Male Freak-out Syndrome

I married my best friend. And I am convinced it is the only way to go because we have a wonderful family and home life. And it is wonderful to spend days and eternity with your best friend. It was an easy decision for me because I knew marrying my best friend came with a long list of advantages. But for men, there are more steps involved.

Here now, young men, are the steps that my husband took to complete the task of marrying the girl of his dreams-- (I am assuming that you already have a girl who is your best friend.)

1. Spend a lot of time together because it's just fun.
2. Hold hands, cuddle, kiss.
3. Spend a lot of time together.
4. Freak out because you realize you're not ready for a relationship and it's going too fast.
5. Ask why things can't just remain the same and propose that you still hang out without actually 'dating'.
6. Tell your friends that you are not really dating but just hanging out.
7. Decide that you will pull back and find other friends.
8. Realize that you are really missing her.
9. Spend more time together because it's just fun.
10. Freak out again. This time, lie and tell her that you can't get too serious because there's a girl in your hometown you want to check out first.
11. Punch yourself in the head because you don't know why you did #10.
12. See if she'll be willing to spend more time with you but not really date.
14. Spend more time together because it's just fun.
15. Freak out again because it's going too fast and now she really wants a commitment. Lie and tell her you need to find a job first and save enough money to get married.
16. Ask if you can just hang out but not date.
17. Spend more time together because it's just fun.
18. Freak out again because she is talking about marriage.
19. Find a get away car...i.e., tell her that you want to check out other colleges or go on a study abroad program.
20. If you're really dumb, you'd stop here and lose her. Then someone else gets to marry the girl of your dreams and your best friend.
21. If you skipped #20, then you beg her to take you back.
22. You take stock and leap that leap of faith because now you know you can't stand the thought of losing her.
23. Propose marriage and find a ring.
24. Freak out again and pretend that you forgot your parent's phone number and tell her you need time to break the news to your parents.
25. She dials the number for you and you break the news.
26. You finally have to set a wedding date.
27. Spend more time together because it's fun.
28. You freak out the night before your wedding and that freak-out moment manifests itself by your forgetting the ring half-way to the temple.
29. You finally get married and you are the happiest man in the world.
30. Spend more time together because it's just fun.

And for the rest of your life every day becomes a decision to love her more. You learn to communicate your fears now and freak-out times become few and far in between. You've married your best friend and you couldn't be happier.

Freak out events are really just those times when fear takes the place of faith. Every relationship has to progress and progress requires some measure of irritant or 'catalyst' to move forward. Otherwise, the relationship becomes stale. Those freak-out events are really doors that open in front of you and you don't know what's inside but you know you have to go in and find out. And that's scary. It will take faith to take that leap. 

Mathematical problems always have givens. Take stock of those givens--those things you already know because it will be those givens that will give you the courage to overcome fear.

Freak-out events are essential to the growth of your relationship because it provides opportunities to exercise the skills of crucial communicating. This is the skill you will need throughout your life together...when forces within and outside bring some trepidation and thus require problem-solving skills-- skills that need a best friend's hand.

Now back to my homework.

Submitting Gracefully

 

On my fifth night, my doctor came to discharge me from the hospital. Prior to my hospital stay, I went to the ER about severe flank pains. They told me my blood sugar level was in the 400s, my blood pressure was 232/128 and then the doctor ordered the nurse to administer Dilaudid intravenously. Immediately, I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and I could not breathe. I could not see straight. Instantly, I felt terrible. I could hear the two nurses discussing how I may have been given too much. I began to throw up. I tried to tell them I could not breathe. They gave me a shot of insulin. Shortly thereafter, they told me I could leave. I began to feel worse and worse and by the third day, I was back to the ER. I waited 5 1/2 hours in horrible pain, vertigo and nausea. I called my doctor who called another doctor who then arranged for me to be transferred to another hospital since there were no beds where I was. Paramedics came, put in an IV and drove me to that hospital where I was now sitting up in bed listening to my doctor's discharge instructions.

All I could hear was "insulin shots". I was stunned. Half an hour later, a nurse comes in to teach me how to give myself 20 units of Lantus, a basal insulin. I had no time to be terrified or compose myself. I just had to learn it in 10 minutes. Thus began my new life as a diabetic.

Within 10 days, my doctor took me off my insulin. I now take 500mg of metformin twice a day. My numbers are good. She even had to adjust my blood pressure medications to a lower dose. I've began to change my eating habits.

I have to admit that when the doctor gave me the news, a part of me felt terror, anger and guilt all at the same time. And I willingly succumbed to those feelings. I could hear voices in my head. This particular voice told me that these feelings are normal and that I should give in to them. So I did. I cried on the way home.

But here's something I also felt that I didn't tell anyone until weeks later: I also felt an inexplicable joy that didn't seem to be congruent to what was happening to me. Words of scripture passed through my head--words that I've taught my seminary students to memorize just last year. "...for the natural man is an enemy to God...until...(he) putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him even as a child doth submit to his father..." I felt the love of my Heavenly Father so deeply. I knew that this 'challenge' was a manifestation of his love for me. For weeks I pondered these thoughts as I learned to manage my disorder.

We all know that diabetes is a chronic disorder of the physical body and we all know that it is a type of auto-immune disease. We also know that what happens inside the body when diabetes is present is 'abnormal'. I started thinking---everybody assumes that normal is the absence of diabetes. What if diabetes is a 'normal'? What if it is actually a state of normalcy that allows one to experience things that others can't? I mean, what if those experiences are so unique that it allows one to see the world in a way that is more beautiful, more meaningful and more profound? What if this 'anomaly' has secret advantages that no one has ever considered before? And am I smart enough to use these filters so I can 'see' and submit to a paradigm shift?

I look at food in a different way now. Sure I have a habit of blessing my food before I eat it. But now I look at food and I really ask God to convert it into chemicals that will not harm my body-- to turn it into salve and nutrients that will enhance my well-being. 

Diabetes is saving my life. It is an opportunity to refine my habits and gives me clear directions on how to manage my vital signs. What I do now is really what everybody should be doing...except I get to have a 'manual' with clear and manageable cause and effects. Others are not so lucky. The freedoms they enjoy can also enable their wanton and carefree stance and magnify their arrogance about life itself.

I once told my daughter's special young man who came home sick and laden with a serious physical disorder that he was blessed by God to have this disease. At that time he told me that he couldn't see how it could be an advantage. I told him that as time unfolds he will be able to see and do things that others can't if he just shifts paradigms and opens his new eyes. I told him to be vigilant so he can see how God unfolds his plans for him because his perceived weakness is going to be his strength.  He is doing exactly that.

Little did I know that months later, I would experience for myself what those words really meant.

And I am so grateful.