How This Year’s Novena & Project 2005 Will Keep Me Off Social Media in 2023

4-year-old me unknowingly practicing how social media would make me feel over two decades later. lol. 

 I had a very long list of intentions for this year’s 54-day Rosary novena and St. Andrew Christmas novena. Some intentions overlapped (such as specific ones for my health) but there were two special ones that I couldn’t get off my mind while praying the novena — “for clarity on whether to quit Twitter or keep the profile” and “that I may use Instagram healthily and kick the obsession/addiction I have to it.”

I don’t know if “obsession” is the right word but “addiction” is. I easily gave up Twitter for St. Michael’s Lent and Advent but I couldn’t do it for Instagram. I did Ember Days off — and they were lovely! — but as soon as I returned, it was back on the hamster wheel. I deleted my Facebook account a couple of months ago so that’s one less headache I have to think about. 

I’ve documented my love-hate relationship with social media over the years. I’ve successfully given it up for months during Lent in previous years but it’s gotten difficult since COVID hit and I both lost my eyesight and became too sick to receive company without extra precautions that many people would rather not do despite my doctors’ (yes, plural) asking for them to keep me healthy. 

I think it’s because social media is the easiest way to keep in touch with friends and see what’s going on with them and give them updates on what’s going on with me. I need my community but I can’t get to them easily, especially as I’m spending more and more time in bed for days at a time. I’ve tried keeping in touch via email, text messages, and voice messages but very few keep up conversations through them. It’s social media… and, for some, social media only unless it’s a time-sensitive question or prayer request. So, I’m kind of stuck. 

And while social media has been very good to me — I’ve met some of my best friends through it and have learned a lot from others — it’s also been very bad. I already mentioned some of the personal pitfalls a few months ago when I had to start over on Instagram. I genuinely thought the fresh start on IG would help curve some of the addiction to it, but it didn’t for long. And I thought that logging off of Twitter for a couple times a week would help but, like IG, it didn’t stick. I’ve been trying to figure out what the best solution is regarding social media *for me* hence the novena intentions.

Even before the novenas were done on Christmas Eve, I had my answer to the Twitter intention. I’ll keep the profile and keep using hootsuite to post links and prayer requests but I don’t see myself logging back into my account until next October when I see who will want daily Rosary novena reminders. If there is a need (not a want) to log in before then, I will, but I currently don’t see a need for me to log in, mostly because I use IG to keep in touch with everyone.

As for Instagram… I have no idea how I’m going to combat the addiction yet but I’m going to start by taking all of January off the platform. I’ll be deleting the apps off my phone and iPad. There were two factors that helped me make this decision: feeling overwhelmed and burnt out (very much a pattern for me this year) and a little thing called Project 2005.

Project 2005 is something that has slowly been in the works for months but won’t begin until January 1st. Unless you’re my spiritual director or my mother, you won’t know what the project is about until it’s over… and that won’t be until January 1, 2024! Yes, it’s a year-long project that I’ve committed to and that will purposely take me away from social media for extended periods of time throughout the year. Hence why I said I don’t see myself logging into Twitter for roughly 10 months. There is a planned reveal of the project in early 2024 so y’all can see what that was all about. That’s all I’m saying.

As for feeling overwhelmed and anxious when logging into social media, this isn’t new but never was it as emphasized (to the nth degree) like it was during these novenas. It started with a simple and respectful comment on a random person’s reel — encouraging them while everyone else was dumping on the poor guy — and I was bombarded with random people I don’t know attacking me. Over an innocent comment in which I didn’t mention anyone; I simply told the guy to keep making videos about his journey in learning Spanish and not letting others deter him from that. That was it. I was completely shocked at the visceral hatred my comment received. And it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. 

I’m currently re-reading Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery (my favorite book in the Anne of Green Gables series) and it reminds me of how much I used to be like Anne and how much social media has sucked that out of me. As I said back in September, I don’t like the person social media has shaped me into. I feel perpetually angry and despondent after spending more than 2 minutes on social media. On any platform. 

It’s been disheartening to see how blatantly rude people have been towards one another and how many excuses are used when defending their choice of words. I hate it… and I try not to use the word “hate” unless I truly mean it. And I do. I honestly hate how much hatred is spewed online. Yes, there are some wonderful accounts, but even those receive some very hurtful comments that bring me down… and I’m not on the receiving end of them. I get angry seeing good, holy people getting attacked for… what? Being themselves and sharing their faith? Sometimes they don’t even mention their faith and there will still be negativity. It truly breaks my heart.

I haven’t even mentioned how much I loathe the endless scrolling feature and the random tweets and posts from accounts I don’t follow. This is where the “overwhelmed” part comes in. I follow a very small number of people (well, “small” compared to others) for a reason. I don’t want random content on my timeline. It becomes digital clutter that ends up making me very anxious and makes up more mental space that I don’t want to spare when my brain fog is particularly bad. Anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else wish Twitter and Instagram (and even Facebook) was like it used to be — with only content from those you followed coming up on your timeline… and IG not being TikTok 2.0 with all the reels? I’ve made *one* reel that looked fun but the rest are general just videos I’ve taken on my travels that I’ve wanted to share with friends. I have zero desire to be a content creator or influencer so I’ll stick with sharing for fun with friends and not trying to get more likes and whatnot.

Anyhoo, these final puzzle pieces to the social media puzzle sealed it for me — I will try to use social media as little as possible. I tried using the iPhone and iPad time limits feature but it wasn’t enough for me. I need to actually delete the IG app and block the websites from my browser. I’m doing it in January to start with. I’ll adjust my IG usage as needed throughout the rest of the year as I try to figure out what the best balance is for me. At the moment, it may just be logging out and manually checking specific accounts that are good for my soul and logging back in only when I want to share something. I’ll figure this out when I return to the platform on Candlemas.

I will still blog. This is my outlet for now, especially since I’m currently on flare-up number three in less than 2 months and I can’t move too much and will probably be stuck in bed for a couple of days again. 

Anyway, that’s it from me for today. I wasn’t necessarily planning on blogging again before my year-end recap but my brain fog hasn’t been too bad today despite the physical exhaustion so I thought I’d write for a bit.

I hope y’all have had a lovely feast of the Holy Innocents!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!

A New Diagnosis That Led Me Closer to Christ

 

Photo by Dolina Modlitwy

Merry Christmas, everyone! Yes, we Catholics have only just begun celebrating while the secular world is quickly getting ready for the New Year.

I don’t know how your Christmas celebrations went but I hope they were better than ours as we (Mom and I) were both unwell… and continue to be so.

The end of Advent (which I began to write as “Lent” — Freudian slip!) was difficult for everyone in this household. I can’t talk about my mom’s stuff but I can tell you that I had another puzzle piece to my medical mystery solved… and the diagnosis admittedly bummed me out.

Without revealing the actual condition (as it’s one that I don’t wish people to look up), my dermatologist finally diagnosed with an inflammatory skin condition. It’s a mild form of it (thank goodness!) but it’s more serious and painful than eczema or psoriasis. I’ve been dealing with this particular thing for years though it had gone dormant for years. The latest flare-up has not gone away since popping up early last month, which is very unusual for me as previous flare-ups have only lasted a (painful week). I won’t go into detail about things but let’s say I can barely walk — or even move!) for a majority of the days when the flare-ups are at their worst. Unfortunately, there is no cure… and I can’t even take medication for it.

Having Addison’s was already hard but I didn’t realize just how delicate my situation was until the dermatologist told me I couldn’t take the medication to help the condition’s symptoms because it would negatively affect my Addison’s. Since we’re trying to keep me from having a potential adrenal crisis, the medication was ruled out. I was given the “weakest and lowest” treatment option for when flare-ups pop up and will have to go in for a more painful procedure when the flare-ups are so bad that my only treatment option isn’t enough. I already had a minor surgery to eliminate part of the problem but since it’s not localized to one area, it only helped that particular area and the rest can’t be helped with surgery.

I think hearing the doctor say, “basically, your body is attacking itself” and being told it was permanent and incurable was what was hardest for me. I already knew it wasn’t in its best shape due to Addison’s and my current endocrinologist (as well as other doctors) speculate that I may have another autoimmune condition that has yet to be diagnosed but it was still hard to hear. I was initially stunned — I couldn’t believe what I had was an actual disease… and that it took years to diagnose! — but eventually that wore off. 

On the way home, I started tearing up. I was feeling sorry for myself. Another condition… and one that couldn’t even be controlled with medication. Thankfully, that little pity party didn’t last more than a minute or two as I had a beautiful thought pop into my mind, “This will only unite me closer to our crucified Lord.” Thinking about how my physical suffering was only going to increase, that I would be able to (in a very minuscule way) share in His suffering was beautiful. Thinking about how I could offer up even more… how *this* may be what I needed to feel closer to Him… that this was an immense gift instead of a burden… it set off a fresh wave of tears, though they were happy and consoling instead of mournful. The amount of love I felt for Him was indescribable. 

Suddenly, why St. Veronica and St. Pío of Pietrelcina (Padre Pío) were randomly chosen as my patrons of the 2022-2023 liturgical year made sense. My condition will cause a lot of bleeding (sorry for the TMI) and physical pain. St. Veronica is patroness against bleeding — and she witnessed, firsthand, the physical wounds of Our Lord — and St. Pío had stigmata on his hands which bleed. The coincidence is too great to call it a coincidence. I’m not saying that the saint name generator is some sort of fortune cookie as we Catholics should not believe in those superstitious and New Age-y things, but I’m so grateful that I had these two saints in my corner shortly before the official diagnosis was made.

There are some changes I will be making to try to help my condition. My wardrobe is going to have a couple more changes as looser fitting clothing will help. I had already begun gravitating towards high-waisted skirts and dresses that are also A-line so it’ll be perfect to continue to do. Men, think 1950s style if the terminology is going over your heads. I’m also going to change the fabric I use to more cotton and other fabrics that won’t aggravate the skin.

I’m also going to change my diet (read: what I eat; I don’t actually “diet” as I’m not trying to lose weight). It seems like dairy, red meat, and processed foods don’t help the situation. Dairy will be a hard one for me as I love my milk (I drink at least two glasses per day, not counting the Greek yogurt I also consume daily) but if it’s for my own good, I’ll make the adjustments. I don’t eat as much red meat as I used to so that will be easier. I’ve already been eating as many whole (read: little to no processed) foods as possible so this will continue.  

At the moment, it looks like there’s a possibility of a flare-up beginning so I’ll just have to rest, hydrate, and do what I can to help it not get as bad as it was early last month. And if it *does* get that bad again, I’ll have to ask St. Veronica and St. Pío to help me focus on the good that can come of it. If this all helps me stay closer to Christ, I welcome it. I don’t know how it’ll impact my Addison’s (I don’t have my follow-up endocrinology appointment until February) but I leave my health and my life in His hands and I will try to not worry to much over it.

Anyway, that’s it from me for now. It’s somewhat quiet right now so I’m going to try to take a nap before the neighbors get rowdy again. I haven’t been sleeping well for weeks because my neighbors have been louder than usual lately and I still haven’t found earplugs that won’t hurt my sensitive ears and skin.

I hope you are all having a lovely start of Christmastide. Remember that it doesn’t end for another 9 days…. Or until February 2nd if you follow the traditional calendar like I do. 

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! 

A Year-Long Journey to Discovering My Root Sin

 

Ladies and gentlemen, St. Veronica and St. Pío of Pitrelcina (a.k.a. Padre Pío) have entered the chat. Ha!

I was very excited to get both of these wonderful saints as my patrons for the new liturgical year. I normally would’ve waited until the calendar New Year to choose patron saints but I wanted to do things differently this year. I want to order my life according to the liturgical year and seasons rather than the secular one. Of course, certain things will have to continue to run on the secular calendar year but it’s okay. 

So, how did I end up with two patrons for the year? Well, because my mom didn’t like that St. Veronica was one of the patronesses of dying people. Yes, it sounds very silly but, as I was reading all the patronages listed on the Saints Name Generator <https://saintsnamegenerator.com> listing, Mom immediately said, “Dying people? Do it again!” So, I did. And I ended up with her spiritual father. Since I loved both saints, I kept them both. Hence why St. Veronica and St. Pío have entered the chat. I think they were perfect for a couple of reasons I’ve already hinted at in the previous post.

As I had previously written, the Holy Spirit has been enlightening me on what a poor state both my spiritual life and my soul are currently in. Since the start of Advent, I’ve slowly been putting together the puzzle pieces that have slowly popped up over the last year. My selfishness. My impatience. My anger issues (which I didn’t think I had). My increasing uncharitableness. My materialism (again, which I didn’t think I suffered from). My vanity. My pride. Ultimately, my root sin which was most unexpected. 

If you had asked me what I thought my root sin was, I would’ve gone with pride. I looked at the list <https://spiritualdirection.com/2010/04/26/how-can-i-identify-my-root-sin> of the three possible root sins — pride, vanity, and sensuality — and I thought, “Oh, pride! For sure! Maybe vanity but most likely pride. No way is it sensuality.” Then I read the descriptions for all three and I was surprised that pride and sensuality had an equal number of checks on the list. And the more I thought about it, the more I was unsure of which of the two was the biggest problem for me. I wanted to tackle uprooting the sin for Lent this year but my spiritual director very wisely told me not to do it. In fact, he had me not take up any penances this year as I was still coming out of the worst spiritual desert spell I’ve ever experienced. Instead, I was to simplify my prayer life (becase I had way too many things going on and was burning myself out) and focus on those things. However, the idea of uprooting the sin stayed in my mind and it’s been like a spotlight has shown on it since the beginning of Advent.

Again, I was very much prepared to have a very calm and simple Advent season. I wasn’t going to do any Advent-specific devotional book reading. I wasn’t going to do any big things for penance (more on this in a bit). I was just going to try to concentrate on preparing my heart for Jesus. I was going to read the book Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote on the infancy of Jesus and read Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. But, of course, things never go the way we planned.

As I wrote in the last post, things have been kind of crazy in the household lately. It’s only now starting to feel like things are finally beginning to slow down. I just finished the book by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI yesterday despite it being a very short book and having it for nearly 3 weeks. I only now began the spiritual meditations on the book by St. Francis de Sales as well. It’s been “go, go, go!” and we’re lucky if we can get the Rosary novena in in the morning when it’s still quiet. So, no, I haven’t had a slower-paced season. And in the middle of all of that, I’m seeing the ugly truth of what my root sin is and how it’s seriously affecting me.

As you might’ve guessed, my root sin is the one I least expected — sensuality. I thought, “No way! I’m discerning consecrated virginity. God has given me wisdom and courage to deflect the very inappropriate invitations and flirtations that came from young men (who made it very clear that they just wanted to “have fun” without any strings attached). I’ve had someone ask me if I was asexual because I started discerning consecrated virginity and I never expressed a desire for certain aspects of romantic relationships. I don’t carry the cross of struggling with pornography — I’ve even been called a prude by others because of how uncomfortable I feel watching certain scenes in movies! How is this even possible?” But, of course, my understanding of what sensuality actually encompassed was incredibly shallow. 

I did learn that sensuality was more than just the marital act when I was a Religious Studies undergrad. It was one of the few orthodox things I learned at my Catholic in Name Only college alma mater. But I sort of didn’t pay much attention to that specific one because I thought I didn’t have a problem with it. And maybe it wasn’t as pronounced back then since I was a lot better at taking up bodily mortifications and penances. But now? It’s a whole different story.

My issue is that I’ve grown too comfortable and flinch away from anything that is physically uncomfortable to me. At first, I thought it was prudence on my part. Perhaps it was, but it really became a problem that I need serious spiritual help with.

What am I struggling with? A number of things. 

Materialism. Worrying too much about the household’s finances and failing to remember that God will provide for our needs. And, when we finally got a little financial stability, I became preoccupied with trying to replace everything that was broken, on its last legs, or old so we wouldn’t have to struggle with or go without them. Some of it was necessary — our clothing was practically see-through — but some weren’t. I found myself spending the majority of my day on shopping sites and I didn’t like it.

Life of pleasure. Under this category fell the majority of my bad habits which revolved around the seeking of comfort — doing the easiest thing with the least inconvenience. Being picky with food and (increasingly) in everything in general. I was also letting curiosity get the best of me and that resulted in me wasting time, researching and falling into rabbit holes that didn’t add anything good to my life or my soul.  

Gluttony. Trying not to fall into gluttony was something I never had a problem with. I always ate just enough to not feel hungry — and ate little bits here and there throughout the day — but that all changed with the Addison’s diagnosis. I’m not blaming my illness for this struggle; I simply went from one end of the eating spectrum to the other. I haven’t been able to fast due to my Addison’s. My current endocrinologist has advised me not to go more than 10 hours without food as it puts stress on the body and it already doesn’t make the sufficient cortisol necessary for it to function properly. 

The doctors also had me gain a lot of weight because I was severely underweight and malnourished. That required eating a lot of food and getting used to eating a lot of stuff I normally wouldn’t. You see how this became a problem?

Sloth. Laziness and procrastination are something I’ve always struggle with due to my phlegmatic-melancholic temperament. Basically, I tend to only do things when I feel like it… unless it’s a job and/or there is a deadline. My rebellious nature also refuses to do things that I feel pressured into doing and then getting impatient or angry because I feel that pressure. This has gotten a bit better over the years but, goodness, what a struggle it’s been. As you can guess, obedience is something that I’ve had to work on. 

Basically, I was, as the article states, “placing my security and self-esteem in THINGS and FEELINGS.” Who didn’t see that coming from Little Miss “I feel things deeper than most people” over here? Lol.

So, yes, I’ve been struggling with the root sin of sensuality. I know that part of this is because of my Addison’s. I shy away from anything that I think will put additional stress on my body out of the fear of it triggering an Addisonian crisis. I think it’s good to be careful and take care of myself, but — in true Emmy fashion — I’ve become too worried about it and I’ve left God out of the conversation. I wouldn’t have had an issue with this a couple of years ago but there’s something about losing my eyesight and having gone through what I’ve been through for the past 2+ years that have really emphasized my sinful nature.

I now have to figure out how to best tackle the bad habits — one at a time. I know I will have to cultivate the opposing virtue but, beyond that, I don’t know what I’ll have to do. 

Of course, I’m not doing this alone. As soon as I figured things out, I left my spiritual director a voice message with my thoughts on this and asked for his help. He’s such a great, holy man that I know he’ll help me with this massive task. I think this may be part of the reason why I haven’t moved forward with my vocation discernment but only he can verify that theory.

I will also asking for the intercession of my new patrons of the year. I admittedly don’t know a lot about St. Veronica but I’m exciting to learn whatever little bit I can from her. And, Padre Pío? Whew! If memory serves me right, isn’t he one of the most powerful intercessors during exorcisms? Yeah, you don’t mess with Padre Pío. He’s already my mother’s spiritual father and I know he’ll help me like he’s helped her.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this little bit of my spiritual journey with y’all. I don’t know where this will head or how many other obstacles I will encounter along the way but I’m honestly excited to begin this new journey. To quote my forever saint crush, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, “Verso l’alto” — to the heights! 

I hope you’re all having a lovely feast of St. Lucy!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!

Strokes, Jolts, and the Month of Murphy’s Law

 

What a crazy month it’s been! We’ve had to deal with everything from health issues to unexpected surprises that have thrown our plans out the window and left us scrambling to figure things out at the last minute. I had wanted an uneventful, slow-paced Advent and it’s been anything but that.

All this started even before I published the last blog post. I can actually pinpoint exactly the moment when things went downhill, and fast. It was when I posted a “last call” tweet for those interested in doing the 54-day Rosary novena on October 31st. I try to schedule the daily reminders at least one day in advance so I wanted to have a list finalized so I could start scheduling the tweets. From that moment on… it’s like the dreaded pushback of doing the novena was kickstarted into high gear and it didn’t let up for almost the entire petition part of the novena. 

Both Mom and I — who do the novena together every morning and share most of our intentions — were both hit with weird (for me) and unexpected (for her) health issues. We found out that my mom had had a stroke at some point… but we don’t know when. She’s been off balance for a while and she’s been having more and more dizziness and headaches but we don’t know when the stroke happened since the symptoms seem to be from a newly diagnosed BPPV issue. Thankfully, since I learned and studied a bit of BPPV (which is an inner ear issue) in my audiology courses for the Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education (speech pathology) degree, I was able to help explain things and help her a bit at home.  She’s still very dizzy and off-balance — I have to walk her from the living room to her bedroom sometimes — but at least we now know what it is. We may not know why her memory is declining (she was tested for dementia and they ruled it out) and I’ve had to learn how to feed myself without hurting myself or making a total mess but she’s slowly improving which is all that matters.

As for me… we still don’t know what happened. I had about 24-25 days where my body was in what I can only explain as hyperdrive. I couldn’t sleep for more than 3-4 hours per night for most of that time period because I use to jerk awake every time I tried to fall asleep. I would jolt awake because I felt like I was either choking or gasping for air. We didn’t know if it was sleep apnea, terrible silent reflux or something else. But I felt “wired.” I had so much energy but I struggled to stay asleep when I needed it. I was jittery. My brain fog was absolutely terrible. Nothing I did helped. I started sleeping with the Rosary beads I purchased and had blessed at Clear Creek Abbey when I made my Final Act of Oblation and that helped for a couple of days before it all returned. Then I started sleeping with the crucifix I also purchased from CC (although this one came months before I even knew I would be transferring to CC as an oblate) on my stomach and that started helping me sleep better. 

I didn’t know if what I experienced was some weird hormonal or neurological thing but the idea of it possibly being spiritual in nature was theorized by more than one person because of the timing of the symptom onset. Last year we had a relatively uneventful Rosary novena but some years we have “Murphy’s Law” years where one half — petition or thanksgiving — or the entire novena is plagued by everything going wrong. It was interesting that all the physical craziness for me happened within the petition part and it’s been like night and day since a couple of days before the thanksgiving portion began. No rhyme or reason. No explanation.

As you can probably surmise from all that, we went even longer without Mass, confession, or the Eucharist. I actually went a bit over 13 months without the Eucharist and about 7-8 months without confession. Every time my spiritual director tried to come over to my apartment, something would come up. I tried reaching out to a priest at my parish who had offered to come listen to my confession but I never heard back from him. My SD was finally able to come over a week ago — on a First Friday of all days! — and I was able to confess and then receive the Eucharist. Of course I cried because it had been so long and I was aching for it. We still haven’t been able to get to Mass — I was actually still feeling unwell when my SD came over — but we hope to go as soon as both my mom and I feel well enough for it.

In all that craziness, I’ve learned a lot about myself and my relationship with both the Father and the Son. This is going to be a whole other post because it’ll be too long and detailed for this post. I’m actually going to write it out right after I finish this post and then publish it later on. But for now, I can say that I thought I knew myself and my faith journey but I had *no* idea about how poorly the state of my spiritual life and my soul were in until Advent began the Holy Spirit began opening my eyes to so many things. Again, I’ll write all about this and share it on the next post.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this life-update because I know I’ve been M.I.A. On most social media platforms that I’m still on. And while I’m talking about social media — a big “Thank you!” To everyone who has prayed for my mother and I over the last couple of weeks. I was very vague about what was happening to us because of comments that are sometimes made. That and I wanted to get my mom’s permission to share what was going on with her — which I just did. Your prayers have helped us during some of the most physically draining and painful days we’ve endured. I didn’t even mention how sick I got a couple of times (with something that is still unknown) and how I felt like I needed to call the ambulance a couple of times — it’s been that intense. Yeah, it’s been a roller coaster ride for the last month and a half.

I won’t make this any longer so I’ll end this here.

I hope you’re all having a lovely Advent season thus far! Oh, and happy feast of Our Lady of Loreto!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!

• sr. Marie-Therese, Obl. OSB