Misery

I have slowly been working my way through a book I borrowed from my sister called 'The Dance of the Dissident Daughter'. It is a book by Sue Monk Kidd that discusses many issues concerning feminism, christianity, etc. I have not gotten very far, but it has some interesting ideas. I would highly recommend it to women. Anyway, she discusses one of the characters from a previous novel who walks in her sleep every night. The character says that this is because 'people deposit their misery somewhere in their body...mine is apparently is the sleep center of my brain'. As someone who frequently gets sick whenever I am stressed, I totally agree with this idea, and I have recently had fresh evidence that this is the case.

For the past couple of months, I have been very stressed. I have been busy at work, apartment hunting (one of my least favorite things), traveling like crazy, and being very social (which is stressful for me since I am a bit of a hermit). A couple of months ago, I had a really bad cold (see my post Diseased). Last month, I noticed I had a big red patch on my thigh, and last week I broke out into red bumps all over my chest and back. Chicken pox? No, I all ready had those. Ringworm? Maybe, the red patch on my thigh looked right, but it spread to so many places. Although, I did pet some sheep while we were in Maine... I finally went into the doctor and they told me I had pityriasis rosea. Whaa? Well, apparently it is not contagious, goes away in 8-10 weeks, happens mostly to women my age, and they have absolutely no idea why it happens except that it may appear after exposure to a virus (like my bad cold). Maybe this is true, but I have another explanation. I was depositing my misery into my body, and it was made manifest by raised, red bumps. My misery definitely resides in body.