Shame...

So much that shames me I cannot bring myself to speak of, though I long to be free from that bondage. Yet there are other things that bring shame that I am learning to speak because they are a documentation of sorts of what is happening to my body.

My body. SIGH.

I believe that I have written before that during the process of applying for disability, I wrote and revealed changes in me that I had not spoken of to any doctor.  I feel ashamed to be that person.  For one, to be a person who drools.

Even before the drooling, I started having trouble with drinking from glasses.  My ultimate solution is that I use straws for practically all my drinks.  To some around me, my use of straws is a joke or even an object of ridicule.  For the most part, milk is the only thing that I do not drink from a straw.  But I only drink it from a glass I have found to provide the least chance of spilling.  Yes, before I drooled, I regularly spilled my drink all over myself.

A while ago, when I was working on my laundry, I spotted a ceramic coffee mug that was among the seminary grad student's travel coffee mug collection.  The reason this caught my eye is that I really enjoy brewing and then drinking a pot of tea.  However, I cannot drink tea from a mug very well.

So, I went looking and found a ceramic coffee mug with a silicone lid.  Spending money on something I was not sure would work was hard for me.  Not finding one in GREEN was harder.  I finally found one in an earthy brown with some sort of abstract leaf pattern.  I brought it home, brewed a cup of coffee, and dared a sip.

It worked.
I did not spill.
A single drop.

Discovering my ability, my endurance, for puttering about the yard has decreased greatly from last summer was hard.  Discovering that I had, indeed, gone to the restaurant I had been hankering to try was devastating.  Wanting to talk about the changes, large and small, that I am experiencing in my mind and in my body is overwhelming.  But so many of them carry a level of shame for me.

Today, I had two different people ask me if I wanted an electrical outlet in space that will be an official half bathroom once the wall in the parlor is completed.  I asked them both why would one want an outlet in such a space.  Both answered: so you could blow dry your hair.  Setting aside the fact that I do not know why anyone  would want to dry their hair in a main floor half bathroom, what I wanted to blurt out is that I have not dried my hair in years because of the strain and pain of holding my arms up long enough to do so.  The whole truth is that I have not even brushed my hair since I cut it off to help with the constant pain in my head.

Has it been a year?  Two?  Somewhere in between?  I cannot tell you for I do not remember when I cut off what, for me, has long been a part of my identity.  What I do know is that I did so after moving here and I have lived here for two years and six months.  In any case, I am a woman who no longer brushes or combs her hair.

The reasoning is sound.  Whenever my arms are raised above my heart, it has to work harder.  And whenever I am standing, it has to work harder, as gravity is pulling blood away from my heart and the autonomic process of increasing my heart rate and my blood pressure to compensate no longer works.  This is why hammering and drilling have become so hard for me, why I huff and puff to drill a hold and put in a single screw.  Why I am sweating and shaking and nearly faint if I attempt to do more than a single hole.  Why the final improvements to this amazing 1920 home of mine ought never to be made by me again.

But a woman who does not brush her hair.  I don't want to be that kind of person.  Unkempt.  Personal care in disarray.

Only, I have no choice in the matter.

I want to talk about the things that are changing within me.  I want for my friends to know so that they can comfort me in the battle of facing such changes, so that they can pray.  Yet I am ashamed to speak of them.  If in mind, because I used to be rather intelligent.  If in body, because I cannot truly care for my person, at times, in the manner in which I should.

Oh, the weight of shame....


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!