h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What follows is a reply to a post that I thought better of making.

'I've got "pre-birthday blues", I'm gonna be 23. I don't expect to ever find someone to share my life with. And, I don't expect to live much longer, my weight is gonna kill me relitively young and even if I haven't cut or burned recently there is still a real chance I'll kill myself in a more direct manner before very long anyway... The birthday might trigger it this month, the 2nd year non-annivery of my engagement in November and Christmas always pushes me... I've known for a long time I want a child and I've known just as long it's not gonna happen, I'm too ugly and too f*cked-up...'

My dear.

I am sorry you feel bad this time of year, and this year especially. But you have become stronger - the lack of self harm proves it. Hang in there!

I am sorry your weight bothers you. Have you tried to get help to lose some? Maybe that could make you feel better?



Milla

When are you 23? I'll be 33 this month.


Skippable bit: badly-informed but affectionate bit of do-gooding control-freakery coming up.

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I don't know whether this is likely to make a difference to you now, but I really believe that, the older you get, the easier your life will get. I look back at myself at 23, and I was a mess. I won't go into detail (and yes, I know my situation was not the same as yours), but I knew, *knew* that I was hideous and worthless, that my life was worthless, and that I'd be doing everyone a huge favour if I just f'cked off and died. Most of this belief was based on my relationship with just one person: nobody else's opinion meant a damn thing to me.

I had the same attitude to my problem as you have to yours: that is, I stubbornly tried to go through all the motions of a 'normal' life as though my problem was just like a gammy leg or something. I didn't notice any changes for the better--until I looked back and realised how very far I'd come. It's amazing what a human can get used to. At 23, I had several friends who were as seriously troubled as yourself; yet now, in their thirties, they view their lives with equanimity and the kind of gallows humour I see in you from time to time.

Sometimes my black emotions threaten to return, especially if something terrible happens or if I'm doing something new. Well, if something terrible happens, I think I have every damn right to feel that way. As for new things, next week, I'll be teaching that class I spoke about before; I'm quaking in my boots. But you know what thought has been giving me courage to do it more than anything else? Thinking about you, last time you went to see Robert Rankin. I've actually been contemplating pretending to be you throughout the whole of the lesson. (Stick *that* in your pipe and smoke it.)

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Looks like a dead cert that I won't be having kids, either. I guess I'll end up as one of those mad old bats with a house full of moggies.

Live long and prosper, my friend. You are a flower at the tip of an evolutionary branch. So to speak.

'But you have become stronger - the lack of self harm proves it.'

That is one perspective on it. I don't know that I deeply belive it myself though...

'I am sorry your weight bothers you.'

Not your fault...

'Have you tried to get help to lose some?'

I take Xenical, a lipase inhibitor.

'Maybe that could make you feel better?'

I considered myself to be hideously obese, disgustingly fat and repulsive when I was ten stone lighter than I am now. The olanzapine combined with my eating dosorders meant I gained a 1lb a day over 3 months and a further stone and a half beyond that.
Losing weight might make me feel better about myself, it might not. I'll still know I'm ugly.

I'll be 23 on the 22nd.

Is it the eefcet that CFS would have on your ability to safely carry and deliver a child or something else that's none of my beeswax either?

I'm not much of a flower, young snail on a


I didn't skip the skip-able, just don't know how to reply to it....

Not my fault - I know. I meant I feel sorry for you, this time without blaming anyone

You get Xenical? I hope it will help! A lady at work took it, but she moved departments, and I haven't seen her for a while. Good luck, and may you get all the support from doctors that you need. And all other kinds of people too!

You consider yourself ugly. I don't think you are hideously ugly. De gustibus, etc... So, you don't look like any romantic moviestar / TV commercial pretty boy? I don't care. They look plastic anyway. You will feel better about yourself little by little and it will show.

*gives up trying to formulate something about feelings changing*



Milla

Ah, your birthday's seven days before mine. Astrologically speaking, I guess that makes you a Skepticus, like me.

Yes, it's the CFS. It's unclear how easy pregnancy / birth would be, but Gothly and I would both be physically incapable of looking after a baby for long, simply because of the energy levels required. We wouldn't be able to pick it up much, and the lack of sleep would stymy our ability to walk, so we'd be crawling around being useless. It would be dangerous for the baby, never mind ourselves. We can (and do) babysit other people's for short periods, though. Gothly has a neice and a nephew.

Beeswax.

*nosy, curious*

What is CFS please?

Milla

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome--also called M.E.: A863345. My partner (Gothly) and I both have it.

Oh. I wish I knew anything that helped... Thanks for explaining, and link.

Milla

Heck, don't worry about us. We're used to it by now. In fact, we have a very nice life. But thanks for the concern.

Have you ever discussed/is there a reasonable chance of you discussing it with the extended family? See what support you guys get from them and the social sate?

Yeah, the subject has come up with extended family. The only way we'd cope would be if we moved in with someone who did most of the day-to-day caring for the kid. I couldn't hack that, personally. Even if someone were willing to do that for us (which they're not), I'd rather not *have* a kid than watch it being brought up by someone else. (I'm not sure whether Gothly feels that way.)

My main fear would be that the Social Services would cart my kid away from me and put it into care. I can't see them offering to look after it for me 24-7. Not that we've looked into it.

In some ways, I'm glad the decision has effectively been made for us. There are many advantages to not having kids. For a start, your time is your own; also, I'd spend my whole time fretting about their welfare, especially when they hit their teens. I'd have gone grey by now. I'm bad enough with my brother and sister, who are young enough to be my children. Yup, give me pet snails and spiders any day.

... I still reckon those chaps look far too smug.

What, the huggy Smiley chaps?

The very same...

Yes, they do, now you mention it. Smarmy little buggers.

You're right! Never thought of it before!

Milla