My Life Under The Knife - Part Two

O.K.  So, this second part was really, really hard to write.  I'm pushing myself here to write this shit down.  I think we might just have to have a part 3.  My medical history parallels with my childhood, adolescent angst, young adulthood crap, so I gotta connect the dots.

My doctor calls the osteoma I'm having removed next month, "conspicuous and painful".  I laughed when she said it because I thought, yeah, that about sums everything up.  Many of my past actions could be described that way.  My body has generated cysts on a pretty regular basis since around 2004, perhaps earlier because the onset of painful migraines in college have often proven to be the culprit of many problems.

We were fortunate to have a great college physician,  she was helpful in diagnosing my migraines as something related to my menstrual cycle as well as to allergens like sulfites.  The pain was pretty unbearable and so I was prescribed varying degrees of painkillers.  What's important to note here is that I am my father's daughter, he was an addict who also had OCD and bi-polar tendencies.  His family was riddled with mental health issues.  I was the holder of a complex genetic lottery ticket and looking back, anyone could have predicted that having access to pain medications, in a college setting, was going to be a bad mix for this not-quite-yet reformed troubled kid.  Let me tell you a little bit about that kid...

I had such unexplainable anger, jealousy and low self-concept as a young kid -- it led me to say some pretty horrible things to friends and family.  One in particular that still sticks with me is when my sister had suffered a horrible diving accident and I said that I wished she were dead - words to this day I can't believe I said and feel like another person said them.  I guess, I've had to tell myself another person said those words because otherwise the guilt would've consumed me.  Along with saying hurtful things, I became quite the liar and manipulator.  One of my best acts was the cycle of secret binge eating and then making myself sick just at the right time to make my mom think I had a stomach bug so I could stay home from school.  I was twisted enough to save the vomit in the toilet to show her.

It didn't take long for that behavior to catch up with me and I landed in the Principal's office, the psychiatrist's office and so on and so on.  In my mind, I had been found out and it dawned on me that I was ruining my chances to get out of my parents' house and be on my own (the 17-year-old that thinks she has all the answers).  I got my act together, but definitely not for the right reasons.  My GPA and SAT scores were less than great, I'd say fair, so I used the essays to ask (beg) for a chance.  I did get that chance, and almost ruined it all with my trademark careless manipulations.  Insert freshman freedom and that migraine diagnosis here and you have one bad mix -- it kind of made it easy to major in alcohol, drugs, and sex.  In high school, I didn't have healthy relationships - I had the antonym of relationships - secret, manipulative hook-ups and well, it seemed so easy to just keep that going in college.  It was what I knew to do and for some reason, I thought that's how I would be liked, maybe even loved.

It does make me sad, at times, that I wasted almost 2 years of college with foolish and at times, dangerous behavior.  But, I also understand those tough times shaped who I am now.  It took some key college personnel (I think I was probably destined for a career in student affairs), a couple of friends, and meeting Steve to help me put pieces together and grow up.  It took a lot of time to get my head in the right place -- I don't think I had a solid, healthy definition of love until about 2 years into our marriage.  But, it's like my body, my physical spirit, is stuck back in that time; the pain my body produces is like the drunk uncle nobody wants at the holiday table.  Part 3 - how do you get rid of the drunk uncle?