I Won't Do What You Tell Me...

All week long I've wanted a giant margarita. A strawberry one, or a raspberry one. Then a frozen pineapple one. But a giant margarita.

I haven't had a drink in over two years. I've had a sip of a few of Brent's, but barely a sip. Just enough to taste something that smelled great.

I've talked about it before, my body just decided that processing alcohol was not a thing it was going to do anymore. And, no matter who you are, your body breaks alcohol down into a poison to process it, so those things together and I decided that a lovely crisp cider, or a smokey vanilla bourbon or even a giant fruity margarita wasn't worth the night long hot flashes, morning headache, and joint pain they would bring.

But this week? That's all I wanted.

Why?

Because my brain is broken. A milder version of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Or fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. But mostly under control. Mostly. Meaning I am aware of it happening, but it doesn't change my brain from doing it all of the time.

My blood work came back and my cholesterol is still high. Not high enough to require medication, but it didn't lower last year with the very minor changes I made so my new doctor sent her recommendations for what I needed to do to change it before we medicate.

Lower my alcohol intake, get regular exercise, limit any fried foods, lower my saturated fat intake. Well, the only alcohol I get is in the vanilla extract in my oatmeal, I already work out five days a week, I have fried food maybe one day a week so that leaves saturated fats. Basically get rid of the whole milk, full fat products that I love. Pretty easy first change to see how my numbers react. Not a big deal at all really. I was totally dairy free for a few years a while ago. I can do lower fat.

But it made my brain fritz. Things I am already doing on my own, tell me I have to? Oh fuck you, that's not happening. All I want is a steak, taquitos, giant margaritas and a bowl of double fat ice cream topped with whipped cream and let's follow that with a cheese plate!

I usually tend to blame being brought up in a conservative church with a lot of rules around behavior, but that only sort of works considering I rebelled against all of that at a pretty early age. It might still be tied since my rebellion against it was when I realized those rules didn't make sense. That might be where I wired my brain to believe that rules as a whole don't really make sense. Who knows...

But I do know that I don't do well with being told what to do. Even if it's something I was already doing. And I tend to rebel. In big or small ways. Like, fine, I'll change to low fat milk and get the fat free yogurt for my smoothies. I'll switch from ice cream to sorbet. BUT I'm going to download a matching game that I KNOW I can't play responsibly and I'm going to waste an entire day playing that before I uninstall it and admit, yet again, that my brain is not wired that way. I cannot play a few rounds and call it good. Do I have lives? Then I'm still playing!

As Brent put it today when we were talking about it, tell me I can't cut off my nose to spite my face and I am like BRING ME THE FUCKING KNIFE!

I'm never sure if it's worse to be crazy and not realize it or to be fully aware of how you are crazy and still have it happen.

I know I have problems with disordered eating, do I still sometimes hide a food wrapper in the trash even if it's not a secret that I ate those pretzels? Yes, yes I do. Do I know that alcohol makes me feel like crap no matter how little I drink? Yes, I am fully aware. Did make the choice based on how it makes me feel that it wasn't worth it? Yep. Made that decision on my own, feel great about it. Do I now want a drink because someone said I can't? BRING ME THE BOTTLE!

Sometimes I think not knowing would be better. Because you wouldn't know. Knowing and still being that way sort of sucks. Except because I know I know that it's not real. I don't really want a drink. I don't really want to feel like crap. I don't really want all of the saturated fat in the world because I don't want the heart disease that plagues my family. So I can have the argument in my head about it and move on. Knowing is good.

But it doesn't make my head any less of a shit show.

sigh