Having an Ulcer and the Need to Be Politically Incorrect

I hardly ate or slept at all last week. I spent most of the time dealing with abdominal pains. How does one exactly deal with abdominal pains on those sleepless nights? Usually by clawing and clutching the floor and groaning and twisting for hours to find a momentary position of comfort.

My trip to the emergency room yielded a verdict of "unexplainable abdominal pain/inflammation, perhaps caused by stress or a virus." So they prescribed me an anti-inflammatory drug.

Coincidentally, that anti-inflammatory drug should not be taken if one has an ulcer, according to the warning label. Yet, that's what I seem to have.

When I went in for a follow-up to see my family doctor, with even greater stomach pains than before, she joked that the ER doctors must have wanted to make sure I had an ulcer based on their prescription choice. Talk about gut busting humor.

The mind immediately thinks of "stress" whenever someone mentions an ulcer, and I don't exactly have to go way out on a limb to trust that intuition. My stress management is in need of an overhaul. I knew that I have been approaching burn-out with the activity at the Catholic Worker, but I didn't realize until this happened how deeply I have been holding onto stress.

Lately, I have been taking the role of the stress absorber. Being in a position to so often be the public voice of the Catholic Worker, I work hard on building bridges, nurturing relationships and diffusing problems. I am constantly aware that I am in public, that words can be overheard and that blogs and emails can find themselves in the hands of anybody. As a result, I am constantly vigilant, focused and fair. I'm always "on." This is by far more stressful than the workload itself.

There are, of course, numerous flare ups and outbursts that any community would experience, both coming toward us and within. I make it a point not to pass that on like a good peacekeeper. People come to me to mediate. All day long it's a balancing act to weather these forces while still trying to push a community forward with vision.

Most of you who know me well know that this doesn't always come naturally for me. I tend to be outspoken and opinionated. I detest being political or overly diplomatic. There are, however, some things you can cut loose about when you are with your close circle of long-time friends and those are often not the kinds of things appropriate for a general audience. Having an inquisitive mind, I have many half-baked ideas, and I'd love to have a forum where I can just let them loose and work them out without a public lashing if I say something stupid. Lately, I don't have many places to go where I can just vent and be politically incorrect or even just explore ideas openly without fear of being judged just for taking the chance to try an idea on for size or even to vent.

The problem is that Newton's Laws of Physics apply here--energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. Only God can create energy, the rest of us just pass it around. If I take in stress and don't expel it, it won't magically disappear. It must be transferred somewhere. If I have no outlet, then it will simply reverberate throughout my body and eventually end up as an injury wherever my body is weakest.

Usually I consider myself to be rather self-aware, but when something like this hits so suddenly it becomes apparent that I can hide an awful lot from myself. As I ponder my future in the Columbus Catholic Worker, I really need to figure out a way to keep myself healthy or else risk my long-term viability in this role. Maybe I'm not an effective peacemaker if I am soothing the problems of others only to bring them on for myself. I probably have a long way to go to live into this better.

I'm looking at carving out strict days off. I am already screening calls and checking email less regularly, but there's more to it than that. There's a need to just get together with some buddies and talk about all the assholes I have to deal with, and not be polite or cautious or diplomatic or list the endless stream of disclaimers ad nauseum. I need to find time to be with people who are not going to misunderstand me or be quick to rush to conclusions against me, but someone you can just shoot the shit with, make off color jokes and move on. I used to do very good with this, but my balance has gotten thoroughly out of whack, lately. Time to get back in whack.