Detox

“Do you want to do a detox?!” My naturopath asked excitedly in November. 

Before any holidays occurred.

Of course, in my folly and because I was feeling well, I said yes.

I may live to deeply, deeply regret that decision. Or, you know, not.

I had the appointment yesterday where we talked about what it would entail, and I’m going full bore paleo vegan for two months. 

Snort. And I thought we were going to talk about giving reincorporation of eggs and sesame seeds another try at this appointment now that I’ve cut them out for 6 months. NOPE.

Anywho, so here’s the deal.

A pound of raw veggies per day. (Minimum.)

A pound of cooked veggies per day. (Minimum.)

Lots of beans.

2 ounces of nuts or seeds.

4 large pieces of fruit per day. (Minimum.)

No grains, not even rice or corn.

All the white or sweet potato I want. (A relief, in a way, except I can’t slather my potatoes in butter and sour cream.)

No meat, no dairy.

No juice or anything else that contains added sugar.

End of list.

This would be like a vegan person were doing a whole 30. Except I’m not vegan. Like, not even a little.

Oh wait. All the tea and water I can drink. I can drink black coffee too.

The science makes sense. The focus on micronutrients instead of macronutrients makes sense.

The goal is not weight loss, though she told me to expect to lose 20-30 pounds, which will put me exactly in the range I want to be. This diet is one ordinarily given to people who need a reset or to set themselves up for drastic changes to their diet, both of which apply here. There is a lot of good news other than this also:

1. I’ll feel better. The holidays were terrible for me food-wise, and this will give me a much-needed reset. I have felt like shit since about early December, so I’m ready to start feeling good again and get back to being accountable for what I put in my mouth.

2. I’ve fixed my Breakfast Problem. You see, I’m a big breakfast person and have been for a really long time. Then I had to cut out eggs, most dairy, oats, and gluten, all foods that are an integral part of a good breakfast. I don’t want anything to do with chia seeds, and because I shouldn’t be eating all that much sugar, I shouldn’t be eating all that much yogurt either. I’m pretty much limited to one kind: unsweetened coconut. It’s out there, but hard to find. Now I’m doing smoothies again. Fun fact: there is unflavored protein powder (which I called smoothie dust yesterday at the doctor in a moment of aphasia) and if I mix it with frozen fruit and some water, voila! Breakfast! (Along with, according to my doctor, two pieces of fruit.)

3. If I’m hungry between meals, or if I’m extra snacky (which I shouldn’t be at all), I’m not eating enough and I should eat more. This concept is SO foreign to me that I don’t even know where to start. She told me that I can (and should!) literally eat until I’m uncomfortably full at every meal. She also gave me some recipes and told me to double them and take that as a meal.

4. It’s not that far off from the elimination diet that I was on, so I should be ok. It will be a bigger adjustment because I SUPER fell out of habit during the holidays, but I’ll get back there.

Now I have to go find myself a food scale. I start it on Monday.

923 Days

July 13, 2017, my teeth looked like this.

That was 922 days ago, as of right now.

922 days of staring into the snackless abyss.

922 days of my teeth moving in microscopic increments.

922 days of wearing them (mostly) 24/7. (Ok. I was lax when I had aligners for more than two weeks.)

You can’t tell too much, and my teeth weren’t terrible by any means, but I was having MAJOR jaw troubles. Lots of crowding meant my bite couldn’t meet the way it needed to, which was way more painful than I was giving it credit for now that it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Today, my teeth look like this. 

Are they perfect? No. Do I want them to be, necessarily? Not really. I want to be satisfied with them, which I definitely am. Are they amazingly different in every way I thought possible? Yes, and then some.

Tomorrow is day 923. I get fitted with retainers tomorrow after having my current set of aligners for literally months. I’ve had the top aligners since August, and the bottom ones since November. My top teeth have been done for quite some time, and I can understand why my dentist wanted to wait, but it took Invisalign an inordinately long amount of time to get the retainers done.

I got the call today and I go in tomorrow. I am STOKED. I still have to wear them 22 hours a day for now, but I’ll eventually get to move to nighttime wear only and I can’t wait.

What CAN I wait for? My naturopath appointment. It’s tomorrow. My gut is NOT smiles times lately and I got a buttload of blood taken last week that I think ain’t going to come out great. The holidays were tough, and I think it’s just going to take some more time to recover. I literally haven’t felt well in weeks. I’m by no means back where I was, but I’m tired, swollen, and icky.

I agreed to a cleanse in my last appointment, in a moment of absolutely terrible judgment, so we’ll see what that entails.

Stay tuned!

Letting Myself be Bored

This transition to the new job has been harder than expected. The transition out of my old job was difficult in itself, but there was something that happened at the three-day mark of the new one that really hit home.

I was bored. Like, really bored. It's the same kind of boredom that hits around this time when I’m on vacation, but I’m not on vacation. This is a permanent change.

Well, shit. I totally, unabashedly panicked when I came to this realization. What do I do with this time? What if I’m always bored like this? What if I just keep asking hypothetical questions over and over until the end of time?

Also, I don’t know how I’m even bored. I’m already up to 18 clients and when I hit 20, I’m taking a break from taking new people. That’s 20 hours of clinical work a week with some admin stuff, but not anything that takes more than 10 minutes at the end of any given day, even when there’s a lot. I’m also busy during my off times. Like, really busy. The shit that I have to do just to live is ridiculous. How did I not make time for this before? Or maybe I did, but I just did it half-assed? I have no idea. But like, doctor appointments, dentist appointments (OH GOD I AM ALMOST DONE WITH INVISALIGN AND I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT IT I COULD SPIT) and therapy appointments. And going to the bank and just all of the little piddly stuff that we take for granted and think will take two seconds until you lump them all together and then suddenly they all take two hours. All stuff that I do now and takes more time than I think I gave it credit for when I had to carve it out of my day to go and do it.

My schedule has changed quite a bit, so maybe that’s something? I go in around 1 (maybe a little earlier) and stay until 7 or 8, and then I go home. And then I teach on Wednesdays and work at ES. I think this is the least busy I’ve been, ever.

My therapist and I have an interesting relationship because I feel like it's part therapy and part consulting at times. She's been through what I'm currently going through, and so (checking in on her comfort level always), I ask her questions about it making it clear that she doesn't have to answer if she doesn't want to.

Her thing with this for me is that I have finally arrived at a place where I'm not looking to prove myself to anyone. I think she's right in that I have to prove myself to fewer people, but I don't necessarily agree that I've arrived anywhere if that makes sense. If anything, I feel less sure of myself now than I did when I left grad school, even. I certainly feel more pressure not just income-wise, but also in the idea that I have to do something with these clients now. Of course I have to do clinical work, that's not what I'm saying, but I now have 18 families I have to show my abilities to instead of just one supervisor. Although, I had to do that before too when I was doing full-time clinical work and it was WAY more families than that, so I don't know, and I had no problem being productive then. I'm puzzled. Maybe it's just a muscle that I have to get back into working full-time because I had an eensy caseload before and now I've got a big one.

I brought up my boredom with my naturopath too when I was talking to her about how the transition was going (especially the "I don't have any idea about timing anymore and what is time anyway, so fuck it I'm not going to take my supplements at all for three weeks" of it all) and she validated and then was like "So, now you have time for self-care." I openly rolled my eyes, desperately NOT wanting the conversation to go to that. What she said to me knocked me off my feet a little bit, though - "The planning part of self-care is not sexy. At all. But it's the most necessary part of it."

UGH. SHE'S SO RIGHT. WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE SO RIGHT ALL THE TIME. ALSO SHE'S MOVING OFFICES TO A PLACE THAT USED TO BE AN ICE CREAM SHOP. WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT CRUEL JOKE.

So, now I have to get planning, probably my least favorite activity when it comes to things I have to do for myself. Seriously! The reason I was so resistant to the idea of changing my diet is that it takes planning and that's why I didn't want to do it. There were other reasons (like it's hard), but those were not nearly as compelling as the idea that I didn't want to have to plan out my entire effing week of food. That's just annoying. Like, Send Me Into a Rage kind of annoying.

So, I think this is the next step, now that I've bumped up against it. Become a person who at least doesn't mind planning things. I'm not even shooting for liking it. I'm shooting for tolerating it.

Also the acceptance of the boredom. Though today was free and I certainly managed to fill it up with a shit-ton of grading, so maybe I'm not so much bored, but I just really, really don't want to do the things on my to-do list? Maybe.

Who the hell knows.

Unwelcome Reminders

An alternative title: Why Oat Milk is Delicious Bullshit.

So, this whole gliadin thing and it being the biggest reason of several that I have celiac has been a challenge. The reason for this is oatmeal.

You see, I love oats. Love them. I’ve been eating them my entire life - they were a staple of my childhood, even! When I found out that I couldn’t eat them anymore, I asked my doctor what that meant. Like, no oat flour? What about gluten free oats? Or oat milk? The response was what I was expecting, which was no whole oats of any kind, gluten free or otherwise, but for the rest of the stuff, just give it a try and see what happens.

I hate this answer because it means more playing chicken with my immune system and I usually lose huge. Also, this didn’t make any sense to me; what could be taken out of the oat that would make it so that I can eat it, even if it’s oats still in a different form? I was confused, so I waited and stayed away.

Then I went to a cafe a couple of weekends ago and tried a maple latte with oat milk.

It was effing delicious. It was nice and creamy but not too heavy (like almond milk) or light or sweet (like coconut milk). It was exactly the beverage that I was looking for. It was probably the closest alternative to milk or cream that I’d found texture-wise. I loved it.

If I’m being totally real, I started to react before we even left the cafe. I started feeling a little hot, it was harder for me to walk to the car than it was to walk to the cafe (neither of which were very hard, I just noticed a difference), and then we were driving to go apple picking and I suddenly got so tired that I almost had to pull over and let Rob drive.

We got to the orchard and I was fine while we were outside, better even! Then we sat down to eat and it started to hit me. I swelled up like a balloon and just felt kiiiiiiind of awful. But we still had one more stop to make (I needed a new hoodie) and so we went to get that. As we were driving home, I was like “I think it’s finally time to admit that I’m not feeling well.”

Shit.

I’ve also been eating an excessive amount of dairy lately, so I’ve been trying to get a handle on that without much success. I just can’t quit you, cheese.

Really, it’s just cheese. I made the unpleasant discovery that I can’t have dairy-based creamer in my coffee, which I found out the hard way the other day (AND STILL TRIED AGAIN ANYWAY EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THAT’S WHAT I WAS REACTING TO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME), but I’m managing. I’m figuring this out slowly and trying hard not to get impatient with myself if I slip up and really want some maple coffee with regular creamer, but it’s hard. These are permanent changes and I get resistant, even though I know it’s what I need.

The thing about it is, though, those times that my body reacts unfavorably? I was in the middle of feeling like absolute shit from the oat milk and I came to this really startling realization, which helped me feel about 1000% emotionally better about the whole mess that I’d just gotten myself into: this is how I used to feel all the time. Like, 100% of the time. I was constantly a little queasy. Everything was hard, like walking long distances to my car. I was always on the verge of a migraine. Like, teetering on the edge of A Big One. I was always this tired. I would be able to push through it, but I always felt this way. Why I had such a strong emotional reaction to how I’m feeling is for a few reasons:

1. I hated feeling that way and I was afraid that I had flipped a switch and all the work I’d done was for naught (it wasn’t) and I’d feel this way all the time again (I didn’t)

2. I feel this way so rarely now that when I do, I have a stronger emotional reaction to it because it’s no longer my default

3. I had a really strong physical reaction to something I ingested that I really shouldn’t have because I’m really intolerant to it and I’m mad about it. It messes with my internal stuff just biologically.

While I'm feeling better (even though I had a six.effing.day.migraine), the reaction lasted two full weeks. I didn't even noticeably feel human again until a couple of days ago. I had a big migraine for my first entire week at my new job, which wasn’t in itself great (and I don’t blame it entirely on the oat milk - I was pretty anxious about the transition too), I had to go get the tramadol shot to knock it out otherwise I'm convinced I'd still have it (I wouldn't), but I managed. With lots of drugs and tea and peppermint essential oil in the diffuser (which actually kind of worked miracles), darkening my office when I wasn’t seeing clients, napping during those times if I needed to, I managed. If nothing else, I certainly learned that I can’t have oats of any kind.

Now that I have more time and freedom, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to take the time I need to really get this stuff figured out. I feel good about it.

(I also did the math and if I stay at my current caseload, I’ll be taking a pay raise that is significant. And I still have a bunch of openings. Snort.)

Also there’s a terrible something going around my office and clients and the ER that I’m doing per diem work in, and I sneezed a few times but feel no different, and I’m feeling like that may be the extent of my fall cold. It really, really makes me chuckle. I’ve usually been bedridden at least twice by this time of the season. So maybe I don’t have too much left to figure out, or maybe I do. I’m game either way, and that’s pretty awesome.

Professional Self-Care

Ok. Time for some real talk about mental health.

So, here’s the thing about professional self-care. Much like personal self-care, I don’t do enough. I just don’t. So when one of my colleagues asked me to put in a proposal with him to present at a counselor education conference in Seattle, I jumped at it. This was not FOMOP - I go to this conference every year anyway - and I love beefing up the ole’ CV, and I loved the topic - Simulated Clients in Counseling Skills Class (which I happen to teach and use them a lot). We got an education session, I fangirled because the daughter of the authors of a few of my books in grad school came to it and was like “I DO VR LETS COLLABORATE PLZ” and it was awesome, and just...it was an all around great conference.

I went to sessions about impostor syndrome (which, if you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll find my picture instead of a definition...more on that in a minute), liability, how to talk about sex with your students and supervisees, and how to coach them around leaving space for talking about sex with their clients, and self-compassion and self-care, and mandated reporting, and I listened to a great keynote about passion and work from a great author, and I left so full of knowledge and gratitude. This was all on top of seeing a really great friend and hanging out with my colleagues and just having an amazing time.

phew. To say that my cup refilled to overflowing would be an understatement. I had a seven-hour long flight home to start to unpack it, and what I came to is this.

I’m at a huge crossroads professionally. Huge. Leaving my job was so hard for so many reasons, but I finally admitted to myself just how much I questioned myself and the work that I’m doing and my very competence as a counselor, and that’s why I had to leave. To admit this to myself, I also had to admit to myself that my workplace was toxic to me. Maybe not to everyone who worked there, but certainly to me, and admitting that I could no longer tolerate it was the first step to stopping that internal train of not ever feeling like I’m going to be good enough at what I do enough to feel satisfied.

You know how you have those times that are really hard but you don’t really realize how hard they were until you’re on the other side of them? Yeah. That’s where I am now.

What I was experiencing before I went to Seattle was burnout. I can comfortably call it that at this point. It wasn’t to the level where I couldn’t work, but I came dangerously close. I had been having thoughts of taking some FMLA to give myself some time to rest and get things figured out. I also started seeing my therapist weekly again. I just really needed the support. 

Then I went to Seattle and somewhere in my head, the wheels were set in motion. I made the conscious decision somewhere along the way to leave it all there.

The grief about leaving this job and this team that I loved.

The shame.

The hopelessness.

The feeling that I failed.

The feelings of not being enough professionally.

Just all of it.

I got on that plane home a different person than when I left. My outlook was completely different and I finally felt better. Like, genuinely better. I felt like I’d been carrying a horse on my back that I was finally able to let go.

Better still, I learned what my burnout actually looked like. I have been intimately familiar for a long time with how I experience compassion fatigue (what I affectionately call burnout’s oppositional little cousin), but this was not that. This was bigger and harder to work with.

I also learned that what I need in those times is to talk about it openly. In the workshops I went to, we talked a lot about the costs of these jobs, which doesn’t get acknowledged nearly enough. And because every time I go this particular conference every year feeling as though I am around My People, I felt comfortable enough to internalize the validation I found there, and didn’t realize how much I needed it. I allowed it into those dark places that were difficult to sit with on my own, and just sat with this new knowledge and was able to process a lot of difficult stuff.

Do I still have a long way to go? Yes. I’m realistic about that. But I’m getting there, and that ain’t nothing.

Diet Ugh.

I found this great recipe recently for vegan lemon cake. It’s super easy to transition it to gluten free, so I jumped all over it. I was going to go to the grocery store after work on a mission to get all of the required ingredients and I was going to make it, damn it, because I need some cake in my life as of late.

Truly. I’d kick a puppy for some decent baked goods right now.

Not really, but I really want decent baked goods and I have yet to find any that are not total garbage or something that I can’t eat because of an errant ingredient, like eggs. Usually eggs.

Damn you, eggs.

So I’m in the grocery store on the hunt for these ingredients and I remembered back to my last conversation with my naturopath. She has been trying in earnest to nudge me toward being what she calls a paleovegan. No more meat, no more cheese, and of course, no more eggs.

So I’m in the grocery store and I’m finding it remarkably easy to find the ingredients that I need. I remarked it to myself even.

You know what my very next thought was?

“Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I should give it a try. She made it sound really simple.”

Then next?

“I’m already more than halfway there. I already don’t eat dairy at all outside of cheese, and my meat intake is negligible, and all easily substituted by beans and other things that will fill me up. I think I could do this. I ate that way for six straight weeks and I can’t deny how amazing I felt.”

I WAS TALKING MYSELF INTO IT.

UGH.

WHAT IS THE SORCERY THAT THIS WOMAN USED TO GET ME TO THIS PLACE.

So I tried it for this work week and it wasn’t terrible (I actually felt pretty energetic and fantastic), but it’s not super sustainable for me. It’s a lot of work that I’m not really in a mental place to do. (Talk to me in six months and things may be different.) So, what I’ve decided is that I’m going to find a middle ground.

I think what that’s going to look like for me is being a low dairy (rare cheese instead of multiple times daily) pescatarian. I’ve got to see how my doctor feels about that, but that’s where I am currently. I see her in a couple of weeks, so for now, that’s what I’ll do.

In other news, I start at my new position on Monday. It’s all orientation that first day and I’ll be there once a week until mid-October when I make The Big Transition. I set up my office yesterday and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

This isn’t a super great picture, but I’ll get more on Monday. It is alarmingly clear how much I need some art in there, so I’ve enlisted the help of my very favorite six-year-old to make some that I can hang. I can’t wait! 

I think I’ve finally figured it out.

I operate as a liberal in a family full (but not entirely) of conservatives. A die-hard Democrat in a family full (but not entirely) of Republicans. Politics has come up a lot since the 2016 elections and at times it has gotten super heated, but at this point, I avoid it. Like, get-up-and-walk-away-from-the-conversation-without-a-word-and-no-I-don’t-care-that-we-are-eating-dinner-so-I’ll-be-eating-with-the-kids-thanks kind of avoiding. I’m just tired of talking about politics with people who are only interested in shouting their viewpoints and not listening. (And also now watch as I put myself in the exact position that I just described. I’m aware of the irony here, just in case you were worried that I wasn’t.)

And it’s never the liberals in the family who bring up politics, amusingly enough. Maybe it’s because we don’t constantly feel the need to justify ourselves.

I finally figured out my internal stuff about it and why I react this way. (Snort. It only took three years.) It isn’t because I don’t care. It truly isn’t. And my beef isn’t even with all republicans - just loud Trump supporters, because that’s all who seem to assert their position loudly and aggressively without prompting as if I want to hear it.

The reason why I avoid these conversations is because I’m a pretty empathetic person. I know that if I listen long enough, I’ll start to find their position understandable.

I never, ever want to understand a position like the ones that trump (and his supporters) hold. And yes, I added that parenthetical point because if you voted for him and aren’t now actively walking yourself back and doing what you can to change the tide (and I’m not even talking about going out on primary day and voting democrat - there are tons of other ways), you support what he’s doing. Full stop.

I don’t ever want to understand being able to justify voting for someone like him. I don’t ever want to understand the mental place of parroting back his policies or his rhetoric. I don’t ever want to understand how a person can justify voting for a person who has facilitated locking of children in cages and emboldening people who only want to hurt other people. I don’t ever want to be in a position where I understand, from any angle, hurting people on purpose.

If that makes me ignorant because I’m not interested in learning about that, then so be it. I decided a while ago that trump, his rhetoric, and the vitriol spewed by his most ardent supporters don’t deserve any real estate in my brain. Do they have some? Sure, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this right now, but I try hard to keep it as minimal as possible. Sometimes it just spews out and I am not entirely able to control it. My way of controlling the square footage that this occupies is by not participating. I won’t reinforce aggression on the part of those with whom I disagree by engaging. People can invite us to a fight all they want - it doesn’t mean that we have to accept it.