My metabolism has once again gone completely bonkers. After I first increased my eating after being sick, my weight dropped again (less than a pound, but still...it really needed to start going in the other direction), which meant an even larger food increase.  This sent everything into an upwards spiral. I'm eating insane amounts of food right now, and it's really frustrating because I'm not sleeping well, I'm having hot flashes left and right, and I'm just really sick of stuffing my face.

BUT...

My other freelance writing job is for an ALS clinic. ALS, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease in the US and Canada. ALS is uniformly fatal. No cures exist, and neither do any real treatments. It generally kills in 2-5 years after diagnosis. Your motor neurons die, which means your muscles are paralyzed. You can't swallow your food, hold a pen, or even talk as the disease progresses. You can't breathe properly, which is the frequent cause of death. You basically suffocate. It's one of the few diseases that can almost make an eating disorder seem cheery.

I have days when I get done with my work, and I want to order a vodka and Prozac, shaken not stirred.

My job provides some pretty good income, but it provides something just as important but much less tangible. It gives me a really good dose of perspective.

See, when I was younger, my mom used to try and make me feel better by reminding me of all the people who had it worse than I did. No doubt it's true, but I interpreted her statements as the equivalent of "Stop being such a big baby about this!" It's why I don't like to compare my situation with others, because it makes me feel that I'm just being a big baby and I need to buck up and deal with it.

I'm older now, and I'm better able to appreciate subtleties. I can see that an appreciation that other people have it worse than me doesn't have to mean that my situation is a piece of cake, either.  I can have a good whinge on my blog about all that damn food and the stinking hot flashes while simultaneously realizing that it could be worse. I hate when people point this out to me, because it feels so tremendously invalidating--again, like I have no right to my pain or feelings. This doesn't mean that it's not important to get this perspective and to develop ways of viewing the world where I can acknowledge my own struggles and also keep them in perspective.

It's a hard balance to keep. I'm not always good at keeping that balance. Most of the time, I'm sick of my own whining. I find myself jealous of the strangest people, just because their life seems to suck less. I also feel that I have no right to complain since I feel I'm doing this to myself.

In the end, both me and the ALS patients I write about have shitty illnesses. We all struggle to make it through the day. I'm lucky. Recovery is a possibility for me. For lots of other people with lots of other illnesses, it's not. So yes: acknowledge the suckitude and then take a deep breath and do what you can with what you've got.