedentary women, especially since the standard guidelines for exercise promotion suggest that workout rooms have mirrors on at least two of four walls.

As such, the recommended practice of placing mirrors in exercise centers may need to be reconsidered, especially in centers that are trying to attract exercise initiates, say Kathleen A. Martin Ginis, Ph.D., of McMaster University and colleagues.

Apparently the research also found that women with good body image felt negative effects in the same environment. That’s why I go to Curves.

[via Siona]

Food Glorious (?) Food

Tish writes a thoughtful rebuttal to a post that begins with Watch it, Fatso. Among many points she makes are:

Here’s what I wonder. I wonder why you’re mad at me and not the airlines. Seats are smaller than they used to be. Asses may be bigger but seats are also smaller. The space between seats is smaller. I realize that airlines are struggling. I also realize that when the airlines get bailed out my tax dollars are in that pot. The right to access on means of transportation is written into law. Whether or not we’re comfortable isn’t mentioned. But don’t you imagine that they can find a way for us all to be comfortable?

and

I often wonder how many kids are going to have extreme eating disorders in the next few years. With the constant hammering away from the media about how terrible it is to be fat I’m imagining a rise in eating disorders. And make no mistake. People die from eating disorders. Even when they don’t die they suffer damaged emotional and physical health. How about if instead of talking in terms of limiting we talk in terms of a fully engaged relationship with food. If no kid ever walked into a fast food restaurant again there would be no one happier than I. Kids who hang out with me know that this is the time of year to eat lots of heirloom tomatoes. Unless you don’t like tomatoes. In which case, let’s talk about peaches. Kids who hang out with me listen to rants about the difference between real food and crap food. Make kids exercise? How about if we stop jamming them with Ritalin and telling them to sit still. How about if we fund after school programs and school sports.

There are also many interesting comments at this link in response to a comment reputed to be made by Greg Critser, the author of Fatland: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World:

“Feminists and liberals have transformed a legitimate medical issue of the poor into identity politics for the affluent,” Greg told me, “which I find the worst kind of narcissistic behavior.” But he also lacks patience with right-wing complaints about government intervention: “Those libertarians who have all kinds of problems with government programs about obesity are going to be crying their eyes out 20 years from now,” he added, when a fat and aging population brings with it increased taxes and social burdens.

Although April makes makes some excellent points including:

But then, I think the binge and purge ethic that dominates our culture, part of the generally pornographic sale of the body, is in fact the worst kind of narcissm.

Do take some time to read these posts.

Where Oh Where Has My Restful Sleep Gone?

Up until tonight I’ve been falling into bed immediately into a deep pool of sleep. I’m not sure what happened to thwart this, but it’s 3:18 a.m. as I type and I’m obviously awake. (Some might argue that the quality of writing is an indication otherwise, but they’re — well, just plain wrong.)

Rather than lie abed fidgeting, I’ve been accomplishing tasks that are not on my list but need doing nonetheless (small stuff that doesn’t occur to me when I write the list). For instance, even though people will come with boxes and paper to pack next week, there are some family heirlooms (e.g., small porcelain items) that I don’t want to leave to their whims. I’m sure they’ll wrap them in paper nicely, but I want bubblewrap around them too. So I did this; I just can’t box them (or their insurance won’t cover the property).

There is also the task of making sure to put the cats’ health information in the bag with the accessories they’ll need for the trip (treats, sedatives, litter pan liners, etc.) Oh, and then I had an idea for how to rearrange some office files so the my fiancé will have room for hanging folders. I often get creative ideas to small problems when I lie in bed. And as I write this, I just remembered I need to put my jump rope where it will be included with the “Keep” pile and not the Goodwill one.

My eyes are growing heavy while I type, so perhaps this small ritual of doing and telling will release me. I need the sleep. We have lots to do today: the car to the mechanic, the bank, the laundry, the…

Cut the Deck

Something I’ve recently begun to do is a little bit of yoga. Not classes, not in a big-time way. I’ve got the The Yoga Deck: 50 Poses & Meditations, which I have found easy to use. I’ve got a few favorites that are easy to do and relieve a lot of tension. There are also breath and meditation cards.

Another deck I use very frequently (all of it nearly every night) is The Stretch Deck. I’ve noticed a significant increase in my coordination and flexibility as a result.

Here is an article that explains the benefits of stretching and various methods. Stretching:

  • reduces the risk of joint sprain or muscle strain
  • can reduce back pain
  • can reduce general muscle soreness from exercise
  • can reduce muscle tension (This makes you feel better both at work and at rest.)
  • can enhance mental and physical relaxation
  • may even improve athletic performance

Remember, never force a stretch to the point of pain, and don’t bounce. Move in a slow, controlled manner. Be gentle with yourself, and your body will respond favorably.

Research Examines The Bullying Boss

For many people, run-ins with a supervisor stirs up old conflicts with parents, siblings or other larger-than-life figures from childhood. Dr. Mark Levey, a psychotherapist in Chicago who consults with corporations, said that nasty bosses often elicited from subordinates defensive habits that they first developed as children, like reflexive submission and explosive rage.

“Once these defensive positions lock in,” Dr. Levey said, “it’s like people are transported to a different reality and can no longer see what’s actually happening to them and cannot adapt.”

It’s an interesting article. Read more at This entry was posted in Science, Social Science on by .

Postpartum Depression

The post just preceding this was written by the husband of the woman who writes Dooce. Heather is knee-slappingly funny at times; she expresses herself with an artful blend of sarcasm and sweetness that makes her writing fresh and taut. She’s immensely enjoyable. Since I’ve been pondering the prospect of motherhood, I was referred to her blog and instructed to start reading in February 2004, when Heather became a mother. Because her writing is stellar, I was almost certain she had The Perfect Life. And then I read a post titled “Surrender”:

There are many things about parenthood that I understand intellectually. I know that this period of her life is only temporary and that things will eventually get better. I know that I am a good mother and that I am meeting her needs as a baby. But depression isn’t about understanding things intellectually. It’s about an overshadowing emotional spiral that makes coping with anything nearly impossible.

I can’t cope with the screaming. I can’t cope with her not eating. I can’t cope with the constant pacing and rocking back and forth to make sure she doesn’t start crying. I am sick with anxiety. I want to throw up all day long. There are moments during her screaming when I have to set her down and walk away and regain perspective on life, because in those very dark moments of screaming I feel like I have destroyed mine.

In this post, Heather examined her decision whether or not to take medicine while breastfeeding. As one who copes with major depression via prescription medication (in addition to therapy), I have grappled with the question: should I stop medications through pregnancy?

She wrote:

Most of the literature I have read about depression medication and the breastfeeding mother indicates that the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the possibility of the baby receiving small amounts of the medication through the breast milk. I also think that it’s more important that my daughter have a mother who can cope — a mother who isn’t sobbing uncontrollably during diaper changes — than it is for her to have a mother who is too proud to admit defeat.

I am throwing up my hands here. I cannot do this unmedicated.

This is not a decision I have made lightly. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on concerning postpartum depression in the mother and how it affects the development of the baby. I’ve talked with my doctor and friends who have experienced the same debilitating feelings. Going off depression medication a year and a half ago was so awful that I didn’t ever want to have to face that nightmare again. For the past several weeks I have been silently whispering to myself Fight this! Fight this! But I lost the fight about seven days ago.

I’m posting these excerpts to help disseminate information. Such decisions are difficult; in addition to reading medical research, a woman needs to know other women who grapple with this decision and that she is not a bad mother if she elects to take medicine. I admire and respect Heather’s willingness to reveal. My other reason for posting is that Dooce is just plain good reading. Go check it out.