All in my head?

I'm reading a book titled "Gut and Psychology Syndrome" written by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, MMedSci(neurology), MMedSci(nutrition).


The premise of the author is that the state of health of the gut contributes to and can even be the cause of multiple illnesses, including classic illnesses like Depression, Schizophrenia, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Ulcerative Colitis, Eczema, Chrons Disease, Celiacs Disease, asthma, allergies, ADHD, ADD and Autism, her focus being on Autism.


She describes the anatomy of a healthy gut, several studies done by gastroenterologists and what that means to people who suffer from these diseases. Also what it means to people who are seemingly asymptomatic but who find improved health and immune function after following the diet she outlines in her book. 


Without going into too much detail, people with abnormal gut flora, such as Bifidobacteria, Lactobacteria, Propionobacteria, physiological strains of E.Coli, Peptostreptococci and Enterococci, have guts susceptible to attack by "Opportunistic Flora," such as Bacteroids, Petococci, Staphylococci, Streptococci, Bacilli, Clostridia, Yeasts, Enterobacteria (Proteus, Clebsielli, Citrobacteria, etc.), Fuzobacteria, Eubacteria, Catenobacteria, and many others. 

"In a healthy person their numbers are limited and are tightly controlled by the beneficial flora. Each of these microbes is capable of causing various health problems if they get out of control."


What this means is that the Opportunistic Flora can cause inflammation of the lining in the gut, and this inflammation triggers an immune response by the lymph nodes causing them release a lot of lymphocytes to fight the infection.


One of the signs that the gut isn't functioning properly is that of digestive problems, sometimes quite severe. Colic, bloating, flatulence, diarrhea, constipation, feeding difficulties and malnourishment, all to various degrees. Many people with intestinal issues also have fussy eating habits, refusing a whole lot of foodstuffs and limiting their diet to a handful of foods, usually starchy and sweet : breakfast cereals, chips, popcorn, cakes, cookies, sweets, bananas, bread, rice, sweet yogurts, ice cream etc. Most of the children Dr. Campbell-McBride has studied refuse to eat vegetables, fruit (apart from bananas), meats, fish and eggs. About 60-70% of the autistic children she has seen in her clinic have extremely limited diets.


Although the connection between gut inflammation and autism is well established the studies done on this subject became subject to a lot of controversy when the gasteroenterologist Dr. Wakefield and his team decided to see whether or not the MMR vaccine had anything to do with the inflammation of the lymph nodes. Suspecting that it might be the measles virus, (Dr. Wakefield) involved a well-known virolohist Dr John O' Leary, a professor of pathology form Dublin. Sure enough Dr. O'Leary found the same measles virus used in the MMR vaccine in the ileal lymph nods of the autistic children (in Dr. Wakefields study). This caused vigorous resistance from government and the medical establishment which distacted attention from the main issue.


At this point I would like to stop in my discussion of this book. At some point the description of the pain that the children Dr. Campbell-McBride has seen in her clinic brought to mind my own pain as I was growing up. I have the ability to communicate, a lot of autistic children cannot communicate very well, their pain causes them to scream in pain at times, to act up at times, to push there belly's against hard surfaces to relieve the pressure.

I have done just that, lain on the hard edge of that couch and rocked back and forth to relieve the pain in my stomach. As a child I remember lying on the couch at dinner time and complaining about my stomach hurting, I felt so helpless, my parents thought I was being difficult. I used to walk home from school, burping along the way with a noxious sulfuric gas coming up. I remember hanging on the door knob of the bathroom door and sitting on the toilet bent over in pain. I remember having really hard stools that sometimes I wouldn't pass a stool for days and it would really hurt and sometimes having diarrhea that would burn my bottom. I remember going for shots before Kindergarten and then sitting in the car afterwords pressing my forehead against the seat belt to soothe the dizziness and throbbing headache that I had. I remember having a hard time knowing what to do with my arms as I walked I felt awkward, unsteady, I liked to have a wall or hand rail to cling to. I had a great deal of depression, I spent the most part of my freshman and senior year at high school walking home falling into an exhausted black sleep and/or crying. Not to mention the many years before that as a child with depression, I cried almost every night that I didn't get how to make friends, that no one liked me, that I felt sick.

If ONLY someone would have known about the diet presented in this book at that time. I would have been healed! My childhood would have been happier and easier.

IF ONLY someone would have known about this diet and had put me and my brothers and my sister on it! Instead of medication, HEALING!! My STARS my brothers! My poor brother Jonathan could have had a more normal life. NO Autism!! IMAGINE? He would be married now, he would have a life!! Evan, he wouldn't have been hopped up on Ritalin! My sister Kelsey has had the pickiest diet that I know of, she had continually complained about stomach problems, has missed school and been in pain. 

I, am going to go on this diet.

After the stomach and intestines are healed I will be able to eat a lot more grains and spices than I can now, and I will have less sensitivity to other foods.

I know, and have always known that people are resistant to change, I wish I could get my family to try this out, even my children... but I cannot force them to hear what they don't want to hear. It is like when God had Moses make a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole. If anyone was bitten by a snake they could "Look upon it and live." But what about those who did not believe? They would refuse to look and would thus die.

I think that faith as a whole involves looking beyond what is seemingly obvious, and looking to that which you have NOT heard before, or read before... thinking about and considering what other people have to say. LOOK and LIVE, and then ACT.

Thought For the New Year

I have a lot of thoughts in my mind tonight as the New Year approaches. A lot of times conveying them through the written word destroys the essence of thought. Thought is a multilayered process involving not only the words in your mind but also the emotions in your heart, thus hard to convey. Plus there’s something about the written word that tempts corrections to be continually made.

It is storming outside; I hope that all of the bluster will bring in some snow. It’s been unseasonably warm, first unseasonably cold, now the opposite. I was watching 3 Idiots before now, the movie, not some random people I am deriding… the  moving makes a bold statement about following what you love instead of becoming like a machine, cramming; I’ve always had a lovely hidden belief in the philosophy of following your heart yet am a crammer at times, the tendency can create a lot of stress. Through college, through life, it’s all been about cramming it all in. Occasionally what I love creeps in though.

Like writing, it’s something that is enjoyable to me but it can become stressful to me as well if I overthink it. Mostly I get too tired to write though, it’s hard to create the mood for writing, and sometimes I’m afraid to write what I’m truly thinking and feeling.

Fear and doubt come in many different guises, belief is a powerful thing as well. I feel sad right now, why? Because I cannot explain  why my heart sometimes desires something different than what my head does, why I say I want one thing but when I’ve received it look jealously at what I decided not to choose. I cannot explain, some things simply are what they are.

One thing though that I know about myself is that I’ve always hated complacency. When I was a little girl I was the one trying to climb over the gate in the hallway simply because it was there when the other kids were happy doing something else.

I’ve always been a bit out of step with everyone else and I’ve always reached upward. My drawback is that I reach beyond what is necessary. When I was a kid I hated being in school, I often had bad stomach aches and preferred to be home, so I would slip out of class and/or beg to be left at home. I wasn’t content with watching cartoons all day though, sometimes I would watch them, but then I would find documentaries to watch or educational television. I would pile my Dad’s books up high because I wanted to know what was in them, I wanted to conquer them. In a way I felt that if I knew it all I would be left alone to do what I wanted to do.

That didn’t work well, I didn’t really learn much from the high level math books, encyclopedias and Morris Code tapes… I was reaching beyond the mark I felt harassed by the educational system, my personality didn’t thrive in the structured and I thought arbitrary environment of public school. I like to see the big picture; I felt that if I couldn’t see the whole picture then I couldn’t follow the parts of things that they wanted to teach me particularly grammar and math!!

I just wanted to escape and learn things on my own. I felt that if I could conquer the knowledge of everything they wanted me to know then I would be free. I begged my mind to keep reading, however difficult and boring the subject was. I told myself that if I gave any subject I was studying a chance then it would become interesting to me, this was and is true it’s a neat trick, but it can only be taken so far.

SO what would I have studied if I had felt free to learn whatever I wanted (no fear of impending doom of inadequacy). I like reading about whatever I feel like reading about at the moment, currently I’ve been reading (or listening to anyway) Bulfinches Mythology, “The Age of Fable” which is about Greek Mythology and some Norwegian mythology as well.

When I was younger it was hard for me to concentrate, I wanted to learn but I couldn’t focus. I used to organize the books in the bookshelf in our Family Room, from largest to smallest, then I would try organizing them alphabetically, then by color. I found organizing them from largest to smallest worked the best; usually I would try organizing them largest to smallest within category or alphabetically but that never worked out quite like I wanted it to. I enjoyed being a librarian in Junior High. The only thing about this tendency to organize is that I’ve found it to be an excuse to avoid something else. It’s a soothing exercise to me, makes me feel in control. Unfortunately I’ve missed out on a lot of things because I felt that I needed order before I could feel secure enough for something else. I know my weakness and my strength here though, it’s not something I need pointed out to me. Which brings me to another weakness, a tendency to abhor being told what to do. I heard someone remark recently that people generally work on themselves and it’s hard to hear someone pointing at your glaring faults. True, but it’s hard to stop yourself from pointing things out, especially when you think the other person needs a reminder, or you want them to sway them to see things your way. I’m terrible at taking criticism and I’m terrible at handing out advice. On the one hand I know I need to change something but don’t want someone pointing at it. On the other hand I want others to listen to me, sometimes I think I’m right and really wish they’d listen. Sometimes I know I’m right, sometimes I think I know in any case it’s hard to be tactful and avoid pride on either the giving or receiving side of advice. Then there is pressure, when I’m being pressured to do something or decide something I usually want to get away from that pressure, if I feel unable to make a decision I will hedge, if the answer is no but the other person will be disappointed I stall, in many cases these tendencies have not served me well. They are hard habits to break though. Ha, there’s a thought, I just glanced at a book I bought in 2008 “The New York Times ~ The Complete Front Pages 1851-2008” that was the year I wanted to homeschool my kids, I took Sione out of Kindergarten to try teaching him, that was the year my life was shattered, homeschooling didn’t work out that year, despite all of my zeal. It felt like a freight train was headed my way and I was helpless to stop it, try as I might. I saw some of it coming but didn’t see it all. Some things are unexplainable, some things just happen, who can give a satisfactory reason as to why? There are explanations for a lot of things, but a lot of times the reasoning behind the actions doesn’t make sense. Maybe if I had done things differently and had married someone else things would have never happened as they did, not a guarantee but better thought out decisions usually lead to better outcomes. I’ve been fighting to rise above the consequence of the decisions that I made when I was a young teenager. I’ve been fighting to rise, and I have in many ways, but it’s cost a LOT, basically blood, sweat and tears… to be dramatic. I don’t want my children to go through the same thing. When I was first married I had nothing, no means of support, my Grandmother gave me $1000 dollars, and we had random wedding gifts, but I ended up having to pay off my new husbands debts, and trying to figure him out. I had no money to buy furniture, so I bought what I could at yard sales, put a $120 dollar table on layaway at Wal-Mart and dragged a couple of couches that someone had left behind after moving across the street to my parents carport. I sewed up the rips in the fabric, put the chairs and microwave that I had bought at a yard sale next to the couches and then covered all with a tarp. I spent a long time sewing up the rips in the couches, but I was glad to do it because the couches matched and they were free. Then my husband was gone, his family sent him back to Tonga when he made a terrible mistake, when I demanded an explanation and no one could give me one. No wisdom, just rash action from the family. He was in Tonga for 9 months while I worked on getting him a Green Card. He came back after I had born our little girl Angie. Then more trials and tears came, and more work. We moved into a tiny apartment, I stayed home and tried to figure out the Tongan way of cooking, baked bread and stored food. Plus I read whatever I could get my hands on, it was a way to escape. We didn’t have money to buy the kids Christmas presents, I wanted to get them blocks, expensive at $60 dollars a set. So I bought a couple of 2X4’s and had my Dad cut them into the shape of blocks. Then I bought a hack saw and labored to make it cut half circles out of the bigger blocks. Then came the sanding, I sanded and sanded. Then I bought more 2X4’s and made a set for a lady down the street whose husband beat her and whose son had nothing as well. After that Christmas I decided to go back to school, I went into Behavioral Science because I wanted to understand “Why?” why people did what they did, why Sam did what he did, why my Dad, why my Mom, why my brothers and sister… why? I wanted to raise my children better than I had been raised; I wanted to sort out why I was always out of step with everyone else and what I could do to fix it. I made checklists of what I needed to do every day to be normal, some of the things on the list were to “Brush teeth, get a good haircut, cut fingernails, get to be on time, get up on time…” a whole list of things that I felt would help me to be normal if I was sure to do them all every day, part of the problem being that I was constantly in a dark cloud of depression and brain fog because of my unknown food sensitivities (a concept that I used to scoff at). I finished high school while bouncing a baby on my knees; I finished my associates’ degree in much the same way, taking night courses and TV courses, studying at odd hours. Studying the same words over and over because of compulsion and because the words wouldn’t stick in my fog laden brain. I still feel compelled at times to open text books I’ve previously read cover to cover because I have forgotten what they say exactly. Cramming works well for short term things like tests, but doesn’t work so well when trying to put the “knowledge” to work. I finished my associates in Behavioral Science then went on, I liked organizing so chose accounting as my next direction. I hated math though, math was a swirling vortex of incomprehension. Plus it was charged with negative feelings from not being able to get it when my Dad so wanted me to do well at math. I had to start over with math, I went through my elementary school text books and did each lesson, working up and up until finally I ended with Calculus. I got my BS in Accounting, I still feel inadequate in that respect sometimes, mostly because I’ve never had a good work experience after earning my degree, it’s a fallacy though that I should discard. The very fact that I could plough through all of that accounting homework scoring A’s, yes A’s, very few B’s, while going through tumult in my life is a testament really that setting the mind upon a goal can bring about miracles. Speaking of which I would be lax to discount the hand of God in my life, he was there, even when I couldn’t seem to see the light, he guided me. I went through poverty, bankruptcy, numerous miscarriages (14 at last count), and I had to deal with a smooth talking, lying husband. By George he’s so good at the art! It seems like yesterday that I was rushing to take pictures of my son Sione in his blessing gown (which he hollered through) before rushing off to Angies graduation from Head Start. My shy quiet little girl, she was so silent when she was little, she learned to be that way because when her brother got yelled at she found it was better to be quiet. My older children's lives while growing up is like a dream to me, I tried really hard to do things with my kids and I did do quite a lot with them, but being in school is like a time warp, it sucks in all of your energy and time and before you know it you’ve advanced 10-20 years. I’ve been “present” with my youngest child Roxie in much the same way, my life was full of too much stress to make living easy, but I tried to be there for her and do things with her when I could, I’m still trying. I still believe in the theory of following your heart. That’s why I didn’t keep pressing for an accounting job when this temporary position became available. It’s right up my ally, organizing information. I love it! I hope that the maxim to follow your heart will be taken though with a grain of wisdom, a lot of determination and hard work will lead (eventually) to a point when following the heart is a reality, instead of a wish that flitters through the mind as an afterthought. That’s all I’ve got to say on the subject for now…

Australia

I've been in Australia for the past week. It feels in some ways like an infusion of new thought, vacations are chances to let go of every day concerns, chances to allow thoughts that are normally in the back of the mind to surface. It's been raining for most of the trip, but Ajey and I have made the most of the time laughing about rediculous things making a "Mockumentary," taking walks, meeting up with friends. We went to play dominoes at some friends house the other night, Heather and Lee. Heather has a great sense of humor, she laughed and teased Lee, pretended to be obsessed with winning... somehow that laughter got into me and the next day I burst out laughing simply recalling something funny that had been said. That was a piece of me that has been missing for many years. I feel sort of like I'm gathering myself up from a puzzle that was scattered all over the world. We also had a chance to meet up with a therapist, this man was brilliant, spot on in the answers he gave to my questions. I really need to find someone like that back home. Why is it though that so many people are lost and confused, hurt or hurtful? Why is it that so much of life is not enjoyed but pushed to the corner of our world until it becomes a point of pressure that builds up until you feel like bursting. TIME goodness if only the things that we do to keep our lives running like working and studying could be condensed... or somehow more fully integrated into our lives so that we are aware of what we are doing each moment, not just turning in our time cards to no one in particular. If only we could simply live a bit more. I see the whys of things, I see that we can't spend all of our time studying, working, relaxing, singing, too much of any one thing creates too little time for anything else. Then how are we to live? Impediments are fatigue, fear, doubt I believe them to be the main impediments. Then we need to be rid of these impediments. For me I get sick/have a reaction to certain foods/spices and that really blocks my ability to enjoy my life, the biggest reaction is a bad headache, plus ringing in the ears, fatigue. It's hard to pin point which food triggers the reactions though, today it all began with cinnamon. It really puts a cramp in life though when you have to give people a list a quarter mile long of things you can't have... actually I think I will do that, make a list, get it laminated, translate it into several languages, make it simpler... I learned from the therapist that to state the truth is the ultimate in importance in relationships, then others can think about what you say, and decide what emotions and behavior they will show. I'm going to think about that on the plane ride home, it's going to be a long one, I'm leaving tomorrow morning. As for now I'm off for some rest. Goodnight

Just Trying, That's All

This Thanksgiving turned out "OK." It seemed that none of us had a whole lot of enthusiasm for it this year. I've been working a bunch of extra hours, well technically not working per say, I've been trying to finish up a bunch of Microsoft Office training modules that I signed up for earlier this year through my Alma Mater UVU, they have a woman's resource center called "Turning Point" which paid for the course, the caveat was that I finish the training modules before the end of the year.

I signed up for them because I wasn't finding any work, but ironically I found a job about a month after signing up and I was never able to put the time into finishing them up (they take about 177 hours).

I have been able to finish up the Excel sessions, and I found my notes on Access, all except the first session that is. I will need to review the Access sessions because I completed them several months ago.

I will be so relieved to get them done...

It feels like my life has been one big push to put things into order, to just get to a point where I am able to live. I put so much time into school, every day that I was in school was a push, while having my babies and having my miscarriages all jammed into tests and lectures and cleaning on the weekends.

Since I've been divorced every day has been about pulling together my world, trying to become relevant in the workplace.  Trying to become relevant to my children. I'm afraid to face them sometimes, too many things that I can't do for them. So much that I'm trying to do... I know I do a lot but Mom's always tend to feel there should be more that they can do.

All of this, and the overriding feeling at night is that I want to be held. Sitting at work I just want to go home and be held... just held. How stupid this longing has made me, how stupid I've acted trying to fill the ache inside. 

Bluegrass

I feel like building a "Bluegrass" Playlist... :)

I'm listening to Pandora and building it as I come across new songs and artists.

Take a listen...

Lately I've run through a whole heap of issues that I never foresaw as possibilities in my realm of possible situations that I might enter into.

The difficult marriage, that's understandable, people have difficult marriages all the time. I knew the procedure there, at least I thought I did. You try to make things work, try to talk to your spouse about the important issues, try to bring up the kids right. However I found myself running into a whole lot of impotency in my ability to bring things around to what I thought the right thing and way to be was. I had a clear vision, it's the vision promulgated through the media, through my church, through cultural beliefs, for a time it looked as though the realization of those ideals was within my grasp. It was right there, right there on the edge of the next step, and then a series of unthinkable events smashed it to pieces.

Still, I felt like I had tried. I made mistakes, one of the biggest being that I got desperate and looked to someone else to take me away from my marriage before I resolved my problems. It was absolutely clear that I couldn't make the marriage work, and yet not forcing myself through the crucible of relying solely on deep spiritual guidance cut me off from intuitive lessons that I needed to learn. Part of me is dying, hiding in the corner of well intended help. I believe it is a piece of my integrity, I don't feel whole.

So absolutely my marriage had to end. I knew this, I knew it 10 years before I reached the turning point. I sat outside of my tiny apartment, diary in hand and wrote it down. I could look down that tunnel and see the point that I was headed towards, but I also knew that I had to travel that road, that if I didn't put all of the effort that I could into making my marriage work that I wouldn't respect myself. I wanted to run, at some level I didn't want to face it, but I pulled from that deep spiritual well and resolved to move forward.

Now at this point, I am in a conundrum. For the past three years I have been rather confused and disconnected from my true being. This because I stopped listening to that well of intuition that I drew upon in the past. Why? Because I have been trying to avoid hurting people that I care about. Pouring so much into trying to establish a life that has been hard for me to grasp, because it's out of reach and so far out of the realm of possibilities that I've settled into this uneasy life. Not able to say for sure about one thing or the other because I don't feel the way that I should while trying to establish this new life. All this vagueness... I'm not happy with this. I should have sorted out things on my own before trying to sort it out with someone else. That's why my blogging has been rather silent, I have simply not wanted to share how I'm really feeling because how I'm really feeling is dead inside. A lot of admiration and respect, care and concern, love... is there for those I'm trying not to hurt... but a lot of uncertainty about relationships in general still lingers and I would really just like to be on my own, if only that wouldn't hurt others so much... yes I know you're going to say I should just do what makes me happy, well it's not hurting others that's for certain, and that's the unforeseen reality that I'm facing... I really hate it.

I've been hiding away from hurt for a long time. One of the reasons why I didn't break off my marriage is that I didn't want to be to blame for the divorce. He cheated on me from the beginning and I thought that I could forgive him and move forward, but the trust never came back, he continually did things that broke my heart and I couldn't trust him. So part of me was looking for the final straw, the last thing that I would allow him to do before I broke it off, and I allowed so much! That was an unhealthy situation though, I should have broke it off simply because it wasn't working, I had tried so much and was still not able to trust him and I was hurting. But I stayed and stayed, too afraid to face what life would have looked like without someone to provide, and I uneducated (as of yet) and part of the staying was so that I could get an education, in some ways that was dishonest, in some ways I was giving him time to change...

I used to love so simply, I was so devoted (infatuated) with those little boyfriends that I had when I was younger. I never had a chance to develop a relationship with Sam, I made the decision to put myself in a compromising situation and from then on continued on that path.

Right now I'm developing a relationship with Ajey, but it's so strange. Usually when you date someone you see each other, there is attraction... the other half of the coin is not there. I'm uncomfortable with the way the relationship has been established. I felt a strong impression from that deep intuitive spirit that I should not pursue a relationship with him and when I tried to break it off I was unable to do so, my words were impotent, his pain over-rode the truths that I was speaking. Part of the reason I didn't want to be with him was that he wasn't a member of the church, he couldn't understand where I was coming from, I didn't want that in a relationship or for my kids.

A few thoughts on the human condition

Sometimes I wonder about the human condition, why some people have so much and some so little. I used to explain things to myself (as a sort of crutch) that perhaps people who are beautiful and rich are not really so happy as they seem, that they to have hidden difficulties and sadness's. But do the rich and the poor really have the same understanding about life? Do they go through the same trials?

No

and yes.

If you have no concern for money do you have a true understanding of frugality? Frugality in a sense is the careful stewardship of your resources in order that you might be able to obtain the things that you need, or to save more for future expenses. The rich might, out of good habit, decide to buy only what they need, perhaps a bit more (to "treat" themselves) but when they need something they have the resources to draw on to buy it. They buy the best carpeting (the stuff that doesn't wear out in a couple of years), the best rated cars (which are fuel efficient and well built, thus saving money on both types of car expenses). Upper class folks buy better food and live in better neighborhoods. In fact I recall a documentary/60 min. piece about this subject the rich had less stress in many respects, lived longer (because of the better quality of their nutrition and access to health care), and had fewer children (who they helped to get an education, thus allowing the continuation of wealth).

Just a few thoughts

SG

Update - Little Fellow's Neck

The bump on my little fellows neck is going down! :D

Reticence

Sometimes the truth jumps out at you in unexpected moments and you're left breathless at the implication of it. What does it mean? That I am afraid to look somewhere else for the kind of love that I see quite plainly in the picture of my friend and his wife?

That I feel special being loved by someone but am having a hard time returning the feeling as he knows it?

That I can't live with the consequence of a half life, a half love if I never even try to bring true love to fruition? Can true love be born out of constant e-mail communication, through phone and association?

Does awkwardness indicate reticence, does it mean the love isn't there? Does comfort mean it exists? Does it matter if one person wants to love and care for the other if both are not equally matched? Are we not equally matched?

I've got to come to a conclusion soon, I can't go on and on for years and years, I will end up marrying just for the sake of my word, for the sake of living out the moment. Will I regret it later on?

Or is he simply the one for me? Am I over thinking this, making an issue where there shouldn't be an issue?

He is moving, functioning in his world, the world of Australia and he's comfortable with having an overseas girlfriend/fiance that he calls his wife.

He's in this relationship because he hasn't found someone like me over there, but in fact he's stated that he found girls similar to me at church over there. But he's staying true to me because he's loyal, or because he doesn't believe that he would have a chance with these other girls.

When I was with him I felt awkward walking next to him, he's too short for me, I felt awkward kissing him while standing up, again too short. His head is small and round, I find this odd. These are the things on the main that I don't like. As well, I don't like that he's childish in some ways, that he really reminds me of a kid... all men have some aspects of the child still left in them but the way that he's childish is awkward for me. Plus I don't like the way he talks babyish to me, it disturbs my sense of self. Plus the over dramatic way he answers my posts makes me cringe.

I don't like the way he buys me stuff that I don't like, the comic books that he sent creeped me out because they were about a white guy who was a complete idiot in the midst of Indian guy's, the obvious racial slurs bothered me.

I'm not happy that he talked me into being in a relationship with him, even though I told him that I didn't want to be in a relationship with him. He did this through guilt inference, by making me feel guilty that I had told him at one point that I loved him, so therefore if I loved him then I should want to be in a relationship with him.

I'm feeling cornered, I'm feeling overwhelmed with his attention.

The mutual friendship that I have with him has been overshadowed by the hope that he has of an everlasting relationship. The mutual friendship and interests are what has kept me tied to him. Then I don't want to cause him pain. Plus all of the relatives that I have met, his family, he claims loves me and I am intrigued in some ways by the idea of going to India, meeting these people, being a part of an old ancestry with old traditions and a royal blood line. Intrigued about the mystery and power of his family. Fascinated by the friendships that he seems to command, the respect that he has in Puttar, his family's home and elsewhere in India.

I just realized something else, we all tend to comply with people that we feel obligated to. I kind of feel that perhaps Meaghan today didn't want a hug, but she's hurt and playing out a role of being hurt and when offered a hug she took it, though somewhat reluctantly and awkwardly. What this means for me is that I am playing out a role, I am being offered love and I have accepted help and support from Ajey and thus feel obligated to continue playing the role. Even though a part of me doesn't want to continue. The question is, is the part of me that doesn't want to continue bigger than the part that wants to keep going? What does this mean for me? I felt like this for years and years with Sam but could never break things off, I just couldn't and it tore me apart, it ate at my sanity, I felt stuck, obliged, drained. Not part of an ideal reality for me. Plus I am afraid of losing friendship, I am afraid of losing respect, I am afraid of hatred aimed towards me.

That's why I kept trying to appease Gabriel, I didn't want him to hate me. But I wanted him to back down, I wanted time and he wouldn't give it to me. I was so deeply emotional with him. He hit all the right notes at the right time. I felt so much romance in that relationship. The feelings I felt there overshadow what I feel with Ajey, though with Ajey I felt a brilliant sense of enlightenment, of love, and a blush. Those were under false assumptions though, I wouldn't have felt the same if I would have met him in person at the time.

Gabriel is a dangerous man, is it only for me? I'm not sure but the attraction is enormous. Like a moth to the flame.

Delicious Strawberries :)

I've acquired a new favorite habit... berries and Greek yogurt! Ah soooo delicious!!

This combination started out as a desire to counteract in part the extreme void of perceived nutrition in Roxies lunch menu, thus I picked up a treat for her (along with other yummy treats) and had a bit of the treat myself.

Oh raptures!

The delight was at first a simple combination of Organic Blueberries and Raspberries, Greek Yogurt and a bit of Stevia sprinkled on top. Yummy!

The pièce de résistance though is Greek Yogurt (sprinkled with Stevia), walnuts, and fresh sliced organic strawberries!!

Try it out ;)