Coming out, and not how you’d think.

*sigh* Today has been an interesting day. I have not been feeling too well recently, I’ve been cheating on my wheat-free diet and am suffering the consequences. I love wheat. I love pasta, cakes, cookies, bread, bagels, challah, brownies, matzoh, you name it. After Passover this year, I noticed that I felt considerably better than usual. I figured it was due to both the Spiritual and physical adherence to Kashrut law during Passover and so I decided I would continue on without eating leavened bread (which spread to all wheat products) and keep kosher on Shabbos.

I used to keep kosher by default. I was vegan, then vegetarian, and didn’t have to worry about it. I’ve always had digestive issues, and was told it was because I likely had Crohn’s, because my father had Crohn’s and apparently it’s hereditary. Well, as it turns out, he never had Crohn’s, and neither do I. I do, however, have IBS. Something I’ve never discussed because frankly, it’s embarrassing and awful. When I say I’ve never discussed it, I really mean that aside from with my doctors, my moms-by-choice, and one woman at a shul I visited who confided in me that she suffered also, I’ve never discussed it. Not even with Jessica. Which leads me to the title of the post. Today, I finally admitted to her why I have “off” days where I don’t want to go out and do things, and what it’s really about. I explained to her (to the best of my ability), what happens to me. I hated it, and now she wants me to go to the doctor. I’ve told her I’ve talked to enough of them to know that there is no definitive test for it, and that really, you get diagnosed sort of as a catch-all/default. She said if being wheat-free doesn’t help, she wants me to go in again. That’s the issue…the wheat and the sugar. Well, and caffeine too, which I feel like I *need* to function (and yes…I know that it’s an addiction. It is my one vice).

So here I sit. Out. I’ve disclosed my personal demon to my wife, and now to all of cyber-space. Frankly, I don’t have a huge readership so I’m not feeling all that vulnerable. I need to figure out how to really be wheat-free, how to be honest about my sugar consumption, and to live with this as it is, instead of pretending it’s “nothing”. I welcome any comments or suggestions, as this is something that, while I’ve lived with it for a very long time, I don’t actually know how to and it’s new to me.