Why This Schizoaffective Doesn't Shave Her Legs Anymore

 

I’ve stopped shaving my legs for good. I know I’ve been on and off about shaving them in the past, and even declaring I would never shave them again before, but I literally physically can’t shave them anymore. Here’s why.

A couple of years back, I had double knee replacement surgery. My knees don’t hurt anymore like they did before the surgery, when I had bone-on-bone arthritis, but there are certain things I can’t do now. Especially since I got a fracture in my right knee in April, and overcompensating on my left knee made that one suffer, too.

So now, I can barely go up and down stairs, and even before the fracture I couldn’t run, jump, or—and this is where shaving my legs comes in—sit down in a bath tub.

I used to love taking baths. I took one every day, instead of a shower. I would wash my hair in the bath, which I hated, but I loved shaving my legs. Now I only take showers. I’m getting used to it, but it’s almost impossible for me to shave my legs in the shower. I cut myself up so badly. Even with shaving cream, which I just started using again to shave my armpits.

I used to crusade against shaving my body hair. This went back to my teens in the 90s with my riot grrrl friends. (Riot grrrl was 90s feminist punk that included bands like Bikini Kill, which group was fronted by seminal, outspoken feminist rocker Kathleen Hanna.) I really didn’t see why it was okay for guys to bare their hairy legs and armpits, but not girls. For that matter, I didn’t see why it was okay for girls to dye their hair blue and have tattoos and body piercings, but it wasn’t okay for us to have body hair. (I had blue streaks in my hair for a week, and I also used to have a navel ring.) All of this is to say that I’ve never been a devoted body hair shaver. So, it’s strange to me that I miss having smooth legs so much, and that I religiously shave my armpits now.

One reason is that I am now very overweight, and I don’t feel good about my body. I shave my armpits because I don’t want to feel any grosser than I already do. Most of the weight was gained in my 20s from taking an antipsychotic that causes catastrophic metabolic effects. Yes, I have tried other antipsychotics and, yes, I am seeing a dietician and have been on other diets. All the weight loss medications I have tried have made me very ill.

I have also considered getting my legs waxed and using depilatories. With all I’ve been through with my body, if having smooth legs makes me feel better, I feel I should look at my options. It’s just that I’ve been removing body hair by shaving all my life. Waxing sounds expensive, and depilatories sound messy at best. My husband, Tommy, said depilatories work by chemically burning the hair off. Now I can’t get that description out of my head! I care more about me shaving than he does. He doesn’t care at all. But it is my body.

The other thing is that my leg hair is growing in a lot more slowly and is lighter than it used to be. I am 46. Maybe Mother Nature is letting me off the hook as I get older. Also, I bought loose-fitting, breezy pants to wear in the summer instead of skirts or shorts. They cover up my lower legs. So no one can see my leg hair.

I guess all of this is to say I’m trying to figure out how much having smooth legs means to me. What I really don’t like is that instead of choosing hairy legs, it seems to have been forced on me.

Hearing Voices of Faeries at the Renaissance Faire

 

My husband Tom and I went to the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin twice this summer! We had a great time, except for a couple of hiccups for me. Let me tell you about the biggest one. This hiccup is the reason I decided to write about going to the Faire in the first place, because it illustrates the problems I have with schizoaffective disorder, anxiety, and my knees. What happened was that I was taking a picture of a faerie who was perched on a balcony. Yes, it’s the picture you see above, and the faeries are part of the roaming cast at the Renaissance Faire. I contorted my body in a weird way to get the shot, and I stumbled and almost fell! It was very scary–if I fall on my knees, it may ruin my knee replacements that I had to get due to my bone-on-bone arthritis.

That was part one of the biggest hiccup at the Faire during our second visit. We were actually leaving the Faire, wrapping up this second adventure there. But part two was yet to come. I was tired, freaked out about almost falling, and my head was pounding even sheltered from the sun in my Art Institute of Chicago baseball cap. As I went into the “privies” (bathrooms) for the last time before the trip home, the pounding in my head got worse. It was really crowded at the Faire that day, so I had to wait in line. Finally, when I closed the door to my stall, the voices hit, those auditory hallucinations that used to plague me all the time.

Okay, so maybe it was only 45 seconds at most in this case. But I haven’t heard those kinds of voices in years. When I say “those kinds,” what I mean is loud, screaming, angry voices. I have heard voices that sounded like someone was watching TV in the next room, and they were very quiet, but ever since my mood stabilizer dosage was raised a few years ago, I haven’t heard voices that were so distressing.

Like I said, the episode only lasted about 45 seconds, maybe 30, and all the voices were saying amounted to mockery of me for taking a long time to pee. Even though I knew they weren’t real, I couldn’t help but think it was ironic that I was hearing them at the Renaissance Faire, amid the faeries. A long time ago, when I thought the voices were real, I thought they were faeries. Remember, this very short episode was indirectly related to a faerie.

I also had to remember that, when I used to hear the disturbing type of voices regularly, I’d be like, “Okay, I know the drill, gotta pop some antianxiety pills, drink a crap load of ice water, and watch Tori Amos: Live from the Artists Den.” When they happen less often, they’re scarier. Not that I want them to happen more often again! My therapist thinks this was just a fluke, and I’m going to talk about them with my psychiatrist in two days.

It really wasn’t that big of a deal. And I hate to make it sound like that was my only takeaway from these two fun days at the Renaissance Faire. We did have a great time. There were lots of laughs, like when Tom bought us Sassafras (root beer with licorice) and asked the servers if they sold Black Cows (Sassafras floats). When they said they didn’t, and he made his patented sad face but tipped them anyway, they rang the bell for tippers and cried, “Huzzah for… the sad tipper!” (They always ring a bell and shout, “Huzzah for the tipper!”)

We did lots of shopping, too. The Renaissance Faire is pretty much the only time I go shopping in person, meaning not online.  During the first visit this summer, Tom bought me everything I wanted! Lots of jewelry. The second time, I wanted to buy myself something. I found a journal with a three-dimensional face on the cover! I think it’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever owned (and that’s saying a lot), and I love it!  Since she has a face, I named the journal Agatha.

On our first day, Tom got me lots of water-themed jewelry because our 17^th wedding anniversary is coming up, and both our bridesmaids’ and groomsmen’s attire was aqua blue, and there just so happened to be a huge, major flood after torrents of rainfall on our wedding day! Tom said, “If it’s good luck to have rain on your wedding day, we are going to have the best marriage ever! Well, flash-forward 17 years to our first day in the summer of 2025 at the Renaissance Faire, there was a 20-minute downpour. We thought it was so appropriate! And people were singing and dancing in the rain (while we took shelter in a shop).

This coming weekend is Cottagecore weekend at the Faire. Cottagecore romanticizes the kind of lifestyle emulated by hobbits. It’s all about escaping to coziness. Cottagecore interests me since it reminds me of hygge, which is also a philosophy of coziness that I was obsessed with a few years ago. But this is the first summer I’ve been to the Renaissance Faire more than once already, and it’s supposed to be hot and sunny (yuck), so we’ll forego Cottagecore. Maybe next year.

The Waltz

 

One two three, one two three, one two three, one to three

Get 

a glass of water, one two three one two three

Take

Some medication 

One two three, one two three

Start counting 

Like your life counts on it

Because 

It does

Don't count on love

Don't count on hate

Don't count on faith

Don't count on that guy 

Who seemed really nice

But he looked like he was dead

One two three, one two three

The waltz stops for no one

Not even your precious lies 

Or your sacred profanities 

So get your glass of water

take your medication 

Or don't, I don't care

One two three, one two three

One

Two

Three

One

Two

Three

You see

It

Never

Ends

Happiness for a Healed Knee Leads to Mania

 

In “A Climb Too High—Stairs Cause Mental Stress," I wrote about how miserable I was wearing a sleeve on my right knee to keep it straight because that knee had a fracture in the kneecap. Well, two weeks ago, on June 12, my doctor said I could take it off! I was elated.

I’m still worried about my left knee, because it still hurts from the stress of extra pressure exerted on it while my right knee was sleeved. The left one is the knee whose replacement’s button popped off. But my doctor said we should wait until the end of the summer before considering surgery to see if my knee gets better. We’re going to wait until after September 27, because that’s the day my husband, Tom, and I are going on the annual NAMI Walk (National Alliance on Mental Illness). Tom will be pushing me in my wheelchair because I can’t walk very far, but the Walk is so important to me that I don’t want to take any chances on not being able to go. I fundraise for the walk every year.

My doctor said we could wait to do surgery because, “Why ruin your summer?” But fall is actually my favorite season. I don’t want to ruin my fall! But, if I do need surgery, at least I’ll get September and most likely October before surgery. And that’s if I even need surgery. It is up to me. If my left knee stays at the pain level it’s at now, I’ll opt out of surgery. It’s all down to my mental health. I personally feel that, mentally, I can handle some minor pain better than I can handle surgery. I waited two years to get my knee replacement surgery. I want to wait to get surgery on my left knee, especially because the pain I’m experiencing now is nothing compared to the pain that led to my knee replacement surgery.

Besides, Tom and I are going to the Renaissance Faire this summer, which I’m looking forward to. I’m going to bring my walker. Tom says I have to get jewelry at the Faire this year, because he knows me, and he knows that‘s part of the fun.  Well, what wife would pass up that offer? I’ve even been searching online for jewelry vendors that sell at the Renaissance Faire. And I won’t have a sleeve to bother about. I was so happy to have that sleeve off my leg, I got hypomanic. So, not full-on mania, but I was doing things like obsessing over jewelry at the Renaissance Faire, and Tom noticed. I thought I was just in a good mood… but that’s the trick hypomania plays on you. I was even the one who asked Tom if he thought I was manic. He said, “Maybe a little…” And then he went on to describe my fixating on the jewelry at the Faire. I told him I was starting to think I might be getting hypomanic because of several things. 

Usually, I don’t get the “happy” kind of mania. I fixate and get agitated. I’m glad Tom was there to help me check in on myself. I do tend to get hypomanic in the summer. So maybe it’s good that, if I need surgery, it will be during a season when I’m typically more stable.