The Whinge

PREQUEL: I’m fine. Ross Gellar FINE. I have a very loving support system and I’m seeing a naturopath and I love my life, and I have profound gratitude for my very many blessings.

—But this is my blog, and I live for the literary theatre.
Proceed with thy grains of salt.

While I’d love to rapturously report that in my year’s absence, I’ve emerged through that (ominous Tom Hiddelston voiceover) *dark night of the soul* with many a spiritual metanoia stacked on each of my soul’s biceps, alas. Alas.

The weakling blinks her heavy eyes.

Last June I miscarried our seventh son and while I thought I had given myself the space to grieve, I suppose I rather did not. It was an early miscarriage and not physically traumatic. But as I wrote in an Instagram post a while back, having given birth to six little boys and seeing how unique and shockingly beautiful and brilliant each little boy is, knowing we have lost such a person we will not meet until we leave our own earthly bodies is a profound sadness.

—sparing you all the thoughts of a grieving mother, I just got back from the hospital after my second panic attack in the last four months. I was afraid I was having a heart attack, and yes at 39 I know how ridiculous that thought is. I woke up with an aching chest pain that wasn’t muscular and it was smack dab in the middle of my chest, and persistent as the day went on. And then I was dizzy and confused and something was way off while I stood there in the kitchen over the stovetop with my toddler biting at my ankles and two more boys clambering over eachother to ask me questions and regale me with their most recent brushes with death (someone dies hourly over here).

Just a plain old attack of the nerves, or so it seemed, after the visit to the ER; and they ran my blood and ekg and chest x-ray and found nothing. Healthy as a horse, said the charts. I mean there’s nothing plain about shot nerves, but at least I’m not dead right now.

I mean I know there’s ye olde box breathing and various vagal tone exercises but I’m kind of confused on precisely how to fix my nervous system. TAP THE LINK IN MY BIO AND TAKE MY MASTERCLASS FOR $350 TO FIX YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM IN 3 DAYS! Guaranteed!

Nope. How tired I am of jumping hoops for the secret formula which I know doesn’t really exist— or at least doesn’t exist for me right now. I was once told I needed 90 minutes to myself every day, or maybe 2-3 days per week. How? How is that going to happen? I am just finally cycling down the mountainous hill of night time parenting the most difficult child ever. He’s finally sleeping through the night and not waking up SCREAMING. Just having a solid night of sleep is a triumph in itself, haven’t gotten to considering the daylight quite yet. I have a startle reflex and feel the life drain from me every time I hear a child whining or screaming— even on tv. I’ll sit here choking on my own breath while my heart rate escalates and plummets on its own rollercoaster rather than pay $350 (or much more, rather) for someone to tell me I need time alone. Wee.

Irritatingly, my last few posts have all entirely to do with how the boys seem to have found a side hustle picking up fun little illnesses every winter such as impetigo and chicken pox, and big wheezing coughs that were probably what headlines now deem “should be treated like your average flu.”

We remained on-trend.

My two youngest caught the nasty cousin of Hand Foot And Mouth: Herpangina. Known for looking *almost* like strep throat, except the white patches have a different appearance at the back of the throat, an nothing on the hands or feet. The fever hits suddenly and fiercely, often causing febrile seizures.
Wouldn’t you know it; I looked over to check on my 3 year old who had suddenly come down with a fever and became very drowsy —and what I saw sent chills to every part of my body. Six years ago, Jude experienced a febrile seizure and so being equipped with the ptsd to recognize what I was looking at when I first saw Jonah, it did not lessen the sensations a parent experiences when they witness the tiny body of their precious three year old rigid and jerking, and foam pouring from his precious mouth, face turning blue.

Throw another shrimp on the barbie.

You know how much I love Jane Austen, British literature in general, but definitely regency era settings. If you don’t know it, you must’ve missed it on IG but now that we’re all on the same page: recall that there’s usually the middle aged veteran mother in nearly every story. The one who has fits and “such spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day.” and needs her smelling salts and cannot handle the exertions of life that render her absolutely comical to your average, sturdy reader.

To my own chagrin, I am finding myself as one with the Mrs. Bennets of the world. It’s a thing. My constitution is so sensitive to everything and I’m so frustrated feeling like I’ve lost all zest and zing. It’s just not there. Everything outside of the walls of my home is too much.
Jonah is perfectly well, by the way. I wouldn’t be dramatizing my own nerves in this way if, in general, all was not truly well. It really is, and as stupid as this is going to sound at this point after reading all of the above, my prayer life for 2024 is being spent in gratitude.

You have permission to laugh at me, I do it well enough.

Even though I’ll be turning 40 this November, I’m fairly certain I’m displaying symptoms of perimenopause and —golly.

Golly.
Not a single person prepared me for this one. No one told me about pregnancy or birth or breastfeeding or parenting, and here we are with the next chapter About Which No One Told Me.

Sadly, in our current cultural climate, where women are finally (praised be God) waking up to the detrimental effects of artificial birth control and hormone replacement, my generation and those younger now have to teach ourselves afresh the REST of the story of women’s fertility. For our mothers and grandmothers were taught to go straight to birth control to mask and ignore their feminine functions and because of that, they did not experience this next natural phase of life in womanhood, and they don’t even have it on their radar to teach the next generations. Apparently most of that generation rode the birth control straight through menopause and hardly experienced the symptoms that are presently taking me on a hormonal-emotional-strange-body-changes roller coaster ride.
I can’t even tolerate roller coasters in real life, guys. Like. What. Is. This.

So here we are, millennials et al., wondering why we are going crazy. But that’s not the truth. Reality is, we don’t know what we are looking at because the sexual revolution erased a true feminine knowledge of her body and all her seasons so that she feels she may be equal to a man and have the success of a hearty 9 to 5, working in a much coveted-by-your-boomer cubicle (freedom!), working for a man (wait.), without needing the grace to live in the tide of her monthly ebb and flow because modern medicine and the propaganda machine shut that off with a shiny little pill. Or implant. But hey: Got that powersuit. Swish swish swish those pleated polyester pants down that hallway and be so busy and feel so accomplished. Anything you can do, man, I can do better— because I have pills and abortion now.
🤡🤹🏻‍♀️🎭🎪

—and I have adult acne. Cystic painful acne. My teenage self never had acne. Nothing compared to this. I don’t want to leave the house. I’ve wasted money on skin care regimens. Beauty counter does not help. Name the brand, name the regimen, nothing helps.

(Stay with me, I’m not whingeing for whingeing’s sake; we’re coming full circle back to the point when I thought I was having a heart attack)

I burned my face (a few times) and finally came to realize that I was allergic to the retinoid I was experimenting with for over 4 months (yes. I know the bads about retinoids. don’t EVEN TRY to school me about retinoid application. I know the rules and have watched the YouTube everythings and am now a TikTok-certified dermatologist: low and slow. Dry application. Sandwich method. Purging period can take 3-6 weeks. Try washing it off after an hour. Try layering with niacinimide. Use a pea sized amount. One to two times a week, try a lower dose. Stick with it. Stick with it. Stick with it.) because I am at my wits end and have given up on the tallow and the oils and the creams and the double cleansing and the whole rainbow of methods and red light therapies. Salicylic acid gives me open sores and ruins me for weeks. I’ve been tested for food allergies and spent years off of coffee, gluten and dairy and nuts and eggs and guess what: I’m not allergic to a single one of those things.

I was having whole body itching and accidentally became dependent on Benadryl because it was the only way I could sleep without scratching my entire body into shreds, and then I finally, finally realized I was going through actual WITHDRAWAL from Benadryl (I was taking the minimum dose!) and woke up on the same day with what I *only now* know to be Costochondritis which, not realizing any of this information on that day, sent me into the aforementioned panic attack because I thought I was having a heart attack. (Benadryl info: if you’re taking antihistamines and you become dependent on them, then when you suddenly stop and combine it with foods or coffee which are high histamine, your body will make you feel the merry-go-round of dizzying symptoms of a histamine dump).

SO! Like all good food bloggers do 1,000 words later, Here’s the recipe:

In a rather care worn bowl containing your two remaining brain cells, combine:

Sudden onset of a new autoimmune arthritis flare
Benadryl withdrawal
Nervous system dysregulation
Dehydration
Trying to function like an average person with 6 kids.

Toss with salad forks.

Voila, you should find yourself sitting in the ER on fluids.

stupid.

I die of Shakespearean stupidity.
And shot nerves.

My naturopath has me pounding probiotics and that’s pretty much all I’ve been told to do. Oh and breathe deeply. Okay.
*SNIFFFFFFFFFFFF.*

ah. I’m healed.

Golly. If only I’d had known to do that at the beginning of all this whinge festival I’d have saved everyone 15 minutes of reading. Sarie.

Well. Now that I’m healed with my breaths and probiotics, allow me to share some other things that have bestowed some small delights if not lettuce leaves of nervous system regulation:

Baths. Guess I’m a Bath Girlie now.

Press on nails. I’ve spent the last 4 years perfecting the art of dip nails (it’s the poison I pick, okay?), but I am le tired. The process takes HOURS. Press on nails have upped their game over the last 20 years and last very long and through some rough handling and I’m so glad to not be filing and polishing and sanding for 3 hours.

Silk scarves. I just love them. I find it difficult to find pretty ones though and have it in my head to design the art for one someday. One. Distant. Sweet. Mariah Carey. Day.

sourdough bread. Yeah I was on the 2020 Shutdown Sourdough Train. But I quit gluten for a few years thinking it would solve all my problems for me. Threw away that little starter, rip.
When going gluten free didn’t fix me and I got to reading more about the delicate balance a woman’s body needs between protein and carbs, AND reading that all processed bread products made in the USA are essentially poison, I tried making my own starter from scratch. Two attempts later and now I have a hearty little jar of bubbles which feeds my family multiple loaves a week. No I’m not sharing recipes—
I ALRADY GAYVE U WUN!

And lastly:
Using my Threads account for the sole purpose of criticizing pants.

Bye.