A Picture of myself? Oh, Man

This week's Wordless Wednesday: It's often hard to like pictures of ourselves - post your favorite picture of yourself

*Yeah... I can't do "wordless"... Sorry.* 

They are correct. It is very hard for me to like pictures of myself. Over the past several years there are a handful of pictures that I actually, truly like. Each one is significant and each one is in a different time/phase/place of my life. At this moment in time, my favorite picture of myself is one from a dare. Yep, a dare. 

There is a movement called Operation Beautiful and they have initiated a very powerful. No Make Up Monday. That's right. You are asked to take a picture of yourself, sans-makeup, and post it to Operation Beautiful/Facebook/Twitter - you get the idea. Seriously, this is something super hard for me and I know it shouldn't be. So, a couple of weeks ago I took the challenge and posted my No Make Up Monday picture to social media and wrote a post about the challenge. I have to admit, it was incredibly liberating and that picture is now my favorite picture of myself.

  

The other ones I'm fond of:

  

 A rose from the bouquet my hubby sent for our anniversary during his second deployment to Iraq.(2007)

  

On our trip to Boone (Thanksgiving, 2008) 

The What and Why of Sapling Stories

So I recently (recently, as in like, 2 days ago) found out about WEGO Health and decided it was a good fit for me. So I'm giving it a whirl! WEGO has a challenge this month with writing promos for each day - the "every day" part was almost enough to send me packing right there. I was planning on cranking a quick recap of the couple of days I had missed the other day, but my body had other plans and I ended up having seizures instead. Fun. So here I am to try again!

Day 1: Why do you write? I started this blog as an outlet and actually intended it to be a family-oriented, positive parenting and pre-school activity type blog (hence the name "The Sapling Stories). As I met other bloggers and become more aware of the blogging community, my content shifted. With out realizing it, my blog became centered around awareness. Awareness for things I feel very strongly about. I just naturally started writing about them. The main one that I feel grabs my attention the most is eating disorder advocacy. I am a survivor (I feel like I should say "surviving" because recovery is a continuous thing that never really ends, or at least it hasn't completely ended for me) Actually, I had a support blog years ago on Xanga (I said it was years ago), but stopped for some reason when everyone was switching over to MySpace (my husband was also deploying for the first time and everything was kind of topsy-turvy). I battled stereotypes, stigmas, myths, and death. Now that I have children it scares me sh*tless that they might battle the same demons. My other two are Autism (special needs in general, really), and chronic illness. Special needs because of my sister and chronic illness because, well hell, that's what I've been dealing with for most of my life (that is also a huge factor into my battle with anorexia/bulimia/orthorexia - seriously, eating disorders are much more complex than society thinks!). I have found a support network in the online community that I was desperately lacking before And it has been amazing.

Day 2: Tell a bit about your conditions, 5 things you want people to know about them, and a few links to other articles you've written. Note: My links will be highlighted throughout, not listed separate ;) I kind of just covered the "what", so here's the 5 things: 

  Eating Disorders

1. Eating Disorders do not discriminate! It is not a teenage white-girl affliction. Every age group, of every ethnicity, of every walk of life is affected.
2. You can't tell anything by a person's size. Just because someone isn't rail-thin doesn't mean that they're not suffering.
3. It's not about food - not completely. ED's are complex, very complex.
4. You can't just "snap out of it" or "get over it". It takes time and will be the hardest thing you've ever done. For me it took a year of grueling, intense hospitalizations (including NG Tubes, IV TPN through a PICC, oxygen therapy, and missing my entire senior year of high school) and several years of outpatient treatment. 
5. It starts way earlier than you think. I can remember being preoccupied by the need to be "perfect" as far back as I can remember. I'm talking age 5-ish. And let me make it clear - No one ever implied that I needed to be "perfect". It's not all a societal thing, genetics and brain chemistry contributes greatly.

Autism and other special needs:

1. Just because someone has special needs (may it be cerebral palsy, autism, Down's syndrome, or anything else) doesn't mean they can't hear you (to all the smug trolls: if they actually cant hear, they still know) They know when you're being mocking and judgmental, and they feel the pain as much as anyone else.
2. The R-word is not okay. Ever.
3. Even though my sister functions at an 18month old level and is non-verbal, we still have sibling rivalry. We get into fights and argue just like any other siblings.
4. Everything has to be adapted. That bed you just bought? Yeah, that's gonna have to be modified so it's safe.
5. Everyone has to be flexible. Just because you planned a day trip to the beach that you have been looking forward to for weeks doesn't mean it's going to happen. You may get half way there and need to turn around because its not a good day for them - and you'll completely understand and go with it. Even when you are 7 years old.

Chronic Illness:

1. Everyone needs to read The Spoon Theory
2. Just because someone's in a wheelchair doesn't mean they are paralyzed.
3. Believe me, I do not want to be in bed all day! Don't give me that "must be nice" bull. It's not and it isn't funny.
4. Dear doctors: When I come in to see you and I explain what's been going on, do not look at me like I'm insane. Even if my vitals are fine, just take the damn time to check it out.
5. Just because a had a good day (or week or whatever) yesterday doesn't mean that I'm going to have a good one today. No, I don't know what's wrong or why I'm worse today when I was "fine" yesterday. I wish I did.

Day 3: Post a picture that captures your condition/your experiences 

What animal would your chronic illness be?

TDay 8: If your condition was an animal, what animal would it be? 

I initially was really excited about this one - but some of the chronic health problems I deal with (or people close to me deal with) are terrible things that I don't want to associate with any animal (I love all animals and don't think that's fair). My first thought was to assign a mythical creature to each one. Mythical creatures are super interesting and many have such complex backgrounds and characteristics that it just seems natural to link them with something as complicated as a chronic health problem. I jumped on Google and I Googled away for far too long and was still stuck behind a wall. I don't know if its the perpetual brain-fog I've been in or what- I mean, I had ideas, just nothing that made me go "Oh yes! That's it!". So, alas, that's my quandary. I do tend to over-think things and this could very well be one of those times. So I started to think about the real animal associations and figured that if I were to assign an animal, it wouldn't be the animal as the condition, but rather, the animal as a person with the condition. That is a way I can use real animals with out feeling terrible. So here's a working list of what I came up with. I still think this idea is really cool. So please, if anyone has any ideas, share them! I really want to incorporate not only the conditions that I suffer from, but the ones that those close to me suffer from as well.

Epilepsy: Mythical: Something celestial or elemental. Real: Firefly 

Eating Disorders: Mythical: Will 'o the Wisps. In European folklore, these lights are held to be either mischievous spirits of the dead, or other supernatural beings or spirits such as fairies, attempting to lead travelers astray  

Real: Hummingbird

Fibromyalgia: Mythical: ??? Real: ???

Dysautonomia/POTS: Mythical: Chimera or shape-shifter or the Hedley Kow  A very mischievous, but not dangerous, shape-changing boggart which used to plague the villagers of Hedley (North-umberland) by his many tricks (Henderson, 1866: 270-1). A farmer mistook him for his own horse, a milkmaid for her favourite cow, an old woman for a bundle of straw; in each case he caused unexpected trouble, and then vanished with a loud guffaw. He could even turn into the likeness of a girl, to trick her sweetheart into following him till he ended up knee-deep in a bog. Real: ??? 

Autism: Mythical: Unicorn - Everyone knows of them, but very few actually know them. Mysterious, illusive, and Pure. 

Real: ??? 

Cerebral Palsy: Mythical: ... total blank... Real: Coyote - Extremely clever and adaptable. Forms strong family bonds and is frequently misunderstood. 

So please, if you have any other ideas feel free to share them! Also, if you would like another condition represented on here that isn't, let me know! I would love to expand this! 

HAWMC Day 13

This was actually a little more difficult than I had originally thought. Well, no that's not entirely true. It was pretty easy until I had a flair-up the other day, after that it was quite... Interesting. So with out farther adieu, here are my random acrostic-esque words.  

• C - constant
• H- hope
• R- rising
• O- over
• N- no
• I - improvement (or)
• C-  cure
• A- and
• L- listening (and)
• L- learning
• Y- you

 

• A- are
• W- what
• E- encourages
• S- spoonies
• O- over
• M- miles
• E- everywhere

• E- ever
• P- perplexing
• I- illness
• L- leveling
• E- entire
• P- pathways,
• S- short-circuiting
• Y- you

• E- excruciating
• A- and
• T- testing
• I- illness
• N- never
• G- granting

 

• D- dreams.
• I- incessant
• S- serpent
• O- owning
• R- reality,
• D- decaying
• E- every
• R- real
• S- sentiment

 This one I did not come up with. It is perfect, so I'm not going to mess with it ;)

• A- always
• U- unique,
• T- totally
• I- interesting,
• S- sometimes
• M- mysterious

Misinformation

WEGO Health challenge for today: Misinformation 

Tell us 3 things that are true about you, your condition, or your Health Activism. Tell us 1 lie. Will we be able to tell the difference?

***Bonus Points*** Post the questions as a poll on Facebook and post the results!

1. I have raised wolfdogs and frequently lobby for wolf conservation. I try to help educate others about them with myths vs facts, and general predation pros vs cons. 

 2. I push myself too hard, and hate admitting that I need more help than I ask for. It makes me feel like a burden. Not to mention lazy. 

 3. I can play the flute, piccolo, and bagpipes (and have won awards in competitions for all three instruments, in both ensemble and solo performances - yeah, that's right. I'm gonna brag a bit... I guess I did forget to mention that all of that was about 10 years ago, but whatevs. ;)

 4. I love to jog - well, I used to love to jog. Being Chronically Awesome comes at a price.