I'm really a very ordinary person, maybe even to the point of being plain. I dress conservatively, speak politely, and behave in a professional and ladylike manner. I'm the kind of person most people would never pick out of a crowd. But, when I was sick, I needed to do something to make me feel good. I bought a purple teddy...yes, a purple teeny tiny lacy teddy. This is totally out of character for me, but it made me feel young, healthy, pampered and sexy. These were all things I had pretty much forgotten how to feel. I needed it. For each of us, the thing we choose is surely different, but we all need something like my purple teddy. I chose the color purple because of my favorite painter, Kandinski. He has a marvelous way of associating color with emotion, and in his paintings, purple is the color of grief. What could be more appropriate than wearing the most bizarre and ridiculous thing in the color of grief?
For my friend Rosann, the purple teddy is extravagant shoes. For others it's jewelry or blue nail polish or a crazy wig. But, when you're feeling at the bottom, you need whatever that special thing is that helps make you feel at the top. Mine was a purple teddy. I still have it. It has a little bit of gold trim and is the ugliest, most idiotic piece of clothing I own. But it's my reminder that I needed a purple teddy.
One of my coping mechanisms is sarcasm. When the going gets rough, I tend to get sarcastic. I don't get mean or use obscenities. I just get sarcastic. I've learned the art of a snappy comeback. When I was on an examining table with stirrups, I said to the doctor, "We're going to have to stop meeting like this." When asked about the quality of the food in the hospital, I replied, "How bad can Jello be?" When a friend mentioned how thin I had become, I said, "Blame it on Jenny Craig." (Oh, please don't let Jenny Craig sue me for saying this...I'm sure their weight loss program is excellent.)
Whatever works...