Am I Okay?

I’m listening to the Gabor Maté’s When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress.

Oh, boy. That book. I’m still processing it.

What I can say is this, “You know the truth when you hear it.” I have a lot of “hidden” stress. Of course, I’m consciously aware that being the parent of a young child, training a puppy, living in a foreign country (especially where I do not speak the local language), starting a new job, and moving to a new city (where I have no family or friends) is stressful.

But if you were to ask me if I felt stressed, I would say, “No, I’m doing alright. Sure, sometimes I can feel a bit overwhelmed, but not always. I meditate. I get exercise via said child and puppy. I’m happy. I’m okay.”

But am I okay?

When I ask myself this question, there is a very strong voice in me that’s like “Oh, gosh, here’s the millennial who writes about herself (so 15 people can read it), living this comfortable life abroad wondering if she’s okay. God, I can’t stand these self-indulgent, self-concerned people. Like seriously, are you okay? Is your country being bombed? Any recent earth quakes? Are you starving because of food or water insecurity? Like, um, if you didn’t get a chance to shower today because you were ‘overwhelmed,’ you have no one to blame but yourself. I was there when you asked to become a mother, and I distinctly remember you mentioning you’d not complain about it because ‘it did not have to to happen.’ I also happen to know you didn’t need to get a puppy. Like you really didn’t have to do that. So, um, please stop. Are you okay? You’re killing me.”

That’s my “You’re so entitled” voice.

And I’m pretty much nodding my head right now, like yeah. All the things that I “have to do” are actually really things that I “get to do.” I have to take the puppy out for exercise, but this often means walking through the forest and seeing incredibly beautiful winter scenes I would otherwise have missed (see photos below). I would have spent that time inside my apartment, likely staring at a screen. And yeah, things are a bit harder because Bochuan got into a higher-level Finnish class, but only a few people were accepted, and by the end, he’ll be at a C1 level, meaning he’d pretty much be fluent in Finnish. Three years ago, who would have thought we’d be living here and Bochuan would be able to speak Finnish? In a few years, it’s likely I will be pretty good at the language too. So, really, my issue is a problem of gratitude.

This is my “You’re not stressed. You’re ungrateful” voice. I have many other voices too, but I won’t bore you.

One of the thing’s Gabor Maté argues in his book is that people who have a tendency to develop diseases like cancer, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, and even asthma, operate at such a high level of stress, they don’t recognize that they are stressed. They are the kind of people who will clean up the whole house for guests, even though they are feeling ill. They genuinely do not believe it is acceptable to turn people away or do less even when they are sick, tired, or simply unwilling. They rarely say no. They always push through. They are the kind of people who believe that if they don’t show up, everything will actually fall apart. These people are reliable to a fault. And essentially, Maté’s book argues that the only way that these people don’t show up is when their bodies simply shut them down.

When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed, after many a doctor’s visit and trips to the emergency room to check if my appendix was ruptured, with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They couldn’t find anything “wrong” to explain my constant stomach pain, and this was the only thing they could come up with. There’s no real treatment for IBS, and to be honest, it felt like it was something they said so I would stop coming back for answers they didn’t have. Why was a seemingly healthy teenage girl having such intense stomach pain? I stopped trying to answer that question when my family doctor made the comment, “Well, you know, you’re just a bit sensitive.”

I missed a lot of school my senior year of high school because of abdominal pain both during my menstrual cycle and other inexplicable times of the month. And it quickly became clear that the teacher’s had little patience for this chronic discomfort. I got the message that a good student was one who showed up, no matter what else was happening. So, I just stopped worrying about the pain. The doctors and teachers seemed unconcerned, so I shouldn't be concerned either. And I endured the pain until I stopped feeling it.

When Alaya comes home from daycare, she’s often in a bad mood. These days, she rarely takes a nap at daycare, so she’s tired. Also, she’s adjusting to a new home, a new facility, new faces, and so much more than I can comprehend. She’s a growing little girl after all. Every now and again, she gets a little bigger, a little smarter, a little more capable of communicating in three languages. Sometimes her whining is like nails on a chalkboard, but I welcome it. I open my arms to her when she wants me to pick her up and when she’s pushing me away (or frankly, kicking). And I dance with her, or breastfeed her (yes, still), or rub her back, or make her laugh to help her regulate those big emotions. Because children depend on us to help them regulate their emotions, and if we don’t, they just stop feeling them. They numb those emotions to the point that they can’t tell when their angry or sad or stressed or a myriad other feelings.

If when Alaya came home upset, I just ignored her feelings. If I made it seem like she was just overly sensitive. If I made her feel like children weren’t ever supposed to be sad or angry or stressed or overwhelmed or in pain, I guarantee you she would stop crying when she came home in the evenings. She would play the happy, well-adjusted, “very mature for her age” little girl I was expecting her to be. Later, she would struggle to identify what she was feeling and what was happening in her body. And worse still, even if she suspected what was going on, she would question it.

A few weeks ago, I woke up, and I was feeling terrible. I was supposed to go to campus for a meeting. I thought to myself, let me just send a message to my colleague saying I’m not feeling well and reschedule. One voice in my head was like, “Don’t lie to her just so you don’t have to go to campus. Yeah, so you’re feeling a little ‘whatever.’ It’s nothing serious. You can push through. It’s just the start of the semester. It’s only your second month working at this job, and already you want to cancel a meeting because you’re ‘sick’?”

I got up that morning. I got Alaya and the puppy ready for their respective daycares. I got in the shower, and it was only when I finished that it occurred to me. “Maxi, you’re not lying to your coworker. You feel sick.” My body was talking to me, and I was listening instead of ignoring or further questioning the validity of what I was feeling.

But the logic of the voice who wanted to “push through” was that I wasn’t allowed to be sick yet. I hadn’t yet “proven myself” somehow, so I should just keep showing up until people knew I was reliable. I was afraid my chronic pain or discomfort would get me labeled a slacker, someone who will come up with any excuse to get out of work when they feel like it.

But at that time, I didn’t even think of myself as having a chronic illness, despite being diagnosed with adenomyosis and having an IUD because of it. There’s that voice in my head that’s like, "an IUD isn’t a 'real' medication. Labeling yourself as having a chronic illness because you have pain during your period and when you ovulate, and occasional at random other times of the month is overstating the problem." But, at the same time, I had to pick Alaya up from daycare a couple weeks ago, and I was in so much pain that I was afraid to drive. The IUD has side effects, causing sudden, shooting pains down my leg that are so intense it completely immobilizes me. What if that pain happened while we were driving home, and I caused an accident? I still have no answers for that because even though I'm gainfully employed with both public and private health insurance, I never make time to see a doctor. My physical discomforts just never seems to top the priority list; it's hard to when I question the importance of what I'm feeling.

This past week I have been in a lot of pain as it’s around the time I would ovulate. But to be honest, when I mention the pain out loud, I feel self-conscious. Will Bochuan get tired of me complaining about my stomach or my back. Oh, did I ever mention that I have a herniated disc and spent three days in the hospital in September because I couldn’t walk? Three of my toes on my left leg and my ankle are still numb. You know when the dentist numbs your mouth to perform an operation? That’s how my toes and ankle have felt 24/7 for the last 5 months. I can move my foot, but apparently the ability to feel them like normal seems not to be a medical concern. But why should it be, when I have completely stopped concerning myself with it too? I should be doing some sort of physical therapy, but see previous paragraph about how my physical health never makes it to the top of my priority list.

When I was living with my mom, she had a lot of back pain. I remember her talking about her pain regularly. But it was so common that those around her (including me, of course) just became numb to that pain. “Well, you know your mother…” was a common phrase I heard. I think this too made me afraid to talk about my pain. I didn’t want to be dismissed. I didn’t want people to think that I was just looking for sympathy or making excuses for something. Looking back on it now, I realized I hadn’t learned how to be with someone’s pain in such a way that I do not minimize their experience, overexaggerate it, nor personalize what is happening to them. I didn’t know how to sit with my mother’s suffering and hold her hand through it without trying to fix anything or making it about me somehow.

So, I hide a lot of pain. I hide a lot of stress. Not just from others, but also from myself. Am I okay?

Listening to this book, I was initially surprised my mom is still alive and well. She has the exact personality type for cancer, arthritis, and any other disease mentioned in the book. But I think what counteracts all the stress she carries is that my mom has a powerful community. She’s amazing at keeping in touch with people. She remembers everyone’s birthday. She has a community of women, sisters, cousins, aunts, etc. that support each other through all of life’s hardships.

To say I don’t have that here would be an understatement. Yes, I have video calls with my parents and siblings weekly, and I stay in contact with other friends around the world via Zoom. But here in Finland? I don’t have many friends yet. And I don’t mean any old friend, but family friends. People I can call on when, for example, I suddenly need to stay in the hospital for three days. The friends I had like that are in Lappeenranta, 2.5 hours away.

Am I okay?

I’m looking inward right now, and I think there’s a lot to unravel and to question and to work through. But maybe it’s okay if I’m not okay.

If you're looking for the positive, then maybe skip my next few posts, it's all about negative thinking. I apparently need to do more of that. Until then, photos!