Feeling Like a Monster...

Another truthurts update

Here's a lovely cat we saw at Petsmart last week. She's got a perpetually shocked 😲 look on her face.

Yesterday, I went to the local YMCA to work out on my own and with my trainer. My trainer had messaged me early in the morning asking if I could come in at 11:30 or noon. I told her yes, I'd come in at 11:30AM to work with her, and then do my cardio workout afterwards.

As I opened the door, another Y member was exiting and she just… LOOKED at me. Real quick, up and down. She seemed very startled.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and looked back down at the velcro wraps I wear on my lower legs over my regular compression socks and pants. “Bless your heart!”

I slowly hobbled through the door with my cane, not knowing what to say. I was totally stunned. I tried to smile but I suspect I might have made an awkward autistic face (I'm not sure.) I think I laughed uncomfortably as a reflex.

"Well," the lady began... "You're doing okay."

I'm pretty sure I did my awkward reflex laugh again. I guess I felt too embarrassed to say anything. I didn't know what to say.

I moved on with my work out, and I wound up spending about 40 minutes weight training, and then I put 70 minutes in on the Nustep crosstrainer. Now, to get those 110 minutes in takes many more minutes of preparation with my compression and lymphedema skincare. I also have to take plenty of bathroom breaks, adjust my seat to change the pressure on my knees, and things like that. Seventy minutes on the Nustep bike is actually 90 minutes, but the equipment measures the time you're active on the machine. I can't often go very fast, but I try to adjust the resistance throughout my workout from 4 to 8. I also close my eyes through most of it to quit thinking about the time.

One of the things I dislike about going to the Y is that feeling that I stick out like a sore thumb. People tend to either completely ignore me or make uncomfortable comments like, “Good for you!” One guy walked by a few weeks ago when I was doing leg presses and said, “Wow, I can't believe she's got you in that machine!”

Going to the Y is a pretty vulnerable stop in my day, but I know it's vital to getting my life back. I also knife that I need to start being more open about all of my efforts to get my life back—I need to invite people into my journey again and “use it for content” if I want to pay our bills.

At the same time, it's a very hard place to be. I feel a lot like a monster when people look at me because my arthritis has made me so stiff and sore. And of course, I'm working on losing weight I gained during that awful depressing fall and winter I had with pneumonia. So, I feel like a monster in that respect, too.

I'm working on spending more time at the YMCA because I know it's an important investment that will help my mobility, and I need my mobility to have any semblance of a life. Sedentary days are truly terrible for my lipedema/lipo-lymphedema, but most people don't seem to understand the pain that drives advanced patients like myself to have previously had so many sedentary days.

It's a painstakingly uphill battle for sure, but I am very pleased to finally have the mental capacity to be there. To keep plugging away hours in the gym because I know it will help me in the long run.

Still, I struggle with the shock some strangers express upon seeing me.

What was that woman even trying to say to me yesterday? That she feels bad for me? I can't say that I feel SEEN in such interactions. Not as an actual human being. If anything, I just feel bad because once again, someone had a visceral reaction to my body. Like, oh, cool. I shocked another stranger at the Y.

People who are different, who are disabled or you know, simply unlike anyone else you know... we don't need the constant reminders.

I know I'm a wreck lately. I'm fighting for my mobility. I'm fighting to be taken seriously by a medical community that asks why I'm not eating less without even asking what I'm eating. It's a system that strategically does not treat serious medical conditions seriously in large patients because they assume to know we patients were simply irresponsible. It's a system of shame and supposed tough love, and we've just got to keep moving through injuries and pain.

I know I look weird right now. I feel weird, too.

Every single step I take hurts, but I have taught myself to grin and bear it. Meanwhile, many people look at me and assume I'm just addicted to food. It's exhausting.

When I'm at the gym, I hope to be treated like a human being. Not a shocking monster or pitiful pet. I could really do without the “chin up chats” or awkward applause.

Of course, it's not only the gym where I'm feeling so monstrous. I have lost much of my confidence as a writer since my life has been swallowed up by my health. Getting my health back has also felt like a very lonely journey, although I know I'm often too blame for being too shy about sharing exactly what I'm going through.

I often feel like a monster for not being able to write like I used to, and for not being able to cover #JusticeForGrant or #FreedomForGracie like they deserve. I feel like I've let Angie, Gracie, and Grant down, and I miss the entire Grant's Army community. Several times a day, I find something that makes me want to sit down and write but I rarely get the option when I'm working so hard n my health.

On the flipside, I do grasp that I have to take care of myself and Sophie, and that I legitimately can't sit and write for hours every day right now because my health no longer allows it. I am in a do or die place where it's vital for me to get my life back so I can walk and run and be of use to others again.

I am aiming to feel actually feel like a human again. To rebuild my confidence. I believe it will happen soon, but hopefully before the end of the year.