Gone TOo Far--Can I Turn Things Back Around? HAWMC

Today is "Stream of Consciousness Day." My first thought--"What? Stream of consciousness on my public blog?" WEGO explain that they're making precisely that challenge--that we put ourselves out there, raw, uncensored, unedited, unexpurgated subconscious thoughts and preoccupations. Their challenge: "Start with the phrase, "Today I looked in the mirror and..."--fifteen minute stream of consciousness.


OK--that's the prompt--I'm game, but afraid it'll be a stream of self-consciousness. I also worry about narcissism inherent in such a prompt, but perhaps there's something potentially narcissistic about a blog in the first place. They do say only fifteen minutes, so at least it'll be short(!) Here goes...

Today I looked in the mirror and saw dark circles under my eyes, hollow cheeks. It's nearly the end of the semester, I just have to push through a little more. I've re-established sleep at nights and taking of medications. I think I'm keeping up appearances really well: I can't imagine that any of my friends and acquaintances think anything's amiss at all.

But in truth, I'm fading.

Conversations with my husband in which he expresses deep concern about how busy I am, how little time I have to do any of the things we like to do together, how I'm not taking good enough care of myself, are becoming more frequent and more intense. This morning, he returned from a breakfast date with a friend and informed me he's ashamed of me. Ashamed that when the friend asked after me, he couldn't say I was doing well. Ashamed that my healthcare professionals are seriously concerned about me to the point that if things haven't changed within three weeks I won't be able to stay at home.

It hurts to be told that your husband is ashamed of you! It also feels kind of remote, because I'm in such a tunnel of work to be done. I know I'm running a little ragged and go a little--ok, a lot--crazy at times... But can't me being ashamed of that be enough?

The truth is, I have to acknowledge I've gone too far. In my Superpower post last week, I boasted of my minimal needs for fuel and mentioned that lately I'd been eating even less than my minimal norm. I've gotten habituated to 300 calories a day. Aside from some fatigue in the aftermath of last week's 'flu, my energy has remained fantastic, which makes it hard to understand that this isn't a good situation. The issue isn't even weight loss, although it is true my clothes are falling off of me--even with my superpower-efficient metabolism, it's a strain on my heart to be required to get so many miles to the gallon.

So, I confess--I've gone too far. And while my continued freedom makes status quo seem enticing, makes it harder to believe that this is a crisis point, said continued freedom is conditional on my keeping to a contract with my Naturopath to turn this train around and gradually, incrementally, increase the amount of fuel put in the tank.

And I can temper my incredulity that I'm in a dangerous situation, when I'm keeping up appearances so well and nobody around me has any idea about it, with the consideration that perhaps there are people around me quietly having crises to which I'm oblivious myself!

Let's all take care of each other, guys. 

What's in YOUR stream of consciousness today?