Living multiple lives

…well, not really; it just seems that way sometimes.

I’ve always had this odd sensation that I’m living several different lives. For instance, school and home. Mysocial life existed almost exclusively outside of my own home (with a few rare exceptions) until recently, and the two almost never overlapped. I’ve had friends over a handful of times during my childhood, not because my parents didn’t allow it or because I had something to hide, but it always felt like an invasion of my personal space to have people over. It was pretty unusual even for my parents to have people over; we were just a really close knit family, I suppose, and to have “other” people over was just not done very often. It was not for lack of friends, either – I just came to them instead of them coming to me. When people did come over, it felt very strange. To me, at least.

Likewise, because my love life arose as an offshoot of my social life which was a dependent of my school life, boyfriends came over next to never, or stayed no longer than it took to get in the car and go somewhere. It was like, depending on where and with whom I was, the other was sort of a non-tangential figment of my imagination. Sort of.

When I went to Japan, I was completely isolated physically from my boyfriend and my family. I was never especially homesick (boyfriend-sick, for sure), but its like I went into ’survival’ mode and my subconscious just accepted where I was, then and there, as “reality”.Were it not for daily e-mails and regular phone calls from home, I almost feel like I would just re-established my identity there. As though my entire life at home just didn’t exist.

Of course, it was just a strange sort of feeling, but it struck me as soon as I became aware of it. I settled into a routine, got to know people, watched relationships and drama flare up and die around me, and went through a couple of my own. That was my new reality.

I wonder if that’s just another manifestations of what I’ve started calling my “selective, adaptive apathy”. Its not that I lack any kind of emotional attachment to my home and my family, but during the short time I was there, it was really my boyfriend who kept me from completely submerging into my new life. And that’s a strange thing in and of itself – no one person has ever had that much of an immediate, emotional hold on me. If I’m honest with myself, not having him there is what made me look forward to coming home. It didn’t make me miserable or keep me from enjoying myself, but the longing was tangible.

I’ve moved around a lot during the last year, too. Almost every school quarter, in fact, I stayed with someone new. The first summer, it was with a friend of my uncle; the next 3 quarters, a friend from community college and his family; this last quarter, a friend of my mother’s. Every time, not only a new schedule with new classes and teachers, but an entirely different “home” dynamic. I still go to my “real” home a couple times a week, but  that’ s also been split up into a few days at my boyfriend’s place (and even he changed residency last summer).

I’m a creature of habit, though – I insist on eating oatmeal and yogurt every morning, and I will fight storm conditions to get to my aerobics classes and Starbucks. But. I would almost say I live in a self-contained bubble, which contains all my little routines and thoughts and defenses that I just carry with me into each new situation and adapt them as needed.

Hmm…

愛

The first time my boyfriend told me he loved me, he started the conversation with something to the effect of, “Have you ever been in love before?”, and then, “What do you think it means to be in love?”

He does this a lot. Asks me to explain my thoughts/thought process about something as opposed to just telling me. I both resent it and appreciate it: on the one hand, I feel like he never gives me “the benefit of the doubt”, or respects my opinion for its own sake, whether he belives it or not; on the other hand, he forces me to be articulate and put words to the mash of emotion and disjointed monologue that normally makes up my deep contemplation.

Anyway, I told him that, for starters, I had only maybe been in love once before. That relationship was with a much older man, and in hindsight it occurs to me that a lot of those feelings were probably based on some kind of delayed reaction to my grandfather’s passing, as he was the primary male role model in my life. While I think he was in love with me (he told me as much, and certainly treated me as though he cherished me), my moral unease with the whole situation prevented me from freely “loving” him back. But, it was the most I had ever felt for another person, and the first time I had become even remotely physical with a man (we did not have sex, however, but I doubt I would have been as comfortable with being touched by my current boyfriend were it not for the ‘foreplay’ I participated in with him).

What it did help me begin to recognize was the huge amount of emotion that it evoked in me. Normally, I’m pretty closed down and I rarely have any desire to spend time with other people – I’m not overly shy, and I do have a few friends, but I’m a loner, more or less. I have what I believe is a strong sense of decency and I try to be generous, but when it comes right down to it, I really can’t be bothered to put any energy into a ‘real’ relationship – I just don’t care. With my current boyfriend, perhaps in part because it was a ‘guilt-free’ relationship with prospects for the future, I fell hard.

He is the only person whose company I prefer over merely being alone – the only person whom I quite literally crave the presence of. He commands an enormous percentage of my attention and interest, easily being the sole subject occupying my thoughts at any given time. Being something of a germaphobe, I also tend to dislike being in close physical contact with virtually *all* people - except for him. No matter if he’s just stepped out of the shower or just spent an hour in the weight room, I find my attraction undeterred. He has the most wonderful smell about him – enhanced by a bit of Old Spice, but distinctly him, nonetheless, and it just makes my insides purr. He’s a big, powerful guy, and when we’re intimate he often ends up soaking wet in sweat, but still–often to the somewhat ironic amusement of my own subconscience — I cannot help but still want to lie close and rub my hands over his back as he rests. To me, he is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.

*ahem*

So, back to the “what is love to me” question. Well, whereas I tend not to care one way or the other about most people, the person I love has my complete attention. While I generally feel sympathy for other people’s problems, my attitude is always, “Aww, that’s a shame”, and I may not think about it with any real concern any further than that. On the other hand, this person whom I love - their happiness and well-being is of the utmost importance to me, and their mood or behavior towards me can leave me in tears at the drop of a hat, or bring me contentment as I have never known before. When he’s angry with me, even if I feel I am in the right or that he’s overreacting, its like I’m trying to inflate a punctured balloon – my anger will not hold a charge. I cannot just say “Fuck it” and walk away. The thought of something happening to him, of him dying, nearly kills me. You recall all that nonesense with the chiropractor – yes, part of that is my self-righteousness rearing its ugly head, but the reason I make such a stink about it with him personally is because I fear for his safety.

All in all, I want to be with him all the time, and I have eyes for no one else. My libido quite literally will not give anyone else the time of day.

That’s what love is to me.

Thinking about kids…

“I felt the same way when I was your age. Don’t rule it out completely – you’ll probably change your mind”

I don’t like kids. I don’t want kids. Its not that I have some kind of repulsion towards them or that I have this burning animosity – I just have no interest in having my own. None. Zip. Nadda. Its unfathomable to me that I would ever be able to play the role of ‘mom’. I wouldn’t say I lack any kind of maternal instinct - I love raising baby animals, and I can’t think of a single period of my childhood where we had less than 5 cats, a dog, and a bunch of livestock. But human children are different – I have no special affinity for them what-so-ever.

The only things children represent to me is a chain on my leg that will forcibly orient itself in the position of “center of my universe” and superceed the importance of all other things in my life. And that’s in the most ideal of situations.

Imagine if the child was autistic, or born with a degenerative condition? I have a great deal of respect for people who are in those situations and can handle them – they are extremely brave and commited parents, and I applaud their devotion – but I do not believe I am strong enough for that. I would be resentful, and unhappy, I just don’t think I would ever be able to reconcile those feelings in order to devote myself wholeheartedly to the child.

I tend to look at pregnancywith a very sterile, medical attitude as well. If it was a choice between my life and an unborn child’s, I would choose to abort. No hesitation. Its strikes me as foolish for a woman to do otherwise on the grounds that a fetus’s life has more value than her own. If I were the husband, I would much rather loose the fetus and have my wife – even if trying again was not possible, there are other options. A fetus is a potential person – its mother IS a person. Just my opinion…

You have to really want kids to have them and be happy. As a woman, you have to spend 9 months incubating them, suffer the agony of childbirth, and then they are completely dependent on you for at least the next 5 years. Then shortly after puberty hits the metaphorical fan and if my observation of my own peers in elementary through high school is any indication, that can be the most hellish thing to suffer through. I would no more become a parent than a gradeschool teacher.

I also don’t understand the way women come unglued around someone else’s baby. What an embarassing, stereotypical girly display – makes me ashamed of my gender. I don’t gush like that over puppies and kittens, which I find to be superiorly “cute”. Yeah, congradulations or whatever. No, thank you, I don’t care to hold the baby.

Like I said, I don’t ‘hate’ kids, but for some reason, I always feel a great swell of pity whenever I see a young mother dragging along her little snot-nosed brats, or a pretty girl bulging out of her clothes 7 months into the pregnancy. And all I can think is, “That will NEVER be me”. Sometimes it worries me that I have such an extreme attitude about it, but in truth, it downright horrifies me that I might find myself pregnant and stuck raising a kid.

My biggest problem has do with the trauma to my body. I’m extremely sensitive to weight change, and I think the condition of pregnancy would throw me into a paranoid depression from which I might never recover. It would make me feel fat and vulnerable. And I couldn’t stand it – I’ve spent my entire life trying to be as healthy and fit as I can (I’ve never had a drink in my life, never smoked, never done drugs, I eat well, and I work out 5 times a week) and I just don’t believe that I could bring myself to fuck that up, not when there are other ways.

Is that so wrong? Does no one else feel that way?

I worry about what’s going to happen in the next few years if my boyfriend and I are still together; this could well become a dealbraker. He’s already 30, while I’m only 22 and just reaching the end of my university schooling. While he’s far from being in any kind of position (economically, anyway – he barely makes enough to support himself and shares an apartment with hid dad), he’s at “that age” where he’s going to start wanting to settle down. Maybe he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, but I noticed the first time he said “when” instead of “if I have kids”. We’ve talked about it, hypothetically, and he knows I’m not keen on the whole “birthing” thing, but he’s “down” with adoption, too. I’ve expressed my negative desire for motherhood in a number of subtle ways (hell, I don’t even like the idea of marriage, which is practically step one to “starting a family”) to him, and I think he gets it, but I still worry its going to be a problem way sooner than I think. I love him, I really do, but under no circumstances will I be coerced into bearing children in order to stay with him.

I think I’d almost be relieved to find out I was infertile.

And the beats goes on…

I recently spoke with an old friend of mine over coffee the other day. While we mostly bullshitted about this and that, he mentioned to me that he was thinking about seeing a chiropractor for his back pain…but was hesitant because he didn’t have the best results a number of years ago when he briefly went to a chiropractor for similar problems.

Of course, I needed to divulge to my dear the friend all my newfound insights into the field of chiropracty.

Luckily, he was already skeptical, and acutally found my advice to be REASONABLE and WELL-THOUGHT OUT. I mentioned to him the “issue” I was having with my BF over his insistence on allowing his chiropractor to perform high-velocity cervical manipulations on him and how it carried a risk for stroke.

My friend mentioned that his chiropractor had also done the neck-snappy-thingy to him, and he found my concern about stroke of particular interest because within two days of having his neck manipulated, or sometimes on the same day, he would have starry vision and tingling in his arms. Also, on a number of occassions he recalled becoming numb from the waist down after lower back adjustments.

SEE??? SEE??? WHAT DID I TELL YOU??

He may very well have suffered a small stroke, and the numbness is certainly cause for alarm.

He agreed that it would be better for him NOT to see a chiropractor again.

I feel a bit like a rabid dog over here, but I just keep coming up with more evidence that very clearly says, “SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!!” and more reasons to worry.

…on a more humorous note, please read this post by Zoo: http://knudsensnews.blogspot.com/2007/12/chiropractic-researchers-find.html

And a pretty good site about back pain with an article on How Chiropractic Damages Your Spin: http://www.rebuildyourback.com/chiropractic/damage.php

…not that any of this is news, but…

An open letter to my boyfriend…

Baby,

There are some things I’ve wanted to tell you, but I’m not brave enough to tell you face to face, so I’m going to start by saying it here…

Remember when you said to me, quietly, as we lay together in the darkness, back when we first started dating, “I really care about you”? That was a very long time ago, and I wish you’d say that to me more often.

You caught me off-guard when you asked me, half-asleep with your head in my lap as I ran my fingers through your hair, “Why are you always so nice to me?” and I just told you it was because I liked you, and because I had no reason not to be nice to you. But I wish I’d told you instead that it was because I loved you, and because it made me happy. Or maybe even just asked you if it was really so strange that someone would want to be nice to you…that’s what I really wanted to say.

I feel like the more I realize how much you mean to me, the more shut-down I become, and I think I’m pushing you away. I can’t bring myself to tell you, though, because it’s seems like such a cliché…and I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me.

Do you know that my entire body just hums contentment when you’re near me, when I touch you? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? You have the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, and I could spend hours tracing my fingertips over the lines of your handsome face, running my hands over that exquisite, deliciously swole body of yours. When you’re inside of me I can barely think through the haze of ecstasy that washes over me, and the way you look as you climax - so vulnerable and achingly gorgeous - takes my breath away.  I’ve never been more attracted to anyone in my life.

Nothing makes me happier than just being with you.

You often write me sweet little poems where you tell me how you’re always waiting for me, and that you miss me…you even played your guitar and sang for me. But I wonder if you really mean it…because I can’t remember the last time you actually told me so…

It was like a slap in the face when you said, “I miss you a bit” and mentioned how it’d be good for us to “take a break” from each other, seeing as I’d spent “so much time” with you recently…all of 3 days in the course of 2 weeks before I left for another week on vacation with my family. And two weeks before I leave the country for over a month.

What exactly are you trying to tell me when you say, “I don’t want to build a relationship with you if you’re going to leave next year and go abroad”? Are you saying you don’t want to end up with your heart broken or that you don’t want to waste your time? Do I mean so little to you? Why does it have to be all or nothing? We might break up tomorrow for all you know – why do you insist on establishing conditions? I don’t even know for sure what I’m going to do in a year – why can’t we just enjoy each other for as long as we can? Who knows what will happen between now and this time next year…

Must you always remind me about how “poor” you are? I mean, really – when do I ever ask you to pay for me? When do I ever ask you for anything at all? I usually end up buying everything just so I don’t have to feel like I’m burdening you. I’m always the one who drives down there. I even bring my own towels when I stay the night. And we always take my car when we go out together. I understand that money’s tight, but it’d be nice if you’d acknowledge, with a little gratitude, that I don’t cost you a damn thing except a little time and energy when we fuck.

How do you think it makes me feel when you blow me off because you’re “tired” or “you just don’t feel like it”? Why do you even bother to tell me that you were “thinking of coming down” if you’ve already decided that, well, you have to work the next day and there’s just no way? How dare you ask me if I can give you an hour for something “you just have to do” [translation: play video games] right when I pick you up from work – that’s rude towards even mere acquaintances, least of all your girlfriend. Not many women would forgive such an affront - twice (don’t forget the first time you asked me out, you told me, “I was going to call you last weekend but I was playing video games”). I go out of my way for you at the drop of a hat; I’ve rearranged my entire schedule again and again so I’d have time to see you; I let you drive my parents’ car so you wouldn’t get motion sickness; I went out and bought all of your party supplies while you wene at the gym; I pay for dinner just so we don’t end up at some burger-joint every time we go out; but I do all of these things gladly, and I wouldn’t even hesitate if you would just…every once in a while…refuse, or even just put up a little more of a fight, instead of just saying, “Well, as long as you’re offering…”; or when I ask you to come with me somewhere, you come just to be with me and not on the condition that you give a shit about what we’re seeing or doing…I can’t “cost” you any less than I already do, and I’ll never insist on my own that you to pay for me, because that’s just not who I am, so is it so much to ask that you show a little chivalry and put me first sometimes, without making sure I understand that you “can’t be making a habit of it”?

When I needed to go to the doctor and you mentioned, if it was “okay with me”, that you’d like to take MY CAR, which we drove there in, and go out to the store if the wait was too long, I was silently furious with you, but you didn’t notice. Later on, when I cooled off, I forgave you because you stayed, but someday I’ll tell you that I might never have forgiven you if you had left me alone in the doctor’s office.

I wish you would listen to your doctors – your REAL doctors. You can’t keep putting off changing your diet and overcoming your coffee addiction. You may think that the only thing the doctors tell you is what you already know – that your joints need rest and your acid reflux will never get better unless you quit your bad habits – and that you can keep track of those things yourself, but you’re no more of an MD than me. And what makes it worse is that you know your family has a history of disease like cancer, diabetes, stroke, and heart attack. I just want you to take care of yourself…

I resent that you won’t do the one thing I’ve ever asked you to do: stop letting that fucking chiropractor adjust your neck. If you want to buy into the rest of his bullshit, fine – I don’t care. But is it so much to ask that you stop taking this one stupid risk with your life? That idiot is supposed to be correcting your posture and helping with your back pain – not snapping your neck like some kind of mystical “bonesetter” and calling it medicine.

Don’t you understand that I can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt? It would break my heart if I ever saw you cry, and when you’re in pain it feels like something inside of me is dying.

It makes me angry when people dismiss you and let you down and are just plain careless with your feelings. It happens a lot, and I think its because you don’t protect yourself -you lay yourself on the line, no pretentions and no facades, and sometimes you put too much faith in people to do the right thing. I know you think you can laugh about it and just brush it off because you say “being a victim is a mindset”…and maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t leave a mark. I can see it in your eyes, you know. And small things add up over time.

Don’t tell me its not a big deal when your friends don’t show up for your birthday party. Maybe they were all still hung over from their 4th of July celebrations the night before, or maybe they all just happened to flake out at the same time -just a mistake, just an oversight. I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm. But their thoughtlessness just stuns me. I think they just don’t see what I see – I didn’t either, at first – that you’re a better person than anyone gives you credit for, and you deserve their respect. You’ve already earned mine.

I know I keep a lot of things to myself, and I spend way too much time locked up in my own head. I know my silence leaves you with doubts, and it seems like I’m holding you at arm’s length…but sometimes I need you to hear what I’m not saying, too.

I’m here for you, baby…I love you more than anyone. Just show me that you need me, too.

More Chiro-crap

Yeah, at this point I’d say I’m being a bit obsessive. But that’s not unusual for me.

*ahem*

So, back to my boyfriend and his chiro-quack-tor: apparently, the doctor-wanna-be is also “treating” him for various issues related to his mild-scoliosis…and I will take a moment to mention that 1) my boy is 30 years old (i.e. an adult), and 2) his scoliosis is so mild that it is virtually invisible to the naked eye (which, based on my research, would put the degree of curvature somewhere in the very non-threatening area of 20 degrees or less).

Now, this is not, to my knowledge, the late-onset, degenerative kind of scoliosis. This is something that started when he was much younger, and I don’t believe he’s even had to wear a brace. He does seem to have some back pain from it…or, quite possibly, lifting 200 + lbs on his back on a regular basis @_@ So, from what I’ve read, this kind of scoliosis will likely become a major issue only if it has a curvature of greater than 20 degrees, and probably will not worsen after a person reaches adulthood ( http://www.chirobase.org/07Strategy/scoliosis.html ).

But, what is making me go, “Say what?”, is that his chiropractor is apparently x-raying his back and finding that, over time, his scoliosis fluxtuates in severity, periodically getting “better” and “worse”.

….uh-huh.

So, I sent a question to the National Scoliosis Foundation ( www.scoliosis.org ) and here is their response:

“…a portion of the curve that one sees on an x-ray is a function of gravity. Therefore, the magnitude of the curve may change even if you took an x-ray on the same day in the morning vs late afternoon. However, the true structural (bony) curve does not change, which may be noticed if you took an x-ray morning and late afternoon while the person is lying down without the additional force of gravity.”

Interesting. I think I’m gonna step out on a limb here and say that whole ‘fluxtuating scoliosis’ is thus a bunch o’ grade-A crap.

If by “worse” and “better”, we were talking about pain, then I could see that. Particularly given the weight lifting factor. But to say that the condition itself is worsening and improving is very dubious.

I could be wrong. Maybe there are other factors I didn’t consider when I sent in my question. But I’d be very surprised if the chiropractor is actually doing anything more than the usual bone-cracking.

Thoughts?

 

 

Love and Marriage…

…don’t seem to go together quite like a horse and carriage, if you ask me.

I’ve never had a real positive outlook on marriage. My parents are not very happy – I remember it was back sometime around middle school that Mom began to openly complain to me about the insensitive, asinine things Dad was always doing. As I got older, we’d go out for coffee and our ‘heart-to-heart’ time was mostly Mom expressing her undying irritation with Dad. Its not that she was unvalidated in feeling like he not only wasn’t paying attention to her but was being unforgivably oblivious and irresponsible – he most certainly was – but what eventually bothered me was the fact that embedded in these complaints was a very stern message to me that “you should always assume men are going to be assholes” and “don’t ever get in a relationship with a man who doesn’t treat you ‘right’ “. And yet here she was, coming up on her 15th anniversary of putting up with just such bullshit.

I don’t deny that she has a point – I just wish that she would take her own advice.

I very much believe the most successful relationships are essentially “best friends w/ full benefits”. Two people, on equal terms with each other who prefer each other’s company to the company of others almost unconditionally. That’s not to say they’re ‘attached at the hip’, but the acutal act of being with each other is more important, more worthwhile, than the activity that you might be doing together.

Let me offer an example. My boyfriend is very involved in competitive weightlifting (and yes, off-topic, he is deliciously buff ^ ^) and I’m more of a casual group aerobics/TKB/ type person. I don’t really care a whole lot about weightlifting in and of itself, and would likely have never bothered to look into it in any depth if it wasn’t something he cared about. But nonetheless, its not a forced interest, or something I begrudgingly put up with for his sake. I’m interested in him, and by extention, I take an active interest in weightlifting. Its as simple as that. I want to know him, so I intend to learn as much about what he loves as I can. And even though I’m a twig by comparision and not much of a workout partner in the weight room, I am happy to be there with him, and I am sincere in wanting to workout together.

So really, why so much selfish rigidity, people? Why the insistance on one thing or another? Does it really matter what you’re doing so long as you can do it together? Is it so hard to care about what your partner likes instead of just your own?

Most couples seem to deem their partner as a weight chained to their leg or the steeel cuffs on their hands, holding them back and holding them down. They don’t see eye to eye, they don’t like being together for the simple sake of being together, and if there is any PDA, it always seems routine or forced.

I just hate that.

And I don’t understand it.

Maybe I just haven’t been in a relationship long enough to get bored, or tired, or so comfortable that I stop trying.

By if you don’t enjoy each other, what’s the point?

Pixar’s WALL・E

As my brother put it when we left the theatre for the 12:01 am showing of “WALL・E”:

“Pixar just totally shits all over every other animation studio…nobody else even comes close!”

Shits all over them indeed. The movie kicked serious ass. I am wildly impressed, yet again, at Pixar’s ability to be marvelously creative and still create a top-quality film accessible to all ages…as well as one which is filled with sometimes thinly veiled satire.

The sincere and touchingly humorous romance betwee WALL・E and EVE, the two robots, is perfectly portrayed with no more than three actual words spoken…almost brought tears to my eyes. On the flip side, the movie has a powerful message about our ever-growing dependency on technology, the price we will pay for our wasteful, polluting ways, and the subsequent costs of our insatiable consumerism. Its a bleak future, and a bold statement by Pixar embedded in a beautiful movie about A.I love =)

See the movie. You know you want to.

Penicillin, erradication of Polio, treatment for HIV/AIDS…and your problem with modern medicine is what exactly?

“I really hate doctors”

What the hell is that, really? Okay, okay – maybe you’ve had some “bad” doctors in your lifetime: some asshole who makes you buy this fancy prescription drug which you *know* only costs such an ungodly amount because your doc is in cahoots with BigPharma; or the MD who told you to not to compete in that race because your knee was fucked up and just would not prescribe you extra Vicodin so you could participate…or maybe s/he just had a real shitty bedside manner. Sure, I can understand developing a distaste for that smell of disinfectant and that ice-cold stethescope and the pushy way the doctor insists that you say “ahh”, but to say “I hate doctors”?

What would you prefer instead?

Something au-naturale, I imagine. How about some arsenic diluted in water (a.k.a “homeopathy)? How about getting that kink out of your neck with a side of stroke (a.k.a “chiropractic medicine”)? Maybe we should grind up some Tiger bones and throw it around the room and pray to a heathen god?

You know what? Fuck all that. Lets just smoke some weed and call it good.

No, seriously. I must have grown up living under a rock, because it just blows my mind that there are really people out there who pooh-pooh conventional medicine in favor of so-called “Complimentary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM). Its kind of like atheism and religion: one of them [dares] to say “We don’t have the exact answer to that, but here’s what we do know, and here’s what we think will work based on the evidence…” and the other says (holding out a tattered book written by any number of lunatics sometime around 1000 B.C.), “This. Is. It. BEHOLD! TRUTH!!”

I think you know which is which.

Alright, I admit: I’m on a tirade. I’m being biased and unfair. I’m being sarcastic and I’m using uncouth language.

And I am not an MD.

I’m not even a scientist.

But here’s what I do know: conventional medicine, based in science, has been keeping civilization from collapsing under its own ignorance since Hippocrates. Medicine that does not continue to update itself according to contemporary research and withstand the scrutiny of scientific testing is not medicine: its B.S. Conventional medicine is not perfect, and science is not perfect. But asking for perfection is asking for the impossible, so instead of miracles, what you should be asking for is the best that there is. And nothing in the course of human history has proven to be as consistently and enduringly effective in explaining and pradicting the behavior of the world as the scientific method, and it is upon this which modern medicine is based. It is in a constant state of evolution, changing and improving as more information becomes available and methods of testing and measuring become more sophisticated.
This process if not without failures and mistakes, because error is an inevitable part of the human condition. But the traditions of CAM are archaic and obsolete – they are based in ignorance and misunderstandings that can no longer be tolerated when knowledge and the techniques exist and are readily available which far surpass them.

Chiro-quack-tic

Okay…first rant…aaaaannnnddddd…..GO!

—>I have a low threshold of tolerance for stupid. On a person by person basis, and because I’m fickle about choosing my face-to-face battles, I generally hold my tongue and smile and nod or simply decline to comment, and save my ranting for the few people who know me well enough to endure my long-winded raves. I’m pretty liberal, and while generally open-minded and live-and-let-live about things, I take a very firm stance with regard to a few particular things: religion and non-scientific/illogical B.S.

These encompass a large, potentially hugely inflammatory subject spectrum, particularly being that my own opinion is generally, “You don’t really buy in to that fucking nonsense, DO YOU???”, and so, for the sake of my relationships with people whom I care about but who might not take kindly to having their world-views pissed on, I try to avoid talking about these things, or at least disagreeing as neutrally as possible.

So then, lets get some context for this rant: my boyfriend has posture-issues and some other slowly worsening but non-life-threatening back problems, and his love for powerlifting is not likely doing his poor spine any favors. Soured somewhat by a number of bad experiences with MDs (who invariably reccommend as a first course of action that he stop doing the thing that is making his back worse…which is of course, lifting weights. As you can imagine, that doesn’t go over very well with him), he now sees a chiropractor several times a week. Now, up until just about a month ago, I admittedly knew very little about the actual practice and held a mild distain for chiropractors in general for no other reason than I had, on more than one occasion, heard from reliable sources that the profession was essentially bunk. Eddie Izzard also did a funny stand-up routine which reduced the whole concept of chiropractic therapy to indiscriminate “bone-cracking”…and I really like Eddie. Anyway, my reaction was to be skeptical and mention that, from what I’d heard, it was a waste of money and he’d be better off going to a masseuse. He agreed, sort of, but felt that in spite of all the obviously quack theories about “subluxation” and the like, it had been shown to be effective for many people and he felt he was benefitting from it. I mentally rolled my eyes and just dismissed it as a harmless waste of time. Whatever. Not worth arguing about.

A few weeks ago, he invited me to come and meet his chiropractor and watch him get his back “done”. Cool. I was interested to see just what went on, and eager for what would undoubtedly be a first hand demonstration as to the true crackpot-tery of chiropractic “medicine”. I expected to come away feeling validated in my skepticism.

What I didn’t expect, at least not in the forefront of my mind, was to watch that fucker snap my boyfriend’s neck.

Fucking hell….

That sent chills right down my spine. Of course, he was fine and apparently had it done every time he came in (!?!?!?!), but my decidedly vocal and sometimes over-bearing voice of reason just had an absolute conniption fit in my head: “AHHHH!! NO FUCKING WAY! That is soooo dangerous! You so DO NOT snap a person’s head like that, NO NO NO and NO! TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!! You could have broken his neck you damn retard!!! Every heard of fucking WHIPLASH!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING, YOU RAVING LUNATIC—–”

….and so on and so forth. My brain has a dirty mouth, too. And an explosively low tolerance for stupid.

So I clenched my teeth and just kind of watched, silently horrified as he repeated it on each side, recalling the numerous assassin/kung-fu movies where I’d seen the very same maneuver deftly applied to stealthily drop an opponent in one swift jerk. *shudder*

“Did you see what I just did there?” The asshat has the nerve to ask me, eager for me to parrot-back some bull’ from his previous schpeal and see how many pearls of wisdom I had gleamed.

“…..it looks like you just tried to break his neck….” I respond with a set jaw.

*chuckles* “Looks like you’ve been watching too many kung-fu movies!”

Hardy-fucking-har.

Maybe I’m overreacting here, but as far as I’m concerned, there is no conceivable benefit that would justify snapping someone’s neck like that (watch this video
at about 1:20. That’s what my boyfriend’s chiropractor did, but with even more of a rotation. Now, tell me, people: DOES THAT LOOK SAFE TO YOU???). Unlike your lower back/spine, which is quite snugly embedded and supported within your torso, your neck is just hanging out there, like a fucking twig, with your gargantuan head balanced on top. Being that it connects your brain to your body, I’d say that, since it is indeed a necessity to your continuing to live, but is nonetheless sadly lacking in protection from injury and incredibly fragile, under no circumstances should you do things like JERK and SNAP it around. I think that’s just fucking common sense.

If it made me feel ill to see it knowing only what I did then, it made me even more horrified to research the subject and find that, while “rare”, there is an INHERENT risk for stroke by means of tearing either or both of the two large arteries woven into the cervical vertebrae. The danger of stroke could also be increased by an individual’s pre-existing risk factors…like a long history of smoking (He only quit a few years ago after having smoked very heavily for two years straight in Japan, where he was also constantly bombarded with second-hand smoke, no doubt, and stressed out all-to-shit by the culture). The stroke may not happen at once, but tears in the arteries which do not in themselves cause a stroke would certainly precipitate one…in other words, set-off by neck manipulation, or created/exacerbated by neck manipulation over time.

And I was just worried about dislocated vertebrae and possible paralysis.

*grinds teeth*

His response, however, when I, as patiently and calmly as possible, asked him if he was aware of this risk:

I may stop having it done if I can establish with him that there is

some inherent risk. If I had to choose between a stiff neck and being

dead, I’d take the stiff neck, of course. So far, most of what I’ve

read about it is the usual back and forth you get with anything.

*grips monitor and thrashes about incredulously*

IF he can establish WITH HIM that there is SOME INHERENT RISK???????????? USUAL BACK AND FORTH??????

Oh, baby, you are sooooo much smarter than that! Where has your common sense gone? Your sense of self-preservation?? WHERE IS YOUR HEAD??

I can’t believe, frankly, that he doesn’t take the problem seriously on the basis of his own every-day sensibilities. NECK + SNAPPING = BAD…Period. Any reasonable person should know this.

It’s like wearing a seatbelt: sure, in all likely-hood, you could go the rest of your life without wearing one and never have a problem. BUT – and the “but” is really the key, here – at any given time, unpredictably and without warning, you could just as easily be in an accident that propels your hapless body through the windshield, or simply lets you get throttled and contorted because you’re floating about freely in the vehicle, and if you’re very, very lucky, you’ll make it out alive without permanent injury. If you’re not so lucky, you’ll live, but odds are you’ll never be the same again physically. Or, you could be dead. But the odds that you survive, uninjured, increase by huge orders of magnitude if you just do one, simple thing: WEAR YOUR FUCKING SEAT BELT!!!!!!

…or, in this case, DO NOT HAVE YOUR NECK SNAPPED. Pure and simple. The risk-to-benefit ratio is non-existent: all risk, no benefit.

GAH!!!

More to the point, though, watching him have his neck “manipulated” like that just plain scared the shit out of me. It deeply frightens me in ways I can’t even begin to describe to think of anything happening to him, and the sensation of fear I felt for his life in that instant was so sharp I’m sure I couldn’t even have drawn breath for a few seconds after…

I remember the one time he was joking around and pretending his ‘pacemaker’ was going out because I was talking on my cellphone. It did not even register with me that we’d just been talking about cellphones and pacemakers when we left the clinic – rather, the first thing I thought of was that he often has difficulty swallowing because of his acid reflux, and that jumped immediately to the panic button which went “Oh my god, is he choking???” I didn’t freak out, per se, but he told me later (after I’d made it clear I failed to get the joke) that he’d never seen me look at him like that before and apologized for scaring me. Apparently I blanched pretty good and looked as horrified as I felt – which was pretty damned horrified. That was also the first time I realized even the thought of him getting hurt was not something I was going to be able to deal with very well….let alone the thought of him dying.

…and what my reaction to him “tells me” about my feelings for him, well….that’s for another entry.

*sigh* Admittedly, when I do get my hackles up about something, I know I tend to take it too far. Which is why I’m still mostly keeping my mouth shut. We haven’t yet had a real fight, and I don’t want to go overboard abou this, but I have a feeling this is going to be an issue. I will also admit that my own experience with medical doctors has been nothing but confidence-inspiring and almost always “good”, and so I have no personal negativity towards conventional medicine. On the other hand, I have never heard anything but negative views on CAM, and the few positive views always sound like a reverent glossing over of reality with superstitious nonesense. Not to mention the oodles of research which all point to the utter lack of viability and startling potential for serious harm. We’ve already kind of mutually decided that it would be best if I just don’t come with him to his appointments…and that we try not to talk about it. But it still bothers me. It bothers me because of the senselessness of the risk he’s taking. It bothers me because he already does a number of other things that are not condusive to his living a long and healthy life. And his not having a long and healthy life bothers me most of all. My boyfriend is no idiot – in fact, he’s easily one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met – but I just find the evidence, coupled with my own intuition, to be so overwhelmingly in opposition of these practices that I cannot help but feel a little dumbfounded as to how he can continue to tolerate them, no matter what his dislike for conventional medicine. But I do loathe being a nag, so now that I’ve said my piece, I’m going to wait it out and hope he realizes on his own that he’s putting his very life at risk for a stiff neck on the basis of pseudo-scientific quack-medicine. I really, really do…

Information about Stroke and Neck Manipulation:

Science-Based Medicine: Chiropractic & Stroke

Confessions of a Quakbuster:Links to blog articles, research papers, and news stories