Category Archives: Health

Making Sense of it All

I stumbled across this article today, and it’s a reminder of how little any of us really understand about depression and mental illness. The way this guy speaks of his wife who committed suicide 8 months ago… even in a relationship as old as theirs where there are also kids involved, the confusion and grief and surprise is heartbreaking.

Stan Van Gundy reveals wife died by suicide in August: ‘I just don’t think I’ll ever get over it’ (msn.com)

As Van Gundy explained it:

“She took her own life, Dan. I’ll never — I don’t care how long it goes, I can’t imagine that I’ll ever get over that… It was devastating. We’d been married for 35 years and had been together for close to 40 years, since I was 24 years old … my entire adult life, I trace everything, job changes, kids, everything, I was with her and she was by my side.

“I never, ever, envisioned that I was gonna live another day in my life without Kim. Never envisioned that. I knew she was going through a tough time, but I still never envisioned that happening. Even now, it’s been eight months and I struggle to come to grips with the fact that I’m never gonna see her again and I’m trying hard, you can relate to this I’m sure, to stay connected. I don’t want to — my house is full of pictures of Kim. There’s a montage of pictures above my bed that my kids did for me of Kim. I’m trying hard to remember her voice, to remember her smile, all of those things, but more than anything, to live her values, because her values were better than mine. 

“She taught me a lot and I want to live her values and a life that she would be proud of. And my kids at times over the last eight months, at times, not often, but I think genuinely from their point I’ll do something and they’ll say, ‘Mom would have really been proud of you for that one.’ That above anything else really makes me feel good, because my wife was an incredible person and the loss is huge.”

Van Gundy said he has been “doing as much therapy as I possibly can” and that he knows he will get better, but when it came to regret, he said “I just don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”

A larger topic was how death has become an unavoidable part of Van Gundy’s life, revealing that his brother Jeff’s best friend had died a week ago due to cancer. He said one thing he’s working on in therapy is how to process what clearly comes across as depression:

“I’ve had very little tragedy in my life until my wife died. Very little, I’ve just been blessed. But as you get older, man, it’s just all around you and it becomes part of you life. It’s one of the things I’m trying to deal with in therapy, besides the loss of my wife, how do I deal with this? Where’s the joy in life? How do you go on day to day? How do you find stuff to do. I can function. I don’t know about you but I can get up and function every day. I do what needs to be done. But I don’t have much that I want to do right now and how do you have that when you’re just seeing tragedy and death and sickness all around you? I know that’s going to be a huge part of my life now.”

Tane Rage

At the end of last year, my cystic acne– for which I have dealt since my late teens– was resurging. It was no where near the severity of my younger years (full face of hard boils and nodes) but in many ways, it had the same damn resistance. I was back to getting facials and taking strong antibiotics on top of already being on BCP and spironolactone… In mid-December, my primary care physician (whom I love) was out of ideas, so she suggested we connect with a dermatologist. After I rattled off my list of past treatments, the derm immediately said that I was a case for Accutane. There is nothing else for this degree of stubborn-ass cystic, hormonal acne.

First question: why are my hormones so fucked up? I mean, does this explain my overall unruliness and “aggressive” attitude/behavior? My mother always claimed that I wasn’t a “natural” woman… maybe we can blame my issues on my hormones? Hmm, why haven’t I been measuring my hormone levels my whole life?

Just some wandering thoughts. Regardless, I’ve been on BCPs my whole life, so shouldn’t my hormones actually be controlled and stable? I dunno. If you’re curious, here’s my list of my past meds and treatments: clindamycin, minocin, tetracycline, erythromycin, augmentin, doxycyline, Retin-A, sprionolactone, benzoyl peroxide, IPL, dermarolling, light masks, chemical peels…

So I jumped through a gabillion hoops to join the mandatory Accutane iPledge program and get on the damn med. After my initial discussion in December, I finally started my course in February. Now, two months later, I’m having a helluva time with symptoms. Granted, I had taken the Tane in my 20s while we were overseas in China. There, this shit is OTC. I don’t recall any side effects other than dry skin and chapped lips. Then again, I could not contain my absolute elation about having clear skin.

This time though, I’m experiencing all kinds of issues: dry skin, cracked lips, skin rashes/hives, dry eyes, twitching eye, undereye circles, headaches, joint pain, jaw pain, muscle aches, and now with my bloodwork, I apparently have increased triglycerides, cholesterol, and A1C. Plus John insists that I have “Tane rage.” So yeah. Meanwhile, I had already cut down on carbs/rice/breads (lost 6 lbs) for my pre-diabetes and eliminated alcohol completely. And I just am not feeling comfortable in my body.

I explained this to the dermatology nurse who sent the message up the chain. Basically, the response was: if I am still functioning for work, NBD. Continue on the path. Not even a discussion on whether we can decrease the dose or shorten the treatment course. I am def vain enough to admit: I will endure pain for clear skin. Dry skin, crapped lips, even some occasional joint/muscle pain. But add now daily headaches, daily joint/muscle pain, fucking undereye bags??? Now I’m re-evaluating. Especially bc it was just the cystic acne on my chin. I can’t help but think about all the famous people (e.g. Kanye West’s mom, Linda Evangelista) who underwent some seemingly simple procedure for a “glow up,” and all of the sudden, they’re dead or something goes irreversibly wrong. Will I be one of those people? Did I conduct enough due diligence to understand the risks?

My childhood friend Nathalie died earlier this month– on the day of the eclipse, actually. She died from uterine cancer. Before the cancer, she struggled her entire damn life fighting obesity and mental health challenges. It was decades of a roller-coaster ride. She tried to lose weight all this time, and now she’s dead. Just as Ozempic has gone mainstream. It really could have changed her life. Who knows, maybe like Accutane there are a shit ton of side effects. I dunno, maybe that’s just me viewing everything through a black and white lens.

Hunger Games

A few months ago, J and I got into a popcorn habit. It became this sort of evening snack ritual that we would share while watching something on tv. Most of you know I don’t watch a lot of tv— I’m very picky about committing to content: it can’t be too violent, it can’t be a series (too much emotional investment), and it can’t be slapstick. I told you already, I’m picky. Needless to say, the genre that came up the latter half of last year was dinosaur and monster verse type of movies. They seemed to provide the right level of action, some mild relationship plot, and then enough films to give us some continuity and theme without the emotional attachment. I mean all of this boils down to my problem of overthinking. If I start to consider the characters in a film to be too human, I will take on their problems and try to fix them. Seriously. I will lie awake in bed trying to figure things out for them. I’m telling you, my brain works in strange ways.

After I got COVID around Thanksgiving, somehow a fire got lit under my ass. My sleep has been shit my whole life, my skin was breaking out crazy again (despite being on very strong antibiotics and Retin-A), and I was just feeling very run down and tired. In December, I asked my doctor for a full blood work up. The results showed that I was pre diabetic. At first, I was just going to ignore it: after all, I wasn’t diabetic, just PRE. But then several of my friends were also found to be prediabetic recently, and they apparently freaked out and started taking drastic action. Figuring that they had actually spent some time studying the numbers and understanding the real implications, I decided now was as good a time as any to re-examine my health.

So since late December, I’ve cut back on carbs (mostly rice and breads) and on portions. Plus I’ve started focusing on improving my sleep and increasing my activity. It’s been almost a month now, and I am pleased to report progress!!

I’m not gonna lie: I was definitely feeling VERY hungry the first several weeks. Like a new baseline of chronic hunger. Distracting hunger. I realized I used to eat a shit ton of rice and breads to quickly get my meals over with. Like that was the bulk of my consumption. After reducing those foods, I found myself grasping for other things to eat: tomatoes here and there, cauliflower, avocados, kefir… Desperate to dull the hunger pangs, I even started taking Metamucil before meals. But the gelatinous texture started to get gross after a few days so I discontinued that. Eventually, after maybe two weeks, my body adjusted to the new normal of NOT feeling full. And my clothes actually started to fit better, so the results were encouraging!

Meanwhile, for my sleep, my friend recommended an OTC supplement (NatureMade Back to Sleep), so I started up with that and tacked on three other routines before bed:

1. Roll out knots in my back using an acupressure wheel,
2. Lower my mattress heater temp,
3. Lock away my phone,
4. White noise machine.

And whaddya know? I have been sleeping soundly for the first time in my life… The weird thing is, I had previously tried all of these tactics independently but never all together. Who knew? So now I am catching up on my sleep deficit and damn, it feels good.

J has also shed some pounds going on the prediabetic diet/lifestyle change, and his snoring has diminished significantly. So we are excited for more good things in 2024. This year is our zodiac year, and we’re both dragons. We’re using that as motivation to make some changes for the better.

As for the popcorn ritual, we are taking a bit of a break. But it might come back occasionally, once we find some new content to watch. I’m thinking we’re going to get back into Chinese films featuring actors from our China days (2003-2006).

Unrecognizable

Omg the Taiwanese are so obsessed with weight. Every time I go back, everyone’s all up in each other’s bidness about who got fat and who got skinny. And no, they don’t use any euphemisms. Everything is straight up radical honesty.

In recent zooms before the trip, my dad keep asking me if I had put on some pounds. I said I didn’t think so, and he was like are you sure?? Fucking Chinese. So uncouth about their topics of conversation.

Yeah, so during this trip, my family asked me how much I weigh. It was so foreign to them that I don’t weigh myself and do not know my number. As soon as I said that, my aunt busted out the scale. Yes, like they have a scale in every room of the house. I’m telling you. East meets west and then things crash and burn. I’ve gained maybe five pounds. To me, that is nbd.

Last year when my grandma died, my cousin AH went to stay overnight at another cousin’s (WQ) house. He and his parents told me later: OMG she got so fat. Her butt and legs… they exclaimed: she used to be one of our skinniest cousins!!! I’m thinking, yeah, of course she was, like when we were in our fucking 20s. The standards for women here are so ridiculous.

AH proceeds to say WQ’s face got so pudgy that it completely altered her face shape. She was practically unrecognizable. Yup, those were the exact words. In Chinese of course. Still. So damn dramatic.

I see her year after year. And she looked the damn same. John agreed. I called them out on it, and then they doubled down, saying she even admitted her clothes stopped fitting her!! As if that immediately meant she gained so much weight so as to become unrecognizable. Ridic.

I mean, depending on how tight a person wears her clothes, you can literally gain a measly 3-5 pounds and your clothes won’t fit. Calm the hell down people. Seriously.

Longevity Trumps All

When I went back to Taiwan this year, my father demonstrated a renewed sense of interest in self care. After his two bouts of sickness/sepsis last year, he now has kidney disease and is obsessed with doing what he can to avoid dialysis.

It’s nice to see a focus now on diet and exercise also with the intention of keeping his diabetes in check, but I realized that this bizarre obsession is more about on longevity than anything even remotely related to enjoyment or quality of life. My paternal grandfather was rather similar in his sort of militaristic routine regarding his diet and exercise: he did his calisthenics, it was more about the number of reps than about being outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. Maybe it’s all moot anyway… so long as the activities are done, there will be benefits one way or the other.

My father insists that due to his kidney disease, he can no longer get vaccines and boosters, so he feels especially vulnerable. For most people, I find they take precautions to minimize risk but the intention isn’t to live in a damn bubble so you never catch anything at all… Apparently, my father is in the latter category now, paranoid to the point of not really even leaving the house. Even for his exercises, he does them inside or upstairs on the rooftop terrace where he just walks in small 40ft loops. So unnecessarily cloistered, considering one of the city’s largest parks is just a stone’s throw away.

Whatever. From last year, dad has also made many dietary changes to combat the diabetes and high blood pressure. My brother of course considers himself a health expert/savant, so he is always emailing and feeding dad his unsolicited advice and propaganda. The household no longer cooks with olive oil, and my parents don’t consume flour either. I was turned off my the extremity of these changes… but my dad says his diabetes is better. He doesn’t notice any difference from cutting out flour, but he will continue with the regimen, bc he’s is ascetic that way. Needless to say, everyone in the household is now on this special diet targeting diabetes and kidney disease. I guess it was not a bad thing to change up my diet for a few days and consume more veggies, fish, soup, and lighter fare.

Overall, I will say the trip was a success. I got annoyed a few times with my dad bc he’s a control freak but other than that, there was a decent balance of forced rest aka covid quarantine, tech support, time with mom, self exploration, and visits with my cousins.

I was really proud of myself too for finding massage spots and spas and doing a lot of waking. My face was a total inflamed mess, but I did find a nice acne facialist and I am going to give her products a try.

There’s a lot about my family that feels too traditional and outdated. My aunt is still obsessing about the cousins who are unmarried. Remnant dreams of my grandfather kept being brought up even though he passed away years ago. I often wish my family would just get with the times and be more modern in their attitude and approach, but goddamn, they really are traditional and stubborn as hell. I mean, wasn’t there some recent census/stat saying half of all couples don’t have kids. It’s not like that’s a new concept. Get the fuck over it already.

This is partly why I won’t ever live in Taiwan. I can’t deal with all the conservative attitudes in my family plus the collective mentality. Oh hell no, folks. Stay in your frickin lane.

Do Better

I started therapy again at the start of the year. I was feeling the re-emergence of old thoughts and inadequacies and figured therapy would be the proactive way to nip that shit in the bud. On the suggestion of a few friends, I turned to a local counseling center and did some initial research to find someone with DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) experience. The good news is that our culture is starting to take mental health more seriously. As such, it seems to be an arena where there’s been a lot of progress and advancement.

I quickly read a few profiles and settled on a therapist. I mean, with therapy, you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes, it takes a few tries to find the right match. I was lucky. My therapist has been wonderful.

The sessions have been enlightening. And I definitely see value in carving out time on a regular schedule. Not surprisingly, much of our time centers around my parents and their style of parenting. Next most discussed is my work (and clients), and lastly, friendships.

I’ve realized that my perfectionism and ideas around achievement may just be a struggle that carries with me my entire life. As I’ve recounted past memories and experiences, themes emerge over and over again. And I’ve also started to see some of the ironies. If you’ve followed along with my blogs, you know my relationship with my family is complicated, coming with all the baggage frequently associated with immigrant parents– responsibility, expectations, demands, comparisons, sacrifice…

In many of the tearful sessions, my therapist tries to convince me that I’m valued and worthy of love, even if I feel I haven’t achieved what I should have. Even if I feel behind and ranked below others who might not have even had the privileges that I had growing up. She tells me the numbers/stats surrounding my career are irrelevant to who I am and whether I deserve to be loved. But damn, the psyche is a complicated thing. In moments, I have full confidence in myself. I know I work hard, and I advocate for my clients. I know I do everything I can to protect them and help them through a complicated process. But at the end of the year, I just have my stats. And even though last year was a record year for me, it still didn’t feel good enough. Bc other people did better. Their achievements showed what is possible. And I didn’t achieve that.

And so the pursuit continues. My therapist says she finds my relentless drive to be exhausting. Somehow in my head, I feel compelled to do more and to be better. I know life is not fair. The outcome is not always commensurate with your effort and your will. And yet, at times, I will drive myself to oblivion trying to force improvement/acceleration from where I am.

Last week, I was in the middle of a challenging transaction with stubborn clients who just would NOT stop bitching and complaining about the appraisal that came in low. Nevermind that I got them into contract on a house for $50k less than the competing offer. They couldn’t get over having to pay $6k to reconfigure the financing to get the house. Meanwhile, my father was calling multiple times about his tax papers and mail and computer problems. I told my father to just FedEx me his stack of papers for the CPA. Back and forth… he didn’t want to mail it bc it was sensitive info. He didn’t want to use FedEx bc it costs more than the regular post. He didn’t want my cousin to scan it bc privacy. Finally, I lost my shit. This is the real world. People scan and mail sensitive documents all the fucking time. Get over it and figure this shit out. Jesus fucking Christ. Do better, bc your best is not good enough. Joe Biden is older than you, and he’s running the goddamn country!!

And there it was. The bullied had become the bully. I realized that the doctrine to which I had been subjected my entire life– the doctrine which has been the source of so much disappointment and pain– was so undeniably ingrained. This is my value system. This is what I believe of myself and now of my parents. I don’t care how much you tried. I don’t care about what else is happening in the background (my mother will be going to a care facility in a few months). Do better bc your best is not good enough.

And as I write those words, I am fighting back tears. I believe those thoughts. I’m good, but I should be better. I should be more. This can’t be all that I am.

So I go back to grinding, striving to hit some higher level I have in my mind, thinking maybe I can attain it through brute force. Here I am: fatigued, frustrated, and damn tired. How do I free myself from this? It seems the answer lies somewhere with acceptance. But to me, acceptance means giving up. It’s a vicious cycle, you see? When I take a day off, I chide myself: that’s why you don’t have more leads in your pipeline. I know, it’s an intense and bizarre form of self-torture and abuse. At least that’s how the therapist describes it.

Granted, some days the thoughts are lighter than others. Still. I know my sweet therapist has her work cut out for her. The damage is real.

The COVID Effect

I’ve been thinking lately about how much COVID has changed things. On one hand, I really appreciated the shift to more efficient meetings. The elimination of travel time and commute allowed me to participate in so many more events, esp Realtor weekly updates. I really felt like I was taking advantage of so many more knowledge bases and resources.

Even when I have client zooms, it’s so helpful to be able to view the same properties together online and for me to share data and stats and graphs. Of course, when I used to have in-person meetings, I would book an office space and project that info on the screen but so many times, people would flake last minute and I’d be there all dressed up and set up twiddling my thumbs. Now if people flake (They still do, welcome to the modern era!) at least I can easily pivot back to what I was working on. I also like that I’m able to see people’s faces online. Sure, there are a bunch of studies about zoom fatigue and the detrimental effects of close up focus but eh. Ultimately, I embrace this technology and this form of communication.

John has commented a few times though that COVID has made me less social for my friendships. Maybe that’s true. I find that work has really picked up, so I’m easily having calls/zooms with several people per day and that eats into my overall battery for social interactions.

Which kinda brings me to a realization. All my past personality tests revealed me to be an extrovert by nature (although I’m borderline). But now I find I need my down time. It’s no longer energizing for me to connect with so many people. I like having my decompression time.

I think I’ve been lucky though: I’m in the business of still having to talk to and see people. So even in the most isolating of pandemic times, I’ve still been forced to get out and interact. There are certainly challenges with the face masks and limited body cues, but I’m continuing to learn. I think one important skill I still really need to hone is evaluating people. Seriously. Who’s’ ready, serious, decisive, smart, AND coachable. Too many times I’ve been burned trying to take on a challenge. Trying to identify my learning moment. Fucking showing 4-5 dozen homes only to realize in the end that the buyers STILL won’t adjust their budget/criteria to the current market. That’s my mistake.

In those times, I was a stupid, overly optimistic person. I wanted to believe that the default was: people will see the data and learn. Nope. This damn valley is full of self-confident, know-it-alls. If there’s a deal (a needle in the haystack) to be found, they are CONVINCED they are the ones to find it and win it. And so what you actually end up with is people who gather data ad nauseam and don’t know what the hell to do with it. A year later, prices are up 30% and they still haven’t won a house. Seriously. It’s time to shit or get off the pot, people.

The other day, I was explaining to a couple how competitive this market is. 10-20 offers and on AVERAGE 10% above list price. I advise that they get their loan docs fully underwritten to improve their positioning. What’s the response? A full run down about how they are dual income techies with solid salaries and no debt. Yeah, I know. AND join the club. You’re wanting a $1.6m home for a $1.2m price point. You are steadily employed with perfect credit, yada, yada. At the end of the day though, you want a home at a price point that doesn’t exist. And truthfully, the valley is chock full of people with loads of dough. I’m telling you. I had someone provide their bank statement with $21m in it. Those people are competing with you on that home that’ll go for $1.6m. And you’re telling me you will only pay $1.25m BUT you’ll remove contingencies. SMH. That’s what I’m saying. Are you coachable???

Here’s the thing: I know this market is cray. I know these figures are insane. I know! But my job is to get you ramped up to win. I ain’t about writing a gabillion LOSING offers. That’s a waste of your time and my time. Again, this market isn’t for everyone. Please have a better understanding of yourself (perhaps COVID has warped some brains), and let’s work on getting this shit done.

But I digress. The nature of my job can be pretty fucking exhausting. No doubt our population is highly educated and strongly skewed towards data heads. The irony is that that kind of profile doesn’t necessarily make my job easier. But like I said, I can be an optimistic and sometimes gullible/naive person. I’ll still plug away longer than a regular agent to try and make magic happen with you. Shrug. I can be masochistic that way.

Taking Action

Lately, I’ve found myself getting pretty. damn. ticked off. by people. Like, a lot. Granted, my biz throws me in front of more strangers/interactions than the average person, so maybe that’s worn down my usually high tolerance (yeah right) for bullshit. I dunno: maybe it’s also just that phase of life, you know having to deal with responsibilities for the parents and things. Altogether, it can be a grind.

The good news is that the Maryland house closed a week ago. That’s officially done. My father got his two vax shots while he was here thru summer, and then he endured another 2 weeks of hotel quarantine after returning back to Taiwan. The island is STILL being super strict with their policies. Thankfully, vaccines are becoming more available there, but I’m waiting to see when they remove the quarantine restriction. Until then, I’m not planning to fly out there for a visit. As it is, I can only handle 5 days max with the parentals, and to tack on 2 weeks confined in a room on top of that is a definite deal breaker.

In other news, we’re into the final weeks of the year, and I am picking up the pace working with numerous buyers. I hosted several open houses that thankfully received a ton of traffic, and I actually scored several new clients from those. At the moment, I’m covering a pretty broad geography from Contra Costa County thru Alameda, San Mateo, and down to Santa Clara Counties, but dayum, it feels good to be very busy.

I’ve been working more too with first-time buyers, and that’s especially rewarding. It’s kind of interesting bc one common theme we often encounter in real estate masterminds/trainings is this notion of “how coachable are you?” And I find that that concept totally applies with buyers. With the demographics of our area, we certainly have a ton of dataheads and personalities that can be rather opinionated and decisive. I definitely appreciate working with people who are educated and smart; that said, sometimes there’s a lot of attitude where people do a lot of puffing. I’ve had a few buyers try to “school” me on the process and/or the market, and then once things got down to business with the details, I realized very quickly they were completely clueless.

I recently met a lady at an open house who just kept being very dismissive, treating me like someone below her. Sometimes I get some weird masochistic bug in my head though, where I convert my annoyance into a game, like… hmm, if I WERE to convert someone like this, how would that be done? So I gathered some advice from my team, and she actually responded. Granted the next several weeks, there was still that underlying disrespect, acting like she knew the market better than I did (she was REALLY starting to irk me), but as I asked more questions, perhaps I suggested to her that she didn’t really understand these terms, like “noncontingent” that she was just throwing out. Two days ago, I got wind of an off-market deal and now we are in contract. Not even a fucking “thank you” for preparing the package in a flash and beating out other buyers who had also seen the home.

I won’t go into the details now, but it’s frustrating dealing with attitude from clients. And thankfully, I have had experiences where I know it doesn’t even have to be that way. So note to self: I must do a better job of being selective. I don’t have to work with everyone and honestly, not everyone deserves the level of service and attention that I give.

So of course while all this work bullshit has been happening, I got a call from my friend’s mom. Super urgent. My friend N has been in the dumps (again) and somehow I’m the only one who can get to her. Can I fly out to NC to talk to N? Um, I have been leaving messages, polos, sending cards. No reply. I’m done. And no, I’m not fucking flying out to North Carolina just to have a goddamn conversation. I cannot help people who are unwilling to help themselves. I’m not some godsend miracle worker here to save people. I am at the end of my string. Friendship is a two-way street. I try my best to give some buffer for mental health and how debilitating it is, but at end of the day, if you aren’t responding and you don’t even open mail from your concerned friends, sorry, that’s where I draw the line.

And just like that, I am back in therapy. I know society still has a stigma with mental health and therapy, but I don’t have any shame for therapy. The world’s a fucked up place, and kudos for people who have the cognizance to ask for some fucking help to get better. Anyway, I found a lady who’s pretty good. We’re doing the weekly thing, and she actually seems quite cutting edge. Already, she has suggested some newer coping techniques and methods. I started seeing her bc I was feeling a lot of anger and frustration being surrounded by people of inaction. That’s what I’ll call them. People who are miserable and unhappy and yet don’t take any action to change things or try to make things better. Look, everyone is struggling. You’re not the only one with problems. Fucking do something to figure it out.

The initial impetus for all this was, surprise, surprise, my parents. I had had just one too many calls where mom was a practical vegetable, unable to even get up out of her chair, her muscles have atrophied so much, and dad never leaves the house and just sighs every which way. What are you up too? Is anything new? NOTHING.

Jesus Christ, are you being held captive? Yes, I know it’s covid times but in Taiwan, that shit is under control. You live across one of the largest urban parks on the goddamn island. Go across the street and take a fucking walk! Jesus Christ. As you can see, I was up to my ears listening to this self-imposed paralysis.

The thing is, on one hand, my brain tells me I need to have more compassion. That people aren’t necessarily built like I am (whatever that means) with motivation and self-control. Yada yada. Fine, feel some compassion for them being paralyzed by pain. Now what. What the fuck are you gonna do about it?

So that’s topic #1 with the therapist. Topic #2 is bullshit I have related to work and self-worth and my definitions of success. I have discussed my mental struggles with work/career ad nauseum on this blog. It goes away every few years and then comes back with a fucking vengeance. No one really gets it. What started off as parental pressures used to “motivate” me to be better turned into a lifelong, insatiable, relentless push where at times, I will push myself to sheer exhaustion chasing this nebulous, constantly morphing ideal of success. The therapist admits there are memories and incidents where the things my parents said were “messed up.” Her proposal is to try EMDR (Eye movement desensitization reprocessing) to help move me to a place where I can recall memories without feeling the pain and trauma (her word choice) surrounding them.

So I’m on a once a week and of course, as soon as I started, I began compiling my thoughts about what I thought my issues were and why I was seeking help. Yes, in true control-freak fashion. Unlike what I did with a past therapist though, I refrained from providing her with a written synopsis. Haha, yes I did that in the past! Anyway, as you can see the projects never really end. There’s always something.

Wipe Your Ass

My family is such a fucking hassle. Yesterday, after a three-week hiatus (due to my Rolling Stone and all), I call my mother. She’s shuttling around in Taiwan again, and this time I find her at my aunt’s house in Tainan. My aunt and dad do this annoying thing where they talk about my mom like she’s not even in the room. So my aunt hogs the phone and tells me that my mother isn’t doing so great. In fact, in the last couple of weeks, my mother has come to believe that my father impregnated her caretaker. Yes, the caretaker who busts her ass every damn day, cooking, cleaning, bathing, doing EVERYthing for my mom and grandmother.

I’m immediately pissed off by yet another outrageous accusation. I then talk to my mother. She tells me that one night many months ago, before my dad came back Stateside to do his taxes, my dad went with the caretaker to Costco to buy a shit ton of bottled water. That is another story onto itself… bc why would they need a fucking pallet-full of bottled water? Bc my parents bought the condo several years ago, and it sat vacant for months at a time. The built-in water filtration system died, and it was “too costly” to repair. So instead of getting that shit fixed, my father decided to use bottled water— for cooking and drinking. Never mind that he has the money to get the filtration system fixed. Never mind that maybe he can order a water delivery service where they bring the tanks to your door? I mean, we’ve seen this bullshit behavior before with the goddamn garage doors, right?

Needless to say, my mother insists that the bottled water outing was the time when my dad knocked up the caretaker. And now she’s convinced the woman is preggers. Mind you, the woman is like 55 y/o and has two grown kids plus a family in Indonesia whom she can only visit once every 3-6 years (welcome to migrant labor in Taiwan). So last night, my mother tells me the whole story, and given that my dad gave me zero context or warning about any of this (typical), I fucking went ballistic. Like full on Shock and Awe, Operation Desert Storm.

Yes, I know she has Alzheimer’s, and my aunt explained that delusions like this are part of the disease. The thing is, this kind of bullshit is not entirely from left field. All while I was growing up, my mother had fears like this— that my American grandmother was in love with my dad, that dad’s registered nurse at his private practice was in love with him… you fucking name it. And let’s not forget the time she accused me of having a freakin’ affair with my own cousin!?!?! The lady has a history of cray. So back to the present. Yeah, I basically went around in circles with her. First off, no one wants to bang my father. I mean, please. Second, the caretaker is well beyond child-bearing years. Third, the caretaker has been so good and hardworking for my family— she’s not trying to entrap us. Utterly exasperated, I finally told mom that if she’s going to make up whatever story, let’s then wait to see in the coming months if the caretaker is in fact preggers, and heck, maybe I will end up welcoming a new baby brother/sister.

As you can imagine, the call did not go well. And every time there is drama with my family, I wish and pine to ditch them and get an entirely different family. Seriously, I am not a dramatic person— sure, I am opinionated and fervent and judgey, but I ain’t about creating drama out of thin air!! When this bullshit happens, I just think back to all the arguments and fights and crap I had to deal with since forever. Between the conditional love parenting and the constant comparisons with their friends’ kids and the crap with my brother, I’m just done! Enough is enough.

Speaking of the little emperor, now that dad is Stateside, my brother has started coming around visiting my mom every weekend. I’m telling you: what the heck happened to her from one month ago when I had a great lucid call with her to now where she’s batshit crazy again? I’ll tell you what happened. My brother is back touting his Apricot Seeds of God poison, colonics, anti-microwaving-lifestyle onto my 72 y/o mother. In addition, he’s forcing her to not sleep during the day and to walk miles and miles to the goddamn Costco in the Taiwan heat and humidity. My mother has no history of exercise. She’s a sedentary person, and now you have psycho drill sergeant bossing her around. WTF. This is where I’m like: WTF is wrong with my family?

So the call didn’t end well. The next day, I called my dad, and he just explained it’s part of her disease. Just tell her it didn’t happen and move on. Um, move on to what? Meanwhile, my dad starts asking me about the Doordash order I placed for him. $50? So expensive! Then, I lost it again. Stop asking about the cost. It doesn’t fucking matter.

Oh, it’s so much trouble, he says. ARGH!!! I mean, look. Life is full of tedious tasks. You take a dump, and you have to actually wipe your asshole. Sorry, life takes effort. You just take the few seconds, and get that shit done. With DoorDash, it’s a couple of clicks and we can throw money at the problem. Voila! Fresh food at your door, so you’re not eating frozen fried rice and nuts every goddamn day. Why is it so hard for you to live a little? Does every day have to be like you’re at a goddamn monastery? Enjoy one or two meals a week. Why am I even having to talk to you about this???

After those two calls, John suggested that I look into therapy. Ya think? Admittedly, the triggering was through the fucking roof, for sure.

So today, I call Kaiser to speak with a therapist. I mean, nothing earth shattering. Chalk it up as part of her illness (even though she had these ridiculous proclivities before Alzheimer’s): do not escalate, detach. Here’s the thing: I do not have fun, lighthearted conversations with my family. It’s either a massive to-do list of stuff that has to get done or it’s work-related. We don’t just call each other and shoot the shit. So now if I can’t “fix” this situation, what the hell is there to do? Nothing. Detach with compassion, my mental health friend suggests.

Then the therapist tells me he thinks I have GAD – general anxiety disorder, and I need to learn to let go, especially with things I cannot control, like her irrational thoughts.

Now, this ain’t my first rodeo with therapy. I’ve had many sessions in the past. It helps to tell stories and give the chain of events and analyze things that have happened, but at the end of the day, I feel like the only conclusion of therapy is always this: suck it up. Not exactly in those words, but that’s the gist I get from it— you can’t change others; you can only change yourself and your reaction. To me, that just means, no one else is accountable, no one else has to make their adjustments— it’s just you.

For someone who believes in self-determination, I get it. You are the one in control. But for someone who is also highly critical and judgey (of myself and of others), I can’t help but feel like there’s some element of other people getting away with shit and not being held accountable for their crap. Is it that I want an apology from my parents? No, but it’s like they are totally clueless that they ever did anything wrong with their parenting approach. Is that ok for them to continue to think they did everything right and somehow they just had bad luck with shitty ass, loser kids??? I dunno. C’est la vie.

After my session, I looked up GAD online. I disagree that I have this disorder, characterized by excessive worrying and an inability to deal with uncertainty. I am a doer and a fixer. In trying to find solutions to situations and problems, I play things several steps down the road. I have to anticipate shit possibly going wrong, so that I can prepare a contingency plan. It’s who I am and it’s also part of my role and my job… I consider it a form of risk assessment. How is that “excessive”?

The therapist says he considers what I term “risk assessment” to be worry. Ok, fine. I won’t argue over semantics. But I still disagree. With my mother and her illness? Yes, I worry and sure, I can’t control her illness.

And I definitely lose sleep, for example, if Bentley is sick or if I don’t know who will care for my parents as they age. It’s not as if I’m worrying about stupid, unimportant bull like I had a conversation with some random person at the store, and I’m replaying it a gabillion times in my head, all while getting sweaty palms and trembling and shit. I dunno. I feel like I know people with anxiety and excessive worrying (including my mother), and my shit is different. People with excessive worry are like paralyzed and compulsive. Like she used to stress about me living with John before marriage. She would always fret, “What are the office ladies going to think?” Um, what? They don’t fucking care. No one is even batting an eye about it except you. How is this even a concern?

Anyway, after 45 minutes, the therapist said he wasn’t going to issue a referral or anything— he was just handling triage with me today. He advised I look into GAD, see what I thought, and consider joining a virtual GAD group led by him. That’s where things were left.

Now my next focus is to stay calm on the phone with either parent. I’m going to have to call mom again for Mother’s Day and sigh, I guess I’ll just try to suck it up and keep my cool. Maybe it’ll help if I remind myself that she is sick— I’m interacting with a vessel, as the therapist explained. And even if her current thoughts bring up past memories/interactions with her, I can’t punish her now for what happened in the past, bc the person now isn’t even her anymore.

Rolling Stone

So I had nearly convinced myself that my gallstones were a fluke.. And then that shit came back to bite me in the ass. Hard.

As you know, the day after my video call with the surgeon in mid-March, I went ahead and scheduled my surgery for gallbladder removal. Like a cocky beotch though, I booked the procedure more as a placeholder, not genuinely expecting that I would actually need to go through with it when the time came. Well, COVID-19 came on like heat rushing around the corner, and pretty soon, it became clear that the surgery was not going to happen— it was considered non-critical and elective.

All of that was fine by me, bc I wasn’t having any more symptoms… April 6, my original surgery date, came and went and all the while, I was resuming my bold eating habits: cheeseburgers, tri tip, ribs, sushi rolls, Chinese food, etc. A few times in early April, I noticed gurgling in my belly and one night that fullness/bloated feeling came back, but it didn’t escalate to anything more serious. A swig of Mylanta, and I was good. At worst, the discomfort lasted 4-5 hours; then, I was as good as new again. Then, Saturday, April 18 happened.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner. I mean, I’ve been eating Chinese food my whole life— and to be honest, I have never really classified it as greasy food. Mistake No. 1. So yeah, after I scarfed everything down, my belly started feeling super full. In the middle of the night, I awoke at 4 AM with ridiculous bloating and gurgling. And then for the following 8 hours, I could NOT get comfortable to save my life. A billion trips to the bathroom. Chills, tingles, body aches, weird tastes in my mouth… I was writhing around on the floor by the front door, by the bathroom. Then the vomiting started. The symptoms came in waves but man, the nausea, the seeing stars… it was bad. And being that we were in the heart of COVID, I just kept trying to power through. By noon on Sunday, I took another swig of Mylanta only to vomit again. I could barely keep water down. I had not eaten anything since Saturday 7pm. After hour number 7, I realized that something about this time seemed different. So, we called the Advice Nurse, and she told us to head to the ER.

Poor Bubbey. How many times has he been my ER getaway driver?? And of course en route, I puked in the car. Thankfully, I had the foresight to pack a barf bag along with my overnight clothes. So he pulls up to the ER circle and I go in. Turns out, he’s not allowed to go inside. Pretty quickly, the IV, blood draws, and testing begins.

During my ultrasound, the tech keeps trying to show me stuff on that blurry-ass image— he appeared so entertained/fascinated explaining that a stone had made an “escape.” Ok dude, glad you’re finding some fun in all this.

After I got transported back to the exam room, two doctors came to talk with me about removing my gallbladder. Next thing I know, the nurse interrupts them midstream saying the surgeon insists on speaking with me right away. Wow, really? She couldn’t wait an extra 30 seconds?

So I take the urgent call and immediately, the doctor apologizes for interrupting: She explains that a stone made its way out of the gallbladder and lodged itself in my bile duct, right at the area where the duct connects with my intestines and pancreatic duct. She tells me she has to call in her team from home to take care of this ASAP. Then, she advises: you should play the lottery, bc you’re in the 3% of people who have the stone lodged in that precarious place. I’m already feeling tons better after being hooked up to the fluids, so I ask if maybe the stone will dislodge itself. Nope. We gotta go in and get it. Now.

So 90 minutes later, another doctor goes over all the risks and things that could go wrong with the ERCP, and then I’m asked to sign my life away. Here we go! They wheel me into the operating room with 5-6 other people and monster machines roaring and humming. I drink an elixir, I turn onto my belly, they strap me to the table, and I get a plastic grill put over my face. That’s the last I remember.

I awake a few hours later in the recovery room, and I feel totally fine. No sore throat, no weird sensations. And holy shit, I got so much good rest that night. I’m telling you: the IV, the nurses checking in hourly… Kaiser was seriously the best. Every time I spoke with John on the phone, I kept calling it my hotel room instead of the hospital room.

The next day, I awoke to a nurse giving me a very soothing, warm sponge bath. I’m telling you, it was almost like being at the spa. I guess prior to surgery, my body had to be wiped down with some special chemicals. After she was done, she put a paper blanket on top and hooked that baby up to a blower pumping hot air at 89 degrees. I was in heaven. By noon or so, I was carted off to the operating room. Another monster room with lots of big equipment and five staff. Strapped down, face up this time. The doctor let me pick my music (Cranberries), I said a few more words, and then bam, knocked out again. Back in the room, I woke up a few hours later with a very sore tummy. Then, I was discharged. Indeed, it was quite the whirlwind!