I feel old like an old thing

[st_aurafina]

Our personal trainers were all "Yay! It's all cardio day!" And while at the time I was super buzzed with endorphins, and super amazed at all the wonderful things I could do on my knee (I walked some reasonable distances! I stepped up, if not down!) I'm rather regretting everything now.

Then there was physio.



Physio was painful on a physical and a mental level. I love my physio, but we're on this Fat Acceptance 101 track, and while she's really keen to listen and wants me to feel comfortable being treated there, it's hard work to maintain that constantly positive attitude, especially when you're feeling crapulous.

Today she said, in response to me talking about being uncomfortable using walking in public as exercise, that we're our own greatest critics. Which, I mean, I totally get what she intended. But I'm not my greatest critic. The people who have hurled abuse at me from moving cars or from their front gardens while I walked past, or dropped snide comments at gyms and pools, those people are my greatest critics. (They hate me for being fat, they hate me for being unglamorous while I exercise - THERE IS NO WIN FOR ME HERE.) They're the reason that I don't walk for exercise, and why I see a personal trainer instead of joining a class, because even now, in a small town where I know everyone and people are basically decent, it's discouraging to feel vulnerable in front of them. And I'm really scared that when she makes suggestions like "Hey, you could drive to the football oval and walk there! You could go down to the beach and use the boardwalks!" that if I don't comply, she's going to withhold care. Because that's what fat plus healthcare means: this constant dance of my body now versus my body in the future. Will I get care if I'm not actively, visibly losing weight, even though I'm exercising regularly, eating well, am aware of health risks and co-morbidities, and just want some help now? It's exhausting and it never goes away.

My trainers, though, are fantastic. There is nothing that shocks them, there is no lack of fitness or ability or co-ordination that they cannot deal with, adapt to, and help me keep exercising. They ask me to try something, and if I can't do it, they find me another way. I do feel completely safe there, safe enough to get puffed and sweaty and heave my body around completely unselfconsciously. It's awesome. They are the most un-judging fitness people I've ever met, and I'm so fucking lucky.




Anyway. Closing some tabs.

Deep Space Nine fanart by softestbullet: 1940's Kira Nerys. This is fantastic! Kira is so fierce, I might die of it. *hearts*


From this post on ONTD: If Famous Writers Had Written Twilight:

Twilight, by Dr. Seuss

Jake likes a girl. Her name is Bella.
Bella likes a different fella.

See this vamp? This is Ed.
Ed is pale. Ed is dead.

Ed saved Bella from a van.
Ed must be a special man.

Ed won't kill boys. He won't kill girls.
Ed gets fed on deer and squirrels.

This is James. He's a tracker.
He's a sort of vamp attacker.

James hunts Bella for a thrill.
Will Ed kill him? Yes, he will.

But James gave her a little bite.
Will she be a vamp? She might!

Edward fixes Bella's cut.
She won't be a vampire.
But...

She becomes one. Read some more.
She's a vampire in book 4.

(I love this most of all for the fact that it rhymes "girls" and "squirrels". Lol your funny accents, USians!)


Oh, man, I have to post a pic of this stupid sticker, off a packet of screen cleaner wipes:

[Image: Round sticker showing a finger approaching a small puckered aperture. It's a warning sticker, with a red circle and slash.]

It took me five seconds to actually do what this sticker warned me not to do. Five seconds. While I was laughing at the sticker. I couldn't get the plastic opening off my finger. I had to scream out for help, because it was cutting off the circulation to my finger. lilacsigil had to bend the prongs back so I could... pull my finger out. It was a headdesk moment of monumental proportions.

Comments

[amadi]

During the holidays, I did the exact same thing with cleaning wipes with the exact same warning sticker on. I was alone in the house so I had to say out loud "wait, you're panicking, STOP." And it worked, and I was able to work out how to get loose, but it was an ugly 30 seconds or so.

I hear you on trainers and physios and all. I need a physio right now and cannot access one, but then I think about what sort of hate my very fat body would engender from one, and think maybe I'm better off.

[st_aurafina]

I need a physio right now and cannot access one, but then I think about what sort of hate my very fat body would engender from one, and think maybe I'm better off.

I was tired and critical in my post - it sucks that the onus is on me to do education, and it sucks that I'm all YAY about someone being open to discussion of body acceptance when it should be standard, but she has been very open to discussion, and to making me feel safe and accommodated for. I would hate to think my cranky post would put you off taking the opportunity to see someone if the chance comes up. I wish I'd been less hesitant to see her - I've weathered injuries alone that I know she could have helped me with.

[amadi]

Oh, that was my reaction from my own experiences with them, over the years, starting from the one who told me, two months after the accident that nearly took my life and ability to walk that I'd never recover because I'm too fat. (And that was, uh, four dress sizes ago.) I have a long history...

[st_aurafina]

Ugh, that's horrible. It's wrong on so many levels that they thought that was an okay thing to say to a patient. I'm sorry you got treated like that.

[clare_dragonfly]

XD I would totally do that, but only so I could figure out what the sticker was warning me against!

And I was totally thinking you were posting it because it looked sexual. >.> I have a dirty mind.

Good luck with your training and such. I hope she is able to understand your point of view.

[dulcinbradbury]

Yah... I jumped to dirty ideas instantly, but, it took me about two minutes to figure out what it was actually warning against.

[st_aurafina]

Me too! I was laughing at the utterly filthy implications, while I was putting my finger into the hole.

*snorts* Brain is too dirty for common sense, unfortunately.

[st_aurafina]

I was laughing at how rude and suggestive the sticker was, at the very same time I was doing what the sticker told me not to do! It was so head-deskingly faily.

[tree]

sticker says: no anal play.

i had a physiotherapist tell me that if i cut out gluten and sugar i wouldn't need antidepressants! but then i had a different physiotherapist describe bodies as tiramisu, which is pretty great. (she was using the analogy that the savoiardi is the core stabilising muscles and fat is the marscapone/egg mixture on top.)

[st_aurafina]

The thing is, I was thinking "Lol no butt play" while I was ignoring the safety warning and sticking my finger into the tiny hole. Sad but true.

she was using the analogy that the savoiardi is the core stabilising muscles and fat is the marscapone/egg mixture on top

I love this so much. Also, I want tiramisu.

God, food elimination in any therapeutic discussion (aside from, you know, an actual investigation into food intolerances) is an automatic *bbbbzt* warning buzzer for me. Why do so many people think they can weigh in on mental health like that? It's none of your business, physiotherapist, it's not even your field!

[lilmoka]

If you squint and turn your had a bit to the right, it looks like to sticker is warning against butt fingering /dirrrty mind

[st_aurafina]

You're not the only dirrrty mind around here!

[torachan]

I got my finger stuck in one of those recently. >_< We have a jar of them near the door at work so people can wipe off the handle of the grocery cart or whatever. Anyway, when I was changing the jar, I was having a hard time getting the new wipes to go through the thing, and stuck my finger in too far. IT REALLY FUCKING HURT. And was hard to get off. :(

[st_aurafina]

It really did fucking hurt a lot. And to be honest, lilacsigil spent too long giggling at me, while I was suffering. *sniffs*

Oh, man, I really need to start wiping the handle of my grocery trolley. Those things are supposed to be germy.

[heartequals]

TWILIGHT DOCTOR SEUSS GOOD LORD it is perfect. it is so perfect.

What is that sticker, what. Surely it is not supposed to be that suggestive?!

Your trainers sound awesome!

[st_aurafina]

ED IS PALE! ED IS DEAD! I'm still laughing at that.

That sticker is just... I can't get over it. NO ANAL PLAY, OKAY? Verboten.

[lyras]

FWIW, every time I see a person who is not slim working out, whatever they're doing, I think "good on you". I'm sorry there are so many arseholes in the world, but I would like to think that the silent majority think the same as me.

I have done that thing with the wipes pack, too. :)

[st_aurafina]

Well, thank you - I really do appreciate that. And one day, maybe, it will just be a thing that isn't even worth noticing at all - a fat person working out, or a thin person, or a person with brown hair, or whatever.

[minkhollow]

...you mean 'girls' and 'squirrels' don't rhyme somewhere? (No, really, I'm genuinely curious about this. I don't have much familiarity with Australian accents.)

[thedivinegoat]

They don't in my part of the UK - Girls and Squirrells at Soundcloud - and I'd love to here how they do rhyme in other parts of the world.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, wow, thank you for recording this! I have a bunch of puzzled people who really need to know how these two words don't rhyme.

[st_aurafina]

What thedivinegoat posted is pretty much exactly how I say those two words.

This is like the opposite of when I found out that USians don't rhyme Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. (It's because we say "RavenCLOR", apparently.)

[amadi]

Say what?! They're meant to rhyme?!

[st_aurafina]

Raven-Clor! Gryffin-Dor! Rhymes perfectly to me!

[thedivinegoat]

I'm ashamed to say, I've got my finger stuck in a bottle opening like that - as an adult - although I can't remember why I did it now. I do remember that it hurt like hell.

[st_aurafina]

It was a disturbingly easy thing to do! The warning sticker does nothing!