Since leaving Second Life, I’ve had an utter explosion in creative juices, and I find it’s something I can do that will really lift my mood. Even just crocheting a line of a scarf or something is a wonderful mental break, especially when in the dumps like I get sometimes.  I’m trying to something a little bit creative every single day, and for the most part I’m doing that. Not by any means anything huge – I’m not doing a major oil painting every evening, or finishing an afghan every three days, but just a little something or other to keep the brain active and happy.

I do have oil paints I have yet to try, so I may crack those open this weekend. Can i paint? No. I can barely draw, but who cares. Getting over the idea that we need to be perfect at anything before we do it is a hard one, I’ve had many discussions with people about that.  For a long time I shied away from doing anything new because I simply couldn’t bear being terrible at something. I think jumping in to painting, crochet or anything else is a good cure for that.

I also love the all absorbing nature of sewing, or sketching, or writing. Losing all sense of place and time as you work on something that fascinates you is a wonderful thing, and a perfect mental break.  What you walk with at the end might not even be anything like what you were aiming for, but it’s yours and it’s new and you poured energy and care into it.

For those reading who are not “creative” I urge you to try something. It doesn’t have to be a big investment, a pencil and a small sketchbook should be under $10. Find something that totally absorbs your mind and soul and do it as often as you can. We live in a stupid, fast paced world full of mass production and angry people and bad drivers and god knows what else. Curl up with yourself and create a small something. It’s good for you.

Apparently not! Quite apart from the fact that there’s more information in one single paragraph of these books than I ever got from a single specialist, the information in them is stuff I’ve never heard linked to PCOS before. Which has put me in between relief – “Oh good, it’s not just that I’m weird, it’s the PCOS” and anger – “Oh great, another fucking thing to go fucking wrong”.

Much of my “knowledge” of PCOS is gleaned from websites, communities and books. Simply because the specialists I saw were there to treat or look at one aspect of the whole, and therefore they’d do that and wander off. So as new information comes to light about the effects this condition has on the body, I need to make sure I keep up. In this case, it’s interesting to note that poor sleep and oversleep have been linked to – you guessed it – PCOS.

However most if not all of the worst parts of the syndrome can be bashed on the head with a quality low GI diet which includes a lot of whole grains and whatnot. This is a relief. I’ve avoided looking into PCOS diet simply because of the mental “I suck at diets” block. To find page after page of nummy things to eat that I can eat daily – big big big relief. My favourite of the three books I got yesterday – The Ultimate PCOS Handbook – even includes options and advice for vegetarians like myself. Hurrah!

So now for the history part. This post will be long, you can take a nap in the middle. I already napped today, so I’m good for a while. Ready? Let’s begin. (Boys should note at this point, I will be mentioning periods. Don’t be scared)

In about grade 5 (age ~ 10) I went from a tiny elfin little creature to three times my original weight within about 5 months. BANG. At age 12, my periods started just before I started High School. They were heavy, horrible and I missed a lot of school due to exhaustion and other things related to a 5 month constant period. Then they stopped, started, stopped, started… they never lasted less than 4 weeks.

No cause could be found for this cycle, nor for my massive weight gain apart from “You eat too much and you’re lazy”. I was, at this stage, not overly lazy. If I went to a friends house, for example, we’d walk into town, catch the train to the city, walk the city for the day, come home and walk back to their place. I was moving. I wasn’t a great sportsperson because I was fat and therefore slow, and my knees and ankles were giving way in alarming manners.

The ankles were addressed by a doctor who had me use insoles to support the foot, but the problem remained.  A specialist in something or other tested my blood and said, without looking up from his notebook “Ah, yes. You probably will not be able to have babies. Everything else is fine. Goodbye”.  Meanwhile I was growing body and face hair like whoa, which got me a referral to a dermatologist who – and I am not joking but I wish I was – said she couldn’t help with the hair problem but I clearly ate too much junk food. When I said I didn’t, she stood over me and blasted me for lying to her because I was so fat I was clearly eating junkfood every single day. Unable to defend myself, and crying hysterically,  I swore off doctors for a long time. The Boyfriend can attest it’s a nightmare to try and get me to see a medical person these days.

However, I happened to read a magazine article about PCOS and the symptoms seemed to fit so I marched  back to the GP and asked to be tested. In the darkened room of the ultrasound booth, a lovely smiling little Chinese specialist sat me down and pointed out on the pictures exactly where all the cysts were, and confirmed that yes, I did have PCOS. Without doubt he is the best specialist I have ever seen, not just because he took the time to explain what was going on, but because he was sympathetic about the whole deal.

Anyways, that was 9ish years ago and back then (listen to me like it was 1963) the treatment was the Pill. This was purely to get the periods ontrack again, and resulted (in me) in  more weight gain and feelings of suicidal depression. So I stopped it and gave up for a spell till I read on the internet that someone had found a link between PCOS and Insulin Resistance, and treating the IR would help the PCOS.

AND HOW. Taking metformin, a drug used for diabetics, and adding a tiny bit of activity to my life I dropped almost 25 kilos.  The drawback? I felt, constantly, like I was about to puke. Medication didn’t stop that, it was just something to put up with and I decided I didn’t want to put up with it anymore and stopped met. BANG, 25kilos straight back on. I dabbled with met again earlier this year, but I really cannot stand the feeling of nausea and the idea that if you cough, you’ll need to change your pants (sorry, TMI?).

Which brings me, rather neatly, back to diet. Currently I can only do parts of it, but I hope even a little bit of the diet will help in little ways (this is because I still live at home, and my mother considers the phrase “Low GI” to be something someone made up to make money).

I’ll start slowly, mostly because I’m spending most of my time with the books reading through the case studies and thinking “Oh yeah, me too. Me too”.

Apparently. What you see there is the 88 balls of yarn I have somehow aquired, which since I’ve only been crocheting for about 18 months, works out at about 5 balls a month, excluding the ones that have been used, of course. It also doesn’t include the 4 balls of incredibly shitty acrylic I just tossed. Remember kids, cheap doesn’t always equal good.

So, since I am NOT buying yarn till I’ve used three quarters of what I have – I’ve 66 balls of yarn to get through. Hrm. Anyone need an incredibly long scarf?

Added bonus of stash sorting was the discovery of three hooks, several cards of buttons, fabric I’d forgotten about and a two piece frog pillow I pinned but never sewed. Score!

Therefore, I’ll be using up as much as I can making hats and scarves for next years drive (I think the Salvos or the Brotherhood do a homeless warmth drive, someone does.) and then I’ll use the rest on a blanket.

The other point here, is to use what I already HAVE. This is a tricky thing sometimes, but I’m determined to get rid of at least three quarters of this stash before I go yarn fondling again. This means walking right by the yarn section in spotlight, being not at all tempted by special offers (like cleckheaton pure wool for $2. OMG that was a brilliant day…).

This afternoon, since I’m laid up with a crappy ankle, I’m going to sort and see exactly what I have. Scary. I’ve a HUGE basket in the corner of my bedroom full of bits of cloth, things I’ve bought for crafting, and above all else – yarn. A pile of delicious colours I couldn’t possibly resist.

One of the hardest decisions for me, and one I make several times a year, is the trade off that taking Metformin is. If i take the met, I will lose weight. I will also feel crap 99% of the time, and will be unable to cough without worrying I’ve.. um.. you know. So I take it a while and then the sideeffects piss me off, so I stop and feel fantastic for a time. Then I go back on it. It’s a cycle I can’t really seem to break. The desire to lose the excess weight is very strong, and the dread and hate of the met is also strong, so I tend to go around and around.

One of the problems with PCOS (and it has so many) is that it really is harder to lose weight. I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s true. Weight goes on a lot more easiliy, and comes off with a lot more work.  So even in the event of dieting and all that any weight I lose is literally waiting around the corner for a chance to jump back on. However it’s really time to try to get off the met cycle once and for all. So here’s to probably maybe perhaps doing something a bit positive.

In the meantime, I am trying to accept myself more. Which, after 15 years of pretty intense self loathing, is a bit of a climb. But I might get there still, you never know.

This bag is an enabler.

I don’t want to come over all “Clutter is the enemy of the soul” but shitfire, how much crap do I haul around on a daily basis??

What is in there: Smokes, several lighters, purse, phone, pager aaand brochures from my trip, minutes and agendas from 5 months worth of meetings, sewing patterns, pens, a ton of loose change and god only knows what else. I weighed it. 6 kilos. SIX kilos of crap I drag around with me all the time. Good lord.

So, because i am trying to improve myself in various small ways, not the least being spending less time digging around in my bag for keys, time card or lighter, I splashed out on a new bag today.

Apart from being red (YAY red! That’s my bed spread it’s on, so you can probably guess my favourite colour) and having kinda hippy flowers on it, it’s smaller. Not a massive amount of smaller, but it doesn’t expand as much as the old one. It also has handy pockets to stop me bagdialling people on my phone and to keep my timecard nice and handy so I can swipe in slightly closer to time. My only sadness about it is that the strap isn’t adjustable, so I can’t wear it the super daggy way over my chest, but I can live with that.

Here’s to dragging less than 6 kilos around with me in future!