geode's Blog

Stuff with Eagle fell apart badly in the past few months.  We weren't talking on the phone, barely communicating online.  I tried my best to be there for him....but even I have limits.

I broke up with him.

Now I feel like a horrible person for kicking a man when he's down...but there was nothing else I could do.  I love him, that's never gonna change, but until he's ready to let me be a full partner in his life, the relationship can't go forward.

I hurt. 

And it kills me to keep moving forward, being the Geode everyone thinks they know, perpetually positive.  I just want to roll up in a ball and cry, but can't find the energy.

This has been a rough couple of weeks for me.  Fighting with friends, fighting with school, fighting with insurance...yeah.  I'm about out of gas for fighting. 

More than the others, the insurance mess has been the most draining.  I've been conditioned since childhood to automatically yield to Authority.  So now it is awfully hard to go against someone in a position higher than mine.  And just now I am in just that position.

I know I need to be testing my blood sugar.  I've come WAY too close to blacking out WAY too many times lately to think otherwise.  And herein lies the conflict.

My doctor does not agree.  Now, I'm a big girl...badly overweight and I know it.  Doctor L. immediately wanted to test me for diabetes, check my cholesterol....you know, all the Bad Things that can go wrong when you're fat.  Long story short, my cholesterol is perfect and I'm not diabetic.  (I already knew this, but that is a post for another day)

I tried to explain to Dr. L. what was going on.  I tried to tell her what symptoms I experienced, knowing full well that they spoke of low blood sugar. 

Her answer?  "Eat more.  3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner.  You'll be fine."

Um, excuse me? If I do that, I am at the black out point by 11 PM without fail.  What's more, I think the nutritionists have proven that 5-6 small meals are better for you than 3 big ones.  I held my tongue at that, though...mainly because my head was still spinning over her blunt "eat more."

For one, telling a recovering anorexic to eat more typically has the opposite effect.  Oh, yes, when I told Dr. L. that fact about me, she gave me this LOOK.  She may as well have said it out loud: "Anorexic? You? You're too fat, not too thin."  Um, Doc?  When that particular disease does not kill us outright, we tend to wind up obese 'cause we wrecked out metabolisms. 

So there I was, sitting in the doctor's office with a clear problem...that the doc did not think was an issue.  Oh, she gave me a glucose meter starter kit...but did not even bother to write a prescription for test strips to use in the damn thing.

I'm ready to change my lifestyle.  Thing is, I don't know how to do it yet.  I need the tools that my doc can give me to make it work.  But Doc does not think I need it.

So now I am butting heads with Authority...and am so, so tired.  I hate conflict.  Part of me wants to roll over and give up.  I won't do it 'cause my body is not as forgiving of abuse at 32 as it was at 19.  If I want to see 42 I need to take care of myself.  I need the tools and the help from medical professionals.

I am fresh out of confidence in my ability to win this...but They don't have to know that.  So I put my head down and slog forward.  Even if I don't have the confidence in myself at this second I can pretend I do.  Eventually it will no longer be an act.  Gotta fake it 'till I make it. 

Lord, I hope I get there soon!

Faye has been my best friend for years.  At one point she was my girlfriend.  Even after that phase of our relationship ended, we remained close friends.  She even knows and likes Eagle, and supports my being with him.

Now the problem.

I grew and changed.  Faye did not.  She is still essentially the same person she was 10 years ago.  I am not.

Honestly, we kind of have (had?) a codependancy thing going on.  Each of us allowed a toxic relationship to continue.  Thing is, she's not mature enough to see the toxicity of it. 

I spent almost all of last week at her house.  She had knee surgery and needed someone to take care of her mom...or so she said.  I love Momma Donna like my own mother, so I was glad to help.  But Faye started laying on the guilt when I did not spend every waking moment at her hospital bedside, started whimpering that she felt abandoned and forgotten.  I was doing what I said I would, taking care of Mom!

The breaking point came the first night she was home. 

I got sick in the night.  My blood sugar dropped scary-low.  I was with it enough to eat a couple granola bars before passing out, but I was still in bad shape when I woke up. 

And Faye did not notice.

Okay, so she was on pain meds.  I get that.  But you don't have to be with it to notice when your "best friend" is slurring and scrambling her words.  She didn't comment, didn't ask if I was okay.  She didn't even seem to notice anything was wrong.

Once I felt halfway human, I called her on it. 

She insisted that she had asked, had been worried.  She whined that it wasn't her fault and that I couldn't expect her to remember what to do.  She implied that I was somehow in the wrong for expecting her to be a good friend.  She flat out said that I was expecting too much to think she could remember all the things I need to keep my blood sugar stable.

That last one was too much.

I had spent most of the preceding two weeks explaining to her that if my sugar drops, feed me bread or something sweet.  We had prowled a grocery store looking at the carb count on different products.  She KNEW that when I felt bad I ate a granola bar. 

And had the gall to turn around and deny it.

All I wanted was a simple "You don't look good.  Are you okay?"  Apparently it was too much to ask.

So now I am fighting with accepting the fact that it's time to move on.  Time to let her find her own way.

I just feel like a traitor.

I'm kind of fighting back tears here.  I've talked some about Eagle in other places, in other posts.  I've known him for ages, love him dearly.  Eagle is one of the strongest people I know.

And he is perilously close to the breaking point.

I knew he was stressed.  I know better than most the demands his family lay upon him, and how he feels obligated to meet said demands.  I know his responsibilities, and I know he has a hard time saying "no" when someone asks him to do something. 

I know he's working his azz off at work and school, so much that he's doing good to get 3 hours of sleep in a night.  Lately he's had to medicate himself to get even that much.  I even knew his health was being affected by all this garbage.

I didn't realize how close he is to breaking.

Eagle is strong.  He has to be, considering the hand life dealt him.  But everyone has a breaking point, and he is near his.  I knew that he was hurting...but seeing a post of his on another site really slammed the issue home for me.  And I gotta admit that I'm scared for him.

This other site is kind of his baby-- he's been involved with it forever.  Hells bells, he even got me involved with it! 

So I glanced over the site today.  Seeing that he'd posted, I took a look.  It was a long post for a man who does not like to write.  It spelled out in short form what he's been coping with... and if I printed it would probably be three pages long. 

I knew about the stress he is under, but he hadn't let me see how badly it is affecting him.  Reading this post came as a shock, because in it my proud Eagle sounded defeated.

I'm scared.  I know that I'm strong enough to help Eagle reassemble himself if he shatters...but I can only do as much as he will let me.  I'm scared that he won't let me in.  I am afraid because he's been shutting me out, not letting me see his pain.

Eagle is the type who forever gives of himself with no thought to the cost.  While that is one of the things I love about him, it hurts to see him so badly depleted.  It hurts to know that he's pushing himself beyond what any human can do.  And it really hurts that he won't let me help.

We're engaged to be married.  We're supposed to be partners, allies, to help each other physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  He's the only person I have ever met who is fully my equal in all of those aspects.  He's the only person I have ever met who I could accept and trust as a full partner in all aspects of my life.  He's one of precious few people who won't hesitate to call me on any BS I try to slip past.

But he won't let me in anymore.  I try and try, but he won't lean on me.  He knows I'm not gonna go anywhere.  He knows I'm not the shattered wreck I once was.  He knows better than most that I would walk to the ends of the earth for someone I love.

Even knowing all that, he is not letting me do my part.  He is almost always there for me, but he shoves me away when I try to help him.  I see him cracking up by inches and it kills me.  I want to help, but cannot if he doesn't allow me.

Everybody's got to hit rock bottom sometime.  God knows I learned that lesson the hard way.  I'm just scared that when Eagle hits he's not gonna have the strength to pick up the pieces.  And I'm scared he won't let me do it for him.

I'm just plain scared.

I saw a new doctor last week, and she demanded a heap of blood tests.... including some of the basic diagnostics for diabetes.  My first reaction to the suggestion I could be diabetic was flat-out denial... until I did some thinking.

Eagle, my fiencee was diagnosed with diabetes at least 10 years ago.  Talking to him helped me sort out my emotions, but now I've got another problem.

I want my blinders back.  I want to go back to ignoring the signals my body's been sending me.  I want to stay in the dark, to not notice this stuff.  'Cause if I start paying attention, I will have to do something about it, to change.  I like the rut I'm in.  Change is hard and scary, and I am happy and safe here.

But not really. 

Right or wrong, though, don't I want to acknowledge what I am feeling.

I don't want to think about the fact that my splitting headache went away just now after I ate something.  I don't want to think about how accurate Eagle's description of what low blood sugar feels like.  I REALLY don't want to acknowledge how often I feel like that.

If I'm honest with myself, I know that chances are the blood test will show that my sugar levels are (and have been) consistently abnormal.  If I am honest with myself, I know that I probably will soon be checking my sugar daily.

I do not like this.  I do not like the idea of changes being forced upon me.  But again, if I am honest, I know I have to change.

I damaged my body badly as a young adult.  I starved it and did everything I could to punish it for betraying me.  In that horrible phase of my life, I learned to like the lightheaded feeling that goes with a long fast.  Once my boss found me passed out in the stockroom.

I don't do that crap anymore...but I do still like that fuzzy feeling.  Up until I saw that doctor and got the bloodwork done, I chose not to know how often I felt blurry.

I can't do that anymore, and I want my blinders back.  Knowledge is power... in this case the power to force a choice upon me.

I can keep ignoring my body.  That is an option.  I can keep eating poorly and at irregular intervals.  I can keep pretending I don't know that I am hurting myself.  But my innate honesty forces me to acknowledge that sooner or later that path will lead to a black out....that I may or may not wake up from.

I can choose that option...or I can choose to modify my diet, to pay attention to my body and what I put into it.  I can start making modifications to my diet now so it won't be such a shock when the doctor says that I have to do it.

I know I have to change if I want my health to improve.  I also know that I would never have made any significant changes without a massive wake up call....and this certainly qualifies.

I know I have to change.  But I don't have to like it.  I want my blinders back.