The Further Adventures of Deluzy

Blog smack

Today is one of those days when I'm convinced that the very act of blogging is just incredibly narcissistic. (I realize that doesn't say anything good about me -- the irony is not lost on me, thanks.) And the more specifically narcissistic a particular blogger is, the more blind and self-deluded he or she is. Despite protestations to the contrary.

Maybe I'll take a vow of silence or go back to conventional journal-keeping.

The thing is, I feel guilty for reading blogs by folks I don't care for because I feel as if I should  Be a Nicer Person. I feel as if it's somehow hypocritical for me to be reading the blogs of anyone I don't like. (And if you're reading this, and you know I read your blog, and we maintain a relationship of any kind, on or offline, don't freak out because, no, I'm not talking about you!)

Why, then, do I feel guilty? The people in question aren't any with whom I pretend to have any relationship whatsoever. Our paths may have crossed, virtually or actually, as I once read their blogs in the pursuit of further knowledge about WLS generally or the DS specifically, but they aren't friends or even acquaintances in the present. They aren't people with whom I maintain any kind of relationship, on or offline, on the phone or in email. It was  only after reading them for over time that I realized they were Big Scary Trainwrecks and ran in the opposite direction. Except by that point I was hooked on the Trauma-Drama dynamics of their blogs, like an addict on heroin and so, in fact, I kept coming back for more virtual hits of the blog smack.

Well, but it's not nice to gawk at scenes of carnage, even when that carnage is emotional or psychological (maybe especially when it's that kind). God knows my psyche has been spread out over the asphalt at earlier times in my life, and it wasn't pretty. I should be that much more compassionate, less judgmental, and more tolerant as a result of my own experience of such damage, right?

And I'm not.  Why not? Is it really that I'm just kind of an awful bitch?  Is it just that it's petty Schadenfreude that's my problem? 

NOUN:

Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

---

  ETYMOLOGY:
German :  Schaden, damage (from Middle High German schade, from Old High German scado) +  Freude, joy (from Middle High German vreude, from Old High German frewida, from  fr, happy)

When I can tear myself away from my own self-flagellation around this issue, however (and yes, my sense of guilt is quite real), ultimately I figure that no, that's not it. I'm a reasonably empathetic person, and I don't take delight in the misery of others. Not usually.  Not for no reason, anyway (okay, there went my chance at a golden halo).

But I am allergic to Drama Queens (male or female) because when they're the genuine article, they tend to be those schitzy types who construct and perpetuate a sense of victim-hood and heroism around themselves and to alternate between those two poles.  They engage in tactics of revelation and secrecy to heighten the drama, hook the people around them or their readers, and to keep them coming back for more because they themselves are addicted to the attention. They need people in their orbit -- actual or virtual -- to feel enthralled in order to feel as if they exist. And furthermore, they would protest that this is so.

That's it -- that's what I don't like.  The sense of manipulation I feel from such people.

Yes, I know I'm particularly antipathetic to manipulation because I was the daughter of a master-manipulator who spun a web of fascination of a sort, and later in life I was also the close friend of a female friend who did much the same thing. Eventually I got really, really sick of participating in such dramas, even as an observer, however, and now I try hard to steer clear whenever I have the power to do so.

It's not that these kinds of people have no positive qualities. Quite the contrary -- they can be very attractive, dynamic individuals. But they're toxic -- to themselves, certainly, and often to others. And they'll do whatever they can, spin whatever narrative they need to, in order to avoid confronting their own toxicity and narcissism.

While I pretty successfully avoid Drama Queens and manipulators in real life now, I'm still susceptible to them in their virtual, blogging forms. That's evidence that I'm not as free of my own tendency to engage as I'd like to think of myself as being.  Worst of all, in giving these folks attention, one is complicit, a reluctant Drama Queen-by-proxy.

And that's a really disgusting thought, I have to say.

"How may I provide you with excellent service?"

That's the question posed by my now-longtime internet service provider, and I have one answer:

By DOING it!

I'm sick of automated voice directories, I'm sick of automated customer service reps, I'm sick of repeating the same information to a live rep that I just gave an automated one, I'm sick of being routed to technical service reps in India who are unfailing polite, who follow their script unfailingly correctly, and who are usually no damn help at all.

It's not even really the tech folks' fault, however.

This ISP deliberately fragments knowledge across customer service, maintenance, and tech support departments so that no single division has a total picture of what's going on. This means that no one division has to take ownership of or responsibility for shit.  Knowledge is on a strictly need-to-know basis, and they don't share that commodity over at AT&T.

I swear to god I'd change providers in a New York minute except that when I made a move to do so, the new provider I'd targeted (and whom I've had in the past) told me it could take as long as a week to 10 days for the switch to be complete.

Uh, I can't be without internet access for that long -- not while everyone else in my orbit has it as well and as long as I do a significant portion of my work from home.  That's too long a waiting period -- sorry.

Some people feel as if they're held captive by their cell phone plans?  Me, I feel held hostage by my ISP -- and it pisses me off.

Eating disorders, WLS bloggers, and "honesty"

There have been recent postings in the WLS blogosphere about eating disorders -- specifically bulimia -- by at least a couple of bloggers who've had weight-loss surgery (different kinds) and by those who read and choose to leave comments. In general, the comments on the blogs have tended to be supportive, though there have also been snarky, nasty remarks as well, and it's made me reflect on any number of subjects, all of which I feel are connected in some way, none of them terribly clearly. 

• The first is easy and obvious: eating disorders are dangerous, they are potentially deadly, and they are health issues -- emotional and physical -- rather than moral issues.

• Eating disorders run the gamut from anorexia nervosa to compulsive overeating, manifesting in anything from skeletal thinness to morbid obesity and, very occasionally, masquerading as health at a normal weight.

• Our culture reacts with horror to anorexics and the morbidly obese  because the signs of their illnesses are luridly inscribed on their bodies -- the first in terms of lack, the second in terms of excess.

• The culture reacts more variously to bulimia because the sick person is not always underweight: it's a disease that can be kept secret, at least for a while.  In general, people are repulsed at the idea of purging by vomiting or shitting to regulate weight (as if that were ultimately what the diseases are about -- they're not), but they may admire the figure or the weight that one achieves through those methods. It's an odd, implicit, don't-ask-don't-tell kind of phenomenon.
  

• In some ways, bulimia is the sexiest of the eating disorders. Unless you have it. They make TV movies about it.  They make TV movies about anorexia as well.  They don't make TV movies about morbidly obese people, though.  Fat is not sexy. Too thin isn't sexy, either, but thin is and after all, "You can never be too rich or too thin."  (Who first said that? No one knows for sure.)

Now, remember the feminist saying from the 70s that "rape isn't about sex, it's about power"? Frankly, I always thought was a stupid rhetorical gesture, because why is it an either/or issue?  Certainly rape is about sex -- and it's about power. It's just not about all sex.

But hey, I understood the larger point, and people need to understand the larger point here:  just as rape isn't "about" sex, eating disorders aren't "about" food.  They're about control -- but they get played out in and around food and the body. 

I'm not stating anything profound here that the average person can't figure out or that hasn't been widely addressed in a whole host of medical and psychological literature.  What I am saying, however -- albeit in a long-winded way -- is that, to judge from comments I've read, there's a tendency to look upon the WLS bloggers who have written about their eating disorders and called them such in very two-dimensional terms.  They're either Heroically Brave People Who Are Suffering or they're Villains who have somehow misrepresented their weight-loss experience, been "dishonest" in some way by Not Revealing All from the beginning.

You know what?  All they are is ... people.  Just plain ... people. How they're perceived depends in part upon the tone and emphasis of their writing, what they've chosen to blog about, and how they've presented themselves over time.  As readers, folks might have a particular preference for an approach or style, but these bloggers just individual voices out there whom you may or may not like but whom you do not know (unless, of course, you do).  They're not celebrities, they're not famous, they're not particularly well-adjusted or particularly nuts.  They're not particularly anything, except, usually, trying to get a grip on Normal, as a lot of us are.  And they write a blog.  That's it.  They're tiny little fishies in a great big ocean, and most of them know it.

So give these folks a break. 

If you praise them to the skies as brave and whatever else, then that's simply one more thing they often feel they have to live up to (and can't). Yes, be supportive, but let them be real, you know?

If you think they delude others or are self-deluded, maybe you're right and maybe you're not.  But so what? As they say about television programs you don't like, turn it off or change the channel.  But don't leave nasty, hurtful remarks on a blog because 1) it's bad manners ("If you can't say something pleasant, don't say anything at all"); 2) it's bad karma; 3) it's a really shitty thing to do.

And really, there is life beyond the blog. For readers and writers alike.

N.J. woman, 60, gives birth to twin boys

Link: N.J. woman, 60, gives birth to twin boys

Okay, just because You Want To and Science Can Make It Happen doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.

I'd say this even if they didn't have two grown children and a youngster already: they're too damn old to go out of their way to inflict themselves as parents on a newborn. Or rather, two of them.

But I don't think they were thinking about the babies.  I think they were thinking about themselves.   

Virginia Tech, con't

I will say that if the wide availability of and easy access to guns continues to persist in the U.S., similar events will occur in the future.  Guaranteed.  Cho couldn't have wreaked as much havoc and devastation with sticks and stones.  Or even knives.

It might help, too,  if Americans were better educated about mental illness and if there were less stigma attached to its various forms as well.

But we tend to be awfully judgmental about health in this country, occasionally viewing it almost as a barometer of moral rectitude.

That attitude hasn't certainly hasn't gotten us very far.

Size Zero? The UK Would Prefer A Size 12

Link: Size Zero? The UK Would Prefer A Size 12.

I don't know where to begin.

Is this a press release sponsored by a weight-loss surgery company?  Or is the study to which the piece refers simply sponsored by a weight-loss surgery company?

Mind you, I've had weight-surgery, so I'm not opposed to it as a final resort for controlling one's weight and health.

But I don't know that I'd trust a for-profit company that deals in weight-specific procedures to conduct such a survey. Or to interpret the results.

Finally, obviously, UK and US sizes are different.  And within U.S., at least, a size whatever (pick one -- 0, 2, 14) is larger than it used to be 10, 20, 50 years ago.  So, for that matter, are individual Americans. What are they really saying here?

On the face of it, the piece is all about how men and women "actually" find a larger size than anticipated attractive.  Underneath the surface, however, the piece is a tribute to the tyrrany of size and sizing.

I'm hardly immune to the thrills of dropping sizes, god knows.  I spent my entire adult life being clinically morbidly obese, so to fit into regular sized women's and junior-sized clothing now is, indeed, a thrill.

I'd like to think it's not term-defining as far as my self-esteem goes, however. 

Weight-loss patients suffer mental woes - Breaking News

Link: Weight-loss patients suffer mental woes

Sigh.  It makes us sound like raving loons.

This story has appeared on numerous wires, and it pisses me off.  Not because the psychological dimension of weight-loss surgery isn't significant (it is, and it's often underestimated), but because, as usual, there's very little (read: no) context provided for the results of the study.

How about the psychological impact of remaining morbidly obese in a weight- and appearance-obsessed culture?  Or the incidence of psychological disorders relative to the general population?  Or -- anything else that might be relevant?

Let me be clear.  I'm faulting the reporting in this article, not the study described therein, which I haven't read.

If I had time, I'd comment further.  Even more nastily.

Hopefully some of my readers will do so more thoroughly.  I'm thinking Ezpy but it's open season and fair game for anyone, as far as I'm concerned!

High school redux

Ohforgodssake.

Again I hear Through the Grapevine about a reader of this blog who lurks, doesn't post, and then snarks about its content to people we know in common. For any lurkers, I have no problem with the lurking -- or even the snarking! Lurk freely and snark away because god knows it's a free country. It's the lurking and then snarking to shared acquaintances that I find so -- irritating and high-school, I guess.

I mean, what is the point, for heaven's sake? Anyone can come here and read the things I write, so why on earth is it even a source of interest, let alone gossip for this person? I don't know about you, but the only blogs I read are those of people whose writing and/or subject matter I respect, for one reason or another.  Life's too short to do otherwise.  Why make it a point to come to this site if all one wants to do is snark that 1) I wear toe-nail polish (she doesn't -- but the last time I checked, this was not exactly a Pressing World Issue); 2) I tell my husband I want him to bring me flowers on my birthday, our anniversary, and Valentine's day (I can't figure out if this is an indication to her that a) I care about something so trivial; or b) pussy-whip my husband, or c) both a and b). But why would she care enough even to talk about it?! Certainly whoever the person is at the other end of those conversations must be bored to tears. CNN Breaking News this blog is not.

Never mind.  I know the answer, or at least I know roughly what the answer probably is.  This is someone who has always found it difficult to connect with other people, who traffics in gossip as a pretext to do so, and who has a history of  all manner of issues with all manner of things, including self-esteem, appearance, weight, men, and relationships generally. I'm hardly Issues-Free myself (who is?!) so that's not my point.  Rather, it's that the blog may stir up all kinds of shit for her. So she probably snarks to connect with others at the expense of others, to feel superior, and to whistle in the dark and keep her own inner darkness at bay.

Whatever gets you through the night and all that. But man, it does flash me back to my high school days.

Anna Nicole Smith dies - CNN.com

Link: Anna Nicole Smith dies - CNN.com.

Okay, it's almost 2:30 p.m. PST and CNN has been doing its "breaking news" thing over the death of Anna Nicole Smith. For some time now.  And no, other than the fact that she's dead, there isn't any further news on the matter.  So, like, change the subject.

And ask me -- why do I find it offensive that they have an audio feed of Larry King commenting on her life, death, looks, weight, and intelligence (or, according to King, a lack thereof) on (the equally annoying) Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room"? Two self-important old men commenting upon and judging a woman whom their very words objectify ... Okay, so she objectified herself, too.  Her self, her choice.  That doesn't mean others get to during the coverage of her death, forgodssake.

Nancy Grace isn't helping the situation, either.

No wonder other countries think the U.S. is just fucked up.

Incremental forward movement

My PCP is being ineffectual: no local hospitals have the kind of iron that Dr. K prescribed. Uh, okay, then call him and get him to write a prescription for something else -- but get me into a place and get me infused now.  Make it happen.  I can't -- I have a Ph.D., not an M.D.  Am I seriously going to have to collapse in an ER to get an iron infusion?

She's going to call me back.

Update:  She did call me back. After another series of phone calls between her and me, and me and another office (in which I became very snarky and short-tempered), I now have an appointment with a hematologist for an infusion for one week from today.  It's the best we could all do, given schedules.

If I begin to feel too awful between now and then, I'm supposed to go directly to an emergency room. In the meantime, yes, I'm eating all manner of foods with iron in them (not that that remotely solves the issue of low iron stores) and taking mega-iron supplements (ditto).

The American medical system ... you gotta hate it (and I'm one of the luckier Americans who has health insurance -- a PPO, no less)!

On a more positive note, my husband went grocery-shopping yesterday, I spent $100 on protein bars and shakes this morning (uh, it's time to get a letter from my doctor so that I can claim those items through my Medical Reimbursement Account), and so now I'm set for a while with edibles that work for the DS.  For the past three days I've been eating crap and feeling like crap as result but today I've been able to return to better eating, and that certainly helps my frame of mind.

(Well, it should. The truth is, all I want to do is sleep right now, but I've got work to do.  At least I know there's progress waiting for me in the wings as far as my anemia and better eating go, however.)