The absurd title and it’s relationship to the TV series isn’t lost on me. Writing what follows feels necessary, cathartic, and full of shallow privilege.
My whole life has been a maze of chaos.
Alcoholic childhood home, full of sisters where the rules were “don’t run.”
I started getting panic attacks, anxiety, and depression in my teens.
Sometimes my neck would just ‘go out’ for weeks.
Escalating degrees of food sensitivities in my 20s.
I obsessed about the problem of my weight, my figure, my reflection in the mirror. If clothes would fit a little differently, maybe people would finally get me.
Relationships to fix, endlessly.
A broken neck to recover from. A mysterious chronic leg injury. Swollen eyes every morning. Navigating abusive relationships while overworking my double 9-5, a 7-day a week gym habit, and a “whatever it takes to figure it out” mindset.
Always hunting for a solution, any answer to the moving goalpost of my life that might ease the suffering.
One step forward and three steps back.
Found some health with the carnivore diet. Then got hit with histamine intolerance and sulfur metabolization issues. Raw meat it is! Then got Mercury Poisoning (not related to the raw meat).
I had my breast implants removed after 14 years. Didn’t realize how much they were contributing to the problems until they were gone. Woke up from surgery light years ahead from where I’d come.
Found a permanent solution to the toxic-soup relationship.
And now I’m sitting in my kitchen, typing on my laptop. Looking out at the sun shining on my yard.
The constant trips to Urgent Care for chronic dehydration, gone. When I stand up I’m fine, no more POTS giving me short-term black outs. The medications in my fridge could be thrown in the dump. My supplement list when from double digits down to one.
I go to sleep at 8 most nights. I wake up with the sun and snuggle my dog before going for a walk.
My work is remote, and although it’s always changing it’s still stable and fun.
I finally have the time to write every day. To post positive things on social media. To paint and draw and pursue the creative arts I’ve always said I want.
But it feels like I’ve displaced some piece of identity in the process.
I’ve always been the fixer, the problem solver. The one friends ask questions they aren’t sure about.
I’m the person who’s studied human biochemistry out of necessity (and even found it to be fun). Learned bodywork to fix my neck and back and leg and then some.
I can tell you what dozens of different vitamins and supplements do, and why you should or shouldn’t take this or that with a particular MTHFR gene mutation. Slow COMT? Got ya.
This reminds me of when I stopped horseback riding.
It had once been my identity. And then, suddenly, it was nothing again.
And who are you when you are no longer who you thought you were?
Who am I when I don’t have constant problems to fix or answers to find?
What did I do when I gave up horses? Picked up a bunch of unhealthy distractions.
This time around, I can’t seem to give into those mental acrobatics.
I’ll be 41 in October, and I subconsciously assumed these aren’t the things you think or feel at such an age. That by 40 you have “how to live calmly” figured out.
But when I talk to other people my age, so many are expressing the same.
I talked to a woman in her 60s yesterday, who’s also trying to find her identity. Insane.
I am you and you are me.
I can understand the drive to keep living unhealthily. To cling onto the old identity. Find ways to mess it up, to go back to what you know. To create problems so you have a reason to fix them.
But even if it’s uncomfortable, I’ve committed to living this next half differently.
How are you navigating your current stage of life? Share it with me in the comments. 🙏
