Seeing Stars
Be humble for you are made of dung. Be noble for you are made of stars. ~ Serbian
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Too many of us in this life can relate to the feeling of being made of dung, too few of us recognize that we are made of stars.
Sometimes I feel very much like two people. In some ways I have grown and evolved in ways that amaze me. In other ways, I seem stuck in the same place that I have been in for what seems like forever.
Oddly enough, difficult and uncomfortable as the process of applying for temporary assistance and disability is, it is also proving to be a healing process. My temporary assistance has kicked in so I have food stamps and Medicaid available to me. It is strange that this makes me feel incredibly rich. I am basking in the joy of having money for food and finding bargains. I checked out the cost of buying one of my diet staples by the case to see if I can stretch the $141/month in food stamps so that it buys as much as possible. I'm a quasi-vegetarian and was able to buy two of my favorite items - Morning Star Farms Grillers Prime and their "chicken" patties - by the case and ON SALE! For only $80 of my food stamp money, I have 32 boxes of 4 patties each or 64 - 100 meals. And I saved about $45. Awesome. Leaves more money for vegetables and the occasional non-nutritious item.
Then there is the whole medical aspect of the process. Like most shame-based people, I learned early to disregard and distrust my perceptions. I was taught to doubt the validity of my feelings, both on the emotional and the physical plane. When I was sick - unless I had spots, a raging fever or was bleeding copiously - my mother always accused me of either making it up or exaggerating. Even now, I have trouble trusting the reality of my own physical pain or illness. In the past couple of months, it has begun to dawn on me that agoraphobia is not my only disability, that I have been ignoring my physical pain and the daily difficulty I have walking, writing it off as a character flaw a result of and punishment for the sin of obesity. It is amazing how deeply the voices of our dysfunction embed themselves into our psyches, how even when we are listening very hard for them, they often manage to slip past our notice.
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