August 23, 2008
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Rebelling Against Myself
I have blogged a few times about my tendency to take, “pill vacations,” when I get fed up with swallowing handfuls of medication and nutritional supplements. It is one of those self-destructive, self-indulgent things I do in one state of mind and then, in another, more lucid state, wonder why I did it.
I have been dependent on supplements since infancy, when it was determined that my body didn’t manufacture the B complex as a normal person’s does. As an expensive addiction, it is nowhere near the magnitude of a heroin habit, but it’s significant. When I was a kid, my mother believed the TV commercials and switched me from the expensive vitamins the doctor prescribed, to the much cheaper One-A-Day, and I nearly died.
Some of my lapses from my nutritional regime have been from economic necessity. In prison, I wasn’t allowed any vitamins. There have been times when life just swept me up and I simply forgot that I was supposed to be taking meds. What all those times have in common with each other and with my rebellious pill vacations is that I end up ill — more ill than usual, that is. Some of those ill-making lapses have been precipitated, ironically, by illness. George Carlin said it: “The sicker you are the more likely you are to forget to take your meds.”
Sometimes I have rebelled against my allergies and made myself sick with “treats” I know I shouldn’t indulge in. The process of learning which things are safe for me, and which are not, has been a lifetime pursuit. The see-saw pattern of self-care alternating with self-indulgent self-destructiveness has also been going on for as long as I can remember.
Six years ago, after some intensive study of nutrition and the serendipitous find of a special book, End Your Addiction Now by Charles Gant, MD, I found a combination of foods and supplements that worked better for me than anything had before. I was living sugar-free, gluten-free, and caffeine-free. I had lots of energy, lost about 90 pounds without exercise or caloric restriction, and got off prescription allergy and asthma meds for several years.
Ironically, my lapse from that occurred after repeated exposure to coffee and “birthday” cakes at Narcotics Anonymous meetings. First, there were a few tastes, then there was a descending spiral back into full-blown addiction. Isn’t that the way it always goes?
Three weeks ago, on the day of the New Moon/solar eclipse, I got back on the allergen-free non-addictive diet. As previously, I went through a few days of anorexia, as my body protested that if I wouldn’t give it the goodies it didn’t want anything at all. I’m still not getting all the supplements I need, because I have been expending my energy on moving woodstoves, repairing the porch, and such, instead of putting together a new batch of med packs.
Even so, I feel so much better just from avoiding the sugar and gluten that I have asked myself a few times why I kept that binge going so long. When I expressed that to Greyfox, he drew a parallel with his alcoholic binges. Yesterday, the thought crossed my mind, “I could bake cookies.” Sure, I could. I don’t want to, and wouldn’t eat any even if they were right here right now. I won’t deny that the binge was fun. If it hadn’t been fun, I wouldn’t have done it. But it’s over now. I had enough. I’m through.
Comments (10)
Holy Smokes …. CAN I identify with this post!!
I have had my own … ‘struggles’ let’s say, with a schedule of medications that MUST be followed in order to achieve and, most importantly, maintain the health benefits I need in order to …. live.
Knowing that though has at times, for reasons I certainly can’t wrap my head around, not been sufficient enough reason to take the damn things!! For me as well, there is an issue of a ‘time specific’ schedule for some things and that has worked toward just giving me more ammunition and justification for NOT taking the proper dosages etc!! It is a phenomenon that just never ceases to boggle my mind!!
As weird as this may sound …. thank God that you have experienced this! If I hear one more time from someone … “Well just take them when you should, what’s the problem? It’s as easy as just doing it ….. ” I might just throttle the neck of that person out of who’s mouth these words come!!!
I KNOW to take the damn things! I KNOW the benefits, I’ve lived it! I even CLEARLY understand the huge risks involved in playing with it! But …. what can I say? Not unlike you, there have been the occasional financial bumps, but in complete and utter honesty? I am fully AWARE that my Doc would work that out … I need only ask. Still I play. WHO, just tell me WHO, in their right head does such things?
Well … for one? I do. And now, apparently once again I learn, I am NOT ALONE! You do as well. What do you know about that ..
.. sheesh … lol … 
Over the past two and a half three years, since this all started for me … I have become much more able, more capable … and OK, perhaps more willing as well
… to ‘see’ myself. I am far more capable today of the vigilance it takes, on a daily basis, for me to accomplish this simple task of taking my prescribed medications. It has really though only been the last year, give or take, that things seem to have begun to finally even out. But, even during that time I have still had two major episodes that came about as a direct result of my not taking my medications.
Stranger again to me is that as an addict, a full blown active addict at the time, I couldn’t even have begun to imagine having to ‘remember’ to take something so as to change the way I was. Or having to ‘remember’ to act out in some addictive behavioral way so as to ‘feel better or at the very least different’ than what was. Vigilance ….. to use? To ‘remember’ the ‘feel better’ feeling? NOT A CHANCE!! It was first and foremost on my mind ….. ALWAYS ….. so much so that it wasn’t even on my mind, it was a way of life.
Strange eh? Self medication? … All good. Legitimate, life saving, life affirming medication? …. Ahhhh, I don’t know now, hang on a second, let me think about this ….. LOL …. Who’s a addict!?!
Thanks for sharing Kathy. Something you shared with me earlier today made a HUGE impact, had some lights flashing on for sure! I can’t get it verbatim here, but I’m sure you’ll recognize to what I’m referring. You asked if I knew that, “Your unconscious mind doesn’t understand no. That saying we don’t want something has the same manifesting effect as saying we want it.” Whoa!!!!
This resonates! I haven’t ‘studied’ it or whatever, but when I read it, I knew. Something inside went …. ’eyes wide open’!!
I gotta’ go for now ….. med time. LMAO!!!
It really is too … funny how these things play out …. take care
Snooze
Whoa and wow, Kathy, this was excellent for me to read. I just finished a doughnut. Sigh.
I laid off refined sugar for several weeks a couple of years ago and felt better than I ever have.
I would love to do that permanently……
I’m having somewhat similar issues right now. Doc says, “Your pancreas sucks,” and I put myself on a low fat, high fiber diet. All goes well for a couple-few weeks, despite that same damned stubborn bought of anorexia… And then I get an insane craving for burgers. And fries. And nummy fatty sweet snack garbage. Of course, all that makes me feel like crap, so I mope for a while, then remember how much better I felt when I ate decently, and try again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Gotta love a good Carlin quote without the cunt word being used…..
I’ve been in need of and addicted to hot August nights since I was about ten… Good fortune brings a few around almost every year…
Soon I might live the age of knowing your imbalance……..
Untill then…………. I will drink beers…………….
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Just dropping in to say hello………..
mitch
Did I plant the cookie thought in your mind?
Your strongest sentiments will go out the window just before you relapse.
the sf gf does wonders for my rheumatism, but i can never stick to it either.. food has such a power its just disgusting
@Snooze180 - “WHO, just tell me WHO, in their right head does such things?”
We do them, dear one, but I’m not so sure we’re in our “right head” at the time.
@benevolentMitch - Thanks, sincerely, for dropping in. We have had not one hot day or night this summer. Alaska is beginning to live up to its cold reputation, now that the whole world is warming up.
I’m glad your body hasn’t rebelled against the abuse. May it last a looong, loooong time.
I’m not as strict as you are… I would like to be more strict, but I get criticised a lot for being a “control freak” because of my current diet rules. I eat garbage too often just because I’m trying to make people think I’m “normal”. Smart huh lol
I’m afraid i’m one of those people who at some time or other has said “as long as they take their medications they are fine so I don’t know why they don’t” AND yet… I can’t even stay on my simple asthma meds that are becoming increasingly more necessary for living. How hypocritical is that?
Thanks for sharing! Fight the good fight…