Monthly Muse October '19 Week 2

I love whatever it was that drew you in and made you stay here Cynthia! Your personality is a HUGE part of what makes this place awesome! I always loved when you came to my chats too!

 

Like last week, I really tried to come up with something external to art about but nope. Same as then, the only thing that really matched "a part of yourself you dislike, or don't feel comfortable with, but have learned to love or adapt" is all internal and ephemeral.

I went into a bit of detail over on the gallery page and had planned to do a bit more here, but somewhere along the way I stopped playing the spoons and started getting beat with them so I'm just going to c&p:

~First off, for those who aren't aware, spoons has become a word/imagery associated with chronic illness. I won't go into it here but it's easy enough to google: The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino.

So the week's prompt is to journal about something we don't like about ourselves but have learned to at least accept, if not love. I don't love being a spoonie - in fact it's safe to say I never will - but sooner or later you figure out you don't have much choice to accept it. I have a laundry list of disorders but the main ones are Graves' Disease and fibromyalgia, and that's never going to change. The "cure" for Graves' is to have your thyroid removed, which only gives you a different set of issues to deal with. As for fibro, there's still no real clue what causes it, let alone how it might be cured. Even now there are still doctors who don't believe it's an actual illness.

Anyway - you get two choices with your new reality of life: refuse to accept you're now chronically ill/disabled and fight against it (which only makes it worse, and do I speak from experience? You better hecking bet), or, well, learn to live with what you can't rise above.

I wish it was like learning to love my fat thighs or beat up, dried out hands but it's not. There's no magical moment when I look in the mirror and am glad for these things, when I can find the good that comes with. My old hands can still make beautiful things, my fat thighs make a big, welcoming lap (or can smother a man if need be ), but an immune system that thinks other parts of my body are the enemy is never going to be a bonus. There is no up side.

But there is peace in acceptance. Sometimes that's enough to be grateful for.

 

Whoa!...So Many Wonderful & Amazingly Candid Layouts!...Bravo! To Everyone Who Bared Their Soul!...I'm So Used To Bearing My Soul Here At The Lilypad When It Comes To My Emotions About My Own Mental Health & Physical Health Problems...I Have Created Many Layouts About These Things...So I Decided To Take A Different Approach To This Challenge...There Are Sooo...Many Things That I Don't Like About Myself...I Could Make A List A Mile Long...But I'm Not Gonna Get Into That Here...We All Have Things That We Don't Like About Ourselves...So I Decided To Take A More Humorous/Halloween Approach To My Layout...I Literally Hate My Really Annoying/Drive Me Crazy Everyday...Out Of Control...Full Of Fly-aways...Frizzy...Partially Flat...Gigantic After Blow Drying..Semi-Curly Frizzy Hair!!!...It Takes So Many Steps Just To Get It Ready For My Diffuser...First Shampoo & Conditioner... Then Rinse...Then Dry Oil(To Control The Fly-aways & Frizz)......Then My Gel For Lift At The Middle & Crown(And Everywhere Else For Some Construct Of Control...)...Then The Tedious Blow Dry With The Diffuser...But Oh!...Don't Move The Hair Around Too! Much!!!!...It Could Create A Gigantic Mess!!!...Then After All That...The Styling Then Comes Into Play...& Then The Finishing Spray To Hold It All Into Place...Geez!...No Wonder I Just Don't Bother Most Of The Time...Up In Barettes & A Small Pony...When At Home...It Literally Drives My Crazy,Kills My Arms,Legs & Back In The Process...But Hey!...I Don't Like To Complain Too Much...Since A Couple Of Years Ago...I Almost Lost All Of My Hair...It Just Started Falling Out In Gigantic Clumps...I Almost Died 2 Years Ago After Blood Clots In My Legs Traveled Up To My Lungs & Burst...It Knocked My Flat On My Back...On The Bathroom Floor...I Hit The Doorknob On The Way Down With My Face...I Woke Up On The Floor & Couldn't Move Or Talk...I Literally Thought I Was Paralyzed...Like I Had A Stroke...I Died On The Floor & Was Revived By Paramedics...& Died 2 More Times At The Hospital...The Doctors Brought Me Back Both Times...They Said It Was A Miracle I Survived...I Nicknamed Myself "The Purple People Eater"...I Was Purple From The Forehead Down To My Bellybutton(Including My Arms & Stomach)...For Weeks After...I Swole Up Like The Good Year Blimp Too...Recovery Was Long & Arduous...Weeks In The Hospital,Therapy & Lots Of Medications...And After Surviving All That...Weeks Later After My Hospital Stay...All My Hair Started To Fall Out...I Remember...I Cried For Days...My Precious Hair Was Falling Out...I Thought I Was Gonna Die All Over Again...But I Got Treatment & Slowly But Surely Over Time...My Hair Started To Grow Back...It Took Almost 2 Years Before I Can Say It Looked Half Decent Again...It Was Healthier & Curly!!!...I Had Straight Fine Hair All My Life...I Thought I Was Dreaming...Or Maybe A Side Effect Of My Treatments...But Still Curly Even Now...But I Didn't Know How To Take Care Of Curly Hair...It Came As A Big Shock To Me...All The Maintenance...But Despite All That...I Do Love My Red Curly Hair When It Is Properly Styled...But Getting There Is The Challenge...So To That End...I Took A Tongue-In-Cheek Look At My Big,Red,Curly Hair...& It Slowly Morphed Into A Fun Halloween Layout...I Love How It Turned Out...But It Took Me Multiple Days...Off & On...To Complete It Properly...So Many Layers(Eventhough You Can't See Them All...But They Are There...) & Many Kits Later...So That's Why The Delay In Completion...

*For My Frizzy Hair...Don't Care Layout-I Used:

*Ravens Pastiche/The Raven Twins-Elmira & Elvira & Xander By Night-Rebecca McMeen
*Scary Cute/This Month Captured:October 2016-Bundle & Resin Bits 9 Halloween-Mommyish
*Create Crate Monthly-Toil & Trouble-October 2017-Bella Gypsy/Kristin Aagard/Mommyish
*Create Crate Monthly-Bohemian Fall-September 2018-Bella Gypsy/Kristin Aagard/Becca Bonneville
*Artist-Sabrina's Creations
*Falling Slowly-Collection-Bella Gypsy
*Autumn Sonata-Paula Kesselring
*Boo-Mini-Tir Amisu Design
*Trick-DSD 2019-Collab-Oscraps

*WOW!...Weird...I Just Realized That I Used 13 Kits/Bundles To Complete This Layout...13 Is My Lucky Number!...And It Has Come Up A Lot In The Past Few Days/Weeks...Wonder What That Means?...Spooky!...

 

Kissed the frog!

 

here's mine for the week 2
the subject was easy to choose : my dislike part is my body. but making a page about that wasn't easy. sorry if you can't read my journaling but it's part of my scrap-therapy
thank you for your understanding

 

My nose....