No wonder love hurts.

Nobody wanted to hear this on Valentine’s Day.  So I’m debuting my list today instead.  Drum roll, please! Here’s my TOP TEN LIST OF BEST-DOWN-IN-THE-DUMPS-ABOUT-LOVE songs.  What’re yours?

1.    I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry – Hank Williams

2.    Love Hurts – Roy Orbison

3.    She’s Out of My Life – Michael Jackson

4.    In My Life – The Beatles

5.    Unbreak My Heart – Toni Braxton

6.    Even Now – Barry Manilow

7.    Still – Lionel Richie

8.    You Were Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson

9.    8:05  – Moby Grape (who?!)

10.   End of the World – Skeeter Davis

It’s complicated.  Researchers devise lots of studies about attractiveness.  Things like what foods are sexy and the number of dates you get based on where your eyes are in relation to your ears. 

Remember that old Twilight Zone episode about the pigs?

Don’t know anyone who’s gone under the knife to rearrange their ears.  Except her.    That we fund grants to gain this knowledge  is obvious — we hear about the results on OWN, read them in Cosmo, know they’re true based on the number of nose jobs done each year, and by the stock market price of companies selling hair color.  If attractiveness is linked to desirability which is all about sexuality, the reason for the study of what we find attractive is to find out what makes for being a hottie or a hunk.   Oh, those naughty, naughty researchers (smirk smirk).  WooHoo.  Bring on the studies!  It’s only postpartum and menopausal women who don’t care, anyway.  The rest of us do and we get very upset (read depressed) when who we are doesn’t coincide with what those (smirk smirk) researchers say about what’s hot and what’s not.

Think of the Wonder Bra (guess it’s called that because guys wonder if women really have the frontage implied).  You can bet your boobies that companies don’t invest that kind of money bringing a product to market unless there’s a market for their product.  Hef pays for his in-mansion Playmates to have breast augmentation because there’s a big market for ogling and owning big breasts.  We’re smothered in ’em.  In some communities, breast augmentation surgery is given as a high school graduation gift (does that mean they don’t get a car?). We’re suckers for quantity and there’s a lot of quantity to a 36 double D (sounds like something you’d hear at the blackjack table).  Sexually desirable traits are the ones to have.  And if you don’t have those traits, you can always buy them, implanted or not.

Most of us make ourselves more attractive based on what people we find attractive find attractive.  Or what we think they find attractive.  But I don’t have to tell you that getting there can be hard, even impossible.  I can’t wear those sexy spike heels without falling off them — and unless you’re weird, that’s not sexy.

Yesterday I saw two commercials as far apart as reality and fantasy can be.  In one, for a teleflorist, a young man was being counseled by a pretty blonde on how to word his Valentine’s email.  In a sultry yet soothing voice, she advised him to say what was in his heart; that turned out to be about his loved one’s “rack”.  Then I saw a middle-aged man  asking us to fund breast cancer research so no one else would have to go through what his wife did.

I think I was going to a wedding; that’s why the hat.

I’m not immune from judging my attractiveness against the mainstream.  I own a Wonder Bra or two.  Okay, three.  I wear make-up, even though tremors make for an interesting result.  There’s a small backlash against our over-reliance on projecting false images of ourselves, but I don’t think it has a thing to do with  invisible disability awareness.  If it’s still true (and it is) that decisions about who we hire are made based on physical attractiveness, what is the message to those with invisible disability?  I’d wager a pretty hefty percentage of us (especially women) stay in the closet about something that has the potential, we suppose, of diminishing our success.

Covering up cosmetically is a human addiction that goes back a long way. Nobody wants to be “naked” when nothing is wrong; imagine how the invisibly-disabled feel when there is.  And what about you invisibly disabled brethren.  Are we so sex-starved, so captive to the biological imperative, so unevolved we have to make judgments based on who’s attractive and thus fertile?  Jeez, get over yourselves and decide what really is imperative.

(This last sentence is in the category of it-sounds-good-but-yeah-sure.)

Kathe Skinner is a psychotherapist specializing in work with couples experiencing invisible disability.  She is living, well, with multiple sclerosis.

Blame it on the neoconservativemilitaryindustrialcomplex.  Monogamy, I mean.  I can hear the chatter of people who justify outside-the-relationship behavior because of our biologically-primed desire to dine at the sexual buffet.  Was it really eagermess to produce a son and heir that had Henry going through all those wives?  I guess if you can create your own church and behead who you’re tired of, justification isn’t needed.   Anyway, there’s been a lot of academic support for the notion that monogamy is only for social purposes. 

There are days I don’t get farther down the hall than my office; you’ll find me in front of the computer wearing my jammies (not the let’s-have-sex ones, the too big flannel mis-matched ones).   Come on.  You really expect me to do everything I don’t get done already and still put on clothes?

Puhleez.

Besides, a girl could go broke on Valentine’s cards.

It’s my signature scent: coffee and cream.

I wear it on all my clothes, and dash it on rugs and upholstery. Drop drips on sueded shoes. Like a pre-teen soaking stationery in perfume, I’ve been known to drench papers, important or not. There are several drying on papertowels as I write. Coffee and Cream is not an unpleasant way to smell, but it’s not Chanel. It is, however, a more reasonable way to smell than eau de pineapple, which was how I reeked after a shift at the cannery (which is another story).

Cafe Au Lait wasn’t always my scent; I matured into being a spiller and now I’m a sure-fire winner. Sometimes I alter how I smell, preferring to match the contents of a luncheon- or dinner-plate with a complementary bouquet. I could be wearing something earthy like a quiet cabernet or sport bolder notes, like a fragrant gravy.

What I do is in top percentile.

I always strive to be part of my environmente. To blend in, to be in the essence of it all. Trend spilling, as it were. Always striving to prove that I am what I eat…or maybe to just smell that way.

A late lunch at the have-a-taste-tables of Costco or Sam’s is an experiential pinnacle.  With all humility I am drawn to fresh-from-the-electric-fry-pan samples of taquitos or shredded chicken dip washed down with a tiny papercup-full of Joint Juice.  Always a new challenge to swallow, not wear.  Those broad cement aisles are like a yellow brick road, just as if they led to the perfume counter at Macy’s.

Resting on a mall bench, I dip a paper napkin into my cup of water so as to rub cookie dough yogurt from my new white sweater.  I am almost orgasmic! awareness heightened! nose quivering like a housecat at an open window!  so many smells here in the FoodCourt!   Why hasn’t a parfumier captured this multiplicity of olfactoriness and called it, oh, I don’t know, maybe Courting.   What a nose trip it would be: complicated floral with top notes of onion.  Applying “the nose’s” skill to combine subtlety with bravado.  Downwind and upwind components.  Uniquely American.

Transported by emotion, I get tears in my eyes. Shaking, spilling, missing my mouth — I experience such an aromatized life! Indeed, I am a fortunate woman!

1. Needing a restroom.  Now.   There’s a line. The restroom is closed for cleaning. Continue reading “TOP TEN STRESSORS (OF BEING INVISIBLY SICK/DISABLED)” →

Continue reading “Holy Moses, What A Chassis!” →

"I feel good nanananana I knew that I would nananana"

We all know that stress is necessary to keep us in balance — the right combination of eustress (good stress) and distress is similar to tuning an instrument: the right tension between different sounds produces a pleasing sound.

When distress tips the balance people try to reassert balance, sometimes by doing more of the very things that cause distress in the first place. Like the anxious employee who works even longer hours and becomes physically, mentally and emotionally overwhelmed. In other words, more distressed.

I recently gave a homework assignment that called for my client to periodically yell and scream in some private, safe place.  The next session, he reported that right after our meeting he sat in his car and screamed. And it worked! When you try it, clue in your partner or family; he didn’t and scared the living goose bumps out of his wife.

There are lots of other ways to attack stress and some are pretty odd.

Stress is universal and affects every living organism. It even affects the non-living, like rocks, linoleum and the living-dead, like zombies.

"What? Me worry?"

Think of stress as what makes for change — either good (eustress) or bad (distress). In one form or another, stress is present every day and all the time.

Sometimes what is good can be bad. There’s too much of a good thing like eating a few squares of dark chocolate versus eating the whole bag. Or trying all the machines at the gym because of a New Year’s resolution to get in shape versus working a plan for weight loss and toning. Too much too soon comes to mind.

What does this have to do with invisible illness or disability?

Picture this: it’s springtime and the display in front of the grocery store entices me to buy buy buy flowers and plants. Having that color and fragrance in my garden, attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, feeds my soul, as well as the souls of the bunnies and deer who feed on my garden, too. When other shoppers say “Someone’s gonna be busy!” I’ll let them know it’ll be my husband who’ll be busy, not me.  Then we’ll all chuckle and wheel away to load up on the paper towels that’re on sale, without any clue that it’s only because of the shopping cart that they’ve talked with me at all.  I’m pretty sure that if I was driving an electric shopping-scooter no one would remark on how busy planting I was going to be.

Ignoring the reality of limitations doesn’t get it done, whatever “it” is:  giving a party; fixing that car problem; shopping at the mall; traveling; vacuuming; eating at a restaurant; walking across the street; planting a garden.

What does denial do for us? For others? Does denial cause personal embarrassment? Rob others of energy when they seek to rescue us? Cause worry, even anger, in those who care? Is bad stress sometimes good for us?

I lie to myself because I don’t want to acknowledge that multiple sclerosis affects my ability to garden. Oddly enough, the things I do usually prove the very thing I’m trying so hard to deny. Overheated, unable to stand or walk, unable to help myself.

Sometimes stress wears a white hat sometimes it’s black.  Most of the time, I think, I color stress gray.

When Playboy Magazine was about 12 years old, Hugh Hefner appeared on “What’s My Line?” a show from when television entertainment was boxed in black and white. Sardonic, smug, and handsome in a slick sort of way, Hef now 84, acted like a frat boy who took his stash from under the bed and made lots of money selling it. Embarrassed to say that Playboy provided a great stimulus to take into those quick bathroom trips, men (mostly) said they read Playboy for the articles. Nobody believes that anymore, but men (mostly) still admire what’s in the magazine (not the articles) and especially admire Hefner for his continuing hold on 20-something Playmates.

Until his engagement, groups of young women still performed for him sexually. By certain accounts Playmates got weekly “allowances” of $1,000 but were virtual prisoners in the Playboy Mansion, stained mattresses and all. While some said the price of being demeaned wasn’t worth it, they still seem to have taken the money.

Lots of us “act as if”, like Hef acting as if he were that handsome guy in the early 60s. That Hef can pull it off is about things other than the cut of his pajamas. Pulling it off requires the collusion of young women. If you were a young woman, would you sacrifice? For how much and why? In 1987, a Cal State-Fullerton coed had the opportunity to not only answer those questions, but to act on them as well. Ellen Stohl was 23 then, legs paralyzed because of a spinal cord injury. She caught lots of flak from feminists and others who thought of her photo spread as exploitation, even though she was the one who approached Playboy. Her aim was to portray herself as a woman, not a disability. A creative way to replace your cake and eat it too.

Bring it to your own reality: What would you give in order to be other than who you are, physically? Would you be willing to “expose” yourself in order to be accepted? Accepted as what?

That was then. But here in 2011 I think it would still be a hard sell to have a bedroom scene featuring a disabled couple. Except for fetishists, intellectuals and chronically ill/disabled people, who’s in line at the megaplex? Films like “Coming Home” with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight focused sexual tension on a paraplegic’s return from Viet Nam; its success aimed at raising our awareness about relationship problems for returning soldiers. The film was bold for its time, but then again, those were stark times.

It might be time, again, to think of cinematic sex scenes that involve a new generation of returning soldiers. Injuries like PTSD are invisible, just like the cancers of Agent Orange, but no less disabling. Think of the sex scenes in most films and the action is most likely there for reasons other than plot. Sex sells. In order for disabled sex to sell we’d have to return to reality. These days, who wants to do that?

Check it out; Hef’s getting married again!  How many women do you think he’s asked who’ve said “no”?  That might be a more interesting interview than talking to the one(s) who said “yes”.

Anyway.  Ludicrous as this is, and it is ludicrous, we’ve asked for it.

We’re into fantasy and romance (clearly the two of them have gone in for both of those); no wonder couples get into relationship trouble in the real world if they think that is the real world.  Reality’s a drudge; it’s hard; it’s not glamorous; it’s too often penny-wise and pound-foolish.  Although that doesn’t mean as much as it used to when what we weigh today is fluff.

The real world is the 20 year old Sleeping Beauty whose real-life break-up still hasn’t given her a wake-up call. Or the very religious guy who seriously described how he would never marry somone disabled. Seriously. I expected as much from the to-die-for-in-high-school-guy whose good looks weren’t enough to float him out of the shallow end of the pool.  It’s the young man who told me he couldn’t work with a “broken” therapist and the woman who angrily emailed me after she abruptly quit therapy, partly because I should use my walker because it bothered her that I stumbled.  It’s sad, but true that most of us don’t get to wear jammies to work.

So here’s to ya, Hef. We need you. We need your example because it lets us know that being sexy and desirable disregards age or physical attributes. You’re a wonderful role model and I thank you. And congratulations to the bride-to-be.   By marrying you, she shows us, just like Anna Nicole did, that love truly does conquer all.

Kathe Skinner is a psychotherapist living, well, with m.s.