The Slippery Slope of Soap

Sometimes I think if people could spend a day inside my head, they would probably go nuts.  It's noisy in there.  I think about a LOT of things, and sometimes it makes me crazy when people assume that I do or say things without thinking first.  Sure, sometimes that's the case, but most of the time it's the exact opposite.  My brain is going about a million miles a second trying to over think every little detail of most things.  It might be why decision making for large topics sort of paralyzes me.  I have to think of all the scenarios, all of the potential issues and outcomes.  I think everything to death, and then after I do something I think it over again to decide whether what I did was the right thing or just the decision I made because I was tired of thinking about it.  This makes my brain a very annoying place to be.

For example, let's take a look at something like dish soap.  I had to buy dish soap yesterday for the kitchen and while standing in the aisle staring staring at the wall of dish soap options, this is basically the stream of consciousness my brain spat out:

I hate when there are too many options.  Dawn is on sale but do I want Dawn or do I want Palmolive?  I like the caps on Dawn soap better than the one on Palmolive but is that enough to make a decision on which is better?  I don't like the scent of the Palmolive soap I have right now, but do I really care too much about soap scent?  It doesn't seem like it should matter.  Speaking of scent, there are about a million scents that you can get.  Does scent matter that much to people?  That one is lavender, I can't use lavender.  Check that off the list.  Should I consider using one of those foam dish soaps?  No, that seems like it wouldn't work well.  Maybe I should start buying eco-friendly dish soap.  But how well does that clean?  Is it ok to not clean as well if it saves the environment?  Probably not, I need clean dishes.  It's mad expensive for a regular size bottle.  I wonder why.  I know it's organic, but still.  And what if I buy it and it doesn't clean well and then I have to waste it?  Is that actually all that eco-friendly in the long run?  Dawn is on sale.  But does Dawn work the best?  They also have this Platinum series of Dawn.  Does it really clean better or is it just a fancier scent in a smaller bottle with a bigger price?  Palmolive has a lotion laced dish soap.  My hands dry out when I do dishes.  Should I look into lotion based?  But what if that doesn't clean as well?  I really only care about how well it cleans.  Both brands have an orange scent.  I'm not sure if I like orange scent either.  Ajax is there on the bottom 10 for $10.  But is that really cheaper?  If you have to use more at a time, then it's not cheaper really, since you just go through it faster.  I wish someone would look into this so I don't have to wonder these questions.  I wonder if Consumers Reports does reporting on Dish Soap.  I should look that up.  You get more from just the plain formulas of soap, without the frills.  Scents are apparently free, which is fine.  Which one has the highest amount of soap for the lowest price?  I should divide it out to make sure I'm getting the most bang for my buck.  And do I want rain mist scent?

And then, after about 10 minutes of staring at the wall of soap, I walked out of the building with this:

One bottle of plain, original scent Dawn soap, which I probably could have just pulled from the shelf about 3 seconds after walking into the aisle, except that I had to deliberate over it for 10 minutes to make a decision to go safe and just buy a bottle of plain regular soap.

And that's what pretty much every minute inside my head looks like.

But, Everyone is Doing It!

So I'm at this point in my life where everyone around me has, or is in the process of having children, and I'm over here dragging my feet, having miniature panic attacks whenever I envision myself being responsible for:

1. Growing a fucking human and
2.  Being responsible for not TOTALLY FUCKING UP THAT HUMAN.

It's not that I dislike kids, or that I don't want kids.  I actually do want kids.  It's just that whole growing them from a tiny bundle of cells to a giant watermelon sized alien that will be squeezed through a hole the size of a lemon that squicks me out a bit.  And by a little, I mean COMPLETELY FUCKING TERRIFIES ME.  How's that for honesty?  But I also feel like it's not just the growing an alien being thing, because as traumatic as that might be, it's one of those things that has to come to an end.  It can't go on for a lifetime, it runs its course and it's done.  Plus, drugs.  Glorious pharmaceutical fog provided to you by the angels at Pfizer.  That's an option.  No, the scariest thing that I struggle with is the fact that I'm supposed to take a lump baby and turn it into a respectable human being who is a productive member of society, doesn't end up in prison, and also doesn't grow up to completely hate me.  How does no one else freak out about this?  I mean, it's not a "I don't know what I'm doing, tee hee, parenting is so confusing" fear.  I get the basics.  I get the general idea.  But it's the part about not making my children loathe me that I'm totally baffled about.  If we're doing a quick barometer check of the world at large here, people who know me and end up hating me > people who know me and don't end up hating me.  It's like a HUGE difference on the spectrum.  I ruin like every relationship I ever have.  Eventually, everyone hates me.  So now I'm supposed to go and shoot out a kid that, while very small, will be all unconditional love and stuff, but once grown will probably be like "Nope, everyone's right, you're a bitch.  Hate you".  Yeah, that's not terrifying or anything.

Beyond that, there's this huge worry that I'm totally going to lose my sense of self.  I won't be an individual anymore, I'll just be lumped into being "so-and-so's mom".  No more identity outside of being someone's mom.  It's not that it's necessarily bad to be someone's mom, but right now people know my actual name, and I am not reduced to a role that I fulfill.  I have an identity and I don't want to just be a role.  Plus, the idea of becoming one of those parents who has nothing to talk about outside of their preshus wittle spawn isn't all that appealing either.  And then I have to sit here and think "Am I the only one thinking things like this?".  Everyone around me seems to be so confident, so into the whole process.  So not afraid of shooting an alien out of their girl bits.  Then there's me over here, choking back the panic and wondering why everyone else is so excited.  The whole thing is terrifying.  You could SERIOUSLY fuck a kid up.  I mean, I know my last blog was all about how not making Mindy's Halloween costumes for her won't turn her into a stripper, but sometimes I have to wonder if being me and then being a parent on top of it would turn her into a stripper.  Like I said, I ruin everything.  So does that mean I won't ever have kids?  Probably not, though I do have to find a way to cope with the utter terror that courses through my body at the idea of embracing the "miracle of childbirth", and all of the unpleasantness that lead up to it like oh...I don't know, riding the vomit train for like 4 months.  I made it through my teen years without any bulimia, I don't really jump at the idea of having it forced upon me.  It just seems like the whole "miracle" of it all is so much scarier for me than it is for everyone else.  I'm a pragmatist.  I don't romanticize things.  I'm not going to be like "I puked non-stop for 4 months, but it's all for a good cause so I don't mind" like some people.  Fuck that.  I'm going to mind.  Like, probably a lot.  Anyone who "doesn't mind" puking all the time is way more full of crap than they're willing to admit.  It's annoying.  It disrupts your life.  You have to figure out how to manage your normal, every day life, while also fitting in a few vomit breaks throughout the day.  Not really my personal dream.

So I guess I'm mostly left wondering if I'm the only one who thinks about things like this, or if other people do and they just won't talk about it.  Like, we're all supposed to be baby making machines, right?  So talking about how maybe the idea of ruining the life of a tiny human being who might have otherwise turned out normal is pretty much the scariest thing ever, and then coupling that with the HORRORS of what I've read happen when you actually shoot a baby out of your vagina, maybe that isn't acceptable?  Maybe we're all supposed to have this instinct that turns off the voice in your head that says "You could really fuck this up", and I just don't have it.  I dunno.  Sometimes I just don't feel like I was made like normal women.  No one else ever seems to think the things I do, or have the same reservations about things as I do.  And maybe that's a part of it as well.  Maybe if I'm not a normal woman, then I'm not cut out for all of this.  Sure, at the end, the payoff is pretty nice and you do get a tiny little spawn of your combined DNA to show for your efforts but, does it come at a price of losing who you are?  Does the whole overwhelming love thing make that loss not matter?  No one ever talks about it, so I don't know.  And dear god, if I turned into one of those mothers constantly fawning over her PRESHUS PERFECT ANGEL who can't see anything else, I'd want someone to kill me.  I'd probably want to kill me.

I'd also really hate to have people think that if I did make the choice to have kids, it'd be due to the whole "everyone else is doing it right now" thing and not a decision I've agonized over for like....8 years now?  No one else shooting out some babies has led me to these internal conflicts.  If anything, it's just brought the conflicts into sharper focus for me, since everyone else seems so....not panicked.  If I have a kid in the next year, it's not because my cousins are doing it, or any friends are doing it.  It's because, hopefully, I'll have wrestled these demons into a quiet place.  Or I'll do what I usually do and just bite the bullet, suck up all of the fear and say "Do what you gotta do, and shut up about it".  That's how I handle most large problems.  But the idea of being seen as a "bandwagon" joiner kind of pisses me off.

Maybe the problem is that I can't control all aspects of the situation, and that's probably what scares me the most.

Is that normal?

I have no idea.  Probably not.  

I'm Lookin' At You, Pinterest

Ok, can we just stop for a second and ponder why everything has to be a fucking THING now?  People can't just do things.  Everything has to be a giant fucking special occasion where everyone is a special and unique snowflake, and I blame Pinterest.  And yes, before you ask, I totally have a Pinterest account.  I got it when they first started out, primarily out of curiosity.  It seemed interesting enough, kind of like a Tumblr for crafters, foodies and home improvement fanatics.  I can get behind that.  I used boards to organize recipes and also to gather inspiration photos for theater productions.  But now it seems like Pinterest is like a giant pool of shit to make you feel like you have to make everything a THING.

I notice this the most with baby related things.  People can't just say that they're pregnant.  They have to announce it in some sort of cutesy way, sometimes with the assistance of a professional photographer.  You can't just say "It's a boy" anymore, you have to do a cutesy fucking photo shoot, or bake stupid color-cream filled cupcakes so that people have to bite into them to find out your kid's gender.  Then there's the maternity photo shoot, where you have to have a million pictures done with you looking all knocked up and fabulous.  All in the name of making it a THING.  Simplicity has taken a back seat to making people feel like a unique and special snowflake who needs a shit ton of attention and has to come up with cutesy ways to get it.

It doesn't just stop with maternity and baby related stuff though.  No.  Since the target demographic is primarily women, let's post a ton of shit that will forever make other women feel like they're just not doing enough.  Ever.  I should take that back.  The target demographic isn't just women.  It's mommies.  And we all know how I feel about mommies.  But basically it's like a giant pool of shit that will inevitably make every mother feel like she's not being super mom if she doesn't do a bunch of meaningless bullshit.  Timmy's life might be less happy if I don't learn how to perfectly pack his lunches into Bento boxes with adorable cutout shapes in the sandwiches and a perfectly balanced meal every single day.  If I don't carefully hand construct every one of her Halloween costumes, Mindy will grow up to resent me forever and will become a stripper.  If the nursery I design isn't completely perfect, my kid will be suicidal before they're 5.  If I don't carefully preserve every crusty umbilical cord fragment, footprint, first curl, or lost tooth, I am a failure as a mother.  If I don't hand make every bit of baby food or decide to use formula instead of breast feeding, I might as well just birth the kid and send it to prison.  I think my personal favorite was when I saw someone post a tutorial on how to cover fabric burp cloths with other fabric so they would be "prettier".  You honestly want women to spend hours sewing and covering something that is, essentially, a vehicle for vomit?

And then this bleeds over into Facebook.  Every day I'm inundated with a ton of "shares" from random Facebook sites that have large graphic art like this:

Like.......really?  Why the fuck do women feel the need to post this?  Don't all moms love their kids?  It's kind of the whole point of being a mom.  Sure, I understand that some moms are shitty and don't actually care about their kids, but I'm willing to go on a limb and say they're in the minority.  So why are we as a gender feeling compelled to post things like this so that we can reaffirm that we DO love our kids, as if anyone was questioning it?

Let's stack on top of that all of the fitness tutorials that are on Pinterest, and all of the many many techniques for getting thinner, getting flatter abs, getting a tighter butt, and then the bullshit self image bashing "inspirational" posters like this one:

What the actual fuck, people?  Let's just sit around and remind ourselves that as a gender we will never be good enough.  We will never be doing enough.  Not as parents.  Not as individuals.  Women, you just suck.  That's what I'm seeing.  And unless you do all of the right things, you will NEVER be the unique and special snowflake that need to be.  You will never be as pretty or as smart or as good as all of those other mystery women on the internet who are doing all of these things SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU ARE DOING THEM.  Oh wonder women, teach us your secrets.  Our perfection is out there, just out of reach, and if only we could do just one more thing like our fucking pins tell us to, we could achieve it.

Or maybe we're not all unique and special snowflakes.  We're also not all pretty, or skinny, or perfect.  Some of us work two jobs and then come home and look after our kids.  Some of us don't have kids, but work our asses off in our careers and then donate our free time to charitable programs.  Some of us don't have the perfect body.  Some of us fucking LIKE CAKE.  Not everything has to be a fucking THING.  Sometimes, being you is actually just enough.  

And to my mom friends out there.  Do you have a kid?  Did you grow that little alien for 9 goddamn months?  Did you have it forcibly ripped from your body either through your girl bits our out the top of your sliced open abdomen?  Did your kid get fed, loved, cared for today?  Did you keep it alive?  You are fucking super mom.  

Fuck Pinterest.

Thoughts on Things

So, Syria has been in the news a lot for the past week, and while I'm not going to pretend I'm Jason and I'm overwhelmingly well versed in world politics, I have been thinking a lot about it.  That picture over there to the left?  That's Syria, taken recently and published in the Washington Post.  Seeing this made me think about how I recently watched the movie Elysium, and I was really uncomfortable when watching the conditions people were living in on Earth in the movie while the fortunate got to live on an immaculate space station.  I sat there wondering how anyone could live in the conditions shown in the movie, and I found that for that and a few other reasons, I just wanted the whole film to end.  On an intellectual level, I know people around this world already live in those conditions, and when I look at this photo of Syria, I'm brought right back to that film moment where I thought "People shouldn't let these things happen".  The sad fact is, however, that we do let these things happen.

I've been told pretty recently that I'm the sort of person who has a passion for things that most people can't understand.  I don't feel things in small, compartmentalized ways.  I can't do that.  I don't compartmentalize. I am more like this:

So when I see things like what's going on in Syria, I start to wonder why we have so much news coverage and no one is DOING anything.  In some ways, I feel like countries like the US, Canada, and most European countries are those people living on Elysium compared to what Syrians experience.  And we're all here, sitting around, drinking our lattes and bitching about how it costs so much to have your teeth professionally whitened, and these poor people are getting bombed with chemical weapons that are killing their children and we're all "Oh hey, no big deal.  They don't have oil".  And we sit around shouting that anyone would even propose the idea of a ground invasion there, or going to war with them for MURDERING INNOCENT PEOPLE WITH CHEMICAL WEAPONS.  Remember when we were all "Oh hey, we're not going to do this WWII thing because yeah....you handle that one Europe.  That Hitler guy, he's a real firecracker!" and then sat around shocked and appalled when we found out what happened to millions of Jews while we sat around doing nothing?  I'm not saying history repeats itself or anything, I'm just saying that maybe we've seen things like this before.  And don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating for war, but I am advocating for life.  I'm advocating for some of these people to be spared the hell they've experienced at the hands of their own people, and if some other people have to get their hands dirty to help accomplish that, then maybe that's what we should be doing.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that other Star Trek stuff.

I think what struck me the other day while listening to the NBC Nightly News interview a six or seven year old boy in Syria about what happened, and how his father had to stay behind to fight with the rebels, and how he doesn't know if he'll see his father again, is how we as a society can be surprised when little boys like this grow up to be angry teenage boys with large guns and a very deep rooted hatred of others who would allow these monstrosities to happen.  We are so keen to fight these wars on terrorists, but we do nothing to fight the conditions that breed those terrorists.  I can't help but feel like if we have the ability to achieve some sort of stable environment in some of these countries with troops, and we began building more schools instead of dropping more bombs, we'd be giving these suffering children the ability to do more than be angry teenagers with guns.  We'd be giving them the keys to a different future, or at least the opportunity of hope that there could be one.  Today's kids are tomorrow's leaders, and if we keep dropping these bombs, or allowing others to drop them, we breed leaders who know no better than to drop bombs.  There's got to be a way out of the cycle, and I don't know what it is, but I wish we could all start to see that terror starts in the young, when they feel terrified and begin to turn that into anger and fight back.  

At any rate, I hope that little boy from the news broadcast finds another way and another future for himself, if he is allowed to have one while we all stand by and watch his homeland get blown to bits.

Supposed To

I don't write here often.  I look at people who have blogs who diligently keep up with posts and find something to write about, even if it's mundane, but for some reason I can't find it in me to sit down, even on a semi-weekly basis, and write something in this space.  Sometimes I wonder why that is, why I can't come up with even a few sentences to post that say "Hey, this is me".  The more I think about it, the more I remember that I used to write.  Constantly.  I had notebooks filled with stories, or poems, or ideas for things when I was in middle and high school.  I had this weird creative button that just could not be turned off.  I would sit at home tapping away at my computer every night, even after hours of theater rehearsal and homework, because there would be something in my head that just had to get out.  There was a voice that just had to be heard, thoughts and emotions that just had to be expressed, even if it was in fiction.  I had to get it out and let it live somewhere else.

And then at some point, that voice disappeared.  It went silent, and I don't hear it anymore.  Moreover, I don't hear my own voice anymore.  Not really.  Somewhere on the path to adulthood, that creative spirit, that need to JUST BE got lost.  Maybe it was crushed under the weight of responsibilities, or maybe I became cynical and decided no one listened or cared so there was no point in carrying on with something that didn't mean anything.  It didn't pay my bills, or do my homework, or get me to and from my job, or push me toward any of the goals I was supposed to have as an upstanding and productive member of society.  That little light in me just....blew out.  And I think maybe more than the creativity went with it.  More and more, I find I second guess myself on what I'm supposed to do in any given situation.  I am not supposed to get angry about some things, and I am not supposed to talk to people a certain way.  I am not supposed to talk to people about my life.  And, inevitably, whenever I do something that feels right, it is always wrong.  Never what I was supposed to do.  So at some point I stopped doing any of it.  Sometimes I find I wait for someone else to give my opinion to me, because it's probably the one I'm supposed to have.  I don't make decisions because I don't know if it's the one I'm supposed to make.  I find when I actually do express a true thought or opinion to anyone, inevitably it leads to disagreement and I end up feeling like I'm wrong and I should have just listened to what I was supposed to do.  I share myself, and people almost always leave.  So I don't do that.  I actually started slowly deleting that "self" piece, and soaking up the supposed to from everyone else.  And when I stray from the supposed to, I hear things like "We will NEVER be on the same page about anything" and I stat thinking that there is something wrong with me, that I can't come up with the supposed to on my own.  In so many ways, it would be easier.  It would be easier and nicer to just have those closest to me tell me what to think and feel, so I could never be wrong.  It hurts to be wrong.  It hurts to know that the way you handle something is all wrong, or how you talk to someone is all wrong, or how you think is all wrong.  It would be so much easier if I could just know what I'm supposed to be doing.

The truth is, I feel like a lot of different people have this vision of my particular supposed to, which I'm sort of afraid is nothing like me, and I have so little self left that I'm afraid to give it up.  I'm often told I'm impossible to please, which I guess I'm not supposed to be.  From my perspective, I have high standards.  I admit that.  I expect a lot, but I also give a  lot and hold myself to the same standards as everyone else.  If that makes me somehow impossible to please, all I hear is that I'm supposed to lower the standards so everyone else can do less.  I don't want to do that, but it's what I'm supposed to do to keep people happy.  It's one of the few pieces of myself that I have left, and I feel like I'm supposed to give it up.  Maybe I am.

But I have a hard time writing here because I don't know what I'm supposed to write.  What do people actually want to hear from me?  What the hell do I have to say that is worth reading?  What voice is there in me that anyone gives a damn about?  What am I supposed to do here?

Milestones in May

The month of May seems to always be busy.  In addition to nature pulling out all of the stops to send everything into bloom, and send us out to mow our yard potentially more than once a week, May is full of holidays and events.  On top of Mother's day, we have my mother's birthday (often falling on the same day as Mother's Day), my birthday, and our anniversary all within a week or so of each other.  This year Jason and celebrated 8 years of marriage.  I'm not sure it really feels like a big celebration after 8 years.  Mostly it just feels like a day where we are still married, but we manage to escape the house and go out to dinner alone.  We're not big on extravagant celebrations.  I think both of us try to appreciate the every day stuff, so the huge celebrations don't tend to be a necessity.  Sometimes it's nice to just have some time alone.  As strange as it seems, we don't get a lot of that.  Even if we're alone in a room, we're almost never alone in the house, so being able to get out and spend time together is nice.  Sometimes little things mean a lot.

In reality, Jason and I will have been together for 15 years this November, and what I've discovered in that time is that things will almost always change.  Jobs, priorities, housing situations, family, friends, ideals, pretty much everything.  Chances are you will go through periods where you make each other crazy, you will go through periods where you question whether you're drifting apart, you will go through periods where you think life cannot possibly get any more challenging, and periods where you think that every choice or move you are making is wrong.  Then there will be periods where you feel like everything is going so well that you can't possibly get any better.  The thing is, even in those dark periods, which may have nothing to do with your relationship at all, if you can find yourself still wanting to go home to your spouse at the end of the day and tell them everything, you're succeeding.  I find that even after 15 years, and even after an awful fight the night before, all I want in the morning is to wake up next to Jason and start again.  Even if the day brings more arguments because I'm a cranky bitch and he's about as stubborn as they come, he's still the person I'd want to be arguing with.  Even the struggle, as annoying as it is, is worth having if you want to move forward.  All I know is that at the end of every day, the thing I want most is to talk to Jason.  I want to go to bed next to him, and I want to talk about the day.  I want him to talk to me.  In the end, that's probably all that matters.  I just hope that as the years go, we can hold onto that, even if everything else around us changes.  I hope that some day, when he's totally gray, and I'm beginning to shrink and look more like a man than he does, we are happily walking around, hand in hand like those old people up there in the photo.  I hope that in another 15 years, all we want at the end of the day is to come home to each other.  That's all that will matter.

Sometimes I Hate Doctors

We like to talk a lot about healthcare and healthcare reform in this country, but this week I've realized that maybe we need a medical system overhaul while we're at it.  I went to my doctor to talk about how I've been getting headaches pretty consistently for the past year.  Most of the time it's a tension headache, which doesn't really worry me.  I know it's directly related to the fact that I carry all of my stress and tension in my shoulders and neck.  I can almost directly trace the headache from the back of my head, down my neck and into my shoulders.  It sucks, but it's not anything that has me horribly concerned.  It's the other headaches I get that have me a bit worried.  They're not regular run of the mill headaches.  They're headaches that localize themselves in one spot at the back of my head.  It's always the same spot, and the pain is always intense.  There's pressure, my left eye starts getting funny and seeing spots, I feel nauseated from the vision problems and the pain, and they don't go away for 3 or 4 days.  Nothing helps.  Advil doesn't help, sleep doesn't help.  Nothing improves the situation.  It goes away gradually after a few days, but still, really annoying.  It worries me mostly because it's always localized in one spot, and also because if I were to bump my head in that particular spot it hurts more than if I were to bump my head in any other area.  Even when I don't have a headache.  That's reason for concern, right?

So I go to talk to a doctor about it.  I end up seeing this guy in my medical practice that I've never seen before.  I start explaining what happens and he proceeds to NOT LISTEN TO A DAMN THING I SAID.  He kept focusing on the tension headaches at first, and I kept saying I didn't worry about those, they were just annoying.  Then as soon as I said I had a family history of migraines, he just jumped to "Oh then you're getting migraines".  No, I'm not.  I've never had problems with migraines or even gotten a migraine.  I have localized headaches that cause pressure in my skull and sensitivity in the area that the headaches appear.  That's not a migraine.  But he didn't listen.  Then he informed me that he is a "professional drug dealer" so he could put me on a variety of drugs to solve the issue, but never one talked to me about what might be causing them.  When I said I didn't want pills, I wanted to figure out why I was getting these sort of headaches all of the sudden, he got weird and asked if I had expectations that he would just send me for a CAT Scan.  I said I expected that someone more educated on the subject than I am would tell me if it was necessary to get any sort of scan.  I wanted him to tell me if I should even be worried in the first place.  I said I wanted to figure out why this started happening so suddenly, and so frequently.  He said "Well why does your mom get migraines?  We don't know.  We can't know those kinds of things".  Thanks a ton, doctor asshat.  He then offered to prescribe for me the following:

• Anti-Depressants
• Beta Blockers
• Blood thinners
• Imitrex
• Muscle relaxers

All because I said I get headaches more often than I think I should.  I'm not sure why I needed to walk around with that list of drugs in my system for a headache problem that I only came in to ask whether I should be worried.  I have no idea why he was so quick to just pull out the prescription pad and pump me full of enough chemicals to keep Pfizer in business for years.  Beyond that, why can't we talk through finding the root cause of something like this instead of just jumping on the pharmaceutical bandwagon?  He seemed annoyed that I refused all of the medications, as if I wasn't allowing him to do his job.  I don't want to have a "quick fix".  I wanted someone to listen to what I had to say, tell me if it was worth any measure of concern, and then allow me to decide how I wanted to combat the problem.  This guy just wanted to make some pharmaceutical rep really happy.

In the end I accepted the muscle relaxers, since they were on an "as needed" schedule for medication, and I know I have muscle tension problems, but I refused everything else.  I have taken one pill so far, and have decided I don't think I want to take more since they left me feeling groggy and light headed.  I also woke up with a headache.  Funny how it wasn't solved simply by popping a pill.  Shocking.