Nyquil kicking in in 5, 4, 3.....zzzzzz

I'm on a strict 12 hour dayquil to nyquil regimen right now. I promised myself I would not complain about a simple cold unless I had a sore throat. I don't have a sore throat so you won't hear another word about my illness. Also I stabbed myself in the leg today (an actual puncture wound!) at Max's school, so I'm just thinking enough is enough. With the cold and the dayquil and nyquil, just call it a day.

Oh God that last post. And all the discussion around it, I'm lazy so I'm sending you to Tertia's because she has a nice set of links to all the discussions.

I emailed with MIM yesterday and I'm so surprised at the turn her comments took and even Metrodad's statement, "I never get involved when women argue." Were we arguing? I felt like we were expressing our own thoughts on the topic, which is something so many of us have obviously considered at some point along the way because otherwise these feelings would not be so impassioned.

MIM had to shut down comments because things got a little out of hand with the personal attacks.

The sad part is, I think what I read and what MIM was saying are two totally different things. I think what you read and what I read and what MIM was saying are two, wait three totally different things.

I reacted to what MIM wrote based on the ugly conversations Logan and I have had in the last 3-4 years of our marriage. I reacted because I question myself daily about how I'm caring for me. I just....

Nyquil kicking in quickly. Must type. While coherent.

This entire discussion is so interesting in how it grows out of one person's view and becomes about everyone's personal experiences. The lenses we view things with are all skewed by our experiences. MIM never said a wife should be rail thin, but that's what I heard because to be who I was when I married Logan, I'd have to be a rail thin woman. There were a lot of things she didn't say which have somehow, in the train wreck of the internet, been attributed to her. That is unfortunate.

I got a couple of emails telling me not to listen to 'that woman' and I thought, "Oh god, I better check my comments....what did someone say?'"

They were referring to MIM? I was spring boarding off that post and I was doing it with my own lens. That lens is from my perspective as an eating disordered girl, as the wife of an often inappropriate spouse and as a woman who is constantly struggling with body image and self esteem. That's all.

MIM wasn't referring to me personally. She isn't referring to you. I think the conversation is valid, not because 'She's just mean' or because 'She's so totally right' but because it makes you think, "Why do I think she's right?' or 'Why do I think she's wrong?'

No reason for personal attacks.

No reason to fight the nyquil.

As a springboard to my cryptic post about Andrea Yates' husband getting remarried, I'd like to tell you I'm considering Moxie's post about this weight and marriage and false advertising thing and I think the two tie in.

How could that be? You're asking yourself. But that just makes no sense!

Oh but in my mind it does and I put a sticky note right over there on the iBook's desktop to remind me I was thinking about this tomorrow morning when the Nyquil releases me and I move on to the Dayquil.

Tomorrow I"m going to try really hard not to stab myself in the leg.

[Update 3/23: I don't think anyone was talking about anyone else specifically. The thing though about generalizations about large groups of people: youre going to end up talking about someone. So even though MIM wasn't talking about me specifically, she was talking about me generally. And that is why I was irritated by her comments. Why I disagreed with her. I didn't need to personally attack her, but yes, I'm annoyed more than I was last night when I wrote this.]

Comments

[mom on a wire]

Never fight the NyQuil, Melissa. Let it take you. SUCCUMB to the NyQuil.

[MetroDad]

Hey, Melissa, I didn't think you and MIM were arguing. I actually thought you, Moxie, Tertia and CityMama all had some interesting takes on MIM's post. All of you responded personally and in an introspective manner which I admired. In many ways, as a male, I found it fascinating and enlightening. I guess I used "arguing" because I was pretty shocked at the maelstrom of hatred that got spewed MIM's way. Some of the comments left on her site were just hateful. Especially those from the anonymous chicken shits. I know you can relate to my dislike of hateful commentors.

Anyway, like I said, I enjoyed reading all your different takes on MIM's post and didn't mean to imply that you were arguing with one another.

Feel better. Hope the leg wound heals quickly!

[Lisa V]

I wrote a post and I never thought it was an argument. I think of it as different perspectives on a topic. I don't agree with MIM, but she didn't say anything offensive, and as I said in my post "hats off to MIM for starting a great discussion."

Sorry about the cold and the wound.

[christine.]

I read everything. Strung on every word you and MIM had to say about the post and subject. I didn't think too much about what MIM had to say.. it's her opinion. We all have an opinion. But I guess that's what's so great about the red, white and blue. I liked the honesty you displayed in your post. Oh! Stabbing yourself is not good. Once I had to talk in front of the class, I was leaning on the profs desk, reached back with my hand and was fiddling with the stapler and yep, I stapled my finger in front of the whole class. My bad.

[Carla*Hinkle]

I really didn't think any of those with their own blogs (and the majority of the commenters) got nasty. Just a few nasty-ites that I guess come along eventually in most serious blog discussions. I probably agree the most with MIM and Tertia but I thought the discussion was quite civilized, overall.

What made me sad was how very, very unhappy the issue of weight makes many women, no matter where they came down on MIM's post and the follow-ups. That is a shame. Thanks for sharing your feelings so honestly.

[chris]

You are so right when you say that we view what other people write through our own, often distorted, lens.

My lens is similar to yours. I spent years of my life with an eating disorder, even now it is a conscious choice every day not to slip back into that place. I'll never be happy with how I look, period.

MIMs post rubbed me wrong because it touched my deepest darkest fear. That my husband loves me less because I don't look the way I did when I was 20, that he feels cheated somehow.

He is rather shallow and has unintentionally said some really hurtful things over the years. Things that a normal person would probably shrug off, but not me.

I don't think MIM meant her words to come across the way that they did at all. She obviously comes from the enviable place of healthy self esteem and was talking about taking pride in your appearance and being healthy. Not being an anorexic mess.

One thing that struck me through this whole maelstrom, is how many funny, articulate, smart women have such negative body image. How sad is that? I wrote about this at dotmoms a while back, how I hope my daughter never feels this way.

[Melissa Summers]

Chris, Logan would like to hug you for saying:

"He is rather shallow and has unintentionally said some really hurtful things over the years. Things that a normal person would probably shrug off, but not me."

When it comes to writing about my weight and my husband's comments about that issue, I make him out to be a huge asshole.

Honestly someone else would hear what he has said to me and roll with it. Not me, I'm known to be obsessive and this is no exception.

[Mrs Ca]

I'm going to ignore the debate here, and say I hope you feel better! I cold and a puncture wound? I hope the nyquil worked well, because it sounds like you had a rough day.

[doahleigh]

I think the Nyquil has made you very insightful.

[Renee Dodd]

You know, there times in all our lives (like during those oft needed nyquil blurring nights and dayquil buzzing days-- I know them well), when we need to take the unreasonable goals off the to-do list and stick to the essentials. Like trying really hard not to stab ourselves in the leg.

Today my goal is to try really hard not to re-re-re-stub my poor swollen little pinky toe.

[Meg]

You know... I think any dialogue about this is good, even if it goes a little off-track. I think it becomes bad when people become hateful. And I think that some of the commenters went there, but you sounded totally respectful and introspective, and you inspired that in me as well.

I struggle with that issue daily. It's hard. But I'm learning to put it into language that doesn't hurt the men in my life, and to walk forward even when I feel like shit.

So thank you for your original post. I was glad for your honesty.

[Mel]

The old saying is true, I think. Women marry men expecting them to change (and they don't, not in the ways hoped for) while men marry women thinking they'll never change (and they do).

I think the whole conversation has been fascinating. The knife in the leg through the muffin tin? Painful. Hope you feel better soon.

[shan]

I just got a typekey account, so I felt the need to rush around and delurk to EVERYONE!

[zeldafitz]

Sometimes NyQuil is the most beautiful word in the human language. A modern day laudanum...ahhhh...

The debate is fascinating. It is so fueled with American tendencies toward hypocrisy and over-simplification.

Hypocrisy--so many people go through this but it is not accurately reflected in the media on any level, TV, the movies, advertising, etc. We're still fed a steady diet of super skinny role models in all forms of media and yet we are left to contend with our own bidy image problems on our own and in the dark. We're not just living up to a spouse's expectation, we're living up to our entire country's implicit and explicit expecations. How can we reconcile that?

Over-simplification--if you are overweight it means you don't care enough about your spouse or yourself to change. This does not take into account genetic, environmental or psychological factors.

Your dicussion has opened up what is essentially missing in this whole debate, and that is empathy. We need to know what others are feeling (on all sides) and not make judgements or assumptions, but process what we hear fairly.

[Deb]

So it sounds like my ranting comment yesterday scared you and a few others away!!

I really am sorry!

You are totally right that it is all colored by our personal demons. It is not simple or small, CLEARLY. It is a huge and controversal issue and many wonderful insights have come from it. We need to keep talking IMO b/c we all really need to be heard about it.

I think I shall blog about the hair thing.

Go with the nyquil i say, its good stuff. I am so sorry you injured yourself, that sounds exceedingly painful and something I would have done! Last time I worked at preschool I put my back out for two weeks.

[jennster]

this whole thing kills me because i just saw your pics from meeting up with the other blogger and you look fantastic! i mean, you honestly don't look overweight AT ALL. you look really "normal." so your whole weight issue makes me want to bring a baseball bat to your house one night and club your husband.

anyways, no one is arguing.. everyone is expressing their opinions and veering off in other directions, and so be it. that's what a good topic does. i'm happy you wrote about it- i never read MIM before you posted about her.

good lord, find something you like in my blog and post about me one day so i can have new friends! lol

[kris_c]

I can understand why MIM has the opinion she has, but I do think there's a fallacy behind it - which is that if you're fat, you're fat because you're just not willing to do something about it. Saying that a woman gaining weight is not the same thing as a man losing his hair (because he can't control losing his hair) implies that a woman should be able to control gaining weight. I strongly disagree with that.

The idea that we should be able to control our weight - just stop eating/exercise more/etc - makes it seem as if it's just that we have a willpower problem or don't care enough in the first place. Sure, that's true in some cases, but there's no question that a person's weight is tied to their emotional well being as well. Stress, depression, physical/financial/emotional resources, etc are all causes and symptoms for serious weight gains. So, to me, saying that it's false advertising to gain a significant amount of weight on your partner, is effectively the same thing as saying "It's false advertising if you were a chipper, care-free person when you met your partner, and now you're suffering with depression. You should do whatever it takes to just get over it." It smacks of a lack of understanding about how complex a problem it is.

So, my .02 is that we should cut ourselves more slack that we're not as skinny as we want to be. On the flip side, we should also give ourselves a hell of a lot more credit when we do manage to successfully lose weight and keep it off.

[jennster]

i hope you don't mind, but i posted this debate on my message board.. i'd love for you to read the comments.
for the time being, i opened my message board up to GUESTS, so you don't have to create a log in to read- just click guest.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/Jennnnnnb/messages?msg=35260.1