Author: Julie

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 777 and Filter

I like to say I’ve got no filter. It sounds cool to just casually admit you’ve got the balls to say whatever you like. I’m a prolific shitposter. Heck, I’m a prolific poster. Just look at the beautiful seven hundred and seventy seven day marker on this post. I write a lot.

But it’s a bit of an obfuscation to say I’ve got no filter. It’s true that I don’t self censor. I do however sift through what I’m going to say and make sure it’s appropriate for the the audience. I don’t edit necessarily (long time readers have probably noticed the numerous typos and grammatical errors), but I do think about who I am talking to when I write.

I am a big believer in meeting people where they are. Maybe it’s a function of how much time I’ve put into therapy, but I’ve become much more aware of how sometimes a person simply cannot see your point of view. Trust is fragile and we’ve not always earned a right to discuss topics that make a person upset. Through empathy you can get closer though.

Perhaps you’ve been the one with the overly emotional reaction. I’m sure you can relate to the kind of irrational reactionary feeling that comes out of nowhere. You aren’t sure why but certain people or topics or phrasings set you off. Maybe you know why. “Oh that reminds me of my overbearing mother or absent father” you might think. But as feelings are not facts, being rational can only help so much.

So I will do what I can to address the person, or in the case of social media the audience, with language and framings that work for who they are and where they are at emotionally. But I always hold onto my truth and my boundaries. Showing empathy means you can be present for someone you disagree with. And I hope everyone can see the value in that.

Categories
Medical Politics

Day 776 and Informed Consent

I’d really like to write about informed consent and whether it is a convenient fallacy to obfuscate the harsh reality that medicine isn’t as black and white as we have been led to believe.

It’s a complex topic so consider this my notebook of scraps and gently judge it’s content as it’s not a full cohesive argument so much as a collection of thoughts I’m working through here. If you feel you are reacting to it strongly please work through why on your own time.

I am on this topic as I am reaching a point of frustration with the discourse around transgender issues and who is responsible for informed consent. We’ve got a spiraling culture war where everyone is ignoring basic facts like children are below the age of consent and thus their parents are responsible.

Our entire legal system is based on the premise that before 18 you have not reached the age of reason and are not fully responsible for your actions. Yes it’s flawed and doesn’t always work that way and we try minors all the time but the fact remains parents are the guardians of their children.

I am oddly both well read and well cited on issues related to informed consent and substituted judgement as I was a medical ethics research assistant at the University of Chicago. I got paid $10 an hour for my troubles so you know my credentials check out (in sarcasm font). Seriously go look I’m an author on a few papers.

Making a choice to engage in almost any medical procedure is risky in ways no one, not even doctors, can fully articulate. Bodies are complicated and abiding by a simple principle like “first do no harm” turns out to be hard calculus.

Sure you can get awfully close to the right answer but you will be pretty far down the calculating differential equations path once it dawns on you that we can get infinitely close to certainty but certainly itself cannot be reached. Turns out math is useful in daily life.

Patients have a right to chose their own risk parameters. Doctors do their best to inform. But the grey area is so wide it’s practically an abyss. Add in making decisions for a minor and it’s all best guesses and other people’s facts. Believe the science means you’ve got to do your own math and it appears most people are innumerate.

I am willing to make big criticism of the transgender panic crowd because they’d prefer to pick and chose convenient narratives like “think of the children” as a defense. I’ve heard that tune before in every other moral panic. And yet it’s still not the government’s job or the doctors job to make the call. It is the parent’s call because children require the substituted judgement of their parents for informed consent.

If this is annoying or unsatisfying to you well that’s a bummer for you. I’d encourage you to read up on how we’ve scapegoated populations in the past to make sure the in-group’s priorities and social mores are sustained. Every moral panic has one. I’d recommend René Girard’s work here.

When we fixate on a vulnerable population the story is always the same. And I believe anyone who is reading this blog is smart enough to grasp that in good faith. And we’ve got a long history of scapegoating people who don’t conform to our majority population’s comforts.

The transgender issue is no different and trying to wedge it into a “but the children” argument runs up against two issues. Most of our American historical moral panics have scapegoated in this exact way. And medicine is simply not so concrete that any treatment for any condition is risk free.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 775 and In and Out

I am a bit overclocked. I’ve written about it before and the language is useful so I am quoting myself to remind myself what needs to be done.

It will just take some time to let all the cortisol spikes drain out and the other sundry overstimulation issues to get back to baseline.

I am thankfully not experiencing any of the typical anxiety I have felt in the past when overclocked. I just feel tired and shitty and like I need to had off some of inputs to my team.

I’m noting this all here and keeping it short as I need to get in and out so I can get back to the business of recovery as I have so much to take advantage of in my life right now. And the only way I can do that is continuing to maintain the routines and rhythms that got me to this good spot in the first place.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 774 and Too Fast & So Slow

This post should be filed under “time is not linear” as it feels like a number of things in my life that have been moving slowly, yet inexorably, towards predestined conclusions. And they suddenly sped up towards escape velocity. I feel like I had a force multiplier effect on a bunch of things that just took time to come to fruition.

However I wasn’t fully prepared for how much change was hitting catalyst points until, one by one like dominos, a whole cascade of things began to fall into place.

I saw years of work and trust and love and possibility tumbling and crashing into the waterfall of my life. And I’ll be honest it’s hard to come up for air when it happens. But it feels amazing.

My happiness is apparent to everyone around me. I feel beyond loved. I am not even tempted to go into spirals of feeling unworthy or ashamed. Everyone simply worked too hard to achieve the kind of lives required to fall into the glorious momentum of getting everything you ever wanted. It could all explode but wouldn’t you regret not trying? I know I would.

Categories
Aesthetics Media

Day 773 and First Contact

I’m a big fan of Star Trek. I have attended conventions, worn a Captain’s uniform for Halloween, and most damning of all, saw the reboot sequel on a first date with my husband. I am a huge nerd and some credit is due to Star Trek.

So I am aware that in the cannon of Star Trek’s first timeline it is Bozeman Montana where humanity makes First Contact with an alien species. I don’t want to spoiler anything but if you don’t know it’s the Vulcans you probably don’t care that I’m spoiling it.

Now I’m not saying I live in Montana because the aliens are coming, but I am fascinated by the role the Rocky Mountains play in alternative histories. It’s a particular nexus for science fiction. The future happens in the west and nothing is as canonically western as purple mountain majesty.

Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana are often settings for demilitarized zones, zombie apocalypses, and other plots appealing to the survivalist mindset. It helps to have nuclear missile silos and Cheyenne Mountain to stoke the imagination.

So it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that as a doomer I am absolutely thrilled that Montana has now been the center of two ridiculous science fiction narratives recently. We had the Chinese weather balloon last week and Saturday night we had a full on unidentified flying object “alien” invasion over Montana.

Whatever it was ended up over Michigan, but for a brief glorious moment we got to consider whether Bozeman Montana would be the actual site of First Contact. But it’s not yet 2063 and I haven’t invented the warp drive so I’m not holding my breath.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 772 and Spoiled

For as much as I write about pain, both emotional and physical, so much of my life is saturated with joy.

I was asked this week “when will you accept that you are happy” and I was thrilled to find myself blurting out in agreement “It’s true I am so happy.”

Crawling your way back from a life event that gave you ego death is no easy journey. You either accept that you are responsible for yourself or you don’t. And really bad shit happening to us like illness or divorce or death loss tend to be deeply clarifying.

I feel so spoiled by the life that my choices have given me. For all the mistakes I made, and they are numerous, I on balance made the right calls. I have never felt more loved in life than I do right now. I’ve got what I need and I felt brave enough to go after what I wanted.

I’m surrounded by people who care about me for me. And it’s such a luxurious feeling to be given the space to be yourself. It’s even better when being yourself is the thing that everyone loves.

A Friday night surf and turf feast with filet and crab.

I spent so much of my life fitting myself to my circumstances. And now here I am stretching out to become more of myself and I find myself rewarded for it. Last night my husband and a dear girlfriend made a magnificent surf and turf dinner. Just a restaurant quality meal made by my loved ones at my own home in Montana. And then we all watched one of my favorite movies Margin Call

Crab with lemon & parsley
Categories
Culture Internet Culture

Day 771 and The Chaos In You

I’m a high school drop out. But in a sort of non-traditional sense. My first encounter with disability happened in the wake of living abroad as a sophomore. I found myself simply not attending my junior and senior years of high school. It was a complex situation.

My mother battled against teachers and administrators using the ADA and standardized tests as her weapons. The College Board as a series of 34 tests called the CLEP that gives you credit for having college level knowledge. It’s a very good short cut for self learners & autodidacts to get credit for what they know. And it’s way cheaper.

Between CLEP and AP exams I was able to provide a pretty convincing portrait of competence to both colleges and my shitty college preparatory school. It was enough to get me into university and to extract a high school diploma despite a record of non-attendance. Reasonable accommodation wasn’t really a thing at the time but you could bury the fuckers in paperwork. A tactic less ethical parents than my mother have surely realized by now.

I was a bit of an orphan in my class as I was quite frankly never there. What teacher could possibly vouch for knowing me? It’s because of this lack of attendance that don’t really consider myself a graduate since the diploma is merely function of testing out. A fancier version of getting one’s GED as it were. So when it came time for various teachers to do things like writing quotes for graduating seniors nobody wanted me.

My French teacher from my sophomore year (otherwise known as the year abroad) must have grabbed the short end of some straw as she ended up having to say some shit about me and opted for the Nietzsche dancing star pablum.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star

I felt terrible for her. She had to find a suitable quote for a troublemaker of the worst sort. I was institutionally non compliant. We hate when people have too much chaos in themselves. Sure culture is mostly made from outliers but don’t be too weird.

Sure dancing stars sound poetic but these days Nietzsche is just another coded message board signal for Leopold and Loeb Part 2 Ubermensch Trad Rad Cath Boogaloo. Naturally some of his current fans are fuck ups because institutional power is always going to push back against chaos until it proves profitable to absorb it. But it’s not always clear who will become absorbed into the mainstream as acceptable.

I’m a careful watcher of who is considered dissident as I’ve been that chaotic kid basically since I was born. I was protected from so much of the sanding off that comes from social acculturation thanks to my parents.

But it’s almost impossible to protect oneself entirely. Much of the work of going to therapy as been about recovering the soul of that chaotic child. I hope I’ve gained the skills to protect her from being beaten down any further.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 770 and Worst Month

I beginning understand why February is considered the worst month. I don’t want to be misconstrued here as I love winter. I’ve been absolutely loving my snowy, sunny Montana winter. But a bunch of shit is going absolutely tits up wrong for people I love.

But like the viral video says, February is an honest month. Grandmothers end up in the hospital every day. Dogs get old and get put dow. The the circle of life happens every day. Jobs are lost and bills go unpaid every day. If they happen in July or over Christmas, we bemoan the bad timing. Layoffs at Christmas we say with horror! I guess February is better in some minds for bad news.

Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that bad shit happens all the time. When it overlaps with something happy, like a holiday, we’d be upset that our holidays are ruined. And yet if they don’t overlap with anything nice we are sad that life is too bleak. What moments of cheer have we to enjoy in February but candy hearts and the Super Bowl?

The part of me in therapy is reminded that it’s me who decides when I’m a victim of a circumstance. Bad things are as common as good. It’s cold truth of life has always been that it’s filled with the greatest joy and love and the price for those things is the deepest pain. Nothing in this life is free.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 769 and Behind

I feel behind on everything. It’s a source of anxiety that I cannot seem to shake. If you’ve been following along you’ve seen some interesting and intense types of emotions play out.

I want to beat myself for being behind. The need for guilt and flagellation is ever present. Then I remind myself that the pressure is self inflicted and my time horizons are long. If something was due this week or next, the relevant parties either got their deliverables from me or can wait.

I will allow myself the space to be scared to be behind. I’ll allow myself the space to be ashamed I am behind. And then I’m going to allow myself the space to just be behind. Sometimes we cannot see the bumps in the road till we’ve come upon the pothole. And I feel like I found a couple expectedly deep divots in the road of my life.

Categories
Emotional Work Politics

Day 768 and Memory

I’ve not ever read Proust in its entirety, because what am I, an eternal being who exists outside of linear time? But, thanks to Wikipedia and university survey courses, I am familiar with its basic themes of memory and it’s frustrating insufficiency.

Anyways, when not pondering madeleines, I am often confronted by how resilient the mind is in protecting us from the horrors of the world. Memory is a very funny thing. As good a reason as any to maintain diaries or engage in hagiography, is that you’d be surprised at what you forget if you don’t write it down.

A doctor asked me to get a pelvic ultrasound. I surprised myself by saying absolutely not unless it’s an emergency life or death situation, I am not doing that. And she, in sincere surprise, asked me why not.

And, because I guess therapy works, I recalled a pelvic ultrasound from maybe 10-12 years ago. I’d been referred in to a specialist as there was concern about a uterine cyst. This doctor, a gentleman over 50 in the kindly white patrician archetype, who I did not know know, proceeds to tell me this won’t hurt a bit.

But it does hurt. I am screaming bloody murder. It hurts so much I cannot stop. He tells me he will call security unless I quiet down. I cannot and I am in tears hysterically trying to convey the pain to him. I pass out.

I had utterly suppressed the memory till today. It happened to coincide with my husband mentioning a think piece in New York Magazine about women who empathized with the Clare Danes character from Fleishman Is In Trouble. There is a profoundly violating scene around reproductive health and consent that culminates in dark emotional trauma.

And of course, because it’s happening to a striving insecure aspirant white bitch, it totally doesn’t count right? The internet is not sympathetic to whining Clare Danes types. Fucking Karens. It’s super cringe to consider where the system hurts you, because, you dumb bitch, you benefit more than anyone else except the men.

So I guess I am not surprised I had banished the experience of something bad happening to me at a doctors office, but you know, it was not so bad that I am allowed to complain about it. And that is how the patriarchy perpetuates itself. Shut up you are rich. Look at the skulls upon which your empire is built you witch.

What I’m saying is that maybe you need to remember who it is that benefits from you not remembering the pain. Who benefits from forgetting? And trust me they are very scared when you realize that you remember. Even the rich striving white bitches have scares from this system.