Tag: Self Esteem

Posted in My Life Now, Uncategorized

I don’t know if I can do this anymore

Posted on by Lizzie Gomez

A few weeks ago, my watch documented that I went on a walk and burned 330 calories in about an hour. I was actually sitting in the ICU doing chart reviews on my patients for the day. The following are my thoughts I wrote after this happened.

I know anxiety and other mental health and really even just mood and mentality in general are NOT just in people’s heads. These things have physical effects. And if anything, I have the evidence that I did have noticable physical effects from it just now. And yet…

Most of the time I still tell myself I’m exaggerating. Even now with data right in front of me I’m telling myself it’s a fluke and it really is just in my head and I’m fine. Or if the data isn’t a mistake, then there’s something physiologically wrong with me and that’s all it is.

When I say this job and current phase of my life is killing me. I do mean it literally. The amount of stress, anxiety, hopelessness, unhealthy eating, lack of sleep, and insufficient exercise and negative mental environment during the majority of my day are slowly killing me. I’ve seen it in my own medical labs, in my heart rate just now, and multiple times a week when I breakdown before succumbing to sleep and repeating the whole cycle all over again.

And I know there are steps that can be taken to get out of this vicious cycle. I continue doing what I can, but every setback makes it that much harder to get up the next time. I don’t know if I can do this anymore.

You know the worst part? My job is to go up to people, people just like me, stuck in ruts and their own devastating cycles and tell them to eat their vegetables, maybe not sit on the couch after work until bedtime stressing about everything there is to be stressed about, and instead go for a walk or meal prep some overnight oats. That’s what I don’t think I can do anymore.

How do you tell someone the truth, that by not prioritizing what they eat, how much they exercise, how much sleep they get, and how stressed out they allow themselves to be, they are killing themselves faster than the cancer, renal failure, diabetes, heart failure, etc? How do you tell that to someone who knows all that and wants to do better, desperately wants to help themself, but is homeless, in prison, barely able to provide for their children if they skip a few meals, or simply has so much else vying for their attention that they do not have the mental capacity to care about the food they consume?

I’ve seen and heard so much suffering. Yet, even when I am at my best, have all the energy and drive and positivity to give my patients the care they deserve, I feel like my efforts are pointless. At the end of the day I can only hope I’ve helped the people I’ve spoken to. I’ll never know for certain. The only people I know about after an interaction are the ones who come back a week or days later, often with the same problem, and often with the same nutritional/lifestyle solution that could, at the very least, lessen the severity of their illness. Or, I know of the ones who die at the hospital with or without my efforts.

I don’t know if I can do this anymore.

Posted in Adventures in Love

If You Love Me, I’ll (still) Hate Myself

Posted on by Lizzie Gomez

Damn. I feel like I have been able to avoid writing for so long now. I don’t even know why, but it has been a point of pride for the last several months to not word vomit all over this blog anymore. I guess in a sense it felt like I had resolved all my issues or at the very least they weren’t overwhelming enough that I had to put them all out of my head. It felt like I could or was able to handle them if I kept them inside, contained and pushed down. But fine! I give up. I give in. Here I am.

Now, not a lot has changed. Although so much has since the last time I posted anything here. But this is not about that. YouTube channel did well until life happened and I stopped making it a priority. A lot of that has happened since then. It feels as if life is just a formality at this point. I don’t know what to do with it and often I feel guilty about that. I feel guilty about a lot of things. Darn, I really do not type as fast as I used to. That’s frustrating. But I am a much better speller, I suppose. Welp that’s making me mess up. Okay, tangent. Stop that. Anyway…

One big thing I feel guilty about is semi new. Since having a partner that seemingly loves me and cares about me, I feel guilty at times for wanting love and attention because it feels like I want things done or solved for me in a sense. It feels like a free pass to continue with my horrible coping mechanisms and ignore whatever is bothering me. Especially when it comes to my good ol’ pal self hatered. That’s a really easy one to fall back on.

And usually- when I was in a better state of mind- I would sing or read or something constructive to work these feelings out or – shocker!- I’d actually sit with my feelings, write it out, and then do something to directly work on it. For example, the problem I keep coming back to and continue to ignore is about my self image and how much I dislike it. Recently…over the past year or more, I have been ignoring it and just letting it get worse over time. Pretty easy when I have someone who embraces me and actively wants me to get out of that mind set. It’s easy when there is someone else there to forgive my mess ups and terrible coping mechanisms.

Which makes it so much easier to cope with things in the worst possible way for the problem. Maybe this is the masochist in me speaking, but I think I do better, and maybe most people do to a certain extent, when there are consequences. I mean, for what I’m abstractly talking about now, if I hate myself and my body and my natural catastrophic reaction to this is to binge eat and talk negatively about myself then this makes me feel bad then….eventually….I get to a point where I can’t take the self abuse any longer and I make a ton of radical changes and if I somehow am able to pace myself and make these things gradual, I have successfully been able to make real meaningful changes in how I see myself and how I handle my issues. Something in that mechanism is obviously broken and has been broken long before I found someone that is much more forgiving of me than myself, but I don’t really have the time or energy to go into that right now.

What I want to explore is the idea that since I’ve been in a relationship, this cycle is even more foreign and unknown and tumultuous. Nowadays if I absolutely hate myself and everything I do/every glimpse in a mirror or other horrific self reflective media, I have someone there to tell me …..ugh, not that my self hatred isn’t true. well. Actually maybe yeah. Maybe that’s exactly what is happening. I feel a certain way about myself which is largely negative and I’m being told by someone I love and trust the complete opposite. I obviously do not believe it myself, but I believe that my partner believes it. And that is usually enough to ahhh I don’t want to say invalidate my feelings, because that sounds mean and wrong and completely the opposite of what any loving partner is trying to do…but maybe that’s part of it.

It sounds absurd, but that’s pretty much what is happening. I say, “I’m disgusting” only to be told that, “no, [I’m] not”. It’s a direct contradiction and the strange, trippy thing about this is it becomes a trust thing. Who’s point of view do I trust more? Often times, it ends up being anyone’s point of view but mine….. So, does that mean I am the one invalidating myself?! *sigh

You see? This is why I don’t- didn’t- I guess still almost wish I hadn’t come here to write. Why I’ve been avoiding it. Other than I also think my writing must suck now, since I am so out of practice when even so, I didn’t think highly of my writing to begin with. Gosh. This is the cycle. I think it’s a cycle at least. I hope it still is. Like I was saying: self hatred leads to emotional rock bottom leads to taking steps out of the ditch leads to improvement with my self worth leads to tripping over obstacles leads to tumbling down leads to harder and harder to ignore self hatred because that never really went away, just the behaviors stemming from it being manhandled into healthier actions which ultimately leads to the cycle repeating.

With someone who loves me I feel like I get stuck at the bottom. Feeling emotionally at rock bottom, but being told I’m not there and trusting the other person about that, because logically I know I’m not really the scum of the earth. But in not fully and completely hating myself like I am used to my infinitely messed up mind can not comprehend that it’s time to start climbing out of the ditch. So I stay.

I guess moral of the story is I don’t know who to let myself be loved. I take love– no! I can’t even take the love. I– love is in my life and somehow it’s like oil and water or maybe more like mixing all the paints together to make a grotesque murky color. Love and I don’t mix. I don’t know how to take love and grow with it.

And this is what I was afraid of. This. I have so much to do to get to a point where I even tolerate myself- let alone love myself. And I was on my way there. It’s awful to the mainstream sense of love, because I was really enjoying getting to know myself and working on being kind to myself, but I just have not taken the time to do that since having someone else in my life to love. That sounds stupid, but it’s true. It’s also fucking sad when the person you hate- and thus have immense difficulty loving- is you.

I think that’s it. I don’t know how to give anyone going through the same thing hope. I’m not mentally in a space for that. I wish it was as simple as people make it seem. *fake super positive voice: Yeah! Just love yourself, eat healthy, be active, laugh with friends! BLEH. It’s not. Once again, I’m sorry I tend to only come on here one in a blue moon and also usually only to share the grim thoughts on my mind. I don’t know what will happen from here on out. Will I ever not hate myself for more than a couple months at a time? (if that!) I don’t know. I hope so. But even if I do it’s not necessarily something I can teach anyone else. I wish it was. Maybe I wouldn’t be on here trying to decipher it for myself or anyone else who has the time and, for whatever reason, desire to read my word spittle. Anyway….good luck to us all, I guess.

Posted in Uncategorized

Week of April 8th 2019- Chronic Disease Prevention (Wow. This was Worse Than the Renal Rotation.)

Posted on by Lizzie Gomez

Monday, April 8th- Waiting for the Pain and Getting Bananas Instead

Woah! I’m being responsible and writing for my daily blog post on a daily basis instead of at the end of the week or worse yet, more than a week later…. Wrong! I mean, it is Monday, March 8th as I write this, but the only reason I’m here is because I don’t want to work on other responsibilities of mine. Woo hoo! Welp, this week I’m in a rotation with a name something along the lines of prevention of chronic diseases. Really, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a super work heavy rotation. Ah, and it’s individual. Gia is at the food bank while I’m here. (I was at the food bank when she was here about a month ago. I’d much rather be at the food bank since that was all manual labor and no homework, but eh, I had my time.

People complain that this is the worst rotation. That the preceptors are super rude and crush any and all self esteem you may have. As of yet, it’s not that bad. Hopefully they’re just drama kings. Yes, the guys have been the most complain-y. Maybe us girls are just more used to constant criticism to our character and self worth. …that was a super stereotypical joke. That I do not apologize for because from my experience (I am female) it rings some truth. It doesn’t matter anyway. Suffering is relative. There is no greater or lesser suffering. It’s all just suffering.

Not much for me in this rotation yet. The director of my internship gifted me about 15 bananas. That one isn’t a joke. She just asked if I wanted to make banana bread and gave me a bag full of bananas! Not a bad day…

 

Tuesday, April 9th- Wow. That was quick.

So, it’s bad. I spent the day in the Department of Health working on assignments again. At this point it wasn’t so much the word she said, which weren’t rude, so much as the tone she chose to say those words in. I’ve never been a very self motivated person. So I arrived on Monday with the minimum amount of work done and the next day I arrived with a bit less than the minimum. I got home and procrastinated then set to work late and didn’t sleep much. Not much sleep=even less energy.

At this point I was sure the preceptor thought I was a lazy slacker, which… eh, partially true. Her tone just reinforced my negative thoughts and this was the fateful beginning of a downhill snowball week. :/ Gosh. I know if I thought better of myself and didn’t let my fragile self confidence snap at the ugly gaze of an uncaring stranger this week it wouldn’t have been bad. Maybe it is just me. Maybe it’s just in my head. Maybe there’s no such thing as depression. Or maybe there is, but that’s not my main problem. Maybe I’m just a “self indulgent little girl” and that’s the cause of my problems. That’s a quote from my favorite movie (Girl, Interrupted).

I don’t know what to think. The facts are these. I spent the day re-working and re-doing two powerpoint presentations I was responsible for presenting to high schoolers and middle schoolers the next day. I also turned in the radio skit I’d been slaving over the previous day. When I’m sad, stressed, self loathing, depressed, whatever you want to call it those feelings will manifest in different ways. I feel like they are inevitable. That I can’t fight them, so I don’t. But maybe I can… I don’t know. Two big ones now are that I’ll be extremely tired. I was falling asleep as I worked. Also, I hadn’t slept much, which didn’t help. Another is that I’ll work/move much slower than normal. I wonder if it is all in my head…

 

Wednesday, April 10th- Presentations at a High School and a Middle School

My dream is not to be a dietitian. I studied for that career path for my Bachelor’s degree and am currently in an internship to become a dietitian. But this isn’t my dream. My dream is to be a teacher. Specifically a high school teacher. When I tell people that’s my dream job they look at me like I’m crazy. They don’t understand that I want to teach high school because I feel like that’s a deciding time for people. That’s when a supportive teacher who believes in students could change lives. It’s when students are still kids in the sense that they are still growing up, but are close enough to adulthood that they don’t have to be babied. That’s the way I see it.

Under any other circumstances, I would have been stoked to present an educational topic to a library full of high schoolers. But not this day. This day I had to present a topic I didn’t even know anymore after so many revisions. I looked for so many sources and between working on this presentation and the other one and the radio outline plus my heavy feelings of self pity… well I couldn’t even explain the things on the slides well. Much less make them entertaining for an audience of blank faced Puerto Rican high schoolers. It was completely embarrassing and a waste of a morning assembly. But I was comforted by the fact that I’d likely never ever run into any of these island dwelling teens after I completed my internship and moved back to good ol’ Texas.

The dietitian supervising me gave a short presentation to make up the rest of the hour I was supposed to fill when my presentation ended too soon. For my presentation she chidingly told me to make it more engaging and take up the whole hour. This one had only been corrected once and honestly, I didn’t know it in much detail. It was about the different food groups. How was I supposed to talk about why you should eat your fruits and vegetables and stuff to middle schoolers for a whole hour?! I just nodded my head and jumped into it blind. It went a million times better than expected. The kids were interacting and (expect for the usual lulls in teenage attention spans) they paid attention. It was amazing! The first presentation broke my heart and began cracking at my dreams of being a teacher, but this presentation, it renewed my convictions.

 

Thursday, April 11th- Yesterday, I Spent the Afternoon in the Emergency Room (not the patient) and Today I was on the Radio.

Yes, so yesterday after the school presentations I was working on assignments at the Department of Health when the director got a call from Axyl. It was a medical issue and one that he should be in the emergency department for. The director dismissed me from the last hour of my day to go with him. If you guys have read my older weekly blogs, you’d know that most of us interns from abroad do not have family here in Puerto Rico. You would also know that Axyl had a falling out with a couple of other interns too, namely Robin and Karen. So…that left me. I’m the closest thing to family he has here and the director knows that. I met up with him then headed to an ER (emergency room) where we stayed until around midnight when they dismissed him, saying his abdominal pain wasn’t anything serious. Oh well. Good news, I guess.

At the rotation I was supposed to be on the radio in the morning and then do a supermarket tour in the afternoon. Well, I didn’t get to work on the supermarket outline of what I was going to say because other than being sad and unmotivated, I was in an ER the whole afternoon. I bumped into the dietitian I am with this week when I arrived at the Department of Health. She greeted me and asked how I was. I was visibly tired and replied “So-so, something happened.”, then proceeded to explained how I’d come to spend the previous day in the ER keeping my friend company. You know what this grown, insensitive woman’s reaction to that was? She asked me “but did you get to finish the assignments for today?”.

I’m not going to get into it here, but I know that dietitian and Axyl have bad blood. Regardless, that’s just cold. Okay, moving on. This is making me mad all over again. We went to another town to do the radio show with her and her (slightly nicer) dietitian co-worker. The radio bit was fun. It was probably the thing I was least nervous about this week and I’d be delighted to do another radio show someday (with different co-hosts, of course!). In the afternoon the heartless dietitian I’m with told me I was lucky she and her co-worker were free the next morning so that I could do the supermarket tour then. Of course, (“this is important!”, she said) I would get points off for it being late, so I’d have to do a great job tomorrow or the points wouldn’t add up and I would not be able to pass the rotation. It’s not the first time she “hinted” at my not passing the rotation, so eh, it didn’t faze me.

 

Friday, April 12th- Shopping Tour Disaster

As you may gather from the title of today. The tour didn’t go well. I didn’t dilly-dally. After the radio show it was as if all my self doubt was magically lifted. I didn’t feel the heavy pull of sadness and self loathing on my limbs. I felt light and able! I felt awake and up for the challenge! I read through material convinced that it’d be better if I knew the material than simply taking notes to read aloud. Seems I was wrong. But it doesn’t matter. Anyway I prepared for this, I know it would have been a disaster. I had notes for the first section. I supposedly had knowledge for the second.

I was her face. Both dietitians came, but it was my preceptor’s face that disturbed me. From the first fruit I discussed (a wretched pineapple [one cup of contains about 133% of the vitamin C you need in a day, by the way]) she had this concerned face. If it had been disgust or doubt maybe I could have pushed through, but it was concern. Like she was watching a train wreck and just couldn’t look away. It was awful. From then, I stumbled over my facts and promptly forgot what I’d studied and not written down convinced I’d remember. It felt like I was being dragged around the grocery store being poked and prodded for facts and knowledge nuggets I did not have. *sigh*

“Well, I failed this rotation.” Those were the first words I spoke to the director when I returned to the Department of Health after that pitiful supermarket tour. She told me not to worry about it, probably thinking it couldn’t have gone as bad as it did. I didn’t argue. I had had enough. I’ve been through so much criticism throughout this internship. From preceptors (dietitians that are supposed to take us under their wing and teach us, a new one each week), fellow interns, even the director of the program herself.

Preceptors have told me I have no initiative because I’m quiet. My internship partner has told me I’m a bad human being and a terrible partner. The director assured me three times in the course of 20 minutes that if I wanted to leave the program that she would understand and support my decision as if she were urging me to get out of her internship. Those things hurt, but I thrived. I proved them wrong. I’m still here. My partner has since told me I’m a good partner and thanked me for helping her in anything I can. The director has since had a change of heart after seeing my renewed spirit when I didn’t let her bully me out of her internship.

But this dietitian with her concerned face by the rack of pineapples broke me. I spent the afternoon holding back tears and gulping down the lump in my throat as I worked to finish the last few assignments for this nightmare rotation. I wonder if self confidence would have made as much of a difference as I suspect. Maybe. The mind is a powerful thing… but mine’s a weakling.

 

Saturday, April 13th- Brooding

Another Saturday that I spent laying in bed amongst my filth of granola bar wrappers, mounds of clean unfolded clothes and random papers piling up in the crevices.

 

Sunday, April 14th- Delayed Dad

My dad was supposed to arrive this afternoon. He’s coming to visit me for Easter. Why Easter? Well, we got the week off. No rotations! So I have time to show him around the island that has been my home for (almost!) the past year. However, the corrections for my assignments from hell week are due next Monday, so I have to work on that this coming week while he’s here. :/

Not sure how, but he missed his flight and instead of arriving around 3pm, he’d arrive at 3am on Monday. Surprise 12 hour change of plans. :/ It’s fine because that gave me time to laze around in the morning, pick up the key to the Airbnb we’ll be staying at until Wednesday, and clean. Yes. I finally cleaned! It’d been at least a month of stressful living in the mess of my creation. But I know the mess bothers Axyl, so before leaving for the week I made sure to clean everything. I tidied my bed area, dresser, mini fridge, and desk. The only thing I didn’t do (it was 2am by this point) was wash the remainder of my dishes. I’d swing by the next day to do so.

At 2am I left for the Airbnb and waited for my dad’s taxi from the airport to arrive. When it did at 3am, I began to excitedly plan out the week’s events before falling asleep, satisfied and at peace for the first time this week.

 

Coming up Next Week!

  • Easter week off!! Hooray!! My dad is here to keep me company. 🙂 I’m so glad to have him here. I want to show him everything, but he’s getting old and can’t keep up like he used to. Let’s see where all I can take him. 😀
  • Working on assignment corrections from this week’s hellish rotation. Ugh. :/
  • Maybe getting volunteer hours at the food bank with my dad? Maybe? heeheehee…. I’m too lazy for my own good…
Posted in Uncategorized

Can I be Someone Else, Please? – Personal Poetry Collection

Posted on by Lizzie Gomez

A friend said something. I got upset. That emotion turned its focus on me and these frustrated words of self-hatred resulted. Thought it’d be the appropriate poem for this week as the rotation I’m in is notorious for the dietitians beating down all your self worth and making you feel like you are the scum of the earth. Let’s hope not. I do a great job of that by myself.

March 22, 2019

Can I be Someone Else, Please?

Fuck!

I suck!

It’s not just a rut;

I am shut.

 

Shut, shot, shoot!

Wish I could give myself the boot!

All that I am loot

And live not giving a hoot!

 

Breathe.

Don’t seethe.

All I need

is to be someone else…

 

Geeze!

I’m such a tease!

Not even honestly I can sneeze.

Please!

Rid me of me: my disease.

Posted in Uncategorized

My Reasons for Staying Fat

Posted on by Lizzie Gomez

Originally Published February 2nd 2018

In a way I like being fat. I like having a low self image and only a few friends. It’s easier that way. Let’s talk about the weight issue. It’s a relatable enough issue. Being overweight means less men hit on me. This means less unwanted attention. As much as you may think it makes a person stand out, it has been my experience that it pushes me to the sidelines. After all, you want the skinny, lithe player out in the spotlight and the chubby donut-muncher on the sideline in any game- including the game of life. Yeah, maybe people notice when I walk in a room or when my hips bump into a chair trying to squeeze through the desks to my seat in class, but otherwise people prefer to avoid me. And I like it that way.

Sometimes, I will get a wave of confidence. I don’t know where it comes from and at this moment it seems completely unwarranted, but when it has happened I sometimes get the urge to dress well and cannot help exude that unrighteous confidence. After a while, it wears off though and I’m left feeling more self conscious than anything. Then my brain flips and beings to wonder how it ever occurred to me that I could pull off an outfit like the one I got on my miserable body. In between this brewing storm, I catch the not-so-subtle glances of men and a few women. I tell myself I’m being paranoid. After all, who would check me out? I’m an abomination. It doesn’t matter what kind of bow you put on a trash bag; it’s still a bag of trash.

Being fat is safe. Less people bother me or bother with me. I don’t worry about getting raped. Why rape me when a giant pillow would prove the same? I don’t have boyfriend or crush problems because neither exist for me. I won’t ever have the urge to have a one night stand with anyone because it takes unrelenting coaxing to wear anything more revealing than a tank top. The days I wear tanks I feel like a whore. If I wear shorts or a skirt above the knee out in public without tights I feel like a whore. I’m not used to showing my body. I don’t want to get rejected. One of my theories is that I wasn’t bullied enough as a child. I wasn’t bullied so I am afraid of it happening. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I’m afraid of the unknown.

It’s nice to be fat because that way, when things go wrong it makes sense. “Oh, of course nothing happened when I stayed the night with that guy once. I’m fat. It didn’t ever cross his mind to lay even a foot on my flabby flesh.” These are the things I think about myself. And that’s just as well. Better this than the alternative. “Oh, of course your friends don’t like going out with you. You’re a shame to look at. It’s better you stay inside. Hidden.”

I know this isn’t healthy. But I won’t say I don’t like it. It’s familiar. It’s a pain I know how to deal with. Or at least one I feel like I know how to deal with even though a throbbing repetitive pain is still pain. I could change, but I’m not convinced. I enjoy the anonymity. I enjoy the solitude. Or, I think I do from the Stockholm syndrome. Being attractive would bring about a whole new set of troubles I am not prepared for. Though I yearn to be skinny. It makes little sense, I know, but I tell myself that if I were skinny most of my problems would go away. Suddenly I’d have confidence with myself. I’d thus be more social and outgoing. I’d be happier. I’d like myself. But I don’t. And a change, even if major, to my hardware would not change my software. I’ve been wired for self-loathing since I can remember. Time to get back to it.