Apologies: in retrospect and in advance

First off, I have to apologize in both retrospect and advance if I have been snippy, stressed, or overly emotional. I have been on some steroids recently that affect my blood pressure and stress levels, among other things. If you take nothing else away from this post, remember that I am not currently acting like myself and keep that in mind when dealing with me in the next week or two.

I do not usually share a lot of personal details on this blog. Emotional states other than “happy” are typically left to my offline life. So why am I breaking that tradition here? Because some of this is so ludicrous and embarrassing it feels therapeutic to share and make fun of. Be warned that the rest of this entry contains emotions as well as one thing that can be filed under “too much information.” More information than you require, even. If this scares you, you can skip to the last paragraph and be none the worse for wear. You have been warned.

✻ ✼ ✻

Since September, I have had some weird medical stuff going on in my body that has been difficult to diagnose and difficult to fix. The exact details are both gross and unimportant. The important thing is that, after bouncing around through several doctors, I am basically all better except for one thing that just won’t heal. This leads up to last week’s doctor visit. Remember when I mentioned “too much information?” It’s not too late to stop reading. Really, if you’re even starting to hesitate, just skip to the last paragraph. Let us just say that it was an uncomfortable and humiliating experience involving being naked and face-down on a table while being examined with an anal-probe, not unlike a 6-inch plexiglass dildo. Under the right circumstances, such a probing might not have been unpleasant, but it felt pretty bad then and there. And honestly, I think the emotions that flooded in with the wiping up afterward may have been worse. I haven’t been wiped by an adult since I was a baby in diapers — certainly never as an adult. So already, before prescriptions, there were some bad emotions floating around. Embarrassment, violation, uselessness, mortality, and likely others murky enough as to be difficult to name.

As treatment, I started taking the steroids [up my ass, by the way, the steroids go inside my butthole!], and I was kind of punchy for the first couple of days. Maybe a bit more animated. As best as I can tell, a discussion I had walking home on Saturday about some self-destructive habits I had as a late-teen/early-twenty-something led to an extremely unpleasant dream Saturday night/Sunday morning. Then on Sunday I really noticed I was starting to feel amiss. I was extremely short-tempered and any number of little things caused me to snap. Totally out of character. I have always been the calm, grounding touchstone for people around me.

Do you know that feeling when you are about to speak in public, the butterflies-puking-in-your-stomach feeling? That was today. All of today. From waking up to right now this second, as I type this. I have been on edge, but self-aware enough to temper outbursts. In fact, I had a quick discussion with my boss this morning, alerting him to the fact that I may not be acting like myself. Even though it was only a minute or two and pretty straightforward and matter-of-fact, I felt I had to exercise a lot of self control to stop tears from welling up toward the end of that. Tears! For a little bit of chit-chat that amount to the first two sentences at the top of this post.

✻ ✼ ✻

The good news is that I think I am self-aware enough now that I can control my overblown stress and feelings. Even though it may feel a bit emotionally and physically unpleasant, there’s no benefit to unleashing that on unsuspecting bystanders. The other good news is that despite the side-effects, the treatment seems to be working, and that in and of itself is totally worth it. The side-effects pale in comparison to being sick for 10 months.

Posted in: Dear Diary

3 thoughts on “Apologies: in retrospect and in advance”

  1. That sounds truly mortifying, but I’m glad it’s at least helping you get better. I hope this is the end of your health woes for a while.

    Can’t wait to see you and Kim at ARGFest!

  2. Thanks, you guys (errr… gals). I wasn’t really fishing for sympathies — just wanted to get stuff off my chest — but I certainly won’t turn them down! 🙂 I can’t wait for ARGfest! Kim wants people over for drinks/Wii/cats/whatever; I’m not sure how practical that is, but it’s certainly an option.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *