Anxious Muse

I've fought anxiety and depression issues for a good portion of my life. The smallest "whoops!" situations would turn into the biggest embarrassments, and when you're as clumsy as I am, that's a big issue. But it's not just my lack of physical grace that gives me anxiety - it's the constant nagging thought that I'm too clumsy, too slow, too unintelligent, too big, too fat, too uncomfortable in my own skin to be good enough for anyone, myself included. 

So I've been on a quest to find a way to chill. The past couple years that quest has landed me in the doctor's office for a chemical cocktail to calm me down. We recently found a combination that stopped the voice in my head from constantly berating me for, well, being me. When that voice shut up, I rejoiced. No more "too this or that" thoughts or cringing at moments from twenty years ago that were remotely embarrassing.

During the past month, I started watching more TV instead of writing. Shows like Fixer Upper and Love It or List It became my nightly routine. I continued to read, but the stories just didn't do anything for me anymore. Even my favorite novels didn't hold my attention. 

I had no anxiety, but I also had no strong emotions. I didn't get upset over anything but, then again, I didn't get excited about anything, either. 

I just didn't care. 

Slowly I saw myself beginning to eat more sweets - my old go-to comfort food - and pizza, too. I stopped working out so hard. It didn't matter anymore. I'd found freedom from my anxiety at the cost of my emotions - ALL of my emotions. 

But the worst of it was, I couldn't hear my muse anymore. Where she normally was, was nothing. Not an empty space even. It was as if she had never been there. 

And still, I. Just. Didn't. Care. 

And that alarmed me. A person should care about something. To be human we should have some emotions, some joy and some sadness, some anger and some love. We need these things to be human. 

I discussed everything with my husband, telling him how I felt I'd lost a significant part of myself. We agreed, and with my doctor's blessing, I stopped the new medication - the one that turned off my anxiety. 

Almost immediately, my muse came back. 

She whispered softly at first, a promise of things to come. In that first wonderful, relief-filled moment I realized how I'd been silly to think that I was better of without my anxiety. Sure, anxiety's a bitch some days, and in the days since my muse came back, I remembered why I went on the quest for equilibrium in the first place. 

But without that irritating voice, I can't feel anything. And without emotions, I can't hear my muse. 

That's unacceptable. She is an integral part of me, along with all her quirks - all my quirks. We are, after all, one and the same. 

I could go on; waxing philosophic about why we need our emotions to be human and so on and so forth. But now that she's beginning to talk to me again, I don't want to waste any more time without feelings, without...anxiety. 

Sometimes the things that irritate us the most are the things that we need the most. Strange how that works, huh? 

Why is "Feminism" a Bad Word?

I spend a lot of my down time in the company of men. That most likely comes from growing up with three older brothers and seeing how they were given preferential treatment. A person naturally goes the route to get the most attention, and boys seemed to get more attention than girls just because they were boys. 

Regardless of the reason, to this day I find myself more comfortable in the company of men. 

So when the topic of feminism came up, I saw the horror in one friend's gaze. "You're not a feminist, are you?" he asked me, something akin to fear in his gaze. 

Amusement burst through me. He's ex-military and has faced down worse things than I'll ever be able to conceive of, yet the thought of dueling with a feminist gave him qualms. I indicated the affirmative and something flashed in his gaze. "But a true feminist doesn't just want equality for women but for both genders," I added as this is a belief of mine. "After all, it isn't fair for a woman to say that we shouldn't be made into sex symbols and then turn around and say a man has to have a certain physique or he isn't a real man." 

A flash of surprise crossed his gaze. "Oh," he said. And, "Really?" Then he told the story he had in mind, which I cannot recall at the moment, but can imagine did not paint women in the brightest colors. 

It is a difficult thing to be a self-hating feminist. Growing up seeing women subjected to the will of the men around them, I grew to hate my innate feminine. "Feminist" was a word I often heard coming from men dripping with loathing. But why would a word inspire such an emotion? 

Why is feminism a bad word? 

As I've studied over the past years, I've come to determine that perhaps it isn't the word that is "bad" so much as the fear it inspires. After all, anger is often used to cover up fear, and women being empowered - perhaps even overpowering men - has to be a frightful prospect to a person who is used to being deferred to, waited on, etc. 

This blog comes to mind because I received a call from one of the few women I consider a close friend today. I could have cried during our conversation. She was upset because a male relative - someone she hasn't seen in years - is staying with them and has made several misogynistic comments. She's outnumbered three to one at the moment and despite being able to hold her own in an argument, sometimes even the most logical of arguments won't hold water to someone who truly believes they are right. 

For instance, once upon a time I argued with my grandfather about a verse in the Holy Bible. I cannot remember the specific verse, however, when I showed him the page, chapter, and verse I spoke of, he asked me one question: what version of the Bible is that? I told him and his response was, "that's not the right version." 

The "right" version...of the Holy Bible. Yes, I realize that more weight is put upon certain versions over others, yet even now, my reaction is really? I mean...really??

So...a book heavily edited by men can have its authenticity called into question because of the current version that is being used. 

My teenage mind was blown. I was right; I knew I was right and my father and several others at the table during the discussion agreed with me. However, this one man refused to see my point of view because of something that shouldn't have mattered. I didn't bother to pull out his so-called "correct" version because I knew it wouldn't matter to him even if the verses were verbatim. He had his mind made up and anyone who said differently was wrong. 

And that's what my friend is facing right now: that kind of close-minded belief that ignores common sense and puts blinders on the believer to any other walk of life. There is no arguing with that kind of belief.

Just like those times as a child when I heard male authority figures speak the word "feminism" or "feminist" as if even speaking the word put a bad taste in the speaker's mouth, this conversation gave me the same feeling...that by dint of being a woman, we are "less than." By dint of a genetic quirk, I am a woman and even that is taken from women - the male parent determines the gender of the child, after all. 

How does a woman hold her head up under the weight of such a powerless existence? 

By creating feminism and by being feminists. We require the empowerment of a word that strikes fear into the hearts of (some) men and maybe it's wrong, but it gives me a heady feeling of euphoria to know I wield some sort of power over the other half of the planet's population. 

Generations of women have been subjected to the will of others, yet we have survived and today we thrive. We make the decisions about when or even if we have children. We decide to go out into the workforce for a career if we want one. We realize that we have a choice! We can sit back and feel victimized or we can fight back. Sometimes fighting back gets nasty. Sometimes men don't even realize we are fighting back. Hell, sometimes we don't even realize we are fighting back because our rebellion is such a small, seemingly insignificant thing - but what matters is that we lift our heads up high and refuse to cower. 

I am Amber Joelle, daughter of Lolita Ann, daughter of Serena, daughter of Clara Lillie Bell, daughter of Lula Watt. I am proud to be a daughter of strong women who fought for what freedoms I have today. And when I'm feeling subjected, all I have to do is look back at them and I remember that I have a choice: let myself become victimized, or thrive. 

It's a difficult thing to learn to love oneself after seeing how women are treated as less than and every day is a struggle to remember this choice. 

I choose to thrive. 

How Do You Market Yourself?

Seriously. How do you market yourself? 

Coming from a heavily-religious background, I learned to not put myself forward. I would bend over backwards to avoid drawing attention to myself because I had to be humble. Pride, after all, is a sin. 

So I took no pride in the things I did, or if I did take pride in them, it was quietly, so that no one knew. I got used to not getting a lot of attention for any other reason than that I'm a girl. But that's another story for another time.

I cannot count on that single thing to bring attention to myself. And not putting myself forward is the exact opposite of what I need to do to market myself. So how do I do it? 

I find it difficult to talk about my stories. Even my husband doesn't know much about them aside from when I ask his advice on how the male gender would react in a certain situation, lol. So I have embarked on a "quest" to talk to someone about them as often as possible. 

In this internet age, I find myself often doing this on Facebook or Twitter. Particularly on my Twitter account, which is @AmberSManuel, I find other authors reaching out to me in unique ways. One messaged me saying something along the lines of "I'd drink bleach to get you to look at my novel...don't make me do it!" While that is a very unique and attention-grabbing method, I feel it distracts from the story. For instance, in college, I had a class in Comp & Rhetoric. Almost immediately, I became intensely bored with the class, and only a handful of things stick out from it: 1) the professor ate a piece of chalk and 2) the cursing in literature paper I wrote.

Can you tell me what the second thing was without looking back up? If not, then you had the same reaction I did: I remember vividly where the professor stood, what he wore, and the disgusted expression on his face as he masticated the piece of chalk, but I have no clue what point he attempted to drive home with that tactic. 

That being said, it certainly stuck out in my mind. Does it make me want to go back through my notes from the class and figure out what we were talking about? No. Did the author's "I'll drink bleach" tactic work? I'll admit that I checked out the link, but I didn't buy the book because it wasn't a genre I like. 

So how do I grab a potential reader's attention and get them to my page and to actually purchase and read my novels? Well, I liked another Tweeter's method: start up a conversation in instant message. Ask a question to get the conversation going and then lead the conversation where I want it to go: like my page, buy my book, etc. 

I tend towards shyness (another trait that I firmly believe is a product of my "humble  beginnings") but it can't be harder than striking up a conversation with the person in line in front of me at the grocery store, right? 

I'll get back to you on that once I learn more about this method from a personal point of view. 

You Don't Get Over Addiction...You Just Learn How to Cope Better

I hesitate to write this blog. The topic is a painful one for me, and I am not particularly interested in delving into the pain. Unfortunately, oftentimes the only way to get past something is to face it head-on, and I'm having trouble getting past this.

So...here goes.

My mind was recently boggled. Well, I say recently, but in truth it was about a month ago now and I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what I gleaned when I read "It Will Never Happen to Me!" Children of Alcoholics: as Youngsters, Adolescents, Adults by Claudia Black.

First and foremost, neither of my parents are alcoholics. The only reason I even read the book was at the suggestion of my therapist, who had, earlier in that session, asked me who in the family was the alcoholic. It surprised me that she said "the" instead of "a". The use of "the" indicated a knowledge that there was someone in my family who was, and as far as I knew, she hadn't met anyone in my family aside from me. Even so, I hesitated before I named the person from a prior generation who I remembered being labeled as an alcoholic.

My therapist went on to explain to me that often times, children of alcoholics either become one themselves or choose a spouse who either a) is an alcoholic or b) is a child of an alcoholic. You see, the coping patterns learned in families who have a substance abuser are similar, and the adult child often chooses to go with the familiar.

I was disturbed, to say the least. I took the book home and ignored it for a week. When I made my next appointment for another week after that, I picked up the book and read a few chapters before putting it down until the day before my appointment, whereupon I finished reading it.

The patterns discussed in the book startled me in their familiarity. I felt horrible because I had, for so long, determined that one parent in particular was the cause of all my issues when, in reality, I have just as many issues with the other. The feeling that I lack the ability to speak up for myself had come from something completely different than what I thought before. It had just been too painful and frightening to admit before now.

Frightening because, in admitting it, I knew I had to deal with it. I.e., confront the source.

I spent the next couple sessions trying to deal with this new found knowledge, but the truth is, my mind is still reeling. I am still scared. I tear up every time I think about this - the screen is blurring even as I write these words. I don't want to deal with this knowledge. It shakes everything I thought I knew down to my very foundation until the concrete upon which I stood is cracked.

I never dreamed that substance abuse would touch my life in such a manner. It was always something that happened in other people's lives. My family was exempt from that pain!

But we're not, are we? I am an over-eater, a food addict. It may not be what people think of in terms of "substance" when they say "substance abuse" but it is a real issue for many people. Just look at the sites dedicated to helping food addicts: http://www.foodaddictsanonymous.org/ and Overeaters Anonymous are just two of the big, national-level groups that I have found. The point is that the food addict has the same problem as the alcoholic: trouble coping with life. While an addict is riding on the waves of dopamine-induced euphoria, the world isn't as scary. It's easier to handle because we're not handling it. We're shoving it away with or without the intention of dealing with it later.

Those of us who intend to deal with it later never get around to that intention because life moves on and there are new things to deal with and we shove those aside as well until there's a veritable mountain of unresolved anger, sadness, and depression congealed into a hard knot of rage that only knows one outlet: more of (insert addiction here).

Being embarrassed by my weight is less painful than the realization that such-and-such parent wasn't a pawn in the other parent's game after all.

But if I allow myself to continue to cope with life by eating everything I can get my hands on in an effort to shove it away, then I have failed myself. I am better than stuffing my face with food. I am strong enough to handle this knowledge, regardless of how painful it is.

I can overcome the lessons of my childhood and I can overcome what I took from those lessons.

I know for a fact that my parents never intended to pass on all of the things they learned from their parents, who also never intended to pass on everything that they had learned from theirs. When things get tough, sometimes we slip back into what's familiar.

It is what it is, and I can't change that.

But I can change the way I cope with it.
                                                        

NOTE: I originally wrote this blog several months ago and did not post it. Why? It's difficult to admit when you have an addiction, and embarrassing when it's the addiction that I have. But recent developments in my physical health have forced me to admit my addiction to food. I have been forced to cut out a lot of my trigger foods due to allergies that I had no clue I had. To give you an idea of what I've cut out of my diet over the past week, here's a short list: cow's milk and milk products (cheese, butter, cakes, cookies that call for butter, etc.), wheat and gluten (breads, pastas, semolina, anything with wheat flour, freaking pizza, even!), almonds, coconut, cocoa (milk chocolate gets me coming and going), and, finally, paprika, cayenne pepper, and red peppers (not red bell peppers, red hot peppers, which means bye-bye Tony Chacheres - a staple in our household - and also reading labels like a hawk...some mayonnaises have paprika. Did you know that?). And that's not all of my allergies. 

I'm keeping a detailed food journal and weighing in daily. The pounds seem to be melting away, which in and of itself is frightening. Will they come back? Is it really this diet that's making me lose weight? Where did the pounds come from? Last night, a full week in and 6 pounds down, I broke down. I don't know how to cope with life without turning to food, I told my husband. I don't know what to do. Even the knowledge that I finally broke through the plateau I've been on since August didn't cheer me up. I cried for a while, and thankfully I have the partner that I do because he understands what I'm going through. He supports me, and has cut out most of the same things that I have cut out of my diet.

Eventually my doctor said I could start adding things back in - once I've built up an immunity to the allergens. But to be honest, if I can make it three months without my trigger foods (one week down...) then what is the point of bringing them back in when I know my addiction will cause me to overeat again?

There isn't one.

Hopefully the next three months will find me learning better ways of coping with life's stress.

Gender Roles

For a long time I've struggled with being an atypical woman. By a typical woman, I mean a woman who wants children, family, and a career to juggle atop those (or not). So atypical = no kids, and more of a concentration on career and other things typically associated with men. 

Let's be honest here: kids intimidate me. As a teen, there were many parents who wanted me to babysit for them. This didn't work out well. I did have one family that I regularly babysat for, but their kids weren't infants, and the oldest was old enough and respectful enough to help keep an eye on the younger two.

Not a difficult job there.

In addition, I never had a younger sibling or cousin to look after. I am the youngest of four. The next youngest cousin in line is five (maybe six?) years younger, and didn't live close enough for me to get regular experience babysitting her. I attended a couple baby showers here and there with my mom, but I never really "got" what the deal was. The first time I refused to hold a newborn (literally - had been born maybe an hour or two beforehand) I was told I was a chicken. A different friend asked me if I wanted to hold his month-old daughter and I said no. You would have thought I'd told him pigs fly by the look he gave me. 

What? How can a woman not want to hold a baby? 

Easy. It's a tiny human that screams, sleeps, soils itself, and pukes. Okay, I know it's more than that, but those are the primary things for a good deal of time when it's first born. In addition, it's incredibly fragile and I'm incredibly clumsy. Recipe for disaster there, really. 

That being said, part of a woman's life is invitations to different kinds of parties and showers, but the ones that I always dread are the baby showers.  

This may sound strange, but it is really quite simple. I dread them because I feel that, as a woman, I am expected to go and fawn over tiny outfits and other things, whereas guys get a pass because they're, well, they're guys. We women can't expect men to want to attend a baby shower. After all, they have more important things to do, right? 

Get real. We don't expect them to go because typically guys just don't go to baby showers. 

When I was told at five or six years old that I could either help in the kitchen or in the nursery at church (since I was told I couldn't lead singing), I had a realization: if I'm not good around kids, they won't want me to help in the nursery. If I'm not good at cooking, they won't want my help in the kitchen, either. 

Did I set out to be intimidated by kids or to burn half the things I attempt to cook (not being sarcastic there - I still end up burning half the food I cook, even with the microwave) on purpose? No, I didn't set out with that in mind. I just lived my life and thought that, as a woman, something was wrong with me. 

But there isn't anything wrong with me. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I have to be good with kids! Just because I was born with two X chromosomes doesn't mean that I am a natural in the kitchen! 

In fact, I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen or caring for children or juggling both of those with the addition of my career. It may be far-fetched, but I don't want the child-rearing or kitchen responsibilities AT ALL, not even if they're shared with a spouse. Sure, I've gotten to the point where I can manage in the kitchen enough to keep myself (and occasionally my husband, too) fed. Most of the time he does the cooking, and is happy to do so. And I am VERY happy to let him! 

I love to drive (it's rare that my husband drives when we're both in the car), I love to work and I derive a certain satisfaction in seeing us stick to our budget (that I track in an excel spreadsheet) every month. I like seeing the yard freshly cut and knowing that it looks good because I got out there and cut it. 

Am I saying that all guys enjoy all those things that I just listed? No. But they are typically tasks attributed to men, and, quite frankly, they shouldn't be, just as child-rearing and kitchen duties shouldn't be typically associated as women's roles. 

"Like a Girl"

Growing up with three brothers made it fairly evident that there were many things that I could not do, simply because I wasn't as strong as them. I wasn't as good at wrestling, for instance, or other things that required a lot of upper body strength. I remember, after an argument with one of my brothers, I punched him between the legs as hard as I could. After a pause in which he utterly failed to collapse, I ran and hid behind mom because even though I obviously hadn't hurt him, I had rather ticked him off.

I remember being told that I did things "like a girl" with the phrase being said in a tone that indicated the speaker's derision. In P.E. in sixth grade, we were idly tossing baseballs one day while waiting on our coach to give us instructions. I threw the ball as best as I knew how (I have never had much experience throwing balls - my milieu was kicking them. In soccer!) and one of the girls in our class called out, "Geez, you throw like a GIRL!"

I was humiliated.

And why? I AM a girl. Yet I was taught, by my interactions with my family and the people around me, that I was less than.

And damn it, it still pisses me off!

I'm grateful that there are campaigns like the Always one (link below) that is striving to teach us girls to remember our power, our WORTH! I encourage you to watch: When Did "Like a Girl" Become an Insult? 

Don't shame someone for being what they are. It's like telling a door that it's dumb because it's a door and doesn't turn on like a lamp does. The function is completely different.

All rights to Always for their ad. And THANK YOU, Always!!

To Bikini or Not to Bikini?

I read a blog earlier today about why one woman wears a bikini even though she doesn't have what society would deem a "bikini body". It was titled, "I Wear a Bikini Because...F*ck You" (read it here).

It seems that body image is a real hot button these days, and I have to admit that I am not someone with a load of self-esteem when it comes to my body. But after reading this blog and watching a plus-sized pole dancer win 4 "yeses" on Britain's Got Talent (click here to watch) I am beginning to think that I shouldn't have such a bad body-image.

Beside the blog I mentioned above was a series of photos of "Body Image Heroes." Two stood out. One because she was the thinnest woman there, and she was saying that it isn't a bad thing to be born with that type of body, anymore than it would be to be born with a voluptuous body. The other one was of Beth Ditto, a singer whom I must admit, I've never heard of before. She spoke to The Advocate, and they quoted her on this site. She said, "I have had a lifetime to adjust to seeing how people treat women who aren't their idea of beautiful and therefore aren't their idea of useful, and I had to find ways to become useful to myself."

And it struck me... Why are we, as women, judged as useful or not useful due to the body type we have?

When I was a preteen, I got a book of which I don't rightly remember the name. Inside was about what happens to girls when they go through puberty, what to expect, as well as what to wear, how to properly brush your hair, etc. Most of the information wasn't useful as I already knew it, but one image stuck out in my mind. On the page, there were three girls: one very thin, one svelte, and one voluptuous. The book suggested that the two smaller ones could wear whatever they wanted, but that the voluptuous one should lose some weight first before showing off her budding body.

At twelve (or thirteen - I can't remember exactly) I looked at myself in the full-length mirror I had in my room. My body type, though I was only a size 9 to 12 at 5'6", matched that of the largest girl in the book.

I felt a fist of ice hit my stomach. I couldn't wear "fun" clothes. I exercised already in gym (our girl's gym class had been doing aerobics) and I played soccer and ate decently.

But even so, I needed to lose weight.

I cannot describe how upset I was. I put the book down (I never picked it up again) and tried to put it out of my mind. But that stuck with me so that now, around fifteen years later, it is still a vivid memory; both the pink book that looked so hopeful on the outside, and the feeling of worthlessness that came after I read that section.

I never told anyone how that struck me before, but now that I think of it, my thoughts turn to "how dare they?" How could the writer say something in a book that was supposed to lift a preteen's self-esteem? What was the point of the book if it was only going to tell me that I wasn't good enough because my body wasn't the right type?

Not only was my worth as a female less than a male, but now my body wasn't good enough, either.

That's what I was taught, or at least what I took from my experiences.

And now? The last time I wore a bikini was in Galveston when I was 18. I was around 200 pounds then, single, and didn't give a shit what anyone thought. My grandparents, parents, an aunt and uncle, 2 cousins, and one of my brothers were all with me on this trip. I can't remember exactly who said it, but one of the women said something derogatory about me in the bikini. I said I didn't care.

But since then, I began to care. I started covering up my body, and as my self-esteem plummeted, my weight sky-rocketed.

And now that I'm quite a bit heavier than I was when I was eighteen, would I be caught in a bikini without a cover up?

I don't know.

But I'm going to start wearing one around the house to get used to the feel of air on my skin again.