it's complicated...

I cancelled an appointment with my chiropractor today. 

I'm not having a good day, and last time I went to him whilst this... fragile?  Off?  Whatever you call it, anyway, he wasn't able to achieve any productive treatment - my back just sort of locked up and sulked!  Part of it is that chiropractic involves being vulnerable (after all treatment involves lying or sitting mostly unclothed whilst someone fully clothed stands over you and does painful things to you!), and I'm afraid of starting to cry or be upset or some un-namable other emotion-storm thing and not being able to stop if I do let myself be that vulnerable (some treatments involve relaxing and allowing the chriropractor to make a sharp, rapid move which 'cracks' a joint with an audible crunch - on GOOD days I can only make myself allow that once, after that my body says no, and past chiropractors have gotten quite cross about that seeing it as me not trusting them - it isn't, it's that my physical self doesn't really trust itself...).  part of it is that the blooming stupid weather has changed again and the whole upper front of my head is throbbing as my sinuses protest the abrupt changes in pressure and temperature and the prevalence of pollen - lying face down with the face in one of those massage couch hole things REALLY presses on the sinuses, and it can be quite unpleasant.  Part of it is that I am a WIMP and I don't want to go.

Now, see, this is where I think myself into circular cul-de-sacs.  I don't want to go, I have both a physical and mental sense that I am 'not up to it' - that is, that I will not gain anything and will probably feel distinctly the worse for going.  But is that wimpishness?  Avoidance of the briefly unpleasant treatment, or exposure to people, or vulnerability, rather than an accurate assessment of the situation and an appropriate judgement?  I feel bad about it - since they were not fully booked today, they don't charge for missed appointments, and I've rescheduled, but I'm inconveniencing other people, and since "your existence in a trouble and a nuisance to everyone around you" is one of my depression voices (the ones you're supposed to 'replace with positive thoughts'), I just confirmed it.  A wimpish submission to the body's disinclinations, as coloured by brain chemistry and outside weather, feels wrong.  But I felt clear relief when I hung up the phone, as if something too-tight around my throat had eased, and having gone when instinct said not a couple of weeks ago and it being a wasted visit (so much so they refused to charge me for it!), I suppose I made the right decision...

Now I get to think about tomorrow.  I'm supposed to go to a local field site with PDF.  I cancelled the last time I was supposed to go out with her, in that case for a chiropractic appointment.  The site is quite open and exposed, but the forecast is for a bit less heat than today, and I have to get into the field soon, I'm teaching a course in two and a half weeks' time after all!  I don't know what to do, so I guess I'll think about it later!