Cold Urticaria...yeah, that's what I got!

Cold Urticaria - (essentially meaning "cold hives") is an allergy where hives (urticaria) or large red welts form on the skin after exposure to a cold stimulus. The welts are usually itchy and often the hands and feet will become itchy and swollen as well. Hives vary in size from about the size of a pencil eraser (7 mm diam.) to as big as a fifty pence piece (27 mm diam.) or larger. The disease is classified as chronic when hives appear for longer than 6 weeks; they can last for life, though their course is often unpredictable. This disorder, or perhaps two disorders with the same clinical manifestations, can be inherited (familial cold urticaria) or acquired^[1] (primary acquired cold urticaria). The acquired form is most likely to occur between ages 18–25.

...except I developed this as a 7 year old child.  I developed hives while sitting in a air conditioned restaurant with my mom and a friend of hers.  For those who've never had hives...THEY SUCK!!!  Seriously, they are horrible.  When I was a kid I used to get them all the time.  I couldn't play out in the snow for long periods of time, could never go ice skating (actually I think I did once with a girlfriend Tara when I was in like 4th grade), and when I was a teen-ager, I could never go skiing or hang out for very long outside during the winter months.  It sucked!  But I would get hives that looked like giant mosquito bites on top of other giant mosquito bites and they itched like hell and when you scratch them they spread even more!  It's like being in hell...seriously!

Today and throughout most of my adulthood I haven't had much luck in the winter.  Mostly I get a weird skin rash that looks like very dry skin or I get a mild case of hives just from being out in the cold for a few minutes.  Tonight I itched like hell at my daughters horseback riding lessons and I was in a somewhat heated viewing room.  So for those of you who know me and thought I was just being funny when I nonchalantly say that I am allergic to the cold when I live in the suburbs of Chicago...I really am not and I am being totally serious when I say I am most certainly allergic to the cold. 

Besides being allergic to the cold and it sucking life has been uneventful the past few days.  I really didnt' know what to blog about.  Since yesterday I've been hanging out in the forums or The Coffee Shop and got into a bit of a tiff with a know it all and very contradicting and immature 22 year old girl.  I don't say woman because she simply does not fit that description.  It really does take me a lot to get pissed off at someone or something but she really struck a nerve with me.  She talked down not only to me but to other people in the forum like we had no clue what life was about.  We are all different ages and walks of life there and for a 22 year old brat to tell some of us how it is and what we are doing wrong is just absurd...really.  I have a hard time dealing with kids who have a lack of knowledge enough to know when to quit and leave things be.  She most certainly did not.

Her thread was about rape and little kids dressing provocatively and family values and things like that.  She mostly lingered on the rape topic.  Rape is something that is a very sore subject with me for several reasons.  My close friends and family know that I've gone through some traumatic things and one of them was rape.  It's something that changes your life for the rest of your life, not just for the moment or for a short time, but forever.  It puts doubt about certain things in your head that wouldn't have otherwise been there.  It puts fear in your heart and soul where it wouldn't have normally been there.  It makes you cry when there would have normally had been a laugh.  It takes the smile from your face and turns it into a sorrowful scowl.  It leaves a scar on your spirit that you can't erase. 

However, because you've been through something like that, as traumatic as it really is, doesn't mean your life is ended or not worth living any more.  I have long since come to terms with what I went through, educated others with my unfortunate experience so that they might not experience the same and have 99% healed and forgave.  This girl, though she had been through the same thing in her life not that long ago (and yes I did read what she went through), made a comment that really upset me.  She said in like words that one shouldn't be punished for raping another because it offers no substantial form of healing for the victim. 

I disagree.  It may not be a comfort and it may not even heal each individual that experiences rape but for me it gave me hope in knowing that what he did wrong didn't go unpunished.  I understand that it's nothing in comparison to what the victim went through but it's something. 

One of the things I pride myself in is looking at the things that may not be great or good at all for that matter and turning them into something good or bigger.  I take what someone might see as useless and meaningless and try and turn it into something useful and wonderful.  I see beauty in things that others may find repulsive.  It all depends on how you look at things. 

Just like what I mentioned just now above, your healing from going through a traumatic experience does depend on you.  You can choose to live your life in the depths of hurt, rage, fear and sorrow but if you let those things take you over you will not live for long.  But if you take the horrible things that have come along in your life and make a positive out of them then you are doing more than the average person. 

So anyway, now that I have gotten that off my chest I do feel better.  I don't talk about what I've been through very often or at all even.  It's something that I've chosen to leave in the past and not linger on as it would kill me if I let it.  And what purpose would that serve?  None. 

I'm not perfect.  I'm not flawless.  I'm not above feeling pain, crying or letting my feelings get the best of me from time to time.  I'm human just like the rest of us.  I've sugar-coated things too long to do it anymore. 

To the girl who started that "rape" thread, I am truly sorry if you felt attacked, disrespected or ignored by anything I said specifically; it was not my intent.